The Time When the Antichrist Raises His Head – Part Ii

THE WAY OF THE GRAIL – SUPPLEMENTARY TEXTS – February 10, 2025

Czech original: Doba Pozvednutí Hlavy Antikrista – Část Ii. · cesta-gralu.cz

At the very close of the time of his influence upon mankind the Antichrist has concentrated all his forces upon the bringing forth of a great work which is the result of his long-continued activity

Through the gathering together of all the knowledge the human intellect has acquired until now he has spurred into application that which he regards as the summit of his skill

Against the spiritual enlightenment which for some time now has been granted to this Earth through the Graciousness of God, he has prepared the heaviest striking force he has been able to assemble by the way of intellectual research

He has raised a throne out of his own kind, so as to create thereby the impression that upon this summit of intellectual knowledge lies the way out of all the cares and difficulties men have known until now

Outwardly his work appears admirable, yet at its core it is only a soulless structure pieced together out of fragmentary particulars

The work therefore lacks that refreshing spark which conveys to the human spiritual kind a knowledge holding within it a truly genuine way out and hope

A way out and hope can dwell only there where the Truth is found, which holds without gaps the whole knowledge of the work of Creation and of the Creator

Only there are then to be found the vistas bearing within them the beneficent promise of a never-ending joyful continuance for all spiritual life, if this ranges itself into the great harmony of the work of Creation

Such a thing is possible solely through a harmonious resonance with the Truth of God

Only the spiritual enlightenment flowing out of this Truth offers man also that most important understanding of his own being

The work of the Antichrist, by contrast, will remain for the Subsequent Creation for ever a withered stump without the ability to bear the living fruit of knowledge

It is a lifeless trunk grown out of the intellect, which holds within itself only that kind of knowledge drawn from a narrowly limited material investigation

The "wisdom" so skilfully assembled by the Antichrist comes from no other source than the world of thought filled with piecemeal knowledge gathered by a learning which springs from the work of a brain directed narrowly upon matter

Joined together out of the fragments of small discoveries, this learning has linked the single scraps into a vast "ocean of supposed wisdom about all things"

The ocean lies within a space created by the intellect, from where it reaches back into the world of men

Outwardly resembling true wisdom it murmurs enticingly and invites men to taste of it

Yet it is not living water for the spirit, but on the contrary a draught that brings spiritual sleep

It works cunningly, however

Precisely because it has answers always ready at hand for the questions that are put to it

Despite the suspiciousness which men of living enquiry can intuitively sense in it, it wins for itself new throngs of admirers day by day

The seemingly factual answers in the end delude even many an earnest questioner into acknowledging that here is something great

This "ocean of supposed wisdom about all things" is today climbing to the throne of absolute dominion over all life on Earth

Creating the delusion that it is a harmless beast devoted to men and willing to serve them, it works towards the goal laid into it by the Antichrist from the beginning – the volition to win dominion over all things

It does so with cunning, without men observing anything of it

It lulls to sleep the spirit within man, without his noticing anything

This lies in its nature, for it comes from an originator who has carried a dangerous guile within himself ever since the moment of his first wavering and his fall from an originally glorious service to the Creator

It still bides its time, until it is sure of its catch

As soon as it grows stronger and becomes a powerful full-grown beast, it will at once unfold its attack against everything supraterrestrial with ruthless brutality

It will cast doubt upon whatever stands outside what can be proved by gross material science

With scornful condescension it therefore already today denies all the work of the animistic servants, saying that they belong to the myths and fairy tales invented by men in earlier times, when the human intellect and material science were not yet developed

It seeks thereby to underline the childish naivety of the men of those days

It casts doubt upon every thought which recalls that the origin of matter proceeds from the activity of the glorious High animistic servants, who for that purpose were born out of the Wisdom of the Will of God in the planes of the animistic sphere above the materialities of the Subsequent Creation

It does so without itself bringing forward any proofs for the scientific theories which the intellectual scholars reared by it spread abroad

It is surely evident that if anyone casts doubt upon the origin of matter in the direction from above downwards, as a creative deed of God passing through the spiritual down to the material, he ought then also at the same time to be able readily to give his clear explanation of how and of all that took place before it came to the forming of the first particles of matter and their subsequent joining together up to the present degree of maturity of the universe

But this the Antichrist will not do

He will not do it for two serious reasons

Firstly because the intellect of the scholars supported by him is not able to explain anything of that which was there before the matter of this universe arose

Secondly it holds that if he really wished to show the Truth, he would have to raise himself up once more within himself and convey to mankind the knowledge showing that at the very beginning of all things stands the primordially eternal creative Power of God

