Anthroposophical Guidelines

The Cosmic Thoughts in Michael’s Activity and in Ahriman’s

The observer of the relationship between Michael and Ahriman may well feel impelled to ask the question: How do these two spiritual powers behave in the cosmic context in as far as they are both concerned with the development of intellectual forces?

In the past Michael developed intellectuality throughout the cosmos. He did this as a servant of the divine-spiritual powers, which had given him, as well as human beings, their genesis. And he intends to maintain this relationship to intellectuality. When it was released from the divine-spiritual powers in order to find its way within human beings, Michael decided that from then on he would be in contact with humanity in the right way in order to find his own relationship to intellectuality. But he only wanted to do this by continuing as the servant of the divine-spiritual powers, the powers to whom he and man have been united since their origins. Therefore his intention is that in the future intellectuality will stream through the hearts of men, but as the same force which streamed out of the divine-spiritual powers at the beginning.

It is a completely different situation with Ahriman. He has long since separated himself from the evolutionary stream to which the aforementioned divine-spiritual powers belong. In the primeval past he placed himself alongside them as an independent cosmic power. Although he exists spatially in the world to which man belongs at present, he develops no relationship of forces with the beings who rightfully belong to this world. Only because intellectuality has been separated from the divine-spiritual essence and approaches this world does Ahriman finds himself so related to this intellectuality that he is able, in his own way, to connect through it to humanity. For what humanity receives at present as a gift, he absorbed in the primordial past. If he is able, Ahriman will make humanity’s received intellect similar to his own; that is his intention.

Ahriman appropriated intellectuality at a time when he could not interiorize it. It has remained a force within his being that has nothing to do with heart and soul. Intellectuality streams out of Ahriman as a frost-bitten, soulless cosmic impulse. And those people who are seized by this impulse develop a logic devoid of compassion and love, which seems to speak for itself - in truth it is Ahriman speaking in it - in which there is no sign of the true, inner, loving relationship between what man is and what he thinks, speaks, does.

But Michael never appropriated intellectuality to himself. He manages it as a divine-spiritual force in that he feels himself united with the divine-spiritual powers. By thus permeating intellectuality, he indicates the potentiality in it to be just as valid an expression of the heart, the soul, as of the head, the spirit. For Michael carries within him all the primal forces of his gods and those of man. Thereby he does not transfuse intellectuality with wintry frost devoid of soul, but he stands by it in soul-filled inner warmth.

This is also the reason why Michael wanders through the cosmos with earnest mien and gesture. Inwardly so united with intelligent content as he is means that he must also fulfill the condition not to introduce anything of subjective arbitrariness, wishes or desire into this content. Otherwise logic would be the arbitrariness of one being instead of an expression of the cosmos. To maintain his being as an expression of the cosmic essence; to leave everything in his inner self which reflects his own being - Michael considers this to be his virtue. His significance is directed towards the great context of the cosmos - his mien expresses this; his will, which approaches man, is meant to reflect what he perceives in the cosmos. His bearing and his gestures express this. Michael is earnest in everything, for earnestness as the revelation of a being is the mirror of the cosmos from that being; Smiling is the expression of what streams into the world from a being.

One of the Michaelic imaginations is the following: He moves with the flow of time, borne by cosmic light as his essence; framing cosmic warmth as the revealer of his own being; A being akin to a world, he wanders in waves affirming himself in that he affirms the world, leading forces from all corners of the universe down to earth.

In contrast an Ahrimanic one: In his progress he would conquer space from time, he is surrounded by darkness in which he send the rays of his own light; the more he achieves his goal, stronger is the frost around him; he moves as a world which is completely concentrated in one being, his own, in which he only affirms himself by denying the world; he moves as though he carried with him the sinister forces of earth’s dark caves.

If man seeks freedom without detouring into egotism, when freedom becomes the pure love of action, then it is possible for him to approach Michael; if he wishes to act in freedom by developing egotism, if freedom is the prideful desire to reveal himself in his acts, then he is in danger of falling into Ahriman’s realm.

The imaginations described above beam forth man’s love for action (Michael) or his self-love when he acts (Ahriman).

In that man feels himself as a free being to be near to Michael, he is on the way to carry the force of intellectuality into his “whole humanity”; although he thinks with his head, his heart fills his thinking with either light or darkness; his will streams from his humanity in that his thoughts stream into him as intentions. The human being becomes more human when he is an expression of the world; he finds himself, not by seeking himself, but by willingly uniting himself with the world.

If man succumbs to Ahriman’s temptations while developing his freedom, he will be dragged into intellectuality like a spiritual automaton, in which he is a cog, but no longer himself. All his thinking is a function of the head; this alone separates it from the experiences of the heart and his own will and snuffs out his individuality. Man loses more and more of his inner humanity by becoming the expression of his own individuality; he loses himself by seeking himself. He withdraws from the world to which he denies love; but man only truly experiences himself if he loves the world.

It is perhaps obvious from the forgoing that Michael is the guide to Christ. Michael travels with love through the world with all the earnestness of his being, his posture and his acts. Whoever adheres to him cultivates love in relation to the outer world. And love in relation to the outer world must first be developed, otherwise it is selflove.

If this love in the Michaelic sense exists, then love for the other can also stream back to one’s own self. One will be able to love without loving one’s self. And on the path of such love Christ is to be found by the human soul. Whoever adheres to Michael cultivates love in relation to the outer world, and thereby he finds the relation to his soul’s inner world, which leads him to Christ.

The age now dawning requires that humanity view a spiritual world in closest proximity to the perceived physical one, and in which can be found what has been described here as the Michael-Being and the Michael-Mission. For that world which man envisions when perceiving this physical world as nature is not the one in which he directly lives, but one which is as far beneath the truly human one as the Michaelic one is above it. But he doesn’t realize that when he makes an image of his world, another one unconsciously arises. When he paints this picture he is already in the process of alienating himself and becoming a spiritual automaton. Man can only preserve his humanity if he confronts the image of himself immersed in nature with the one in which Michael reigns, the one in which Michael leads the way to Christ.

121. One has not yet comprehended what is active in the world and the meaning for the world of these activities, for example cosmic thoughts, if one goes no farther than these activities themselves. For one must perceive the being from whom these activities originate. For example whether the cosmic thoughts are brought into and throughout the world by Michael or Ahriman.
122. What can have a wholesome and creative effect coming from one being because of his relation to the world, can be proven perverse and destructive when it comes from another being. Cosmic thoughts carry man into the future if he receives them from Michael; they lead him away from his wholesome future if Ahriman gives them to him.
123. Through such considerations one is ever more able to overcome the viewpoint of a vague spirituality, that pantheism which is thought to be the foundation of things; and one is then led to a definite, concrete viewpoint which enables him to form representations [mental pictures] of the spiritual beings of the higher hierarchies. For reality is present everywhere in existential being [im Wesenhaften]; and what is not existential being in this reality is the activity which is acted out in the relation from being to being. This can only be understood by directing one’s gaze to the active spiritual beings.