עברית The real builders of the etheric communal body of the Michaelic stream will only come from the ranks of those ‘poor in the spirit’, those striving to become free from the shackles of the dead forms of the past, who can enthusiastically and creatively experience themselves as complete beginners of a wholly new spiritual science, art, craft, and cultus.
Blessed are the Modern Poor in Spirit!
From lecture 5: The Etheric Form is Alive
The Twilight and Resurrection of Humanity
The next crucial years are the 2020s and 30s, in which the living foundation stone for the new etheric body of this community must be built, and we have the responsibility to be its best parents. We must be able to give it the healthiest and ordered anthroposophical form and substance. It must be created from the ground up, from the most elementary and humble beginnings, in which each participant is fully active. Naturally, the real builders of the etheric communal body of the Michaelic stream will only come from the ranks of those ‘poor in the spirit’, those striving to become free from the shackles of the dead forms of the past, who can enthusiastically and creatively experience themselves as complete beginners of a wholly new spiritual science, art, craft, and cultus. They know that the century-old anthroposophical traditions aren’t suitable to this new task, and that the new and fresh Michaelic wine of the twenty-first century must be poured into wholly new vessels.
In each of the three centuries of the present age of Michael, one major opportunity is prepared, directed by Michael Himself and his hosts, to give birth to the being of Anthroposophia and her growing human ‘I’ child on the earth. As we know, the first opportunity at the beginning of last century was short lived. Our task must therefore be, to prepare on the earth the suitable conditions that couldn’t be created a century ago, that will allow a proper and healthy, fully human, incarnation and birth of the second major Michaelic impulse. From my experiences and observations in the etheric world in recent years, I realized that this second Michaelic impulse is already fully prepared in the etheric world. Now ordinary humans must demonstrate, and prove, their maturity. They must prepare its way back to the earth in the twenty-first century. We must learn to build the etheric communal chalice, temple and sanctuary, and in the holy of holies of the temple of the etheric earthly-human sun, conceive and receive this birth in fully conscious, wide awake human etheric hearts.
This is therefore an essential aspect of the mysteries of that wholly unique etheric body: it is composed of the purest life forces of Vidar, formed into the ‘etheric form’ in which the Christ incorporates Himself when He manifests His being in the etheric world. This etheric body was individualized by Rudolf Steiner and made into the universal etheric foundation of the earthly-human sun in the travails and sacrifices of the Michaelic school in the etheric world since 1933-45. From the end of the century it could become individualized and embodied as part of a mortal human etheric body. Now the next step can and indeed must take place among fully conscious, honest and loyal pupils of Michael on the earth: to embody this life-giving fountain in their etheric life and work as a growing community on the earth.
We are indeed only the preparers of the way for the greater future, and what Rudolf Steiner said about his own time and work in 1908 must be applied to us today in the highest degree, namely, that ’we are only preparing for the preparers, as yet nothing more. The spiritual movement is today but a very small flame; in the future it will develop into a mighty spiritual fire!’ —but being ‘only preparing for the preparers’ must be felt with this Michaelic ‘feeling of strong courage and courageous strength’, because without this preparation in the etheric heart and bodies of ordinary mortals like us, the next major incarnation of the main stream of Michael will not take place. But it must be understood that the second opportunity of the major incarnation of the Michaelic is really purely optional, that is, potential and possible, because it depends entirely on the loving and sacrificial free will of ordinary humans today and tomorrow.
We must therefore feel, if our etheric hearts are honestly and coura- geously striving to connect themselves with this mystery, the greatness as well as responsibility of this moment in which we live: it is the first time in human evolution that ordinary mortals are given such an extraordinary task, because we live for the first time in the age of the Consciousness- and Spiritual Soul, which should make each person a conscious, free co-worker with the gods. Anthroposophy gave, and will always continue to give, humanity the needed spiritual knowledge to accomplish this task. But only ordinary humans can use it to create a conscious bridge, a conscious spiritual link and communication between the earth and the spiritual worlds in real time. It can indeed begin to happen now for the first time in a fully conscious manner in human evolution. It did happen only once before, but in a very different state of consciousness, during the first century after the Mystery of Golgotha. However, as Rudolf Steiner repeatedly pointed out, then it was possible by means of the last and rapidly vanishing remnants of the old forces of clairvoyance, while today it can be accomplished for the first time by means of the first beginnings of the new forces of self-conscious modern clairvoyance.
The task of the coming years and decades 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: to build together a creative community chalice to embody this new etheric body, and use it to prepare Michael’s future way to humanity.
This new etheric body was described by Rudolf Steiner also in these words:
"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”.
This wholly unique and new etheric body that never existed before in human evolution must be formed on the earth, but on an earth in which we consciously participate in its etheric sun-becoming process. This is a fully conscious, systematic, spiritual scientific praxis, not any fantastic, mystical, visionary, speculative or theoretical project. It is built up and formed, step by step, in a most disciplined spiritual scientific experimental method. The four stages of the reversed cultus, will be implemented first by the faculty of the Global Event College. It is a fully conscious and practical application of the elementary and basic guidelines of the modern spir- itual path that were given by Rudolf Steiner a century ago, transformed and adapted to the social-cognitive art, craft and cultus of the modern spiritual community.
Its communal conception, pregnancy, birth and full human-spiritual development must be accomplished in the course of the first half of the twenty-first century, if humanity is to reach its goal in the present Michaelic age. The next crucial years are the 2020s and 30s, in which the living foundation stone for the new etheric body of this community must be built, and we have the responsibility to be its best parents. We must be able to give it the healthiest and ordered anthroposophical form and substance. It must be created from the ground up, from the most elementary and humble beginnings, in which each participant is fully active. Naturally, the real builders of the etheric communal body of the Michaelic stream will only come from the ranks of those ‘poor in the spirit’, those striving to become free from the shackles of the dead forms of the past, who can enthusiastically and creatively experience themselves as complete begin- ners of a wholly new spiritual science, art, craft, and cultus. They know that the century-old anthroposophical traditions aren’t suitable to this new task, and that the new and fresh Michaelic wine of the twenty-first century must be poured into wholly new vessels.
They know the secret of Michael, because they hear his call, that resounds as strongly today as in the twelfth century, indeed, far stronger, ‘For Him the ground must be made free; He must sow the path with new seed’!-—and they know that Michael can only sow the new seed for his second, middle, central century, in clear, open and free human hearts, ready to receive and cultivate it.
The Twilight and Resurrection of Humanity
Lecture 5: The Etheric Form is Alive