עברית We must feel the greatness as well as responsibility of this moment in which we live: it is the first time that ordinary mortals can create a conscious bridge, a conscious spiritual link and communication between the earth and the spiritual worlds in real time, and it is happening now for the first time in human evolution.
In my search for the Grail, a first crucial hint was given, when my attention was directed to the fact that in the 21. century the Grail can only be found if we can trace its tracks from the physical world, in which it was created by Rudolf Steiner during the Christmas Foundation Conference of 1923-4, to the spiritual world, where it is found since Rudolf Steiner’s death in 1925. This was the first great challenging riddle in my path, to thoroughly grasp the fact that this Michaelic Grail, that was indeed formed and born on the earth, as an eternal archetype of all future modern Grails, couldn’t remain long on the earth; and it was taken up to the spiritual world by Rudolf Steiner after his death, and continued its evolution there in the 20. century. The second task was indeed extremely demanding, because I had to find the clues that will help me find it not as an historical spiritual memory of the Christmas Foundation Conference of 1923-4, but in its present form and activity in the spiritual world. And then, the third task was to understand what I have to do with it, once it was found and experienced in the spiritual world. This question was in the center of my most intensive quest at the end of the last century and the beginning of the present one.
I knew that it is not enough that the Grail was found in the spiritual world, and that the next step must be to help it reincarnate in the physical world in this century. In an ideal-spiritual way I understood this already in the 90’ as you can realize from the introduction to the German translation and second English edition of my book, The Spiritual Event of the 20. Century. But now I had to find the way to create it myself, in my individualized work, and this became the next difficult task, whose actualization found expression in my recent books, Cognitive Yoga: Making Yourself New Etheric Body and Individuality, and Cognitive Yoga: How A Book Is Born.
I can therefore say, if I would express it rather programmatically, that I experienced three major challenges and had to accomplish three inwardly related tasks, in my search for the Grail in this time. I can summarize them in this manner.
The first essential step in this research was made possible thanks to the work of Sergey Prokoffief, who for the first time described the Christmas Foundation Conference as the new, Michaelic Grail Event. His work offered answers to many riddles and questions that I experienced with great intensity in my search during my early 20’.
The second step was to realize that the Grail Event on earth died with Rudolf Steiner and was taken by him to the spiritual world. Now I had to begin and search for it there, and it could only be found when I dared to direct my search into the mysteries of the Spiritual Event of the 20. century, that took place in the 1933-45. I had to really experience all this in order to understand what it really means for the present and future evolution of humanity, the Earth and the anthroposophical work, and connect it in the right spiritual-scientific way to the new revelation of the etheric Christ at the end of last century. These experiences occupied me with great intensity at the turn of the Millennium, between the last years of the 20. century and the first years of the 21. century.
The third step and urgent next question became this: what must I do, in light of the spiritual event of the 20. century, and its consequences on all levels, what must be done to prepare on the earth the necessary conditions, to prepare the way for the Grail, that is, the real living being of the Michaelic stream in this age, to incarnated again on the earth?
During the first decade of the 21. century, I had to learn how to follow inwardly the clues and imprints in the spiritual trail, that would increasingly show me how to individualize this task in my own spiritual work. This etheric trail actually leads, if we express its purely etheric trajectory in historical and spiritual-geographical terms- from Israel via Germany to the North, and back. At the same time, my destiny actually allowed me to travel extensively to Germany, Scandinavia and North America, and helped me in consolidating my work.
In this time, I could for the first time begin to understand the essential contribution of the Northern Spirit to my work in this stage, in the formation process of the new etheric body. I could begin to believe that I can feel this support in my own path, to which Rudolf Steiner refers when he shares the following moment from his own quest:
"Thus I did not know how to proceed when I once asked the Norwegian Folk Spirit, the Northern Folk Spirit, about Parsifal and he said: ‘Learn to understand the saying that through my powers there flowed into the northern Parsifal saga ‘Ganganda greida’ — ‘circulating cordial’, or something like that!’". (Rudolf Steiner, lecture of 1st January 1914, GA 149). If you read my books, Cognitive Yoga and Cognitive Yoga: How A Book Is Born with this in mind, you will be able to understand also many things that are said, as it were, between the lines.
In chapter 7 of Cognitive Yoga, in the section, “Reversal of the separation of the sexes”, I pointed out that this indication concerning the search for the Grail was essential in the creation process of the new etheric body, which is the new Grail chalice.
