Dear friends - The Arthur / Grail leitmotifs have been swirling salient in the ethers, more than usual for me as the Summer-tide pushes the Dog-Days into the harvest scythe. It is boding us like the proverbial little birdy whispering to ears that will to hear – a key-call to rouse & riddle us into synchronistic secrets of this now. We touched on these themes recently in an essay about the Elementally charged isle of Tintagel. And Today, while tuning into one of my all-time favorite, sagely enthralling lectures, given by the Rosicrucian Initiate Rudolf Steiner - 100 years ago on this date - 27 August 1924 in London - from the mind-blowing Karmic Relationships series, I knew I had to delve & divine this augury with you…
1st off – Where were you? What were you doing, in 869 when the Church Fathers gathered together in Constantinople at the Eighth Ecumenical Council, to formulate the dogma that the human being no longer has a 3-fold nature consisting of body, soul & Spirit - but only 2 dimensions of body & soul..? This diabolical declaration was the counter-image of a great & powerful spiritual event that was also happening at that time on earth. But before we get to all that, a little background:
The Arthur Stream, which we can think of as moving from West to East, From England reaching toward the Middle East; holding the pagan piety of the pre-Christian impulse, were able to behold Christ as a Sun-Being, working now into the etheric realm thru the elements. Important to note that those that gathered in the court of King Arthur were in the Sun Sphere between death & rebirth together with the Christ Being before He incarnated on earth.
The souls that made up the Grail stream, moving from East (Palestine where the deed of Christ occurred) to the West - into Ireland & the Hibernian mysteries, were there on earth when Christ incarnated, so they carried the Christ impulse in their hearts. It was at this time in 869 that these 2 streams - West to East = Sun in Nature; & East to West = Inner Heart Sun, meet, in middle Europe.
The Christianity of the Grail lived in those souls who were on earth when the Mystery of Golgotha took place; & now in their incarnations after that life, this impulse moved through the blood - the inner Sun of the heart.
And to meet this, we have the pagan piety of the Arthur stream, those who knew the Christ in the Sun Sphere before the incarnation – & who, in their next life in the West, were able to read the ‘Image of the Christ in the etheric’ - actually experience the Christ in the interplay of the elements — Christ as Lord of the Elements - the Image that lived in them was evoked by the Mystery of Golgotha, but they still pictured their Sun-Hero’s as the Christ of the Sun Mysteries. The pagan piety of the Arthur-Christianity, active especially in the North West - the Knights of Arthur - spread their culture abroad, passing across Central Europe under the banner of Christ, as Sun Hero, with names like Baldur. The other stream, perceived more in the South coming from the East, rooted inwardly in human hearts - later became known as the Grail stream - The Holy Grail that bears the Christ Himself. Now we can see how both streams play their part - The Pagan stream from the West brings the cosmic & elemental Image of the Christ - to meet this Grail impulse. This is esotericly described as “the meeting of Christ with Himself” - The meeting between the Christ Who had Himself come down to earth - of Christ, the Brother of Humanity in the heart; - With Christ, the Sun Hero - Who is experienced as an etheric Image of ‘Christ as Lord of the Elements’, which is brought togther from West to East. This meeting took place in the year 869 A.D.
Spiritual Science talks about how when the Cosmic Being of Christ, who was making His way from the Trinity, down thru all the various hierarchies of the zodiacal realms, left the Sun to come to earth, & when this occured, it was like what the human being experiences at death – a separation & dissolution of our etheric & astral bodies, but in the case of this high Cosmic Being, it was like an expanding of His spiritualized vital body – the ‘Life-Spirit’ - into the etheric realm of the earth, while His sheath the ‘Spirit-Anthropos’ stayed behind for a time on the Sun. As above so Below…
At the same time - In the spiritual world which borders on our physical earth—the entelechies of Aristotle, & his pupil Alexander the Great, who were in the spiritual world between death & rebirth, met with Haroun al Raschid & his Counsellor, who were also in the spiritual world, after having worked with Aristotelian concepts that they had made materialistic. These discarnate souls had a kind of council of their own, to determine the further progress of Christianity on earth, with an eye to what should come at the end of the 19th & 20th century, when the Archai Michael would again become the ruling Time Spirit, as he was during the time of Aristotle, on earth. “This all took place in the light raying from that other event, namely, the meeting of Christ with His own Image.” But as fate would have it, Haroun al Raschid & his Counsellor chose not further the Christ impulse in their next lives as Frances Bacon – bringing instead an intellectualized modern science, & Amos Comenius – a materialistic educational system. And so that great spiritual event of the uniting of the streams in Christ was over- shadowed for a time. And yet the spiritual powers acting for the divine unfoldment of humanity continues working in the super-sensible realms in what we have often referred to here as the ‘Michael School’ in the 15th Century; & then in the 19th Century in the ‘Cosmic Cultus’; which became the ‘First’ & ‘Second’ Class of the esoteric School of Spiritual Science on earth thru Rudolf Steiner.
