The Four Seasons and the Archangels
GA 229
5 October 1923, Dornach
I. The Michael Imagination
To-day I would like first to remind you how events which take place behind the veil of appearance, outside the physical, sense-perceptible world, can be described in pictorial terms. One has to speak in this way of these events, but the pictures correspond throughout with reality.
With regard to sense-perceptible events, we are living in a time of hard tests for humanity, and these tests will become harder still. Many old forms of civilisation, to which people still mistakenly cling, will sink into the abyss, and there will be an insistent demand that man must find his way to something new. In speaking of the course that the external life of humanity will take in the early future, we cannot—as I have often said—arouse any kind of optimistic hopes. But a valid judgment as to the significance of external events cannot be formed unless we consider also the determining, directing cosmic events which occur behind the veil of the senses.
When a man looks out attentively with his physical eyes and his other senses at his surroundings, he perceives the physical environment of the earth, and the various kingdoms of nature within it. This is the milieu in which comes to pass all that manifests as wind and weather in the course of the year. When we direct our senses towards the external world, we have all this before us: these are the external facts. But behind the atmosphere, the sun-illumined atmosphere, there lies another world, perceptible by spiritual organs, as we may call them. Compared with the sense-world, this other world is a higher world, a world wherein a kind of light, a kind of spiritual light or astral light, spiritual existence and spiritual deeds shine out and run their course. And they are in truth no less significant for the whole development of the world and of man than the historical events in the external environment of the earth and on its surface.
If anyone to-day is able to penetrate into these astral realms, wandering through them as one may wander among woods and mountains and find signposts at cross roads, he may find “signposts” there in the astral light, inscribed in spiritual script. But these signposts have a quite special characteristic: they are not comprehensible without further explanation, even for someone who can “read” in the astral light. In the spiritual world and in its communications, things are not made as convenient as possible: anything one encounters there presents itself as a riddle to be solved. Only through inner investigation, through experiencing inwardly the riddle and much else, can one discover what the inscription on a spiritual signpost signifies.
And so at this time—indeed for some decades now, but particularly at this time of hard trials for mankind—one can read in the astral light, as one goes about spiritually in these realms, a remarkable saying. It sounds like a prosaic comparison, but in this case, because of its inner significance, the prosaic does not remain prosaic. Just as we find notices to help us find our way—and we find signposts even in poetical landscapes—so we encounter an important spiritual signpost in the astral light. Time and time again, exactly repeated, we find there to-day the following saying, inscribed in highly significant spiritual script:
O Man,
You mould it to your service,
You reveal it according to the value of its substance
In many of your works.
Yet it will bring you healing
Only when it reveals to you
The lofty power of its spirit.
Injunctions of this kind, pointing to facts significant for man, are inscribed, as I have said, in the astral light, presenting themselves first as a kind of riddle to be solved, so that men may bring their soul-forces into activity.
Now, during our days here, we will contribute something to the solving of this saying—really a simple saying, but important for mankind to-day.
Let us recall how in many of our studies here the course of the year has been brought before our souls. A man first observes it quite externally: when spring comes he sees nature sprouting and budding; he sees how the plants grow and come to flower, how life everywhere springs up out of the soil. All this is enhanced as summer draws on; in summer it rises to its highest level. And then, when autumn comes, it withers and fades away; and when winter comes it dies into the lap of the earth.
This cycle of the year—which in earlier times, when a more instinctive consciousness prevailed, was celebrated with festivals—has another side, also mentioned here. During winter the earth is united with the elemental spirits. They withdraw into the interior of the earth and live there among the plant-roots that are preparing for new growth, and among the other nature-beings who spend the winter there. Then, when spring comes, the earth breathes out, as it were, its elemental being. The elemental spirits rise up as though from a tomb and ascend into the atmosphere. During winter they accepted the inner order of the earth, but now, as spring advances and especially when summer comes on, they receive more and more into their being and activity the order which is imposed upon them by the stars and the movements of the stars. When high summer has come, then out there in the periphery of the earth there is a surging of life among the elemental beings who had spent the winter in quiet and silence under the earth's mantle of snow. In the swirling and whirling of their dance they are governed by the reciprocal laws of planetary movement, by the pattern of the fixed stars, and so on. When autumn comes, they turn towards the earth. As they approach the earth, they become subject more and more to the laws of earth, so that in winter they may be breathed in again by the earth, once more to rest there in quietude.
Anyone who can thus experience the cycle of the year feels that his whole human life is wonderfully enriched. To-day—and it has been so for some time past—a man normally experiences, and then but dimly, half-consciously, only the physical-etheric processes of the body which occur within his skin. He experiences his breathing, the circulation of his blood. Everything that takes its course outside, in wind and weather, during the year; all that lives in the sprouting of the seed-forces, the fruiting of the earth-forces—all this is no less significant and decisive for the whole life of man, even though he is not conscious of it, than the breathing and blood-circulation which go on inside his skin.
When the sun rises over any region of the earth, we share in the effects of its warmth and light. But when a man accepts Anthroposophy in the right sense, not reading it like a sensational novel but so that what it imparts becomes the content of his mind, then he gradually educates his heart and soul to experience all that goes on outside in the course of the year. Just as in the course of a day we experience early freshness, readiness for work in the morning, then the onset of hunger and of evening weariness, and just as we can trace the inner life and activity of the forces and substances within our skin, so, by taking to heart anthroposophical ideas—entirely different from the usual descriptions of sense-perceptible events—we can prepare our souls to become receptive to the activities that go on outside in the course of the year. We can deepen more and more this sympathetic participation in the cycle of the year, and we can enrich it so that we do not live sourly—one might say—within our skin, letting the outer world pass us by. On the contrary, we can enrich our experience so that we feel ourselves living in the blossoming of every flower, in the breaking open of the buds, in that wonderful secret of the morning, the glistening of dew-drops in the rays of the sun. In these ways we can get beyond that dull, conventional way of reacting to the outer world merely by putting on our overcoat in winter and lighter clothes in summer and taking an umbrella when it rains. When we go out from ourselves and experience the interweaving activities, the flow and ebb, of nature—only then do we really understand the cycle of the year.
Then, when spring passes over the earth and summer is drawing near, a man will be in the midst of it with his heart and soul; he will discern how the sprouting and budding life of nature unfolds, how the elemental spirits fly and whirl in a pattern laid down for them by planetary movements. And then, in the time of high summer, he will go out of himself to share in the life of the cosmos. Certainly this damps down his own inner life, but at the same time his summer experience leads him out—in a cosmic waking-sleep, one might say—to enter into the doings of the planets.
To-day, generally speaking, people feel they can enter into the life of nature only in the season of growth—of germination and budding, flowering and fruiting. Even if they cannot fully experience all this, they have more sympathy and perception for it than they have for the autumn season of fading and dying away. But in truth we earn the right to enter into the season of spring growth only if we can enter also into the time when summer wanes and autumn draws on; the season of sinking down and dying that comes with winter. And if during high summer we rise inwardly, in a cosmic waking-sleep, with the elemental beings to the region where planetary activity in the outer world can be inwardly experienced, then we ought equally to sink ourselves down under the frost and snow-mantle of winter, so that we enter into the secrets of the womb of the earth during mid-winter; and we ought to participate in the fading and dying-off of nature when autumn begins.
If, however, we are to participate in this waning of nature, just as we do in nature's growing time, we can do so only if in a certain sense we are able to experience the dying away of nature in our own inner being. For if a man becomes more sensitive to the secret workings of nature, and thus participates actively in nature's germinating and fruiting, it follows that he will livingly experience also the effects of autumn in the outer world. But it would be comfortless for man if he could experience this only in the form it takes in nature; if he were to come only to a nature-consciousness concerning the secrets of autumn and winter, as he readily does concerning the secrets of spring and summer. When the events of autumn and winter draw on, when Michaelmas comes, he certainly must enter sensitively into the processes of fading and dying; but he must not, as he does in summer, give himself over to a nature-consciousness. On the contrary, he must then devote himself to self-consciousness. In the time when external nature is dying, he must oppose nature-consciousness with the force of self-consciousness.
And then the form of Michael stands before us again. If, under the impulse of Anthroposophy, a man enters thus into the enjoyment of nature, the consciousness of nature, but then also awakes in himself an autumnal self-consciousness, then the picture of Michael with the dragon will stand majestically before him, revealing in picture-form the overcoming of nature-consciousness by self-consciousness when autumn draws near. This will come about if man can experience not only an inward spring and summer, but also a dying, death-bringing autumn and winter. Then it will be possible for the picture of Michael with the dragon to appear again as a forcible Imagination, summoning man to inner activity.
For a man who out of present-day spiritual knowledge wrestles his way through to an experience of this picture, it expresses something very powerful. For when, after St. John's tide, July, August and September draw on, he will come to realise how he has been living through a waking-sleep of inner planetary experience in company with the earth's elemental beings, and he will become aware of what this really signifies.
It signifies an inner process of combustion, but we must not picture it as being like external combustion. All the processes which take a definite form in the outer world go on also within the human organism, but in a different guise. And so it is a fact that these inner processes reflect the changing course of the year.
