The Rudolf Steiner Archive

3. The Michael Impulse and the Mystery of Golgotha I

[ 1 ] During my last visit here among you, I was able to share some insights with you in two talks about life between death and a new birth. At that time, the perspective chosen was to consider the full importance and significance of an understanding of life between death and a new birth, because the forces and beings with which the human being encounters there also extend into our life that takes place between birth and death.

[ 2 ] Today we shall first discuss various aspects that can help us see, in light of the overall character of our current cultural epoch, the great mission of the anthroposophical worldview. We are indeed—as I have often emphasized and discussed in greater detail—in an important phase of human development on Earth, and I have often emphasized that, while a superficial view of human evolution on Earth often labels every age a transitional age, from a certain perspective our age must perhaps be called, if not exactly a transitional age, then a significant age for the entire development of humanity.

[ 3 ] A first point I would like to present to you today is one I have often mentioned before: that anthroposophy—which we know must now become an integral part of human cultural life due to the necessities of Earth’s evolution—can be understood and grasped can nevertheless be understood and grasped by any human soul that is willing and approaches the subject with sufficient openness.

[ 4 ] Of course, one might immediately object: Yes, but there are only a few people who are aware that what anthroposophy speaks of seems true to them. And the majority of people regard what comes from Spiritual Science and spiritual research as fantasy, as daydreaming, if not even—as we heard yesterday—as one of the seven sects of perdition.

[ 5 ] What is actually underlying this? Given the fact that there is still a very large number of people today who say: Yes, we cannot understand anthroposophy; it simply seems like fantasy to us—can the claim be upheld, in light of this, that this truth, which is understood by only a few, is nevertheless recognizable to the unbiased human mind?

[ 6 ] In yesterday’s public lecture, I explained how one can attain supersensible knowledge by freeing certain powers of the soul from their involvement with the physical body. I mentioned how the powers of thought, speech, and will can become free, can emancipate themselves from the physical, so that they can act purely in the soul, in the spirit-soul realm, and that these are the very powers that are developed through meditation, concentration, and contemplation, which then penetrate into the supersensible worlds. All the powers that enable one to penetrate the supersensible worlds arise from the fact that the human being can detach his soul from everything with which he is connected in the physical realm. Thus, in the powers of cognition with which the supersensible worlds can be explored, we are dealing with soul powers that are free from the body.

[ 7 ] Yet in everyday life there is a faculty of the soul that, in a certain sense, already possesses within itself what spiritual research seeks to attain through the other faculties of the soul; and this faculty is the power of thought, as it manifests itself in ordinary, unbiased, sound common sense. For this ordinary power of thought, under certain conditions, can manifest itself as something independent of the body even without being further developed.

[ 8 ] The matter with this kind of thinking is as follows. This thinking, which every soul today can possess within itself as a power, has, so to speak, two faces; it is a Janus-faced entity. This thinking is either dependent on the brain, bringing to consciousness only those thoughts that are reflected in the brain and the nervous system. In this case, this thinking is more passive; it is a form of thinking that seeks to rely on the brain as an instrument. Or, this thinking can simply—without any meditation—free itself through inner effort, by becoming aware of its own true nature, by seeking to break away from its reliance on the brain: in this case, it is a more active form of thinking.

[ 9 ] Both are aspects of healthy human thinking, which every soul can possess today. Thinking is present in every soul, but it can be used in two ways. First, in this way: a person can summon the strength within themselves, can form thoughts within themselves. Then this thinking, in its activity, is such that it fully accommodates everything, even the seemingly most daring assertions of spiritual research. But if this thinking refuses to draw strength from within, refuses to grasp itself in its activity, then it must rely on the instrument of thinking, the brain; then it produces only thoughts that are grasped by the instrument of the brain; then the person does not think actively, but passively.

[ 10 ] Almost more important than any other—though not for the immediate present, but for the future—is the distinction between active thinkers and passive thinkers. Those who are capable of independent, inwardly free thinking, who can think actively, are already drawn toward research in Spiritual Science by the impulse of this thinking. Those who do not wish to think actively, but only in dependence on the brain, will say that anthroposophical research is fantasy, because they have no concept of what can be grasped through free thinking, because they wish to be dependent on the instrument of the brain. So that one can say that they do not wish to think within themselves, but only to let thinking happen within them for their own sake.