Dear friends, when we wake up to our karma, & begin to connect the dots, we can consciously take up these teachings, & make them practical, to counter-act the materialistic tendencies that would have us deny the spirit. I’m sure my attempt to summarize this power-packed augury has fallen way short, so I encourage you to read the lecture yourself…
Bottomline: We were there. Do you remember what stream you were wading in? And now we’re here…so…? Let’s resurrect the 3-fold human being - by bridging the 2 Streams within ourselves - So that we can meet Christ in the Center - And from the Middle Piillar radiate the Christ impulse thru our head, heart & hands… ~hag
27 August 2024 - “Speaking with the Stars”
Karmic Relationships VIII |
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And if we look back with occult sight, if we can visualise the point of time which lies a few thousand years ago, when the Arthur stream had its beginning, then we see that those who lived on Arthur's Mount had, as is the case with all such occult centres, chosen this spot because the impulses necessary for the tasks they had set themselves, for their mission in the world, needed the play of those forces which nature there displayed before them.
When I saw the view, there was a most wonderful play of waves surging and rippling up from the depths — one of the most beautiful sights in all nature. These waves hurl themselves against the walls of rock and as they fall back again in seething foam the elementary spirits are able to rise up from below and come to living expression.
From above, the sunlight is reflected in manifold forms in the waves of the air. This interplay of elemental nature from above and from below reveals the full power of the Sun and displays it in such a way that man is able to receive it into his being.
Those who can imbibe what is given by this interplay of the beings born of the light above and the beings born in the depths below, receive the power of the Sun, the impulse of the Sun.
It is a moment in which the human being can unfold what I will call “piety” — piety in the pagan sense.
Christian piety is not the same as pagan piety, which means inner surrender to the gods of nature working and weaving everywhere in the play of nature.
Those who lived around King Arthur absorbed this play of weaving, working nature into their very being. And most significant of all was what they were able to receive in the first centuries after the Mystery of Golgotha.
I want to tell you to-day about the character of this spiritual life that was connected with such centres as that of King Arthur's Round Table. And I must begin by speaking of something that is known to you all.
When a human being dies, he leaves his physical body and still has his etheric body around him for a few days. After these few days have elapsed he lays aside his etheric body and lives on then in his astral body and Ego.
What happens thus to the person who has passed through the gate of death, appears to the eye of vision as if the etheric being were dissolving.
After death the etheric human being expands and expands, their actual form becoming more and more indefinite as they weave themselves into the cosmos.
A remarkable phenomenon - the exact opposite of this occurred in the world-historic sense when the Mystery of Golgotha took place. What was it that happened then?
Up to that time Christ had been a Sun Being, had belonged to the Sun. Before the Mystery of Golgotha had come to pass, the Knights of King Arthur's Round Table stood on these rocks, gazed at the play between the Sun-born spirits and the Earth-born spirits, and felt that the forces living in this play of nature-spirits poured into their hearts and above all through their etheric bodies. Therewith they received into themselves the Christ Impulse which was then streaming from the Sun and was living in everything that is brought into being by the Sun-forces.
And so, before the Mystery of Golgotha, the Knights of King Arthur received into themselves the Sun-Spirit - the Christ - as He was in pre-Christian times…
Then came the Mystery of Golgotha.