The inner process which occurs during high summer is a permeation of the organism by that which is represented crudely in the material world as sulphur. When a man lives with the summer sun and its effects, he experiences a sulphurising process in his physical-etheric being. The sulphur that he carries within him as a useful substance has a special importance for him in high summer, quite different from its importance at other seasons. It becomes a kind of combustion process. It is natural for man that the sulphur within him should thus rise at midsummer to a specially enhanced condition. Material substances in different beings have secrets not dreamt of by materialistic science.
Everything physical-etheric in man is thus glowed through at midsummer with inward sulphur-fire, to use Jacob Boehm's expression. It is a gentle, intimate process, not perceptible by ordinary consciousness, but—as is generally true of other such processes—it has a tremendous, decisive significance for events in the cosmos.
This sulphurising process in human bodies at midsummer, although it is so mild and gentle and imperceptible to man himself, has very great importance for the evolution of the cosmos. A great deal happens out there in the cosmos when in summer human beings shine inwardly with the sulphur-process. It is not only the physically visible glow-worms (Johannis Käferchen) which shine out around St. John's Day. Seen from other planets, the inner being of man then begins to shine, becoming visible as a being of light to the etheric eyes of other planetary beings. That is the sulphurising process. At the height of summer human beings begin to shine out into cosmic space as brightly for other planetary beings as glow-worms shine with their own light in the meadows at St. John's time.
From the standpoint of the cosmos this is a majestically beautiful sight, for it is in glorious astral light that human beings shine out into the cosmos during high summer, but at the same time it gives occasion for the Ahrimanic power to draw near to man. For this power is very closely related to the sulphurising process in the human organism. We can see how, on the one hand, man shines out into the cosmos in the St. John's light, and on the other how the dragon-like serpent-form of Ahriman winds its way among the human beings shining in the astral light and tries to ensnare and embrace them, to draw them down into the realm of half-conscious sleep and dreams. Then, caught in this web of illusion, they would become world-dreamers, and in this condition they would be a prey to the Ahrimanic powers. All this has significance for the cosmos also.
And when in high summer, from a particular constellation, meteors fall in great showers of cosmic iron, then this cosmic iron, which carries an enormously powerful healing force, is the weapon which the gods bring to bear against Ahriman, as dragon-like he tries to coil round the shining forms of men. The force which falls on the earth in the meteoric iron is indeed a cosmic force whereby the higher gods endeavour to gain a victory over the Ahrimanic powers, when autumn comes on. And this majestic display in cosmic space, when the August meteor showers stream down into the human shining in the astral light, has its counterpart—so gentle and apparently so small—in a change that occurs in the human blood. This human blood, which is in truth not such a material thing as present-day science imagines, but is permeated throughout by impulses from soul and spirit, is rayed through by the force which is carried as iron into the blood and wages war there on anxiety, fear and hate. The processes which are set going in every blood-corpuscle when the force of iron shoots into it are the same, on a minute human scale, as those which take place when meteors fall in a shining stream through the air. This permeation of human blood by the anxiety-dispelling force of iron is a meteoric activity. The effect of the raying in of the iron is to drive fear and anxiety out of the blood.
And so, as the gods with their meteors wage war on the spirit who would like to radiate fear over all the earth through his coiling serpent-form, and while they cause iron to stream radiantly into this fear-tainted atmosphere, which reaches its peak when autumn approaches or when summer wanes—so the same process occurs inwardly in man, when his blood is permeated with iron. We can understand these things only if we understand their inner spiritual significance on the one hand, and if on the other we recognise how the sulphur-process and the iron-process in man are connected with corresponding events in the cosmos.
A man who looks out into space and sees a shooting-star should say to himself, with reverence for the gods: “That occurrence in the great expanse of space has its minute counterpart continuously in myself. There are the shooting-stars, while in every one of my blood-corpuscles iron is taking form: my life is full of shooting-stars, miniature shooting-stars.” And this inner fall of shooting-stars, pointing to the life of the blood, is especially important when autumn approaches, when the sulphur-process is at its peak. For when men are shining like glow-worms in the way I have described, then the counter-force is present also, for millions of tiny meteors are scintillating inwardly in their blood.
This is the connection between the inner man and the universe. And then we can see how, especially when autumn is approaching, there is a great raying-out of sulphur from the nerve-system towards the brain. The whole man can then be seen as a sulphur-illuminated phantom, so to speak.
But raying into this bluish-yellow sulphur atmosphere come the meteor swarms from the blood. That is the other phantom. While the sulphur-phantom rises in clouds from the lower part of man towards his head, the iron-forming process rays out from his head and pours itself like a stream of meteors into the life of the blood.
Such is man, when Michaelmas draws near. And he must learn to make conscious use of the meteoric-force in his blood. He must learn to keep the Michael Festival by making it a festival for the conquest of anxiety and fear; a festival of inner strength and initiative; a festival for the commemoration of selfless self-consciousness.
Just as at Christmas we celebrate the birth of the Redeemer, and at Easter the death and resurrection of the Redeemer, and as at St. John's Tide we celebrate the outpouring of human souls into cosmic space, so at Michaelmas—if the Michael Festival is to be rightly understood—we must celebrate that which lives spiritually in the sulphurising and meteorising process in man, and should stand before human consciousness in its whole soul-spiritual significance especially at Michaelmas. Then a man can say to himself: “You will become lord of this process, which otherwise takes its natural course outside your consciousness, if—just as you bow thankfully before the birth of the Redeemer at Christmas and experience Easter with deep inner response—you learn to experience how at this autumn festival of Michael there should grow in you everything that goes against love of ease, against anxiety, and makes for the unfolding of inner initiative and free, strong, courageous will.” The Festival of strong will—that is how we should conceive of the Michael Festival. If that is done, if nature-knowledge is true, spiritual human self-consciousness, then the Michael Festival will shine out in its true colours.
But before mankind can think of celebrating the Michael Festival, there will have to be a renewal in human souls. It is the renewal of the whole soul-disposition of men that should be celebrated at the Michael Festival—not as an outward or conventional ceremony, but as a festival which renews the whole inner man.
Then, out of all I have described, the majestic image of Michael and the Dragon will arise once more. But this picture of Michael and the Dragon paints itself out of the cosmos. The Dragon paints himself for us, forming his body out of bluish-yellow sulphur streams. We see the Dragon shaping himself in shimmering clouds of radiance out of the sulphur-vapours; and over the Dragon rises the figure of Michael, Michael with his sword.
But we shall picture this rightly only if we see the space where Michael displays his power and his lordship over the dragon as filled not with indifferent clouds but with showers of meteoric iron. These showers take form from the power that streams out from Michael's heart; they are welded together into the sword of Michael, who overcomes the Dragon with his sword of meteoric iron.
If we understand what is going on in the universe and in man, then the cosmos itself will paint from out of its own forces. Then one does not lay on this or that colour according to human ideas, but one paints, in harmony with divine powers, the world which expresses their being, the whole being of Michael and the Dragon, as it can hover before one. A renewal of the old pictures comes about if one can paint out of direct contemplation of the cosmos. Then the pictures will show what is really there, and not what fanciful individuals may somehow portray in pictures of Michael and the Dragon.
Then men will come to understand these things, and to reflect on them with understanding, and they will bring mind and feeling and will to meet the autumn in the course of the year. Then at the beginning of autumn, at the Michael Festival, the picture of Michael with the Dragon will stand there to act as a powerful summons, a powerful spur to action, which must work on men in the midst of the events of our times. And then we shall understand how this impulse points symbolically to something in which the whole destiny—perhaps indeed the tragedy—of our epoch is being played out.
During the last three or four centuries we have developed a magnificent natural science and a far-reaching technology, based on the most widely-distributed material to be found on earth. We have learnt to make out of iron nearly all the most essential and important things produced by mankind in a materialistic age. In our locomotives, our factories, on all sides we see how we have built up this whole material civilisation on iron, or on steel, which is only iron transformed. And all the uses to which iron is put are a symbolic indication of how we have built our whole life and outlook out of matter and want to go on doing so. But that is a downward-leading path. Man can rescue himself from its impending dangers only if he starts to spiritualise life in this very domain, if he penetrates through his environment to the spiritual; if he turns from the iron which is used for making engines and looks up again to the meteoric iron which showers down from the cosmos to the earth and is the outer material from which the power of Michael is forged. Men must come to see the great significance of the following words: “Here on earth, in this epoch of materialism, you have made use of iron, in accordance with the insight gained from your observation of matter. Now, just as you must transform your vision of matter through the development of natural science into Spiritual Science, so must you rise from your former idea of iron to a perception of meteoric iron, the iron of Michael's sword. Then healing will come from what you can make of it.” This is the content of the aphorism:
O Man,
You mould it (iron) to your service,
You reveal it (iron) according to the value of its substance
In many of your works.
Yet it will bring you healing
Only when it reveals to you
The lofty power of its spirit.
That is, the lofty power of Michael, with the sword he has welded together in cosmic space out of meteoric iron. Healing will come when our material civilisation proves capable of spiritualising the power of iron into the power of Michael-iron, which gives man self-consciousness in place of mere nature-consciousness.
You have seen that precisely the most important demand of our time, the Michael-demand, is implicit in this aphorism, this script that reveals itself in the astral light.
