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The Festivals and Their Meaning IV:
Michaelmas
GA 229

15 October 1923, Stuttgart

The Michael Inspiration

What I have to say to you to-day will be expressed in the form of pictures drawn from the imaginative life, which is the expression, the revelation, of the spiritual world. The human being is woven with his whole existence and activity into the spiritual world. We know from the many and varied descriptions of it that have been given here, that an abstract manner of speaking, such as is applied to external, sense-perceptible nature, cannot be used in speaking of the spiritual world, if actual manifestations of that world are in question. We know too, however, that the manner of speaking we must then adopt is no unreal one, but, on the contrary, one far more realistic than the logical, abstract speech we employ to express merely natural truths. This I wanted to say about the attitude to be adopted in what I shall now put before you.

When man finds, with spiritual vision, the way out beyond the physically sense-perceptible world, there reveals itself to him a world of spirit. In that world he feels led to make use of the phenomena of the physical world as pictures, with which to express what is spiritually revealed to him. So let me now put a picture at the centre of our considerations; a picture which is in truth a deep reality. Mankind, throughout its evolutionary history, has always been guided by impulses from the spiritual world. Those who could see so far found these impulses written as it were in brazen letters in a spiritual light, indicating the direction they should take. What is thus found in the spiritual world might be compared with the signposts of the physical world; not those that have just a pointing hand perhaps, and the name of some place or other, but signposts on which is expressed in powerful words—or at least in powerfully sounding words—what changes are due to take place in human thinking, feeling, willing. I am speaking of spiritual signposts. Such directions in the spiritual world, however, are usually drawn up for human beings in a remarkable manner, and have been so in all epochs—namely, in a kind of riddle-language. One has in a certain way to make an effort to get behind the riddle. In order that one of these signposts in the riddle-language may become a real impulse for life, a great deal of what one knows has to be brought together. And so just at the present time, as something suited to our immediate present and the near future, one finds in the astral light, as I may call it, such directing words as can become impulses for mankind. On the most varied occasions—I might say in the most varied places—there comes before one to-day, if one has the faculties needed to behold it, something that is like a warning, having moreover the quality of a riddle, and it calls forth in man the feeling that he should be guided by it, should take it as a strong impulse into his will, into his whole life of soul. What thus shines out to meet us in the astral light, as one such spiritual milestone, consists approximately of the following words:—

Thou mouldest it to thy service,
Thou revealest it according to the value of its substance
In many of thy works.
Yet it will only bring thee healing
When to thee is revealed
The lofty power of its Spirit.

First of all there is a challenge to discover what is actually meant. Some sort of impulse is referred to, something which is already present, something known to man, since otherwise one could not reckon on his finding an answer:

Thou mouldest it to thy service,
Thou revealest it according to the value of its substance
In many of thy works.
Yet it will only bring thee healing,
When to thee is revealed
The lofty power of its Spirit.

The explanation of these words, which, as has been said, how themselves in the astral light like a directing impulse or human beings, will be the purpose of to-day's lecture.

Let us recall a number of things that I have already explained here. Let us recall how the year's course, in its regular sequence through Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, has a spiritual content; how spiritual occurrences, superensible occurrences, are revealed in what happens in the course of the year just as a man's super-sensible soul and super-sensible spirit are revealed in what happens in his bodily life between birth and death. Let us reflect how, in what appears outwardly during the year's course, in Winter's snow, Spring's sprouting, waxing life, in Summer's life of blossoming and Autumn's life of ripening and fruiting—how in all this which discloses itself physically to men something spiritual is hidden, something spiritual sustains it. And so let us turn our gaze first to what takes place in this yearly course, from spring to summer and on towards the autumn.

In all that Earth reveals, in stone and plant, in everything that has being, spiritual beings live; not a mere washed-out spirituality, but separate spirit-beings, Nature-spirits. These Nature-spirits hide during the winter in the bosom of the Earth; they are breathed in, as it were, by the Earth; they are within the Earth. When spring comes, Earth breathes out, as it were, her spirituality; these Nature-spirits strive upwards. They aspire upwards with the forces of springing, sprouting life; they are active in the life which is felt in the light-radiant, sun-warmed air; within this they aspire upwards. And as we approach St. John's Day and the time of midsummer, then in the heights above us, if we look up to them, we have a picture revealed there, embodied in the forms of clouds, embodied mightily in lightning, too, and thunder, embodied in all the meteoric element above us, all that lived in the form of Nature-spirits during winter in the Earth's dark bosom. During winter we must look down to the Earth and feel, or behold how, hidden beneath the covering of snow, Nature-spirits are working, so that out of winter shall come spring again, and summer, from the productive Earth. But if in summer we look down to the Earth, then the Earth is as if impoverished by the loss of those Nature-spirits. The Nature-spirits have gone out into the wide universe; they have united themselves with the cloud-structures and everything that human sight encounters in the heights above. In all the ways I have mentioned they have streamed up to the heights, these Nature-spirits, and with them they have taken, in an extremely subtle form, extremely fine dilution, that which manifests outwardly as crude and lifeless sulphur. And in fact these Nature-spirits, as they billow and surge in cloud-forms and the like, during summer's height, weave and live pre-eminently in sulphur, the sulphur that is then present there in an extraordinarily subtle way, in the heights of the earthly realm. If we could speed through these high reaches of our earthly world during the height of summer with a sort of tasting-feeling sense, we should be aware of a sulphurous taste and even of a sulphurous smell, though in an extraordinarily dilute, subtle and intimate form. What develops up there, however, under the influence of the Sun's warmth and light, is akin to the process that goes on in the human organism when cravings, wishes, emotions and so on come welling up. Anyone who has the faculty for beholding and feeling such things knows that the Nature-spirits in the heights during midsummer live in an element which is as much saturated with desire as is the desire-life that is bound up with the animal nature of man—that animal part of man wherein he, too, is sulphurised, is permeated with sulphur in a very diluted form. We see, as it were, man's lower aspect, that which is animalised in him, arched as Nature's formation above us at the height of summer, filled with the life of Nature-spirits. What we thus recognise in its sulphurous quality when it weaves and lives in human nature, we call the Ahrimanic; in it the Ahrimanic actually lives. So we can also say: when in high summer-time we turn spiritual vision towards the heights, then in the cosmic sulphurous desires the Ahrimanic is revealed to us. So if we conceive of man in relation to this whole world nexus, we must say to ourselves: the Earth takes up in winter what exists in man as his lower nature and spreads over it crystalline snow, and in so doing the Earth receives the Ahrimanic from it. When in high summer the Ahrimanic is free, it works as cosmic desires out in the wide spaces of the world and is, indeed, subject to laws which proceed from the planetary neighbours of the Earth and are effective on them. And now we see how against this Ahrimanic desire-element, against this animal desire-nature of man turned inside out, as it were, in the cosmos, an opposing force is present. The force which brings the human being into subjection through his emotions, dragging him down below the human to the animal level, and is revealed in full summer high above us—against this a counter-force is provided in the cosmos. This counter-force is seen in those remarkable products which from time to time fall on to the Earth as products of the cosmos and contain meteoric iron. If you look at a piece of meteoric iron, you have in it a remarkable witness of the iron dispersed in the cosmos. In the shooting stars which come so frequently in August and bring iron into special activity, as it were, in the cosmos, we see revealed this counter-force of Nature acting against the desire-element which by that time is out there in the cosmos. And in this cosmic iron, condensed to meteoric stones, we have the arrows which the cosmos sends out against the animal desire element which, as I have just described, is cosmically manifest.

So we can look with understanding and reverence upon the wisdom-filled guidance of the cosmos. We know, of course, that man needs this animal desire nature, precisely because in overcoming it, and not otherwise, he can develop the forces that first make him fully human. And man could not have this desire nature, this animalising element, if the same animal desire element were not a part also of the cosmos. The sulphur, then, the sulphurous Ahrimanic element is, as it were, one pole out in the cosmos, and the arrows discharged by the Cosmos through space to combat this sulphurous element are concentrated in meteoric iron—in the meteoric projectiles, so to say, of the universe.

Now man is a true microcosm, really a little world. Everything that manifests in the great world outside in gigantic and majestic phenomena such as the phenomena of meteors, manifests also within, in the inward nature of what he is himself as physical being. For this physical being is only an expression, a manifestation, of his spiritual being. And so in a certain way we bear within ourselves, starting from the animal lower nature, the sulphurous element. We must say to ourselves: this sulphurous Ahrimanic element storms through the human organism, stirs up his desire-nature, stirs up his emotions. We feel it within us; we behold it at high summer-time in the cosmic desire-covering above our heads. But we also behold how into this over-arching cosmic desire-covering there shoot the iron arrows of the meteoric phenomena, cleansing and clarifying it, acting as an opposite pole to the animal-like desire-nature. For through this shooting in of the meteoric iron arrows from the cosmos, the animal desire-covering of high summer time above us is purified. And what takes place in majesty and grandeur out there in the great cosmos, goes on continually also in us. We produce tiny iron particles in our blood, in combination with other substances, and while, on the one hand, there pulses through our blood the sulphurising process, there works against it inwardly, meteorically, as the other pole, the iron inside us, bringing about the same process as is effected outside in the cosmos by the meteoric iron. We can then so picture man's relationship to the cosmos that in the flashing meteoric element we find the cosmic counterpart of what within us is a million upon million-fold flashing forth of the meteoric element that sets us free by means of the iron in our blood, cleansing and clarifying us from the sulphurising process which is also active in the blood itself.

Thus we are inwardly a copy of the cosmos. In the cosmos this process is accomplished during the height of summer; man, because he stands within Nature as one emancipated from her in regard to time, has continually midsummer as well as the other seasons in himself, just as he has within him in the continuity of memory his former experiences. Outwardly they have vanished, but inwardly they remain. So is it too with what is present in Man as Microcosm in relation to the Macrocosm. What he thus carries in his physical body, however, he must grasp in soul and spirit, must become able to experience it within himself; he must learn to experience this meteoric shag of the blood-iron into the blood-sulphur as freedom, or initiative, as the strength of his will. Otherwise it remains an animal or vegetative process in him at the best. What precisely constitutes our becoming [a] human being in soul and spirit is that we grasp the processes which go on in us, such as this iron-sulphur process, with our soul and spirit, that we send the soul and spirit into them as an impulse. Just as when we have made an instrument and know how to handle it properly, we are able to perform something by means of it, so can we turn to the service of our will what works and lives in us as does this process of iron and sulphur, when once we know how to handle it; when, as human beings, we can handle and make use of what goes on as living processes within our body.

