The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Anthroposophy and the Human Soul II

[ 1 ] What I was able to say yesterday at the conclusion of my reflection on the ancient conception of Michael’s battle with the dragon was likely already an indication to you of how necessary it is for our time to revive, in a sense, those elements of worldview contained in this gigantic image that were once of significance to humanity—a humanity, as we have seen, from a time not so long ago. For I was able to point out at various points in yesterday’s lecture that this concept was still very much alive in the souls of many people in the 18th century. But before I speak in the next lectures about what, arising from the spirit of our time—from a genuine spiritual perspective of our time—can and must lead to a revival of this concept, it is necessary that I present to you today, as it were, a more general anthroposophical consideration—as a sort of episodic interlude. From this, it will then become clear how the concept I have alluded to can be revived, so that it may once again become a true force in humanity’s thinking, feeling, and acting.

[ 2 ] If we consider the relationship that human beings have today with nature and the entire world, we will be able to say—provided we can compare this present-day relationship with that of earlier times with sufficient objectivity—that: Human beings today have, in essence, become true hermits in relation to the cosmic forces—hermits insofar as they are introduced into physical existence through birth and no longer possess those memories of pre-earthly existence that the whole of humanity once truly had. During the period in which human beings otherwise grow only to use their powers of intellect and memory—the period as far back as one can recall in earthly life—humanity as a whole, in the earlier epochs of human development, simultaneously experienced a flash of genuine memory, a genuine looking back at pre-earthly experiences—experiences that they had undergone as spiritual -soul being prior to their earthly life. This is the one thing that, in a sense, makes human beings today like hermits of the world—that they are not aware of how their earthly existence is connected to a spiritual existence. The other is this: that human beings today direct their gaze out into the vastness of the cosmos, that they behold the outer forms of the stars and constellations, yet no longer have an inner spiritual connection to the spiritual in the cosmos. Indeed, one can go even further. Today, human beings direct their gaze toward the realms of nature that surround them on Earth—toward the manifold beauty of plants, the grandeur of the mountains, the drifting clouds, and so on; yet even there he must limit himself to what makes an impression on his senses; indeed, he very often fears that if he were to develop a more intimate, deeper relationship with the vastness of nature, he might lose his naive view of nature. But as necessary as this phase of human development was for humanity to develop what we experience as the consciousness of freedom and the sense of freedom—as necessary as it was for human beings to attain their full self-awareness, that inner strength which allows the “I” to rise up with full power within the human being—as necessary, as I said, as this solitary existence of humanity within the cosmos was: it must be only a transition to another epoch in which humanity once again finds its way back to the spiritual, which after all underlies all things and beings. And it is precisely this return to the spiritual that must be achieved through the very power that can become available to human beings when they are able to grasp the Michael Idea in its true form—and in the form it must take for our time—in the right sense.

[ 3 ] We need the Michael impulse to permeate our thinking, our emotional life, and our active life. But of course it is not enough simply to hear something like: A Michael Festival must once again come to life among humanity, and now is the time to add this Michael Festival to the other festivals of the year. — It is not enough for some to then say: Well, let’s get started; let’s celebrate a Michael Festival! — If what we strive for through anthroposophy is to be achieved in the world, then, of course, the superficiality that is otherwise common in the world today must not play a role, especially in anthroposophical institutions; rather, when anything grows out of anthroposophy, it must grow out of it with the utmost seriousness. And to help us get a little sense of what this seriousness should be, I would like to ask you to consider how these festivals—once vibrant but now faded—have been woven into the development of humanity.

[ 4 ] Did Christmas or Easter perhaps arise from the decision of a few people who said, “We have an idea to celebrate a festival at a certain time of year, and we’ll organize the necessary events for it”? — Of course that is not the case. For something like Christmas to take root among humanity, it was necessary for Jesus Christ to be born, for this event to have occurred in the course of world history, and for a momentous event to have taken place. And what about Easter? It would never have had any meaning in the world if it had not been the festival commemorating what took place through the Mystery of Golgotha, if this event had not intervened decisively in the entire course of human development and in the history of the Earth. If these festivals have lost their luster today, if the full solemnity is no longer felt at Christmas—nor at Easter—then perhaps this should lead us to deepen our understanding of these festivals once again through a more intense comprehension of the birth of Christ Jesus and the Mystery of Golgotha. Under no circumstances, however, should the idea take hold that, in order to add yet another festival to these with the same superficiality, we should now begin to simply establish the Michaelmas festival in the fall.

