23. Morality

 
Like a dark storm cloud it hangs over humanity. The atmosphere is sultry. The sense of perception of the individual labours sluggishly under a dull pressure. Only the nerves that affect the feelings and libidinal impulse of the body are highly tense. Artificially incited by the error of wrong education, wrong attitude, and self-delusion. The human being of today is not normal in this respect, but carries with him a morbid sexual urge increased tenfold, to which he seeks in a hundredfold forms and ways to build a worship that must become the ruin of all humanity.
 
Contagious, all this, overtime, spreads like a plague on those who still try to cling desperately to an image that they have hidden in their subconscious mind. They stretch out their arms longingly for it, but sigh and lower them again and again, hopelessly, despairingly, when their gaze is directed towards their surroundings. In a dull swoon, they see with horror how quickly the clear view of morality and immorality becomes clouded, the ability to judge is lost and the ability to understand is changed, to such an extent that so many things that a short time ago would have aroused disgust and contempt are very quickly accepted as quite natural and not even pondered. But the cup is soon filled to the brim. A terrible awakening must come!
 
Sometimes, these sensually-frenzied masses sometimes suddenly feel like shy duckings, quite thoughtlessly, unconsciously. Uncertainty grips many a heart for a moment; but it does not come to an awakening, to a clear perception of their unworthy goings-on. Double zeal then sets in to shake off or even drown out such “weakness” or “last appendages” of outdated attitudes. Progress at all costs is supposed to be. But progress can be made in two directions: Upwards or downwards. As one chooses. And as it stands now, it is going downwards with uncanny speed. The impact must shatter those who are thus hurtling downwards when the hour strikes when they encounter strong resistance.
 
In this sultry environment, the storm cloud is gathering ever more densely, ever more ominously. At any moment, the first ray of lightning can be expected to cut through the darkness and illuminate it, flamingly illuminating the most hidden with a relentlessness and sharpness that carries within it liberation for those who strive for light and clarity, but brings ruin to those who have no desire for the Light. The longer this cloud is given time to condense its darkness and heaviness, the more glaring and terrifying will also be the lightning that the cloud produces. The soft, slackening air, which brings insidious lust in the folds of its inertia, will pass away; for the first ray of lightning will also naturally be followed by a fresh, brisk current of air that brings new life. In the cold clarity of the Light, all the outgrowths of dark fantasy will suddenly stand stripped of their glistening falsehoods before the gaze of horrified humanity. The awakening will work in the souls like the clap of a mighty thunder, so that the living spring water of unadulterated truth can gush effervescently over the loosened ground. The Day of Liberation is dawning. Liberation from the spell of an immorality that has existed for millennia and is now unfolding to its highest bloom.
 
Look around you! Look at the reading material, the dances, the clothes! The present age, more than ever before, is endeavouring, by tearing down all barriers between the two sexes, to cloud the purity of feeling in a systematic manner, to distort it in this cloudiness, and to put misleading masks on them, if at all possible, and finally to stifle them completely. Rising doubts stupefy men with lofty speeches, which, however, when sharply examined, only rise from the inwardly trembling sexual instinct, in order to give the desires ever new nourishment in innumerable ways, skilfully and unskilfully, in hidden and open ways.
 
They speak of a prelude to free, independent humanity, of a development of self-assertion, of physical culture, beauty of nudity, refined sport, education to bring to life the word: “To the pure all is pure!” In short: the elevation of the human race through the discarding of all “prudery” (outward modesty), in order to create the noble free humans who are to shape the future! Woe to him who dares to say anything against it! Such a daring person is immediately stoned with howls of accusation, similar to the assertions that only impure thoughts can move him to “find something in it”!
 
A wild whirlpool of putrid water, from which a stupefying, intoxicating vapour spreads, which, like a morphine rush, triggers sense-confusing delusions, into which thousands upon thousands constantly let themselves slide until they sink slack-jawed. The brother seeks to instruct the sister, children their parents. Like a storm tide it rushes over all human beings, and wild surf appears where some prudent ones, disgusted, still stand alone like rocks in the sea. Many cling to them, whose own forces are threatened with exhaustion and are in danger of running out in the roar. One likes to see them, the small groups that stand like oases in the desert. Just as refreshing, inviting rest and recuperation for the traveller who has struggled with difficulty through the threatening pernicious, hot, sand-laden wind.
 
What is preached today under all the beautiful cloaks of progress is nothing other than a veiled promotion of great shamelessness, poisoning of any higher feeling in the human being. The greatest plague that has ever afflicted humanity. And strange: it is as if so many had only been waiting for a plausible excuse to degrade themselves to animals, countless people find it most welcome!
 
