The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fifth Lecture

[ 1 ] Let us first turn our thoughts to those who stand out in the fields of contemporary events and must stand up for what the times demand of them:

Spirits of your souls, watchful guardians,
May your wings bring
The pleading love of our souls
To the earthly people entrusted to your care,
So that, united with your power,
Our plea may shine with help
Upon the souls it lovingly seeks.

[ 2 ] And for those who have already passed through the gates of death:

Spirits of your souls, watchful guardians,
May your wings carry
The pleading love of our souls
To the beings of the spheres entrusted to your care,
So that, united with your power,
Our plea may shine forth in aid
To the souls it lovingly seeks.

[ 3 ] And may the Spirit we have sought for so many years in our movement—the Spirit who has passed through the Mystery of Golgotha—hover over you, flow through you, and strengthen you for your difficult task!

[ 4 ] As I have been informed, there does not seem to be complete clarity regarding the saying that was just spoken. I would like to explicitly note that the correct reading is: “Spirits of your souls.” The saying is structured in such a way that it can be used both when many are speaking for one, and when one is speaking for many, or many are speaking for many—as we have just done. When it refers to one person, the only change needed is to say: “Spirit of your soul, active guardian,” and so on. It seems that the first time I used the incantation here weeks ago, I misspoke, so that the impression may have arisen that the words “spirits of your souls” were not quite correct. But they are indeed correct. The first line is, as it were, an address to the spirits of the souls to be protected; and the word “your” refers to those upon whom one directs one’s thoughts in this context, while in the second line the “your” is directed toward the “guardians.” I note that such sayings are always of a nature that sometimes poses difficulties for purely grammatical structure, but that they are precisely conveyed from the spiritual world for the purpose they are intended to serve, and the point is that with such sayings, the word order sometimes causes some difficulty.

[ 5 ] My dear friends, it was a well-considered decision—and one that is also in keeping with the spiritual tasks of our time—that the day before yesterday we turned our attention to phenomena within human evolution that show us how spiritual and intellectual impulses —namely those connected to the Mystery of Golgotha, to the Christ impulse—how these impulses live as living forces within human development, how they have lived within human development, even without people being able to grasp the essence of the Christ impulse with their intellect or reason. And it was appropriate to point out, alongside other phenomena, specifically that of the Maid of Orleans, through whom this Christ impulse, by means of its serving Michaelic spirit, accomplished a great task in the fifteenth century for the salvation and progress of humanity. It was particularly necessary to point out this fact because it naturally applies to our time as well: everything that is meant to govern the great interrelationships is ordered and governed from the spiritual worlds, and we must be aware that the forces—the impulses toward what is to happen—come to us from the spiritual worlds. So in this respect, the same applies today as—if we may say so—applied in the time of the Maid of Orleans. But the times are different. And what was able to happen in a certain way in the time of the Maid of Orleans must take place in a different manner for our time and for the times to come; it must unfold differently. For our time has since become quite different. Since the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries—which, of course, precede the events of the Virgin of Orleans—humanity has been guided in a completely different way. And today we would like to point out this difference and, through it, especially the fundamental character of our time.

[ 6 ] When our soul is in that state between falling asleep and waking up, our true being is outside our physical body and our etheric body. We then live, while asleep, in our astral body and in our I. We must create a clear mental image of the fact that, with what we truly are, we are then outside our body. At first, because we are bound to our body in an extraordinary way between birth and death, we are not very far away from our body in space; we are, so to speak, spread out with our soul in our surroundings, but within everything that constitutes the very nature of our surroundings.

[ 7 ] Let us now consider how—at least for the vast majority of people affected by current events—our environment has changed, particularly over the last few centuries, since the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. One can form a mental image of what modern machinery and mechanisms were available at the time when Joan of Arc was active. We can quite literally say that, in mechanical terms, the world has completely changed since that time, for all the machinery we experience today came into being only later. Those of you who have ever traveled attentively at night in a sleeper car may have had a curious experience: the experience that upon waking—and one does indeed wake up quite often on such occasions — there is a lingering rumble from the machinery of the train all around, and that, in a sort of dreamlike waking state, one can hear something of this creaking and squeaking of the train or the steamship, wherever one happens to be when one wakes up. This is because our soul is not actually within our body, but in the environment surrounding the body and is placed within these mechanisms.

