The Spiritual Root of Suggestion

By Heinz Grill:

Two years ago I wrote some verses with the title “The Suggestion Figure”.¹⁾ You can find a release of this poem in song form on YouTube²⁾Translator’s note: The word ‘suggestion’ is referring to the action of subtly planting an idea in someone’s mind. It could also be described as subliminal influence. In regard to the current events with the coronavirus, it is inevitable that the extent to which the impact of suggestion on the generation of the disease must be considered. Let us suppose as a hypothesis that the world, with the pandemic, for fear of becoming ill or perhaps for other reasons has taken on suggestions about erroneous numbers, details and descriptions of individual cases. The fact that the whole world speaks of a virus and forgets almost all other topics about culture, art, science, research, religion and problematic issues such as September 11th is in any case unmissable in our present existence.

In Italy, an article appeared in the newspaper with a fear filled title: “Il virus nell’aria più a lungo di quanto pensassimo” i.e. “The virus is longer in the air than we thought.” People also commonly speak of tangible tensions, which are characterised by the fact that something is in the air. It cannot be overlooked that the coronavirus, the word and the interest in it, is truly in the air. Only, and this is the significant thing, in the messages from the media, the reader reads it as a message of fear or as a metaphor. The Italian authorities are now beginning to make it mandatory to wear a mask and it is to be expected that in addition to the ban on sports, any activity on the balcony and in the garden will also be prohibited. The unaware and unreflected reader will perceive the air inhaled as contaminated.

From a spiritual perspective how do the effects of suggestion arise?

The effects of suggestion arise on a material level through the repetition of the same or similar formulations. Suggestions can arise in particular if information is given to the public that is undifferentiated, unreflected, one-sided, without comparisons and if this is done on a purely external basis, without giving sufficient context and background. Collective emotional anxiety can also provide a favourable basis for suggestions to have an effect.

From a spiritual perspective, however, people are particularly affected by the suggestions if they are not sufficiently, so-called, integral, if the integrity of their body and soul is under strain and if people are in psychological distress. It is said that they are no longer properly incarnated, that their soul feelings³⁾Translator’s note: ‘Feeling’ here is a translation of ‘Empfinden’ which means a feeling that is not related to the senses but is a still feeling, experienced more in relation to a thought or perception. are unrelated to the body. A person who is traumatised – and even very mild traumas suffice for this – is easier to capture with suggestions and fears than the stable, independent citizen of existence.

Now we could ask what role the media play with the way coronavirus appears? Are they a cause or are they stooges? Is it politics that steers the media or which influential powers, organisations, financiers are those who benefit from the corona crisis and direct humanity? But isn’t it once more, if you continue to precisely research, the politicians and the various financial powers, who are also under the influence of manipulation and have position-, performance- and social- constraints and thus are happy to subconstitute to a great suggestion potential in the world?

The inner steering of this suggestive media world and political one-sidedness happens, spiritually seen, by a small number of people who have now become so evil and corrupt that they have no access to the spiritual world. What is this spiritual world? It is this world that I have often described and which is called brahman in Sanskrit and which people have as their deepest inner centre. Every person has a deep share of this spiritual reality because they are spiritually-gifted.

At night, when consciousness is outside the body⁴⁾In more depth: Rudolf Steiner spoke in 1923 on “On The Forming of Destiny in Sleeping and Waking” “Human life is often said to be divided into two different states of consciousness: waking life and sleep. The conception of sleep in most people’s minds amounts to nothing more than this, that the human being rests during sleep. The scientific view indeed assumes that the activity of consciousness ceases when a man falls asleep and begins again when he wakes; in other words, so far as the organism is concerned, sleep is nothing but repose, a state in which human activity is at rest. But sleep is by no means merely rest; we must realise that from the time of falling asleep to the moment of waking, both the astral body and the Ego are present outside the physical and etheric bodies as active realities.” and the body lies in regenerative rest, a grotesque situation arises for people who through malignancy have lost all inner moral and spiritual centre. Their consciousness wants to go to the spiritual world at night, wants to feel into the stars, but it is not received there. If people spread lies and wickedness with deliberate, destructive intent over a longer period of time, they become homeless in the sense of spiritual existence. They have no centre within themselves, as if they had no bone marrow and no blood perfused organs. They become phantoms, empty shells in this world. They will not feel at home with their consciousness in any higher place. The effect of these homeless people subsequently leads to an infinite number of suggestions in this time and these are ultimately expressed in fear-emotionality that actually enters physicality with pathological manifestations. The phantom entity takes shape through microbiology and, as the newspaper puts it, actually lives as if fantastical in the air. People who, spiritually without any inner moral centre, are no longer existent because they have become so evil it is not possible to imagine, create, in this way, a collective-suggestive occurrence and it is almost irrelevant whether you name it a virus or some other phenomenon.

This process, how the consciousness works at night, can be visualised in the form of a few small drawings.

The question must be asked how the human immune system would behave if the courage arose to eliminate all fears that flare up through the media policy and finally meet all suggestive influences with logical thinking. Wouldn’t an infinitely beautiful exertion of health be felt?⁵⁾Rudolf Steiner speaks of a gradation in relation to lying. “In the first place comes the church, the press come second and the politicians come third.” (Rudolf Steiner GA 338) ⁶⁾There are a small number of medical professionals who are currently treating patients with flu infections, with coughs and first lung symptoms, with a sound medical briefing and are experiencing an astonishingly high recovery rate. The so-called nocebo effect, which arises from the suggestions, can be cured with a maturing consciousness and thus the patients do not even need minor medicinal treatments. Sometimes healing of infections is given through a therapeutic discussion with a doctor. ⁷⁾According to this observation, the most diverse manipulations of our time always arise from a weakness in humanity. The strength for morality gives way to an attempt to gain advantage with lies and compensation. For morality, see the article: Strengthening the Immune System by Confronting Evil, for compensation with error, see the article: Astrology and the Significance of the Saturn-Pluto Constellation for the Future (not yet translated into English).