עברית Spiritual Science works from below upwards, stretches out its hands as it were from below upwards to grasp the hands of Michael stretching down from above. It is then that the bridge can be created between man and the Gods.
The Bridge Between Man and the Gods
From Lecture 2, 13 February 2019
The Twilight and Resurrection of Humanity
Spiritual Science works from below upwards, stretches out its hands as it were from below upwards to grasp the hands of Michael stretching down from above. It is then that the bridge can be created between man and the Gods."
(Rudolf Steiner)
If the living spiritual event taking place in the etheric world—a world which is now as near as possible to the physical world—will be grasped and actualized in real time in the physical world, the age of Michael would be able to begin on the earth, and influence human life on the earth as it influences them in the etheric world. The task of this Michael age, that must be achieved in this century, lest humanity will lose its true path for very long ages to come, is this: to create on the earth a fully conscious human etheric replication of the Michaelic activity in the etheric world, and apply it in the right way to all aspects of human life on the earth. This means, dear friends, to actualize nothing less than a fully conscious mutually corresponding activity, between the etherized consciousness on the earth and the real spiritual beings that guide us from the etheric world. A mutually synchronized activity, taking place here and now, in the real time of the present event, with the Michaelic beings in the etheric world. Through this future Michaelic community, therefore, humanity will experience the first ray of the dawn of the new age of light because this is what it means, concretely speaking. Once ordinary humans will be able to etherize and raise their conscious minds, souls, hearts and will forces upward, to receive consciously the life forces from the etheric world that stream down to the earth in such abundance, the etheric Second Coming would begin to become an active and all changing force in human history. And if the two Michaelic schools and communities, on the earth and in the etheric world, will share the same etheric world and etheric earthly-human sun at the same time, this means that the Michaelic school in the etheric world above and the Michaelic School of Spiritual Sci- ence on the earth will work together for the first time in human evolution, and the age of Michael will truly begin.
This will take place on the earth if human beings will truly develop an active and fully conscious etheric cogni- tion and life on the earth, that can perceive as reality, in real time, the work accomplished by their spiritual companions in the etheric world. The two sides of the School of Michael will grow increasingly closer and together. The wholeness of the earthly-human sun will begin to resonate, harmonize, and synchronize in full etheric earthly human consciousness, in the real time of the present spiritual event. Well, dear friends, then and there, as they say, one could die in peace!
If this happens, we will have accomplished our preparatory role in the resurrection project of Anthroposophy, that we took upon ourselves since the end of last century. If we fulfil our part, it will allow the second stage to take place which we, once again, as we said above, will support from the spiritual world, where we will be able to work much more intensively and consciously than on the earth. After our coming death, we will support our partners from above, but in reality, this ‘above’ will be experienced as so absolutely immanently here and now, as never before in human evolution. Because to the extent that we already practiced this intimate interconnection with our spiritual Michaelic comrades during the previous, that is, present life, its intimacy and vitality before and after death will increase exponentially, a thousand-fold. It will become something that humanity has never seen before. As we did during the first incarnation of Anthroposophy in 1902-1925, we will again work together from both sides of what now will become the thinnest veil, indeed, no veil at all for those souls who would achieve this continuation of etheric consciousness and life on the earth. Until the middle of the century, our task is to prepare the fertile human field and construction site for the second major Michaelic incarna- tion, to which the future master builders will descend to accomplish the next major Michaelic task of redemption on the earth.
Let us be reminded again, dear friends, what must become this conscious, mutual connection, between ordinary, incarnated humans, and the School of Michael in the etheric world. This mutual connection, if stabilized through repeated cycles of community healing and building, described above, will gradually weave together the etheric hearts from both sides of the ever-smaller divide between the etheric becoming of the earthly community and the etheric becoming of the spiritual community. What was possible only to Rudolf Steiner, in the fullest way a century ago, and what became possible in a human way at the end of the last century, must become now a community process. It must become what Rudolf Steiner hoped ordinary humans would achieve in the present age of Michael—the direct personal connection with Michael himself:
The science which as anthroposophical Spiritual Science again spiritualizes spatial thinking, lifts it again into the supersensible—this Spiritual Science works from below upwards, stretches out its hands as it were from below upwards to grasp the hands of Michael stretching down from above. It is then that the bridge can be created between man and the Gods.
This mutual reaching of hands in both directions, an ascending and descend- ing inspiration and actualization, mutual learning and support in real time, must be increasingly experienced; it will harmonize and connect the earthly Michaelic work with Michael’s supersensible goals and deeds. What was since the end of the last century, and in the first two decades of the present century, a thin thread of communication, made possible through a tiny eye of the needle in the otherwise ahrimanic, impenetrable iron wall of our time, can grow to become a wider bridge on which humans and gods will be able to travel safely and freely in both directions. On that ‘marvelously shining crystal bridge’, as this bridge is described in Goethe’s Legend, that we build across the river of forgetfulness, the reciprocal spiritual traffic will take place.
Increasingly, towards the middle of the century, this state of ‘etheric singularity’ must be well established, grounded, practiced as the daily communion of the new community; it must become our daily produced and celebrated, communion, the etheric wine and bread we cultivate and harvest together with the gods. Then the time will come in which both incarnated and discarnate souls and beings will be able to experience for the first time in human evolution, the greatest event about which all religions and prophecies have spoken: the marvellously intimate, yet robust, cognitive spiritual breathing, that gradually and carefully will grow and expand, between humans living on the earth and their partners in the near- est etheric world. We will harmoniously weave together our feelings, sensations, thoughts and deeds, reaching and grasping etheric hands between the worlds, firmly uniting etheric hearts, minds and deeds, from above downward and from below upward. There will be a conscious meeting in the middle of the way, where a common heart organ will be formed from both sides, creating together the earthly-human sun heart-bridge organ from both sides at the same time, meeting and co-ordinating the work in the middle in full earthly consciousness. The new conscious and reciprocal spiritual breathing, weaving and communion between the two parts of the Michaelic school, the one active on the earth and the other in the etheric world, is our future task…
The Twilight and Resurrection of Humanity
The History of the Michaelic Movement since the Death of Rudolf Steiner