The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Second Consideration: How the Michaelic Forces Influence the First Unfolding of the Consciousness Soul

[ 1 ] During the period when the consciousness soul was making its impact on the earthly development of humanity, it was difficult for the beings of the spiritual world closest to earthly existence to approach humanity. Earthly events take on a form that shows that very special conditions are necessary to enable the spiritual to find its way into the physical life of humanity. But on the other hand, this form also shows in a very clear way how the spiritual, where the powers of the past are still at work and the powers of the future are already beginning to work, is energetically seeking its way into the earthly life of humanity.

[ 2 ] Between 1339 and 1453, a confusing war lasting more than a hundred years developed between France and England. In this confusion, which stemmed from a certain spiritual current unfavorable to human development, events found their inhibitions, which would have introduced the consciousness soul into humanity more quickly if the inhibitions had not been there. Chaucer (who died in 1400) founded English literature. One need only think of the spiritual consequences that this foundation of literature had in Europe, and one will find it significant that the event could not develop freely, but fell into the confusion of war. In addition, political thinking had already begun in England before that (in 1215), which can find its proper expression through the consciousness soul. The further development of this event also falls within the constraints of war.

[ 3 ] We are dealing here with a time in which the spiritual forces that want to develop human beings in the way that the higher divine-spiritual powers have intended from the beginning encounter their adversaries. These adversaries want to steer human beings onto paths other than those indicated to them from the beginning. They would then be unable to use the powers of their beginnings for their later development. Their cosmic childhood would remain fruitless for them. It would become a withering part of their being. The consequence of this would be that human beings could become prey to the Luciferic or Ahrimanic powers and lose their own development. If the adversaries of humanity had succeeded in their endeavors not only to hinder but to completely defeat them, the impact of the consciousness soul could have been prevented.

[ 4 ] An event in which the influx of the spiritual into earthly events is revealed in a particularly luminous way is the appearance and fate of Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans (1412-1431). What she does has its impulses deep in the subconscious depths of her soul. She follows the dark inspirations of the spiritual world. Confusion reigns on earth, intended to prevent the age of consciousness. Michael must prepare his later mission from the spiritual world. He can do this where his impulses are received in human souls. The Virgin has such a soul. He also works through many other souls, even if this is only possible to a lesser degree and is less visible in external historical life. In events such as the war between England and France, he finds his Ahrimanic opposition.

[ 5 ] The Luciferic adversary he encountered during this period was discussed in the previous consideration. But this adversary also reveals himself particularly in the events that followed the appearance of the Virgin of Orleans. These events show that human beings could no longer gain a foothold against the intervention of the spirit world in the destiny of humanity, which could be understood and also accepted by human beings in their will when imaginative understanding was still present. With the cessation of the activity of the intellectual or emotional soul, it became impossible to take a position on such intervention; the position corresponding to the consciousness soul had not yet been found at that time; nor has it been achieved today.

[ 6 ] Thus it came about that the shaping of Europe at that time was accomplished by the spiritual world, without people having any understanding of what was happening and without what they were capable of having any significant influence on this shaping.

[ 7 ] One need only create a mental image of what would have happened in the fifteenth century if there had been no Virgin of Orleans, and one will understand the significance of this spiritually conditioned event. There are also personalities who want to explain such a phenomenon in materialistic terms. It is impossible to reach an understanding with them because they arbitrarily reinterpret the obvious spiritual in a materialistic sense.

[ 8 ] It is now also clear from certain spiritual endeavors of humanity that it no longer finds the path to the divine-spiritual without difficulty, even when it searches for it intensively. These are difficulties that did not exist in the ages when insight could still be gained through imagination. In order to correctly assess what is meant here, it is only necessary to see the personalities who appear as philosophical thinkers in a clear light. A philosopher cannot be judged solely by his impact on his age, nor by how many people have taken up his ideas. Rather, he is the expression, the manifest essence of his age. What the majority of humanity unconsciously carries within itself as a state of mind, as unconscious feelings and drives, the philosopher brings into his ideas. He shows, like a thermometer shows the temperature of its surroundings, the state of mind of his age. Philosophers are no more the cause of the state of mind of their age than thermometers are the cause of the temperature of their surroundings.