[ 8 ] Now, it is not only on such extraordinary occasions that we are thrust into the very machinery of our time; indeed, one might say that in today’s world, this mechanized life extends even out into the countryside, and we are, in essence, constantly immersed in this mechanized life of our time. Our soul, in its sleeping state, merges with everything that is mechanical. But we have built such mechanisms ourselves. A mechanism that we have built, however, is something entirely different from nature out there, which is built by the elemental spirits. Out there, for example when we are in the forest, where everything is built by the nature spirits, we are in a completely different environment than when we are in the midst of the mechanisms we have built. For what do we do when we mechanically assemble what we take from nature into machines and devices for our lives? We do not merely join together the parts of matter. But by assembling parts of matter, we give an Ahrimanic-demonic servant an opportunity to unite with the machine every time. With every machine, with every mechanism, with everything that belongs to today’s cultural life in this regard, we are giving a foothold to demonic elemental spirits, the servants belonging to the Ahrimanic natures. And by living in this environment of machines, we then live together with these demonic-Ahrimanic elemental spirits. We permeate ourselves with them; we permeate ourselves not only with the squeaking and creaking of the mechanisms, but also with that which, in the most eminent sense, has a destructive effect on our spirit, on our soul.

[ 9 ] Mind you—I have often made a similar remark on similar occasions—what I am saying is not meant to be a critique of our Ahrimanic age. For it must be that we allow demons to pour in everywhere and let them surround us. This is part of human evolution. And because we must simply acknowledge this as necessary, therefore, if we understand the true impulse of Spiritual Science, we will not now go so far as to praise those who say: “So one must protect oneself as much as possible from the demons and flee from civilization; one must build a colony in solitude as much as possible, so that one has nothing to do with these demonic-Ahrimanic elemental spirits.” That has never been the tenor of my remarks; rather, I have always said that what the necessity of development brings upon us must be fully accepted, and that one must not allow oneself to be led thereby to flee from the world. But it must be recognized and understood that our age is such that we are increasingly permeating our surroundings with demonic forces, that we are increasingly confronted with what mechanizes our culture. Such an age requires something quite different from what was required by the age from which the Maid of Orleans was called to her mission. That age of the Maid of Orleans demanded, I would say, that the impulse from which the Maid of Orleans was to act be born out of the gentlest, the most subtle forces of the human soul—out of the gentlest forces of the soul. Consider this: she was a shepherdess, and thus surrounded by the simplest, most idyllic nature. Early on, visions came to her, so that through the imaginings given to her, she had a direct connection with the spiritual world. Everything she was to bring forth from within herself, everything she was to let spring forth from within herself, was to form the foundation of her work. Yes, not only that, but very special circumstances had to be brought about in order to imprint her mission upon her soul, upon her innermost being, through the most delicate forces that the human soul possesses.

[ 10 ] We know, of course, that everything in the world proceeds cyclically, that events unfold in such a way that significant occurrences arise according to specific cycles. If we take the year of birth—1412—of the Maid of Orleans, we can ask ourselves a specific question. We can say: the year of birth of this Maid of Orleans naturally saw the Sun in a specific location—an astronomical location—covering one of the constellations of the zodiac. An important period of time now unfolds as the Sun moves from one such constellation to the next. As it circles the entire zodiac, it passes through the twelve constellations; but a significant period of approximately 2,160 years elapses when the Sun moves from one constellation of the zodiac to another, that is, advances one constellation. If we now go back approximately 2,160 years from the birth of the Maid of Orleans, we arrive at the founding of Rome.

