Riddle of America, The - Waldorf Research Institute

disposes the human mind to discover there the secrets of magnetism andelectricity and of other forces of the physical, material world.Electricity is the Earth’s light, the opposite to sunlight. It is generatedfrom the combustion of coal, gas, and oil, which are made to reveal theirhidden light. Electricity is the force derived from matter.Electricity in the human organism is connected with the physiologicalprocesses at the foundation of the action of will. No movement of a muscleis made without electrical current, nor is any breath or heartbeat. In normalhealth, we regulate the electricity within us, and movement results.Magnetism, however, seems to have something to do with the activityof the brain. Paul de Rochas found in his experiments with mediumsthat through the application of a magnet, the thoughts of one person canbe conveyed to another. Scientists experimenting with brain function inRussia have found that through the application of a magnet the thoughtsof one person can be conveyed to another. Today, in catalogs throughoutNorth America, there are magnet-inserted pads, belts, shoe inserts, and soon, advertised to redirect the body’s energy to relieve pain.Static electricity, which occurs in low humidity, is a phenomenonwhere stationary electric shocks are produced as a result of friction. Staticelectricity is especially prevalent in different parts of North America. It isso plentiful in Washington, D.C., that many federal office buildings haverubber door handles to prevent people from becoming shocked.Our nervous system is permeated by electrical forces created by thesalt ions in our body. These salts, imbued with elemental forces, originallycome from the earth.The very deepest basement rock of the North American continent’scrust, revealed through the erosion caused by the Colorado River at GraniteGorge, Grand Canyon, Arizona, bears the inspiring name: Zoroaster granite.From mythology we know that Zoroaster was the first to name Ahrimanas the destructive prince of darkness whom Ahura Mazdao, the Sun Beingfinally defeats. From January 1, 1909, Steiner uses the name Ahriman torefer to this Being. 8 He describes Ahrimanic beings as Mephistophelian inintelligence.Mythologically, it is said that the Ahrimanic beings did not want tolive in the sphere they were destined to live in by the higher hierarchies.The Ahrimanic beings wanted to conquer the earth, but they had no bodies,so they entered the earth by permeating salts and minerals.As humans metabolize the salts and minerals, the Ahrimanic beingsenter our bodies before we are born. When in our body, they represent whatwe call our Double, which lives beneath the threshold of our conscious life,44