Lecture 5
The Nature of the Christ Impulse
and the Michaelic Sprit Serving It — 2
Berlin, January 19 , 1915
Once again, let us first of all direct
our thoughts to those who are out there at the front, in
the arena of present-day events, where they have to stand
for what the time demands of them:
Spirits of your souls, guardian
guides,
On your wings let there be borne
The prayer of love from our souls
To those whom you guard here on earth.
Thus, united with your might,
A ray of help our prayer shall be
For the souls it seeks out there in love.
And for those who have already gone
through the gate of death:
Spirits of your souls, guardian
guides,
On your wings let there be borne
The prayer of love from our souls
To those whom you guard here on earth.
Thus, united with your might,
A ray of help our prayer shall be
For the souls it seeks out there in love.
May the
spirit we have been seeking for so many gears in our
movement, the spirit who has gone through the Mystery of
Golgotha, be present above you, may it stream through you
and strengthen you for your difficult task.
It seems
that not everyone is quite clear about the verse I have
just spoken, so I am told. Let me stress that the proper
version reads: Spirit of your souls. The verse
has been phrased in such a way that it can be used when
many people want to speak for one person or one for many
or, indeed, many for many — as in the present case.
If it refers to just one person, the only change which
has to be made is to say ‘Spirit of your
soul’ and so forth. It appears that I made a slip
of the tongue when I said the verse for the first time
here some weeks ago, so that the view has arisen that the
words ‘Spirits of your souls’ may not be
quite correct. But they are correct as they stand. The
first line is addressed to the spirits of the souls
requiring protection, as it were and the
‘your’ refers to those to whom our thoughts
are directed. In the second line on the other hand, the
'your' relates to the 'guardians'. Let me remark that
such verses are always such by nature that there can be
problems with the purely grammatical construction. But
they are given from the spiritual world for the specific
Purpose, and it is true that there are occasional
problems with putting the words together for such
verses.
Dear
friends, it was for good reason and, spiritually, also
very much in accord with the work that has to be done in
the present time, that two days ago we turned our
attention to events in the evolution of man that show how
spiritual impulses — and particularly the spiritual
Impulses linked with the Mystery of Golgotha, with the
Christ impulse — are living impulses within the
evolution of man. We have seen how they were active in
the evolution of man even though men were unable to grasp
the nature of the Christ impulse with their reason, with
their intellect.
It was with
this intention that reference was made among other
historical events to Joan of Arc through whom this Christ
impulse resolved a major issue in the 15th century
through its servant, the Michaelic spirit, and for the
good and advancement of mankind. The reason why it was
particularly important to refer to this event was that in
our day, too, it does hold true that everything destined
to regulate events on the historical scale is ordered and
regulated from the spiritual worlds. We need to be aware
that the forces, the impulses, for what is to happen come
to us from the spiritual worlds. In this respect the same
holds true today as in the days of Joan of Arc. But the
times are different. What would happen in a particular
way in the days of Joan or Arc has to happen in a
different way in our time and in times to come; it has to
take a different course. For our time is one that is
entirely different. Since the 15th and 16th century
— and the Joan of Arc event did, of course, come in
that period — mankind had been guided in quite a
different way. It is this difference, and consequently
the basic nature of our time, that we shall consider to
some extent today.
Between
going to sleep and waking up we are in a soul state where
that which we really are is outside our physical and our
ether bodies. Asleep, we live in our astral body and our
ego. We need to have a very clear picture of this. That
which we really are is then outside our physical and our
ether bodies. Asleep, we live in our astral body and our
ego. We need to have a very clear picture of this. That
which we really are is then outside the body. We are, of
course, bound to our body to an extraordinary degree
between birth and death so that in terms of space we are
not far away from our body when asleep. Our soul element
is spread out in our surroundings, as it were; that is in
everything that specifically makes up our
environment.
Let us get a clear picture of how the environment has
changed specifically over the last centuries —
since the 15th and 16 centuries — at least for the
great majority of the people whom we have to consider in
relation to what fate has decreed for the present age.