Let us now turn again to the cosmos and away from man. You can realise that what takes place out there in the cosmos is an earnest admonition to men. For this meteoric iron-process in the cosmos truly brings to mind our inner physical nature; this nature, however, can be placed at the service of our spiritual inner being. So now we come to the meaning which has to be ascribed to that brazen writing in the astral light:—

Thou mouldest it to thy service,
Thou revealest it according to the value of its substance
In many of thy works.

If we look round us at modern life, as it has developed in the course of recent centuries, we can see that the chief feature of this materialistic culture is the use of iron in the realm of earthly life. Look in any direction where our form of civilisation has flowered in recent times; it is iron that has planted in the physical world everything which has led to the culmination of this materialistic culture. We look for what it was that in so unparalleled a way has brought people together, and has laid down the paths for the various branches of materialistic culture and made them smooth; and everywhere we see it was iron and what can be developed out of it. When we speak of materialism in the life of thought it is true that the essence of materialism consists in the idea that everything is matter, and Spirit is a kind of vaporous result of the activities of matter. But the materialism of mankind in the last four centuries is shown not merely in the fact that people think materialistically; materialism is manifest also in the way we handle outer things. Out of the cultural impulses of recent times man has applied iron to this material culture, while the meteoric iron which falls from heaven is treated merely as a rarity, or as something one seeks to explain by means of a science that cannot grasp much about it. This meteoric iron, however, which falls to earth from out of the cosmos, which purifies and clarifies the animal-like life, is actually an admonition to us that we should look up from using iron materially for earthly purposes, and see what heavenly service iron performs in its meteoric aspect up above us, and, more especially, within us. For these meteoric processes within us go on all the time.

And so the first part of this warning speech, shining forth to meet us in the astral light, takes on the likeness of a word written in brazen letters, saying: O Man, thou hast put iron to thine earthly service.

Thou mouldest it to thy service,
Thou revealest it according to the value of its substance
In many of thy works.
Yet it will only bring thee healing,
When to thee is revealed
The lofty power of its Spirit.

It is not merely that we should look up in our thoughts from the materialistic world-conception to a spiritual world-conception, but that we should also look up from what we use in the service of material culture to the spiritual and cosmic aspects of what serves us in material form. And so precisely through these words, which have first to be unravelled like a riddle, we are directed to that Spiritual Being who lives in the universe in the revelation of meteoric phenomena, especially in what is revealed by meteoric phenomena at the height of summer. For at that time the Ahrimanic sulphurising process, which is otherwise present only within man, is there as a cosmic process, and the meteoric process is a counter-process to it; we have here the arrows which the cosmos discharges into the animalised cravings in the heights.

If one lets all this work upon the soul, one feels how truly man is connected with all that surrounds him in the world, and, within, one feels how one's very blood is permeated with soul, saturated with spirit. One feels in it this opposition between the Ahrimanic and that which purifies the Ahrimanic element, the iron in the blood; one feels the inner meteoric process. One looks up with comprehension to what is accomplished outside when the cosmic spirit-forces send the iron arrows into the animalised desire-world of the cosmos; one feels oneself entirely bound up with the cosmos and surrendered to it. Precisely in these particular phenomena, one feels entirely surrendered to the cosmos.

When one feels all this in full earnestness, then from this feeling there takes form a cosmic Imagination; one can indeed do no other than form and picture this cosmic Imagination. Just as animals have a different attitude towards outer Nature, being unable to form concepts or ideas of it, but only general impressions, whereas man forms pictures and ideas, so, when the soul has risen to exact clairvoyance, it is not possible for it to do otherwise, when it experiences such things as this—when its feeling turns inwardly towards its own meteoric process, and when looking outward it beholds in the cosmic meteor-process that rich fullness of life which is thus revealed—than to bring it all together in a comprehensive, inwardly saturated picture form, an Imagination in which is displayed how the human being, the Microcosm, and the Macrocosm are grown together. This does not mean that such an Imagination is merely built up out of fantasy; rather is it a real and true expression of a living process permeating the world and the human being; in this case, of a process that lives in the phenomena of the yearly course.

The Imagination which comes before man out of this experience is one that springs out of a living together with the natural processes of the year's course from midsummer on towards autumn, as far as the end of summer, the beginning of the autumn; And from this experience there arises, coming before the soul in living actuality, the figure of Michael. Out of what I have described to you is revealed the figure of Michael in his fight with the Dragon, with the animal nature of Man, the sulphurising process. And when one understands what is actually going on there, then the soul, which takes its own form and origin from the interweaving life forces of the cosmos, cannot but bring forth the fight of Michael with the Dragon. There appears as the outward expression of what is working out there in the cosmos in battle with the animalised desire nature, Michael himself. But he appears with a pointing sword, pointing it towards the higher nature of man. He shines forth with this pointing sword, and we picture Michael rightly when we find in his sword the iron that has been cosmically smelted and forged for this purpose. Thus there comes forth, one might say, out of the spiritual cloud-formations the figure of Michael with positive, searching and directing gaze, his eye like a guiding sign, its gaze sent outwards, never drawn back into himself; and the arm of Michael appears to us in the midst of a sparkling shower of meteor-iron, as though this were molten in cosmic desire forces and fused together again to form the flaming sword of Michael. Rightly do we picture Michael then, quite in accord with reality, when we think of his countenance as woven from the golden light of summer, with a positive gaze which is like a sign, as it were pointing outwards; like a ray of light from within which is sent actively out. We picture Michael rightly when his outstretched arm is flaming with flashing sprays of meteor iron, molten and fused together into the sword wherewith he shows humanity the way from the animal-like to man's higher nature, pointing the way from the summer season, when man most makes himself one with outer Nature, most nearly comes to a Nature-consciousness, to that other season, the time of autumn, when man, were he to continue to live united with Nature, could share only in her dying in the death she brings on herself. But it would be terrible for man, if he could only share with Nature, as autumn comes, this natural path to death, this self-destruction. When we experience Spring, then if we are really fully man, we yield ourselves to Nature in her sprouting, waxing, flourishing. If we are fully man, we blossom with each blossom, sprout with every leaf: with every seed we grow ripe ourselves. It is then that we give ourselves over to Nature's mounting, springing, sprouting life. For it is then her will to live, and we feel this impulse of life in experiencing hers. And we do well to devote ourselves to Nature at this season. But in autumn we cannot unfold this nature-consciousness in ourselves, for if we did that onesidedly we should have to share in the experience of the paralysis and death which she makes her own. Man dare not go with her in that direction; in the face of that he must rather increase his strength. Just as he must accompany living Nature in his own life, so must he set against dying Nature, against death, the Self. Nature-consciousness must be transformed into self-consciousness.

This is the great and powerful picture given us in the approach of autumn, so that from out of what happens in the cosmos we read the admonition: Nature consciousness must change in man into consciousness of self. But for this he needs the strength to overcome with his qualities of soul and spirit the inwardly death-bringing quality of animal-like Nature. For this he is given guidance when he looks out into the phenomena of the cosmos; to this he is guided by what is revealed in the figure of Michael, with his positive gaze and the flaming meteor-sword in his right hand. And Michael appears to us in that fight with the animalised desire-nature of which, also, a picture emerges from the loom of life. If we wish to paint this whole Imagination, we cannot paint it in any humanly arbitrary way; it can be painted only out of what is given by the cosmos. And the only way to picture the sulphurous element in it, rising into the heights with the elemental spirits in yellowish reddish shades, is in the figure of the Dragon, which takes shape from out of the sulphur. So that above the sulphurous Dragon, in whose burning head, as I might call it, is exhibited the desire-like process, above this Ahrimanised and sulphurised Dragon, we have Michael in the form I have described to you.

He who understands the world can describe it in Imaginations. And whosoever believes that one can paint the fight of Michael with the Dragon in any way one chooses, sins against the inner reality of the world. For the interplay of forces in the world has a definite ordering in relation to human beings. And all the great paintings and other works of art in the world have not come into existence out of arbitrary human choice. If that were so, they would scarcely have continued to appeal to man for centuries, even thousands of years. They have sprung from a real understanding of what weaves and lives out there in the cosmos, and also within the human being. And when out of the living and weaving in Nature and in man, in their mutual connection, there is created the substance of Imaginations, with all that is revealed from the mysteries of Nature, even to the colours and the way the colours gleam and shine, and the details of the forms—when all this is given artistic form, then it is that the great, genuine works of art arise, the great works that were created by the seers, that are imitated by the imitators and are decked out by the bunglers with all kinds of frippery till the real greatness that should go forth from these works, born out of the creative weaving of the cosmos, is no longer recognised. This is what gives these works of art the power to influence humanity through long periods of time. The great artistic motifs of painting and sculpture never would have become what they are had they not been created out of impulses seen to arise from the life of Nature and the life of man.

So we are able to direct our vision to what appears if Michael and the Dragon are painted in the spiritual sense of to-day (for older ways of apprehending it had to paint it according to their own knowledge); the countenance pictured in golden sun-gleam, the gaze positive, outward-looking, the sword of flame, molten and shaped anew out of the meteor-iron of the cosmos; and below, the Dragon, tormentor of human nature, the Dragon who manifests at high summertime, the sulphurous Dragon revealed in the weaving of flames rising up and at once fading again. This Dragon moving below in his own sulphurous element, taking form as the tormentor of humanity and the opponent of the higher hierarchies—this gives the necessary contrast over against the war-waging Michael, who compels the meteoric iron to his spiritual service.