[ 9 ] Under these circumstances, let us look at the philosopher René Descartes, who was active when the age of consciousness was already underway. (He lived from 1596 to 1650.) The narrow basis of his connection with the spiritual world (true being) is the experience “I think, therefore I am.” At the center of self-consciousness, the ego, he seeks to perceive reality; and only to the extent that the conscious soul can tell him.

[ 10 ] And he seeks to clarify everything else spiritual by intellectual means, examining how much guarantee the certainty of his own self-consciousness provides for the certainty of other things. He questions all the truths that have been handed down to him historically: are they as clear as “I think, therefore I am”? And if he can answer in the affirmative, he accepts them.

[ 11 ] In such human thinking, is not all perception oriented toward the things of the world driven out by the spirit? The revelation of this spirit has retreated to the smallest support in self-consciousness; everything else proves to be immediate without spiritual revelation. Only indirectly, through the intellect in the consciousness soul, can a light of this spiritual revelation be cast on what lies outside of self-consciousness.

[ 12 ] The human being of this age allows the still almost empty content of his consciousness soul to flow in an intense longing for the spirit world. A thin ray goes there.

[ 13 ] The beings of the spirit world immediately adjacent to the earthly world and the human souls on earth find it difficult to come together. Michael's supersensible preparation for his later mission is witnessed by the human soul only with the greatest inhibitions.

[ 14 ] In order to grasp the essence of the soul mood expressed by Descartes, compare this philosopher with Augustine, who, according to the external formulation, asserts the same support for the experience of the spiritual world as Descartes. Only in Augustine's case, this happens from the full imaginative power of the intellectual or emotional soul. (He lived from 354 to 430.) Augustine is rightly considered to be related to Descartes. Only Augustine's intellect is still the remnant of the cosmic, which in Descartes is already entering the individual human soul. It is precisely in the progression of spiritual striving from Augustine to Descartes that we can see how the cosmic character of the powers of thought is lost and how it then reappears in the human soul. At the same time, however, we see how Michael and the human soul come together with difficulty in such a way that Michael can guide in the human being what he once guided in the cosmos.

[ 15 ] The Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces are at work against this coming together. The Luciferic forces want to allow only that which was inherent in human beings in their cosmic childhood to unfold; the Ahrimanic forces, as opponents and yet working together with them, want to develop only the powers acquired in later world ages and allow cosmic childhood to wither away.

[ 16 ] Amid such increased resistance, the souls of Europe processed the spiritual impulses that had flowed from the East to the West through the Crusades, bringing with them ancient worldviews. The Michaelic forces were very much alive in these ideas. Cosmic intelligence, administered by Michael's ancient spiritual heritage, dominated these worldviews.

[ 17 ] How could they be absorbed, given the gulf between the forces of the spirit world and human souls? They fell into the consciousness soul, which was just beginning to quiet down. On the one hand, they encountered the obstacle that existed in the still weakly developed consciousness soul. They drowned out its effectiveness, paralyzed it. But on the other hand, they no longer encountered a consciousness still carried by imagination. The human soul could not connect with them with full insight. They were either accepted very superficially or superstitiously.

[ 18 ] This state of mind must be considered if the thought movements associated with the names of Wicliff, Hus, and others on the one hand, and with the term “Rosicrucianism” on the other, are to be understood.

[ 19 ] This will be discussed further below.

(The continuation of this second and third consideration will follow.)

Goetheanum, November 30, 1924.

---

Further guiding principles sent out by the Anthroposophical Society from the Goetheanum (with reference to the preceding from the second consideration on the Michael forces in the first unfolding of the consciousness soul)

[ 19 ] 127. At the beginning of the age of consciousness, the human soul still develops its intellectual powers to a limited extent. There is a disconnect between what this soul longs for in its unconscious depths and what the forces from the region where Michael is can give it.

[ 20 ] 128. This disconnect increases the possibility for the Luciferic forces to hold humans back in their cosmic childhood forces and to allow them to develop further, not along the paths of the divine-spiritual forces with which they were connected from the beginning, but along the Luciferic paths.

[ 21 ] 129. There is a further increased possibility for the Ahrimanic powers to cut humans off from the cosmic forces of childhood and draw them into their own realm for further development.

[ 22 ] 130. Neither of these things happened because the Michael forces were after all active; but the spiritual development of humanity had to take place under the inhibitions created by these possibilities and became what it has become up to now.