Just consider whether any of the machinery or the
mechanical contrivances we use today also existed at the
time when Joan of Arc did her work. We can certainly say
that the world has changed completely since that time as
far as mechanical things are concerned. Everything we
experience in relation to machines has only come since
then. There may be some observant people among you who
have taken a ‘sleeper’ (train) to travel
overnight. They may have had the strange experience of
waking up — and this is the kind of occasion when
one may wake up quite frequently — and finding that
something was still rumbling on that was inherent in the
machinery of the train all about them. Something can be
perceived, as it were, when one is waking up but still in
a dream state, of the croaking and squealing of the train
or boat one happens to be on. This happens because the
soul is not really in the body but in the area around the
body and is placed among those mechanical
contrivances.
Yet it is
not only on such less usual occasions that we live among
the hustle and bustle of the present age, and we can
certainly say that the mechanized life has also spread to
the countryside today. Fundamentally speaking, we are
always within the mechanized life of the present age.
When asleep, the soul merges into everything that is
mechanism. Those are mechanisms, however, which we have
constructed ourselves. A mechanism we have built is
something quite different from nature outside us, for
this has been constructed by the elemental spirits. When
we are out in the woods, for instance, where everything
has been built up by the spirits of nature, we are in an
environment that is totally different from the
environment of mechanical contrivances created by
ourselves. What are we doing when we take things from
nature and put them together to make the machines and
appliances we use in our lives? We are in that case not
merely putting together physical components, for in
putting together physical components we always provide
opportunity for a demonic Ahrimanic servant to unite with
the machine. We do this with every machine, every
mechanism, in everything of this kind that is part of
modern civilization, providing a point of attachment for
demonic elemental spirits of Ahrimanic nature. And living
surrounded by machines we live together with these
demonic Ahrimanic elementals. We allow them to enter into
us; we allow not only the squealing and groaning of
machines to enter into us but also an element that is
eminently destructive for our spirit and our soul.
Please note
— and I have often made a similar comment on
similar occasions — what I am saying is not
intended to be a criticism of our Ahrimanic age. It has
to be like this, that we allow demons to stream into
everything and allow ourselves to the surrounded by them.
It is part of the evolution of mankind. We have to
acknowledge the simple necessity for this and understand
the real impulse of spiritual science. And so we shall
not sing the praises of people who say it is necessary,
as far as possible, to protect oneself from the demons
and to shun civilization and that we should set up a
colony as far away as possible in the wilderness to save
us from having anything to do with these demonic
Ahrimanic elementals. That has never been the tenor of my
words. I have always said that we must entirely accept
what comes to us out of the necessity of evolution, that
we must not let ourselves be induced to flee from the
world. We need to take heed, however, we need to
understand, that conditions are such in our age that we
are filling our environment more and more with beings of
a demonic nature, that we are more and more involved with
the principle that is mechanizing our civilization. An
age such as this cans for something quite different than
the age out of which Joan of Arc was called to do her
work. In the time of Joan of Arc it was necessary for the
impulse out of which she was to act to be born out of the
gentlest, the most subtle powers of the human soul. Just
consider: she was a shepherd girl living a very simple,
natural life, with nature at her most idyllic. She was
very young when her visions came to her, and through the
Imaginations given to her she had a direct link with the
spiritual world. Out of her inner being she was to bring
forth everything that was to be the foundation from which
she acted, she was to let it grow forth from her inner
being. And not only this, but it was necessary for very
special circumstances to be brought about so that through
the most subtle powers inherent in the human soul her
mission could be imprinted in her soul, in her very heart
of hearts.
We know
that everything in the world goes in cycles, that things
happen in such a way that important events come up in
definite cycles. If we take the year of Joan's birth,
1412, we can ask a specific question relating to this. We
are able to say that the year this Maid of Orleans was
born the sun would of course have been in a particular
position, astronomical position, coinciding with one of
the constellations in the zodiac. The progress of the sun
from one sign of the zodiac to the next marks a major
time interval. Passing right through the zodiac the sun
will go through all twelve constellations; the time
interval needed for the sun to progress from one
constellation in the zodiac to the next is approximately
2,160 years, and this is important. Going back
approximately 2,160 years from the birth of Joan of Arc
we come to the founding of Rome.
In the days
when Rome was founded anyone needing information on major
issues concerning the city which was then coming into
being would go to see the nymph Egeria. There it was
possible to get information, from a seeress. But, as I
said, that was one solar cycle earlier. And so the times
are renewed and everything goes in cycles. Let us
visualize it like this: at the time when Rome was founded
the sun was at a certain point in the constellation of
the Ram, Aries. It then progressed to the Fishes, Pisces,
so that it had moved through one-twelfth of the zodiac.