Here you have an example of how the true iron passes over into art, must always pass over into art, since with abstract concepts one cannot compass the whole of reality. And this is the admonition to our times—that we should grasp just such a picture as this, for the awakening of strength, for the awakening of mankind. Therefore one would like to inscribe this picture in particular, this modernised picture of the fight of Michael with the Dragon, deep, deep into the human soul, the human heart, so that it may exert its influence in human forces of will and thought in the present time and in the future. And one can know that if a part of mankind were to take this picture in earnest, if a part of mankind were to understand how this picture takes shape from Nature's very self, and from the directive admonitions in the astral light, then to the material use of iron in the last few centuries, especially the 19th century, there would be added a spiritual element penetrated with the meaning and sense of iron. Then this picturing would kindle in man the force of soul and spirit which makes him able to take hold of the purpose of the meteoric iron within him, the iron that shoots into his blood, warring against sulphur. We must learn not to let this process go on in the subconsciousness, merely shaping the lower nature of Man; we must learn to place this process, this iron process in human blood, in the service of the soul-and-spiritual. That it is, that Michael wills in us.

This is what calls on us from the astral light—to celebrate worthily once more the Michael Festival when autumn is beginning. When now we speak of this Michael Festival which should take its place with the Easter and Christmas festivals and that of St. John, it must truly not be understood as meaning that here or there one celebrates a festival in an external way; the point is that we can celebrate such a festival only when we know how to link it with something really significant. The festival of Christmas has not arisen through any arbitrary convenient resolve, but because it is linked with the birth of Christ Jesus; the Easter Festival is linked with the Mystery of Golgotha; and these are very important events in the historical life of mankind. The Michael Festival must be linked with a great and sustaining inner experience of man, with that inner force which summons him to develop self-consciousness out of Nature-consciousness through the strength of his thoughts, the strength of his will, so that he may be able to master the meteoric iron process in his blood, the opponent of the sulphurising process.

To be sure, sulphur and iron have flowed in human blood ever since there was a human race. What takes its course there between sulphur and iron determines the unconscious nature of man. It must be lifted into consciousness. We must learn to know this process as the expression of the inner conflict of Michael with the Dragon; we must learn to raise this process into consciousness. Something has then come about to which the Michael Festival may be linked. But it must first be there, be fully understood, inwardly, deeply understood. Then it will be possible to celebrate the Michael Festival in the way a festival drawn from the cosmos can be celebrated by men. Then we shall have the knowledge which is really able to see something in iron other than what the chemist of to-day or the mechanic sees in it. Then we shall have what teaches us how to take in hand the iron in our own organism, in the inner part of our human nature. Then we shall have the majestic picture of Michael in battle with the sulphurous Dragon, of Michael with the flaming sword of iron, as an inspiring impulse to what man must become, if he is to develop the forces of his evolution for progress and not for decline.

This it is, which shows itself to us as an admonition from the spiritual world in the brazen letters that grow into enigmatic words but that can be understood precisely out of the conditions of our present time:—

O Man,
Thou mouldest it to thy service,
Thou revealest it according to the value of its substance
In many of thy works.
Yet it will only bring thee healing,
When to thee is revealed
The lofty power of its Spirit.

That is Iron. Let us learn to know iron, and equally all other substances, not merely in terms of material value; let us learn to know them in their majestic spirit power! Then there will be human progress once again, progress for the Earth; and that is what we must will, if we want to be man in the true sense of the word.

Die Michael-Imagination Geistige Meilenzeiger Im Jahreslauf

Was ich heute zu Ihnen zu sprechen habe, wird in der Sprache der Bildlichkeit gesprochen sein aus dem imaginativen Leben heraus, aus jenem imaginativen Leben, das der Ausdruck, die Offenbarung ist der geistigen Welt, jener geistigen Welt, in die der Mensch mit seinem ganzen Sein und seiner ganzen Tätigkeit einverwoben ist. Wir wissen ja aus den verschiedensten Darstellungen, die hier gemacht worden sind, daß man in derselben abstrakten Weise, wie man über die äußere sinnenfällige Natur spricht, über die geistige Welt, wenn es sich um deren konkrete Erscheinungen handelt, nicht sprechen kann. Wir wissen aber auch, daß die Art und Weise, wie da gesprochen werden muß, keine unwirkliche, sondern im Gegenteil eine viel wirklichere ist als das logische, abstrakte Sprechen, dessen wir uns bedienen, wenn wir bloß Naturwahrheiten ausdrücken wollen. Damit wollte ich nur hingewiesen haben auf die ganze Haltung der Betrachtung, die ich jetzt vor Ihnen anstellen will.

Wenn der Mensch mit dem Geistesauge hinausdringt über die physisch-sinnliche Welt, dann offenbart sich ihm eine geistige Welt, gegenüber welcher er sich veranlaßt fühlt, die Erscheinungen der physischen Welt als Bilder zu gebrauchen, um dasjenige auszusprechen, was sich ihm geistig offenbart. Und so lassen Sie mich denn sogleich an die Spitze dieser Ausführungen ein Bild stellen, das aber wahrhaftig eine tiefe Wirklichkeit ist. Es war immer so in der Entwickelungsgeschichte der Menschheit, daß diese Menschheit die Impulse ihrer Tätigkeit aus der geistigen Welt heraus empfangen hat. Und diejenigen, die da schauen konnten, fanden diese Impulse gewissermaßen in einem Geisteslichte mit ehernen Lettern eingeschrieben, damit sie sich darnach richten konnten. Es ist das so in der geistigen Welt, daß wir das, um was es sich handelt, vergleichen können mit Meilenzeigern in der physischen Welt, aber nicht solchen, bei denen vielleicht bloß ein Handzeichen mit irgendeinem Ortsnamen darauf steht, sondern mit Meilenzeigern, in welchen mit gewaltig klingenden Worten ausgesprochen ist, was übergehen soll in des Menschen Denken, Empfinden, Wollen. Geistige Meilenzeiger sind es, wovon ich spreche. Solche Hinweisungen in der geistigen Welt sind aber für den Menschen gewöhnlich in einer merkwürdigen Art abgefaßt, und zu allen Zeitepochen warten sie in einer solchen, nämlich in einer Art Rätselsprache abgefaßt. Man muß sich erst in einer gewissen Weise anstrengen, um hinter das eigentliche Rätsel zu kommen. Man muß manches von dem, was man weiß, zusammenhalten, damit einem der Meilenzeiger in seiner Rätselsprache ein wirklicher Impuls werden kann für das Leben. Und so findet man denn gerade heute in Angemessenheit unserer Gegenwart und der nächsten Zukunft solche weisende Worte im meinetwillen nenne man es so - astralischen Lichte, die dem Menschen Impulse werden können.

Bei den verschiedensten Anlässen, ich möchte sagen, an den verschiedensten Orten scheint uns heute, wenn wir dazu die Fähigkeit haben es anzuschauen, dasjenige mahnend, aber auch etwas rätselhaft entgegen, was in dem Menschen dann die Empfindung hervorruft, er solle sich darnach richten, er solle es aufnehmen wie einen starken Impuls in seinen Willen, in sein ganzes Seelenleben. Und dasjenige, was da wie ein solcher geistiger Meilenzeiger im Astrallichte uns entgegenglänzt, das sind etwa die Worte:

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.

Zunächst eine Aufforderung, dahinterzukommen, was eigentlich gemeint ist. Es ist von irgendeinem Impuls die Rede, von irgend etwas, was da ist, was der Mensch kennt, denn sonst könnte man nicht darauf rechnen, daß er eine Antwort finde.

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.

Der Erklärung dieser Worte, die wie der Zeigerimpuls aus dem Astrallichte dem Menschen sich offenbart, soll eben die heutige Betrachtung gewidmet sein.

Erinnern wir uns an manches, was von mir hier auch schon auseinandergesetzt worden ist. Erinnern wir uns daran, daß der Jahreslauf durch Frühling, Sommer, Herbst, Winter in seiner Gesetzmäßigkeit einen geistigen Inhalt hat, daß sich geistiges Geschehen, übersinnliches Geschehen offenbart in demjenigen, was im Jahreslaufe geschieht, so wie sich des Menschen übersinnliche Seele und übersinnlicher Geist offenbaren in demjenigen, was in seinem Leibesleben geschieht zwischen der Geburt und dem Tode. Denken wir daran, daß in dem, was äußerlich im Jahreslaufe erscheint, im Schnee des Winters, im sprossenden, wachsenden Leben des Frühlings, im blühenden Leben des Sommers, im reifenden, fruchtenden Leben des Herbstes, daß in alldem, was so physisch für den Menschen sich enthüllt, ein Geistiges sich birgt, ein Geistiges der Träger ist. Und lenken wir unseren Blick zunächst auf dasjenige, was da vorgeht im Jahreslaufe, so vom Frühling gegen den Sommer und Herbst hin.

In allem, was die Erde offenbart, in Stein und Pflanze, in allen Wesen leben geistige Wesenheiten; nicht bloß eine allgemeine verwaschene Geistigkeit, sondern einzelne geistige Wesenheiten, Naturgeister. Diese Naturgeister bergen sich während der Winterzeit im Schoße der Erde; diese Naturgeister sind gewissermaßen alle eingeatmet von der Erde, sie sind in der Erde darinnen. Wenn der Frühling kommt, atmet gewissermaßen die Erde ihre Geistigkeit heraus, diese Naturgeister streben nach oben. Sie streben mit den Kräften des sprießenden, sprossenden Lebens nach oben, sie streben mit dem Leben, das sich kundtut in der lichtdurchglänzten, sonnenerwärmten Luft, sie strömen mit dem nach oben. Und wenn wir dann hin zur Johannizeit, zur Hochsommerzeit kommen, dann haben wir da oben in den Höhen, wenn wir zu ihnen hinaufschauer;. das Bild, das sich eben offenbart, verkörpert in der Wolkenbildung, verkörpert aber auch gewaltig in Blitz und Donner, verkörpert in alldem, was meteorisch da oben ist, dasjenige, was als Naturgeister während der Winterzeit im Schoße der Erde lebte. Wir müssen während der Winterzeit den Blick hinunter richten zur Erde und müssen ahnen oder schauen, wie unter der Schneedecke verborgen die Naturgeister arbeiten, damit aus dem Winter wieder Frühling und Sommer werde von der schaffenden Erde aus.

