Anthroposophical Guidelines

At the Dawn of the Michael Age

Up until the ninth century after the mystery of Golgotha, man’s relation to his thinking was different than afterward. He did not feel that the thoughts which lived in his mind* were of his own making. He considered them to be inspirations from a spiritual world. Even when he had thoughts deriving from his sense perceptions, these thoughts were, for him, revelations from the divine which spoke to him through the senses.

Whoever has spiritual vision will understand this feeling. For when a spiritual reality informs his soul, he never feels that he has formed the thoughts needed to grasp the spiritual perception, but he envisions the thoughts which are contained in the perception as objectively as the perception itself.

With the ninth century (of course such dates are to be understood as being approximate, the transitions occurring gradually) the spark of personal-individual intelligence ignited. Man had the feeling: I form my thoughts. And this forming of thoughts became the most important element in his soul life, so that the thinkers saw the essence of the human soul in intelligent behavior. Previously they had an imaginative conception of the soul. They didn’t see its essence in the forming of thoughts, but in its participation in the spiritual content of the world. They considered that super-sensible spiritual beings were thinking in them. Soul for them was what lives in man from the super-sensible spiritual world.

From the moment one penetrates with perception into the spiritual world, he encounters authentic spiritual beings. According to ancient teachings, the power from which the thoughts about things flow was known by the name Michael. The name can be retained. For one can say: once human beings received thoughts from Michael. Michael governed cosmic intelligence. From the ninth century on, people no longer felt that Michael inspired their thoughts. They had escaped his domination; they fell from the spiritual world into individual human minds.

From then on thoughts would evolve within humanity. At first people were uncertain as to what they now possessed. This uncertainty inhabited the scholastic teachings. The scholastics were divided between realists and nominalists. The realists - led by Thomas of Aquinas and those close to him - felt the old connection between thought and thing. They therefore saw reality in the thoughts that lived in things. They viewed human thoughts as reality which flowed from things into the mind. The nominalists strongly felt that the mind forms the thoughts. They considered thoughts to be only subjective - which live in the mind and which have nothing to do with things. They opined that thoughts were only names invented by men for the things. (They didn’t speak about “thoughts”, but “universals”; but that is irrelevant in principle, for thoughts always have something universal compared to the individual thing.)

One can say: The realists wanted to be true to Michael even though thoughts had fallen from his realm into that of man. As thinkers they wanted to serve Michael as the Prince of Cosmic Intelligence. - The nominalists in their unconscious minds fulfilled the separation from Michael. They considered man rather than Michael to be the owner of thoughts.

Nominalism gained in diffusion and influence. This situation prevailed up until the last third of the nineteenth century. At that time, those people who understood the events in the universe felt that Michael had accompanied the stream of intellectual life. He sought a new metamorphoses of his cosmic task. Previously he let the thoughts from the spiritual world flow into human souls; from the last third of the nineteenth century on he wants to live in human souls in which thoughts are formed. Previously the people related to Michael saw him unfold his activities in the spirit-world; now they realized that they should allow Michael to reside in their hearts; they dedicated their thought-filled spiritual life to him; now in free, individual thinking life, they let themselves be instructed by Michael as to the soul’s right path.

Human beings who in their previous earth-lives were inspired by Michael in their thinking, who were therefore Michael’s servants, felt themselves attracted to such voluntary Michael associations at the end of the nineteenth century when they again lived on earth. From then on they considered their old instigator of thoughts to be the guide to higher thoughts.

He who is able to value such things knows what a transformation took place during the last third of the nineteenth century in respect to human thinking. Previously man could only feel how thoughts formed from within his being; from the above-mentioned time he was able to lift himself above his being; he could turn meaning towards the spiritual; Michael meets him there, and shows himself to be related to all thinking activity. He frees thoughts from the region of the head; he clears the way to the heart for them. He liberates enthusiasm from feeling, so that man can mindfully dedicate himself to all which he can experience in the light of thoughts. The Michael age has dawned. Hearts begin to have thoughts; enthusiasm no longer streams from mere mystical obscurity, but from thinking endowed with clarity of mind. To understand this means to receive Michael in one’s sensibility. Thoughts which today strive towards grasping the spiritual must come from hearts which beat for Michael as the fiery Prince of Thought of the Universe.

* In the original German the word “Seele" (soul) is used. However, in much of the context of these paragraphs the word “mind" - which does not exist in German - would normally be used in English. I have therefore (rather shakily) substituted mind for soul wherever I deemed appropriate. Wherever “mind" appears above, the reader should perhaps realize that the original reads “soul". (Trans.)

79. One can spiritually approach the third hierarchy (Archai, Archangeloi, Angeloi) when one becomes so acquainted with thinking, feeling and willing that he sees in them the spirit being active in the soul. At first thinking places only images in the world, not something real. Feeling moves in this imagery, speaking for reality in man, but cannot fully manifest it. Willing unfolds a reality, which requires the body, but which does not act consciously in its formation. What is essential in thinking in order to make the body the basis of this thinking, what is essential in feeling to make the body a participant in a reality, what is essential in willing in order to consciously participate in the body’s formation - is alive in the third hierarchy.
80. One can spiritually approach the second hierarchy (Exusiai, Dynameis, Kyriotesis) when one envisions the facts of nature as manifestations of the living spirit in them. The second hierarchy, then, has nature as its residence, in order to work in it on souls.
81. One can spiritually approach the first hierarchy (Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones) when one envisions the facts of nature and human life as the deeds (creations) of the spirit acting in them. The first hierarchy, then, has the natural and human realms as the scene of its unfolding activity.
82. Man gazes up at the star-worlds; what he sees is the external manifestation of the spiritual beings and their deeds, of which we spoke in the previous considerations as the beings of the spiritual realms (hierarchies).
83. The earth is the stage for the three realms of nature and the human realm, insofar as they manifest the deeds of spiritual beings to the external senses.
84. The forces which work into the earthly realms of nature and humanity by spiritual beings reveal themselves to the human spirit through true, spiritual knowledge of the star-worlds.