[ 11 ] Precisely from this perspective, one’s commitment to and attitude toward the anthroposophical worldview today is essentially a matter of inner diligence, inner effort, or inner complacency—inner laziness. Thinking that seeks to be active, that seeks to draw strength from within, comprehends the results of Spiritual Science; thinking that seeks to use a crutch, an instrument that merely brings thoughts to consciousness through the reflection of the brain—that is complacent; it seeks only to let itself be thought—and such thinking will have to reject anthroposophical research out of complacency. And all philosophies and all writings that are published and take on a seemingly scientific and intellectual character, claiming that one cannot comprehend what anthroposophical research can achieve—this is based on an initially unconscious but deeply inner complacency of human thinking that does not wish to become active but rather to remain passive. Adherence to the anthroposophical worldview is not a matter of convenience.

[ 12 ] That is, in essence, the truth of the matter. And when you attend gatherings that no longer call themselves materialistic—perhaps calling themselves monistic instead—and that speak disparagingly of the “fantasy” of Spiritual Science, there is something quite different underlying what is actually said in these gatherings. Underlying this is the inability to progress toward active thinking; furthermore, there is the presumption—because one does not want to summon the will for active thinking oneself—of making the comfort of passive thinking the supreme principle of human research.

[ 13 ] In everyday life, taking the easy way out when using one’s spiritual powers sometimes leads to something that is frequently observed. When someone wants to listen to this or that speech but is too complacent to follow the presentation, they gradually fall asleep and miss what they actually intended to learn—and perhaps even what they did not intend to learn. We will have to deal with such a sleeping through of a necessary developmental impulse for humanity in all those who cannot bring themselves to engage in active thinking in the present and the near future. They will sleep through something of the utmost importance. For even if this or that person wants to know nothing of it, behind what is taking place in our sensory world lie the supersensible forces of being, supersensible processes. Therefore, because a part of humanity wishes to sleep through what is actually happening, the supersensible processes will unfold nonetheless. We are dealing with important supersensible processes in our present epoch! And all sensory processes are the outer manifestations of supersensible processes. If we, so to speak, look through the veil in which all sensory processes of our epoch’s development present themselves, then we come behind this veil to the supersensible processes. And to characterize these supersensible processes, which are particularly important right now, let us remember that all life in the universe is based on an ever-increasing development.

[ 14 ] If we trace the course of human development, we first find humanity, in its earliest form, in the ancient Saturn era. We then find humanity interwoven with a new element in the ancient Sun era, further developed in the ancient Moon era, and endowed with the fourth element, the ego, in the Earth era. And we know, of course, that in the Jupiter era, the soul forces will take on such a form that humanity can be compared to the beings of the hierarchy of the Angeloi.

[ 15 ] Just as human beings progress and ascend in their development, so too do the other beings of the individual hierarchies advance from lower to higher levels. It is not only the human hierarchy that is subject to such an ever-increasing development, but also the hierarchies that stand above humanity.

[ 16 ] Let us consider, among these hierarchies, the one that stands one or two levels higher than humanity: the hierarchy of the Archangeloi, the archangels. As I mentioned yesterday, today many reasonable people generally do not take offense when one speaks of the spirit in general terms. But if one goes into details about classes, orders, and individuals—as is done in natural science with plants, animals, and other realms—then modern civilized people take great offense. Nevertheless, one must do so if one wishes to deal concretely with the spiritual world.

[ 17 ] If you pick up the series of lectures I gave in Kristiania on the development of tribes, you will see that the development of tribes is connected with the hierarchy of the archangels. The successive epochs are governed by the primordial forces, the Archai, the spirits of personality.

[ 18 ] If we now take the most important beings from the order of the Archangels, we have names that we encounter elsewhere as well, names that we can use just like any other: Raphael, Gabriel, Michael, and so on.

[ 19 ] We can refer to these entities by such names, for the name is not the essential thing. We name them just as we name other things. They play a certain role in what we find to be the facts of supersensory development. Our sensory development, however, depends on this supersensory development.