What happened in Asia?
Over yonder in Asia, the sublime Sun Being, Who was later known as the Christ, left the Sun.
This betokened a kind of death for the Christ Being.
He went forth from the Sun as we human beings go forth from the earth when we die.
And as a man who dies leaves his physical body behind on the earth and his etheric body which is laid aside after three days is visible to the seer, so Christ left behind Him in the Sun that which in my book Theosophy is called “Spirit-Man,” the seventh member of the human being.
Christ died to the Sun. He died cosmically, from the Sun to the earth. He came down to the earth. From the moment of Golgotha onwards His Life-Spirit was to be seen around the earth.
We ourselves leave behind at death the Life-Ether, the etheric body, the life-body.
After this cosmic Death, Christ left His Spirit-Man on the Sun, and around the earth, His Life-Spirit. So that after the Mystery of Golgotha the earth was swathed as it were by the Life-Spirit of the Christ.
Now the connections between places are not the same in the spiritual life as they are in physical life. The Life-Spirit of the Christ was perceived in the Irish Mysteries, in the Mysteries of Hibernia; and above all by the Knights of King Arthur's Round Table.
So, up to the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, the Christ Impulse belonging to the Sun actually went out from this place where the impulses were received from the Sun.
Afterwards the power of the Knights diminished but they lived at the time within this Life-Spirit which encircled the earth and in which there was this constant interplay of light and air, of the Spirits in the Elements from above and from below.
Try to picture to yourselves the cliff with King Arthur's castle upon it and from above the Sun-forces playing down in the light and air, and pouring upwards from below the elementary beings of the earth. There is a living interplay between Sun and earth.
In the centuries which followed the Mystery of Golgotha this all took place within the Life-Spirit of the Christ. So that in the play of nature between sea and rock, air and light, there was revealed, as it were in spiritual light, the Event of Golgotha.
Understand me rightly, my dear friends. If in the first five centuries of our era people looked out over the sea, and had been prepared by the exercises practised by the twelve who were around King Arthur and who were concerned above all with the Mysteries of the Zodiac, if they looked out over the sea they could see not merely the play of nature but they could begin to read a meaning in it just as one reads a book instead of merely staring at it.
And as they looked and saw, here a gleam of light, there a curling wave, here the sun mirrored on a rocky cliff, there the sea dashing against the rocks, it all became a flowing, weaving picture — a truth whose meaning could be deciphered.
And when they deciphered it they knew of the spiritual Fact of the Mystery of Golgotha. The Mystery of Golgotha was revealed to them because the picture was all irradiated by the Life-Spirit of Christ presented to them by nature.
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Yonder in Asia the Mystery of Golgotha had taken place, and its impulse had penetrated deeply into the hearts and souls of men.
We need only think of those who became the first Christians to realise what a change had come about in their souls. While all this of which I have been telling you was happening in the West, the Christ Himself, the Christ Who had come down to earth leaving His Spirit-Man on the Sun and His Life-Spirit in the atmosphere around the earth, bringing down His Ego and His Spirit-Self to the earth — the Christ was moving from East to West in the hearts of men, through Greece, Northern Africa, Italy, Spain, across Europe. The Christ worked here in the hearts of men, while over in the West He was working through nature.
And so on the one hand we have the story of the Mystery of Golgotha, legible in the Book of Nature for those who were able to read it, working from West to East. It represented, as it were, the science of the higher graduates of King Arthur's Round Table.
And on the other hand we have a stream flowing from East to West, not in wind and wave, in air and water, not over hills or in the rays of the Sun, but flowing through the blood, laying hold of the hearts of men on its course from Palestine through Greece into Italy and Spain.
The one stream flows through nature; the other through the blood and the hearts of men.
These two streams flow to meet one another.
The pagan stream is still working, even to-day. It bears the pre-Christian Christ, the Christ Who was proclaimed as a Sun Being by those who were Knights of the Round Table, but also by many others before the Mystery of Golgotha actually took place. The pre-Christian Christ was carried through the world by this stream even in the age of the Mystery of Golgotha. And a great deal of this wisdom was carried forth into the world by the stream known as that of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. It is possible, even to-day, to discover these things. There is a pagan Christianity, a Christianity that is not directly bound up with the actual historical Event of Golgotha.
