In my last post and elsewhere in this blog, I’ve written about what Steiner called the “War in Heaven” which took place between 1841 and 1879. This battle was waged between angels of the higher hierarchies and some of the spirits of darkness, and it ended with these spirits of darkness being cast down from the spiritual world to the earth. This made the heavens free of these beings but had the unfortunate effect of making the earth full of them. This has led on to what I have called the most terrible century in the whole of human history in terms of war and multiple other causes of human misery.
Why did this happen? According to Steiner, these spirits of darkness wanted to be able to prevent the spiritual wisdom, which was due to be revealed from the 20th century onwards, from flowing into human souls. Only by the removal of these hindering beings from the spiritual realm could our human hearts and minds begin to open to receive from the angels the spiritual knowledge for which we are destined – but the corollary of this was that the opposing spirits of darkness are now here on earth and in fact living within our blood and nervous systems, where they make it their business to spread confusion and to prevent human understanding of spiritual truths.
One of the consequences of this is that clear thinking by human beings is now an absolute necessity – in fact, Steiner says that with regard to what he calls “the inner necessities of evolution”, clarity of thinking is now as essential as eating and drinking are to the maintenance of physical life. Since 1879, we must actively strive for spirituality – if we desire it.
Another consequence is that human beings in their souls more and more come to resemble their thought – to resemble what they regard as knowledge. So if, for example, you are a Darwinian and believe the only possible truth to be that human beings have descended from the animals, then Steiner suggests that you will fashion a kind of consciousness for yourself in which you will perceive your own likeness to animal nature and will therefore be unable to understand the shortcomings of your conception of what it is to be a human being. Since 1879, what we think ourselves to be, that we are obliged to become.
The spirits of darkness attach particular value to the breeding of confusion among us humans, in the hope that we will fail to form correctly the thoughts and ideas into which, after death, we will be transformed. The Gods were bound to make it possible for us to become what we make of ourselves, so that we may attain full and free consciousness of the Self, and find the way that leads from the animal to the Divine – but this freedom, at a time when it was evolutionarily necessary for us to begin to realise that the soul is what it thinks itself to be, has also allowed the spirits of darkness to counter really effective thinking with untruths, eg the idea that all that remains of one who has died is what is decaying in the earth or is ashes in the urn. It really matters to our individual futures whether we, on the one hand, cherish in our souls the thought of those who have died living on in the spiritual world, or on the other hand, succumb to the atheistical notion that on death there is an extinction of consciousness and all that is left of us is something rotting in the grave.
It was the Archangel Michael who won the War in Heaven and who since 1879 has been the time spirit of our age. I have sometimes felt that Michael has placed a terrible burden on humanity by casting down the spirits of darkness to find their new dwelling-place within human beings; but in my wiser moments, I can see that this has in fact been a necessary but very difficult chapter in the evolution of human freedom. Michael himself is evolving and Steiner has spoken of this in a lecture he gave in 1913:
“At no time in human evolution have two successive epochs been so radically different from one another as that which has just run its course and the epoch upon which we are now entering (ie before and after 1879). And never before have souls been more alien to one another than will be the souls of those who incline to what is spiritual and the souls who still adhere to what past centuries have brought. Nor will it be long before those who believe they stand firmly in materialistic monism will be quite out of date in comparison with those who are earnestly seeking an understanding of super-sensible worlds. For since the last third of the nineteenth century a spiritual ‘tidal wave’ from higher worlds has been flowing into our world, and making it possible for man to understand the way in which human and world evolution are spiritually guided.
If one wants to understand the evolution of mankind, one must understand that Michael too has evolved: one must understand that it is the same Being who paved the way for the preparation of the Mystery of Golgotha, and who now in our day paves the way for the understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. Then, however, he was a Folk Spirit, now he is a Time Spirit; then he was the Messenger of Jahve, now he is the Messenger of Christ. We speak of the Christ in the right way when we speak of Michael and his mission, knowing that Michael, who was formerly the bearer of the Jehovah-mission, is now the bearer of the Mission of the Christ.