Richten wir nach unten den Blick während des Sommers auf die Erde zu, dann ist die Erde gewissermaßen verarmt an diesen Naturgeistern. Aber diese Naturgeister sind hinausgezogen in das Weltenall. Sie haben sich verbunden dem Wolkengebilde und alldem, was eben der Menschenblick in den Höhen treffen kann. Diese Naturgeister sind in alldem, was ich schon angeführt habe, nach den Höhen hinaufgeströmt, aber sie haben in ungeheurer Feinheit, in ungeheuer feiner Verdünnung mitgenommen dasjenige, was sich grob offenbart äußerlich leblos in dem Schwefel, in dem sogenannten Sulfur. Und eigentlich weben und leben diese Naturgeister zur Hochsommerzeit, indem sie wellen und wogen in Wolkengebilden und ähnlichem, vorzugsweise im Sulfur, im Schwefel, der in außerordentlich feiner Weise gerade während der Sommerzeit in den Höhen des Erdenseins vorhanden ist. So daß also, wenn wir etwa mit dem schmeckenden Gefühl durcheilen könnten die Höhen unserer Erdenbildung während der Hochsommerzeit, wir wahrnehmen würden Schwefelgeschmack oder wohl auch Schwefelgeruch, aber in einer außerordentlich dünnen, in einer außerordentlich intim feinen Weise. Dennoch ist das, was da oben sich entwickelt unter dem Einflusse von Sonnenwärme und Sonnenlicht, ähnlich demjenigen, was im menschlichen Organismus vor sich geht, wenn aus diesem menschlichen Organismus herausquillt Begierde, Wunsch, Emotion und dergleichen. Und wer solche Dinge zu schauen, zu empfinden vermag, der. weiß, daß die Naturgeister in einem Elemente da oben in den Höhen zur Hochsommerzeit leben, das eigentlich so begierdedurchtränkt ist wie das Begierdenleben, das mit dem Animalischen des Menschen verbunden ist, mit jenem Animalischen des Menschen, worinnen der Mensch auch sulfurisiert, von sehr verdünntem Schwefel durchsetzt ist. Gewissermaßen sehen wir das Untere des Menschen, das Animalisierte des Menschen als sich wölbende Naturbildung, durchlebt von den Naturgeistern, im Hochsommer über uns.

Was wir, wenn es in der Menschennatur webt und lebt, als solches Sulfurisiertes erkennen, das bezeichnen wir als Ahrimanisches, darinnen lebt eigentlich das Ahrimanische. So daß wir auch sagen können: Wenn wir den geistigen Blick zur Hochsommerzeit hinauf in die Höhen wenden, dann offenbart sich uns in der kosmischen Schwefelbegierde das Ahrimanische. - Wenn wir uns den Menschen hineingestellt denken in diesen ganzen Weltenzusammenhang, dann müssen wir uns sagen: Dasjenige, was in ihm die niedere Natur ist, das nimmt die Erde zur Winterzeit auf, breitet den kristallenen Schnee darüber; “dadurch nimmt die Erde diesem das Ahrimanische. — Ist es frei zur Hochsommerzeit, dann wirkt es als die kosmische Begierde draußen im Weltenraum, ist sogar unterworfen den Gesetzen, die von den der Erde benachbarten Planeten ausgehen und auf dieselbe wirken. Und nun zeigt sich, daß gegen dieses Ahrimanisch-Begierdenhafte, gegen dieses gewissermaßen kosmisch hinausversetzte animalisch-begierdenhaft Menschliche im Kosmos die Gegenkraft vorliegt. Dasjenige, was den Menschen emotionell bändigt, was den Menschen herunterzieht unter das Menschliche in das Animalische, und was sich offenbart oben in den Höhen zur Hochsommerzeit, gegen das ist die Gegenktraft hineingestellt in den Kosmos. Und diese Gegenkraft offenbatt sich in jenen merkwürdigen Produkten, die aus dem Kosmos zuweilen zur Erde herabfallen in den Meteoreisen enthaltenden kosmischen Produkten. Wenn Sie sich ein Stück Meteoreisen ansehen, so haben Sie in diesem Stück Meteoreisen ein merkwürdiges Zeugnis für das im Kosmos ausgebreitete Eisen. In den im August häufigen Sternschnuppenfällen, die sozusagen das Meteoreisen ganz besonders im Kosmos in Gang bringen, offenbart sich äußerlich diese Gegenkraft der Natur gegen das Begierdenhafte, das in dieser Zeit in den Kosmos hinausgegangen ist. Und in dem kosmischen Eisen, das sich zusammendrängt in den Meteorsteinen, haben wir die Pfeile, die der Kosmos aussendet gegen das Begierdenhaft-Animalische, das sich auf diese Weise, die ich Ihnen eben geschildert habe, im Kosmos offenbart.

So können wir mit verständnisvoller Verehrung hinschauen auf die weisheitsvolle Führung des Kosmos. Wir wissen ja, der Mensch braucht gerade deshalb diese animalische Natur, weil er in ihrer Überwindung allein diejenigen Kräfte entwickeln kann, die ihn zum vollen Menschen erst machen. Und der Mensch könnte diese Begierdennatur, dieses Animalisierende nicht haben, wenn dieses Animalisierend-Begierdenhafte nicht auch ein Teil des Kosmos wäre. So ist denn das Sulfurische, das Schwefelartige, Ahrimanisch-Schwefelartige gewissermaßen der eine Pol draußen im Kosmos, und die Pfeile, welche vom Kosmos durch den Raum gesandt werden zur Bekämpfung dieses Schwefelhaften, dieses Sulfurischen, die sind dann konzentriert im Meteoreisen, in den meteorischen Geschossen möchte ich sagen, des Weltenalls.

Nun aber ist der Mensch ein wirklicher Mikrokosmos, wirklich eine kleine Welt. Alles, was draußen in der großen Welt sich offenbart in solch majestätisch-gigantischen Erscheinungen, wie es die meteorischen Erscheinungen sind, das offenbart sich auch im Inneren selbst seines physisch Wesenden. Denn dieses physisch Wesende ist nur ein Ausdruck, eine Offenbarung seines geistigen Wesens. Und so tragen wir in uns, gewissermaßen von dem animalischen Unteren des Menschen ausgehend, das Sulfurische. Wir müssen uns sagen, dieses Sulfurisch-Ahrimanische durchstürmt den menschlichen Organismus, regt seine Begierdennatur auf, regt seine Emotionen auf. Wir fühlen es im Inneren, wir schauen es zur Hochsommerzeit in der kosmischen Begierdendecke über uns. Wir schauen aber auch, wie in diese kosmische Begierdendecke hineinschießen die Eisenpfeile des Meteorischen, reinigend und klärend, gewissermaßen als Gegenpol gegen das Animalisch-Begierdenhafte. Denn in diesem Hineinschießen der Meteoreisenpfeile aus dem Kosmos reinigt sich die animalisch-begierdenhafte Decke der Hochsommerzeit über uns.

So wie das aber draußen im großen Kosmos grandios, majestätisch geschieht, so geschieht es fortwährend auch in uns. Wir erzeugen in uns die Eisenteilchen unseres Blutes in Verbindung mit andern Stoffen, und während auf der einen Seite durch unser Blut pulsiert der Sulfurisierungsprozeß, wirkt entgegen als anderer Pol innerlich meteorisch das innerliche Eisen, dasselbe ausführend, was draußen im Kosmos vom meteotischen Eisen ausgeführt wird. Wir dürfen uns das Verhältnis des Menschen zum Kosmos so vorstellen, daß wir in dem Aufleuchten des Meteorischen das kosmische Gegenbild desjenigen finden, das fortwährend in uns millionen- und millionenfach ein meteorisch innerliches Aufleuchten ist dessen, was aus dem Eisen unseres Blutes uns befreit, uns klärend, uns reinigend gegen den Sulfurisierungsprozeß, der in eben diesem Blute vor sich geht.

So sind wir ein innerliches Abbild des Kosmos. Der Kosmos vollzieht das zur Hochsommerzeit. Der Mensch, weil er emanzipiert von der Natur in bezug auf die Zeit in dieser Natur darinnen steht, hat fortwährend diese Hochsommerzeit neben den andern Jahreszeiten in sich, wie er fortwährend in der Erinnerung dasjenige in sich hat, was er früher erlebt hat. Draußen verschwindet es, im Inneren bleibt es. So ist es auch mit dem, was den Menschen als Mikrokosmos gegenüber dem Makrokosmos darstellt. Aber der Mensch muß das, was er also in seinem physischen Leibe trägt, geistig-seelisch erfassen, er muß es in sich erleben können, also dieses meteorische Hineinschießen des Bluteisens in den Blutsulfur so erleben können als die Freiheit, als die Initiative, als die Stärke seines Willens. Sonst bleibt es in ihm ein im höchsten Falle animalischer oder vegetativer Prozeß. Darin besteht ja gerade unser Geistig-seelisch-Werden als Mensch, daß wir die Prozesse, die in uns sich so abspielen wie dieser Eisen-Sulfurprozeß, mit dem Geistig-Seelischen in uns erfassen, das Geistig-Seelische in sie als Impuls hineinsenden. Geradeso, wie wir in der Lage sind, wenn wir uns ein Werkzeug machen, wenn wir das Werkzeug handhaben können, mit Hilfe dieses Werkzeuges dieses oder jenes zu tun, können wir dasjenige, was in uns wirkt und lebt wie dieser Eisen-Sulfurprozeß, in unseren Dienst stellen durch unseren Willen, wenn wir es eben handhaben, wenn wir als Menschen handhaben dasjenige, was innere Prozesse unseres Leibes sind.

Schauen wir jetzt vom Menschen noch einmal zurück zum Kosmos. Das, was sich da draußen abspielt im Kosmos, es ist eine ernste Mahnung an den Menschen. Denn es erinnert wirklich dieser Meteoreisenprozeß im Kosmos an unser physisches Innere, das aber in den Dienst unseres geistigen Inneren gestellt werden kann. Jetzt kommen wir darauf, welche Deutung wir jener ehernen Schrift im Astrallichte zu geben haben:

Du bildest es zu deinem Dienste,
Du offenbarst es seinem Stoffeswerte nach
In vielen deiner Werke.