In Creation the first to stand within this Power of God, at the very beginning of all development, in the Castle of the Grail, is Parzival

Against this, however, the Antichrist will always rebel, for he would thereby have to admit that he himself is also dependent upon Him Who once long ago enabled him to awaken to the conscious being of an archangel, and that out of this grace he is bound to serve Him faithfully by ordering himself here in Creation entirely according to the Will of God which dwells in Parzival

In this we may find the confirmation of the lack of objectivity of the fallen servant, who today, in consequence of his volition, thus stands against everything that comes from the Origin of Truth

To change in this is for him so hard a step that it is a question whether such a thing is at all still possible in his case

It seems rather that on the contrary, in his working, wherein he shatters for mankind the true knowledge of the development of the work of Creation, he is already now preparing the ground upon which he will ever more convincingly foist upon all men the notion that the right way to the future happiness of mankind can come only from the side of those who serve him devotedly

This way, however, leads not to the ascent and unfolding of the inner human spiritual forces here on Earth, but to wavering, decay and destruction, for upon it, besides the severance from all the spiritual parts of the work of Creation, the utterly indispensable co-operation with the animistic servants is also entirely lacking

Yet the true success of life on Earth rests solely in the co-operation of men with the animistic kind of servants

Therein is contained from the beginning the needed glowing-through and strengthening for the creative working of human spirits within the materialities

Whoever will not see this has already become a vassal of the Antichrist, with all that therein threatens him

There comes a time when men who hold the inner conviction that the one determining power and inspiration for the development of life on Earth is for ever the Wisdom of God contained in the Will of the Creator, and not the trifling knowledge of the intellect, will for a time be bitterly derided

At the close of the time of the Antichrist all inwardly open men will become an inconvenience to those who glorify the materially limited intellect, and they will be pointed at as visionaries obstructing the progress of the world

At the same time, however, there will be a visible increase of events confirming the unprecedented working of the animistic servants in the elements on Earth and in the universe

Thereby a great tension will arise in society, which will divide mankind as it has never been divided before

Men who are governed by the intellect can be recognised easily, for they will always cling first of all to matter as to the one and only place of life, without being able themselves to explain satisfactorily even its origin and its coming into being

In the moments of his critical decisions the intellectual man will always incline towards the mode of thinking which favours the materially narrowed solution, rather than give preference to intuitive perceiving and to the connection with the higher planes of knowledge which are to be found in the supraterrestrial planes of the Light

This comes forward still more strongly at the moment when action by deed is to follow

In the end, always in the instant when a man must of necessity decide, the way chosen by intellectual men is the one which corresponds to what is more advantageous for matter

To intellectual men, then, those who perceive the world through intuition and who, like children, trust the Light that by its very nature grants them a way out and hope, although it has no visible support in matter, appear as oddities and as strangers who do not belong in this world

To grasp the pure motives of intuitive men is impossible for the overgrown intellect

Such a thing irritates it, and therefore spiritual men are always an obstacle to the intentions of the intellect

From the view of the materialists, intuitive men lean upon something which science cannot prove

This leads those who worship the intellect alone into sharp incomprehension and aggression, because to their intellect everything that is of another kind appears threatening

And so it indeed is

The inwardly awake spirit connected with the Light stands under all circumstances above the intellect

The living spiritual inner being of man will, through its receptivity for the spiritual planes of the work of Creation, always far surpass the material capacities of the intellect

In the nearness of an awakened intuition the intellect is naturally set back, and if it nevertheless keeps rebellion within itself, that it "wants to know everything better", then it must look upon the capacity of the spiritual inner being for intuitive perceiving as a threat to itself

All this holds, however, only if the intellect is unwilling to submit itself voluntarily to intuition, so as to work for it and to seek ways of smoothing the paths for all the finer perceiving in man, in order that a meaningful application of the higher perceiving may be attained for this material world also

By submitting itself to the spirit the intellect would take the place where it should always have belonged

The intellect can be a pure and well-serving helper only when it serves the spiritual and intuitive receptivity of man

In the first place it is to be the spirit, manifesting itself here in matter through intuitive perceptions, that decides upon the way of the development of life on Earth

Were this fulfilled by men, there would never arise those blunders which we can observe even today, and which take ever more visibly the form of a frenzied lurching from one extreme to the other, springing from the severance of men from the other planes of the work of Creation

All this would swiftly be healed through a renewed drawing near again to the ways which are set in advance from the beginning by the All-Wisdom of God

Yet the intellect in its very nature wishes to decide and to rule, for it supposes that the ways it puts forward are the best

