Jeg har omsider sendt fra meg et (ikke spesielt godt) utkast til en artikkel som har hengt over meg alt for lenge. En gang i verden lovet jeg bort en artikkel om konspirasjonsteori og esoterisme, uten å ha mer enn en vag idé om hva den kunne handle om. Og det gjorde den ikke.

Jeg fant en slags løsning likevel, takket være én av redaktørene (stakkars mann) og en alt for ambisiøs tanke om hva en kort artikkel og sporadiske arbeidsøkter kunne rekke over. Men empirien er nokså interessant.

Siden jeg ikke helt orker tanken på å fortsette med selv korte ord om det nye kristne høyre i USA og dets historie i dag, skal jeg heller sitere en liten bit fra første utkast. Det er et miniutdrag fra ett av fem empiriske felt, nærmere bestemt det ingen ville gjette på: hvordan «hvordan vaksiner er et ledd i åndskampen mellom demonbesatte materialistiske leger i hemmelige selskaps tjeneste» og mer åndelige krefter.

Det er, som den kunnskapsrike leser selvsagt umiddelbart identifiserte, Rudolf Steiner som har uttalt seg i en retning enkelte vaksinefiendtlige antroposofer tolker slik. Etter hva jeg kan se er det med en viss dekning, om de enn forenkler Steiner mer enn hans ikke helt entydige stil tilsier.

Nok om det. Her er litt av bakgrunn og tolkning.

In the Dornach lecture of October 1917 on “The Fallen Spirits’ Influence in the World”, Steiner states that:

I have pointed out that while human bodies will develop in such a way that certain spiritualities can find room in them, the materialistic bent, which will spread more and more under the guidance of the spirits of darkness, will work against this and combat it by physical means. I have told you that the spirits of darkness are going to inspire their human hosts, in whom they will be dwelling, to find a vaccine that will drive all inclination towards spirituality out of people’s souls when they are still very young (Steiner 1917).

The forces at work in different ages will by necessity make evil spirits work for a “vaccine” against the spiritual development of the age, and for a soul-killing materialism. Materialism as a cultural force is thus the central enemy. A “vaccine” against spirituality will be the tool of evil.

…

How does Steiner know? He knows, of course, through his special insight: Evil, spiritual forces work through men; moreover, they also work through “secret brotherhoods” working for esoteric knowledge and power. In lecture three of Secret Brotherhoods and the Mystery of the Human Double (Steiner 2004), a compilation of seven lectures from 1917, Steiner recapitulates what is going on “behind the scenes of external events”. He starts with a mystery: the “incomprehensible” murder of what he calls a noble woman. More accurately, although Steiner does not say so explicitly, it is about the murder of Empress Elisabeth of Bavaria (1837-1898) by the anarchist Luigi Lucheni. In the materialist world, the murder may look “incomprehensible”, as it did to people like the theatre critic who was Steiner’s interlocutor in the text (ibid.: 77). Once looked at by Steiner through the lens of esoteric insight however, it is all made sensible:  Spiritually inclined people, he reveals, will now develop towards something belonging to the “sixth post-Atlantean age”. These will be less interested in “matters of the physical plane”, leaving more earthly power to those less spiritually inclined (ibid.:81). “Secret brotherhoods” of occultists are of the latter kind. But since they are probably possessed and greedy for knowledge and power, they have been killing people, seemingly wantonly. Why? Because, Steiner tells us, the souls of those killed may be used to gather knowledge and power, and transmitted from the dead through trained mediums (ibid.: 85-89).

What relates this theory of assassination by occultists for evil, esoteric purposes to vaccination? Both are related through the underlying forces at work in time:

During the fifth post-Atlantean the human being’s physical apparatus for thinking will become mature enough to comprehend fully certain elements of disease, certain processes of healing, and connections between natural processes and diseases” (ibid.: 82).

This knowledge may be used for good or for ill, and must be brought about in its right time. The purposes of the conspiracy are of course other; “to get those secrets into one’s clutches for the purposes of turning in a certain direction that have to do with processes of disease, and also of procreation” (ibid.: 90). The secret knowledge of a “vaccine” against spirituality thus seems one of the goals of assassinations, and the secret societies seek it to promote their goal of power. Materialism is one part of a ploy for power, and it will express itself as a determined attempt at rooting out spiritual inclination. It will do so in a fairly radical manner

by bringing out remedies to be administered by inoculation, just as inoculations have been developed as a protection against diseases, only these inoculations will influence the human body in a way that will make it refuse to give a home to the spiritual inclinations of the soul. (ibid.: 91)

Det siste er på ingen måte nødvendig å tolke som noen generell advarsel mot vaksinasjon. Men sammen med diverse andre uttalelser om bl.a. karmalære og sykdomssynet hos Steiner, er det kanskje ikke så rart at de mest vaksinefiendtlige antroposofene gjerne låner «der Doktor» og hans autoritet fra slike sitat.