[ 11 ] If, at the time of Rome’s founding, one wished to obtain information about important matters concerning the city that was just being established, one would go to the nymph Egeria; there one could obtain information from a seer. But that, as I said, was one solar cycle ago. Thus the ages renew themselves, and thus everything is based on cyclical processes. So, if we have a mental image of: the sun was at a certain point in the constellation of Aries at the time of Rome’s founding; it then moves on, proceeding as far as Pisces, so that it has thus advanced one-twelfth of the zodiac, we come, through the cycle that must necessarily take place in the development of humanity, from the nymph Egeria to the inspired deed of the Maid of Orleans. But in ancient Rome we are dealing with pagan inspiration, with pagan deeds. If we have a mental image of the same visionary power that was active at the time of Rome’s founding being active in a Christian age, and working from within through the most delicate human forces, what then would have to happen? You can have a mental image of what had to happen that was somehow connected once again with the most intimate, with the finest forces of Christianity.

[ 12 ] Now, most of you will recall that I have often discussed how the course of the year varies in terms of the forces through which we are connected to the spiritual worlds. In summer, at St. John’s Day, when the sun’s rays have their greatest external power, one may perhaps, through external ecstasy—as was the case in the ancient Celtic mysteries—achieve some kind of ecstatic ascent into the spiritual world. But where the days are shortest, where the sun’s rays have their least external power, and the winter nights are darkest—that is, around Christmas time—there is also the possibility of striving through one’s inner soul life to reach the spiritual worlds. That is why all those who have known anything about this cycle of the year have always rightly claimed that, if one is so inclined, in the days from December 21st to 23rd until about January 6th—in these days and especially in these nights—one can experience the most intimate connection with the spiritual worlds. There are legends—the legend of Olaf Åsteson from Norway has been read here—that show how people found their deepest inspiration during these days. This is again connected to the fact that Christmas is celebrated at this time, the birth of the Spirit who passed through the Mystery of Golgotha, which is linked to the most intimate forces of human soul development. So if the inspiration of ancient pagan Rome were to rise again, one solar cycle later, 2,160 years later, that inspiration would have to take the path through the very most childlike aspect of the human being. That is to say, the soul of the Maid of Orleans had to be addressed where souls are most deeply touched, where they are weakest in the face of the earthly, and where the Christ impulse is not yet hindered by earthly impressions, because the souls have not yet grasped the earthly, and so it can penetrate the soul on its own. It would therefore have been the most favorable time if the Maid of Orleans, immediately before her birth, before she took her first breath, had spent the thirteen nights in her mother’s womb. And she did! For she was born on January 6.

[ 13 ] Here we see how the deeper forces that penetrate our physical world from the spiritual realms are at work, how they seek out their paths—the most mysterious of paths. For those who perceive such connections, there can be nothing more wondrous—and more explainable from the perspective of Spiritual Science—than the fact that the Maid of Orleans took her first physical breath around Christmas time, on January 6, following the Christmas season she had already experienced before entering the physical plane. Thus we see that she, who passed through death at the age of nineteen, was touched where the most delicate forces of the human being, the most intimate forces of the human being, lie, and that we thereby look into the time in which it was necessary for the divine-spiritual forces to seek a path through the most intimate depths of the human soul. But that was precisely the last time in which such a thing was to be. It was the time when Europe was ordered by the Christ impulse, as I hinted at last time, and when it happened in that wondrous way, just as it happened through the Maid of Orleans. But since then, the times have changed. Today is not a time for the divine-spiritual forces to approach the human soul in such an intimate way.