That is an important Imagination, — Michael overcoming the Dragon. To receive the inflow of spiritual life into the sense world, — from now on, that is the service of Michael. We serve Michael by overcoming the Dragon that is trying to grow to his full height and strength in ideas which during the past epoch produced materialism and which now threaten to prolong their life on into the future. To defeat this means to stand in the service of Michael. That is the victory of Michael over the Dragon. It is the old picture over again, which for earlier times had another meaning and which must now acquire the right meaning for our age. When we are conscious of the part we have to play as men of a new age, then our task can stand before us in the picture of Michael conquering the Dragon.
Let us take this picture and make of it an Imagination. Let us try to understand our times through knowing ourselves to be in a spiritual guidance that is the true spiritual guidance of our age, and that can be the spiritual guidance of every human soul who is sincerely and honestly seeking evolution on the path of spiritual life.
The Adversary has found his abode in man. Michael has remained true to his nature. When man turns to Michael with that part of his life which has its origin in the higher spirituality, then there arises in the soul of man the inward fight of Michael and the Dragon.”
Michael’s victory over the Devil – from St Michael’s Church, Hamburg
anthropopper 
Thankyou Jeremy, for your thoughts.
You say,
So how can one become aware of these opposing spirits? I have often spoken of Ahriman’s nature, which if we are to progress, we must come to understand. Looking into ourselves to find our own subconscious drives will lead directly to the kind of confusion they – Lucifer and Ahriman – are out to create.
In a world that is filled with people who are saturated with these opposing spirits, it is quite natural for them to speak about everything and anything but those opposing spirits. Take a look at the last thread on evil if you don’t believe me! Was there one comment that spoke of how one might deal with evil?
In our day and age there is one thing – and one thing only – that will bring us an understanding of those opposing spirits that lurk within us: conversation.
It is in speaking with others that one will arrive at new ideas – and they will be necessarily painful. It’s how it works with the undeveloped soul: those things that are nice are nice, but go largely unnoticed. Those things that aren’t are painful. Speak to anybody who doesn’t like conversing and you speak with someone who hasn’t developed their soul.
That is the challenge of Ahriman. That was the answer I was looking for in the last post’s threads. All I got by way of conversation was to be told that I wasn’t allowed more than four comments. Yet this cannot be spoken of publicly because of the author’s shameful feelings at denying free speech. Not the kind of thing an anthro does, but it’s what most anthros do.
This is the result of those who wish to adhere to the needs of past epochs. Just as Jeremy quoted in his post:
Who here will accept the challenge of what the spiritual worlds wish to bring us, and who will adhere to what past centuries have brought?
In short, who will converse, and who will either deny this or talk tangentially and so avoid difficult – and painful – subjects.
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Gemma, you know very well the reasons why you have been limited to no more than four comments per post, and I’m surprised that you should want them discussed in public.
Regards,
Jeremy
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Hi, Gemma,
You say, ‘All I got by way of conversation was to be told that I wasn’t allowed more than four comments. Yet this cannot be spoken of publicly because of the author’s shameful feelings at denying free speech. Not the kind of thing an anthro does, but it’s what most anthros do.’
I want to work through this comment backwards. Beginning with, “Not the kind of thing an anthro does, but what most anthros do…”. I am surprised by this kind of criticism being used by someone as intelligent as yourself. There are many different kinds and flavours of anthroposophist and to assume that there is a kind of thing an anthro does is weirdly misleading. It implies there is some kind of orthodoxy that anthros adhere to. If there is such an orthodoxy, then in 50 years of association with anthroposophy I have not become aware of it.