[ 20 ] We can, in fact, quite effectively distinguish—from a Spiritual Science perspective—between the individual beings within the hierarchy of the Archangels. Not abstractly by merely listing names, but we can distinguish in such a way that we see the principal cultural impulses—which manifest externally in the sensory world in a particular part of the earth, for example during the first Christian centuries—as being governed by a different being than the one who governed the principal cultural impulses among the leading peoples, let us say in the 12th and 13th centuries, and the one that governs our cultural development.

[ 21 ] Let us first focus on what is relevant to the development of our culture. Here we must clearly distinguish between the character of the era that began around the 15th and 16th centuries—an era whose defining feature was the emergence of the new natural sciences, which brought the natural sciences to the level we encountered in the 19th century and which cannot be admired enough.

[ 22 ] When one considers these centuries of scientific work by all of humanity, one must say that it has been guided by certain peoples who were directed from the supersensible world by a very specific being from the hierarchy of the Archangels, and this being differs precisely from the being who now guides our nascent spiritual cultural epoch from the supersensible world. If one wishes to give names, which have become customary in the West, to these guiding beings from the hierarchy of the Archangels, one can say: Since the time of Christ, various beings have been guiding the progress of culture. Without wishing to insist on these names, I would simply like to list the names of a series of beings from the hierarchy of the Archangels—just as one names human beings who participate in something on the physical plane—a series of beings from the hierarchy of the Archangels who have presided over the unfolding of culture: Oriphiel, Anael, Zachariel, Raphael, Samael, Gabriel, Michael. “

[ 23 ] Gabriel was the guiding spirit of the cultural period that has just come to an end for the spiritual world with the last third of the 19th century. For indeed, with this last third of the 19th century—and this will become increasingly apparent—an epoch begins in which entirely different influences and impulses from the supersensible world flow into the sensory world. Whereas in the past epoch human souls were primarily oriented toward what the senses perceive and the intellect can grasp, the people of the coming age—who do not wish to miss out on ongoing development—will need to pay particular attention to how ever more supersensible wisdom and insights will flow from the supersensible worlds into earthly sensory development.

[ 24 ] If one were to describe it in external terms, one might say: During the past epoch, the supersensible beings had their hands full trying to keep the inspirations and intuitions that can flow in from the supersensible worlds as far away from physical life as possible. The hierarchies were concerned with ensuring that these influences could not flow into the souls.

[ 25 ] From now on, the supersensible forces will be directed and guided from the supersensible world in such a way that as many inspirations and intuitions as possible can flow into the human soul, so that a knowledge born of imagination, inspiration, and intuition may take hold of the human soul. Just as the past age was devoid of all inspired being and all spiritual insight, so the truly living cultural impulses of the coming age will be filled with inspired and intuitive being.

[ 26 ] Fifty years ago, it would have been impossible to speak to people about what can be spoken to you today through the necessary course of world development, because at that time it would have been impossible to receive these things directly from the spiritual worlds. The gate has only now been opened. And just as past times were most favorable for the development of the intellect, so will the coming times be most favorable for the development of inspiration and intuition.

[ 27 ] Two eras are in sharp conflict: one that was averse to all inspiration, and one in which, although powerful forces will fight against all inspiration by any means necessary, there will nevertheless be the possibility of embracing inspiration and making it the guiding force in human souls.

[ 28 ] And if we look more deeply into the matter, we discover that the supersensible forces, which could not flow directly into human souls in the past age, were by no means inactive. What external physiology cannot ascertain is nonetheless true: during the Age of Gabriel, work was also carried out from the supersensible world into the sensible world. This work was performed on the physical body of the human being. During this time, fine structures arose within the forebrain, which were gradually implanted into the human race through the Gabrielic regime, as a result of which people are now largely born with a brain that possesses different, finer structures here in the forebrain than was still the case with people in the 12th and 13th centuries.

[ 29 ] This was the task of an age in which people focused their attention on the physical and sensory, closing themselves off from the inspired; it was an age in which the impulses of the supersensible world poured into the physical body and formed this fine structure in the brain.

