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Alan speaks in a very symbolic and esoteric manner in some parts of his books. Although they can be read anthroposophically, passages speaking of Atlantis, archangels, gods, etc. do not need to be taken literarily to be meaningful. The more you read, the more you will realize he uses many different religions to express ideas in a symbolic manner and not in a religious manner. His writings are not religious. In some places his writings are meant to refer to religious events in a historical way. In some places he is using religious figures (from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Paganism, Ancient Roman and Greek Religions, etc.) in a symbolic manner. However, at no point is he promoting a specific religion or speaking from a religious point of view.
I have kept the writing as close to one-hundred percent original so you will also find that he speaks of Australia often and some spelling or manners of speaking may be cultural. Any words I have changed are presented like this: <word>.
Also keep in mind that these books are written by a Waldorf teacher with decades of experience who also studied with a Steiner student himself, so he speaks to an audience that is dedicating their lives to the Waldorf method without exception.
Because of this, all of his views are not reflected in the Earthschooling curriculum and not all of them may be ones you want to embrace or are able to use. In all of Alan Whitehead’s writings the opinions are his own and may not align with Earthschooling or Waldorf Books. In some cases, we will be updating some of these chapters in the future with additional and/or updated information.
Ultimately, however, as I read through these passages I find I can distill wisdom from even those paragraphs that do not resonate with me.
We invite you to read with an open mind and heart and with eagerness to learn and discuss…
THE “SEVEN DEADLY SINS” – OF ADOLESCENCE!
Note that like all of Alan Whitehead’s writings the opinions below are his own and may not align with Earthschooling or Waldorf Books. We will be updating some of these chapters in the future with additional and/or updated information.
At around the 14th years, stirrings of nameless passions and yearnings well out of the viscera of the young person. This, along with puberty, is another of the timeless signs of the birth – or rather the emancipation – of the astral, or ‘sentient’ body.
The labor pains for this birth can be in the form of negative conduct of all kinds; from anti-social behavior, to violence, vulgarity and venality. We all know the list which has the modern teenager castigated, condemned and in many cases excommunicated.
‘Modern’? Well in one form or another, this traumatic transformation from child to juvenile (Juventas was the Roman goddess of adolescence) has occurred in all ages. The degree of difficulty in squirming into the astral soul-garment is largely determined by the environment – young people are not naturally destructive and disrespectful!
Margaret Mead found that teens in Polynesian societies were models of obedience and responsibility. Police know that the young of squalid, indifferent or hate-filled backgrounds are more likely to sin than those from loving, concerned, sagacious families.
And sinning is what this article is about; with the freeing of the astral faculties, 7 ‘demons’ are released into the souls of teenagers. Their wholesome growth depends upon an unrelenting struggle against the insidious and often sinister influences of these cryptic tenants – these invisible gremlins!
The vulnerable teenager cannot fight the battle alone, that’s why, right up to about 18-years of age, they still need caring adults to guide them through the maze of intense feelings, confusion and dark desire. Whatever we do as teachers and parents we must never reject them. Yes, admonish, rebuke, coerce – or carp!! – but never abandon.
The school that maintains some sophist ‘standard of excellence’, whether behavioral, emotional or scholastic, with a policy of ‘ship up or shape out’, is betraying both the spirit of adolescence, and the harshly judged victim. We should stand with them in their struggle against the 7 astral demons which seek to possess their souls. It is this newness of experience which creates the excess, compulsion – obsession even – of the mysterious and marvelous teenage psyche. These imbalances tend to level off in adulthood.
Every person, however, has the potential to be seduced by some or other of the Deadly Seven right through life. After all, grown men still fall prey to the sin of lust, and pitilessly rape people. But in a more moderate sense, who at some time does not, in an unguarded moment, feel overcome by a wave of avarice, sloth? – or pride even! However the holy ego of adulthood usually contains a line of defense against most ‘sins’ – most of the time!
These seven dark beings are, collectively, the ‘Doppelganger’, or Ahrimanic double, of occult lore. Teenagers do not have this adult ego defense, so they depend on us to modify their excesses. One of the earliest recognitions of these 7 dark chambers of the soul was by the Hebrew Cabbalist, who named them.
This high knowledge of low things was revised for Christian consumption by the 6th Century St. Gregory the Great – indeed coining the phrase Seven Deadly Sins. Thomas Aquinas further placed a Medieval legitimacy on them in his Summa Theologica.