Next I want to address, ‘Yet this cannot be spoken of publicly because of the author’s shameful feelings at denying free speech.’ This is slander. Anyone who knows Jeremy knows he is an honourable and open-minded man who has never denied anyone’s right to free-speech. You appear to be confusing the right to free free-speech with being able to publish anything you wish on Jeremy’s personal blog. It is his domain where he shares his concerns and his conception of anthroposophy and can admit or exclude whatever he wishes. This has nothing to do with any person’s right to free speech. You can exercise your right to free speech on your own blogs – as I know you already do. But Jeremy is not in any way morally obliged to allow you to use his blog.
I am disappointed to find this personal attack on Jeremy, you do have interesting and pertinent things to say about the spiritual situation we find ourselves in and I hope that in future your comments will contain more of this.
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Tom Hart Shea,
if there is one thing that annoys people, it is my very personal ‘attacks’ as you phrase it. So, let me put this the other way around, shall I? How can it be so personal? Is it perhaps because I have listened to the things he says with a great deal of care – and respond in kind, that is to say, with a great deal of care. To those who do not welcome criticism – who are by far the majority in our world today – this will seem like a sharply pointed attack.
The question remains as to why my approach should be seen as an attack.
It is only an attack when somebody has something to hide, something to defend. Should someone level such an attack on me – as Jeremy did a few months ago, and in the full eye of the public – I responded with all the dignity I could muster. I took his criticisms as being partly his own understanding of the world – and partly of mine. That is to say, how could I understand such a criticism of me, when he would never do that to the people he has a sympathy for.
But that raises a big question: is he aware of these sympathies? I will add that unconscious sympathies are the hardest thing to determine, way, way harder than the unconscious antipathy – which he clearly holds for me. I could go into detail, but if you read my blog there is ample description of what is going on in the mind of a person with unconscious antipathies
Again the question: is he aware of this? Because the unconscious is a sly and paradoxical beast that does not lend itself to the either/or of the intellectual soul. But then, we live in a modern age where such things are part of the past – and not of the future.
Tell me this: is it slander when he has denied me my freedom of speech?
Freedom is free, and there are no boundaries, no short cuts and no half measures. That too, must be understood, and you cannot go and say that he has any moral duties, because such ‘moral duties’ are part of the Intellectual Soul. You cannot have it both ways, Tom; either it’s free or it’s not. He has denied me the full freedom to speak.
In doing so, he binds himself to the Fourth Epoch and that which in the Fifth can only be classified as evil. That is his challenge. But it is a challenge you would support him in refusing! Are you too a person who looks behind, rather than into the bright piercing light of the future? Your words to me in private suggest that this is the case.
Freedom is free and anything that prevents this works directly against it, however trivial. If someone does this, they work directly against themselves. If in admitting or excluding whatever (or whomsoever) he chooses, he is working out of the impulses of the Fourth Epoch, where such things were appropriate. We live in the Fifth, where they are not.
You mention that I ought not use his blog for my own purposes – but his friends can say what they like and wander way off topic and not face the least censure from him. They may speak off topic for six, seven or eight times and not face the slightest approbation. If you do not believe me, take a look at the comments on the last post, few of which dealt with the evil that Jeremy was trying to describe.
Yet, I am censored before I even speak! I am allowed to speak four times and that is it – I am judged by the defensive needs of the Fourth Epoch before I have even opened my mouth.
How many comments will I be allowed to express these pertinences? But two more! How can Jeremy, you, or I myself, learn from somebody who has been gagged in this way? If you strive for freedom, you must strive and not deny.
That is the life in with anthroposophists in the Fifth Epoch: whatever you might say about your fifty years of association with them, they are still part of the modern world, not the age that has just passed. They are required to deal with the evil that dwells within them just as anybody else does – whilst to you it may seem that they all express this differently, that does not mean it does not have the same cause.
That is to say, they are all unaware of the evil that dwells within them. So when you say “there is some kind of orthodoxy that anthros adhere to” – there certainly is. The problem is, that like you, they are as unaware of it as is Jeremy. For all his being an open minded person. Because that is how he would appear to anybody who is sympathetic to him… but be unaware of that sympathy. Just as you are. That is no assumption; it is only an assumption to those who are unaware of the subtleties involved. Discover a few of your own antipathies and he might not appear so open minded – perhaps he will seem a little more like me, with my shortcomings?
