עברית Each lecture, as well as an entire lecture cycle, is a living organism that develops in space and time as a real event. The community experience transforms each individual presentation into a dialogue, indeed, a multilogue, because the speaker and the listeners share the same source of inspiration.
The Twilight and Resurrection of Humanity
The History of the Michaelic Movement since the Death of Rudolf Steiner.
An Esoteric Study
Temple Lodge, May 2020
Preface
The lectures published in this book were given in the annual global meeting of the School of Spiritual Science that took place in Sweden, in February 2019. I have rewritten some parts and added others that belong to them.
The style of the spoken word is very different from the written one. Each lecture, as well as an entire lecture cycle, is a living organism that develops in space and time as a real event, according to the spiritual and physical circumstances of a particular occasion. It starts from a concentrated thought seed, and develops organically, via roots, stem, expands and contracts, rhythmically, adding new variables, leaves and branches, until it contracts again, in a higher concentration, in the flower bud, from which it can bloom and expand still further, revealing its essential being. Now this process, as any living process, demands repetitions and variations that spiritualize the central subject matter, by circulating in and out, on higher and more expanded circles of the spiralling shoot. This rhythm is an ideal archetype, needless to say, and cannot be realized in each single lecture, but only in the cycle as a whole, and also the cycle must be seen as but one organ in the continuously living work that unfolds over decades as a whole.
Therefore, in preparing these lectures for print, I had to respect this rhythmic and flexible, flowing form of life, and have adapted my changes to its style. Because the five lectures compose a living whole in itself, if we read each one alone, we will not grasp the meaning of the whole. For this, we must first weave all five lectures together. Therefore, some things may be said earlier, that will not find their immediate linear continuation and development. More rhythmic expansions and contractions, and further spiralling will be necessary, adding new stuff from fields that seem wide apart. And only later will we find out that the thread has been taken up again, but now, after the rest of the organism has developed sufficiently, it can be continued and brought to a certain conclusion. Some things that were mentioned earlier would then find their relative completion. The readers should bear this fact in mind and heart when they contemplate this book and try to recapitulate and enliven in their thoughts and feelings its living rhythm and development.
Moreover, these lectures could only be given because a living community event was taking place, in the middle of which they occurred; and this event could receive and nurture them in the right mood of communal soul and heart. This community experience transforms each individual presentation into a dialogue, indeed, a multilogue, because the speaker and the listeners share the same source of inspiration. In a very real sense, I experience a lecture as a conversation with my listeners, on one hand, and with the beings that shine light over us and inspire our gathering, on the other. And this intimate spiritual conversation is taking place as a real event, shaping each word, phrase and turn of the lecture.
I therefore want to express my deep feeling of gratitude to the dedicated band of souls that gathered together in Sweden, to deepen and strengthen the School of Spiritual Science. May their enthusiasm grow in strength and may their courage and devotion continue to open and illuminate this path!
Yeshayahu Ben-Aharon,
Christmas 2019