In any case, these 7 demons have appeared in both sacred and profane literature and legend over the ages. Sin is to be seen as a corrupt product of the astral body; whereas evil is of the ego. Sin arises out of the subconscious; evil is a consciously destructive act. Even to not act, a crime of omission, like that of the Good Samaritan’s fellow-travelers, can be evil.
In this context even animals, they in possession of an astral body, can ‘sin’, but cannot commit evil. A faithful hound, in a fit of pique, can bite its owner’s hand. So too can children sin, though it is to be understood that the sinning of a child, such as a temper tantrum, is where a being outside has entered – the under-14 child’s astral body still being in the custody of the divine. After 14, the 7 sins are truly one’s own!
As well as the Hebrews, who due to their capacity to formalize and record spiritual truths, other peoples have braided into myth and parable these obstructive beings. The Orient relates them to the retarding of chakra or ‘lotus flower’ development; the Greeks and Romans to the defilement of their 7 planetary gods.
Even though all sins can be evident in any year of adolescent growth, there is an unfolding form the most earthly or simplistic, sloth in 14-year-olds, to pride, the ‘highest’ at the 20th year. Due to their function as inimical counterparts, they appear in opposite order from the positive 7-year stages we paraphrase in teen development, from high Saturn at 14, to the genetically-inspired Moon phase 7 years later. But I’m committing the Sin of Procrastination so on to the Seven Deadlies!
Sloth is the Sin of Belphagor: We don’t hear a lot of this Moon-dwelling demon; probably because he’s always having a lie down! But he enters the soul of 14-year-olds in a particularly perfidious manner, creating an overwhelming sense of ennui – known well by teachers and carers! “You never lift a finger round the house!”.
The seat of sloth – so to speak – is the posterior, less conscious, side of the genitalia, the Moon region of the human being – the backside! How this eternal truth has entered the vernacular – “Get off your bum!”. It is also the region stimulated in the form of ‘anal motivation’ by analysts employed to get American businesspersons motivated.
These dubious ‘workshops’ stimulate the Kundalini Serpent (a Luciferic being, opposite from sloth) to awake from its dark den of the Muladhara – 4-petal – lotus. Sensible school teachers oppose Belphagor by mercilessly working their 14-year-olds (and others!) till they cry out for mercy! Belphagor cannot prevail in a highly charged, constructive, work environment. The sin of Indolence is soul poison for teenagers.
The hiss of the somnambulant snake Belphagor (and the other 6 ‘sin serpents’) is hidden in the word ‘sin’, the 21st letter of the Hebrew alphabet, pronounced ‘ssss’. This 21 Mystery is an expression of sin being capable of being overcome by the individual at the 21st year, with the arrival of the ego.
Envy is the Sin of Leviathan: This being is a nefarious force in the soul, especially of 15-year-olds; one which creates dissatisfaction with Elf. Mercury is the Roman realm where this hideous demon dwells; it is the opposite in every way from the slender, golden god.
Leviathan convinces the teenager that everyone else is either better-looking, smarter, fitter, or whatnot, then they are The quality Rudolf Steiner ascribes to Mercury is Egoism – self-awareness. This negative, or obsessive self-awareness – ‘My hair’s awful – my nose is too big!’ – is the sibilant whispering of Leviathan from her home in the lower abdomen, the colon to be precise. This is our very own ‘snake’.
In esoteric terms, Leviathan is ‘Ruler of the Oceans’; the colon is the astral-water realm of the human being – indeed water can only be assimilated in the colon, far from the stomach. The arousal of the 6-petal chakra, the Swadhishtana, can put Leviathan to flight. On one occasion when I felt the wave of envy, the hence low self-esteem, wash over the souls of some of my Class 9, I arranged a 3-week block lesson on Modeling. Here each boy and girl were presented at their very best – taught deportment and dress-sense, photographed, and finally paraded on the catwalk of a quite sensational evening function. That ugly old ‘sea monster’, the giant Leviathan, was no-where to be seen!
Gluttony is the Sin of Beelzebub: And no wonder, the Venus/Manipuraka chakra is the upper abdomen, the stomach (and digestive organ generally). The negative of wholesome nutrition is seen in one of Beelzebub’s epithets, Lord of the flies. A curious reversal of this gluttony factor is based on revulsion of food; that pestilence of 16-year-old girls, Anorexia Nervosa or Bulimia. Other teenagers can become obsessed with having something in their mouth – cigarettes, stubbies, joint, hamburgers!