And coming upwards to meet this stream there is the form of Christianity that is connected directly with the Mystery of Golgotha, flowing through the blood, through the hearts and souls of men.
Two streams come to meet one another — the pre-Christian Christ stream, etherealised as it were, and the Christian Christ stream.
The one is known, subsequently, as the Arthur stream; the other as the Grail stream.
Later on they came together; they came together in Europe, above all in the spiritual world.
How can we describe this movement?
The Christ Who descended through the Mystery of Golgotha drew into the hearts of men. In the hearts of men He passed from East to West, from Palestine, through Greece, across Italy and Spain.
The Christianity of the Grail spread through the blood and the hearts of men. The Christ took His way from East to West.
And to meet Him from the West there came the spiritual etheric Image of the Christ — the Image evoked by the Mystery of Golgotha, but still picturing the Christ of the Sun Mysteries.
Behind the scenes of world-history, sublime and wonderful events were taking place.
From the West came pagan Christianity, the Arthur-Christianity, also under other names and in another form.
From the East came the Christ in the hearts of men.
And then the meeting takes place — the meeting between the Christ Who had Himself come down to earth and His Own Image which is brought to Him from West to East.
This meeting took place in the year 869 A.D.
Up to that year we have two streams, clearly distinct from one another.
The one stream, more in the North, passed across Central Europe and bore the Christ as a Sun Hero, whether the name were Baldur or some other. And under the banner of Christ, the Sun Hero, the Knights of Arthur spread their culture abroad.
The other stream, rooted inwardly in the hearts of men, which later on became the Grail stream, is to be perceived more in the South, coming from the East. It bears the real Christ, Christ Himself.
The other stream brings to meet it from the West a cosmic Image of the Christ.
This meeting of Christ with Himself, of Christ the Brother of Humanity with Christ the Sun Hero Who is there only as it were in an Image — this meeting of Christ with His own Image took place in the 9th century…
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When we consider this significant Arthur stream from West to East, it appears to us as the stream which brings the Impulse of the Sun into earthly civilisation. In this Arthur stream is working and weaving the Michael stream as we may call it in Christian terminology, the stream in the spiritual life of humanity in which we have been living since the end of the seventies of last century.
The Ruling Power, known by the name of Gabriel, who had held sway for three or four centuries in European civilisation, was succeeded at the end of the seventies of last century by Michael. And the Rulership of Michael will last for three to four centuries, weaving and working in the spiritual life of mankind. And so we have good cause at the present time to speak of the Michael streams, for we ourselves are living once again in an Age of Michael.
We find one of these Michael streams if we look back to the period immediately preceding that of the Mystery of Golgotha, to the Arthur Impulse going out from the West, from England, an Impulse which was kindled originally by the Hibernian Mysteries.
And we find a still more ancient form of this Michael stream if we look back to what happened centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha, when, taking its start from Northern Greece, in Macedonia, the international, cosmopolitan stream connected with the name of Alexander the Great arose under the influence of the conception of the world that is known as the Aristotelian.
What was achieved through Aristotle and Alexander in that pre-Christian age took place under the Rulership of Michael, just as now once again we are living under his Rulership.
The Michael Impulse was there in the spiritual life at the time of Alexander the Great, just as it is there now, in our own time.
Whenever a Michael Impulse is at work in humanity upon the earth it is always a time when that which has been founded in a centre of spiritual culture spreads abroad among many peoples of the earth and is carried into many regions, wherever it is possible to carry it.
This came to pass in pre-Christian times through the campaigns of Alexander. The achievements of Greek culture were spread among men wherever this became possible.
If one had asked Alexander and Aristotle: Whence comes your impulse to spread abroad the spiritual culture of your age? — they would have spoken, though under a different name, of that same Being, Michael, who works from the Sun as the Servant of Christ.
For among the Archangels who in turn rule over civilisation, Michael belongs to the Sun.