[Following the lecture Rudolf Steiner gave a Brief Report on the Vienna Conference. See GA 259]
Erster Vortrag
Ich möchte heute zu Ihnen in Anknüpfung an manches sprechen, was ich hier vor meiner Wiener Reise vorgebracht habe. Ich möchte erwähnen, wie ja, sagen wir, bildhaft ausgedrückt werden kann, was außer den physisch-sinnlichen Vorgängen in der Welt hinter dem Schleier der Sinnenwelt fortdauernd geschieht. Man muß sich über diese Dinge bildhaft aussprechen, aber das bildhafte Aussprechen entspricht durchaus der Wirklichkeit. Wir leben heute äußerlich in bezug auf die Ereignisse, die der Sinnesbeobachtung des Menschen zugänglich sind, in einer Zeit schwerer Prüfungen der Menschheit, schwerer Prüfungen, die noch immer schwerer werden müssen. Wir leben in einer Zeit, in der eine ganze Summe von alten Zivilisationsformen, an denen die Menschen noch irrtümlicherweise hängen, in den Abgrund versinken wird, in denen stark die Forderung auftreten wird, daß die Menschen sich an Neues heranfinden müssen. Man kann nicht irgendwelche optimistischen Hoffnungen - ich habe das oftmals ausgesprochen — im Menschengemüte erwecken, wenn man von demjenigen sprechen will, was sich im Schoße der Zeiten vorbereitend zunächst für das äußere physische Leben der Menschheit abspielen wird. Aber man kann eigentlich heute gar nicht ein ÜUrteil fällen, das in irgendeiner Weise gültig sein könnte, über die Bedeutung dessen, was da äußerlich geschieht, wenn man nicht auf dasjenige sieht, was hinter dem sinnlichen Schleier an übersinnlichen Weltereignissen bestimmend, richtunggebend sich eben auch abspielt.
Es ist ja so, daß, wenn der Mensch mit seinem physischen Auge hinschaut, seine andern physischen Sinne in Regsamkeit hat und aufmerksam wird auf dasjenige, was in seiner Weltumgebung ist, er da wahrnimmt die physische Atmosphäre der Erde, in ihr eingebettet die Wesenheiten der verschiedenenReiche, innerhalb dieses ganzen Milieus sich zutragend alles dasjenige, was in Wind und Wetter im Laufe der Jahreserscheinungen vor sich geht. Daß also der Mensch das alles vor sich hat, das ist der äußere Tatsachenbestand, wenn der Mensch seine Sinne der Außenwelt exponiert.
Aber hinter der Atmosphäre, hinter der sonnendurchleuchteten Atmosphäre liegt, wahrnehmbar für dasjenige, was man Geistorgane nennen kann, eben eine andere Welt, man darf sagen eine gegenüber der Sinnenwelt höhere Welt, eine Welt, in der auch in einer Art Licht, in einer Art geistigen Lichtes, in einer Art Astrallichtes, geistig Wesenhaftes und geistige Tatsachen erglänzen und sich abspielen, die wahrhaftig für das Gesamtwerden der Welt und des Menschen nicht weniger bedeutsam sind als dasjenige, was in der äußeren Atmosphäre auf der äußeren Erdoberfläche geschichtlich sich abspielt.
Wenn nun derjenige, der in solche Dinge heute eindringen kann, so die Gebiete des Astrallichtes durchwandert, wie man durchwandeln kann Wälder, Berge, so kann er, wie man, wenn man eine Wanderung macht, an Wegeskreuzungen Richttafeln findet, auch in diesem Astrallichte, ich möchte sagen, mit geistiger Schrift eingeschriebene Richttafeln finden. Diese Richttafeln haben eine ganz besondere Eigentümlichkeit. Sie sind auch für denjenigen, der, sagen wir, im Astrallichte lesen kann, nicht ohne weiteres verständlich. Es geht in der geistigen Welt und ihren Mitteilungen nicht so zu, daß einem die Dinge so bequem wie möglich gemacht werden, sondern dasjenige, was einem sich offenbarend in der geistigen Welt entgegentritt, es gibt einem Rätsel auf. Und man muß durch inneres Forschen, durch inneres Erleben von dem und vielem erst herausfinden, was eine Inschrift auf einer solchen geistigen Richttafel bedeutet.
Und so kann man gerade jetzt in dieser Zeit, übrigens schon seit Jahrzehnten, aber besonders stark in dieser Zeit schwerer Menschenprüfungen, im astralischen Lichte, wenn man geistig im Geisterlande dahinwandelt, einen bemerkenswerten Spruch lesen. Es sieht einem prosaischen Vergleich ähnlich, aber durch die innere Bedeutung wird in diesem Falle ja das Prosaische nicht prosaisch bleiben. Wie man eben solche Tafeln, nach denen man seine Wege verfolgen kann, findet, wie auch da oder dort in poetischeren Gegenden das oder jenes auf Richttafeln zu finden ist, so treten einem bedeutsame geistige Richttafeln im Astrallichte entgegen. Ich möchte sagen: Immer wieder, in gleicher Wiederholung immer wieder findet man eben den folgenden Spruch, der da eingeschrieben ist mit ganz bedeutsamer geistiger Schrift in das Astrallicht in der heutigen Zeit:
O Mensch,
Du bildest es zu deinem Dienste,
Du offenbarst es seinem Stoffeswerte nach
In vielen deiner Werke.
Es wird dir Heil jedoch erst sein,
Wenn dir sich offenbart
Seines Geistes Hochgewalt.
Wie gesagt, solche Dinge, die, den Menschen hinweisend auf Bedeutsames, eingeschrieben stehen im Astrallichte, sie stellen sich, damit der Mensch seine Seelenkräfte in Regsamkeit bringt, wie eine Art Rätsel zunächst hin, das gelöst werden muß.
Nun werden wir in diesen Tagen gerade zu der Lösung dieses eigentlich einfachen, aber für die gegenwärtige Menschheit bedeutsamen Spruches einiges beitragen.
Erinnern wir uns noch einmal, wie wir in mancherlei Betrachtungen hier den Jahreslauf vor unsere Seele geführt haben. Der Mensch muß ja den Jahreslauf zunächst rein äußerlich so betrachten, daß er, wenn der Frühling kommt, die sprießende, sprossende Natur sieht, daß das Pflanzenwachstum, nachher auch die Blüten der Pflanzen, aber auch alles übrige Leben aus der Erde hervorquillt in sprießendem, sprossendem Leben. Das alles steigert sich gegen den Sommer hin; im Sommer gewinnt das alles seinen Hochgrad. Es dämmert ab, es welkt dahin, wenn der Herbst kommt. Es erstirbt im Schoße der Erde, wenn der Winter eintritt.
Dieser Jahreslauf, den in früheren Zeiten der Mensch, weil eine Art mehr instinktiven Bewußtseins gewaltet hat, durch Festeszeiten feierte, hat noch eine andere Seite. Auch die wurde hier schon erwähnt. Die Erde ist während des Winters mit ihren Elementargeistern, man kann sagen, vereint. Die Elementargeister ziehen sich hinein in den Schoß der Erde, wohnen da bei den sich vorbereitenden Pflanzenwurzeln und den andern Naturwesenheiten, die während des Winters im Schoße der Erde sind. Dann, wenn der Frühling kommt, atmet die Erde gewissermaßen dieses ihr elementarisches Wesen aus; die Elementargeister steigen wie aus einer Gruft heraus, steigen herauf in die Atmosphäre. Während sie im Winter die innere Gesetzmäßigkeit der Erde aufgenommen haben, bekommen sie immer mehr und mehr, wenn es gegen den Frühling zu geht, und namentlich wenn es dem Sommer zu geht, in ihrem Wesen und Weben jene Gesetzmäßigkeit, die ihnen von den Sternen des Kosmos und deren Bewegungen aufgedrängt wird. Und wenn die Hochsommerzeit da ist, da webt und lebt es draußen im Umkreise der Erde unter den Elementarwesen, die still und ruhig während des Winters unter der Schneedecke waren, da wallt und wirbelt es unter diesen Elementarwesen in denjenigen Bewegungen, in denjenigen gegenseitigen Beziehungen, die bestimmt sind durch die Gesetze der Planetenbewegungen, durch die Gesetze der Gestaltung der Fixsterne und so weiter. Und wenn der Herbst kommt, dann kommen gewissermaßen diese Elementarwesen wiederum gegen die Erde zurück. Dann nähern sie sich wieder der Erde, bekommen immer mehr und mehr auch wieder die Erdengesetze, um wiederum zurückzukehren, gewissermaßen von der Erde eingeatmet zu werden während der Winterzeit, wo sie wiederum still und ruhig im Schoße der Erde sein werden.
