[Das kommende Zeitalter der Besessenheit]
Translation from the German by Robert Hütwohl[1]
“People never feel the devil,
Even if he had them by the collar.”
(Faust.)
A wise scholar had lately, as a result of a statistical compilation, stated that if the increase in insanity continues for a few hundred years at the current rate, then there will be no more sensible people on our planet, and who looks at this world from the point of view of theosophy, it already seems to him to a large extent crazy; for, as we see, every nation is seized with fear of its neighbour; the peoples are exhausting their strength by constantly trying to outdo one another in order to arm themselves and prepare to destroy one another, and the vaunted European culture threatens to come to a terrifying end. Land and water are no longer sufficient to serve as theaters of war; in cowardly ambushes, in dizzy heights, bombs are ready to destroy everything that human diligence has accumulated over the centuries and to demonstrate to us in a convincing manner the transience of all earthly achievements.
And as in the great, so it is in the small; everyone is at war with the other and the quarrel is not waged with honest weapons. It will be difficult to find a rank in which fraud, deceit and treachery do not play a large part. Much of what matters in politics and legislation is the advantage of the individual or of the party to which he belongs, though the word “patriotism” is used as a figurehead; Religion and medicine are often treated only as “business matters”; the counterfeiting of food is practiced on a large scale, many goods are made as poorly as possible so that they are forced to be constantly renewed; they are made only for sale, not for use. The luxury of the rich prevails and the poor are paid starvation wages. Greed and vanity rule the world. Both great and small are possessed by these spirits, and it is useless to get excited about them; they are things that everyone knows; they are the natural consequences of our “culture.”
But another terrible specter lurks looming in the background of our culture; most people don’t pay attention to it because they don’t know it well enough and don’t suspect the dangers it entails. It is the specter of “black magic” that is all the more dangerous as whose existence is denied by certain blind leaders of the ignorant crowd, and the most incontrovertible proofs of its existence are still regarded by decisive “scientific authorities” only as “curiosities” or frauds; for official science still knows next to nothing about the long-distance effect of willing and thinking. The forerunner of this new era of witchcraft is “hypnotism” and “waking suggestion,” things which may be justifiable in the hands of the wise, but a deadly weapon in the possession of the egoist, and a dangerous gimmick in the ignorant.
A spiritual epidemic has gripped a large part of humanity; one could justifiably call it “astral addiction” and at the same time, without knowing it, opens the gate to the most abominable astral creatures lying closest to the earth and approaching us under deceptive masks. “The spirit world is not closed” and like joins like. Like the magnet attracts iron, like-minded spirits attract each other, be it living or dead, and what stirs within the human being, something similar stirs towards it in the supersensible world. Humanity today is deeply ingrained in egoism, and just as there were enough people in the Middle Ages who were always ready to give their souls to the devil in order to obtain money through his help, so there is no lack of people today who, if they are also too enlightened to believe in an external devil incarnate, yet have the devil within themselves and are willing to surrender and serve him in order to obtain the fulfillment of their greedy desires. The majority of those who engage in practical occultism are chiefly concerned with magical powers, in order to gain power over their fellows and bend them to their will. Some seek to satisfy their scientific curiosity by occult experimentation, and in doing so are carried away to atrocities comparable to some useless abominations of vivisection, perpetrated in vain for the advancement of science.
In the courts of law cases of crimes committed by unknown persons through others by means of “hypnosis” or “wake suggestion” are becoming more and more prevalent. The prosecutors and judges are left with unsolvable mysteries, and the professional “experts” and “psychopaths” generally seem to be there only to make a fool of themselves in the eyes of those who really know something about the matter. This can also be explained, since the “psychology” of official science is still a “psychology” without knowledge of the soul and without belief in the existence of the same and the astral, psychic and mental composition of human nature for the scholar limited to the field of materialism, is still terra incognita [R.H.—Latin, “unknown land.”]
But are the current authorities ready for investigation and interference in matters that concern the innermost soul life, or do we face a new danger through bungling and unknowing experimentation? The divine mysteries of human nature and the universe, the secret powers of will and thought, of which the “materialist” knows only the superficial appearances, the long-distance action of thought, the exteriorization and materialization of the astral body, and things like that, were far superior to the ancient sages as known to our scholars, but they took good care not to divulge them to anyone, because they were aware of the danger of misusing them. The sacred secrets, which belong to the realm of the God-man, were communicated only to the initiated, in whom it was established through long-term examinations was that they were morally mature and fit to receive it. The exercise of magical powers by the uninvited led to the sinking of Atlantis.
These days new prophets are everywhere, and schools are springing up in many places that claim to cheaply teach witchcraft and the occult arts, and hypnotizing seems to be becoming a trend. In fact, people hypnotize each other without even knowing or wanting to. The merchant cajoles and hypnotizes the unsuspecting buyer, the doctor the sick, the preacher the believer. There are still relatively few people who have attained true self-awareness and stand on their own two feet; the great crowd of herd people who do not think for themselves lead a dream life, are ruled by the influences which affect them at any given time, and outwardly carry out the things which the dream life portrays to them. None of these living puppets think or act themselves, they are possessed by ideas hatched by others and are moved by the instincts of the general public. “You think you’re driving and you’re being driven.”[2] The whole world is a “block mountain,” a realm of illusion. The will-less crowd, but stuffed full of personal desires, is like just a glass in which the zeitgeist [spirit of the age] is reflected, as fashion folly proves best. But as long as a person is not independent and has learned to think, there can be no question of any development of a spiritual individuality in him either, and the less strength of character he possesses, the easier he will be accessible to foreign influences.