[ 5 ] There must be something that—perhaps to a lesser extent—can be just as decisive for the development of humanity as all the events that have led to the festivals. It must certainly come to pass that a Michaelmas festival can be celebrated in all seriousness, and an understanding of this Michaelmas festival must be able to grow out of the anthroposophical movement. But just as external events—events in the objective realm of becoming—have led to the Christmas and Easter festivals, so something within humanity—that humanity which resolves to do such a thing—must become quite different from what it was before. Anthroposophy must become a profound experience, an experience of which a person can truly speak in a similar way to how they can speak when the full power lying in the birth of Christ Jesus—the power contained in the Mystery of Golgotha—dawns upon them. As I said, this may be the case to a lesser extent on the Feast of Michael, but something of this soul-transforming power must emerge from the anthroposophical movement. One would like anthroposophy to acquire this power to transform souls. And it will only be able to do so if what lies in its—if I may say so—teachings actually becomes an experience.

[ 6 ] Today, in particular, let us bring to mind some of those experiences that, through anthroposophy, can find their way into the innermost being of the human person. We distinguish, after all, between thinking, feeling, and willing in the life of the human soul, and when we focus specifically on feeling, we speak of the human heart. We find our thinking cold, dry, and sober; we find it, in a sense, spiritually exhausting when thoughts live in our soul in abstract form, when we are unable to infuse these thoughts with the warmth and enthusiasm of feeling. We can call a person warm-hearted only when, as they express their thoughts to us, something flows toward us from the inner warmth of their heart. And we can truly connect with a person only when they do not merely act toward us in a dutiful, proper manner—nor do they merely act toward the world in a dutiful, proper manner—but when there is something in their actions that allows us to see that the enthusiasm of their heart, the warmth, and the love for nature and for every being flow into them. Thus, in a sense, this human spirit sits at the center of the life of the soul.

[ 7 ] But even if thinking and volition have taken on a certain character due to the fact that human beings have become cosmic hermits, it is actually the human mind that has acquired a distinct character under this cosmic hermitage. Thinking may set forth its perfect calculations about the universe; it may take delight in the subtlety of what is being calculated, but it simply does not sense how far removed it actually is from the warm pulse of life. And in correct, purely duty-bound action, some people may find satisfaction without truly sensing how life in this sober action is only half a life. Neither of these comes very close to the human soul. But that which lies between thinking and willing—everything that the human mind encompasses—comes very, very close to the whole human being. And if we sometimes believe that even what is meant to warm, uplift, and inspire the mind might, given the peculiar disposition of some people today, cause it to grow cold, that is an illusion. After all, the fact is this: regarding what a person experiences inwardly, consciously experiences—let us call it the paradox—one may, if necessary, be dispirited, but one cannot be dispirited without the human being being affected in some way by that dispiritedness. And if a person can endure it emotionally—perhaps forcing themselves into a state of emotional detachment through a lack of soulfulness—it will gnaw away at their entire being in some other form, eating away even into their physical constitution, into their health and illness. Much of what appears in our time as signs of decline is, at its core, precisely connected to the lack of warmth into which many people have fallen. But the full meaning of these more generally stated propositions will only become clear to us when we delve a little deeper into the reflections we began yesterday.

[ 8 ] A person who simply grows up within modern civilization looks at the things of the outside world, perceives them, forms abstract thoughts about them, and may even find heartfelt joy and satisfaction in the lovely flower or the majestic plant; if they have imagination, they may even form a certain inner image of the lovely flower or the majestic plant. Yet they have no inkling of what their deeper relationship is—let us say, for the moment, to single out just one aspect—to the world of plants. It is truly not enough for spiritual insight that we speak of spirit, spirit, and spirit again; rather, it is necessary that we become aware of the truly spiritual relationships we have with the things around us.

[ 9 ] When we look at a plant the way we are accustomed to looking at it today, we have no inkling that there is an elemental being within this plant, a spiritual presence, that there is something inside every such plant for which it is not enough that we simply look at it and form the abstract mental image that we generally form of plants today. For within every such plant there is an elemental spiritual being, but it is contained within it in such a way that it is, so to speak, enchanted within the plant. And, strictly speaking, the only person who truly sees a plant is the one who says to themselves: This, in all its beauty, is the outer shell of a spiritual being that is enchanted within. — Certainly, in the grand cosmic context, a relatively insignificant being, but a being that has a deep connection to human beings.

