Judith von Halle has weighed in on one of the most pressing questions of our times, the COVID-19 Pandemic. She offers her analysis as an Anthroposophist, but states that her book is not based on strict spiritual-scientific research, but rather in response to informal questions asked by her Dornach group, the Free Association for Anthroposophy. This is an important distinction, as Ms von Halle is known as a seer and stigmatic. However, discussion of her psychic abilities are not a subject for this review, although readers familiar with her background will be aware of this context. Still, Judith’s clairvoyant perception does inform her insight. She writes: “..the answers given do not constitute a final scientific treatise...Obviously a methodical spiritual-scientific investigation into the corona virus phenomenon cannot be accomplished in such a short time.”
Understanding the Coronavirus has generated a storm of speculation. A wide variety of theories about the cause, symptoms, treatment and ramifications of the disease have created something of an absurdist struggle to define just what the heck it is! It has become a competition enlisting all the powers of intellectual and emotional persuasion, with medical egos vying for superiority. Add to this the horrendous planning and (lack of) leadership, particularly in America, and pandemics of fear and social collapse are being spawned together with other disruptive global events. Conflicts of opinion and conspiracy theories have escalated to the point where causation and response are being defined by lies and censorship.
Despite all these disruptions, few doctors or researchers have thought to seek understanding beyond the confines of their medical belief systems. In Judith von Halle's view, this failure to think outside the box has obscured what can be seen as a relatively simple concept, despite the complexity of material details and the dogmatic approach of medicine and science. “If we are to understand the pandemic we must seek deeper, spiritual causes. All physical events and manifestations... arrive from this spiritual world.” The soul, weakened by a belief system which excludes spiritual forces, is thus susceptible to the virus. Materialism has enabled forces, which von Halle identifies as specific “beings” to influence not only health, but human evolution itself. While science defines the ‘outer’ symptoms, the ‘inner’ effect is isolation. Spirit is driven out and pathogens can parasitically infect the body.
Judith warns that humanity is at a ‘turning point’, if awareness of our spiritual nature is replaced by the exclusive belief in the primacy of scientific materialism. The advent of Covid 19 is an indication of this trend. Materialism must be considered as a cause of of the pandemic. She traces the source of these causes to the year 1879 and what Rudof Steiner called “The Fall of the Spirits of Darkness” (GA 177). Judith von Halle identifies these forces as hierarchical beings, and identifies one specific being, whose supremacy indicates the mortal threat which this pandemic represents: the Anti-Christ, also known as Sorat, the Beast 666. Sorat is the most powerful spiritual enemy to face humanity. The pandemic is part of Sorat’s third attack on mankind, which originated around 1998. Sorat’s first attack occurred around 666 (the time of The Academy of Gondishpur), and the second attack around 1332 (when the Templars were persecuted) – all significant spiritual dates, separated by 666 year intervals. Other hierarchical beings interact with man’s physical and spiritual bodies: the luciferic upon the astral, the ahrimanic upon the etheric, and the asuric upon the physical body. However, the ‘I’, unlike man’s temporal bodies, is man’s eternal self, and only Sorat is powerful enough to interact with it.
The author covers many peripheral subjects such as fear, the nature of blood, bacteria and viruses, the consciousness soul, meditation, social unrest, economic collapse, and many more. Of particular importance is karma and its causes and ramifications.
The pandemic expresses a unique dynamic, where differing karmic forces are evident. The normal patterns of reincarnation and the attendant repercussions become obfuscated by conflicting spiritual currents. This can even be chaotic for the Hierarchies involved in human evolution, especially when causation may not have its usual effect. For instance in a car accident, where individuals are injured or killed, the karma of the people involved may have a certain logic. The limited number of people involved can be understood as their individual karma. That they would all be at that place and time is possible. This is an instance where individual and group karma can be understood. In a pandemic individual, group and human karma are all involved. It is a global event, involving millions of people. In this instance many cases of individual karma will be supplanted by the forces of group or human karma. In this sense, the pandemic is similar to other ‘natural’ catastrophes and karmas can become chaotic. “After the death of an affected person whose individual karmic threads are severed by the karma of humanity, it is not easy for the Hierarchies to weave these threads back together again..” Thus such karmic events are often mysterious, and Judith explains this important connection which defines the pandemic.
Another common question concerns therapeutic treatments, several of which Judith von Halle examines. With pandemics the controversial question of vaccines inevitably arises:
Spiritually considered, vaccination campaigns, however beneficial they may be at first, cannot remedy humanity’s karmic adjustment caused by a viral epidemic. At best a postponement of humanity’s karmic adjustment takes place. If the spiritual causes of the plague are not remedied but instead comprehensive vaccinations are administered, more drastic consequences or compensation must be reckoned with in the future. This is not an appeal against vaccinations. It is only meant to indicate that vaccination campaigns alone are not a solution, but at most a stop-gap one, because without the removal of the spiritual causes for the infectious illness, they contribute to the eruption of other more powerful epidemics.
Among her important conclusions is what Judith calls “The Great Diversionary Maneuver”. This is the intent of Sorat and Ahriman to prevent human awareness of the presence of the Etheric Christ, the most powerful spiritual impulse in our world today. This cunning maneuver is largely achieved by distraction from the spiritual causes of the pandemic and takes advantage of the vulnerabilities which the material/scientific world concept creates. By rejection of the spirit, pathogens gain access to human health and consciousness, helping to conceal awareness of the Etheric Christ while simultaneously promoting the pandemic.
The Anthroposophist can easily recognize that nothing pathological (such as the Coronavirus) ensues from a good divine spirituality. Rather the existence of life-threatening, or only illness-causing pathogens is a sign that in the present widespread pandemic, the shiftings and workings of a sub-sensory spiritual power is misunderstood and therefore not banished. The discussion about tightening or easing social restrictions is therefore - justified as it is - missing the point as long as this essential aspect is not taken into account.
Judith von Halle explains that the virus must be resisted and not accepted as just another disease. It needs to be recognized for the evil it intends through the distraction it provides. This is Sorat’s long term strategy of which the pandemic is a precursor.
The coronavirus itself is not the great diversionary maneuver, rather everything that follows. The attention and forces of millions of people - as different in opinions and intentions as they may be - are equally bound to let the central event of our time, which could make us the legitimate representatives of our time, pass by unnoticed.
Despite what the author calls the “aphoristic” nature of this book, her natural intuition shines through. The fact that this volume is not based on spiritual scientific research makes the text readily approachable. The dominant theme that emerges repeatedly is Materialism vs Spirituality. Materialism as the worldview which, by excluding consciousness of the spiritual realities behind existence, promotes the activity of pathogens like the coronavirus. These pathogens are the pawns of materialism, which are being moved by Sorat and his minions in an effort to blind humanity to the presence of and union with the Etheric Christ. However, it remains the free choice of the developing Consciousness Soul whether to accept the spiritual within the ‘I’- or to pursue the illusory gratifications found on the physical plane. Pandemics are but one element of this cunningly complex strategy, which extends across countless eons and worlds. Seen in this light, Covid-19 mirrors a greater meaning than the ultimate randomness of the materialism which has spawned it.
Although not a medical doctor, Judith von Halle has written two previous volumes related to the areas of illness and healing, and the spiritual impulses behind related phenomenon which have been translated into English: Dementia (2015) and Illness and Healing (2007)