All of which does mark me out as being somewhat different: because I am aware of a measure of the evil that was within me and I understand what it takes in order to become aware of them. That does not mean to say that I am aware of all the evil that dwells within me, for dealing with ones sympathies – the stage at which I find myself – is a far from easy task. Dealing with Soradt is far more difficult for his evil is far more subtle. However, my struggles will bear fruit in the way my unveiling of most of my antipathies have brought me great joy – a joy I rarely see in other humans, leave alone anthroposophists. But I cannot say that I have unveiled all my antipathies, that is for me to discover in free conversation with all I happen to meet. It is a life’s task, and a task I will undertake for the rest of my life.
All I ask of anybody – anthropsophists included – is that they make a start.
Having worked on myself, I am keenly aware of when someone has not. My problem with them is that they are both unaware of the subtleties I can see – and they are largely beyond words – and the other side to this is that in trying to bring them to awareness of such things, I am accused of attacking them.
I will make it quite plain to you, Tom Hart Shea: it is our job in the Fifth Epoch to attack each other.
In speaking with businessmen I would ask them if they would rather be attacked by a friendly person, someone who was truly on their side – or be attacked by someone who would happily smash their business and their livelihood to pieces. Likewise, you see me attacking Jeremy. But I do so only with words. There are those who for reasons best known to themselves – or more likely, not – who would attack him with weapons that would truly harm him.
And not just dent his ego.
My apologies, but I will answer any future comments on this thread personally as I am bound to four – and only four – comments. That is the wish of the owner of this blog. Comments on my blog require initial moderation and then you are free to comment as you wish without any further hinderance to the conversation. It is the best I can do in the circumstances. I trust those who comment to respect this, for we live in the Fifth Epoch, not the Fourth.
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Gemma wrote:
“My apologies, but I will answer any future comments on this thread personally as I am bound to four – and only four – comments. That is the wish of the owner of this blog. Comments on my blog require initial moderation and then you are free to comment as you wish without any further hindrance to the conversation. It is the best I can do in the circumstances. I trust those who comment to respect this, for we live in the Fifth Epoch, not the Fourth.”
My experience of your blog was to be told I would be strictly moderated, which seemed to preclude free speech. So, how can you write these things? Your style of conversation is to throw the words of the conversant right back in their face, and try to humiliate them. Why do that when conversation is so important between equals? As well, over the several months that you have been contributing to this blog, you have still failed to convey what your motive/agenda is in combatting with anthroposophists, other than that you are not an anthroposophist. You think you can make it up as you go along, in a kind of phony “natural anthroposophy”, and then mimic the words of those that talk about the difference between the fourth and the fifth epoch, and between the intellectual soul and the consciousness soul. This is very evident of a fraudulent being, which is you.
So, please indeed invite discourse over at your blog, which likely appeals to you better.
Steve
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Gemma wrote to me privately to say that she posted my comment to her public blog, and that I cannot edit its remarks, and that I am under automatic moderation of all comments, when usually only the initial post is moderated. So, this seems to prove that what is good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander 😉
What I like about Gemma is her desire to converse, which is both insistent and persistent, when I am usually ignored on most matters. This makes her someone to contend with, which is appreciated, even if it requires defensive action. You see, being put on the defensive means only that one has to further explain their position, and I am more than willing to do that. I like the force that cares enough to demand explanations, even if those explanations still fail to gain credence of any kind. I feel that the moderator here saw way too much wasted mental energy, which hindered the intent of the essays and comments.
Gemma also reiterated to me the following remarks about doing the exercises that Steiner prescribed:
“What I will say is this: do the exercises. Rudolf Steiner would have
said the same. They will bring you an understanding that words alone
cannot bring you. All Rudolf Steiner’s lectures are intended to
explain the results of having done the exercises. Rudolf Steiner did
the exercises he was given, otherwise he would not have achieved that
which he did.” [One administrative note is that your comments will now be moderated automatically].