And thus the cycle which inevitably has to be there In
the evolution of mankind takes us from the nymph Egeria
to the inspired deed of Joan of Arc. In ancient Rome,
however, it was a matter of pagan Inspiration, of pagan
deeds. If we try to think of the same visionary element
that operated at the time when Rome was founded also
having to operate in a Christian age, acting from within,
through the most tender powers inherent in man, what did
have to come about? You can imagine that something had to
come about which again, in some way or other, had to do
with the subtlest powers of the Christian faith.
Most of you
will remember my telling you of the variation we get in
the course of the year in the forces that link us with
the spiritual world. In summer, at St John's tide when
the sun's rays are most Powerful externally, one might
perhaps achieve an external ecstasy and, as in the old
Celtic mysteries, lift oneself up into the spiritual
world in some way, but certainly in ecstasy. Yet when the
days are shortest, when the sun's rays are least powerful
and the winter night the darkest, around Christmas
therefore, the opportunity exists also to win through to
the spiritual worlds in our innermost soul life. All who
have known of the cycle of the year have always
maintained, quite rightly, that those who have the gift
for it are able to enter into the most intimate aspect of
our connection with the spiritual worlds during the time
from the 21st, the 23rd of December to about the 6th of
January — during those days and particularly the
nights. There are legends — the
Legend of Olaf Asteson
has been read to you here — which tell
of people having their most profound Inspirations during
those days.
[ Note 26 ]
This, again, is connected with the celebration of
Christmas at that time, of the birth of the spirit who
went through the Mystery of Golgotha and is connected
with the innermost powers in human soul development. So,
if the Inspiration of pagan Rome of old was to be
resurrected one sun cycle later, 2,160 years later, it
had to come in through the aspect of man that is most
utterly childlike. This means that the soul of Joan of
Arc had to be taken hold of at the point where souls are
taken hold of most profoundly, where they are weakest in
relation to earthly things, and where the Christ impulse
is not yet hampered by worldly impressions — the
souls not yet having taken up the earthly element, so
that the Christ impulse can be the only one to enter into
the soul sphere. The most favourable timing for this
would have been for the Maid of Orleans to have gone
through the time of the Thirteen Nights in her mother's
womb immediately before her birth, before she took her
first breath. And, indeed, she did — for she was
born on the 6th of January.
Here we
perceive the more profound forces at work which enter
into the physical world from the spiritual worlds. We see
how they find the channels they need, deeply mysterious
channels. There can be nothing more marvellous for
someone with insight into such things, nothing more open
to explanation through spiritual science, than this fact
that the Maid of Orleans took her first breath on earth
in the time around Christmas, on the 6th of January, with
the days of Christmas immediately preceding her entry on
to the physical plane. We see how the girl who was to go
through death at the age of 19 was taken hold of at the
point where the most subtle of human powers lie, and we
are therefore looking into a time when it was necessary
for the divine spiritual powers to find a channel through
the inmost inwardness of the human soul. That, however,
was the last time when such a thing was to be. It was the
time when a particular order was brought into Europe
through the Christ impulse, as I indicated to you the
last time, and this happened in the wonderful way in
which it did happen through Joan of Arc. Since then,
however, times have changed. Today is not the time when
divine spiritual powers approach the human soul in such
intimate fashion.
What was
the mission of Joan of Arc, really, if we consider
something that was present throughout her whole life? She
was taken hold of from within by the forces of the divine
spiritual world. In her soul these forces encountered the
Luciferic forces. These Luciferic forces were mighty and
powerful at that time. Joan of Arc bore something within
her that made her vanquish the Luciferic forces. She
vanquished the Luciferic forces, that is entirely obvious
to anyone who wants to see. We have briefly considered
the miracle of her birth and seen that she went through
an unconscious initiation, in a way, up to Epiphany, the
day known as that of the manifestation of Christ. But we
can also point to her death which occurred because all
the Luciferic forces of her enemies joined together to
bring about her death. Her misadventure in a battle was
brought about through the jealousy of the men who were
the official leaders, appointed to guide the battle. All
the jealousy then came to the fore over the
manifestations of spiritual forces and spiritual powers
that were made through her. She was put on trial. The
records of the trial still exist and anyone studying them
can see—unless of course his mind is as closed as
that of Anatole France — that this Maid of Orleans,
having come into the physical world in a very special
way, through the thirteen nights, also left it in such a
way. For it says in the records, so that there is
historical proof, that she said that she would indeed die
but that after her death the English would meet with a
much greater reverse than any they had known before, and
that this would happen within the next seven years.