Michael was Ruler in the time of Alexander and is Ruler again in our own time.
The next Ruling Archangel was Oriphiel, who belongs to Saturn. His successor, the Archangel Anael, belongs to Venus. While Zachariel, the Archangel who ruled civilisation in the 4th and 5th centuries, belongs to the sphere of Jupiter. Then came Raphael, from the Mercury sphere, at the time when a form of thought connected with medicine and healing lived in the background of European civilisation. After Raphael came Samael, whose Rulership extended a little beyond the 12th century. And then came the Age of Gabriel. Samael belongs to Mars, Gabriel to the Moon. And Gabriel was once again succeeded by Michael, who belongs to the Sun sphere, in the seventies of the 19th century. Thus in rhythmic succession these seven Beings of the Hierarchy of the Archangels rule over the spiritual life of the earth.
And so as we look back — when was the last Rulership of Michael? It was in the Alexander period. It prevailed during that period when Greek civilisation was carried across to Asia and Africa, and finally concentrated in the great and influential city of Alexandria with its mighty heroes of the spiritual life.
It is a strange vista that presents itself to occult sight. In the age which lies a few centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha, we see, going Eastwards from Macedonia — that is to say, once more from West to East — we see the same stream which proceeds from the English and Irish souls in the West and which also flows from West to East.
During the Alexander period, Michael was the Ruling Archangel on the earth. During the Arthur period, when Michael was working from the Sun, the influences I have described were sent down from the Sun.
But what happened later on, after the Mystery of Golgotha had taken place?
What happened to the kind of thought that had been carried by Alexander the Great over to Asia?
At the time when Charlemagne, in his own way, was establishing a certain form of Christian culture in Europe, Haroun al Raschid was living over yonder in Asia Minor. All the oriental wisdom and spirituality to be found at that time in architecture, in art, in science, in religion, in literature, in poetry — it was all gathered at the Court of Haroun al Raschid. And at his side there was a Counsellor, a man who was not initiated in all these arts and sciences at that time, but who had been an Initiate in earlier times, in a former life.
Around these two men, Haroun al Raschid and his Counsellor, we find that all the wisdom which had been carried by Alexander into Asia, all the teachings which had been drawn from the old nature-wisdom and were imparted by Aristotle to those he was able to instruct — all this was changed.
Alexandrianism and Aristotelianism were permeated and impregnated at the Court of Haroun al Raschid with the Eastern culture of Arabism, with Mohammedanism.
And then, all the learning thus permeated with Arabism was carried over into the stream of Christianity by way of Greece, but especially by way of Northern Africa, Italy and Spain. It was carried over, inculcated as it were into the world of Christendom.
But before this, Haroun al Raschid and his Counsellor had passed through the gate of death, and from that life which leads from death to a new birth they looked down on what was taking place on earth in the expeditions of the Mohammedan Moors to Spain.
From the spiritual world they watched the form of culture which they themselves had promoted and which had been spread by their successors.
Haroun al Raschid concentrated his attention from the spiritual world more on the regions of Greece, Italy and Spain; his Counsellor more on the stream going out from the East across the regions to the North of the Black Sea, through Russia and into Central Europe.
And now the question arises: What was the destiny of Alexander and Aristotle themselves? They were deeply bound up with the Rulership of Michael but they were not incarnated on the earth at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha.
We must try to get a clear conception of the two contrasting pictures.
On the earth are those who were contemporaries of the Mystery of Golgotha.
Christ comes down through the Mystery of Golgotha, becomes Man, and from then on lives in the earth-sphere.
And what is happening on the Sun?
On the Sun there are the souls who at that time belonged to Michael, who were living in his sphere. These souls witnessed, from the Sun, the departure of Christ from the Sun and His descent to earth.
On the earth there were those who witnessed His arrival. That is the difference.
The experience of those who were on earth during the Michael Rulership at the time of Alexander, was that they saw as it were the other direction of the Christ Event, namely, the departure of the Christ from the Sun.
They live on — I will not now mention unimportant incarnations — and they experience, in the spiritual world, that significant point of time in the 9th century, about the year 869, when there took place the meeting of the Christ with His own Image, with His own Life-Spirit brought over from pagan, pre-Christian Christianity.