[ 14 ] What, in fact, was the task of the Maid of Orleans, if we consider a concomitant aspect—a concomitant aspect of her entire life? From within, she was gripped by the forces of the divine-spiritual world. What these forces encountered in her soul were the Luciferic forces. These Luciferic forces were powerful and strong at that time. Through what the Maid of Orleans carried within her, she became the conqueror of the Luciferic forces. She became this conqueror of the Luciferic forces, quite visibly, for everyone who is willing to see. We have taken a look at her miraculous birth and have seen how she underwent, so to speak, an unconscious initiation up to the day of the Epiphany, up to the day of the so-called Revelation of Christ. But we can also point to her death, which came about because all the Luciferic forces of her enemies had joined together and brought about this death. Her misfortune in a battle was brought about by the jealousy of those who, as official leaders, were in charge of directing that battle. But then everything that was jealous of such manifestations of spiritual forces and spiritual powers, as they came to light through her, came to the fore. She was put on trial. The trial records exist, and anyone who studies these records—unless they are as narrow-minded as Anatole France—can see that this Maid of Orleans, just as she had entered the physical world in a miraculous way over the course of thirteen nights, also departed from it. For it is written in the trial records—and can thus be historically verified—that she said she would indeed die, but that after her death the English would suffer a far greater defeat than they had suffered before, and that this would happen within the next seven years. — If we understand this in the proper spiritual sense, it means nothing other than that the soul of the Maid of Orleans, as she passed through the gate of death, declared her willingness to cooperate in the further shaping of events after her death, to cooperate in this in every form of her existence. That is what she did! Whatever the spiritual forces have to accomplish will happen, regardless of how external circumstances unfold. The opponents of Joan of Arc were able to bring about her physical death—that is, to carry out, so to speak, the strongest attack against her—but they could not prevent her mission. However, the forces of Joan of Arc could only work in the subtle way they did during her time. In everything she did, she had the Luciferic forces against her. We in our time also have to deal with opposing forces, but primarily with Ahrimanic forces—those Ahrimanic forces that have arisen through the materialistic age and are already evident in the outer structure of our entire age when we consider the mechanisms, the mechanical aspects of our age, when we consider that, in essence, by manufacturing our mechanisms, we are providing a dwelling place for demons and surrounding ourselves with an entire Ahrimanic-demonic world. But we also see in other things how Ahrimanic forces are at work everywhere in our time. We see, for example, if we look back just a few years and consider the occult foundations of our earthly existence, that Ahrimanic forces are at work everywhere in our physical earthly existence; not only those of the kind like the demons we create in our machines, but other Ahrimanic forces as well are at work in our earthly existence. And the occultist must state—as I have often said before this or that circle of our friends—that, fundamentally speaking, the painfully sad events now sweeping through Europe and a large part of the Earth have long been in preparation; that, so to speak, the war had long been present in the astral world, but that it was held back by something astral, namely the fear that all people felt. Fear is an astral element; it was able to hold back the war, to prevent it; it was able to ensure that it did not occur for so long.

[ 15 ] For fear was everywhere! Fear is, in fact, something that rages in the depths of the souls of our age in the most terrible way. But then came a time that, outwardly and chronologically, foreshadowed something that is often mentioned when discussing the origins of this war. But this external event is not the most important thing; it is merely a symbol. It came—I have already discussed this here before—the assassination of that Austrian Archduke, and that is when the aforementioned, terribly shattering event unfolded. I had never experienced it before, neither directly nor through other occultists. We know, of course, what the soul goes through when it has passed through death. In this soul, which had passed through death at that time, it became particularly evident that all the elements of fear began to group around it, as around a center, and now one was faced with something like a cosmic power within it. Now we know that something which has a very specific character on the physical plane has the opposite character in the spiritual world. So it was in this case as well: what had initially had a dispersing effect on the war now had the opposite effect, acting, so to speak, as a spur, as an incitement. Thus we see that, in a sense, a metamorphosis of the elements of fear, of the Ahrimanic elements, is mixed into everything that has ultimately brought about the painfully sad events of our time. Ahrimanic forces are indeed at work everywhere in our time. We cannot rebel against them, we cannot criticize them, we should not seek to protect ourselves from them, but must regard them as a necessity of our time, as something that must be present in our time. The only question is: How do we find the right attitude toward it? How do we find that which guides us as to how we should conduct ourselves precisely in our age, if we wish to make it possible for the divine-spiritual forces and powers to enter into our actions?