Wer diesen Jahreslauf miterleben kann, der fühlt sein ganzes Menschenleben ungeheuer bereichert durch solches Miterleben. Der Mensch der Gegenwart und auch der Mensch einer jetzt schon längeren Vergangenheit erlebt ja eigentlich nur, und auch das mehr dumpf, unbewußt, die physisch-ätherischen Vorgänge seines eigenen Leibes, dessen, was innerhalb der Haut ist. Er erlebt seine Atmung, er erlebt seine Blutzirkulation. Allein dasjenige, was draußen in Wind und Wetter im Jahreslauf spielt, was in der Ausgießung der Samenkräfte, in dem Fruchtenden der Erdenkräfte, in dem Leuchtenden der Sonnenkräfte lebt, all das ist für das Gesamtleben des Menschen, wenn der Mensch sich auch dessen nicht bewußt wird heute, nicht minder bedeutsam, nicht minder einschneidend als dasjenige, was meinetwillen als Atmung und Blutzirkulation innerhalb seiner Haut vor sich geht. Wie die Sonne auftrifft auf irgendein Erdengebiet, was sie da durch ihre Wärmung, durch ihre Strahlung hervorruft, das lebt der Mensch mit. Und wenn der Mensch im richtigen Sinne Anthroposophie aufnimmt, Anthroposophie nicht liest wie einen Sensationsroman, sondern so liest, daß dasjenige, was ihm in Anthroposophie mitgeteilt wird, Inhalt seines Gemütes wird, dann erzieht er allmählich sein Herz und seine Seele also zum Miterleben desjenigen, was da draußen sich im Jahreslauf abspielt. Und wie man den Tageslauf erlebt im morgendlichen Frischsein, im Bereitsein zur Arbeit am Vormittag, im Auftreten des Hungers, im Auftreten der Ermüdung am Abend, wie man da die inneren Vorgänge, das innere Weben und Leben der Kräfte und Materie innerhalb der Haut verspürt, so kann man dadurch, daß man sich die von der Beschreibung sinnlicher Ereignisse ganz abweichenden anthroposophischen Ideen zu Gemüte führt, dieses Gemüt bereiten, daß es wirklich empfänglich, sensitiv wird für dasjenige, was im Jahreslauf webt und lebt. Und dann kann man dieses Miterleben des Jahreslaufes immer mehr und mehr vertiefen, bereichern, dann kann man es wirklich dazu bringen, daß man nicht so sauer, möchte ich sagen, als Mensch innerhalb seiner Haut dahinlebt und die äußeren Dinge an sich vorübergehen läßt, sondern dann kann man es so erleben, daß man mit jeder Blume selber in seinem Gemüte blüht, daß man das Blühen der Blume miterlebt, daß man das SichAufschließen der Knospen miterlebt, daß man im Tautröpfchen, aus dem die Sonnenstrahlen erglänzen, im erglänzenden Lichte miterlebt dieses wunderbare Geheimnis des Tages, das uns eben in dem erglänzenden Tautröpfchen am Morgen entgegentreten kann. Man kann also in dieser Weise hinauskommen über das philiströs-prosaische Miterleben der äußeren Welt, das sich dadurch ausdrückt, daß man im Winter seinen Winterrock anzieht, im Sommer sich eine leichtere Kleidung anzieht, daß man einen Regenschirm nimmt, wenn es regnet. Wenn man hinauskommt über das Prosaische bis in dieses Miterleben des Webens und Treibens der Naturdinge und Naturtatsachen, dann wird erst der Jahreslauf wirklich verstanden.
Dann ist man aber auch, wenn der Frühling durch die Welt geht, wenn der Sommer herankommt, mit seinem Herzen, mit seiner Seele dabei, wie das sprießende, sprossende Leben sich entfaltet, wie die Elementargeister draußen schwirren und fliegen in den Linien, die ihnen aufgedrängt werden durch den Gang der Planeten. Dann lebt man sich selber hinaus während der Hochsommerzeit in ein kosmisches Leben, das allerdings das unmittelbare innere Leben des Menschen abdämpft, aber dabei den Menschen hinausführt in seinem eigenen Erleben, man möchte sagen in einem kosmischen Wachschlaf, das ihn in der Hochsommerzeit hinausführt in ein Miterleben der planetarischen Vorgänge.
Nun ist es heute so, daß der Mensch eigentlich nur glaubt, in der Natur zu leben, wenn er das Sprießende, Sprossende, das Wachsende und Keimende, das Fruchtende miterlebt. Es ist eben so, daß der Mensch in der Gegenwart, wenn er auch darauf nicht eingehen kann, wenn er auch nicht miterleben kann das Keimende, Fruchtende, so doch mehr Herz und Sinn hat für dieses Keimende, Fruchtende, als für das Ersterbende, Ablähmende, sich Abtötende, das im Herbste herankommt.
Aber eigentlich verdienen wir nur mitzuerleben das Fruchtende, Wachsende, Sprossende, Keimende, wenn wir auch miterleben können, wenn der Sommer zur Neige geht und der Herbst herankommt, das sich lähmende, das sich ertötende, das hinuntersinkende, das welkende Leben, das mit dem Herbste eintritt. Und steigen wit in einem kosmischen Wachschlaf im Hochsommer hinauf mit den Elementarwesen in die Region, wo die planetarische Wirksamkeit sich außen und dann auch in unserer inneren Seele entfaltet, dann müssen wir eigentlich auch hinuntersteigen unter den Frost des Winters, unter die Schneedecke des Winters zu den Geheimnissen im Erdenschoße während der Hochwinterzeit, und wir müssen mitmachen das Absterbende, das Welkende der Natur, wenn der Herbst beginnt.
Dann aber würde der Mensch, wenn er allein dieses Welkende miterleben würde, so wie er das Wachsende, Sprossende miterlebt, gewissermaßen auch in seinem Inneren nur mitersterben können. Denn gerade wenn man sensitiv wird für dasjenige, was geheimnisvoll in der Natur webt, und dadurch regsam miterlebt das Sprießende, Fruchtende, Keimende, dann erlebt man auch lebhaft mit dasjenige, was sich vollzieht in der Außenwelt, wenn der Herbst eintritt. Aber es wäre trostlos für den Menschen, wenn er dies nur in der Naturgestalt miterleben könnte, wenn er nur ein Naturbewußtsein erlangen würde über die Herbstes- und Wintergeheimnisse, wie er ein Naturbewußtsein selbstverständlich erlangt über die Frühlings- und Sommergeheimnisse. Aber wenn die Herbstes- und Winterereignisse herankommen, wenn die Michaelizeit kommt, dann muß der Mensch allerdings sensitiv miterleben das Welkende, Absterbende, sich Lähmende, Tötende, aber er muß nicht so wie dann, wenn die Hochsommerzeit herankommt, sich hingeben dem Naturbewußtsein. Er muß im Gegenteil sich gerade dem Selbstbewußtsein hingeben. Er muß in den Zeiten, wo die äußere Natur erstirbt, die Kraft des Selbstbewußtseins entgegenstellen dem Naturbewußtsein.
Und dann steht die Michael-Gestalt wiederum da. Und wenn der Mensch, durch Anthroposophie angeregt, in solchen Naturgenuß, in solches Naturbewußtsein, dadurch aber auch in solches HerbstesSelbstbewußtsein hineinkommt, dann wird wiederum in aller majestätischen Gestalt das Bild des Michael mit dem Drachen dastehen; dann wird dastehen dasjenige, was der Mensch, wenn der Herbst sich naht, empfindet zur Besiegung des Naturbewußtseins durch das Selbstbewußtsein. Und das wird geschehen, wenn der Mensch nicht nur einen inneren Frühling und Sommer erleben kann, sondern wenn er auch den ertötenden, ersterbenden inneren Herbst und Winter erleben kann. Und im Erleben des ersterbenden Herbstes und Winters wird sich als eine gewaltige Imagination, als eine Aufforderung an den Menschen zur inneren Tat, das Bild des Michael mit dem Drachen wiederum hinstellen können.
Dann aber wird für den Menschen, der aus der heutigen Geisteserkenntnis heraus sich hindurchringt zu diesem Bilde, dieses Bild, indem er es erfühlt, etwas ganz Gewaltiges ausdrücken. Dann wird, wenn die Hochsommerzeit sich zu neigen beginnt und immer mehr und mehr sich neigt, wenn nach der Johannizeit Juli, August und der September herankommt, der Mensch gewahr werden, wie er da sich hinausgelebt hat in den Wachschlaf des innerlichen planetarischen Erlebens mit den Elementarwesen der Erde, und er wird gewahr werden, was das, wenn er es miterlebt, eigentlich in ihm bedeutet. Es bedeutet einen innerlichen Verbrennungsprozeß, den wir uns nicht vorstellen dürfen wie einen äußeren Verbrennungsprozeß, denn alle diejenigen Prozesse, die Vorgänge, die außen eine bestimmte Gestalt haben, sie leben auch im menschlichen Organismus fort, aber sie werden da anders.
Und so ist es tatsächlich, daß, wenn der Mensch das Jahr durchläuft, immer andere Vorgänge in seinem Organismus spielen. Dasjenige, was da spielt beim Verlauf der Hochsommerzeit, das ist ein inneres Durchwobenwerden mit dem, was, ich möchte sagen äußerlich, grobmateriell, angedeutet ist in dem Schwefel. Dies ist ein inneres Sulfurisiertwerden, das der Mensch in seinem physisch-ätherischen Wesen erlebt, wenn er die Sommersonne und ihre Wirkungen miterlebt. Dasjenige, was der Mensch an für ihn brauchbarem materiellem Sulfur, Schwefel, in sich trägt, das hat für ihn während der Hochsommerzeit eine ganz andere Bedeutung als während der kalten Winterzeit oder während der aufkeimenden Frühlingszeit. Das Schwefelhafte in dem Menschen ist wie in einem Feuerungsprozesse während des Hochsommers. Und das gehört zu der Entwickelung der menschlichen Natur im Jahreslaufe, daß gewissermaßen dieser Sulfurprozeß im Inneren des Menschen während des Hochsommers in eine Art besonders gesteigerten Zustandes kommt. Die Materie in den verschiedenen Wesen hat wahrlich noch andere Geheimnisse, als sich gerade die materialistische Wissenschaft träumen läßt.