Now, for me, this insistence on the exercises is something that Steiner never demanded of anyone. No, what he demanded was paying attention in order to received new knowledge. And this is the path of modern initiation science. As such, it comprises absorbing in a conceptual framework this new knowledge, i.e., the science of the spirit; and maybe for an entire lifetime. That means this very lifetime in which we are living. So, the very first step in “doing the exercises” is what?
Does Gemma even know what this very first step is, and what it says? In itself, it could last a lifetime in order to be just the very first step.
Steve
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for your little michael…did you get the plane or ask it to wait while you swam…you are something else….amazing pertinence , sometimes disturbing for others …but impressive…hoping you let go to let in….
>
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I’m not sure I understand your comment, b.m., or why you chose to attach the clip of Ken Robinson giving a TED talk, but would be happy to hear your further thoughts.
Regards,
Jeremy
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Dear Jeremy,
The best place that Rudolf Steiner described all this, especially the meaningful significance of the “Event of 1879”, is the lecture cycle, GA 177: The Fall of the Spirits of Darkness, which began on Michaelmas in 1917, and wherein Steiner duly exploits President Wilson’s reasons for entering the war throughout this course. As such, it was a planned stratagem from the beginning, as previously indicated. Wilson maintained the aura of neutrality, while supplying arms and munitions to the allied powers from the very beginning of the war. In January 1917, the die was cast with the Zimmermann telegram.
In lecture thirteen of this course, Steiner reiterates very much of what he has gone over. First, he says that the victory of Michael in 1879 assured that the science of the spirit would come to earth in 1900, which makes Steiner the emissary of Michael in the so-called, “battle for the cosmic intelligence”.
Then, he reiterates how the Eighth Ecumenical Council of 869, instigated by the Roman Catholic church, rejected the first member of the Trinity, i.e., the Spirit, by saying that the fall of Adam and Eve was disobedient, and therefore man became a being of body and soul only. In 1147 years, the western orthodox church, in all of its denominations, has never wavered from this declaration. But it is a lie.
Steiner then describes the further attempts to weaken the human spirit. He reiterates from lectures four and five, how clever constructions of the fallen ahrimanic spirits seek to weaken the soul through vaccines, which invite the antibodies of the elementary spirits of birth and death into human nature. I personally remember getting my first flu shot in the early 1950’s, and I was never the same again. I suspect many others remember the experience. So, Steiner had the pulse-beat on vaccinations. He calls it the second assault on the trinity of spirit-soul-body in this lecture.
n.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA177/English/RSP1993/19171027p01.html
In 2016, we need this kind of discourse very much. In America at this particular time, we have two very inept candidates vying for POTUS. They both know nothing about the foregoing discourse, but subscribe entirely to what they are told to believe by “guess who”? Scary stuff, indeed.
Steve
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“Then, he reiterates how the Eighth Ecumenical Council of 869, instigated by the Roman Catholic church, rejected the first member of the Trinity, i.e., the Spirit, by saying that the fall of Adam and Eve was disobedient, and therefore man became a being of body and soul only.”
It is not without significance that Steiner introduces his very last essays: The Michael Mystery, with this first installment, wherein the dawn of the Michael age actually occurs in the 9th century; some one thousand years before the Event of 1879. Steiner had said previously, ref. GA184, that the event of 869 was the first overt act of Soradt, c. 666, in influencing external history to his cause.
Thus, Michael begins to intervene since 869 in working to thwart the incursion of Soradt. He is compelled to influence the Raphael, Samael, and Gabriel regencies in consecutive order with his cosmic intelligence. He sees what Soradt is up to, and is determined to overthrow and defeat it.
