The economy of the future
Outlook for 2024 – part 4

Ernst Wolff gives very good advice in all questions concerning economic activity. For example, someone who listens to an interview with him on this topic will experience in his face a certain outrage or even horror. When he speaks about economics he looks at current happenings that are unfathomable. A trauma for Western civil society lies ahead.

A glimpse into the spiritual reality, however, can give some hope. Looking with a little more wisdom at the crisis situation of the economy, one would have to assume that it has already gone beyond its ailing end point.

The influence of darker forces

Rich people working together with banks and politicians are planning the deployment of biological warfare and provocative war scenarios because they want to lead the world into a state of threat, in order to abolish all individual economic activity with digital currency and centrally organised measures, and to produce a materialistic, controllable single society with pseudo free conditions. These wealthy people are also driven, through their unconscious and through unconsidered motives, in which the dead make themselves noticeable with feelings of complete lack of fulfilment and isolation. That is why these people, who have already distanced themselves greatly from any healthy forms of relationship and spiritual perceptions, have the need to lead the world.

Furthermore there was a great deal of hate during their time on earth and these people died without having made an effort for true values and to develop a character. The hate at that time turned into a completely screened off darkness after death. Some of them strove greedily for crude oil businesses, and as they could not carry out these transactions satisfactorily, this lack of fulfilment, and darkness in the cosmos, unfortunately leads today to repeated violent intentions of war in Ukraine.

However, if the situation is considered more closely, it can be recognised relatively quickly and easily that the prestigious and wealthy people in charge can offer absolutely no prospects, and thus ease their conscience by saying that to completely crush the economy and introduce centralised methods is for the good of humanity and will prevent further disasters. The planned blows to the economy, and to manipulate people, can only cause painful, further crises with high financial, health and societal losses and cultural degeneration; they can, however, never provide alternatives and future prospects.

Binding and releasing in economic activity

When considering economic activity, it is advantageous to look more closely at the two terms that appear in the Gospels; “binding” and “releasing”.¹⁾ See Matthew 18:18 “Most certainly I tell you, whatever things you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever things you release on earth will be released in heaven.” What is economic activity? In principle all economic activity should lead to a better well-being and furthermore to human connectedness. It should release rather than bind. Bank notes, however, – and even more if they are digitally replaced – can produce endless binding and even anonymity with poverty of the soul. Economic activity in the sense of a real sense of value – and to this there belongs not digital money, but human relationship – furthers a dignified position in society. The year 2023 will further friendship amongst people, and economic activity with an individual feeling of value can strengthen relationships in simple circles.

An observation of people’s circumstances today shows that the majority can never be satisfied and are never comfortable if they are directed into a centralised system. There is actually a quite specific spiritual intention for the current time, which would like to further nothing other than the constantly maturing individual consciousness.²⁾ Individuals, in their feeling of worth and their orientation towards content, today no longer want to let themselves be directed from outside. Attempts to establish systems of domination are predestined to fail as they are not supported by the spiritual world Each person who simply listens in to their deeper feelings, will discover a wish to carry out economic activity like a kind of entrepreneur, independently, and according to rational criteria. The relationship between money and its equivalent value in terms of performance will be experienced more and more by people themselves. The hitherto high, utopian prices for construction and real estate have lessened due to the growing financial need faced by most citizens, and many people must actually become humbler. For example, energy saving measures mean that it no longer seems possible to meet needs like maintaining an overly warm swimming pool. Today many people have to consider how they develop a reasonable and well thought-out relationship to their money.

For last year’s economic forecast I spoke about the value of quality which, when it is brought into products or events at a high level, can sustain a good vision for the future.³⁾ See Outlook for 2023 Experience shows that businesses that offer value at reasonable prices can survive very well with some good organisational skills in the personnel. In addition to this question of the quality of the business in general and of the product, today that vision of the ideal economic activity must be furthered on the part of the Michael culture, as it is called by the anthroposophists. It is actually a high angelic power that stands by people’s side when they begin to do business with rational consideration, actions and with courageous interest out of their individual decision.