[ 30 ] And this structure will become increasingly present in those who now feel capable of progressing toward active thinking and an understanding of Spiritual Science. And then, in our epoch—the epoch at the very beginning of which we actually stand—the supersensible forces will not be used to form structures in the brain, but to flow directly into the souls, to work through imagination and inspiration, to flow into the human souls. This is the Michael Regency.

[ 31 ] Thus, two entities in the order of the Archangels differ in that one, Gabriel, who guided humanity immediately prior to our age, worked on the finer development of the brain, and that the one who is now beginning to work does not have the task of transforming a human organ, but rather of implanting an understanding of spiritual science into human souls. Thus we distinguish between the beings who belong to the hierarchy of the Archangels.

[ 32 ] With these two examples, I have tried to present to you, as it were, the concrete characteristics—the traits of character—of these two beings. We must not be content with names alone; for just as we know nothing about a person if we know only that his name is Müller, so too we know little about Gabriel if we know only his name. But we do know something about a person when we can say that he is a compassionate person, that he has done this or that. In the same way, we also know something about a supersensible being when we can say that it has allowed forces to flow into the physical human body—forces that have given rise to certain structures in the forebrain through the human power of procreation. And we correctly characterize the spirit, the being that follows him, when we point to its activity in achieving an understanding of the inspired, intuitive truths. Michael works not so much for the spiritual researcher, the initiate himself, but for those who wish to understand spiritual research, who wish to move toward active thinking, as the forces of active thinking increasingly accumulate within humanity in the centuries to come.

[ 33 ] This transition is significant in another respect as well. As a result of what has taken place, a humanity is gradually emerging that, through its organization, will be able to truly look back on past incarnations in future incarnations through its memory. But humanity must first bring itself into this position.

[ 34 ] You cannot remember something you have never thought about. If you mindlessly unbutton your cuffs in the evening and mindlessly set the buttons aside, you won’t be able to find them the next morning because you didn’t think about them. If you have made a mental note to commit to memory the surroundings where you placed the cufflinks, you will go straight to the spot where you put them the next morning.

[ 35 ] Just as this applies to ordinary life with regard to memory, so too should it be understood in relation to the broader perspective of past earthly lives. We must first recall the innermost essence of the soul—that which truly carries over into the soul’s being. But to do that, we must first have grasped this innermost essence. We can only do this through occult training. If one has not made an effort to hold the idea of the soul’s essence in a previous incarnation, one cannot recall it, no matter how well organized one may be. People will be organized for recollection, but they will initially perceive this organization as an illness, as nervousness, as a terrible state, if they cannot make use of it. For they will be organized to recall, but they have nothing to recall. When a person has impressions they cannot utilize, organs within them that they cannot use, then they become ill.

[ 36 ] We anticipate that in the coming ages, people will be able to recall their past lives on Earth; however, only those who have something to remember—that is, those who, through occult training, have come to recognize the human soul in its unique nature as a member of the spiritual world—will be able to do so. In every life that follows one in which the soul has been recognized as a spiritual being, the recollection of past lives returns.

[ 37 ] We are thus at an important turning point. Understanding Spiritual Science essentially means nothing other than having a sense of this turning point in our time.

[ 38 ] Now, not all beings belonging to the hierarchy of the Archangels are of the same nature or rank. When we speak of the hierarchy of the Archangels, one can say that they do indeed succeed one another as I have described. But the highest in rank, so to speak the Chief, is the one who is beginning to exercise dominion in our age: Michael. He is one of the Archangels, but he is, in a sense, the most advanced. Now there is a process of evolution, and this evolution encompasses all beings. All beings are in a process of increasing development, and we live in the age when Michael, the highest of the nature of the Archangels, is transitioning into the nature of the Archai. He will gradually transition into a leading position, will become a guiding being, will become the Zeitgeist, the guiding being for all humanity.

[ 39 ] This is what is significant, this is what is immensely important about our age: that we realize that what did not yet exist in all previous epochs—what was not there for all of humanity—can now, and must, become a benefit for all of humanity. What has hitherto occurred among individual peoples—spiritual deepening—can now be something for all of humanity.

[ 40 ] And when we point to what is happening behind the sensory world, we can also point to what is taking place within the sensory world as an outward expression of what has just been described: that, as it were, an exaltation of the Archangel Michael is taking place behind the sensory world.