Sehen wir uns gerade im neuzeitlichen Leben um, in demjenigen Leben, das heraufgekommen ist im Laufe der letzten Jahrhunderte, und sehen wir, was da hauptsächlich zur materialistischen Kultur gehört: der Gebrauch des Eisens im Bereiche des irdischen Lebens. Sehen wir überall hin, wo unsere Kultur in der letzten Zeit geblüht hat: das Eisen war es, das uns alles das hineingestellt hat in die physische Welt, was zur Blüte der materialistischen Kultur geführt hat. Wir sehen hin auf das, was die Menschen in einer so unerhörten Weise zusammengebracht haben, was in einer so unerhörten Weise den materialistischen Kulturzweigen die Wege vorgezeichnet, die Wege geebnet hat: wir sehen überall auf das Eisen und seine Verarbeitung.

Wenn wir im geistigen Leben von Materialismus sprechen, so besteht ja das Wesen des Materialismus im Geistigen darinnen, daß wir überall denken, alles sei Stoff, und der Geist sei gewissermaßen nur die Ausdünstung des stofflichen Wirkens. Aber der Materialismus der Menschheit der letzten vier Jahrhunderte offenbart sich nicht nur darinnen, daß der Mensch materialistisch denkt, sondern der Materialismus offenbart sich auch in der Handhabung der äußeren Dinge. Der Mensch hat aus den Impulsen der neueren Kultur heraus das Eisen zur materiellen Kultur verwendet und er hat dasjenige, was ihm aus Himmelshöhen zufällt im Meteoreisen, höchstens wie eine Rarität betrachtet, oder mit einer Wissenschaft erklären wollen, die davon nicht viel erfassen kann. Aber dieses Meteoreisen, das aus dem Kosmos der Erde zufällt, das reinigend und klärend auf das animalische Leben wirkt, ist die Mahnung, daß wir aufschauen sollen von der materiellen Verwendung des Eisens in irdischen Diensten zu dem, was in himmlischen Diensten das Eisen als meteorisches Gebilde über uns spielt, und vor allen Dingen in uns spielt. Denn diese meteorischen Prozesse gehen immer in uns vor sich. Und so erscheint uns der erste Teil dieses im Astrallichte uns entgegenleuchtenden Mahnspruches als ein in ehernen Lettern geschriebenes Wort:

O Mensch,
Du hast das Eisen in deine irdischen Dienste gestellt.

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.

Nicht nur, daß wir aufschauen sollen von der gedanklichen materialistischen Weltanschauung zu einer spirituellen Weltanschauung, sondern wir sollen auch aufschauen von dem, was wit im Dienste der materiellen Kultur gebrauchen, zu der geistigen, kosmischen Seite dieser im materiellen Dienste stehenden Gebilde. So werden wir hingewiesen gerade durch diesen Spruch, den man eigentlich erst enträtseln muß, zu jenem Geiste, der im Weltenall lebt in der Offenbarung der meteorischen Erscheinungen insbesondere zur Hochsommerzeit. Denn da ist der sonst nur im Inneren des Menschen vorhandene ahrimanische Sulfurisierungsprozeß ein kosmischer Prozeß, und der meteorische Prozeß ist ein Gegenprozeß: es sind die Pfeile, die der Kosmos hineinsendet in die animalisierten Begierden in den Höhen.

Wenn man das alles auf seine Seele wirken läßt, dann fühlt man ja den Menschen so recht in Verbindung mit der ganzen Weltumgebung, und fühlt hinein das eigene Blut des Menschen, das seelendurchzogene, das geistdurchtränkte Blut. Man fühlt darinnen diesen Gegensatz des Ahrimanischen und des das Ahrimanische reinigenden Bluteisens, man fühlt den inneren meteorischen Prozeß. Man schaut verständnisvoll hinauf zu dem, was sich da draußen vollzieht, indem die kosmischen Geisteskräfte die Eisenpfeile hineinsenden in die animalisierte Begierdenwelt des Kosmos; man fühlt sich ganz verbunden, ganz hingegeben an den Kosmos. Gerade in diesen einzelnen Erscheinungen fühlt man sich so recht hingegeben an den Kosmos.

Wenn man aber das ganz im Ernste fühlt, dann formt sich aus diesem Fühlen eine kosmische Imagination heraus, dann kann man gar nicht anders, als diese kosmische Imagination formen und bilden. Wie das Tier anders vor die äußere, sinnliche Natur sich stellt, sich keine Begriffe, Vorstellungen davon bilden kann, sondern nur allgemeine Eindrücke, der Mensch aber sich die Vorstellungen bildet, so kann die schauende. Seele, der die exakte Hellsichtigkeit aufgegangen ist, nicht anders, als was sie so erlebt, hinfühlend auf den eigenen meteorischen Prozeß, anschauend den kosmischen meteorischen Prozeß als die reiche Fülle des Lebens, die sich durch so etwas offenbart, zu bringen in ein Zusammenfassendes, in ein innerlich gesättigtes Bild, in eine Imagination, welche das Verwachsensein des Menschen, des Mikrokosmos, mit dem Makrokosmos darstellt. Daher ist eine solche Imagination eben nicht bloß etwas phantasiemäßig Gebildetes, sondern es ist eine solche Imagination der wirklich reale Ausdruck dessen, was dutch die Welt und durch den Menschen lebt, also in unserem Falle durch die Erscheinungen des Jahreslaufes lebt.

Die Imagination, die sich nun aus diesem Erleben vor den Menschen hinstellt, sie ist eben diejenige, die sich herausbildet aus dem Miterleben der Jahreslauf-Naturvorgänge vom Hochsommer nach dem Herbste zu, bis zum Ende des Hochsommers, bis zum Herbstbeginn. Und aus diesem Erleben heraus springt eben, in lebendiger Wirklichkeit sich vor die Seele hinstellend, die Gestalt des Michael. Aus dem heraus, was ich Ihnen geschildert habe, offenbart sich die Gestalt des Michael in seinem Streite mit dem Drachen, mit der animalischen Natur des Menschen, mit dem Sulfurisierungsprozeß. Und versteht man das, was sich da eigentlich vollzieht, dann schafft einfach die Seele, die aus dem kosmischen Leben und Weben selber heraustretend gestaltet ist, den Streit Michaels mit dem Drachen. Es erscheint, als der äußere Ausdruck dessen, was draußen im Kosmos wirkt, bekämpfend die animalisierte Begierdennatur, Michael selber. Aber er erscheint mit dem weisenden Schwerte, durch das er auf die höhere Menschennatur hinweist. Er erscheint mit dem weisenden Schwerte, und wir stellen uns den Michael in der richtigen Weise vor, wenn wir auf kosmische Weise geschmolzen und geschmiedet das Eisen finden zu seinem Schwerte. So tritt uns, ich möchte sagen, aus einem geistigen Wolkengebilde heraus die Gestalt des Michael mit dem positiven, hinschauenden, weisenden Blick, mit dem Auge, das wie ein Zeiger ist, das den Blick aus sich heraussendet, nicht ihn zurücknimmt nach dem Inneren, und es erscheint uns der Arm des Michael von allen Seiten umsprüht von Meteoreisengebilden, die wie von den kosmischen Begierdekräften geschmolzen und wieder zusammengefaßt sich zu dem Flammenschwerte des Michael formen.

Wir stellen ihn uns in der richtigen Weise vor, diesen Michael, ganz wirklichkeitsgemäß, wenn wir uns aus dem goldenen Lichte des Sommers gewoben sein Antlitz denken, mit dem positiven Blick, der wie ein Zeiger ist, der gewissermaßen herausführt, der wie einen Lichtstrahl von innen heraussendend ist. Wir stellen uns den Michael richtig vor, wenn wir seinen ausgestreckten Arm umflammt finden von sprühendem Meteoreisen, das sich zusammenschmilzt zu dem Schwerte, mit dem er der Menschheit die Wege weist von der animalischen zu der höheren Menschennatur, die Wege weist von der Sommerzeit, in der der Mensch am meisten mitmacht die äußere Natur, in der der Mensch am meisten zum Naturbewußtsein kommt, zu jener Zeit, zu der Herbsteszeit, wo der Mensch nur miterleben kann, wenn er die Natur miterlebt, die absterbende, die sich ertötende Natur. Aber es wäre grausig für den Menschen, wenn er nur miterleben könnte, wenn der Herbst sich naht, diese sich ertötende, sich ablähmende Natur. Erleben wir den Frühling und sind wir wirklich ganzer Mensch, dann geben wir uns hin der sprießenden, sprossenden, der wachsenden und gedeihenden Natur. Sind wir solch ein ganzer Mensch, dann blühen wir mit jeder Blume, dann sprossen wir mit jedem Blatte, dann reifen wir mit jedem Samen selber. Da geben wir uns hin der aufsteigenden, sprießenden, sprossenden Natur. Ihr können wir uns hingeben, sie will das Leben. Wir fühlen das Leben, indem wir ihr Leben miterleben. Da tun wir recht, wenn wir uns der Natur hingeben, denn da finden wir das Leben. Im Herbst können wir nicht dieses Naturbewußtsein in uns entwickeln, denn entwickeln wir es einseitig, so müssen wir ja das sich ertötende, das lähmende Leben miterleben. Dem gegenüber darf der Mensch nicht mitgehen, dem gegenüber muß er sich erkraften. So wie er die lebende Natur mit seinem eigenen Leben miterleben muß, so muß er der absterbenden Natur, dem Tode gegenüber das Selbst entgegensetzen. Naturbewußtsein muß übergehen in Selbstbewußtsein.

Das ist das große, gewaltige Bild des herannahenden Herbstes, daß wir aus dem, was im Kosmos geschieht, die Mahnung sehen: Naturbewußtsein gehe im Menschen über in Selbstbewußtsein! Aber dazu braucht der Mensch die Kraft, das innerlich Ertötende der animalischen Natur seelenhaft, geisteshaft zu überwinden. Dazu gibt ihm die Anleitung sein Hinschauen auf die Erscheinungen des Kosmos, dazu gibt ihm die Anleitung dasjenige, was sich offenbart in der Gestalt des Michael mit dem weisenden, mit dem positiven Blick, mit dem flammenden Meteotschwerte in der Rechten. Und dieser Michael erscheint uns eben im Streite mit der animalisierten Begierdennatur, für die sich uns auch das Bild aus dem ganzen webenden Leben heraus ergibt. Wollen wir die ganze Imagination malen, können wir sie nicht aus der menschlichen Willkür heraus malen; wir können sie nur aus dem heraus malen, was uns der Kosmos inspiriert. Und da können wir nur das Sulfurische, das Gelblich-Rötliche, mit den Elementargeistern in die Höhe Hinaufgehende sich verbildlichen lassen zu der Drachengestalt, die aus dem Sulfur heraus sich bildet, so daß wir über dem sulfurischen Drachen, als dessen, ich möchte sagen, brandender Kopf sich eben dieser begierdenhafte Prozeß darstellt, über diesem ahrimanisierten sulfurisierten Drachen den Michael haben in der Gestalt, wie ich es dargestellt habe.