[ 10 ] Human beings are, in fact, so intimately connected to the world that they cannot take a walk in nature without the intimate relationships they share with the world taking on profound significance for them. When the lily in the field grows from a seed to bloom, we must—without resorting to personification—vividly imagine that this lily is waiting for something. I must once again express this in human words, just as I had to express yesterday’s image in human words. Human words, of course, do not quite capture things, but they do express what is present as reality within them. This lily, as it unfolds its leaves—but especially its flower—is actually waiting for something. It says to itself: People will pass by me, people who will look at me, and when enough human eyes have fixed their gaze upon me, then—so says the spirit of the lily—I will be disenchanted and will be able to set out on my path into spiritual worlds! — Certainly, you will say: There are many lilies that no human eyes look upon. — With those, it’s simply different. Lilies that are not gazed upon by human eyes find their release from enchantment in a different way. For the first human eye that gazes upon a lily brings about the destiny that this lily will be released from enchantment through human eyes. It is a relationship that the lily enters into with the human being the moment the human first casts their gaze upon the lily. These elemental spirits are everywhere around us, and they are actually calling out to us: Do not look at the flowers so abstractly and do not merely form abstract images of them, but have a heart, a soul for what dwells spiritually and emotionally within the flowers. It wants to be redeemed from its enchantment through you. — And human existence should, in fact, be a continuous redemption of the enchanted elemental spirits in minerals, plants, and animals.

[ 11 ] Such an idea can be experienced in all its beauty. But precisely by grasping it in the proper spiritual sense, it can also be experienced in the light of the full responsibility that places human beings in relation to the entire cosmos. And the way in which human beings relate to flowers in the present—in this era of civilization marked by the development of freedom—is actually merely a sipping at that from which they ought to be drinking. They sip by forming concepts and ideas, whereas they ought to drink by connecting, through their inner being, with the flower spirits of the things and beings around them.

[ 12 ] I said: We need not think of those lilies that are never seen by human eyes, but we must think of those that are seen, for they require the emotional connection that a person can form with them. But now, the effect emanates from the lily. And manifold, magnificent, and mighty are the spiritual effects that continually approach human beings from the things of nature as they make their way through nature. Those who can look into these things actually see, without ceasing, how infinitely manifold and magnificent is all that flows toward human beings from every side through the elemental spirituality of nature. And it flows into him. It is that which—as I explained yesterday in terms of external perception—flows continuously toward the human being from the mirror of external nature, which is a mirror of the divine-spiritual, as a spiritual reality that exists as a supersensible force poured out over nature.

[ 13 ] But now—we will have to speak in even greater detail about these things in the coming days, in the spirit of true anthroposophical thought—there is contained within the human being, for the time being, the very force that I described yesterday as the force of the dragon that Michael fights, the dragon with whom Michael is in conflict. I have indicated how this dragon, though it has an animal-like form, is in fact a supersensible being; how, through its rebelliousness as a supersensible being, it has been cast out into the sensory world and now dwells there. I have indicated how it exists only within the human being, because outer nature cannot contain it. External nature in its innocence, as a mirror of divine spirituality, has nothing to do with the dragon. Yesterday I described how it dwells within human beings. But precisely because it is such a being—a supersensible entity in the sensory world—it attracts, at that very moment, whatever flows toward human beings from the vastness of nature as a supersensible elemental force; it unites with it, and instead of the human being, through the soul’s attachment and through the mind, freeing the elemental beings— let us say of plants—from their enchantment, he binds them to the dragon, causing them to perish with the dragon in his lower nature. For everything in the world is in the flow of evolution, taking the most diverse paths of development. And those elemental beings that live in minerals, plants, and animals must ascend to a higher existence than they can attain in the present-day minerals, plants, and animals. They can do this only by passing through human beings. Human beings are truly not on Earth merely to establish external civilization. Within the entire course of world evolution, human beings have a cosmic purpose, and this cosmic purpose is connected to the very things I have just described: the higher development of those elemental beings who, in earthly existence, are at a lower stage but are destined for a higher one, and who—when human beings enter into a certain relationship with them, and if everything proceeds as it should—can attain a higher stage of development.