If we take
this rightly, in its spiritual sense, it means nothing
less than that the soul of Joan of Arc on going through
the gate of death was prepared to continue contributing
to the work of shaping events after her death, to share
in the work whatever her form of existence. And she did
so. What the spiritual powers have to bring about will be
brought about whatever the external conditions may be.
Joan's adversaries were able to bring about her death, to
mount the strongest possible attack against her, as it
were. They were not able to prevent her mission.
However,
the forces of Joan of Arc were only able to work in the
subtle way they did during her time. In everything she
did the Luciferic forces were ranged against her. We are
also having to deal with hostile forces in our time, but
these are predominantly Ahrimanic forces, the Ahrimanic
forces that have come up with the materialistic age.
These are in evidence even in the outer form and fashion
of the whole of our age if we turn our attention to the
mechanisms, the mechanical element of the age; if we are
aware that, fundamentally speaking, we are offering an
abode to demons when we produce our mechanical
contrivances, surrounding ourselves with a whole world of
Ahrimanic demons. It is evident also from other things
that Ahrimanic powers are at work everywhere in our age.
We need only look back a few years and pay a little
attention to the occult substrate to our life on earth
and we can see Ahrimanic forces influencing all aspects
of our physical life on earth. Not only the kind of
demons we create in our machines influence our earth life
but also other kinds of Ahrimanic forces. The occultist
has to put into words something I have often put into
words for one group of friends or another: that,
fundamentally speaking, the sad and painful events now
happening all over Europe and a large part of the globe
have long been in preparation. War has been present for a
long time, as it were, in the astral world but was held
back by something that was also astral: by the fear
everybody was feeling. Fear is an astral element; it was
able to hold the war back, to prevent it; fear was able
to stop war from breaking out for all that time.
For fear
was abroad everywhere. Fear is altogether something that
is most dreadfully widespread in the depths of our souls
in the present age. A time came, however, when there was
an external indication in time of something often
referred to when the starting points of this war are
discussed. This outer aspect is not the one that matters,
however, it is merely a symbol. As I said on a previous
occasion, the assassination of the Austrian Archduke
occurred and there emerged the event, so terrible to the
soul, that I have already referred to. I had never before
known anything like this, not from personal experience
nor through other occultists. We know what the soul goes
through when it has undergone death. In the case of the
soul that went through death at that time something very
specific showed itself. All the elements of fear began to
gather around it, as though around a focal point, and
something of a cosmic power could now be perceived in it.
We know already that anything that has a specific
character on the physical plane will have the opposite
character in the spiritual world. This also held true in
the present case. An element that first had had a
dispersive effect where war was concerned was now acting
in the opposite way, as a spur, an incitement, to war. So
we see that a metamorphosis, as it were, of the elements
of fear, of the Ahrimanic elements, became mixed up with
all the things that finally led to the sad and painful
events of the present time. Ahrimanic elements are indeed
at work everywhere in our time. We must not rebel against
this, nor should we aim to protect ourselves against it.
We have to see it as something that is necessary in our
time, something that has to be present in our time. The
question is: How do we find the right attitude to this?
How do we find the one thing that will show us what
should be our attitude now, in the present age, if we
want to make it possible for divine spiritual forces and
powers to enter into our actions?
Here I must
refer to an event in the spiritual world that happened a
few decades ago. I have mentioned this on a number of
occasions, in all kinds of different contexts. It is an
event that occurred behind the scenes of our existence,
in the spiritual world, in or about November 1879.