The mouth is a smaller, higher counterpart to the stomach – as well as a breath and speech facility. This oral/gut addictive aspect can begin way back in infancy, when the unwitting parent, falling for the false ‘comforter’ promises of old Beelzebab, pokes a dummy in the babe’s mouth. Dummies – and teat bottles – set up a craving in the soul of the baby for continual oral gratification. Compulsive sucking can later lead to gnawing of pencils, chewing hair ends, thumb sucking, et al.
This provides an unnatural disposition for the ‘gluttony’, to use the generic term for all oral addiction, so common in the adolescent years, An adult who is a substance addict has never really grown out of teen hood; it is the post-21 ego which should restrain these nether yearnings. The only recourse for teacher and parent when dealing with a gut-obsessed young person, is moderation.
Take alcohol; children under 14 should ideally never be allowed to touch liquor; teenagers should be introduced – if at all – only to an occasional celebratory drink – like a glass of champers at grandma’s 90thbirthday. To deny them this is to fail to acknowledge a greater need; for the young person to be seen – socially – as a becoming adult.
Excessive drinking for teenagers is highly injurious to the budding ego; which, especially form 16 on, is making a few tentative visits before arriving in strength at 21 Rudolf Steiner regarded alcohol as the most inimical of substances for ego-development; displacing as it does the divine essence of individual Being from the blood – the ego’s natural dwelling place. Alcohol does lead to a vulnerability, via the blandishments of Beelzebub, to other insidious drugs, like cocaine and tobacco. Smoking, one of the worst defilement of the soul, is an epidemic of teenagers., (More on the carious – spiritual – effects of drugs can be found in my book, House of the 3 Froggies.)
Hatred is the Sin of Satan: So we ascend to the heart, the spiritual shrine of our adolescents – of 17-year-olds in particular. Hatred/anger (the latter being an expression of the former) can consume the souls of young people; obscuring their inner light, withering their hearts, both physically and psychically.
That pandemic of later life in Western Society, heart disease, might well be caused by the inability to protect the young from the execrable excesses of Stan. It is so important to counter this with an extensive high school (or home) program of serving, whether doing charity work, protecting the environment – or indeed helping each other.
To give is to love; love is of the heart, illumining it so that the Devil himself, the most powerful and subtle of humankind’s opponents, will be banished – or reined in at least. Helios, as the Greeks depicted the Sun, had his fiery chariot drawn by four holy horses; one for each chamber of the heart, itself an expression of the 4-natured ego. These four chambers are there to counter the four anti-Sun sins of hatred, anger, indifference and mendacity The positives being of course love, temperance, objectivity and honesty. It is the sacred task of the adult world to help its teenagers keep their 4 steeds harnessed.
Rudolf Steiner said that one could see Satan (Ahriman) glaring out from the eyes of a person in the unholy grip of loathing rage – a chilling experience! This is not to say that a dose of – controlled – righteous anger is not sometimes necessary to provide limits to teen excess and folly. They need a dressing down if they roll in at 3 am – drunk! The teacher or parent who controls with vituperative, violent outbursts actually harms the young victim – harms the heart!
This knowledge certainly helps one understand and mollify the powerful hatred-fog which can engulf the becoming souls of adolescents, whether hatred of teachers, parents, ‘the government’; siblings – who or whatever! By combating their thirst for hatred, we reclaim their ‘Sun’.
Lust is the Sin of Asmodeus: This penumbrae passion can overwhelm the unfolding astrality of adolescence as no other. A plethora of teen films depict 18-year-olds, or thereabouts, peeping through holes into the girls’ showers. The salacious soul-violence of these youthful voyeurs can barely be appreciated – at times being an all-consuming ‘inferno’! This is the Mars Sin, and seems to possess boys more than girls. Mars is the cosmic masculine principle! It can even express in (usually mild) homosexual activity, especially when access to the opposite sex is severely limited.
The silliest thing we can do with high school students is to sexually segregate them. The lust remains, is indeed exacerbated and exasperated, but is driven into a distorted fantasy life. This can be played out – so to speak – in excessive masturbation, or other more deviant behavior, like gang-banging! When boys and girls learn to play, learn and socialize together, this lust is modified into its higher expression, relationships.
Positive relating can be achieved by arranging social functions and outings, especially the overnight kind, like camps. Here the sexes can choose where they sleep, unlike the ‘galloping major’ segregated atmosphere of many high school excursions.
