Michaelmas
Conquering the Forces of Darkness
September 26, 2025
As summer wanes and autumn descends upon us, the opportunity arises to observe the ebb and flow of nature in the world and within ourselves. During earth's spring and summer exhale, spiritual forces rise up into the heavens to greet the sun. In a deep inhale during fall and winter, both the earth and we ourselves draw inward.
At this time when external nature is dying, Rudolf Steiner urges us to maintain balance within ourselves by opposing nature-consciousness with the force of self-consciousness — our heart-felt, intellectual understanding of our selves. When a person can do this, "Then the picture of Michael with the dragon will stand majestically before him, revealing in picture-form the overcoming of nature-consciousness by self-consciousness when autumn draws near ... summoning man to inner activity."1
The Courage to Go Within
Such enlivening of the spirit within ourselves in autumn creates balance between Ahrimanic (materialistic, dark, physical) and Luciferic (spiritual, light, wisdom) forces. Rather than merely getting carried away with artistic, feeling activities of Michaelmas, such as crafting dragons, storytelling, poetry, music, singing and dancing around a bonfire, we must summon the will to deepen into our intellectual understanding of ourselves warmed by the residual glow of the sun-filled summer. Now, in the midst of the withering material world, the "summer of the soul" arises within us.
Through the course of his life and extensive teachings, Rudolf Steiner was on this Michaelic quest to awaken the human soul to spirit and transform our darkened world. He was born during a time when a great cosmic war was underway in the spiritual realm between these polar forces of spiritual beauty and dark materialism. Long ago in 33 A.D., through what Steiner refers to as The Mystery of Golgotha, balance was reestablished on Earth through the sacrifice, physical death and resurrection of a fully Christ-filled human being, Jesus Christ. Humanity was thereby rescued from eternal death and devolution. In Steiner's time, humanity was once again in danger of being overtaken by dark forces.2 From the 1840s until 1879, Christ's emissary, Archangel Michael, and his legions waged war against this new uprising of the Dragon of materialism.3 Rudolf Steiner brought the stream of anthroposophy into human evolution in this context.4Fallen Angels: Banished from Heaven to Earth
There are forces among us who do not belong to the earthly realm. They were banished from the heavens by the emissary of the Christ, Archangel Michael, for revolting against Divine will. These divine spirits sought free will prematurely before human beings came into human form.
[A]mong these spirits, whose real cosmic destiny was to remain identified with the will of the divine spirits, there arose a number of beings that wanted to disassociate their will, as it were, to emancipate it, from the divine will. In superhuman pride, certain beings revolted because they desired freedom of will before the time had come for their freedom to mature; and the most important one of these beings, their leader, was conceived of as the being taking shape in the Dragon that Michael combats — Michael, who remained above in the realm of those spirits that wanted to continue molding their will to the divine-spiritual will above them.5
The revolting spirit was banished from the heavens to the earthly realm where he did not belong. He was not animal and not human. He did not fit any existing form, so he remained invisible and appears supersensibly as a dragon.
[W]hen the soul's eye is directed to what physical nature embraces, it beholds this inherently contradictory form of the Adversary, of him who is like an animal and yet not like an animal, who dwells in the visible world, yet is himself invisible: it beholds the form of the Dragon. And in the whole genesis of the Dragon men of old saw the act of Michael, who remained in the realm of spirit in the form suitable to that realm.
Now the earth came into being, and with it, man; and it was intended that man should become, in a sense, a twofold being. With one part of his being, with his psycho-spiritual part, he was to reach up into what is called the heavenly, the super-sensible world; and with the other, with the physical-etheric part, he was to belong to that nature which came into being as earth-nature, as a new cosmic body — the cosmic body to which the apostate spirit, the Adversary, was relegated. This is where man had to come into being. He was the being who, according to the primordial decree that underlies all, belongs in this world. Man belonged on the earth. The Dragon did not belong on the earth, but he had been transferred thither. Ibid.
The Continuing Battle For Humanity
Although tethered to the earth, these Ahrimanic spirits repeatedly rise up to wage war in the heavens. This has occurred many times, since before mankind took human form here on earth. Michael and his army always win and the Dragon and his followers are again relegated back again to the earthly realm within human nature itself. Each battle has a different impact on humanity. One result was human freedom. Other results were increased human materialism, which continues today. 6
With the Dragon now entrenched in human nature, mankind must fight those inner forces that would hinder our spiritual development. We do this through what in German is known as our Gemüt or in simple English translation—our mind. But Gemüt is more than just thinking; it is more akin to feeling or heartfelt thinking. We must transform materialistic thinking into spiritualized-thinking.