[ Note 27 ]
We know that there is a different regent of earth life for every
epoch, as it were; one regent follows another. Until 1879
the spirit acting out of the spiritual world was the one
we call the spirit Gabriel, if a name is to be used. From
1879 onwards it was the spirit we call Michael. It is
Michael who directs events in our time. Anyone able to
see into the spiritual worlds in conscious awareness will
feel the spirit Michael to be the spirit who truly is the
one to lead and govern in our time. Michael is in a way
the most Powerful of the leading spirits of the age that
follow one another. In a way, I said, he is the most
powerful of these spirits. The others have been
predominantly active in the spirit sphere. Michael had
the strength to push the spirit right through into the
physical world. He was the spirit who descended to earth
ahead of the Christ, as it were, before the Mystery of
Golgotha approached, and governed world affairs for four
or five centuries at that time. Now in our time he is
again the leading spirit on earth. We may make a
comparison by saying that Michael is among the spirits
belonging to the hierarchy of the Archangeloi as gold is
among the metals. Whilst all other metals act
predominantly on the ether body, gold also acts as a
medicine for the physical body. In the same way all the
other leading spirits act on the soul whilst it is
Michael who at the same time is able to act on the
physical intellect, on physical reason. Now that his age
has come it is possible to act out of the spirit on the
physical intellect, on physical reason. In the 15th
century he was not the actual leader and therefore had to
find a way in the case of Joan without making use of the
human intellect, human understanding, human ability to
form ideas; a way that was wholly an inner one, as it
were, through the innermost powers of the human soul. The
Christ influenced Joan of Arc through his Michaelic
spirit, but he achieved what had to be done by any other
means rather than the forces of the intellect and of
reason.
Luciferic
spirits are also present today. and these prefer to
attack man from within. They want to generate all kinds
of passions, but not the error of the intellect, the
error of common reason that we have to struggle with in
our present age. We therefore have to say that anything
we wish to achieve in the spiritual sphere must be
achieved in such a way that it is in accord with the
forces that Michael, the leading spirit of the age,
commands. We are in close alliance with Michael when we
try to grasp what we have been attempting to grasp these
last few days, when we try and grasp things as phenomena,
to grasp what we call the German folk spirit. Two powers:
Michael and the German folk spirit. These two are
entirely in harmony, and it is their mission to bring the
Christ impulse to expression specifically in our time, in
accord with the character of our time. For it would be
wrong for the people of our time to think that the same
inward way of working that was appropriate to the 15th
century could still be appropriate now that we are in the
fifth post-Atlantean era. In the present age it is a
matter above all of understanding that it is necessary to
be chained to Ahriman, to Ahrimanic elements we ourselves
create in our machines, and that it is necessary to
recognize clearly how these things are connected.
Otherwise we live in fear of many of the things that
exist in the present age.
The
question therefore arises: How do we offer resistance to
this Ahrimanic element in our age, the way resistance was
offered to the Luciferic element at the time of Joan of
Arc? We offer resistance to the Ahrimanic element by
taking exactly the path that has been so emphatically
pointed out over and over again within our stream of
spiritual science—the path towards a
spiritualization of human culture, of man's ability to
form ideas and concepts. This is why it has been stressed
again and again that there is a way in which everything
spiritual science can give us, even if to begin with it
is largely presented to us from the spiritual world, can
truly and wholly and utterly be grasped with the
intellect, the reason man has been gifted with from the
16th century to this day. And if we say we do not
understand, then that is only because we listen to the
prejudices current in the materialism of our age. We must
stop listening ever and again to the voice of present-day
materialism, a voice that speaks loudly at times and then
again in the faintest of whispers. Instead we must try
and firmly focus our mind on such powers of understanding
as we have. Then the things spiritual science produces
for us will one day appear to be perfectly
understandable, as something that can be understood just
as well as some event or other in the outside world can
be understood. We generate the great strength we need to
offer resistance to the Ahrimanic forces by approaching
the spirit not merely through the inmost powers of
revelation and of faith, as in the case of Joan of Arc,
but by trying to concentrate our powers of understanding
most intensely on what spiritual science has to give. If
we do this, the hour, the moment, will come when we have
to say to ourselves: What comes to us out of spiritual
science is the only thing that is rational and at the
same time makes the world around us understandable,
filling it with light. And when we are taken hold of in
this way we are taken hold of by what the spirit has to
give in our time so that we shall indeed be strong enough
to face the Ahrimanic forces.
