PREFACE
In these six public lectures, delivered in Berlin
in 1911 and 1912, Rudolf Steiner presents key turning points in
Mankind's spiritual development. His objective, to show how
evolving human consciousness can lead to the experience of the
Self as the spiritual essence of the human being, is clearly
outlined through the five individuals selected. Each one of them
brought into the human condition on Earth an added, different
awareness of the relation between the human Spirit-Self and its
earthly environment.
Having spent a lifetime presenting these past
experiences of the human Spirit-Self on its spiritual journey
through its various stages and conditions, Steiner concentrated,
in his last years, on the new spiritual turning point of the
present. His crystal-clear statements as to the nature of the
present-day, different, spiritual condition of the human being
places him in the same firmament as the five individuals he
speaks of in these lectures. The final lecture on Christ in
the Twentieth Century, is essentially his own announcement
of the present and future human relation to the Christ, as
different from, yet in addition to, what the previous five have
brought into mankind with respect to the Christ-Being, the
central figure in Human Beingness.
The specific, unique, necessary, new, human
experience that Steiner is responsible for presenting is, the
spiritual foundation of human destiny and the human laws of
reincarnation based on the awakening to self-consciousness of the
human Spiritual-Soul. This particular experience of
self-consciousness requires that the human soul-force of the Will
be trained in freedeeds, so that the truly free, individual Self
can now consciously create and determine its own destiny, its own
environment, its own physical body even while
earthbound.
This is a magnificent possibility that is both
necessary and doable. Each human being, because of Steiner's
achievements, now has the method outlined and the means made
available to achieve this condition of the truly free,
independent, self-conscious, human, Spiritual Being; the Tenth
Hierarchy; the Entity of Love incarnate on Earth and what this
awareness means in the total spectrum of the Universe.
I present the following words, selected from
among Steiner's last writings, as an indication to the reader of
the basis for the remarks made above as to Steiner's spiritual
significance, and for placing him with Zarathustra, Hermes,
Buddha, Moses and Elijah, the personalities discussed in this
book.
"In the evolution of mankind consciousness
descends on the ladder of unfolding Thought. There was an
earliest stage in consciousness when man experienced the Thoughts
in the Ego -- experienced them as real Beings, imbued with
Spirit, soul and life. At a second stage he experienced the
Thoughts in the astral body; henceforth they only appeared as the
images of Spirit-beings -- images, however, still imbued with
soul and life. At a third stage he experienced the Thoughts in
the etheric body; here they only manifest an inner quickness,
like an echo of the quality of soul. At the fourth, which is the
present stage, man experiences the Thoughts in the physical body,
where they appear as the dead shadows of the Spiritual.
In like measure as the quality of Spirit, soul
and life in human Thought recedes, man's own Will comes to life.
True freedom becomes possible.
It is the task of the Archangel Michael, to lead
man back again, on paths of Will, whence he came down when with
his earthly consciousness he descended on the paths of Thought
from the living experience of the Supersensible to the experience
of the world of sense.
Michael goes upward again along the paths by
which mankind descended, stage by stage in the evolution of the
Spirit, down to the exercise of the Intelligence. Michael,
however, will lead the Will upward, retracing the paths by which
the Wisdom descended to the final stage of
Intelligence.
From this moment onward in World-evolution,
Michael merely shows His way, so that man may follow it
in perfect freedom. This distinguishes the present guidance by
Michael from all preceding guidances of the Archangels, including
even those of Michael Himself. For the former guidances did not
only reveal their working. They worked themselves out in man.
Hence in the working of his own life man could not be
free.
To see and understand that this is so: this is
the present task of man. For then he will find, with all the
forces of his soul, his spiritual path within the age of
Michael.
To become truly conscious of the working of
Michael in the spiritual order of the World, is to solve the
riddle of human freedom in relation to the Cosmos, in so far as
the solution is necessary for man on Earth.
For 'Freedom' as a fact is directly given to
every human being who understands himself in the present period
of mankind's evolution. No one can say, `Freedom is not,' unless
he wishes to deny a patent fact. But we can find a certain
contradiction between this fact of our experience and the
processes of the Cosmos. In contemplating the mission of Michael
within the Cosmos this contradiction is dissolved.
In my book,
The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, the 'Freedom' of
the human being in the present World-epoch is proved as an
essential element of consciousness. In the descriptions here
given of the Mission of Michael, the cosmic foundations of the
'coming-into-being' of this Freedom are disclosed."
Bernard J. Garber
February 1987
[Anthroposophical
Leading Thoughts: The Experiences of Michael in the Course of his
Cosmic Mission]