In our soul life we distinguish, as you know, thinking, feeling, and willing from one another; and especially in connection with feeling we speak of the human Gemüt. Our thinking appears to us cold, dry, colorless—as though spirituality emaciating us—when our thoughts take an abstract form, when we are unable to imbue them with the warmth and enthusiasm of feeling. We can call a man gemütvoll only when something of the inner warmth of his Gemüt streams forth to us when he utters his thoughts. And we can really make close contact with a man only if his behavior toward ourself and the world is not merely correct and in line with duty, but if his actions manifest enthusiasm, a warm heart, a love of nature, love for every being. This human Gemüt, then, dwells in the very center of the soul life, as it were.7
Thus, applying our Gemüt to Michaelmas, our struggle against the Dragon involves our alliance with the forces of Michael.
So the content of the human Gemüt can be this: The power of the Dragon is working within me, trying to drag me down. I do not see it — I feel it as something that would drag me down below myself. But in the spirit I see the luminous Angel whose cosmic task has always been the vanquishing of the Dragon. I concentrate my Gemüt upon this glowing figure, I let its light stream into my Gemüt, and thus my illumined and warmed Gemüt will bear within it the strength of Michael. And out of a free resolution I shall be able, through my alliance with Michael, to conquer the Dragon's might in my own lower nature.8
Easter Within the Human Soul
Rudolf Steiner discusses how we do not randomly add festivals to the calendar because one group or another think they would be nice to celebrate on this or that date or merely to follow the seasons. The festivals have deep spiritual meaning. Christmas needed the birth of the Christ; Easter, His death and resurrection. For Michaelmas, mankind carries on the Easter thought into his own soul. While Easter represents the death and resurrection of Christ; Michaelmas represents the reverse in mankind: the resurrection of Man’s own soul and then physical death.
What does Easter represent in the year's festivals? It is a festival of resurrection. It commemorates the Resurrection realized in the Mystery of Golgotha through the descent of Christ, the Sun-Spirit, into a human body. First death, then resurrection: that is the outer aspect of the Mystery of Golgotha. One who understands the Mystery of Golgotha in this sense sees death and resurrection in this way of redemption; and perhaps he will feel in his soul that he must unite in his Gemüt with Christ, the victor over death, in order to find resurrection in death. But Christianity does not end with the traditions associated with the Mystery of Golgotha: it must advance. The human Gemüt turns inward and deepens more and more as time goes on; and in addition to this festival that brings alive the Death and Resurrection of Christ, man needs that other one which reveals the course of the year as having its counterpart within him, so that he can find in the round of the seasons first of all the resurrection of the soul — in fact, the necessity for achieving this resurrection — in order that the soul may then pass through the portal of death in a worthy way. Easter: death, then resurrection; Michaelmas: resurrection of the soul, then death.
This makes of the Michael Festival a reversed Easter Festival. Easter commemorates for us the Resurrection of Christ from death; but in the Michael Festival we must feel with all the intensity of our soul: In order not to sleep in a half-dead state that will dim my self-consciousness between death and a new birth, but rather, to be able to pass through the portal of death in full alertness, I must rouse my soul through my inner forces before I die. First, resurrection of the soul — then death, so that in death that resurrection can be achieved which man celebrates within himself.9
Indeed, we are "born again" by taking the risen Christ into our soul while living. The Michael thought, "the resurrection of Man's own soul" continues the Easter thought of the death and resurrection of Christ. With these two thoughts, we find the force to die in Christ and be born again.
It would become the whole disposition of the human soul to permeate the cosmos, to unite itself with cosmic worlds, if once the Michael thought could awaken as a festival thought in such a way that we were to place a Michael festival in the second half of September alongside the Easter festival; if to the thought of the resurrection of the God after death could be added the thought, produced by the Michael force, of the resurrection of man from death, so that man through the Resurrection of Christ would find the force to die in Christ. This means, taking the risen Christ into one's soul during earthly life, so as to be able to die in Him — that is, to be able to die, not at death but when one is living.