Wer die Welt versteht, kann die Welt in Imaginationen darstellen. Und wer da glaubt, daß man in beliebiger Weise malen kann den Streit Michaels mit dem Drachen, der versündigt sich an der inneren Wirklichkeit der Welt. Denn die Welt enthält dasjenige, was ihr an Kräften innewohnt, in einer bestimmten Gestalt für den Menschen. Alle großen malerischen und sonstigen Kunstwerke in der Welt sind nicht aus der beliebigen Willkür des Menschen herausgewachsen. Da würden sie wenig durch Jahrhunderte, ja Jahrtausende die Menschen anziehen. Sondern sie sind herausgewachsen aus dem wirklichen Verständnis dessen, was da draußen webt und lebt und was auch im Menschen webt und lebt. Und wenn dann geschaffen wird aus dem Lebenden und Webenden der Natur und des Menschen in ihrer Gemeinsamkeit dasjenige, was sich in Imaginationen ergibt, was sich bis auf die Farben, bis auf den Glanz, bis auf die einzelne Gestaltung hin aus den Geheimnissen der Natur abschauen läßt, wenn das künstlerisch gestaltet wird, dann entstehen eben die wirklichen, die großen Kunstwerke, jene großen Kunstwerke, die von den Sehern geschaffen worden sind, die von den Nachahmern nachgeahmt werden, und die von den Stümpern mit allerlei Firlefanz behängt werden, so daß man nicht mehr erkennt das wirklich Große, das aus diesen Werken hervorgehen soll aus dem kosmischen Schaffen und Weben. So werden dann diese Kunstwerke zu dem, was durch Zeiten hindurch in den Menschen als Impuls wirken kann. Niemals wären die großen künstlerischen, malerischen, bildhauerischen Motive dasjenige geworden, was sie sind, wenn sie nicht geschaffen worden wären aus den geschauten Impulsen des Natur- und Menschenlebens.

So vermögen wir hinzuschauen auf das, was, wenn in der geistigen Auffassung von heute gemalt wird dieser Michael mit dem Drachen die alte Auffassung hat es eben nach dem, was sie gewußt hat, gemacht -, was dann so erscheint: das Antlitz aus dem goldigen Sonnenglanze heraus gebildet, mit dem positiven Blick, mit dem hinschauenden Blick, mit dem Flammenschwerte, geschmolzen und wiederum gebildet aus dem meteorischen Eisen des Kosmos; darunter der Drache, der Plager der menschlichen Natur, der zur Hochsommerzeit sich offenbarende Drache, der aus dem in sich webenden, entstehenden und gleich wieder vergehenden Aufflammen sich offenbarende sulfurische Drache. Dieser bewegliche Drache unten in seiner sulfurischen Eigenart, dieser sich gestaltende Plager der Menschen und Gegner der höheren Hierarchien, der wird der nötige Kontrast sein gegenüber dem kämpfenden Michael, der das meteorische Eisen in seiner Geistigkeit bezwingt.

Hier haben Sie ein Beispiel, wie das wirkliche Wissen in Kunst übergeht, in Kunst immer übergehen muß, weil man mit abstrakten Begriffen die Wirklichkeit nicht erschöpfen kann. Es ist aber die Mahnung an unsere Zeit, gerade ein solches Bild zur Erkraftung, zur Aufweckung der Menschheit zu ergreifen. Daher möchte man gerade dieses Bild, dieses modernisierte Bild des Streites des Michael mit dem Drachen, tief, tief in die menschlichen Seelen, in die menschlichen Herzen einschreiben, damit es wirke in den menschlichen Willens- und Gedankenkräften der Gegenwart und Zukunft. Und man kann schon wissen: würde ein Teil der Menschheit ernst nehmen dieses Bild, würde ein Teil der Menschheit verstehen, wie dieses Bild herausgestaltet ist aus der Natur selber, und herausgestaltet ist aus den wegweisenden Mahnungen des astralischen Lichtes, dann würde zu dem materiellen Verwenden des Eisens in den letzten Jahrhunderten, insbesondere im 19. Jahrhundert, das geistige Sich-Durchdringen mit dem Sinn des Eisens kommen. Dann würde der Mensch an diesem Bild entflammen die geistig-seelische Kraft, die ihn fähig macht, zu handhaben dasjenige, was in ihm das innere, im Blute dahinschießende, den Sulfur bekämpfende, innerliche meteorische Eisen will. Wir müssen lernen, diesen Prozeß sich nicht bloß im Unterbewußten zur Ausgestaltung der niedern Natur des Menschen abspielen zu lassen, wir müssen lernen, diesen Prozeß, diesen Eisenprozeß im menschlichen Blute in den Dienst des Geistig-Seelischen zu stellen. Das ist dasjenige, was Michael in uns will.

Das ist dasjenige, was uns aus dem astralischen Lichte heraus auffordert, das Michael-Fest wiederum würdig zu begehen mit dem Herbstbeginne. Wenn jetzt gesprochen wird in unseren Reihen von jenem Michael-Feste, das sich zu dem Oster- und Weihnachtsfeste und zu dem Johannifeste hinzugesellen soll, so darf das wahrhaftig nicht so aufgefaßt werden, daß man in äußerlicher Weise da oder dort ein Fest feiert, sondern es handelt sich darum, daß wir ein solches Fest nur feiern können, wenn wir es anzuknüpfen wissen an etwas Bedeutsames. Das Weihnachtsfest ist nicht durch einen bloß willkürlichen bequemen Entschluß zustande gekommen, sondern dadurch, daß es angeknüpft hat an die Geburt des Christus Jesus. Das Osterfest hat angeknüpft an das Mysterium von Golgatha. Das sind ganz bedeutsame Ereignisse im geschichtlichen Leben der Menschheit. Das Michael-Fest muß anknüpfen an ein Bedeutsames, an ein großes, an ein tragendes inneres Erlebnis des Menschen, an jene innere Kraft, die den Menschen aufruft, aus einem Naturbewußtsein das Selbstbewußtsein zu entwickeln durch die Kraft seiner Gedanken, durch die Kraft seines Willens, damit er Meister werden könne des meteorischen Eisenprozesses in seinem Blute, der Gegner ist des Sulfurisierungsprozesses.

Gewiß, Sulfur und Eisen rannen im menschlichen Blute, seit es ein Menschengeschlecht gibt. Es bedingt dasjenige, was sich abspielt zwischen Sulfur und Eisen, die unbewußte Natur des Menschen. Ins Bewußtsein muß es heraufgehoben werden. Wir müssen lernen, diesen Prozeß als den Ausdruck des inneren Streites des Michael mit dem Drachen zu erkennen. Wir müssen lernen, diesen Prozeß zum Bewußtsein heraufzuheben. Dann ist der Vorgang da, an den das MichaelFest anknüpfen darf. Das aber muß zuerst da sein, voll verstanden sein, innerlich tief verstanden sein. Dann wird das Michael-Fest gefeiert werden können, so wie ein aus dem Kosmos herausgeholtes Fest von Menschen gefeiert werden kann. Dann werden wir die Erkenntnis haben, die wirklich in dem Eisen noch etwas anderes sieht als das, was der heutige Chemiker oder Mechaniker im Eisen sieht. Dann werden wir haben dasjenige, was uns das Eisen handhaben lernt in unserem eigenen Organismus, in unserer inneren menschlichen Wesenheit. Dann werden wir haben das majestätische Bild des Michael im Streite mit dem sulfurischen Drachen, des Michael mit dem flammenden Eisenschwerte als Begeisterungsimpuls für das, was der Mensch werden muß, wenn der Mensch die Kräfte der Entwickelung nicht zum Niedergang, sondern zum Fortschritt entwickeln will.

Das ist es, was sich uns als eine Mahnung aus der geistigen Welt heraus zeigt in den ehernen Lettern, die sich formen zu den Rätselworten, die aber gerade aus der heutigen Zeit heraus verstanden wer den können:

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.

Das ist das Eisen. Lernen wir das Eisen wie alle Stoffe nicht nur ihrem Stoffeswerte nach kennen, lernen wir sie kennen in ihres Geistes Hochgewalt! Dann gibt es wieder Menschenfortschritt, Erdenfortschritt, und den müssen wir wollen, wenn wir im wahren Sinne des Wortes Menschen sein wollen.

The Michael Imagination Spiritual Milestones in the Course of the Year

What I have to speak to you today will be spoken in the language of imagery out of the imaginative life, out of that imaginative life which is the expression, the revelation of the spiritual world, that spiritual world into which man is interwoven with his whole being and his whole activity. We know from the various presentations that have been made here that one cannot speak about the spiritual world in the same abstract way as one speaks about external sensory nature when it is a matter of its concrete manifestations. But we also know that the way in which we have to speak is not an unreal one, but on the contrary a much more real one than the logical, abstract way of speaking which we use when we want to express merely natural truths. With this I only wanted to point out the whole attitude of observation that I now want to present to you.

When the human being penetrates beyond the physical-sensual world with the spiritual eye, then a spiritual world reveals itself to him, towards which he feels compelled to use the phenomena of the physical world as images in order to express that which reveals itself to him spiritually. And so let me immediately place an image at the beginning of these explanations, which is truly a profound reality. It has always been the case in the history of mankind's development that mankind has received the impulses for its activity from the spiritual world. And those who were able to see there found these impulses inscribed, as it were, in a spiritual light with letters of iron, so that they could act accordingly. It is so in the spiritual world that we can compare what we are dealing with to mile markers in the physical world, but not those where perhaps there is merely a hand sign with some place name on it, but with mile markers in which it is expressed in powerful sounding words what is to pass over into man's thinking, feeling, willing. Spiritual mile markers are what I am talking about. But such indications in the spiritual world are usually written in a strange way for man, and at all times they are written in such a way, namely in a kind of riddle language. One must first make a certain effort in order to get behind the actual riddle. You have to hold together some of the things you know so that the mile marker in its riddle language can become a real impulse for life. And so it is precisely today, in the appropriateness of our present and the near future, that one finds such wise words in what I would call astral light, which can become impulses for man.