So ist imMenschen alles Physisch- Ätherische von innerem Schwefelfeuer, um diesen Jakob Böhmeschen Ausdruck zu gebrauchen, durchglüht während der Hochsommerzeit. Das kann auch im Unterbewußten bleiben, weil es ein sanfter, intimer Prozeß ist. Aber ist dieser Prozeß auch sanft und intim und daher für das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein unwahrnehmbar, so ist dieser Vorgang, wie das bei solchen Vorgängen überall der Fall ist, gerade von einer ungeheuren einschneidenden Bedeutung für das Geschehen im Kosmos.
Dieser Sulfurisierungsprozeß, der sich in den Menschenleibern in der Hochsommerzeit abspielt, bedeutet, wenn er auch gelinde und sanft und unbemerkbar für den Menschen selbst ist, etwas Ungeheures für die Evolution des Kosmos. Da geschieht im Kosmos viel, wenn im Sommer die Menschen innerlich sulfurisch leuchten. Nicht nur die Johanniskäferchen werden für das physische Auge des Menschen zu Johanni leuchtend. Von den andern Planeten heruntergeschaut, wird das Innere des Menschen für das ätherische Auge anderer planetarischer Wesen zur Johannizeit leuchtend, ein Leuchtewesen. Das ist der Sulfurisierungsprozeß. Die Menschen beginnen in der Hochsommerzeit für die andern planetarischen Wesen so leuchtend hinauszuglänzen in den Weltenraum, wie die Johanniskäferchen auf der Wiese zu Johanni in ihrem Lichte erglänzen.
Das aber, was eigentlich mit Bezug auf die kosmische Beobachtung von einer majestätischen Schönheit ist, denn es ist herrliches astralisches Licht, in dem die Menschen in den Kosmos hinaus erglänzen während der Hochsommerzeit, das, was da von majestätischer Schönheit ist, das gibt zugleich die Veranlassung, daß gerade dem Menschen sich nahen kann die ahrimanische Macht. Denn diesen im Menschen sich sulfurisierenden Stoffen ist die ahrimanische Macht ungeheuer verwandt. Und man sieht auf der einen Seite, wie gewissermaßen die Menschen im Johannilicht in den Kosmos hinaus erglänzen, wie aber die drachenhaften Schlangengebilde des Ahriman sich hindurchschlängeln durch diese im Astrallichte in den Kosmos hinausleuchtenden Menschen und sie zu umgarnen trachten, zu umschlingen trachten, sie herunterzuziehen trachten in das Traumhafte, Schlafhafte, in das Unterbewußte. So daß die Menschen durch dieses Illusionsspiel, das Ahriman mit den leuchtenden, mit den kosmisch leuchtenden Menschen treibt, zu Weltenträumern werden sollen, damit sie durch diese Weltenträumerhaftigkeit eine Beute der ahrimanischen Mächte werden können. Das alles hat auch im Kosmos eine Bedeutung.
Und wenn gerade in der Hochsommerzeit aus einem gewissen Sternbilde die Meteorsteine herabfallen in den mächtigen Meteorschwärmen, wenn das kosmische Eisen auf die Erde herabfällt, dann ist in diesem kosmischen Meteoreisen, in dem eine so ungeheuer starke heilende Kraft liegt, die Waffe der Götter enthalten gegen Ahriman, der die leuchtenden Menschen drachenhaft umschlängeln will. Und die Kraft, die auf die Erde herabfällt in den Meteorsteinen, im Meteoreisen, das ist dasjenige als Weltenkraft, womit die oberen Götter die ahrimanischen Mächte zu besiegen trachten, wenn der Herbst herankommt. Und dasjenige, was sich da räumlich in majestätischer Größe abspielt draußen im Weltenall, wenn die Augustschwärme der Meteoriten hineinstrahlen in die Menschenstrahlungen im Astrallichte, dasjenige, was sich da grandios draußen abspielt, das hat sein sanftes, scheinbar kleines, eben nur räumlich kleines Gegenbild in demjenigen, was im menschlichen Blute vor sich geht. Dieses menschliche Blut, das wird wahrhaftig nicht auf so materielle Weise, wie es sich die heutige Wissenschaft vorstellt, sondern überall auf Anregungen des Geistig-Seelischen hin durchschossen, durchstrahlt von demjenigen, was als Eisen in das Blut hineinstrahlt, was Angst, Furcht, Haß bekämpfend sich als Eisen in das Blut eingliedert. Die Vorgänge, die sich in jedem Blutkörperchen abspielen, wenn die Eisenverbindung hineinschießt, die ist menschlich, im ganz Kleinen, minuziös dasselbe, was sich abspielt, wenn der Meteorstein leuchtend, strahlend durch die Luft heruntersaust. Meteorwirkungen im Inneren des Menschen sind die Durchstrahlungen mit dem Eisen, die für das Blut und seine Entängstigung geschehen. Denn eine Entängstigung, eine Entfürchtung ist es, was da mit dem Eisen hineinstrahlt.
Und so wie die Götter mit ihren Meteorsteinen den Geist bekämpfen, der Furcht über die ganze Erde durch seine Schlangengestalt ausstrahlen möchte, indem sie das Eisen hineinstrahlen lassen in diese Furchtatmosphäre, die am intensivsten ist, wenn der Herbst herannaht oder wenn der Hochsommer zu Ende geht, so geschieht dasselbe, was da die Götter tun, im Inneren des Menschen, indem das Blut mit Eisen durchsetzt wird. Alle diese Dinge versteht man erst, wenn man auf der einen Seite ihre innere geistige Bedeutung versteht, und wenn man auf der andern Seite den Zusammenhang desjenigen erkennt, was Schwefelbildung im Menschen ist, was Eisenbildung im Menschen ist, mit dem, was im Kosmos vorhanden ist.
Der Mensch, der hinschauen kann, wenn eine Sternschnuppe durch den Raum geht, darf sich dabei mit Verehrung gegen die Götter sagen: Dasjenige, was da draußen in räumlichen Weiten geschieht, das geschieht im Atomistisch-Kleinen fortwährend in dir; da fallen diese Sternschnuppen, indem die Eisenbildung in jedemBlutkörperchen vor sich geht: voller Sternschnuppen, voller kleiner Sternschnuppen ist dein Leben. — Und dieser innere Sternschnuppenfall, der eigentlich das Leben des Blutes von einer andern Seite her bedeutet, dieser innere Sternschnuppenfall, er wird ganz besonders bedeutend, wenn der Herbst herannaht, wenn der Schwefelprozeß in seinem Hochpunkte ist. Dann, wenn dieses Erglänzen, was ich beschrieben habe, dieses Johanniswurmwerden des Menschen da ist, dann ist die Gegenkraft da, indem im Inneren millionenfach sprühende Blutmeteore schwärmen.
Das ist der Zusammenhang des inneren Menschen mit dem Weltenall. Und dann schauen wir, wie insbesondere aus der Nervenorganisation, die den menschlichen Körper durchsetzt, besonders in dieser Jahreszeit, wenn der Herbst heranzieht, nach dem Gehirn hin ein mächtiges Ausstrahlen des Sulfurs, des Schwefels sich vollzieht. Man kann sozusagen den ganzen Menschen wie ein Phantom schwefelleuchtend sehen, wenn der Herbst heranrückt.
Aber in diese bläulich-gelbe Schwefelatmosphäfre strahlen hinein die Meteorschwärme, die im Blutesleben vorhanden sind. Das ist das andere Phantom. Während das Phantom des Schwefels wie ziehende Wolken von dem Unteren des Menschen hinauf nach dem Kopfe geht, strahlt vom Kopfe gerade aus die Eisenbildung, wie Meteorschwärme sich hinüberergießend in das lebendige Dasein des Blutes.
So ist der Mensch, wenn die Michaelizeit herannaht. Und er muß in seinem Bewußtsein gebrauchen lernen die Meteoritenkraft seines Blutes. Er muß das Michael-Fest feiern lernen, indem er das MichaelFest gerade zu einem Entängstigungsfeste, zu einem Furchtlosigkeitsfeste, zu einem Fest innerer Initiative und innerer Kraft gestaltet, indem er das Michael-Fest zu dem Feste der Erinnerung des selbstlosen Selbstbewußtseins gestaltet.
