Michaelmas and the Soul-Forces of Man

Translator's Note

When a wholly untranslatable word occurs in a text there is no adequate alternative to retaining it. The dictionary translates Gemüt as “heart, soul, mind,” seeming to imply, “take your choice.” But the word Gemüt must not be thought of as having these three separate meanings, but rather as a unified concept embracing all three. Let us think of Gemüt, then, as meaning something like

the mind warmed by a loving heart and stimulated by the soul's imaginative power.

Or again, it might be described as

the soul in a state of unconscious intuition arising from the working together of heart and mind.

It is a very beautiful and comprehensive word with which every student of anthroposophy should be on intimate terms — a statement amply confirmed by a sentence that occurs in the text:

“This human Gemüt dwells in the very center of the soul life.” (Steiner)