[ 16 ] Here I must refer to an event in the spiritual world that took place several decades ago. I have mentioned it on several occasions in various contexts: that event which occurred behind the scenes of our existence, in the spiritual world, around November of the year 1879. We know, of course, that from epoch to epoch there is always, so to speak, a different ruler of earthly existence; one ruler succeeds another. Until the year 1879, the spirit we call Gabriel—to give it a name—was active from the spiritual worlds. Since the year 1879, it has been the spirit we call Michael. He is the one who directs the events of our time; and whoever is able to look consciously into the spiritual worlds perceives the Spirit Michael as the actual directing, leading Spirit of our time. Michael is, in a certain sense, the strongest of the leading spirits of the ages that constantly succeed one another. In a certain sense, I said, he is the strongest of these spirits. The others were primarily active spiritually within the spiritual realm. Michael has the strength to push the spirit through into the physical world. He was the spirit who, before the Mystery of Golgotha came, descended to Earth as it were preceding the Christ, and at that time—for about four to five centuries—held the leadership of the Earth. He is once again the leading spirit of the Earth in our time. One might say, by way of comparison: What gold is among the metals, Michael is among the spirits belonging to the hierarchy of the Archangels. Just as all other metals act primarily on the etheric body, while gold also acts on our physical body as a medicine, so do all other guiding spirits act within the soul; Michael, however, is the one who can act simultaneously on the physical intellect and on physical reason. When his age has come, then the spirit can act upon the physical intellect and the physical reason. Because he was not the actual leading spirit in the fifteenth century, he had to seek a path with the Maid of Orleans—without human intellect, without human understanding, without human imagination—a path, so to speak, entirely inner, through the most intimate human soul forces. Christ did indeed work through his Michaelic Spirit upon the Maid of Orleans; but he was able to work through everything else rather than through the powers of intellect and reason.

[ 17 ] There are also Luciferic spirits today who prefer to attack people from within. They seek to stir up all manner of passions, but not the errors of the intellect or the errors of reason with which we struggle so much in our present age. We must therefore say: What we wish to achieve in the spiritual realm, we must achieve in accordance with the powers possessed by Michael, the leading spirit of the age. And in intimate union with Michael stands that which we seek to comprehend when we attempt to grasp his appearance, as we have done in recent days; namely, when we seek to comprehend what we call the German national spirit—two forces: Michael and the German national spirit, which are entirely in harmony, and to whom it is entrusted to express the Christ impulse precisely in our time, in a manner appropriate to the character of our age. For our age cannot in any way believe that the same intimate mode of working that was right for the fifteenth century could still be right since the advent of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. In our age, the point is that we must above all grasp the necessity of being bound to Ahriman, to the Ahrimanic, which we ourselves generate in our mechanisms, and the necessity of correctly recognizing these connections; for otherwise we live in fear of much of what exists in our age.

[ 18 ] This raises the question: How do we resist this Ahrimanic force in our age, just as resistance was offered to the Luciferic force in the age of Joan of Arc? We resist the Ahrimanic by following precisely the path that is emphasized time and again within our Spiritual Science movement: the path of the spiritualization of human culture, of human conceptual and imaginative faculties. That is why we have emphasized it time and again: There is a way to truly grasp everything that Spiritual Science brings us—even if it is initially and mostly given from the spiritual world—with the intellect and reason allotted to humanity today since the sixteenth century. And when we say we do not understand it, this is only because we listen to the prejudices offered to us by the prevailing materialism of the age. Whoever does not listen again and again to what resounds in part loudly, and partly in the finest, quietest whisper, but who instead tries to take a close look at what we possess in our powers of understanding, to that person what Spiritual Science brings forth will one day appear as something entirely comprehensible, as something that can be understood just as any event in the outer world can be understood. But it is only by doing this that we generate within ourselves the strong power we need to resist the Ahrimanic forces—not merely by approaching the spirit through the most intimate powers of revelation and faith, as in the case of Joan of Arc, but by attempting to concentrate our powers of understanding in the most intense way on what comes from Spiritual Science. If we do this, then the hour, the moment, will come when we must say to ourselves: What confronts us from Spiritual Science is the only reasonable thing and at the same time that which makes the world around us comprehensible and luminous. And when we are thus moved, we will be so moved by what the spirit gives us in our time that we are truly strong enough to stand against the Ahrimanic forces.