A certain class of scientists are obsessed with the idea that obsession does not exist; but no man stands entirely isolated in the world. The individuals are part of the whole and the whole affects them; they hypnotize and vampyrize each other and infect each other physically, psychologically, morally and spiritually. Also, the world we are looking for is far from the only one from which foreign influences come; rather, we are surrounded by an incalculably larger, albeit invisible, world which also has its inhabitants, of whom the demons are closest and therefore most accessible to us. There are fiendish beings of all kinds who are personifications of animal and human passions, and where they find in man’s mind something like their nature to welcome them, they move in and unite with him. Hypnotism and obsession are one and the same thing. In the one case the hypnotized person is possessed by a spiritual influence emanating from the visible hypnotist; in the other case this influence emanates from invisible beings. These are the spirits of lust, anger, vanity and megalomania, avarice, hatred and envy, fear, slander, jealousy, revenge, deceit and lies of every kind. They are the devils, figuratively speaking, the disciple “prescribes with his blood” black magic, absorbing it and making it a part of his own being. By doing so he makes himself a devil and, since in the end every thing becomes the source from which it comes, returns, finally “taken by the devil.”
Every spiritual influence, be it good or bad, brings about certain changes in the soul of man, and thereby in his etheric body and finally in his physical body, and awakens new qualities and powers, which are passed on. Not everyone who surrenders to black magic will become a perfect devil in his present existence, but what he has collected within himself comes back into the world with him and is born again with him. Just as there are “born” artists, doctors, mathematicians, etc., children are also born gifted with magical arts. Such people can then develop their innate talents and exercise their powers without knowing or wanting to just as a person who has become holy is holy and the spiritual vibrations emanating from him exert their influence on his environment without his intention, so it is also the case in the opposite relationship with the follower of black magic and it is therefore also the case not to relegate the tales of the “evil eye” entirely to the realm of fables.[3] There are people whose gaze creates a direction of will that is repulsive to humans and deadly to smaller animals.
The possession of a “medium” by an inhabitant of the astral world may be voluntary or involuntary. Certain spiritistic mediums voluntarily give in to the invisible influences of beings they do not know, become temporarily possessed by them, and thereby lose control over themselves. The same is the case with certain factions in India, African sorcerers, etc., who invoke the demons and have their organism possessed by them, thereby producing certain changes in their bodies which enable the demons to perform miraculous phenomena through these people to produce, which are frequently seen in public exhibitions in Europe.
But it is not our intention to teach black magic, but rather to warn everyone against surrendering to unknown influences through which one loses mastery over oneself. Everyone is subject to such influences and thousands indulge in them mindlessly. Anyone who wants to find out about the incredible power exerted by the influences coming from the astral world on weak-willed people, how they not only make individuals morally and physically ill and compel them to commit crimes or commit suicide, but can also produce general spiritual epidemics, can go to the literature of occultism and in the history of witchcraft in the Middle Ages will find inexhaustible material for his study. Not everything that came to light in the witch trials is based on superstition; black magic still exists in our mentally retarded Europe and perhaps we are approaching a new period of witchcraft that began with the introduction of hypnotism.
We are all surrounded by corrupting influences; they lurk for everyone in all places and ends; they have their rallying points in gambling dens, brothels, taverns, and countless other places, each in his own way. Nor is it useless to resist or fear unseen powers; for resistance excites them, and fear attracts what is dreaded; rather, one should learn the source of these influences, and acquire sufficient self-control to rise spiritually above them, and be safeguarded against such things by one’s holy magnanimity and divine strength.
However, in order to obtain intellectual enlightenment about such things, the dissecting knife or the microscope is not sufficient, but the study of occult philosophy and knowledge of the principles of which man and nature consist are required. A thorough knowledge of the higher laws of nature and of the spiritual forces at work in nature would place theology, medicine, law and our whole culture on a different, much higher footing. Were human beings to become conscious of what they really are, of man’s place in the universe, and of the ultimate purpose of his various stages of existence on this and other planets, he could see all the dangers that await him in this life and after departure threatened by his physical body, overcome and his realization would set him free from all fear. All man’s sufferings have their origin in ignorance of his higher divine nature, and from this ignorance there is no deliverance but the awakening of the soul to self-consciousness and spiritual life in God.
Notes:
[1] The Coming Age of Obsession [Das kommende Zeitalter der Besessenheit. Franz Hartmann, M.D. Neue Lotusblüten 5, no. 11-12 (November-December 1912), 321-333] {This article was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than fixing minor typos. Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025}
[2] Faust.
[3] We recommend reading the “Zentralblatt für Okkultismus” (Leipzig) to anyone who wants to convince themselves that “black magic,” witchcraft and the like are far from being “done things.”