Teenagers lying together in the same tent talk all night – they Relate, in a positive way. Those who are artificially separated, spend the whole night in forbidden nocturnal adventures, where the end result is less likely to be talk, than a rising of the ugly head – so to speak – of Asmodeus himself!
The Ancient Greeks depicted the 2-fold adolescent nature as Ganymede/Aanymeda. Ganymede, the masculine principle, was a mortal; one elevated to divine status on the wings of an eagle – of (male) thought. Ganymeda was originally divine, daughter of Hera and Zeus, keeper of the peacocks, a timeless image of (female) imagination. These birds drew the great goddess’ sky chariot across the firmament. Hebe, (another name) suffered a ‘fall’, into mortality. The Romans called her Catamenia; this is still the clinical term for the woman’s menses. Her male counterpart was Catatimus; a ‘catamite’ (or ‘cat’) today refereeing to a boy used for sexual pleasure by other males.
So homosexual dalliance is common in teenagers, being in a state of sexual confusion as they are. Indeed decisions re. sexuality (homo? Hetero?) are often taken in the 18th year. Whatever the personal choice made, we adults must support it with compassion and guidance – never denouncement. Asmodeus loves it when we – ‘Throw the baggage out!’
How does a teacher/carer deal with the pornography issue? Some boys in the class have secreted a ‘girlie’ magazine under the desk; what to do? Snatch is away in moral outrage; making sure no-one else sees it in case their virgin souls be corrupted? No. Calmly show it to the class – page by page! This de-mystifies the thing, robbing it of its power. Then follow it up with a discussion on the unholy exploitation of the holy human form – turn the incident to account as an opportunity for social-consciousness raising.
There is a cross-soul, complementary factor operating in the ‘sin of lust’ area; this is interwoven with Venus/Beelzebub/Gluttony, the latter being a lower – or more earthly – expression of the former. The heart/Sun/Anaharta/Hatred realm has no counterpart, being the hub of the chakra wheel, the core of our humanity.
Avarice is the Sin of Mammon: There is also a natural pairing of the 2nd and 6th ‘sins’, of envy and avarice, of Leviathan and Mammon. Envy covets what you are; avarice what you own! This love of possessions can be wealth, status-enhancing consumer goods, like cars; or even being able to buy people.
Mammon is the Aramaic word for the Being we call Santa Clause, the God of Greed himself – patron saint of avarice! When ‘Santa’ appears before children in the shopping center, a gratuitous welling up of avarice overwhelms them – ‘What is Santa going to give me?’ This same malevolent force is also an opponent in the psyche of teenagers.
Often in their view ‘things maketh the person’; whether clothes, cars, or just money. 19-year-olds especially fall prey to this naked cargo-cult materialism; the dark side of the Jupiter soul, the 2-petal Ajna lotus. This is situated around the eyes, in a horizontal lemniscate. The ‘owl eyes’, symbol of wisdom, exemplifies this.
Jupiter is the ‘wisdom’ planet; this quality in human nature always eschews wealth for its own sake; it denies the error that ‘possessions equal happiness;.
Pride is the Sin of Lucifer: This lives in the region of the 1000-petal Crown lotus. Rudolf Steiner’s sculptural depiction of lucifer the ‘light bearer’ has an amazing flying head-dress to emphasize this. Again language is full of meaningful signposts to this eternal verity – ‘Hold your head high in pride.’ Karma has decreed that young people in their late teens (especially the 20th year) are those most afflicted with this highest, this 7thDeadly Sin.
Even though they are out of our immediate control, as parents and carers we can still be there for our young adults, as a backdrop for the pride-based folly they will almost inevitably fall into under the seductions of lucifer, that most ‘subtle serpents’. Pride does often ‘come before a fall’ as that sagacious game, Snakes and Ladders, tell us! Indeed all 7 of these demonic beings have been depicted through the ages as serpent or dragon-like.
Saturn pride is mirrored in its Moon counterpart, sloth; the latter is rightly condemned, but how often do we see pride regarded as a virtue? – ‘Pride in your appearance.’ – ‘Proud to serve.’ Pride cannot be both a virtue and a vice – ‘the meek shall inherit the earth.’ Saith the Master; one who, in spite of having every reason to hold his head high in hubris, exhibited none whatever.
Nor was he slothful, covetous, gluttonous, hate-filled, lustful, or materialistic. Indeed The Redeemer seems to be a pretty good role model for keeping these 7 baying and baleful demons at bay; especially in the turbulent souls of our vulnerable young Ganymedes/Ganymedas.
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