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA026/English/APC1956/GA026_c01.html
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Jeremy,
Never have two successive regencies been more opposed than the present Michael regency, and his predecessor, Gabriel, as you cited in your essay, ref. GA153, May 2, 1913. As such, Gabriel is noted for bringing about the abstract thinking of the 19th century, and the modern science that exists today. This is due to Gabriel’s influence in developing the frontal lobe of the brain, which symbolizes abstract thinking. Prior to that, and right up to the end of the 18th century, a pre-frontal lobe era existed with its instinctive knowledge, which still beheld the spiritual working behind this material facade.
What makes the Michael regency so important in its opposition to Gabriel’s prior mission of bringing about abstract thinking is that Michael seeks to develop an organ that can also be found in the brain, and intends to promote self-remembering of past incarnations lived on earth. And, it is this faculty that will serve to bring forth the full consciousness needed to combat the evil that exists in the world.
Please allow this extended extract as it conveys the facts very well of an organ of the future developing right now:
“In the present epoch of human life a delicate organ is being developed in man. It is not perceptible to anatomists and physiologists, yet it exists as an anatomical structure. This rudimentary organ is situated in the brain, near the organ of speech.
The development of this organ in the convolutions of the brain is not the result of the karma of individual souls but of human evolution as a whole on the earth; and in the future all men will possess it, no matter what the development of the souls incarnating in the bodies may be, and irrespective of the karma connected with these souls.
In a future incarnation this organ will be possessed by human beings who at the present time may be opposed to Anthroposophy as well as by those who are now in sympathy with it. This organ will in future time be the physical means, the physical instrument, for the application of certain powers of the soul; just as, for example, Broca’s organ in the third convolution of the brain is the organ of the human faculty of speech.
When this new organ has developed it may either be used rightly by mankind, or it may not. Those people will be able to use it rightly who are now preparing the possibility of having in their next incarnation a true remembrance of the present one. For this physical organ will be the physical means for remembering an earlier incarnation — which in the case of by far the greater majority of people is possible now only through higher development, through Initiation. But a faculty which in the present epoch it would be possible to acquire only through Initiation will later on become the common property of mankind. Our modern knowledge was formerly the special knowledge possessed by the Atlantean Initiates only; everyone can now possess it. In the same way, remembrance of former lives on earth is possible at present only for Initiates but in times to come it will be possible for every human soul.
The Initiate is able to attain certain knowledge without the use of a physical organ, but this knowledge can become the common property of mankind only when a physical organ through which it can be acquired is developed in mankind as a whole in the course of evolution.
The reincarnated souls must, however, be able to use this organ in the right way and only those who in the present incarnation have inscribed occult thoughts and ideas in the Akasha-substance will be capable of this.”
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA152/English/RSP1966/19130501p01.html
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Michael and the soratic, two horned Beast are also depicted in one of the seven seals (GA101/19070916).
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Michael is not depicted in any of the seven occult seal pictures. This is because his relationship to the individual human spirit has grown more intimate. This coincides with his advancement from the rank of archangel, when he spoke inspirations into the heads of the Greek philosophers, who felt that “Michael thinks in me”, to the rank of archai with the victory over the dragon in 1879, and its subsequent fall into the human domain. Knowing this, and its dire threat, Michael impresses his image into the human etheric body, and creating a shield of protection. This is why Michael seeks to be close to us in individual communion, and yet, not obtrusive. He wants us to come to him in free and individual willing. Steiner’s work helps in this cause immeasurably, as with GA26, and also GA223, “Michaelmas and the Soul Forces of Man”.
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Sure, Steve.
‘The next picture shows us that the human being, when he had achieved the highest spirituality, takes on the form of Michael fettering the evil in the world, symbolized by the dragon.’
Depicted is the Beast from the Earth (cf. Rev.13), the Sun demon.