[ 19 ] A figure like Joan of Arc, transported into our present day, would be powerless. She would be an interesting personality, capable of revealing many wondrous things, both prophetically and in other ways. But just as such an intimate, revelatory nature can effectively counter the Luciferic forces, so must humanity today resist the Ahrimanic forces, must fortify itself against these forces, as strongly as befits the Age of Michael. The Age of Michael is precisely suited to the solar, to that which we take in through a spiritualization of the forces we possess from waking to sleeping: the forces of our reason, our comprehension, our understanding. For these powers of comprehension and understanding within us transform in our soul, if only we have enough patience. They are transformed in such a way that from what unfolds before us in Spiritual Science, the certainty springs forth: what we grasp there is the direct expression of the thoughts of the spiritual world. So today it cannot be a matter of withdrawing from the Ahrimanic-permeated outer world, but rather of a necessary standing within this world, while at the same time strengthening ourselves against these Ahrimanic forces.

[ 20 ] The point here is that we must find a way to comprehend the spiritual world through the very same faculty of understanding by which we comprehend the external world. But we have just indicated this path in recent days as the path that is intrinsically linked to the entire mission of the German people, especially to this mission since the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. But this mission was prepared in the preceding centuries. What is peculiar is that what has driven the German spirit in its poets, artists, and philosophers is intimately connected with spiritual life. It is truly a matter of looking boldly at the facts, without sympathy or antipathy, to see how they have been prepared, how they have gradually taken shape. We ourselves have indeed been able to experience how, one day, we simply had to emphasize this necessity of working within the continuous progress of spiritual life. For why?

[ 21 ] Let us try to take a look at that theosophical movement with which we were outwardly associated for a time—the English theosophical movement. Try to build a bridge there between what is otherwise English spiritual life, extending into philosophy, and what is English theosophy: outwardly they stand side by side, are two currents running parallel to one another, and a bridge between the two is something that can only be drawn in a very superficial way. Try, on the other hand, to take in the German spiritual life as it was prepared by the German mystics in Meister Eckhart and Johannes Tauler, and then unfolded further in Jacob Böhme and Angelus Silesius, how it led in Lessing to the recognition of the idea of repeated earthly lives, and how it represents in Goethe’s *Faust* a veritable glorification of the ascent into the spiritual worlds—there you have the direct path from the outer worlds into the spiritual world. And if you now add to this what led from Goethe’s “Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily” to the dramatization of the fundamental forces of initiation, and hold both currents together, then you have the inner connection therein. There is an inner connection between what ultimately appears as Spiritual Science and what is sought quite exoterically in the physical world as spiritual life. For, of course, this spiritual life, which unfolds outside of Spiritual Science, is sought through the powers of the brain, but it strives toward what is found outside the body. One might say: it is the mission of the German people that they cannot help but ultimately find their way into spiritual life through what they strive for. But spiritually speaking, this means nothing other than that the German people are called to connect inwardly with what comes into the world through the leadership of Michael. Such a connection is not achieved by passively, as if fatalistically, surrendering oneself to the forces of fate, but by recognizing what the task of the times is.

[ 22 ] And what I am trying to say here has become evident not only internally through the development of German mysticism, but also externally through the entire course of German life in connection with European life. I addressed this in the first of my two most recent public lectures, “The Germanic Soul and the German Spirit,” how the Germanic soulfulness, as it were, flowed into the peoples of the West and the South through the outposts of the Germanic peoples—the Goths, Lombards, and Vandals—and how that which is Germanic soulfulness was sacrificed there on the altar of humanity. But this was repeated later, only less conspicuously. Let us first look to the far east of Austria, to the so-called Transylvanian Saxons. They migrated from the Rhine region, where the Siebengebirge is located; this can also be proven by external evidence. Little by little, they have lost their distinct character. The substance of their soul has surrendered itself to flow into that other ethnic element, and one day there will be little left of them other than some of their language; but as an ethnic substance, they have flowed into it. Let us then go down into the Banat: it is the Swabians who have immigrated there; the Magyar element is entwined with it. It is the same in the regions of the Hungarian highlands, the Carpathians. All these immigrations have today almost vanished outwardly, but they live on everywhere within the ethnic strata present there today, and then sometimes manifest themselves like clots, as for example in the wonderful linguistic enclave of the Gottschee people in Carniola. But elsewhere as well. We see—we could trace this much further still—how this Germanic soul-nature is sent out into the world, how it works. This happens through an inner necessity. It happened this way through the earlier ages, notably also through the age of Gabriel. And in the age of Gabriel, it happened in such a way that, I would say, blood, blood, and the mingling of blood were at work, along with everything that is more closely connected to the external conditions of life, yet is not outwardly tangible, but rather unfolds in a more intimate way.