[ 14 ] It was indeed in the early days of instinctive human development, that human beings experienced the soul-spiritual in their inner lives, and that the spiritual-soul aspect was just as self-evident to them as the natural, so that world evolution indeed advanced as the current of existence flowed through human beings in a regular manner, as it were. But precisely in the epoch that must now come to an end, that must now advance toward a higher spirituality, it has been the case that countless elements of elemental nature within the human being have been delivered over to the dragon. For it is precisely the very nature of this dragon that he thirsts and hungers for these elemental beings; he wants to prowl everywhere, he wants to lick all plants and minerals so that he can absorb the elemental beings of nature into himself. For it is with them that he wishes to unite; it is with them that he wishes to permeate his own existence. He cannot do this in nature outside of humanity; he can do it only within human nature. He can do it only within human nature because there lies a possibility of existence for him there. And if this were to continue, then the Earth would be left to decay; then the dragon I spoke of yesterday would inevitably triumph in earthly existence. He would triumph for a very specific reason: because, by imbibing the elemental beings into human nature, so to speak, something happens.

[ 15 ] This brings about changes on the physical, psychological, and spiritual levels. Spiritually: well, human beings would never arrive at the absurd belief in a purely material external world, as assumed by modern natural science today; they would never arrive at the notion of “dead atoms,” as they do today, or at similar ideas. Human beings would never arrive at laws so hostile to progress—such as the laws of conservation of force and energy, conservation of matter, and the like—if not for the dragon within them that absorbs the elemental beings from the outside. Because these elemental beings from the outside reside within them, the human gaze is diverted from the spiritual aspect of things. When a person looks outward, he no longer sees the spiritual aspect of things—which has meanwhile entered into him—but sees only dead matter.

[ 16 ] And in the realm of the soul? Everything a person has ever expressed that I would call “cowardice of the soul” stems from the elemental forces that the dragon absorbs within him. Oh, how widespread these cowardices of the soul are! A person knows full well: I should do this or that; this or that is the right thing to do in a given situation. — Yet he cannot bring himself to do it; he cannot do it; something acts as a spiritual heaviness within him. It is the elemental beings in the dragon’s body that are at work within him.

[ 17 ] And physically? Human beings would never be afflicted by what are called disease-causing germs if, through the spiritual influences I have just described, their bodies were not made capable of serving as a breeding ground for these germs. These influences penetrate right down into the physical organism. And one might say: If one correctly observes human beings in their spiritual, soul, and physical states—if one sees how they are today in these three respects—one sees that—albeit for a good purpose, namely the attainment of their freedom—human beings have been cut off from the spiritual in these three respects, and that they no longer possess within themselves the spiritual powers they could have. And so you see how, through this threefold weakening of their life—through what the dragon, gorged with blood, has become within the human being—people are prevented from experiencing the power of the spiritual within themselves.

[ 18 ] There are two ways to experience anthroposophy. There are many nuances in between, but I will mention only the two extremes. One way is this: You sit down in your chair, pick up a book, read it, find it quite interesting, find it comforting for human beings that there is a spirit, that there is immortality; you feel quite at ease with the fact that these things exist and that, in terms of the soul, a person is not dead even if they are dead in the physical sense. One finds oneself more satisfied with such a worldview than with a materialistic one; one takes it in, much as one might take in the abstract concepts of geography, except that what one gains from anthroposophy is more comforting to human beings. Certainly, that is one way: one rises from one’s seat just as one actually sat down, except that one has derived a certain satisfaction from the reading. I could just as well be speaking of a lecture instead of reading. Now there is another way to let anthroposophy take effect on oneself—the way in which one takes in things, such as the idea of Michael’s battle with the dragon, in such a way that one is actually transformed inwardly, that it is an important, life-changing experience, and that, in essence, one rises from one’s seat as a completely different person after reading something like that. Between these two approaches, there are all sorts of nuances.