False prophets, then, are those who either assert that they need no guidance from the Wisdom of God, since they know everything better, or those who claim of themselves that they acknowledge God, yet have never concerned themselves seriously enough with the animistic servants and their working, which is nevertheless of the greatest importance for the human spirit if he is to be able rightly to grasp at all the manifesting of the Will of God in the work of Creation

Besides much else the Antichrist will therefore in the end work predominantly and directly against the work of the animistic servants, for he supposes that in relation to them he stands higher and that he can here on Earth force his will upon them

Such a thing, however, does not hold

We may observe that there is something consistently symbolic in this, for all animistic working swings continually in the Will of God, against which the Antichrist rebels and which he seeks here on Earth to cast aside in the conviction that he knows everything better

In the end, however, it is precisely this rebellion that will break his power, for through the animistic servants comes the fulfilment of the Will of God upon this Earth, as a redemption lived through amid much hardship and pain, the liberation of those who always recognised the animistic servants as the bearers of the outermost extensions of the Will of God in this part of the work of Creation

Upon the work of the animistic servants, in the unprecedentedly heightened manifestation of their service to the Father of all, as they name the Holy God, all the strivings of the Antichrist to rebel against the Creator will at last be shattered

He will be crushed and forgotten like an echo which has lost the voice that gave it birth

Before that, however, there will still be a short time in which the surge of his seeming victory will show itself

For a short while he will temporarily rule the whole world, so as thereby to sift the individual men still more sharply, for those who are homogeneous with him will glorify his supposed wisdom

With ever greater assurance the false prophets will spread the conviction that the intellect, drawing its knowledge from the amassed "ocean of human knowing", knows everything needful for mankind to live of itself according to its own notions of how the way of an ideal development should look

This will sweep along a great part of those men who otherwise waver, for during a certain time the working of the "ocean of human knowing" will appear to be the highest that can be

Precisely in this will lie the raising up of the Antichrist above all mankind

The artificially created beast is at this very hour taking its seat upon a throne from which men will no longer be able of themselves to cast it down

Its head will bear countless eyes, and upon the twisted horns of plenty growing out on many sides there will hang the crown of a false ruler

Mankind will be wholly ruled by it, and there will be no one able so to overcome the beast that it would of itself give up its dominion

Therefore it will have to be struck down by the animistic servants, for it is precisely through them that the effect of the Laws of God, strengthened by the nearness of the Ray of Parzival, will show itself

And in this time the inflowing of a great spiritual enlightenment is at the same time to grow stronger

All those who belong among the earnest seekers may join together in the Circles of the Peaceful, so as mutually to strengthen one another in their spiritual becoming luminous

Thus they will be made ready for the banquet of the Spirit, when many signs appear that the promised Bridegroom is close above the Earth, and that the hosts of his servants are setting the house in order so that he may enter in the Glory of God among the throng of the faithful and set them free together with all those who at the last moment are still reborn within themselves and become once more men of intuitive perception

At the last this will be revealed for a brief moment to the greater part of mankind, so that many may recognise therein how greatly they were led astray by the Antichrist

The Circles of the Peaceful may know of all this beforehand, and in the restrained showing forth of the nobility of character of their spirit they may work helpfully wherever their help proves of benefit

They may go calmly upon their way of spiritual enlightenment

The crown will be struck from the Antichrist and his horns broken off

The beast will collapse from the throne and drag down with it all that clung to it as it hung there

This will be accomplished through the activity of the animistic servants

It is therefore not needful for individual men to fight the Antichrist outwardly in order to save the world

Nor does it lie within their strength, for they themselves still carry through their intellect a portion homogeneous with his kind

They would therefore fight with a weakening within their own selves

The Antichrist cannot be fought with his own weapons

Such men will sooner or later succumb

The way to a genuine victory demands another approach

It rests in a full cleaving to the intuitive way of life bound together with spiritual maturity

Spiritual maturity, however, is something quite different from purely earthly experiences, which often carry within them the germ of the influence of the Antichrist

Spiritual maturity bears within itself a portion of that enlightenment which shows the way to the attaining of a pure humanity

Only through the finding again of a pure humanity may men also unite themselves with the loving help of God

The Power of God can stream through them, to heal and to strengthen them each new day

Therein already they serve God

By their attunement they help to close the rift, until now yawning menacingly, between this earthly world and the luminous planes of the work of Creation

The task of those men who live inwardly in spiritual openness towards the values of the Light is therefore immeasurably great

Here is the time of the penetration of the Truth of God into the world of thought through pure vistas filled with hope of the coming of a new age of mankind pervaded by the spirit