עברית 'Only if the German Folk Spirit finds such souls that can in this way plant the Christ-impulse in the astral body and in the ‘I’, only then can that come about for a future culture that must come about’.
How can the Christ Impulse enter into the Human Heart and ‘I’?
The Twilight of Humanity and its Resurrection
The History of the Michaelic Movement since the Death of Rudolf Steiner
An Esoteric Study
Frome Lecture 2
This 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.
Our goal must be that the vanquished and suppressed Christ impulse will find a home in middle Europe among the German people. If this will happen in the first half of the present century, then Michael still has a chance to fulfil in the second century of his present age what must be fulfilled. But in no other way will it be possible for it to be fulfilled in this century because it can only work through fully conscious human beings. These humans must be able to activate it, in their fully individualized, awake and active ‘I’ consciousness that can only be kindled in the freed part of the etheric heart; only from there—not from the dead and abstract intellect, even if it is filled with anthroposophical ‘knowledge’—can it truly illuminate and transform the whole human being, in body, soul and spirit, in the first half of this century.
Let’s reflect just for another moment to understand why the twilight of humanity can happen in such a way in middle Europe and in Europe as a whole. It could have happened only because the Christ impulse did not strike deeper roots there in the last 2000 years of Christianity. As Rudolf Steiner pointed out, the Europeans have only taken it externally, to their physical and etheric bodies, through established religion, from which the real Christ impulse was banished. This is the real cause of the modern European catastrophe. During the last 2000 years it could not prepare the necessary foundations, that would be able to carry and support what must come about in middle Europe through spiritual science in the age of the Consciousness Soul: the spiritualization of the ‘I’ itself by moving its centre from the etherized head forces to the etherized forces of the etheric heart. This means that in the last century it was the mission of the German people to use Anthroposophy in such a way, that the Michaelic Christ impulse would be able to penetrate into the very core of the human ‘I’, to the centre of the true ego in the etheric heart, where the forces of Michael must be able to work in our time, and through them—and through them only—also the forces of Vidar, which would overcome Fenris and allow the conscious resurrection of the forces of Odin, Thor, Freya and Frigga, the resurrected clairvoyance forces of Baldur and all the illustrious company of Asgard.
But until today the Christ impulse couldn’t enter the ‘I’’s real etheric heart centre of human beings in the whole world and in middle Europe, and what Rudolf Steiner planted, was suppressed, and buried in the most violent manner not only in external culture, but also in the Anthroposophical Society that he founded in the Christmas Foundation Conference of 1923-4. But only Anthroposophy in our time can pave the way of Michael, working in the freed human etheric heart, to unite with the Christ impulse. And this means, that Anthroposophy must find the way to the spiritual ‘I’ forces, working between the etherized forces of the head and the heart, the fully conscious, thinking, feeling, and willing ‘I’ in the etheric body and world, as we demonstrated recently in Cognitive Yoga, that makes spiritual science into the innermost expression of the etheric Christ. This is the only way for the Christ impulse to enter the heart and middle of humanity in this age.
But what does it actually mean, this carrying of the Christ impulse into the real ‘I’ in the etheric heart centre of human beings? Rudolf Steiner described this task in this way:
‘In middle Europe, in a powerful way, consciously—that is, in a wakeful state—the power of the human ‘I’ and the forces of human knowledge should be connected to the Christ-impulse, solely through what the souls strive for out of their ‘I’ nature. Only if the German Folk Spirit finds such souls that can in this way plant the Christ-impulse in the astral body and in the ‘I’, only then can that come about for a future culture that must come about’.
My dear friends! For those among you who have truly followed our work for some years, these words must resound most powerfully and urgently indeed: ‘Only if the German Folk Spirit finds such souls’!—because you could have realized, how in The New Experience of the Supersensible, we made the greatest effort, to accomplish exactly this: to carry the etheric Christ impulse, that we could experience today in full consciousness in the etheric world, into the very spiritual activity of spiritual science, into pure thinking and sense perception, as I also showed recently in Cognitive Yoga. It was in the 80s of last century, that I was most intensively assimilating German thinking through the light generated by the forces of resurrected spiritual science. The more I could bring the results of my study of Anthroposophy to the etheric world, the more I could experience the essence of German thinking, feeling and will, not as external historical reflection, but as it lives and weaves presently in the etheric world, where, in the company of the etheric Christ, Michael, Vidar and the real German Folk Spirit are actively spiritualizing and redeeming its past forces. For this purpose, I had to take everything Rudolf Steiner wrote and said in the past and resurrect it from the grave of the twentieth century, in each and every sentence, page, book and lecture. I took everything he ever said and wrote about the connection between death and consciousness, and summarized it in my work, Reductionism and Individuation: Interdisciplinary study of the natural scientific mode of thinking and its place in the evolution of consciousness according to the philosophical-anthroposophical investigations of Rudolf Steiner (1988). I then worked my way through German idealism and romanticism, concentrating mainly on Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, Goethe, Schiller and Kant, Novalis, Herder and Lessing. This found expression later in my philosophical master work: The Concept of the Organism in Kant and Goethe (1995). I then turned to German thinking at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century and wrote my PhD dissertation about The Concept of the ‘I’ in Husserl’s Phenomenology (1998).45 I used Nietzsche’s and Heidegger’s philosophy to guide me from Husserl to the abyss of National Socialism, which I also studied intensively in those years from the historical and esoteric points of view. This intensive thinking activity engaged all my soul forces especially in the years in which the forces of my Mind Soul developed (1983-1990). In the etheric world, I could feel how the German Folk Spirit was becoming as it were my ‘third eye’ in this time, leading me to experience the highest future spiritual forces of its being, as they develop through the mutual exchange with real being of Anthroposophy in the etheric world since the end of the nineteenth century, indicating also its new positive potentials and possibilities in the near future.
This is precisely what Rudolf Steiner meant above, when he said, ‘in middle Europe, in a powerful way, consciously—that is, in a wakeful state—the power of the human ‘I’ and the forces of human knowledge should be connected to the Christ impulse, solely through what the souls strive for out of their ‘I’ nature...’. Read every page and sentence in my books, and experience it for yourself, how I tried to fulfil exactly this task! And this fact is extraordinarily important to understand our work, and our mission, in this context, in this century.
We can only accomplish this resurrection and healing in ourselves if we bridge the Amfortas-Parsifal divide through the mature Parsifal forces in the Consciousness Soul. The way to Vidar is found only if we use the present etherization of the real anthroposophical forces, inspired by Michael and the etheric Christ impulse. If we can do this, the etheric impulse of Vidar will be active in the resurrection of Anthroposophy and a fully etherized, resurrected Anthroposophy alone can help bring about humanity’s resurrection. In this way alone, Vidar can bring about the rejuvenation and growing young process, described yesterday in our first lecture. This healing process, to put it rather schematically, can be described as follows.
The Twilight and Resurrection of Humanity
The History of the Michaelic Movement since the Death of Rudolf Steiner