Someone
with a disposition like that of Joan of Arc would not be
able to achieve anything in our day and age. She would be
an interesting personality and would be able to reveal
many marvellous things through prophesy and in other
ways. Such a person capable of making intimate
revelations is capable of effectively countering
Luciferic forces. Today, however, man has to resist
Ahrimanic forces, has to make himself strong to cope with
these forces, developing the strength required in the
Michaelic age. Sun-like qualities are called for in the
age of Michael, qualities we take into ourselves by
spiritualizing the powers we have at our command between
waking up and going to sleep: the powers of the
intellect, of understanding, of insight. For these powers
of understanding we possess will undergo a transformation
in the soul if only we have sufficient patience. They are
transformed to such effect that out of what emerges for
us in spiritual science there arises the certainty that
what we are grasping there is the direct expression of
the thoughts of the spiritual world. So there can be no
question today of withdrawing from the outside world
which has Ahrimanic forces in it everywhere. No, it is
necessary for us to stand in this world but at the same
time also make ourselves strong to meet those Ahrimanic
forces.
It is a
matter therefore of finding the way towards understanding
the spiritual world with the very same powers we also use
to understand the outside world. That, of course, is the
way — as we have said on these few
occasions—that is inwardly bound up with the whole
mission of the German people, and specifically with this
mission as it has been from the end of the 18th and
beginning of the 19th centuries. This mission was in
preparation during the preceding centuries. This is what
is so remarkable — what has been going on in the
intellectual life of Germany, through its poets, its
artists and philosophers, is intimately bound up with the
spiritual life. Here it really is a matter of boldly
looking the facts in the face, without sympathy or
antipathy, and seeing how they were first in preparation
and gradually took shape. We have ourselves had the
experience of simply having to stress one day that there
is this necessity to be active in the life of the
intellect and spirit as it continues to progress. Why
should that be so?
Let us try
and take a look at the theosophical movement we had
external links with for a time, the theosophical movement
in England. Try and build a bridge for yourselves between
the general intellectual life in England, including the
field of philosophy, and English theosophy. Externally
they stand side by side, are two streams running side by
side, and a bridge between the two is something we can
only make in a very external way. Try on the other hand
and consider the life of the mind and spirit that had its
preparatory stages in the German mystics Meister Eckhart
and Johannes Tauler, and then evolved further through
Jakob Boehme and Angelus Silesius.
[ Note 28 ]
In Lessing
[ Note 21 ]
it brought acceptance of the idea of repeated earth lives,
and in Goethe's Faust an out-and-out glorification
of the ascent to the spiritual worlds.
There you
have the straight route from the outer worlds to the
spiritual world. If you then also include the stream that
led from
Goethe's Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Fair Lily
[ Note 29 ]
to the dramatization of the basic forces of initiation
[ Note 30 ]
and take the two streams together, you will have the inner
connection. There is an inner connection between that
which finally makes its appearance as spiritual science
and that which is striven for quite exoterically in the
intellectual life of the physical world. The life of the
mind and spirit which unfolds outside of spiritual
science is of course striven for with the powers of the
intellect, but it is compelled to move in the direction
of what is found outside the body. I should like to put
it like this: It is the mission of the German people that
they cannot do anything else but let the river of all
their endeavours finally enter into spiritual life. In
spiritual terms that really means that the German people
are called to unite inwardly with the element that comes
into the world because Michael is the leader. Such a
union is not achieved by passively, fatalistically,
allowing oneself to be governed by the powers of destiny.
It is achieved by recognizing the challenge of the
time.
What I am
trying to show has been revealed not only inwardly, in
the evolution of German mysticism, but also outwardly in
the whole way German life has developed within the
context of European life. In the first of the last two
public lectures I have given, ‘The Germanic Soul
and the German Intellect’, I discussed the way the
soul quality of the Germanic tribes flowed into the
peoples of the West and the South, as it were, through
those who became the outposts of those tribes, the Goths,
Lombards, Vandals. The Germanic soul element was
sacrificed on the altar of mankind. Later this was to
repeat itself, though less obviously so. Consider first
of all the most eastern part of Austria
[ Note 31 ]
and the people known as
the Transylvanian Saxons. They had emigrated from the
Rhine, from the Siebengebirge (Seven Mountains), and
there is external evidence to prove this. As time went on
they lost their special characteristics. The soul
substance gave itself up, to merge into that of the other
nation, and little will be left of them one day except
for some elements from their language; it was as folk
substance that they flowed into the other nation. Now let
us move on south to the Banat.