Another meeting also took place in the spiritual world, a meeting of the individualities living in Alexander the Great and in Aristotle with the individualities who had lived in Haroun al Raschid and his Counsellor.
The wisdom from Asia, in a Mohammedanised form, living in Haroun al Raschid and his Counsellor after their death, came into contact, in the spiritual world, with Alexander and Aristotle.
On the one side, Aristotelianism and Alexandrianism, but impregnated with Mohammedanism, and on the other, the real Aristotle and the real Alexander — not a weakened form of their teachings. Alexander and Aristotle had witnessed the Mystery of Golgotha from the Sun.
Then a great spiritual exchange, a great heavenly Council, if one may call it so, took place in the spiritual world between Mohammedanised Aristotelianism and Christianised Aristotelianism which had, however, been imbued in the spiritual world with the Christian Impulse.
In the spiritual world which borders on our physical earth — it was here that Alexander and Aristotle met with Haroun al Raschid and his Counsellor and consulted together as to the further progress of Christianity in Europe, with an eye to what should come at the end of the 19th century and in the 20th century, when Michael would again have the Rulership on earth.
This all took place in the light raying from that other event, namely, the meeting of Christ with His own Image. That heavenly Council was permeated by the influence of this meeting. And the lines, the threads of the spiritual life of humanity were projected with great intensity in the spiritual world which borders on the physical earth.
Below, on the earth itself, the Church Fathers gathered together in Constantinople at the Eighth Ecumenical Council, where they formulated the dogma that the human being does not consist of body, soul and Spirit, but only of body and soul, the soul possessing certain spiritual attributes.
Trichotomy — the definition of the human being as body, soul and Spirit — was done away with, and anyone who persisted in believing it was declared to be a heretic. The Christian Fathers in Europe never spoke of body, soul and Spirit, but only of body and soul.
The decisive event which took place in the year 869 in the super-sensible worlds as I have described it, cast its shadows down into the earthly world. The Dark Age, the Kali Yuga, received a special impetus, while what I have just described was taking place above, in the spiritual world.
Such was the real course of events. In the physical world the Council of Constantinople which eliminated the Spirit, and in the world immediately bordering on the physical, a heavenly Council such as I have described — coinciding with the meeting of Christ Himself with His own Image.
But it was known that it was a question of waiting until the new Michael Age had dawned on earth…
In you yourselves, my dear friends, are the souls who were in incarnation at that time, and listened to those who spoke of the coming Age of Michael and whose speech was influenced by impulses coming down from the heavenly Council of which I have told you…
And so the karmic urge lives in souls to find their way to that form of Christianity which was to be spread by Anthroposophy under the influence of Michael at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries…
Knowledge resulting from a converging of old pre-Christian, cosmic Christianity, with inward Christian doctrines, teachings which were connected with the spiritual workings of nature, and yet also with the Mystery of Golgotha, continued to be taught on earth at the time when those souls who now in this later incarnation feel themselves drawn to Anthroposophy had passed through the gates of death and were living in the spiritual world between death and a new birth. Some of them indeed came down to incarnation on the earth.
The ancient teachings, with their cosmic view of Christianity, lived on, propagating traditions of the Mysteries of antiquity. This knowledge lived on in Schools in Europe like that of Chartres in the 12th century, with its great Teachers — Bernardus Sylvestris, Alanus ab Insulis and others. And the teachings lived and worked too in the great teacher of Dante, Brunetto Latini, of whom I spoke to you in the last lecture.
In this way we see how there is a continuation of the knowledge in which there was still connection between cosmic Christianity and the purely human, earthly Christianity which more and more gained the supremacy on earth.
The Council held in Constantinople was an earthly, shadow-image of something that took place in the spiritual world.
A constant connection was maintained between what was proceeding in the physical world and in the immediately adjacent spiritual world. And because of this, the most illustrious Teachers of Chartres felt themselves inspired by the true Alexander and the true Aristotle, although in a still stronger way by Plato and by the Platonic and Neo-Platonic thought which prevailed in the mysticism of the Middle Ages.