‘Vom michaelischen Standpunkt aus ist eigentlich Satan nicht eine zu verachtende Macht, sondern eine ungeheuer zu fürchtende Macht, weil Michael diese Macht, die in die Hierarchie der Archai hineingehört, höherstehend erscheint als er selbst.‘ GA 346.162
Michael works into (the rhytms of) the physical world:
‘Then in the last third of the nineteenth century Michael himself presses forward into the physical earthly world with the activities which he has exercised in preparation from out of the Supersensible, from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century.’ GA 26_c10
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“The power by which the sun-genius overcomes those who are expelled, which drives them down into the abyss, is called the countenance of the sun-genius and the countenance of the sun-genius is Michael, who, as the representative, so to speak, of the sun-genius, overcomes the beast with the two horns, the seducer, which is also called the great dragon. This is represented to the seer in the picture of Michael who has the key, who stands by the side of God and holds the opposing forces chained.” GA104, lecture XI.
“The next picture [sixth seal] shows us that the human being, when he had achieved the highest spirituality, takes on the form of Michael fettering the evil in the world, symbolized by the dragon.” GA101, lecture IV.
“Michael’s Conflict with the Dragon persisted into the 18th Century as a determining impulse in mankind. The core of the matter is this: all impulses such as the Michael impulse depend upon man’s attaining to super-sensible enlightenment concerning his connection not only with earthly but with cosmic conditions: he must learn to feel himself not only as an earth citizen but as a citizen of the universe, as far as this is perceptible either spiritually or, in image, physically.” GA223, lecture III.
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Further Thoughts on: The Evolution of the Michael Impulse
I fear that words conveyed on paper get in the way of people’s conception of important topics, like this one. They lose attention-span out of disinterest, apathy, indolence, or a simply doltish attitude to life. But this topic is essential stuff. As such, the Michael Impulse needs to be compared to the Christ Impulse.
We know that Christ entered earth evolution at a critical point in time. He entered in order to solve the problem of Death. By conducting the Mystery of Golgotha, mankind was saved from the encroaching descent into hell, and ultimate oblivion. We were saved through this act in order to be redeemed, and enabled to rise again in an ascending fashion as the human race.
Yet, this sacrificial act of Christ on behalf of mankind, also meant that on the path of ascent we would meet the opponent of Christ, as a necessary outcome, Death unto oblivion without Christ also means that Evil has no force and effect. But, we were saved in order to begin the ascent to where we are today. Thus, the paradox is that we live to experience and stand-up to the figure that stands behind and conducts the problem of Evil. This is the anti-Christ, which was assured us as the opponent of the Christ Impulse, once the fundamental act of salvation occurred.
Michael’s task, as the close assistant of the Christ, is owed to his affiliation with the Sun-Sphere itself, and why Michael bears the burden of solving the problem of Evil. As such, Michael knows that he needs active human participation in this cause. While Christ solved the problem of Death alone, Michael needs the help of the Human Will to achieve the defeat of the advancing evil seen working in the world today.
Consider the state of the human will today. Is it weak or strong? Does it even have an inkling of the Cosmic Intelligence? That is why any depiction of Michael Himself must be strong, and show strength and resolve in defeating old “frowny-face”. I love the sculpture outside the Michael church in Hamburg. I believe it depicts Michael’s own essence.
Steve
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I came across this blog while searching for information on Michaelic spirits. Can someone recommend a starting point for someone entirely new to Anthroposophy? I have yet to discover the “exercises” and am a bit overwhelmed when I search for information online. Thank you kindly.
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Welcome to the blog, Boo Jangles, and thank you for your enquiry!
Before you get too deeply into researching Michael, it would probably be a good idea to give yourself an introduction to anthroposophy. There are many posts on this blog to look at, but if you would like a simple and well-structured book, I can recommend “An Introduction to Anthroposophy” by the late Francis Edmunds, who was also the founder of Emerson College in the UK:
https://www.waterstones.com/book/an-introduction-to-anthroposophy/francis-edmunds/9781855841635
No doubt other people will also have useful suggestions for you – best wishes for your new journey of discovery!
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