By Piero Cammerinesi

I have published—and written myself—several articles on the dramatic situation facing the world today. The world is besieged and hounded by evil and suffering, both experienced firsthand by millions of people and shared indirectly by sensitive individuals who cannot remain indifferent in the face of lies, oppression, violence, wars, and genocide.

One of my talks on this subject is titled “Why We Cannot Look the Other Way” because we know that we are all spiritually interconnected. For this reason, the suffering of others should not leave us indifferent, even if, at the current stage of human evolution, it is a source of pleasure rather than compassion.

“Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39).

This seemingly simple “do-gooder” exhortation contains profound esoteric meanings that presuppose recognizing our “I” in others.

See the “I” in others just as you see it in yourself (Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophy’s Response to Universal Questions, GA 108).

Perhaps the devout Christian will strive to practice this maxim right after leaving Sunday Mass—within the close circle of friends and family, at least.

But what happens when he finds himself face-to-face with someone who harms him or his loved ones?

Or with someone who harms innocent creatures, such as children, who are the sacrificial victims of a chaotic world?

Surely someone might reply:

But evil has always existed. Human history is overflowing with wars, genocides, hatred, lies, ritual sacrifices, and unspeakable atrocities—why are you surprised?

True, but if we consider the course of human evolution, we realize that certain moral principles that were not previously shared are now embraced by much of humanity. For example, slavery, which was considered normal just over two centuries ago and had been practiced since time immemorial, has become unthinkable. The same is true for concern for and respect toward nature and life and women’s rights, which have become generally shared in much of the world.

Undeniably, there have been profound changes in the perception of morality among large segments of humanity over the course of the last few centuries. Yet today, after several decades in which the memory of two world wars had brought balance to the souls of men, we are witnessing a new peak in the manifestation of evil.

As I wrote in a recent article:

The normalization of sexual perversions within the Overton window over the last several years—including the harvesting of children’s organs, the sexual enslavement of minors, the weekend snipers of Sarajevo, the genocidal massacres of children in Palestine, and the orgy of violence and horror revealed in the Epstein files—confirms exactly what Rudolf Steiner asserted over a century ago.

If – as Steiner asserted –

…a form of medicine injurious to humanity were ever to take root, if a terrible aberration of the sexual instincts were to arise, if there were baleful doings in the sphere of the purely mechanistic forces of the world, in the application of the forces of nature by means of spiritual powers, an unspiritual conception of life would see through none of these things, would not perceive how they deviate from the true path … (Rudolf Steiner, The Work of the Angels In Mans Astral Body GA 182)

There is little doubt that this is exactly how things are today.

Evil According to Rudolf Steiner and Peter Deunov

Addressing the problem of evil in history is an enormous task that goes beyond the scope of this article. Nevertheless, I find it interesting to share a few thoughts on how two twentieth-century spiritual masters and esotericists—Rudolf Steiner and Peter Deunov—approached it.

For both Steiner and Deunov, evil is not absolute or created to destroy. Rather, it is a dynamic and temporary force closely linked to the evolution of human consciousness and the attainment of freedom.

For Steiner, evil is a good out of time or place because certain spiritual forces lagged in cosmic evolution to allow human beings to develop self-awareness and free will.
For Deunov, evil is a temporary shadow, a lack of light and harmony because the universe is governed by a divine plan of love,vwisdom, and truth.

As for the function of evil, Steiner believed that it was a necessary instrument for human beings to awaken their inner strength and resilience by falling and veering toward either Lucifer or Ahriman. Only then could they consciously choose good. Without the possibility of evil, human beings would be nothing more than spiritual automatons, incapable of authentic love and freedom.

According to Deunov, evil acts as a force of friction or a “school of learning.” Through the suffering caused by evil and mistakes made in the material world, humans are driven to seek spiritual healing and realign with cosmic laws.

Both authors agree that one must not react to evil with violence or aversion.

Instead, it must be understood, redeemed, and transformed because it is a fundamental element of humanity’s spiritual journey.

So much for the theory.

It is understandable, coherent, and convincing if one shares its esoteric premises.

However, it is a long way from there to saying that this is easy to achieve.

This is particularly true at a time when newspapers are filled with incitements to war and hatred among peoples, the echoes of massacres in the Holy Land, and the atrocities committed by pedophile criminals like Epstein. These things stir up an inner turmoil in our souls that is difficult to quell with maxims, no matter how lofty.

Those who refuse to look the other way—because they dimly sense that we are all entangled in this evil that seeps into every thought, emotion, or reflection, making us feel the world’s pain as our own—ask themselves:

Why do the gods—or God, or the spiritual world, whichever you prefer—allow all this: The slaughter of the innocent? The massacres of children? The unrelenting suffering of entire populations? The callous, inhuman cruelty of faceless perpetrators who kill from a distance?

Despite the fact that a God of love sacrificed himself for a humanity steeped in the darkness of instincts and passions—and conquered death through the resurrection—why does it seem as though nothing has changed in the two thousand years since?

Who has never felt a powerful rebellion well up within against a spiritual world that allows this unspeakable river of tears and blood?