Something of great significance now took place.
Those who had grouped themselves around Michael, and who had for the most part been incarnated at the time of Alexander, were now living in the spiritual world. Looking down from thence they saw how Christianity was evolving under the Teachers of Chartres. But they waited until these Teachers — who were the last who taught of Christianity in its cosmic aspect — they waited until these Teachers of Chartres had come up into the spiritual world. And at the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th centuries, there gathered together in the spiritual sphere bordering on cur earth, the more definitely Platonic Teachers of Chartres and those who had in some way taken part in the heavenly Council in the year 869.
There took place — if I may use trivial words of earth to describe such a sublime event — a kind of conference between the Teachers of Chartres who had just ascended into the spiritual world and were now to continue their existence there, and those who were on the point of descending to earth, among them the individualities of Alexander and Aristotle, who immediately afterwards incarnated in the Dominican Order.
And then, in a body of teaching - in Scholasticism, preparation was made for all that was to come later on in the next Age of Michael.
And now, in order that they might enter right into the heart of Christianity, the souls who belonged to the sphere of Michael, who had lived in the old Alexander time, who had not lived on earth during the first Christian centuries, or at least only in unimportant incarnations — these souls now came into incarnation in order to imbibe Christianity in the Dominican or other Orders, but mainly in the Dominican Order. Again they passed through the gate of death and continued their existence in the spiritual world.
In the 15th century and lasting on into the 16th — and it must be remembered that time-relationships are quite different in the spiritual world — there took place in the super-sensible world the great process of instruction instituted by Michael himself for those who belonged to him.
A great super-sensible School was founded, a School in which Michael himself was the Teacher and in which those souls took part who had been inspired by the impulses of the Alexander Age and had later steeped themselves in Christianity in the manner described.
All the discarnate souls who belonged to Michael took part in this great School in the super-sensible world during the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. All the Beings of the Hierarchy of Angels, Archangels and Archai who belonged to the Michael stream, as well as many elementary beings, also took part in it.
In this super-sensible School, a wonderful review was given of the wisdom of the ancient Mysteries. Detailed knowledge in regard to the ancient Mysteries was imparted to the souls partaking in this School.
They looked back to the Sun Mysteries, to the Mysteries of the other planets.
But a vista of the future was given too, a vista of what should begin at the end of the 19th century in the new Age of Michael.
All this passed through these souls who now, in the present Michael Age, feel drawn to the Anthroposophical Movement.
Meanwhile, on earth, the last bout of the struggle was taking place. Haroun al Raschid had incarnated again as Lord Bacon of Verulam and in this new incarnation had set the impulse of materialism on foot.
The universality in the teachings of Bacon, but also his materialism, came from his incarnation as Haroun al Raschid. Bacon was the reincarnated Haroun al Raschid. The Counsellor, who had taken the other path, incarnated in the same epoch, as Amos Comenius.
And so while Christianity illumined by Aristotelian and Alexandrian thought was going through its most important phase of development in the super-sensible worlds during the 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th centuries — during this very same period we find materialism being established on earth in the minds of men, established in science by Bacon, the reincarnated Haroun al Raschid, and in the realm of education by Amos Comenius, the reincarnated Counsellor of Haroun al Raschid. The two souls worked together.
When Amos Comenius and Bacon had once again passed through the gate of death, a remarkable thing came to pass in the spiritual world. After Bacon had passed through the gate of death, it happened that because of the particular mode of thinking he had adopted in his incarnation as Bacon, a whole world of “idols,” demonic idols, went forth from his etheric body, and spread themselves out in the spiritual world which was peopled by those who were the pupils of Michael.
As I have shown in my first Mystery Play, things that happen on earth work powerfully into the spiritual world. Bacon's mode of thinking on the earth worked so shatteringly into the spiritual world that it was flooded by a whole host of “idols.”
And the materialistic form of educational science inaugurated by Amos Comenius provided the sphere, the cosmic atmosphere, as it were, for the idols of Bacon. Bacon provided the idols; and just as we human beings have around us the mineral and plant kingdoms, so these idols of Bacon were surrounded by other kingdoms which were necessary to their existence. And these were provided by what Amos Comenius had instituted on earth.