Then that which we need will be present in life. For these are one, and they will once again weave religion, science, and art into oneness, because people will understand how to conceive the trinity. Such a thing could actually become an impulse which singly and alone would be able, in the present condition of humanity, to replace the descending forces with ascending ones.10
Enlivened Spiritual Thinking as the Outer World Dies
For Michaelmas to have meaning, our thoughts about spirit must be as powerful as our thoughts of the material world. Through alliance with Michael, we can overcome the Dragon, the world and even death by transforming ourselves and others. By transforming our thinking from materialistic ideas to spritualized thinking recognizing the unseen forces at work, we bring spirit into matter. Bringing this Gemüt into our actions, we connect with others in brotherly love and have hope of healing our broken society.
This ability to rise to the point at which thoughts about spirit can grip us as powerfully as can anything in the physical world, this is Michael power. It is confidence in the ideas of spirit — given the capacity for receiving them at all — leading to the conviction: I have received a spiritual impulse, I give myself up to it, I become the instrument for its execution. [...]
If you will imagine this thought developed in the human Gemüt as great confidence in spirit, if you will consider that man can cling firm as a rock to something he has seen to be spiritually victorious, something he refuses to relinquish in spite of all outer opposition, then you will have a conception of what the Michael power, the Michael being, really demands of us; for only then will you comprehend the nature of the great confidence in spirit.11
Thus, as the natural world fades in autumn, we celebrate the joy of the Michaelmas Festival as a remembrance of our mission to use our free will to spiritualize ourselves and the world around us. Through heartfelt thinking, we have the opportunity to align with the legions of Michael and the entire cosmic order. We can thereby overcome the the forces that would drag us down. In doing so, we will no longer remain chained to the material realm like Ahriman but be confident that after death we will continue to evolve spiritually as intended.
A Call to Action
Rudolf Steiner delivered his last address to the Anthroposophical Society on the eve of Michaelmas 1924.12 He had spiritually laid the foundation stone of anthroposophy in the hearts of the Society's members forty weeks (9 months) earlier. Now, a new Anthroposophical impulse was to have been born in them. As Marie Steiner sadly recounted, there unfortunately was no one adequately prepared to fructify this impulse for humanity and carry it forward into action.13
Thus, in his last address to the members before his death, Rudolf Steiner proclaimed the following Michaelmas verse as his deepest call to the Hierarchies and beckoning to humanity to take up this task.14 Will you accept this mission?Springing from Powers of the Sun,
Radiant Spirit-powers, blessing all Worlds!
For Michael's garment of rays
Ye are predestined by Thought Divine.He, the Christ-messenger, revealeth in you—
Bearing mankind aloft—the sacred Will of Worlds.
Ye, the radiant Beings of Aether-Worlds,
Bear the Christ-Word to Man.Thus shall the Herald of Christ appear
To the thirstily waiting souls,
To whom your Word of Light shines forth
In cosmic age of Spirit-Man.Ye, the disciples of Spirit-Knowledge,
Take Michael's Wisdom beckoning,
Take the Word of Love of the Will of Worlds
Into your soul's aspiring, ACTIVELY!
References to Resources
- The Four Seasons and the Archangels: I. The Michael Imagination, GA 229, 5 October 1923, Dornach.
- Michaelmas and the Soul-Forces of Man, Lecture IV, GA 223, 1 October 1923, Vienna.
- The Fall of the Spirits of Darkness: The Battle between Michael and ‘The Dragon,’ GA 177, 14 October 1917, Dornach.
- See Rudolf Steiner's Biographical Timeline outlining his life's work by year with links to relevant documents.
- Michaelmas and the Soul-Forces of Man, Lecture I GA 223, 27 September 1923, Vienna.
- See note 3.
- Michaelmas and the Soul-Forces of Man, Lecture II, GA 223, 28 September 1923, Vienna.
- See note 3.
- See note 2.
- The Cycle of the Year, Lecture III, GA 223, 2 April 1923, Dornach.
- See note 6.
- The Individuality Of Elias, John, Raphael, Novalis,, GA 238, September 28, 1924, Dornach.
- The Christmas Conference, Part I, Foreword by Marie Steiner, GA 260.
- The Michael Meditation, from The Festivals and Their Meaning IV: Michaelmas, GA 238, September 28, 1924, Dornach.
This article offers a mere glimpse of the wealth of information given by Rudolf Steiner regarding Michael, the Dragon, and Michaelmas. We invite you to do your own research here where we have compiled most all of Steiner's work in a searchable format. Visit our Festivals Topic Page to find select lectures for Michaelmas and other festivals throughout the year. You may also enjoy the article from Michaelmas 2024, The Last Address: Michael and the Mission of Man.
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