So wie man feiert zur Weihnacht die Geburt des Erlösers, wie man feiert zur Osterzeit den Tod und die Auferstehung des Erlösers, wie man feiert zur Johannizeit das kosmische Ergossensein der Menschenseelen hinaus in die \Weltenweiten, so soll man feiern zur Michaelizeit, wenn das Michaels-Fest wirklich verstanden werden will, dasjenige, was geistig lebt in dem Sulfurisierungs- und in dem Meteorisierungsprozeß des Menschen, der insbesondere in seiner ganzen seelisch-geistigen Bedeutung zur Michaelizeit vor dem Menschenbewußtsein stehen soll. So daß sich der Mensch sagt: Du wirst Herr dieses Prozesses, der sonst ohne dein Bewußtsein aus dem Reiche der Natur heraus sich entfaltet, wenn du, so wie du dich dankbar neigst der Geburt des Erlösers zur Weihnacht, so wie du mit tiefer, innerer Seelenbewegung durchlebst die Osterzeit, an diesem Herbstes-Michael-Feste erlebst, wie in dir wachsen soll alles dasjenige, was gegen Bequemlichkeit, gegen Ängstlichkeit, aber hin zur inneren Initiative, zum freien, starken, tapferen Wollen im Menschen sich entwickeln soll. Das Fest des starken Wollens, das sollte im Michael-Fest vorgestellt werden. Wenn das so ist, wenn so Naturerkenntnis sich zusammenschließt mit wahrhaftem geistigem Menschenselbstbewußtsein, dann wird das Michael-Fest sein richtiges Kolorit, seine richtige Färbung erlangen.
Daher bedarf es wahrhaftig, bevor die Menschheit daran denken kann, Michael-Feste zu feiern, einer Erneuerung der ganzen Seelenverfassung, denn eben diese Erneuerung der ganzen Seelenverfassung soll ja im Michael-Fest begangen werden. Nicht ein äußerlich oder ähnlich den konventionellen Festen zu begehendes Fest, sondern ein Fest, das den ganzen inneren Menschen erneuert, das muß, wenn es würdig eingesetzt werden soll, das Michael-Fest eben werden.
Dann tritt aus alledem, was ich beschrieben habe, neuerdings heraus das einstmals so majestätische Bild Michaels mit dem Drachen. Aber dann malt sich uns aus dem Kosmos heraus dieses Bild des Michael mit dem Drachen. Dann malt sich uns der Drache selber, in bläulich-gelblichen Schwefelströmungen seinen Leib ausbildend. Wir sehen dahinschimmern, -strahlen die sich wolkenhaft aus den Schwefeldämpfen bildende Gestalt des Drachen, über den sich der Michael erhebt, über dem der Michael sein Schwert zeigt.
Aber wir stellen nur richtig dar, wir malen nur richtig, wenn wir die Atmosphäre, in der Michael seine Herrlichkeit, seine Macht entfaltet gegenüber dem Drachen, wenn wir den Raum angefüllt sein lassen nicht mit gleichgültigen Wolken, sondern mit dahinziehenden, in Eisen bestehenden Meteoritenschwärmen, die durch die Gewalt, die vom Herzen des Michael ausströmt, sich bilden, zusammenschmelzen zu dem eisernen Schwerte des Michael, der mit diesem meteorgeformten eisernen Schwerte den Drachen besiegt.
Versteht man, was geschieht im Weltenall und Menschen, dann malt auch der Kosmos aus seinen Kräften heraus. Dann schmiert man nicht hin diese oder jene Farbe aus der menschlichen Willkür, dann malt man im Einklang mit den göttlichen Kräften die Welt, die ihr Wesen entfaltet, das ganze Wesen des Michael mit dem Drachen, wie es einem vorschweben kann. Als eine Erneuerung der alten Bilder kann es aus der unmittelbaren Anschauung des Kosmos heraus gemalt werden. Da wird dann das dargestellt, was ist, und nicht das, was sich einzelne phantasierende Menschen heute unter dem Bilde des Michael mit dem Drachen etwa vorstellen. Dann aber wird der Mensch verstehen, verstehend nachdenken, aber auch nach Gemüt und Fühlen und Wollen dem Herbste entgegenleben im Jahreslauf. Dann wird zu Herbstesbeginn am Michaeli-Fest das Bild des Michael mit dem Drachen dastehen als dasjenige, was in unseren Zeitereignissen als mächtige Aufforderung, als mächtig anspornende Kraft im Menschen wirken soll. Und dann wird man verstehen, wie dieses auf etwas deutet, in dem sich symptomatisch das ganze Schicksal, ja vielleicht die Tragik unseres Zeitalters abspielt.
Wir haben im Lauf der letzten drei bis vier Jahrhunderte eine großartige Naturwissenschaft gefunden, die im Materiellen wirkt, die eine großartige umfassende Technik hervorgebracht hat. Wir sahen diese Technik insbesondere sich entfalten in den letzten drei bis vier Jahrhunderten in dem, was man mit dem ausgebereitetsten Stoff, den wir auf Erden finden, hat machen können. Wir haben gelernt, fast das Allerwesentlichste und Allerbedeutendste, das die Menschheit im materialistischen Zeitalter gebildet und hervorgebracht hat, aus dem Eisen der Erde zu formen. Wir sehen auf unsere Lokomotiven hin, wir sehen in unsere Industriestätten hinein, sehen überall, wie wir mit dem Eisen, mit dem Stahl, der ja nur verwandeltes Eisen ist, diese ganze materielle Kultur gebildet haben, die sich ja überall auf dem Eisen auferbaut hat. Und in dem, wozu das Eisen verwendet worden ist, drückt sich symptomatisch aus, wie wir unsere ganze Weltanschauung, unser ganzes Leben aus der Materie auferbaut haben, wie wir es noch fortdauernd aus der Materie auferbauen wollen.
Das aber führt den Menschen hinunter. Gerettet aus dem, was da kommt, kann er nur werden, wenn er gerade hier auf diesem Gebiete mit der Vergeistigung beginnt, wenn er durch das Atmosphärische zu der Vergeistigung hinaufdringt, wenn er hingewendet wird darauf, von dem Eisen, das in den Stahlwerken zu Lokomotiven verarbeitet wird, nun noch aufzuschauen zu dem Meteoteisen, das aus dem Kosmos herunterschießt zur Erde und das äußere Material ist für dasselbe, woraus die Michael-Kraft geformt wird. Gelingen muß es dem Menschen, diese mächtige Bedeutung zu erschauen: Hier auf Erden hast du im Zeitalter des Materialismus das Eisen verwendet, wie es die Anschauung über die Materie selber dir eingab. Du mußt, wie du die Anschauung über die Materie durch die Fortbildung der Naturwissenschaft in die Geisteswissenschaft umbilden mußt, so auch aufrücken von dem, was dir das Eisen war, zu dem Durchschauen des Meteoreisens, des Michael-Schwert-Eisens. Dann wird dir aus dem, was du da machen kannst, das Heil kommen. Das, meine lieben Freunde, ist in dem Spruche enthalten:
O Mensch,
Du bildest es zu deinem Dienste,
Du offenbarst es seinem Stoffeswerte nach
In vielen deiner Werke.
Es wird dir Heil jedoch erst sein,
Wenn dir sich offenbart
Seines Geistes Hochgewalt
die Michael-Hochgewalt — mit dem Schwert, das sich von selber in dem Weltenraum aus dem Meteoreisen zusammenballt, wenn in der materiellen Kultur der Mensch die Macht des Eisens zu vergeistigen vermag zur Macht des Michael-Eisens, das ihm gegenüber dem bloßen Naturbewußtsein sein Selbstbewußtsein gibt.
Sie haben gesehen, daß gerade die wichtigste Forderung der Zeit, die Michael-Forderung, in diesem Leitspruche im astralischen Licht eben enthalten ist.
First Lecture
I would like to speak to you today in connection with some of the things I said here before my trip to Vienna. I would like to mention how, let us say, it is possible to express pictorially what is constantly happening in the world behind the veil of the sense world, apart from the physical-sensual processes. One must speak about these things pictorially, but the pictorial expression corresponds perfectly to reality. We are living today in a time of severe trials for humanity with regard to the events that are accessible to human sensory observation, severe trials that must become even more severe. We live in a time in which a whole sum of old forms of civilization, to which people still mistakenly cling, will sink into the abyss, in which the demand will strongly arise that people must find their way to something new. One cannot arouse any optimistic hopes - I have often expressed this - in the human mind if one wants to speak of that which will initially take place in the bosom of time in preparation for the outer physical life of mankind. But one cannot actually make a judgment today, which could be valid in any way, about the meaning of what happens externally, if one does not look at that which takes place behind the sensual veil of supersensible world events, determining and giving direction.
It is indeed the case that when man looks with his physical eye, has his other physical senses in activity and becomes attentive to what is in his world environment, he perceives the physical atmosphere of the earth, embedded in it the beings of the various kingdoms, within this whole milieu everything that takes place in wind and weather in the course of the yearly phenomena. So that man has all this before him, that is the external fact when man exposes his senses to the outside world.
But behind the atmosphere, behind the sunlit atmosphere lies, perceptible for that which one can call spiritual organs, just another world, one may say a higher world compared to the sense world, a world in which also in a kind of light, in a kind of spiritual light, in a kind of astral light, spiritual beings and spiritual facts shine and take place which are truly no less significant for the overall development of the world and of man than that which takes place historically in the outer atmosphere on the outer surface of the earth.