It is not just ordinary people who grapple with the mystery of theodicy and the problem of evil.

If the world is governed by higher or divine laws, why does suffering exist?

Consider Fyodor Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov. Ivan Karamazov voices one of the most heart-wrenching critiques of the world order. He goes so far as to reject divine harmony if the price is the suffering of innocent children.

Listen: if everyone must suffer, in order to buy eternal harmony with their suffering, pray tell me what have children got to do with it? It’s quite incomprehensible why they should have to suffer, and why they should buy harmony with their suffering. […] And if the sufferings of children go to swell the sum of sufferings which was necessary to pay for truth, then I protest that the truth is not worth such a price.

Or consider Albert Camus, who, in The Plague, has his protagonist refuse to accept religious or providential justifications when faced with the painful agony of a child suffering from the plague:

No, Father, I’ve a very different idea of love. And until my dying day I shall refuse to love a scheme of things in which children are put to torture.

In Healing—More or Less: Reflections and Prayers on the Meaning and Ministry of Healing at the End of an Age Jim Cotter writes:.

Again rises from the heart of suffering the ancient cry, O God, why? O God, how long? And the cry is met with silence.

These are words that we can easily make our own, aren’t they?

How many times have we felt them welling up inside us—both when we’ve been struck directly by misfortune or the blows of fate and when we’ve opened our eyes and hearts to the events of our time?

Why does God allow this?

Even C. S. Lewis, despite his unshakable Christian faith, wonders in A Grief Observed, written after his wife’s death, what role God plays when human beings suffer desperately.

Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be – or so it feels – welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence.

These are questions that humanity has been asking since the dawn of time, and they still resonate dramatically in our souls today.

Questions that seem to have no answer.

The famous silence of God.

But is that really the case?

Are these questions—or invocations or blasphemies—destined to remain unanswered?

Perhaps not.

Perhaps there is an answer, and it comes to us from spiritual science.

The Role of Evil and Suffering

Certainly—says Rudolf Steiner, delving into the terrible story of the destruction of the Knights Templar in a lecture. They were falsely accused of crimes that never existed. They were imprisoned and tortured for weeks before being burned alive in a public square.

…When considering these phenomena, one might ask the simple, human question: Why do the divine-spiritual powers allow these things to happen?

Why do they not guide humanity through the course of history without it having to undergo such painful trials? (Rudolf Steiner, Humanity’s Internal Impulses for Development GA 171).

But he adds:

Such a thought is precisely human, all too human; it may spring from the mindset of someone who believes the world would have been better if it had been made not by gods but by humans. Many a person may believe that they can use their intellect to critique what flows and weaves through the world as wisdom. (Ibid.).

How many times have we thought that if we had designed the world ourselves, we would have made it more beautiful and just? Or not?

However, that is not the case. Steiner continues:

Such thinking leads to extreme arrogance and presumption regarding knowledge. But such thinking also leads to the utmost arrogance of knowledge and the utmost overconfidence in one’s understanding. We humans are called to penetrate the mysteries of existence, but not to criticize the wise guidance of the world. (Ibid.).

Here comes the answer we were looking for.

For if only the good were permitted, if only good impulses were at work in the unfolding of history, humanity would never be guided in such a way through this historical process that it could develop toward freedom. Only by allowing evil itself to prevail in the spiritual development of human history can humanity evolve toward freedom. And if the gods were to divert the gaze of the human soul from evil, then human beings would have to remain eternal automatons, never becoming free. It is already so arranged in the course of human development that even that which causes the deepest suffering and the most intense pain is ultimately channeled toward the good. Pain is, after all, merely temporal—and therefore, naturally, no less great or profound; one must not delude oneself about pain, nor must one seek to indulge in a cheap, vague mysticism that refuses to acknowledge pain. One must be willing to endure the pain, to immerse oneself in it, and to be able to lay it upon one’s own soul; but one must also learn to understand—without criticizing the spiritual will to exist—how the most diverse impulses, both positive and negative, are woven into the course of human development, so that human beings may become not only good but also free through their own impulses (Ibid.).

It’s not easy, I know.

Especially when it concerns the innocent, we might ask ourselves:

But what do they have to do with it? How can they turn evil into good?

We can understand this only within the framework of repeated lives and the weaving of individual destiny. Otherwise, it remains nothing but fine words.

We must also understand that we cannot accuse God of remaining silent because pain and evil are part of the overall plan for humanity’s journey toward freedom and morality. This plan is exemplified in The Philosophy of Freedom, which we might call the gospel of knowledge in our time.

The conditions necessary for the birth of the Self are evil, pain, the darkness of physical suffering, and the powerlessness of a guilt-bound nature. Evil can be transformed into a vehicle for the Self’s rediscovered identity with the Logos. An absolutely personal relationship with one’s own principle reveals the nature of the self. Before this relationship exists, the Self cannot know anything about itself, its origin, or its immortal essence. It can only perceive what appears outside of it, which conditions it from the outside and prevents it from recognizing the unreality of this “outside” (Massimo Scaligero, Healing with Thought).