[ 19 ] For example, when speaking of the revival of the Michaelmas Festival, one cannot count on the first type of reader at all; rather, one can only count on those who may, at least to some extent, have the will to take anthroposophy into themselves as something living. And that is precisely what should be experienced within the anthroposophical movement: this necessity of perceiving the ideas—which one initially receives as mere ideas—as life forces. I am now going to say something quite paradoxical: Sometimes one understands the opponents of anthroposophy much better than its adherents. The opponents say: “Oh, these anthroposophical ideas are fanciful; they have no basis in reality.” — The opponents reject them; they are not moved by them in the slightest. One can easily understand such an attitude; one can cite a wide variety of reasons for it—most often it is a fear of these ideas that remains merely unconscious—but in any case, it is an attitude. Often, however, it happens that while the ideas are taken in, one does not even feel as much from them—since they differ from everything else that can otherwise be taken in by the world—as one feels when holding one’s knuckle to the button of an electric shock machine and receiving a shock. There, at least, one feels a slight twitch in the body from the electric spark. Such a spark striking the soul is precisely what, when it is absent, can cause one such immense pain. This is connected to the fact that our time demands that people not only be gripped by the physical, but also be gripped and seized by the spiritual. People avoid being jostled or dragged along, but they do not avoid allowing thoughts to enter their minds that deal with other worlds—worlds that present themselves as something quite special within the present world of the senses—and they do not avoid treating these thoughts with the same indifference as they do the thoughts of the senses.

[ 20 ] This ability to rise up so that one can be gripped by thoughts of the spiritual just as one is by anything physical in the world: that is the power of Michael! Have confidence in thoughts of the spiritual, if you have the capacity to receive them at all, so that you know: You have received this or that impulse from the spiritual. You surrender to it; you make yourself an instrument for its fulfillment. A first failure comes—it doesn’t matter! A second failure comes—it doesn’t matter! And even if a hundred failures come—it doesn’t matter! For no failure is ever decisive for the truth of a spiritual impulse whose effect has been inwardly understood and grasped. For only then do you have trust—the right kind of trust—in a spiritual impulse that you grasp at a particular moment, when you say to yourself: I have failed a hundred times, but that can at most prove to me that the conditions for realizing this impulse are not present for me in this incarnation. But that this impulse is correct, I see through its very nature. And even if it is only after the hundredth incarnation that the powers necessary for the realization of this impulse will have developed within me—nothing can convince me of the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of a spiritual impulse other than its own nature. — If you imagine this taking shape in the human mind as a profound trust in something spiritual, if you imagine that a person can hold fast to something they have recognized as a spiritual triumph, hold on to it so firmly that he does not let go even when the outer world speaks out against it as strongly as it may—if you imagine this, then you have a conception of what the Michael Force, the Michael Being, actually wants from the human being, for only then do you have a vision of what the great trust in the spirit is. One can set aside any spiritual impulse—even for the duration of an entire incarnation—but once one has grasped it, one must never waver in cherishing and nurturing it within oneself; only then can one preserve it for subsequent incarnations. And when, in this way, trust in the spiritual establishes such a state of soul that one is able to perceive the spiritual as just as real as the ground beneath our feet—which we know that, were it not there, we could not stand upon—then we have a sense in our hearts of what Michael actually wants from us.

[ 21 ] You will undoubtedly concede that, over the course of the last few centuries—indeed, the last millennium—an infinite amount of this trust, this active trust in the Spirit, has faded away from humanity; that for most people today, life does not even present them with the challenge of developing such trust. But that is what was bound to happen. For what am I actually saying when I express this? I am saying: Fundamentally speaking, humanity has broken the bridge to the Michael force behind it. But in the meantime, much has happened in the world. Humanity has, so to speak, fallen away from the Michael force; the rigid and austere materialism of the 19th century is, after all, a falling away from the Michael force. But in the objective, in the outer spiritual realm, the Michael force has triumphed—it triumphed precisely in the last third of the 19th century. What the dragon sought to achieve through human evolution will not be achieved. But the other great task now stands before the human soul: that human beings, of their own free will, must participate in Michael’s victory over the dragon. This, however, requires that human beings truly find the means to step out of the passivity in their relationship to the spiritual—a state in which they so often find themselves today—and enter into an active relationship with the spiritual. The Michael forces cannot be attained—not even through passive prayer or any other form of passivity. The Michael forces can be attained solely by a person using his loving will to make himself an instrument for the divine-spiritual forces. For the Michael forces do not want a person to plead with them; they want a person to ally himself with them. A person can do this when he absorbs the teachings about the spiritual world with inner energy.

