Anthroposophical Guidelines

Michael’s Mission in the Cosmic Age of Human Freedom

When experiencing Michael’s activities in the present, one is able to shed light on the cosmic nature of freedom through spiritual science.

This does not apply to my “Philosophy of Freedom”, which refers to the purely human force of knowledge when it is related to the spiritual field. One needs, then, to recognize that this means to not yet accompany beings of other worlds. One could also say, however, that the “Philosophy of Freedom” paves the way to recognition of what can be experienced by spiritually accompanying Michael in freedom.

And that is the following.

If freedom is really to exist in human actions, what is accomplished in its light should on no account depend upon the human physical and etheric organization. What is “free” can only originate in the “I”; and the astral body must be able to vibrate with the free activity of the “I” in order to be able to transmit it to the physical and etheric bodies. But that is only one side of the matter. The other side will become clear in connection with Michael’s mission.

What man experiences in freedom may not affect his etheric or physical bodies. If that happened, he would forfeit what he has become during the stage of his evolution under the influence of divine-spiritual essence and divine-spiritual revelation.

What man thus experiences, which is only the divine-spiritual activity in his environment, may only have an effect on his spirit (his I). The influence on his physical and etheric organization can only be what enters the stream of evolution not in his environment but within his being itself, and which originated in the essence and revelation of divine spirituality. It may not, however, be enmeshed with what lives in the element of freedom.

This is only possible when Michael brings from the primeval past of evolution something which gives man a relation to divine spirituality and which at present no longer intervenes in physical and etheric creation. In this way, as part of Michael’s mission, the foundation for man’s intercourse with the spiritual world is developed, one which does not affect the natural elements.

It is inspiring to observe how through Michael the human being is elevated to the spiritual spheres, whereas the unconscious, the subconscious, which develop below the sphere of freedom, grow closer and closer to matter.

Man’s position with respect to the universe will be more distant and incomprehensible if in addition to his relationship to nature and its processes he does not also recognize ones such as Michael’s mission. He gets to know his relationship to nature as something observed from without; that to the spiritual world is like having an inner conversation with beings to whom one has gained access by means of a spiritual observation of the world.

Therefore, in order to realize the impulse for freedom, man must be able to repress certain natural effects on his being that come from the cosmos. This repression takes place in the subconscious when the forces of the I’s freedom come into play. Acting in freedom exists in humanity’s inner perception; for the spiritual beings from other cosmic spheres who are bonded with man it is otherwise. The beings of the hierarchy of angels, who are concerned with the continuance of the human being from earth-life to earth-life, immediately see human activity in freedom thus: man repels the cosmic forces which desire to educate him further and to give his I-organization the necessary physical support, which they gave him before the age of Michael.

As a being from the hierarchy of archangels, Michael receives his impressions with help from the hierarchy of angels. He dedicates himself to the task of providing man, in the manner here described, with forces from the spiritual part of the cosmos, which can substitute for the repressed forces of nature. He accomplishes this by acting in perfect unison with the Mystery of Golgotha.

In Christ’s activity within the earth’s evolution lie the forces that man needs when working through freedom to compensate for the repressed impulses of nature. But then man must really bring his soul into inner community with Christ - about which we have already referred here in these Guidelines in respect to Michael’s mission.

Man knows himself to be in a reality when he faces the physical sun and receives warmth and light from it.

In the same way, he must face the spiritual sun, Christ, who has united his being with the earth’s being, and from that spiritual sun receive into his soul the warmth and light which corresponds to the spiritual world.

He will feel himself permeated by this “spiritual warmth” when he experiences “Christ in me”. He will say to himself when feeling this permeation: “This warmth frees your humanity from cosmic bonds in which it may not remain. In order for you to achieve freedom, the divine-spiritual Being of primeval times had to lead you to regions in which it could no longer stand by you, in which it however gave you the Christ, so he could lend you his force as a free person - something the divine-spiritual Being of primeval times once gave you through the path of nature, which was then also the path of the spirit. This warmth leads you back to the divinity from which you originated.”

And in feeling this with inner warmth of soul, man will experience the growing togetherness with Christ and that of real and true humanity. “Christ gives me my humanity” will be the fundamental feeling that penetrates and permeates the soul. And it is once this feeling exists that another also comes through which man feels himself carried up beyond mere earthly existence and feels himself as one with the stellar surroundings of the earth and with all that in this stellar environment is recognized as divine spirituality.

This also applies to the spiritual light. Man can feel himself to be completely human when he is aware of himself as a free individual. However, a darkening is associated with this. The divine spirituality of primeval times no longer shines. In the light which Christ brings to the human I the primeval light is again present. In such togetherness with Christ, this blessed thought can shine on the soul like a sun: The glorious primal divine light is here again; it shines, although its shining is not from nature. And man in the contemporary world unites himself with the spiritual cosmic shining force of the past, in which he was not yet a free individual. And in this light he can find the paths which rightly lead his humanity, if he understandingly unites in his soul with Michael’s mission.

Then in spiritual warmth man will feel the impulse which carries him to his cosmic future in such a way that he can remain true to the primal gifts of the divine-spiritual beings, although he has developed into a free individual in their worlds. And in the spiritual light perceiving, he will feel the strength that endows him with an ever increasingly expanding consciousness and leads him to a world in which as a free human being he re-encounters the gods of his genesis.

To persist in the original naive divine grace at work in man and fearfully shun full freedom in this contemporary world where everything is disposed towards freedom, only leads man to Lucifer, who wants to see the contemporary world denied.

To gives oneself over to a contemporary world which only recognizes the natural world revealed by intellectuality and is neutral in respect to grace, and only wants to experience and use freedom intellectually, (but, however, in which evolution in deeper regions of the soul must continue and in higher ones freedom reign), leads to Ahriman, who wants to see the contemporary world completely transformed into a cosmos of intellectuality.

In such regions, in which man’s gaze at the outer world is spiritually directed towards Michael, and his gaze directed towards the interior of the soul falls spiritually on Christ, thrives that soul and spiritual certainty through which he can make his way, without the loss of his origins, on the cosmic path to finding the true realization of his future.

Goetheanum, November 2, 1924

118. A free act can only be one in which no natural process plays a role, whether within man or outside him.
119. The polar contrast to this is that a natural process is suppressed in an individual’s free act, which would be present in the case of an unfree act, and would give the human being his cosmically preordained state.
120. This state, in which man lives in the present and future evolutionary stages of the world, does not come to him through nature, but on the spiritual path by his bonding with Michael, whereby he also finds the path to Christ.