America, a completely materialistic house of cards

Rudolf Steiner, to a Russian delegation of Theosophists, Helsinki, Finland, June 5, 1913:

"You are in a special situation, at the opposite pole as it were from a people, the people of North America, who are rising to a short period of brilliance. Reflect that these American people, your opposites, began to advance slowly westward just in the time when the epoch of materialism had begun in Europe, and they developed this materialism still further. Remember that materialism prevails in the very roots of American civilization. Remember that the people who colonized America took with them the ideas that were current in educated Europe only a few centuries ago. While they were making their way through primeval forests, clearing the land bit by bit and preparing it for agriculture — activities we generally associate with quite uncultured people — they were already imbued with a whole range of materialistic modern concepts. They thought in terms of parliaments, natural science, modern social organization. Everything they accomplished was done under the influence of materialism. Think of the man who is generally regarded as one of their most important writers, the man whom they elected as their president: Woodrow Wilson. In the context of the present day he really is a significant writer; he has produced some brilliant literary studies of social life. But if one looks at his concepts and ideas, at everything he stands for as a representative of the American people, what does it amount to? A house of cards. If the spiritual world were once to breathe upon it, this house of cards — and the whole culture it typifies — would collapse."

Revelation 3:14-22

And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;

I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.

So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:

I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.

As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.

He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.

Source: Spiritual Beings, p. 238