[ Note 32 ]
Swabian immigrants
settled there and the Magyar element overgrew the Swabian
element. The same thing has happened in the Carpathian
mountains in Hungary. To all appearances these immigrant
elements have disappeared today. Yet they are still alive
everywhere among the present-day population, sometimes
emerging in tiny rivulets, like in the fascinating
linguistic enclave of the people of Gottschee in Krain
[Carniola]. And elsewhere as well. We see — and it
would be possible to purse this a great deal further
— how the Germanic soul-element has been sent out
into the world, how it has an effect there. This happens
out of an inner necessity. It happened like this in
earlier ages and particularly also during the age of
Gabriel. It happened throughout the age of Gabriel in
that the blood — I would say the blood and the
mixing of blood — was active, everything which,
whilst connected with external circumstances in life, yet
cannot be grasped externally, but again takes place at a
more inward level.
Now the
Michael age has come,the age when we must grasp how,
through the whole past development of the life of the
mind and intellect, the German spirit is able to take its
place within the Sun force of Michael. That we simply
have to realize. And it can be realized by giving
recognition to spiritual science, by gradually — on
the basis of what spiritual science is considering
— getting an idea and an awareness of the spiritual
powers that are at work, of the reality of spiritual
powers. Then we shall gradually come to understand how
senseless it is for people to say: ‘There are no
spiritual forces, I cannot acknowledge them. And if I
have a bar of iron in horseshoe form here, then it is
just that, a bar of iron, and I see nothing but
iron.’ But there may be magnetic forces within it.
And in the same way something else, something quite
different from magnetic forces, lies within the whole of
the outside world. We come to recognize it if we really
consider all that is presented to us as the
characteristic form of things. That is the way to achieve
the powers of mind needed in the age of Michael to resist
the Ahrimanic powers, at a time when it is indeed our
duty to withstand the Ahrimanic powers. Fundamentally
speaking, everything the study of spiritual science has
to offer is merely preparatory. One day an awakening of
the soul will spring forth from the study of spiritual
science, and the soul will know: Within you lives the
spiritual world, from the Christ impulse down through
Michael to the folk spirit which puts into effect what
has to be put into effect.
I have said
that the time of Joan of Arc was one when it was possible
to act on the weakest, physically the weakest, powers of
man. Our age is one where it is necessary to act on the
strongest powers of man, to take hold of the will at a
point where it is least inclined truly to unfold its
powers. We can see it again and again: the thing people
find most difficult to do is to unfold the will at the
point where our earthly powers, the powers by which we
form concepts, are made inwardly active. To bring
‘will-power’ to bear externally is something
people still find relatively easy. But a different kind
of ‘will-power’ is needed to guide our
thoughts in such a way that they encompass the spiritual
world. Spiritual science as such has to appeal to that
strong will-power, for this must be there if spiritual
science is truly to lead where it ought to lead in our
Michaelic age. For we are not called to discuss the
mechanical element in our age; we are not called to point
out that this mechanical element in our age has laid hold
of mankind; we are called to do something else.
Of course,
if we squeeze the facts a little it will be possible for
us to become a philosopher, to some degree even a great
philosopher — this we admit without reserve. It is
possible to look at the machines in our age and start to
consider this very mechanistic aspect as the most
pernicious of all things, ascribing it specifically to
our enemies. And one then has the inclination, even if
one may be considered a great philosopher, to hurl abuse
like a market woman. One can then do the same as the
philosopher Bergson
[ Note 33 ]
who only recently again managed to point out
rather one sidedly — and many things tend to be
perfectly correct if a one sided view is presented
— how the mechanistic effect of the forces relates
to the essential nature of the German people. But that is
not the only thing we can point to — that German
brainpower has achieved things in certain areas by
applying mechanical principles — for something else
may be pointed out as well. Nor is it necessary to hurl
abuse like a market woman when discussing such matters,
and instead we may say: Perhaps the very place where the
intellect has the greatest powers to give form to the
mechanistic and demonic element is also the place where
these mechanistic and demonic powers can be overcome on
the basis of our particular spiritual mission. Then
however, a German may easily get himself misunderstood as
he comes to see, in conjunction with the way the
intellectual life has developed, that it is not his
function to stop at the purely mechanical element that is
of such great service to him also in the present day,
with the challenges presented by the war. He must not
stop at what is merely mechanism, for then he would
merely create demons. No, he must develop powerful forces
within him that can boldly face these demons. This means
that we have to stand in the spiritual world, not blindly
but in a way that arises from, and is guided by,
conviction. If we set out to acknowledge that we are
surrounding ourselves with a world of demons, a veritable
hell, as we design and build machine after machine, we
can of course understand why people speaking out of the
materialistic spirit of the present age are saying over
and over again that this scientific and materialistic age
has taken us to the greatest height ever achieved by man.