[ 23 ] Now the Age of Michael has come, the age in which we must understand how, through the entire course of spiritual life, the German spirit can align itself with the solar power of Michael. This is precisely what must be understood. But it can only be understood by recognizing spiritual science, by gradually gaining, through the contemplation of Spiritual Science—anthroposophy—an inkling and an awareness of the activity of spiritual forces, of the reality of spiritual forces. So that one gradually comes to understand how nonsensical it is when people say: There are no spiritual forces; I cannot acknowledge them; and if there is a horseshoe-shaped iron bar here, then that is simply a piece of iron, and I see nothing but iron. — But there may be magnetism within it! And in the entire outer world, there is something quite different from magnetism within it. One acquires this recognition by engaging with what is revealed about the peculiar form of things. Through this, one acquires in the Michael Age those spiritual powers that are necessary to resist the Ahrimanic forces, where it is precisely our task to resist the Ahrimanic forces. For, fundamentally speaking, everything we have in the study of Spiritual Science is merely preparation. One day, the awakening of the soul springs forth from the study of Spiritual Science, through which the soul knows: The spiritual world lives within you, from the Christ impulse down through Michael to the national spirit, which brings about what is to be brought about.

[ 24 ] I said that the age of the Virgin of Orleans was suited to tapping into the very weakest, physically weakest forces within human beings. Our age must penetrate to the strongest powers of the human being; it must seize the will precisely where that will is least inclined to truly unfold its powers. We see it time and again: to unfold the will where it matters—to stir into inner activity those powers that are our earthly powers, our powers of imagination—this is what is most difficult for the human being. Applying the will outwardly is still relatively easy for him. But a different kind of will is necessary if thoughts are to be directed in such a way that they encompass the spiritual world. It is this strong will that Spiritual Science as such must appeal to; it must be present if Spiritual Science is truly to lead us in our Michaelic age to what it must lead us to. For we are not called upon to speak of the mechanistic nature of our age; we are not called upon to point out that this mechanistic aspect of our age has taken hold of people; rather, we are called upon to something else. One can, of course, if one strains the facts a little, even be a great philosopher to a certain degree—let that be acknowledged without reservation—one can look at the mechanistic nature of our age and then begin to see the most pernicious thing precisely in this mechanism, which one attributes especially to one’s external enemies. And if one then has a tendency—even if one is regarded as a great philosopher—to rant like a market vendor, one can do as the philosopher Bergson did, who has only recently managed once again to point out in a one-sided manner—and, when presented in a one-sided manner, much is often quite correct—the connection between the mechanical effect of forces and the German national character. But one can point not only to the fact that German intellect has already achieved something in certain areas through the application of mechanical forces by the intellect; one can also point to something else. But one need not rant in the tone of a market-woman when speaking of such connections; rather, one can say: Perhaps it is precisely where the intellect was strongest in shaping the mechanical-demonic that is also the very place to overcome these mechanical-demonic forces through a special spiritual mission. But then the German can easily be led to misunderstand if, in connection with the course of his spiritual life, he understands that his task is not to remain stuck at the merely mechanical level—which serves him so well even today in the tasks of war— not merely to remain with the mechanisms, for otherwise he would merely create demons, but that he must develop those strong inner forces that can boldly stand up to these demons. This, however, does not involve a blind, but a conviction-guided standing in the spiritual world. If we consider that by constructing machine after machine, we are indeed surrounding ourselves for all time to come with a world of demons, with a veritable hell, then we can certainly understand how people, out of the materialistic spirit of our age, say again and again: this scientific-materialistic age has brought us to the highest peak humanity has ever reached—we can certainly understand this, for that is only natural for today’s materialistically minded people, but we must know that through our machines we are introducing nothing but demons into humanity, and we must also know how to develop the proper resistance against these demons. Only by recognizing these Ahrimanic-demonic forces, by consciously knowing that they are there, do we establish the right relationship to the spiritual world. For it is only because we remain unconscious of them, because we know nothing of them, that these harmful powers are harmful. I would like to illustrate this with a comparison.