The individualities who had once lived on the earth as Alexander and Aristotle set themselves to fight these demonic idols. And the conflict continued until the time when the French Revolution broke out on the earth.
The idols, the demonic idols which it had not been possible to overcome, which had as it were escaped from the fight, descended to earth and became the inspiring forces of the materialism of the 19th century with its many consequences. These forces are the inspirers of the materialism of the 19th century.
The souls who had remained behind, who with the assistance of the individualities of Aristotle and Alexander had profited by the teaching of Michael, came back to earth, bearing the impulses I have described, towards the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. And many of these souls can be recognised in those who come to the Anthroposophical Movement. Such is the karma of those who come to the Movement with inner sincerity.
It is a shattering experience to hear of what is happening immediately behind the events in the outer world at the present time. But it is something which, under the impulse of the Christmas Foundation at the Goetheanum must be implanted in the hearts and souls of those who call themselves Anthroposophists. It must live in their hearts and souls, and it will give them the strength to work on, for those who are Anthroposophists to-day in the true sense will feel a strong urge to come down again to the earth very soon. And with a faculty of prophecy connected with the Michael Impulse, it can be foreseen that many anthroposophical souls will come again to the earth at the end of the 20th century in order to bring to full realisation the Anthroposophical Movement which must now be established on a firm and sure foundation.
Every Anthroposophist should be moved by this knowledge: “I have in me the impulse of Anthroposophy. I recognise it as the Michael Impulse. I wait and am strengthened in my waiting by true activity in Anthroposophy at the present time in order that after the short interval allotted in the 20th century to anthroposophical souls between death and a new birth, I may come again at the end of the century to promote the Movement with much more spiritual power. I am preparing for the new Age leading from the 20th into the 21st century” ... It is thus that a true Anthroposophist speaks.
Many forces of destruction are at work upon the earth! All culture, all civilised life must fall into decadence if the spirituality of the Michael Impulse does not so lay hold of human beings that they are capable of bringing upliftment to the civilisation that is hurrying downhill.
If there are to be found truly anthroposophical souls, willing to bring this spirituality into earthly life, then there will be a movement leading upwards. If such souls are not found, decadence will continue to spread. The great War, with all its attendant evils, will be merely the beginning of still worse evils.
Human beings to-day are facing a great crisis. Either they must see civilisation going down into the abyss, or they must raise it by spirituality and promote it in the sense of the Michael Impulse.
That, my dear friends, is what I had to say to you on this occasion and my desire is that it shall work on and bear fruit in your souls. For as I have often said at the conclusion of a happy and satisfying visit, when we have worked together for a time, we know, as Anthroposophists, that it is our karma to have been able to do so. We know too that we still remain united, even when divided in physical space. We shall remain united in the signs that can reveal themselves to the eyes of spirit and to the ears of soul if what I have said in these lectures has been received in full earnestness and has been understood.” ~Rudolf Steiner
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In preparation for the Michaelmas Season, Please join us on the Autumnal Equinox
Sunday 22 September 2024 fro1 PM – 2:30 PM Central Time
For an online Community gathering employing Head, Hands & Heart, including Leading Thoughts shared by Mysteria Mystica Americana (MA)
Go to Upcoming Events page to register
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Here is a link to recordings of our past offerings
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Michaelmas on Zinniker Farm - Saturday 28 September 2024
Stay tuned for details
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4 - 6 October 2024 Annual Southeast Biodynamic Conference - Celebrating the 100-year anniversary of biodynamic agriculture. Hosted by Jeff Poppen ‘the Barefoot Farmer’ Long Hungry Creek Farm in Red Boiling Springs, TN
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Join us at the Goetheanum for the performance of Rudolf Steiner’s Four Mystery Dramas 26-31 December 2024
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If you want to support the Spiritualization of the Earth thru the Biodynamic Farming done on Zinniker Farm, you are invited to become a paid subscriber, with all donations going directly to the farm
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~Confessions of a Modern Rosicrucian |
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