If now he who can penetrate into such things today wanders through the regions of the astral light, as one can wander through forests, mountains, so he can, just as one, when going on a hike, finds direction boards at crossroads, also find in this astral light, I would like to say, direction boards inscribed with spiritual writing. These direction boards have a very special peculiarity. They are not easily understandable even for those who, let us say, can read in the astral light. In the spiritual world and its communications, things are not done in such a way that they are made as comfortable as possible for you, but that which reveals itself to you in the spiritual world presents you with riddles. And one must first find out through inner research, through inner experience of this and much else, what an inscription on such a spiritual tablet means.
And so just now in this time, by the way already for decades, but especially strongly in this time of severe human trials, one can read a remarkable saying in the astral light, when one spiritually walks along in the spirit land. It looks similar to a prosaic comparison, but in this case the prosaic will not remain prosaic due to the inner meaning. Just as one finds such tablets by which one can follow one's paths, just as here or there in more poetic regions this or that can be found on directional tablets, so one encounters significant spiritual directional tablets in the astral light. I would like to say: Again and again, in the same repetition again and again, one finds the following saying, which is inscribed there with very significant spiritual writing in the astral light in the present time:
O man,
You form it for your service,
You reveal it according to its material value
In many of your works.
But salvation will only be yours,
When to thee is revealed
His spirit's high power.
As I have said, such things, which are inscribed in the astral light, pointing man to what is significant, present themselves, so that man can bring his soul forces into activity, like a kind of riddle that must be solved.
Now, in these days, we will contribute to the solution of this actually simple, but for present-day humanity significant saying.
Let us remember once again how we have brought the course of the year before our souls in many a contemplation. Man must first of all view the course of the year purely externally in such a way that, when spring comes, he sees the sprouting, budding nature, the growth of plants, later also the blossoms of the plants, but also all other life springing forth from the earth in sprouting, budding life. All this increases towards summer; in summer it all reaches its peak. It fades away, it withers away when fall comes. It dies in the bosom of the earth when winter arrives.
There is another side to this course of the year, which in earlier times, because a kind of more instinctive consciousness prevailed, man celebrated through festive seasons. This too has already been mentioned here. During the winter, the earth is, one could say, united with its elemental spirits. The elemental spirits draw themselves into the womb of the earth, dwell there with the preparing plant roots and the other natural beings that are in the womb of the earth during the winter. Then, when spring comes, the earth exhales, as it were, its elemental essence; the elemental spirits emerge as if from a tomb, rise up into the atmosphere. While in winter they have absorbed the inner lawfulness of the earth, as it approaches spring, and especially as it approaches summer, they acquire more and more in their being and weaving that lawfulness which is imposed on them by the stars of the cosmos and their movements. And when midsummer arrives, the elemental beings that were still and quiet under the blanket of snow during the winter weave and swirl among these elemental beings in those movements, in those mutual relationships that are determined by the laws of planetary movements, by the laws of the formation of the fixed stars and so on. And when the fall comes, these elemental beings return to the earth. Then they approach the earth again, receive the laws of the earth more and more, in order to return again, to be inhaled by the earth, so to speak, during the winter time, where they will again be still and quiet in the bosom of the earth.
Whoever can experience this course of the year feels his whole human life tremendously enriched by such an experience. The man of the present and also the man of a longer past actually only experiences the physical-etheric processes of his own body, of what is within the skin, and that too more dully, unconsciously. He experiences his breathing, he experiences his blood circulation. Only that which takes place outside in wind and weather in the course of the year, that which lives in the outpouring of the seed forces, in the fruiting of the earth forces, in the shining of the sun forces, all this is no less significant, no less incisive for the overall life of man, even if man does not become aware of it today, than that which, for my sake, takes place as breathing and blood circulation within his skin. How the sun strikes any area of the earth, what it causes there through its warmth, through its radiation, that is what the human being lives with. And if a person absorbs anthroposophy in the right sense, if he does not read anthroposophy like a sensational novel, but reads it in such a way that what is communicated to him in anthroposophy becomes the content of his mind, then he gradually educates his heart and soul to experience what takes place out there in the course of the year. And just as one experiences the course of the day in being fresh in the morning, in being ready for work in the morning, in the onset of hunger, in the onset of fatigue in the evening, just as one senses the inner processes, the inner weaving and life of the forces and matter within the skin, so one can prepare this mind by bringing to mind the anthroposophical ideas, which differ completely from the description of sensory events, so that it really becomes receptive, sensitive to that which weaves and lives in the course of the year. And then one can deepen and enrich this co-experience of the course of the year more and more, then one can really bring it to the point that one does not live so sourly, I would like to say, as a human being within one's own skin and lets the outer things pass by, but then one can experience it in such a way, that one blossoms with every flower in one's mind, that one experiences the blossoming of the flower, that one experiences the opening of the buds, that one experiences in the dewdrop from which the sun's rays shine, in the shining light, this wonderful mystery of the day, which can confront us in the shining dewdrop in the morning. In this way we can transcend the philistine-prosaic co-experience of the outer world, which is expressed by putting on our winter coat in winter, putting on lighter clothes in summer, taking an umbrella when it rains. When you go beyond the prosaic and experience the weaving and drifting of natural things and natural facts, only then do you really understand the course of the year.
But then, when spring passes through the world, when summer approaches, one is also present with one's heart, with one's soul, as the sprouting, sprouting life unfolds, as the elemental spirits buzz and fly outside in the lines that are imposed on them by the course of the planets. Then one lives oneself out during midsummer time into a cosmic life, which, however, dampens the immediate inner life of man, but at the same time leads man out in his own experience, one might say in a cosmic waking sleep, which leads him out in midsummer time into a co-experience of the planetary processes.
Now it is the case today that man actually only believes he is living in nature when he experiences the sprouting, the sprouting, the growing and germinating, the fruiting. It is just so that man in the present, even if he cannot enter into it, even if he cannot experience the sprouting and fruiting, nevertheless has more heart and sense for this sprouting and fruiting than for the dying, paralyzing and dying that comes in autumn.
But actually we only deserve to experience the fruiting, growing, sprouting, germinating, if we can also experience, when summer draws to a close and autumn approaches, the paralyzing, the dying, the sinking, the withering life that comes with autumn. And if we ascend in a cosmic waking sleep in midsummer with the elemental beings into the region where the planetary activity unfolds on the outside and then also in our inner soul, then we must actually also descend under the frost of winter, under the snow cover of winter to the mysteries in the earth's womb during the high winter time, and we must participate in the dying, the withering of nature when autumn begins.
But then man, if he alone were to experience this withering, just as he experiences the growing, the sprouting, would in a sense only be able to die with it in his inner being. For it is precisely when one becomes sensitive to that which weaves mysteriously in nature, and thus actively experiences the sprouting, fruiting, germinating, that one also vividly experiences that which takes place in the outer world when autumn arrives. But it would be bleak for man if he could only experience this in the natural form, if he could only attain a natural consciousness of the secrets of autumn and winter, just as he naturally attains a natural consciousness of the secrets of spring and summer. But when the autumn and winter events approach, when Michaelmas time comes, then man must experience sensitively the withering, dying, paralyzing, killing, but he does not have to surrender to the consciousness of nature as he does when midsummer time approaches. On the contrary, he must surrender to self-consciousness. In the times when outer nature dies out, he must oppose the power of self-consciousness to nature-consciousness.
And then the Michael figure stands there again. And when man, stimulated by anthroposophy, comes into such enjoyment of nature, into such nature-consciousness, but thereby also into such autumnal self-consciousness, then again the image of Michael with the dragon will stand there in all its majestic form; then there will stand that which man feels, when autumn approaches, for the conquest of nature-consciousness by self-consciousness. And this will happen when man can not only experience an inner spring and summer, but when he can also experience the deadening, dying inner autumn and winter. And in the experience of the dying autumn and winter, the image of Michael with the dragon will once again be able to present itself as a powerful imagination, as a call to man to inner action.
But then this image will express something quite powerful for the human being who, out of today's spiritual knowledge, struggles through to this image by feeling it. Then, when the time of midsummer begins to draw near and draws nearer and nearer, when July, August and September approach after the time of St. John, man will become aware of how he has lived out into the waking sleep of the inner planetary experience with the elemental beings of the earth, and he will realize what this actually means in him when he experiences it. It means an inner process of combustion, which we must not imagine as an outer process of combustion, for all those processes which have a certain form outside, they also live on in the human organism, but they become different there.
And so it is indeed that as the human being passes through the year, other processes are always at play in his organism. That which takes place in the course of the midsummer season is an inner interweaving with that which, I would like to say externally, coarsely materially, is indicated in the sulphur. This is an inner sulphurization that man experiences in his physical-etheric being when he experiences the summer sun and its effects. The material sulphur, sulphur, that man carries within him has a completely different meaning for him during the height of summer than during the cold winter or the budding spring. The sulphur in the human being is like a combustion process during the height of summer. And this is part of the development of human nature in the course of the year, that this sulphur process within the human being comes into a kind of particularly heightened state during the height of summer. Matter in the various beings truly has other secrets than materialistic science can dream of.
So in man everything physical-ethereal is glowing with inner sulphur fire, to use Jakob Böhme's expression, during midsummer. This can also remain in the subconscious, because it is a gentle, intimate process. But if this process is also gentle and intimate and therefore imperceptible to the ordinary conscious mind, then this process, as is the case with such processes everywhere, is precisely of immense incisive significance for what is happening in the cosmos.