[ 25 ] You know that, in time—and hopefully if we succeed in achieving certain things that have not yet been accomplished—we will have a building in Dornach near Basel where we can cultivate our spiritual movement in a suitable environment. Now, the construction of this building is not a matter of fleeing the necessities of the present in any way, but rather of erecting it entirely out of the necessities of the present. For example, the lighting had to be created out of the most Ahrimanic forces of the present, and these are: electric lighting, electric heating, and so on. The aim is to render harmless, through the architectural form itself, whatever comes into play in this process. If one were to enter the building at a later time, one would find all around oneself everything that the Ahrimanic culture of the present brings with it. But what matters is not that it is there, but that one does not notice it. One is simply not supposed to notice it. To achieve this, a group of friends has come together to construct this in a separate building next to it, giving it a special form so that the Ahrimanic-demonic forces are banished into it. For everyone who comes to the building, including those who enter it, this will bring to consciousness the fact that the Ahrimanic forces are at work there. But as soon as one knows this, they are no longer harmful. For the point is that the forces harmful to humanity lose their harmfulness when we look attentively at the places where they are active, when we do not look thoughtlessly at a machine and say: a machine is just a machine, but rather that a machine is a place for a demonic-Ahrimanic being.

[ 26 ] When we position ourselves in the world in such a way that this knowledge resides in our soul, we are truly entering the Michaelic Age. This means, however, that we are establishing a relationship with the spiritual world in which Michael, too, can become active within us—Michael with the mission he currently holds, as we have described it. Everywhere, the issue is that we can either place ourselves thoughtlessly within what people unconsciously construct as mechanisms, or we can see through them. If we see through them, if we become aware of how demonic-elemental forces reign in our mechanisms, then we will also find the path to the spiritually true, right inspirers. And these are connected precisely with that Spirit who relates to the other spirits guiding humanity as gold relates to metals—with Michael.

[ 27 ] So today I tried to make it clear that our age has a different task when it seeks the divine-spiritual forces that are to work for the salvation of humanity on Earth than did the human souls who lived in the age of Joan of Arc. Back then, the task was much more a matter of suppressing everything intellectual and rational. Today, however, the task is to cultivate everything intellectual and rational up to the level of clairvoyance, for it can be cultivated to that level. If there are to be such people who will thus nurture the human soul, then what is meant to develop will emerge from the twilight period we are now going through. What develops outwardly on the physical plane can only be the garment for what is to emerge spiritually for humanity on Earth from the present time. And it is true that those who now devote their powers in their youth wish to send these powers down into our earthly existence. For these powers are not lost, they are indestructible; they are simply to continue to work in a spiritual way, just as they would have continued to work in a physical way had those concerned not passed through the gate of death on the battlefield. But they will continue to send their forces down to Earth in our time, so that we may know how to make use of these forces. These forces must flow down into a humanity that, in the time of peace that will follow the war, will apply these forces in such a way that spiritual life will spread more and more on Earth. Just as the light of day emerges from every night, so must a luminous future emerge from our present, which often appears to us like a night; but this luminous future will have to be permeated by what the Michaelic Age, which began in 1879, has to bring to humanity. If there are souls capable of forming such a deep bond with the spiritual world as is indicated today, then we may hope that, in light of current events, what is expressed in the seven-line verse will be fulfilled; we may hope that all this will be fulfilled if its first five lines are truly connected in reality with the last two:

From the courage of the fighters,
From the blood of battle,
From the suffering of the forsaken,
From the sacrifices of the people
The fruit of the spirit grows—
Guiding souls with spiritual awareness
Toward the realm of the spirit.