[ 22 ] In this way, we can point to what must take place within the human being so that the Michael idea can come alive again. The human being must truly be able to have an experience of the spiritual. He must be able to gain this experience of the spiritual from mere thought, not, for example, from some form of clairvoyance. It would be unfortunate if every person had to become clairvoyant in order to have this trust in the spirit. Anyone who is even slightly receptive to the teachings of spiritual science can have this trust in the spirit. As a person becomes more and more imbued with this trust in the spiritual, something will come over them like an inspiration—an inspiration that all the good spirits of the world are actually waiting for. A person will experience spring in such a way that they sense the beauty and loveliness of the plant world, that they feel their deepest joy in the sprouting, budding life; but at the same time, they will develop a sense that everything that sprouts and buds is enchanted by elemental spiritual forces. They will develop a sense, a feeling within their soul, that every blossoming shoot bears witness to the fact that an enchanted elemental being dwells within the flowering plant. And the human being will develop a sense of how this elemental being yearns to be redeemed precisely through him, rather than being handed over to the dragon, to which it is, after all, related through its own invisibility. When the flowers wither in the fall, the human being will sense that he has succeeded in contributing something so that the world may advance a little further in its spirituality, and that with the withering and falling flower—the flower that transforms into seed, becoming hard and withered—an elemental being emerges from the plant. Depending on the extent to which a person has imbued themselves with the powerful Michael force, it will be that person who guides this elemental being upward, into the spirituality toward which it strives.

[ 23 ] And human beings will witness the cycle of the year. They will experience spring as the birth of elemental beings who strive toward spirituality, and they will experience autumn as the liberation of these elemental beings from the withering plants, from the withering blossoms, and so on. Human beings will not merely have grown half a year older in the fall than they were in the spring, as if they were solitary cosmic hermits. Together with nature as it comes to life, they will have advanced a step further in life. Human beings will not merely have inhaled and exhaled physical oxygen a certain number of times; they will have participated in the unfolding of nature, in the enchantment and disenchantment of spiritual beings within nature. Human beings will not only feel their own aging; they will also perceive the transformation of nature as part of their own destiny. He will grow together with what grows outside; he will grow greater in his being as his individual self, as a free being, is able to pour itself sacrificially into the cosmic. This will be what he can contribute to the favorable outcome of Michael’s struggle with the dragon.

[ 24 ] And so we can point out that what can lead to a Michaelmas celebration must be a human emotional experience—the kind of emotional experience that, in the way described, truly experiences the course of the year once again as a reality. But do not say, by simply holding this abstract thought before your soul, that you would experience this; say that only when you have truly taken anthroposophy to heart in such a way that it teaches you to look at every plant and every stone differently than you did before; say it only after anthroposophy has taught you to view the entire human life in its unfolding differently.

[ 25 ] My intention was to give you a glimpse of what must take place within the human mind so that it may become capable of perceiving the nature around it as its own essence. People have, so to speak, barely managed to preserve the ability to experience their blood circulation in such a way that a spiritual aspect unfolds within it alongside the material. Unless they are extreme materialists, they have retained this ability. But to feel the pulse of external existence just as one feels the inner life, to experience the course of the year once again in the same way one experiences life within one’s own skin—that is what must be prepared for the Feast of Michael.

[ 26 ] I would like these lectures—which are intended to bring the relationship between anthroposophy and the human soul to the forefront—to be understood not merely with the head, but also, and especially, with the soul. For in truth, all of anthroposophy is quite futile in the world and among people if it is not received with the soul, if it does not bring warmth into the human soul. The past few centuries have bestowed plenty of cleverness upon people; in their thinking, people have advanced so far that they no longer even realize how clever they are. That is indeed the case. Certainly, some believe that people today are stupid. It may be admitted that there are also stupid people, but this is really only because cleverness has become so great that, out of a weakness of their hearts, people do not know what to do with their cleverness. I always say that when someone is called stupid, there is nothing else at play here than that they do not know what to do with their own intelligence. I have listened to many debates where people laughed at one speaker or another because they were considered stupid; yet sometimes those who were laughed at the most actually seemed to me to be the wisest. So the past few centuries have brought people plenty of intelligence. But what they need today is warmth of heart, and that is what anthroposophy can provide. If someone studies anthroposophy and says it leaves them cold, they strike me as someone who puts wood in the stove, adds more wood, and then says, “It’s never going to get warm.” — But they need only light the wood, and then it will certainly get warm! Anthroposophy can be presented; it is the good wood of the soul; but each person must light it themselves. That is what everyone must find within their own heart: the match for anthroposophy. Anyone who finds anthroposophy cold, sober, and intellectual simply lacks the ability to ignite this very fiery, very warming anthroposophy that permeates the soul, so that it can set them ablaze with its fire. And just as one needs only a small match for ordinary wood, so too does one need only a small match for anthroposophy. With it, however, we will be able to kindle the Michaelic force within the human being.