This process of sulphurization that takes place in the human body at the height of summer, even if it is mild and gentle and unnoticeable for the human being himself, means something tremendous for the evolution of the cosmos. A lot happens in the cosmos when people glow sulphurically inside in summer. It is not only St. John's beetles that become luminous to the physical eye of man at St. John's Day. Looking down from the other planets, the interior of the human being becomes luminous for the etheric eye of other planetary beings at St. John's time, a luminous being. This is the process of sulphurization. At the height of summer, human beings begin to shine out into the world space for the other planetary beings as brightly as the little St. John's beetles shine in their light in the meadow at St. John's Day.
But that which is actually of a majestic beauty with regard to cosmic observation, for it is glorious astral light in which men shine out into the cosmos during midsummer time, that which is of majestic beauty there, that gives at the same time the cause that the ahrimanic power can approach just man. For the ahrimanic power is tremendously related to these substances which sulphurize in man. And on the one hand one sees how, as it were, men shine out into the cosmos in the light of St. John, but how the dragon-like serpentine formations of Ahriman wind their way through these men who shine out into the cosmos in the astral light and seek to ensnare them, to entwine them, to pull them down into the dreamlike, the sleeplike, into the subconscious. So that through this game of illusion, which Ahriman plays with the luminous, with the cosmically luminous people, people should become world dreamers, so that through this world dreaminess they can become prey to the Ahrimanic powers. All this also has a meaning in the cosmos.
And when just in midsummer time the meteor stones fall down from a certain constellation in the mighty meteor swarms, when the cosmic iron falls down to earth, then in this cosmic meteor iron, in which lies such a tremendously strong healing power, is contained the weapon of the gods against Ahriman, who wants to snake around the shining people dragon-like. And the power that falls down to earth in the meteoric stones, in the meteoric iron, is that world power with which the upper gods seek to defeat the Ahrimanic powers when autumn approaches. And that which takes place spatially in majestic grandeur outside in the universe, when the August swarms of meteorites radiate into the human radiations in the astral light, that which takes place grandiosely outside, has its gentle, seemingly small, just spatially small counterpart in that which takes place in human blood. This human blood is truly not shot through in such a material way as today's science imagines, but is shot through everywhere by stimuli of the spiritual-soul, radiated through by that which radiates into the blood as iron, which fights fear, anxiety, hatred and is incorporated into the blood as iron. The processes that take place in every blood corpuscle when the iron compound shoots into it are humanly, on a very small scale, minutely the same as what takes place when the meteor stone shines, radiates down through the air. Meteoric effects within the human being are the irradiations with the iron, which happen for the blood and its de-scaring. For it is a disconcertion, a fear that radiates in there with the iron.
And just as the gods fight the spirit with their meteor stones, which wants to radiate fear over the whole earth through its serpentine form, by letting the iron radiate into this atmosphere of fear, which is most intense when autumn is approaching or when midsummer is coming to an end, so the same thing that the gods do happens inside the human being by infusing the blood with iron. All these things can only be understood when, on the one hand, one understands their inner spiritual meaning and, on the other hand, when one recognizes the connection between what is sulphur formation in man, what is iron formation in man, and what is present in the cosmos.
The human being who can look when a shooting star passes through space may say to himself with reverence for the gods: That which happens out there in spatial expanses happens in the atomistically small continuously within you; there these shooting stars fall as the iron formation takes place in every blood corpuscle: full of shooting stars, full of small shooting stars is your life. - And this inner falling of shooting stars, which actually signifies the life of the blood from another side, this inner falling of shooting stars, it becomes particularly significant when autumn approaches, when the sulphur process is at its peak. Then, when this shining, which I have described, this St. John's worming of the human being is there, then the counterforce is there, in that blood meteors are swarming inside in their millions.
This is the connection between the inner human being and the universe. And then we see how, especially at this time of year, when autumn is approaching, a powerful emanation of sulphur, of sulphur, takes place from the nervous organization that permeates the human body towards the brain. One can, so to speak, see the whole human being shining like a phantom of sulphur as autumn approaches.
But into this bluish-yellow sulphur atmosphere radiate the meteoric swarms that are present in the life of the blood. This is the other phantom. While the phantom of sulphur goes like drifting clouds from the lower part of the human being up to the head, the iron formation radiates straight from the head, like swarms of meteors pouring over into the living existence of the blood.
This is how man is when Michaelmas approaches. And he must learn to use the meteoric power of his blood in his consciousness. He must learn to celebrate the Michaelmas feast by shaping the Michaelmas feast into a feast of fearlessness, into a feast of inner initiative and inner strength, by shaping the Michaelmas feast into a feast of the memory of selfless self-consciousness.
As one celebrates the birth of the Redeemer at Christmas, as one celebrates the death and resurrection of the Redeemer at Easter time, as one celebrates the cosmic outpouring of human souls into the \worlds at St. John's time, so one should celebrate at Michaelmas time, if the Michaelmas festival is really to be understood, that which lives spiritually in the process of sulfurization and in the meteorization process of man, which in particular is to stand before human consciousness in all its soul-spiritual significance at Michaelmas time. So that the human being says to himself: You will become master of this process, which otherwise unfolds out of the realm of nature without your consciousness, if you, just as you incline gratefully to the birth of the Redeemer at Christmas, just as you live through the Easter time with deep, inner soul movement, experience at this autumn Michaelmas how all that is to grow in you which is to develop against comfort, against timidity, but towards inner initiative, towards free, strong, courageous volition in the human being. The feast of the strong will should be presented in the Michael feast. If this is the case, if knowledge of nature is thus united with true spiritual human self-consciousness, then the Michael festival will attain its right coloring, its right hue.
Therefore, before mankind can think of celebrating Michaelmas, a renewal of the whole constitution of the soul is truly necessary, for it is precisely this renewal of the whole constitution of the soul that is to be celebrated in the Michaelmas. Not a festival to be celebrated externally or similar to conventional festivals, but a festival that renews the whole inner man, that is what the Michaelmas festival must become if it is to be worthily used.
Then the once so majestic image of Michael with the dragon emerges from all that I have described. But then this image of Michael with the dragon will emerge from the cosmos. Then the dragon itself paints itself to us, forming its body in bluish-yellowish streams of sulphur. We see the cloud-like figure of the dragon shimmering, radiating from the sulphur vapors, above which Michael rises, above which Michael shows his sword.
But we only depict correctly, we only paint correctly, if we let the atmosphere in which Michael unfolds his glory, his power in relation to the dragon, if we let the space be filled not with indifferent clouds but with drifting swarms of meteorites consisting of iron, which are formed by the force that emanates from the heart of Michael, melting together into the iron sword of Michael, who defeats the dragon with this meteor-shaped iron sword.
If one understands what happens in the universe and in human beings, then the cosmos also paints out of its powers. Then one does not smear this or that color from human arbitrariness, then one paints in harmony with the divine forces the world that unfolds its essence, the whole being of Michael with the dragon, as one can imagine. As a renewal of the old pictures, it can be painted from the direct view of the cosmos. What is then depicted is what is, and not what individual fantasizing people imagine today under the image of Michael with the dragon. Then, however, man will understand, reflect with understanding, but also live towards autumn in the course of the year according to his mind, feelings and will. Then, at the beginning of autumn on the feast of Michaelmas, the image of Michael with the dragon will stand there as that which is to act as a mighty call, as a mighty inspiring force in man in the events of our time. And then you will understand how this points to something that symptomatically reflects the entire fate, indeed perhaps the tragedy, of our age.
In the course of the last three to four centuries we have found a great natural science that works in the material, that has produced a great comprehensive technology. In particular, we have seen this technology unfold over the last three to four centuries in what we have been able to do with the most prepared material we can find on earth. We have learned to shape from the iron of the earth almost the most essential and most important thing that mankind has formed and produced in the materialistic age. We look at our locomotives, we look into our industrial plants, we see everywhere how we have formed this entire material culture with iron, with steel, which is only transformed iron, and which has built itself everywhere on iron. And what iron has been used for expresses symptomatically how we have built our whole world view, our whole life out of matter, how we still want to continue to build it out of matter.
But this leads man down. He can only be saved from what is coming if he begins spiritualization right here in this area, if he penetrates upwards through the atmospheric to spiritualization, if he is turned towards looking upwards from the iron that is processed into locomotives in the steelworks to the meteo-iron that shoots down from the cosmos to the earth and is the outer material for that from which the Michael-power is formed. Man must succeed in seeing this mighty meaning: Here on earth, in the age of materialism, you have used iron as the conception of matter itself gave it to you. Just as you have to transform your view of matter into spiritual science through the further development of natural science, you must also advance from what was iron to see through the meteoric iron, the Michael-Sword-Iron. Then salvation will come to you from what you can do there. This, my dear friends, is contained in the saying:
O man,
Thou formest it for thy service,
You reveal it according to its material value
In many of your works.
But salvation will only be yours,
When to thee is revealed
His spirit's high power
the Michael-power - with the sword that clenches itself out of the meteoric iron in the world space, when in the material culture man is able to spiritualize the power of iron to the power of Michael-iron, which gives him his self-consciousness in contrast to the mere consciousness of nature.
You have seen that precisely the most important demand of the time, the Michael demand, is contained in this motto in the astral light.