Steam I. / The Mission of Manicheism I. ~ studies the function of Evil and of suffering in the world. / an ideal in life

 The function of an ideal in life is like that of steam in an engine.

 

 

"The purpose of this lecture is to expand and deepen what was said in the preceding lecture.

The difference between Occult Brotherhoods before and after Christi that before the advent of Christianity their chief mission was to 1uard the sacred tradition, arterwards, it was to form and mold the future. Occult science is not abstract and dead but active and living.

Christian occultism is derived from the Manicheans whose founder, Manes, lived on the Earth three hundred years after Jesus the Christ. The essence of Manichean teaching relates to the doctrine of Good and Evil. In ordinary thought, the Good and the Evil are two irreducible qualities, one of which the Good must destroy the other the Evil. To the Manicheans, however, Evil is an integral part of the cosmos, collaborating in its evolution, finally to be absorbed and transfigured by the Good. The great feature of Manicheism is that it studies the function of Evil and of suffering in the world.

To understand the development of humanity, it must be viewed in its whole range. Only so can we see its high ideal. To believe that an ideal is not necessary for action is a great error. A man without ideals is a man without power. The function of an ideal in life is like that of steam in an engine. Steam comprises in a small area a vast expanse of 'condensed space hence its tremendous power of expansion. The magic power of thought is of the same nature. Let us then rise to the thought of the ideal of humanity as a whole, guided by the thread of its evolution through the epochs of time." ( Rudolf Steiner, An esoteric cosmology, II. The mission of manicheism, 11 ) 

 

... steam in an engine.