[ 41 ] Until now, human beings have been able to have a personality; in the future, they will still be able to have a personality, but in a different way than has been possible up to our time. In a sense, human beings have always participated in the supersensible worlds, or at least have been able to do so through their soul life. But the personal touch, the personal coloring that human beings have lived out in this sensory world did not come down from above, but rose up from below; it came from Lucifer. Lucifer created the personality. That is why it has been said until now: Human beings cannot penetrate the supersensible world with their personality; they cannot bring their personality into the spiritual world; they must extinguish their personality, otherwise they defile the spiritual world.

[ 42 ] In the future, it will be up to human beings to allow their personalities to be inspired from above, so that they may receive what is to flow forth from the spiritual world. The personality derives its character from the spiritual insights it is able to absorb; in times to come, the personality will become something entirely different. In a sense, because of the way in which human beings have strayed from the spiritual—which is imposed upon them by the body—they were once a personality; in the future, they will have to become a personality through that which they are able to process and absorb within themselves from the spiritual world.

[ 43 ] In the past, people were indeed personalities—shaped by their blood, their temperament, and various factors arising from the physical realm—and impersonal elements from the supersensible world radiated into these personalities. In the future, however, one will be able to be a personality less and less through temperament, blood, and so on. But one will be able to be so through one’s participation in the supersensible world. What the supersensible impulses contain will flow right into the character. This will be brought about by the impulse of Michael, which instills in the human soul an understanding of spiritual life. People with a pronounced personality character will derive this character in the future from the fact that they will express this or that through an understanding of the supersensible worlds. The Alexanders, Caesars, and Napoleons belong to the past. The supersensible element certainly flowed into them, yet they derived their high personal character from what they received from below. The people who are personalities through the way they carry the spiritual world into the sensory world—the people who carry personality into humanity from the soul—these will be the personalities who will succeed the Alexanders, Caesars, and Napoleons. The strength of human deeds in the future will arise from the strength of the spiritual influence that will flow into these human deeds.

[ 44 ] All of this is part of what makes the transition from one epoch to another so significant. But what characterizes the most significant transition of all is the transition from the Gabriel epoch to the Michael epoch in our current epoch of development.

[ 45 ] We can certainly use common sense to gain an understanding of what has been said today, provided we are open-minded enough to look at our own era and see how these two possibilities continued to clash well into the last third of the 19th century.

[ 46 ] The first approach is to construct a worldview based on the natural sciences. Today, this is outdated, somewhat antiquated, and no longer in keeping with the spirit of the age. People still do it because they are simply carrying on what comes from the past. It is in the spirit of the age to craft a worldview from the inspirations of the spiritual world and from an understanding of it. We must take this in as a feeling, as a sensation in our souls; then we will come to know what the anthroposophical worldview means for individual souls, and learn to sense what evolution means for humanity. We are permitted to be participants in something meaningful.

[ 47 ] And now I would like to remind you of something I wove into the lectures I gave here last time—the lectures on the transformation of the Buddha’s function. This is also the point where the next reflection will build on today’s discussion

[ 48 ] should be. I would like to conclude today’s reflections with a question of sorts—a question that may arise in every soul and that will lead us from the important matters considered today to something even more important.

[ 49 ] If Michael has been promoted, if he has become the guiding spirit of Western culture, who will take his place? The vacancy must be filled. Every soul must ask itself: so an angel, too, must have been promoted, must have been elevated, must have entered the ranks of the Archangels. Who is it?

[ 50 ] I will conclude with this question in order to move on to even more important considerations that we will address the day after tomorrow.

[ 51 ] Today I wanted to present to your soul the most important characteristic of this transition: the fact that souls who are able to summon the will to do so can come to understand supersensible truths. For this is the will of the world powers that stand behind humanity and guide human evolution. And the reflection of this in the sensory world is that the personality takes on a completely different nuance. Whereas in the past age the personality was colored from below by temperament and blood, in the future the element of spiritual understanding will set the tone for the personality of the new age. That will be the dominant element.

[ 52 ] It is important to understand this, but it is even more important to feel it.

[ 53 ] From this point, the day after tomorrow we will move on to a profound reflection that can penetrate each and every one of our souls.