The Karma of Middle Europe

The Twilight of Humanity and its Resurrection

The History of the Michaelic Movement since the death of Rudolf Steiner

An Esoteric Study

From Lecture 2

The Karma of Middle Europe

When I was asked to speak about the spiritual and psychological implications of the Spiritual Event of the Twentieth Century in the first anthroposophical psychotherapy conference in Holland in 1997, I described the fundamental transformation of the whole human constitution caused by this apocalyptic event. I had to point out—though this was not understood by the attending anthroposophical psychotherapists and physicians—that during these 12 years the centre of human evolution, the ‘I’ centre, was transformed in such a manner, that from that time on, the reversal of the ‘I’, the being of the ‘anti-I’, can be individualized by each person, because the human bodies and whole constitution have been changed accordingly. I said, among other things, the following:

"Looking for a concept to know and understand the event of the twentieth century, we have to say that the whole of the human constitution went through a complete transformation... The most important thing is that the ‘I’ has now lost its centre in the etheric human heart. This is now free, and if the etheric heart system is free this means, of course, that the whole human constitution is completely out of harmony. The heart system brings the lower human nature into balance with the higher. Until now this balance was unconsciously maintained. ...

When the ‘I’ was leaving these bodies, was excarnating in this age, the pro- cess was taken hold of by the powers of evil. Evil was thus also able to take a new step in evolution. It was able to enter into the free space in the etheric human heart where the ‘I’ no longer holds sway, but which is completely free. ... Let us call it the individuation or individualization of evil. It is coming from here, from below, and in the empty heart centre of human beings it can now become something of a reversed human ‘I’. We are the first human generations to have experienced the individuation, individualization of the reversed ‘I’."

This must be experienced, not in order to intimidate us, but in order to fire our Michaelic courage and will for action. The true Michaelic spirit is inspired by facing the worst spiritual practices, events and beings, even if they are truly horrendous, because these are the best performances of evil—and all evil is reversed good. Let us feel it in our free etheric hearts, that our free ‘I’ can take hold of Michael’s power in freedom and actualize it in love, only if we are engaging in this battle; Michael is above all the great cosmic fighter against evil. He is the great cosmic warrior himself. The Nordic gods, the true Nordic gods have taken part not only in the ancient twilight of the gods, but in the modern twilight of humanity. They know exactly what it is all about, both in their own destinies, in the primeval Ragnarok, and in the twilight of humanity in the twentieth century and now. They went down fighting for our evolution’s sake. They knew that they would go down because they knew the ancient prophesies. They went to war knowing the end result of the war, and they still fought until the last god died. They did it, they are fighters and they all knew that they will experience their resurrection in human consciousness in our time. But do humans hear and know that?

Their resurrection is happening only through active, creative human love, knowledge and wisdom. When we experience this with all the forces of our hearts, when we take it in, we will experience these tre- mendous flames of enthusiasm. We can then be worthy of making ourselves into warriors of Michael and Vidar. We can then be those who will help Vidar win the war with Fenris in humanity’s present history. But this can only happen through Vidar in us, which means through Michael in us, the countenance of the new etheric Christ impulse, only through their combined forces, to the extent that we know how to activate and actualize them in us. For humanity, the old gods can only return in their true form in and through the free activity of real humans; the presently living true Odin, the presently living Thor, they are all there of course. These are the Angels, Archangels, and Archai beings that Rudolf Steiner described in Oslo in 1910. Not the demonic monsters that took their names, who are demonic beings of a totally different order. The true Nordic-Germanic gods are there, the good true gods, but we cannot reach them if we don’t make the way to them through our own being.

 This must be done, and it must be done especially in middle Europe, where the wound of Amfortas is burning most intensively. But as I described in the lectures in the fall, middle Europe, as the centre of the ‘I’ development of humanity in our age, must experience most strongly the twilight of the gods and humanity, and the split, reversed human nature between Amfortas and Parsifal, about which I spoke last night. The ‘I’ centre of humanity, is located in-between the North and South, East and West, and after what happened in the twentieth century, can only come to itself with the help of the Michaelic forces working from the whole periphery. This is the task of a truly global Michaelic movement today. We must begin to awaken the whole human being. If we can stream these whole human forces to middle Europe from all sides, from the north-west and from the south-east, as we in our humble efforts have been trying to do for some time now, then it might be possible for the Christ impulse to be experienced also in middle Europe and in Germany, where it can only be experienced in full ‘I’ consciousness, or not at all.

Forthcoming this Spring in Temple Lodge

The Twilight of Humanity and its Resurrection

The History of the Michaelic Movement since the death of Rudolf Steiner

An Esoteric Study