The rule that any deception of a third party must be avoided and that no one should under any circumstances allow themselves to be involved in business fraud, is a first fundamental prerequisite for future economic activity.⁴⁾ Products that are traded with deceptive motives are not only over-priced but usually also problematic. Those who re-establish their lives and want to lead life to a new, noble level of relationship with others, need a constantly growing subtle-feeling for value.

The abolition of agriculture in many parts of Europe leads to a decline of any sense of value and people can, for example, no longer experience food as a gift. For a long time food was put on the table as if naturally. Economic activity in the future must go hand in hand with a feeling of value, and those who buy food should always connect a vision of a greater whole with their product.

Ideal economic activity

When Ernst Wolff advises his listeners to take care of their dependents and families, so that they do not suffer the strains of the times and incur losses, this is a very well-meaning effort. Economic activity for the future, however, needs a vision for a greater whole, and when people buy or sell, they should rate the value of the relationship more highly than the material product. The force that wants to be conveyed from the spiritual world through the archangel is trust and the skill to do business with values that correspond more and more strongly to those of a great world community. Economic activity wants to further and not only to gain. It is a call to the individual and rational consciousness.

The ideal economic activity wants to develop over the coming years and this requires a view of the whole. Like entrepreneurs, individual citizens can actually develop their lives according to the most ideal criteria. The Michael forces help both the rich as well as the poor. Releasing or binding are those major basic principles that correspond to the soul and decide upon true values.

Examples

Buying and selling are the two basic pillars of economic activity. The business relationship wants to come into a personal relationship and it does not want to become anonymous. In the future people will want to know from whom they are buying and to whom they are selling.

Someone who buys a product, acquiring it because of the product and the firm selling it, pays, let’s say, fifty euros. He receives what he has bought and – this is not a typing error – he gains fifty euros. The seller gains fifty euros in a material sense and because he has sold a serious product, he regains this as if in a higher value that shines back to him. Both parties, buyer and seller, have a releasing effect and they are building up the economy.

Someone, however, who acquires a product for a high price and from a firm he cannot value, loses his money and loses the goods he has acquired. The firm that is selling at too high a price and cultivates a service that is not serious, loses its money and its goods. It binds.

These considerations, with the two examples of releasing or binding, cannot initially be understood in the earthly world. However, in the world after death, those who do not represent their values appropriately will lose them and will also become bound. But are not those who carry out unsound and dishonest transactions, who want to use human relationships for their materialistic advantage, the losers right from the start?

The future in the year 2024 needs this substance of honesty and value from many individuals, who strive for the boldness to buy and sell honestly. Furthermore, the coming year promotes ideal forms of enterprise, which lift the bases of relationship over and beyond outer material gain in a sustainable and true way. The power of the spiritual world will further these possibilities for founded and honest core values in the economy.

Seen in a natural, spiritual way, those who hoard their money will lose their money. Those, however, who waste their money irrationally, likewise fail to bring a good basis to the future ideal of economic activity. In 2024, the human orientation wants to grow through a first, true feeling of friendship. There will be some very beautiful forms of mutual awareness and a reciprocal sense of value amongst people.

If this orientation succeeds in a greater number of people world-wide, then the releasing and redeeming force will shine onto the reality beyond, onto the souls who are bound there in the shadowy existence, and as a result of this first process of liberation, serious blows, military actions and irrational plans in world politics can be disabled.

In any case, the courage should be summoned up right away to do business and to judge what is valuable in a way that is not only self-serving. Every individual can contribute to world equality, not only to prevent military action, but to support and harmonise poorer countries. Actions that are carried out with truth and developed conscience in European society, that up until now has been very prosperous – and here single actions performed by individuals are just as meaningful as collective measures – lead to a lessening of the hunger in a “third world”.

The next part will deal with the changes in personal structures in the year 2024.