Centre of Destruction

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A centre of destruction or hearth of destruction works within the human being so that he can develop and harden his I. Here matter is thrown into chaos and dissolved. This centre of destruction, which is spread over the whole human organism but has its bodily centre in the centre of gravity of the human being in the metabolic region, is normally not accessible to consciousness because it lies beyond the memory mirror. Without us being aware of it, our thoughts penetrate down below the memory mirror into that region of the etheric body which underlies the growth, but also the emergence of the will forces. This part of the etheric body then causes the dissolution of matter in the physical body. Only through appropriate spiritual training can consciousness penetrate into this realm. A strict moral self-education must be connected with this, for if these forces penetrate to the outside, they become a terrible source of evil up to and including black magic practices. On the other hand, through all moral impulses, the germs are already formed here for the future New Jupiter existence, which is described in the Apocalypse of John as the New Jerusalem.

The I and the Source of Evil

„This I, how does it come into being? This I is formed by the fact that the human being can plunge into a chaos of destruction. This I must be steeled and hardened in that world which is within the human being as the world of a hearth of destruction. With this I, one cannot live beyond the sphere of the outer world of the senses.

Let us imagine schematically the centre of destruction inside the human being (see drawing, red). It is spread over the whole human organism. What I am describing is intense, not extensive, but I will draw it schematically.

Drawing from GA 207, p. 26
Drawing from GA 207, p. 26

There is the source of destruction, there is the human shell. If what is inside were to spread over the whole world, what would live in the world through man? Evil! Evil is nothing other than the chaos thrown outwards that is necessary within the human being. And in this chaos, in that which must be in man, but must also remain in him as a hearth of evil, in that the human I, the human egoity, must be hardened.“ (Lit.:GA 207, p. 25f)

Plate 14 (GA 206)

„Now, however, we can also descend to the other side into our (arrows, Plate 14 top right) actual being. This happens when the destructive forces of death that lie within us grasp us more than they usually do; or rather, when they become conscious. Just as we can penetrate beyond the limits of sense life, so we can also penetrate downwards through what I call occult training.

But what is experienced there must remain within the human being if it is not to appear pathological in a certain way. Man must not let it come up into his ordinary consciousness. He must leave this region below, where it is otherwise unconscious. That is to say, man must not allow this region, which lies in the etheric body, to flow up into his ordinary consciousness, but he must conduct his ordinary consciousness down into the etheric body. So that which is down there must not penetrate into the ordinary conception, but the ordinary conception must penetrate down there [...].

In this region is rooted all that of the human soul-life and body-life which, in the ordinary sense, is not allowed to develop in the outer behaviour of the human being. Human evil is rooted there.

You see from this a very remarkable fact. This source of evil is actually constantly within us. We must not for a moment entertain the illusion that the source of evil is not within us. It lies, if I may say so, beneath the life of the conception. It must not infect the life of the conception, otherwise the conceptions become motives for evil; it must remain below. And the one who wants to behold it there must be so morally strong that he does not let it up, that he really only sends down the consciousness.“ (Lit.:GA 206, p. 164f)

Thinking as the Cause of Destructive Forces

„Our inner being is really like a mirror. We look at the outside world. Here are the outer sensory impressions. We attach ideas to them. Then these ideas are mirrored by the inner world. By looking inside, we only come to this mirror inside (see drawing on page 20, red). We see what is reflected back in the memory mirror (red arrows). With this ordinary consciousness we can no more look inside the human being than one can look behind the mirror without breaking it [...]

Drawing from GA 207, p. 20
Drawing from GA 207, p. 20

What do you see inside the human being? You can see how something of the power of perception and thinking, which develops in front of the memory mirror, penetrates below the memory mirror. The thoughts penetrate below this memory mirror and work in the human etheric body, in that part of the human etheric body which underlies the growth, but also the development of the will forces. By looking out into the sunlit space, by looking over all that comes to us from sense impressions, something shines into our inner being, which, of course, on the one hand becomes the ideas of memory, but which nevertheless seeps through the mirror of memory; which penetrates us just as we are penetrated, let us say, by the processes of nourishment, growth and so on. The thought-forces first penetrate the etheric body, and this etheric body, penetrated by the thought-forces, now acts in a very special way upon the physical body. There arises in the physical body a complete transformation of the material existence which is in the physical body of man. In the outer world matter is nowhere completely destroyed. Therefore, the newer philosophy and natural science speak of the preservation of matter for the outer world. But this law of the preservation of matter applies only to the outer world. Inside the human being, matter is completely transformed back into nothingness. Matter is completely destroyed there in its essence [...]

We all carry under our memory mirror, precisely for the purpose of developing the human thoughtful I, the rage for destruction, the rage for dissolution of matter. There is no human self-knowledge that does not point to this inner human fact in all intensity [...]

Within Western civilisation, the human being is the envelope of a destructive hearth, and actually the forces of decline can only be transformed into the forces of ascent when the human being becomes aware that he is the envelope of a destructive hearth.

What would happen if man were not led towards this consciousness through spiritual science? Well, we can already see in the development of the present time what would happen. That which is, as it were, isolated, separated in man and should only work in man, should have this single place where matter is thrown back into its chaos, that penetrates out, that penetrates into the outer human instincts. This will become Western and Earth civilisation in general. This can be seen in all the destructive forces that are appearing today, for example, in Eastern Europe and so on. This is the destructive fury thrown from within into the outside, and man can only find his way in the future in the face of what actually passes into his instinct through something that must be in him, when again real human knowledge occurs, when again our attention is drawn to this human source of destruction within, but which must be there for the sake of the development of human thinking. For that strength of thought which man must have in order that he may have his worldview appropriate to the present time, that strength of thought which must be there before the mirror of memory, causes the continuation of thought into the etheric body, and this etheric body, permeated by thought, has just this destructive effect upon the physical body. This source of destruction is once in the modern man of the West. Knowledge only draws attention to it. And it is much worse when the hearth is there without man's consciousness being able to point to it, than when man with full consciousness takes knowledge of this source of destruction and from this point of view enters into the modern development of civilisation.“ (Lit.:GA 207, p. 19ff)

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.
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