On the most diverse occasions, I would like to say, in the most diverse places, that which appears to us today, if we have the ability to look at it, is admonishing, but also somewhat mysterious, which then evokes the feeling in man that he should follow it, that he should take it up like a strong impulse into his will, into his whole soul life. And that which shines towards us like such a spiritual milepost in the astral light are the words:

You form it for your service,
You reveal it according to its material value
In many of your works.
However, salvation will only be yours,
When to thee is revealed
His spirit's high power.

First an invitation to understand what is actually meant. We are talking about some kind of impulse, about something that is there, that man knows, because otherwise we could not expect him to find an answer.

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.

Today's reflection shall be dedicated to the explanation of these words, which are revealed to man like the pointer impulse from the astral light.

Let us remember some of the things I have already discussed here. Let us remember that the course of the year through spring, summer, autumn and winter has a spiritual content in its regularity, that spiritual happenings, supersensible happenings reveal themselves in that which happens in the course of the year, just as man's supersensible soul and supersensible spirit reveal themselves in that which happens in his bodily life between birth and death. Let us remember that in that which appears outwardly in the course of the year, in the snow of winter, in the sprouting, growing life of spring, in the blossoming life of summer, in the ripening, fruiting life of autumn, that in all that which thus reveals itself physically to man, a spiritual is concealed, a spiritual is the bearer. And let us first direct our gaze to that which takes place in the course of the year, from spring towards summer and fall.

In everything that the earth reveals, in stone and plant, in all beings live spiritual entities; not just a general blurred spirituality, but individual spiritual entities, nature spirits. These nature spirits hide themselves in the bosom of the earth during the winter time; these nature spirits are, so to speak, all breathed in by the earth, they are within the earth. When spring comes, the earth breathes out its spirituality, so to speak, and these nature spirits strive upwards. They strive upwards with the forces of sprouting, sprouting life, they strive upwards with the life that manifests itself in the light-suffused, sun-warmed air, they flow upwards with it. And when we then come to the time of St. John, to midsummer, then we have up there in the heights, when we look up to them, the image that is just revealed, embodied in the formation of clouds, but also embodied powerfully in lightning and thunder, embodied in all that is meteorically up there, that which lived as nature spirits in the bosom of the earth during the winter time. During the winter time we must look down to the earth and must sense or see how the spirits of nature work hidden under the blanket of snow, so that winter will again become spring and summer from the creating earth.

If we look down towards the earth during the summer, then the earth is to a certain extent impoverished of these nature spirits. But these nature spirits have gone out into the universe. They have joined the cloud formations and everything that the human gaze can encounter in the heights. These nature spirits have flowed up to the heights in all that I have already mentioned, but they have taken with them in tremendous subtlety, in tremendously fine dilution, that which manifests itself coarsely outwardly lifeless in the sulphur, in the so-called sulphur. And actually these nature spirits weave and live at midsummer time, by undulating and billowing in cloud formations and the like, preferably in sulphur, in sulphur, which is present in an extraordinarily fine way just during the summer time in the heights of the earth's being. So that if we were able to wander through the heights of our earth formation during the height of summer, we would perceive the taste of sulphur or even the smell of sulphur, but in an extraordinarily thin, extraordinarily intimate and subtle way. Nevertheless, what develops up there under the influence of solar heat and sunlight is similar to what happens in the human organism when desire, wish, emotion and the like well up out of this human organism. And he who is able to see and feel such things knows that the nature spirits live in an element up there in the heights at midsummer time, which is actually as saturated with desire as the life of desire, which is connected with the animal nature of man, with that animal nature of man in which man is also sulphurized, permeated with very diluted sulphur. In a sense, we see the lower part of man, the animalized part of man, as the arching formation of nature, lived through by the spirits of nature, above us in midsummer.

What we recognize, when it weaves and lives in the human nature, as such sulphurized, we call the Ahrimanic, in which the Ahrimanic actually lives. So that we can also say: When we turn our spiritual gaze up into the heights at midsummer time, then the Ahrimanic reveals itself to us in the cosmic sulphuric lust. - If we think of man as placed in this whole world context, then we must say to ourselves: That which is the lower nature in him, that which the earth takes up at wintertime, spreads the crystalline snow over it; "thereby the earth takes the ahrimanic from it. - If it is free at midsummer time, then it acts as the cosmic desire outside in world space, and is even subject to the laws which emanate from the planets neighboring the earth and act upon it. And now it can be seen that there is a counterforce in the cosmos against this Ahrimanic, desirous nature, against this animalistic, desirous humanity that is, so to speak, cosmically displaced. That which emotionally restrains man, that which pulls man down below the human into the animalistic, and that which manifests itself up in the heights at midsummer time, against which the counterforce is placed in the cosmos. And this counterforce reveals itself in those strange products that sometimes fall down to earth from the cosmos in the cosmic products containing meteoric iron. If you look at a piece of meteoric iron, you will see in this piece of meteoric iron a strange testimony to the iron spread out in the cosmos. In the frequent falling stars in August, which, so to speak, set the meteoric iron in motion in the cosmos in particular, this counterforce of nature against the desires that have gone out into the cosmos during this time is revealed externally. And in the cosmic iron, which crowds together in the meteoric stones, we have the arrows which the cosmos sends out against the covetous-animalistic, which reveals itself in the cosmos in the way I have just described to you.

So we can look with understanding reverence at the wise guidance of the cosmos. We know that man needs this animal nature precisely because only by overcoming it can he develop the powers that make him fully human. And man could not have this desirous nature, this animalizing nature, if this animalizing-desirous nature were not also a part of the cosmos. Thus the sulphuric, the sulphur-like, Ahrimanic-sulphur-like is, so to speak, the one pole outside in the cosmos, and the arrows which are sent from the cosmos through space to combat this sulphuric, this sulphuric, are then concentrated in the meteoric iron, in the meteoric projectiles I would like to say, of the universe.

But now man is a real microcosm, really a small world. Everything that manifests itself outside in the great world in such majestic and gigantic phenomena as the meteoric phenomena, also manifests itself within his physical being. For this physical being is only an expression, a revelation of its spiritual being. And so we carry within us the sulphuric, so to speak, starting from the animalistic lower part of the human being. We have to say to ourselves that this sulphuric ahrimanic storms through the human organism, stirs up its desirous nature, stirs up its emotions. We feel it inside, we see it at the height of summer in the cosmic blanket of desire above us. But we also see how the iron arrows of the meteoric shoot into this cosmic blanket of desire, purifying and clarifying, as a kind of antithesis to the animalistic and desirous. For in this shooting in of the meteoric iron arrows from the cosmos, the animalistic-covetous blanket of midsummer cleanses itself over us.

But just as this happens grandly and majestically outside in the great cosmos, it also happens continuously within us. We produce within ourselves the iron particles of our blood in connection with other substances, and while on the one hand the sulphurization process pulsates through our blood, the inner iron works against it as the other pole, meteorically, carrying out the same thing that is carried out outside in the cosmos by the meteoric iron. We may imagine the relationship of man to the cosmos in such a way that in the illumination of the meteoric we find the cosmic counter-image of that which is continually in us millions and millions of times a meteoric inner illumination of that which liberates us from the iron of our blood, purifying us, cleansing us against the sulphurization process that takes place in this very blood.

So we are an inner image of the cosmos. The cosmos accomplishes this at midsummer. Man, because he is emancipated from nature in relation to the time in this nature, constantly has this midsummer time within him alongside the other seasons, just as he constantly has within him in his memory that which he experienced earlier. Outside it disappears, inside it remains. It is the same with that which represents man as a microcosm in relation to the macrocosm. But man must be able to grasp spiritually and emotionally what he carries in his physical body, he must be able to experience it within himself, that is, to experience this meteoric shooting of the blood-iron into the blood-sulfur as freedom, as initiative, as the strength of his will. Otherwise it remains an animalistic or vegetative process in him. Our spiritual-soul becoming as human beings consists precisely in the fact that we grasp the processes that take place within us in the same way as this iron-sulphur process with the spiritual-soul within us, that we send the spiritual-soul into them as an impulse. Just as we are able, if we make ourselves a tool, if we can handle the tool, to do this or that with the help of this tool, we can put that which works and lives in us like this iron-sulphur process into our service through our will, if we handle it, if we as human beings handle that which are the inner processes of our body.

Let us now look back from the human being to the cosmos. What is happening out there in the cosmos is a serious warning to human beings. For this meteoric process in the cosmos really does remind us of our physical inner being, but it can be put at the service of our spiritual inner being. Now we come to the interpretation we have to give to this brazen writing in the astral light:

You form it for your service,
You reveal it according to its material value
In many of your works.

Let us look around us in modern life, in that life which has come up in the course of the last centuries, and see what belongs mainly to materialistic culture: the use of iron in the sphere of earthly life. Let us look at all the places where our culture has flourished in recent times: it was iron that introduced everything into the physical world that led to the flowering of materialistic culture. We look at what has brought people together in such an unheard-of way, what has paved the way for the materialistic branches of culture in such an unheard-of way: we look everywhere at iron and its processing.

When we speak of materialism in the spiritual life, the essence of materialism in the spiritual is that we everywhere think that everything is matter, and that the spirit is, so to speak, only the vapor of material activity. But the materialism of mankind of the last four centuries is not only revealed in the fact that man thinks materialistically, but materialism is also revealed in the handling of external things. Out of the impulses of the newer culture, man has used iron for material culture, and he has regarded that which falls to him from the heights of heaven in meteoric iron as a rarity at best, or has wanted to explain it with a science that cannot grasp much of it. But this meteoric iron, which falls to the earth from the cosmos, which has a purifying and clarifying effect on animal life, is a reminder that we should look up from the material use of iron in earthly services to that which iron plays above us as a meteoric structure in heavenly services, and above all plays within us. For these meteoric processes always take place within us. And so the first part of this admonition shining towards us in the astral light appears to us as a word written in letters of brass:

O man,
You have placed iron in your earthly service.

