 Michaelmas
and the Soul-Forces of Man
4 lectures by Rudolf Steiner
Reflections on the Michael
Thought in its True Aspect―the Regeneration of the Michael Festival.
At Michaelmas, 1923 for the last
time in his earthly life Rudolf Steiner was able to celebrate fully
a Michaelmas festival, and this he did in Vienna, the capital city
of his own homeland, where he had spent so many fruitful years in
his youth. Much of Germany, including Berlin, was cut off from him
in that year of uncontrolled inflation, but here in Vienna he could
feel himself truly at home, as he re-founded the Anthroposophical
Society in Austria and gave these wonderful lectures on the human
Gemüt [mind or soul].
In his Christmas letter to the
members that forms part of the Michael Mystery, Rudolf Steiner in
1924 emphasized in a single marvellously compressed paragraph the
task of man especially in the middle, period of the age of the
consciousness soul in which we are now living:
"In its essential nature the
Spiritual Soul (Consciousness Soul) is not cold. It seems to be so
only at the commencement of its unfolding, because at that stage it
can only reveal the light element in its nature, and not as yet the
cosmic warmth in which it has indeed its origin."
This cosmic warmth must now be
breathed out by men into their observing of the external world. Not
only must we understand the world objectively after the
manner of the scientist, but we must enter into this understanding
with our life of feeling, and thus wrest the world from
Ahriman's clutches, filling it with the Christ forces working from
within ourselves. In this short cycle, as also in the two public
lectures (Supersensible Knowledge as a Demand of the Age,
and Anthroposophy and the Ethical-Religious Conduct of Life)
Steiner describes just how it is possible to enter into the external
world with love, endowing it with soul-warmth, in the process
learning also to celebrate a new kind of autumn festival in which
Michael can truly participate. As soon as he returned to Domach from
Vienna, Steiner gave the five Archangel lectures (The Four
Seasons and the Archangels), to which these four are a
soul-warming introduction that he could perhaps never have given
elsewhere than in the gemütlich city of Vienna.
Stewart C. Easton―from the Introduction
Synopses of the lectures:
September 27 — How shall man, the earth citizen, once
more become a citizen of the cosmos? The expansion of life's horizon
into cosmic reaches. Philosophic aspects and impulses determining
the human being in the picture of Michael's Conflict with the
Dragon.
September 28 —
Present-day man as a world hermit. The way back to spirit through
the Michael force. Enchantment and liberation of the elemental
beings. Man's responsibility to the cosmos. What is demanded of us
is a profound faith in the spirit that will make us into instruments
of the divine-spiritual forces. Experiencing spirit through pure
thought leads to inspiration.
September 30 —
Prerequisites of the inauguration of an autumn festival: penetrating
extra-terrestrial, cosmic contexts; experiencing the course of the
seasons. The Druidic and the Mithras Mysteries; the sun circles and
cromlechs. Observation of the sun yielded knowledge of the
connection between heaven and earth. The language of the heavens was
deciphered and the cult gave directions regulating practical and
social life, thereby becoming a sort of divine service — the image
of the Bull in the Mithras cult, and the schooling of the neophyte's
capacity for sensitive perception: the heart as a sense organ was
raised to a certain degree of consciousness. Through the heart
organization the course of nature was perceived within man, and
through the heart science the spirit of the sun's annual passage
through the zodiac was studied. In this way men read in the heavens
what was to be done on earth — Concerning the cosmic-historical
evolution of the planetary system.
October 1 — We need
realistic thinking in place of mere methods of calculation. The
far-reaching social significance of a Michael Festival. Earth spirit
and human spirit. The cosmic breathing process.
Nature-consciousness, self-consciousness, and spirit-consciousness.
Anthroposophic Press
4 lectures, Vienna, Sept. 27–Oct. 1, 1923 (GA 223)
69pp; paperback
ISBN: 0-88010-007-9
Prompt
delivery within the United Kingdom and overseas.
Copyright © 2004 Skylark Books
|