Of course we can understand this for it is in line with
the materialistic thought of the present time, but we
must know that with those machines we are introducing
nothing but demons for mankind and we must know how to
develop the right powers to resist these demons. We only
gain the right attitude to the spiritual world by
recognizing these demonic Ahrimanic forces, by knowing
full well that they are present. For the harmful powers
are harmful only when we remain unconscious of them, when
we know nothing about them. Let me illustrate this by
means of a comparison.
As you
know, we hope after some time to have a building at
Dornach near Basle where we can nurture our spiritual
stream in suitable surroundings. It is not a question of
erecting this building to escape the pressures of our
time in some way or other, but rather of building it
entirely out of the pressures of our time. It was
necessary for instance to design a lighting system out of
the most Ahrimanic forces of the present age, electric
lighting, electric heating and so on. It is a matter of
using the architectural form as such to render such
potentially harmful things harmless. It could have been
the case that anyone entering the building in the future
would have been surrounded with everything the Ahrimanic
culture of the present age leads to. The point, however,
is not that it is present, but that people do not notice
it. We are not suppose to notice it. To achieve this, a
number of friends got together and they are erecting a
separate building for this, giving it a special form, so
that the demonic Ahrimanic forces are banished to this
place. Anyone approaching the building, and also anyone
entering it, will have it brought to their notice that
the Ahrimanic forces are at work there. For as soon as we
know this they are no longer harmful. The point is that
the powers that have a bad effect on man cease to do so
when we take a good look at the places where they are
active, when we do not look at a machine thoughtlessly
and say ‘a machine is simply a machine’ , but
rather acknowledge that a machine is a place where a
demonic Ahrimanic entity may be found.
If we take
our stand in the world with knowledge in our souls we
take the right stand in the Michaelic age. It means that
we relate to the spiritual world in such a way that
Michael, too, can be active within us; Michael with his
present mission, as we have described it. The Point is
that in every case we can either enter without thought
into what exists in the mechanical contrivances men are
producing at an unconscious level or we can see through
life. If we see through it, if we become aware of the
demonic elemental powers at work in the machines we
produce, we shall find the way to the rightful givers of
Inspiration who are true to the spirit. They are
connected with the spirit who is to the other spirits
concerned with guidance of man as gold is to the other
metals — with Michael.
My aim
today has been to show that the mission of our age is to
seek the divine spiritual powers that will work for the
good of mankind. It is different from the mission given
to the human souls who lived at the time of Joan of Arc.
At that time it was much more a question of holding back
anything intellectual, holding back the Power of
reasoning. Today, however, it is a question of
cultivating everything to do with reason and intellect to
attain to clairvoyance, for it is possible to cultivate
it and attain to clairvoyance. Once there are people who
cultivate the human soul in this way, the twilight period
we are now living through will evolve into what it
destined to evolve. Everything that evolves on the
physical plane can only be the outer garment for the
spiritual life that is to arise for mankind out of the
Present time.
And it is
true that those who are now sacrificing their powers in
the years of their youth are prepared to send these
powers down into our earthly existence. For these powers
are never lost, they are indestructible- Now, however,
they are destined to continue to act spiritually as they
would have continued to act physically if the people
concerned had not gone through the gate of death on the
field of battle. They will continue to send their powers
down to earth and into our time, so that we shall know
what to do with these powers. These powers need to stream
down into a human race that shall use them in such a way,
during the time of peace that will follow the war, that
spiritual life spreads more and more on earth. As the
light of day always arises from the night, so a future
filled with light will have to arise out of our present
which so often seems like a dark night to us. This future
will have to be filled not only with light but with
everything the Michaelic age, which started in 1871, has
to bring for mankind. Once there are souls capable of
establishing as intimate a bond with the spiritual world
as has been indicated today, we shall be able to hope
that where the events of the present time are concerned,
the thought expressed in the seven lines of the mantram
will come to fruition. We may hope that it will all be
fulfilled — if the first five lines are really and
truly connected with the last two:
Out of courage shown in
battle,
Out of the blood shed in war,
Out of the grief of those who are left,
Out of the people's deeds of sacrifice
Spirit fruits will come to grow
If souls with knowledge of the spirit
Turn their mind to spirit realms.
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