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.

Not only should we look up from the intellectual, materialistic world view to a spiritual world view, but we should also look up from that which we use in the service of material culture to the spiritual, cosmic side of these material entities. In this way we are pointed precisely by this saying, which we must actually first unravel, to that spirit which lives in the universe in the revelation of meteoric phenomena, especially at midsummer. For there the ahrimanic sulphurization process otherwise only present within the human being is a cosmic process, and the meteoric process is a counter-process: it is the arrows that the cosmos sends into the animalized desires in the heights.

If one lets all this have an effect on his soul, then one feels the human being in connection with the whole world environment, and feels into it the own blood of the human being, the soul-infused, the spirit-infused blood. In it one feels this contrast between the ahrimanic and the blood-iron that purifies the ahrimanic, one feels the inner meteoric process. One looks up with understanding to what is taking place out there, as the cosmic spiritual forces send the iron arrows into the animalized world of desires of the cosmos; one feels completely connected, completely devoted to the cosmos. It is precisely in these individual phenomena that one feels so completely devoted to the cosmos.

But if one feels this in all seriousness, then a cosmic imagination is formed out of this feeling, then one cannot help but form and shape this cosmic imagination. Just as the animal presents itself differently to external, sensual nature and cannot form any concepts or ideas about it, but only general impressions, while the human being forms ideas, so the seeing soul, which has exact clairvoyance, can form and form the cosmic imagination. Soul, to which exact clairvoyance has dawned, cannot help but bring what it thus experiences, feeling its own meteoric process, looking at the cosmic meteoric process as the rich abundance of life that reveals itself through something like this, into a summarizing, into an inwardly saturated picture, into an imagination that represents the intergrowth of man, the microcosm, with the macrocosm. Therefore, such an imagination is not merely something imaginatively formed, but such an imagination is the truly real expression of that which lives through the world and through man, that is, in our case, lives through the phenomena of the course of the year.

The imagination that now presents itself to man from this experience is precisely the one that is formed from the co-experience of the natural processes of the course of the year from midsummer to autumn, until the end of midsummer, until the beginning of autumn. And out of this experience, the figure of Michael springs forth in living reality before the soul. Out of what I have described to you, the figure of Michael reveals itself in its struggle with the dragon, with the animal nature of man, with the process of sulphurization. And if you understand what is actually taking place there, then it is simply the soul, which has emerged from cosmic life and weaving itself, that creates Michael's conflict with the dragon. It appears as the outer expression of what is at work outside in the cosmos, fighting the animalized nature of desire, Michael himself. But he appears with the wise sword, through which he points to the higher human nature. He appears with the pointing sword, and we imagine Michael in the right way when we find the iron melted and forged in a cosmic way to form his sword. Thus, I would like to say, the figure of Michael appears to us out of a spiritual cloud formation with the positive, looking, pointing gaze, with the eye that is like a pointer, that sends the gaze out of itself, does not take it back to the inside, and the arm of Michael appears to us sprayed from all sides by meteoric iron formations, which, as if melted by the cosmic forces of desire, form themselves again into the flaming sword of Michael.

We imagine him in the right way, this Michael, quite realistically, when we think of his face woven from the golden light of summer, with the positive gaze that is like a pointer, that leads out, as it were, that is like a ray of light emanating from within. We imagine Michael correctly when we find his outstretched arm flamed with sparkling meteoric iron that melts into the sword with which he shows mankind the way from the animal to the higher human nature, the way from summertime, in which man is most involved with external nature, in which man is most conscious of nature, to that time, the time of autumn, when man can only experience nature, the dying, dying nature. But it would be gruesome for man if he could only experience when autumn is approaching, this dying, paralyzing nature. If we experience spring and are truly whole human beings, then we give ourselves over to the sprouting, budding, growing and thriving nature. If we are such a whole person, then we blossom with every flower, we sprout with every leaf, we mature with every seed. Then we give ourselves to the rising, sprouting, sprouting nature. We can surrender to it, it wants life. We feel life by experiencing its life. So we are right to surrender to nature, because that is where we find life. In autumn we cannot develop this awareness of nature within us, for if we develop it one-sidedly, we must experience the life that is dying, that is paralyzing. Man must not go along with this, he must strengthen himself in the face of it. Just as he must experience living nature with his own life, so he must oppose dying nature, death, with the self. Consciousness of nature must merge into self-consciousness.

This is the great, powerful image of the approaching autumn, that we see the warning from what is happening in the cosmos: Nature-consciousness must be transformed into self-consciousness in man! But for this man needs the strength to overcome the inwardly deadening animal nature in a soulful, spiritual way. The guidance for this is given to him by looking at the phenomena of the cosmos, the guidance is given to him by that which reveals itself in the figure of Michael with the wise, positive gaze, with the flaming meteoric sword in his right hand. And this Michael appears to us in conflict with the animalized nature of desire, for which the image also emerges from the whole of weaving life. If we want to paint the whole imagination, we cannot paint it out of human arbitrariness; we can only paint it out of what the cosmos inspires us. And there we can only let the sulphuric, the yellowish-reddish, with the elemental spirits ascending upwards, visualize itself into the dragon shape that forms out of the sulphur, so that above the sulphuric dragon, as whose, I would like to say, blazing head this desire-like process presents itself, above this ahrimanized sulphurized dragon we have Michael in the shape as I have depicted it.

Whoever understands the world can represent the world in imaginations. And whoever believes that one can paint Michael's fight with the dragon in any way one likes, sins against the inner reality of the world. For the world contains the powers inherent in it in a certain form for man. All the great pictorial and other works of art in the world have not grown out of the arbitrary will of man. They would not attract people for centuries or even millennia. Rather, they have grown out of a real understanding of what weaves and lives out there and what also weaves and lives in man. And when what is created from the living and weaving of nature and man in their commonality is that which arises in the imagination, which can be seen from the mysteries of nature down to the colors, down to the brilliance, down to the individual design, when this is artistically shaped, then the real ones arise, the great works of art, those great works of art which have been created by the seers, which are imitated by the imitators, and which are adorned by the bunglers with all kinds of frippery, so that one no longer recognizes the truly great things which are to emerge from these works from the cosmic creation and weaving. Thus these works of art become that which can act as an impulse in people throughout the ages. The great artistic, painterly and sculptural motifs would never have become what they are if they had not been created from the visible impulses of natural and human life.

So we are able to look at what, when in the spiritual conception of today this Michael with the dragon is painted - the old conception did it according to what it knew - what then appears like this: the countenance formed out of the golden gleam of the sun, with the positive gaze, with the looking gaze, with the flaming sword, melted and again formed out of the meteoric iron of the cosmos; below it the dragon, the plager of human nature, the dragon revealing itself at midsummer time, the sulphuric dragon revealing itself out of the flames weaving within itself, arising and immediately passing away again. This moving dragon below in its sulphuric nature, this forming plager of men and opponent of the higher hierarchies, will be the necessary contrast to the fighting Michael, who conquers the meteoric iron in its spirituality.

Here you have an example of how real knowledge merges into art, must always merge into art, because reality cannot be exhausted with abstract concepts. But it is an admonition to our time to seize precisely such an image for the enlightenment, for the awakening of humanity. That is why we want to inscribe this image, this modernized image of Michael's battle with the dragon, deep, deep into human souls, into human hearts, so that it may have an effect on the human will and thought powers of the present and the future. And one can already know: if a part of humanity would take this image seriously, if a part of humanity would understand how this image is formed out of nature itself, and is formed out of the guiding admonitions of the astral light, then the material use of iron in the last centuries, especially in the 19th century, would be joined by the spiritual penetration of the meaning of iron. Then man would ignite in this image the spiritual-soul power that makes him capable of handling that which the inner meteoric iron, shooting along in the blood, fighting the sulphur, wants in him. We must learn not to allow this process to take place merely in the subconscious for the shaping of the lower nature of man, we must learn to place this process, this iron process in the human blood, at the service of the spiritual-soul. That is what Michael wants in us.

This is what challenges us from the astral light to celebrate the Michael festival worthily again with the beginning of autumn. When we now speak in our ranks of the Michaelmas festival, which is to be added to the Easter and Christmas festivals and to the festival of St. John, it must truly not be understood in such a way that we celebrate a festival here or there in an outward way, but rather that we can only celebrate such a festival if we know how to link it to something significant. The celebration of Christmas did not come about through a merely arbitrary, convenient decision, but because it was linked to the birth of Christ Jesus. Easter was linked to the mystery of Golgotha. These are very significant events in the historical life of mankind. The feast of St. Michael must tie in with something significant, with a great, a sustaining inner experience of man, with that inner power which calls upon man to develop self-consciousness out of a natural consciousness through the power of his thoughts, through the power of his will, so that he can become master of the meteoric iron process in his blood, which is the opponent of the sulphurization process.

Certainly, sulphur and iron have been running in human blood since the human race has existed. That which takes place between sulphur and iron determines the unconscious nature of man. It must be raised to consciousness. We must learn to recognize this process as the expression of Michael's inner conflict with the dragon. We must learn to raise this process to consciousness. Then the process is there to which the MichaelFest may link. But this must first be there, fully understood, deeply understood inwardly. Then the Michael festival can be celebrated, just as a festival brought out of the cosmos can be celebrated by people. Then we will have the knowledge that really sees something else in iron than what today's chemist or mechanic sees in iron. Then we will have that which teaches us how to handle iron in our own organism, in our inner human being. Then we will have the majestic image of Michael in battle with the sulphuric dragon, of Michael with the flaming iron sword as an impulse of enthusiasm for what man must become if man wants to develop the forces of evolution not to decline but to progress.

This is what shows itself to us as a warning from the spiritual world in the letters of iron, which form themselves into the enigmatic words, but which can be understood precisely from 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.

This is iron. Let us get to know iron, like all substances, not only according to its material value, let us get to know it in the high power of its spirit! Then there will be human progress again, progress on earth, and we must want that if we want to be human beings in the true sense of the word.