But anyone who knows the spiritual laws that operate in the Universe will turn away in disgust from the present endeavours. Let us take just one of the most “harmless” pleasures: “Mixed bathing”. “To the pure all is pure!” It sounds so beautiful that one may allow oneself many things under the protection of this euphemism. But let us take a look at the simplest ethereal processes in such a bath. Let us assume that there are thirty persons of different sexes, and that twenty-nine of them are really pure in every respect. An assumption that is completely out of the question from the outset; for the reverse would be more correct, even then rare. But let us suppose it. One, the thirtieth, stimulated by what he sees, has impure thoughts, although outwardly he may behave perfectly faultlessly. These thoughts immediately take on an ethereal form and become living thought-forms, which are then drawn to the object of his gaze and cling to it. This is defilement, whether or not it comes to any statements or expressions! The person it is thrown at will carry around this filth with him, which is capable of attracting similar wandering thought-forms. It consequently becomes denser and denser around him, and can finally have an irritating effect on him and poison him, just as a parasitic creeper often causes the healthiest tree to die. These are the ethereal happenings of so-called “harmless” mixed baths, parlour games, dances, or other things.
 
But it must be borne in mind that all those who deliberately seek something in order to have their thoughts and feelings particularly stimulated by such a show are the ones who go to these baths and amusements! It is not difficult to explain what filth is thereby bred without anything being externally noticeable in on the surface, in Gross Matter. It is equally natural that this constantly increasing and condensing cloud of sensual thought-forms must gradually affect countless people who do not seek such things of their own accord. In them, first faintly, then more strongly and more vividly, similar thoughts arise, which are constantly nourished by the present kind of “progress” in their surroundings, and so one after another slides along into the thick dark stream, in which the conceptual faculty of real purity and morality darkens more and more and finally pulls everything into the depths of fullest darkness.
 
These opportunities and stimuli for such rampant excesses must first and foremost be taken away! They are nothing but breeding grounds into which the pestilent worms of immoral people can throw their thoughts, which then shoot up rampantly and pour themselves devastatingly over the whole of humanity, creating ever new breeding grounds, which in the end only form a giant field of disgusting growths, from which a poisonous breath emanates, which also suffocates the good.
 
Rip yourselves out of this frenzy, which, like a deadening narcotic, only feigns invigoration, but in reality has a slackening and corrupting effect. Of course it is saddening that the female sex in particular should go above and beyond all measure and has unscrupulously degraded its manner of dressing to the point of harlotry. But this only proves the correctness of the explanation about the ethereal processes. It is the woman in particular, with her naturally stronger intuitive faculty, who first and more deeply absorbs this poison of the polluted ethereal world of thought-forms, quite unconsciously to herself. She is more exposed to these dangers, and for this reason is also the first to be carried away, and goes incomprehensibly quickly and strikingly beyond every limit. It is not for nothing that it is said: “When a woman goes bad, she is worse than a man!” The same is true in every kind, whether in cruelty, in hatred, or in love! The actions of woman will always be a result of the ethereal world surrounding her! Of course, there are exceptions to this. But this does not mean that she is exempt from responsibility; for she is able to observe the impressions that assail her and to direct her own will and actions on her own accord, if... she wants to! The fact that the majority unfortunately do not do this is a fault of the female sex, which is only due to their unlimited ignorance in these matters. But it is terrible for the present time that woman in reality also has the future of humanity in her hands. She carries it because the psychic state is more decisive for the descendants than that of the man. What a downfall the future must bring us! Inevitably! It cannot be stopped by arms, money, or discoveries. Nor can it be stopped by kindness or skilled politics. Deeper and more drastic means must be used.
 
But it is not the woman alone who bears this immense guilt. She will always be only the faithful reflection of that world of thought-forms that lies over her people. This must not be forgotten. Respect and honour woman as such, and she will mould herself accordingly, will become what you see in her, and thereby lift up your entire people! But before that, a great process of transformation must take place among women. As they are now, a cure can only be effected by a thorough operation, with a violent, inexorable cut, removing every growth with sharp knives and throwing it into the fire! Otherwise it would still destroy all the healthy parts.
 
The present time is rushing inexorably towards this necessary intervention on the whole of humanity, faster and faster, finally bringing it about itself! It will be painful, terrible, but the end is recovery. Only then will it be time to speak of morality. Today it would fall on deaf ears like a word spoken in a storm. But when the hour is past in which the babel of sin had to perish because it collapsed rotten in itself, then pay attention to the female sex! Their actions and omissions will always show you what you are like, because in their finer faculty of intuitive perception lives what the thought-forms want.
 
This circumstance also gives us the certainty that, with pure thought and feeling, womanhood will be the first to rise to that ideal which we regard as the noble human being. Then morality will have entered in the full splendour of its purity!