I can also express it in this this way. If you study my early books from the 90’ of last century, The New Experience of the Supersensible and The Spiritual Event of the 20. Century, you will see that I describe in them my way to the Grail in the spiritual worlds, while in my recent books I describe its individualized formation. This was already well accomplished at the end of the first decade of the century, and now the question became more and more crucial: how can I find a way to transform my individual work into community creation? I knew that in the next stage it must become a shared community project, because the second visit to the Grail Event can only happen among people who are actively creating the Grail together. This Grail cannot be simply found, it must be first created by each person in the shared community labor dedicated to its formation.
This is also the only path that leads in our time to the reality of the second Christmas Foundation Conference, or community Grail Event of the 21. century.
If we develop the true loyalty to the modern Grail Event, past, present and future, that is, the free, creative, Michaelic loyalty, this loyalty will bring our search one step further, because it will point out the new direction, in which we may discover the central hint concerning the mystery of the Grail in our time. Among many other indications it is described clearly in these words of Rudolf Steiner, which I placed the as a Moto to chapter 7 of my book Cognitive Yoga: Making Yourself New Etheric Body and Individuality:
“Just as men are the sons of the Gods, so out of what men in the physical world experience by rising to an understanding of the Event of Golgotha, the body will be formed for those new Gods of the future, of whom Christ is the Leader”. (Rudolf Steiner, lecture of 22 December 1908, GA 108).
Now let me briefly add the following, to make the riddles and mysteries of this new Grail a bit more comprehensible.
In my book, Cognitive Yoga: How A Book Is Born, published in 2017, I described what I experienced during a spiritual journey and gathering I was invited to attend. This took place during Advent, Christmas and 12 holy nights of 2012-3. It was a kind of a modern, that is, fully awake “Olaf Åsteson Dream”, carried and nourished by the graceful spirit of Christmas. In this time, I was allowed to get an inkling and glimpse of the universal meaning of the project I was working on during more than 30 years in my spiritual research. It gave me also a more objective, universal feedback and perspective about its future evolution and also about what is expected from it already in this life.
I became aware that the propose of this journey is to bring to my consciousness the fact that the time has come to share the following good news with some prepared people, namely - strange as this may sound- that in the etheric world a wholly unique new etheric body exists, formed by the joint work of the Michaelic school over the last century. It was pointed out that the function of this newly formed etheric body is to become the body of the coming major reincarnation of the Michaelic impulse in the 21st century. It was pointed out that this preparation amounts to this: to make this spirit child, composed of the purest life forces of the etheric Christ, so strong on the earth, that it will be able to become a chalice to embody this reincarnation, which of course is optional, that is, potential, possible, depending on humans; and that it is ready to start and prepare its incarnation at any moment if people will be found who can cooperate with it consciously. We must feel the greatness as well as responsibility of this moment in which we live: it is the first time that ordinary mortals can create a conscious bridge, a conscious spiritual link and communication between the earth and the spiritual worlds in real time. It is happening now for the first time in a fully conscious manner in human evolution (it happened once before but in a very different state of consciousness, during the first century after the Mystery of Golgotha. However, then it was made possible by means of the last and rapidly vanishing remnants of the old forces of clairvoyance, and today it can be accomplished for the first time by means of the first beginnings of the new forces of self conscious clairvoyance).
This second incarnation of the Michaelic impulse should also bring about the first fully conscious incarnation of that mysterious being that Rudolf Steiner named, “the Human Being Anthroposophia”. As I see it, this being was born during the Christmas Foundation Conference 1923-4 but died shortly thereafter, with Rudolf Steiner, to continue with him its evolution in the spiritual worlds. But wethear this reincarnation should take place in the 21. century- and this is the real esoteric secret behind the centennial event of the Christmas Foundation Conference 1923/4-2023/4- wethear this being should be able to develop on the earth and reach at least a certain stage of earthly maturity in the second Michaelic century, depends entirely on the good will of human beings living now on the earth. Above all its possible reincarnation depends on a suitable community that will be able to embody it.
What it actually means to realise this in earthly human and spiritual life, was naturally left over to me to understand and interpret using my individual forces, and therefore it must be emphasized that I don’t claim any higher authority than my own experience and interpretation. Everything I say and do with it is grounded only in my free authority and responsibility and naturally I expect the same individual authority from each of my partners. Now the task of the coming years and decade is: to find and assemble a growing community of dedicated people who desire, passionately, creatively and joyfully, to dedicate themselves to fulfil this most serious and responsible task on the Earth today: build a creative community vessel to embody this new etheric body, and use it to prepare Michael’s future way to humanity.