The Centenary of the Founding of the School of Michael

The Centenary of the Founding of the School of Michael

Dear School Members,

The school of Michael, the beginning of the new Mysteries, was founded by Rudolf Steiner on 15th February 1924, and continued until 20th September 1924. 

On the 28th of September, in Michaelmas, Rudolf Steiner gave his last address. 

Like everything Rudolf Steiner ever said, wrote and did, the 19 class lessons of the school are part of his eternally fruitful gift to humanity. Each person may find his and her way to the lessons and work with them, as we work with his main books and general esoteric instructions. I do this for many years, with great benefit. It has become an essential part of my spiritual path.

In this school, I am also but one of the pupils. I look upwards to its lofty heights as any other, knowing that many incarnations will be required, to attain its initial goals. 

We can be inspired by the first class lessons, but it will be wholly frivolous to believe, that it is our task, to develop and continue this school, which was the creation of Michael, through Rudolf Steiner, as he says in the passages I post below. 

This school can only be continued by Rudolf Steiner himself when he incarnates again.

We must serve the present spiritual impulses, which speak to us today. When we do this, we also fulfill the present will of Michael and Rudolf Steiner. They expect us to follow this living impulse, in our own way, because we are now incarnated on the earth.

For them, anthroposophy is not finished in the form it was given a century ago. It is constantly evolving and changing. It was, and is, and will always be, a growing being. And they expect the true pupils of Michael to change and grow as well and offer the world the fruits of their free individual creation. 

The free individual creation is most important in their eyes; they always emphasize that if anthroposophy truly changes us, we must in turn change its given forms; it must not remain frozen in the old forms in which it was given a century ago. Through us, its seeks to evolve further, becoming an expression of what we can accomplish with her help today. 

I always drew attention to this fact: What we do is done only through our free spiritual experience and is based solely on our responsibility to this experience.

And in every important step and turn of the way, we consult them, receive their suggestions and corrections, support and loving compassion. They congratulate and bless all creative work accomplished by all honestly striving mortals on earth in the present time. 

First Lesson

Dornach, February 15, 1924 GA 270

My dear friends,

With this lesson, I would like to restore to the Free School for Spiritual Science as an esoteric institution the task which it has been in danger of being deprived of during the past years. In this introductory lecture, I will not go further into explaining that situation, but I wanted to stress the importance of this moment by indicating the seriousness with which our movement — which is daily being endangered and undermined — must be imbued, especially in this School. This is no unnecessary observation, for such seriousness has not been apparent everywhere.

A kind of preparatory introduction will be given today, my dear friends. And I would like to emphasize that in this School spiritual life is to be revealed in its true meaning, so that you will be able to consider this School as an institution which can provide for the revealed spiritual needs of our times. This spiritual life can be deepened in all its aspects. But a center must exist from out of which this deepening derives, and the Center can be seen by those who wish to be members of the School to be the Goetheanum in Dornach.

Recapitulation of 1st Lesson (lesson XX)

6 September 1918, Dornach

Volume III GA 270

 When the Anthroposophical Society was placed at the service of the esoteric during the Christmas Conference, its esoteric nucleus, this Esoteric School, could only be founded by the spiritual power which is incumbent for its guidance at this time. Thus, we are in this Esoteric School as one which the spirit of the times himself, Michael, has founded; for it is the Michael-School of the present.

And only then, my dear friends, can you correctly understand what is being said here — when you are aware that nothing else is being said but what the Michael stream itself wishes to bring to humanity in the present time. All the words which will be spoken in this School are Michael words. Michael will is all that is willed in this School. You are all students of Michael in that you are present in the right way in this School. Only then, when you are aware of this, is it possible to be present in this School in the right way — with the correct disposition and attitude, feeling yourselves to be members not only of what enters the world as an earthly institution, but as a heavenly institution.

Recapitulation of lesson 7

20th September, 1924 

Last Class Lesson (Lesson XXVI)

My dear Sisters and Brothers,

Since the Christmas Conference an esoteric breath flows through the whole Anthroposophical Society. And those members of the Anthroposophical Society who have taken part in the general members' lectures will have noted how this esoteric breath flows through all the work within the anthroposophical movement now, and should do so in the future.

This was a necessity which, above all, flows from the spiritual world, from where the revelations come which should live in the anthroposophical movement.

Therefore, the necessity arose to create a certain nucleus for anthroposophical esoteric life, to create real esoteric life, and therewith the necessity arose to build a bridge to the spiritual world itself.

In a certain sense the spiritual world had to manifest the will for the creation of such a School. For an esoteric school cannot be created by human arbitrariness, nor from that human arbitrariness called “human ideals”; rather must this esoteric school be the body for something which flows out of spiritual life, so that everything that occurs in such a school presents the outer expression of an activity which in reality occurs in the spiritual world itself. Therefore, this esoteric school could not have been created without first asking the will of Michael, which since the last third of the nineteenth century has been guiding human affairs - something which I have often mentioned here in members' lectures… 

   And everything connected with the Christmas Conference leads to what is constituted as the basis of the anthroposophical movement's formation of this Esoteric School inspired and guided by Michael. It therefore rightfully exists in our times as a spiritual institution. All those who want to be rightful members of this School must accept this in their lives with the deepest sincerity. They must feel that they don't merely belong to an earthly community, but to a supersensible community, whose guide and leader is Michael himself. Therefore, everything communicated here is not to be understood as my words, insofar as they are the content of the lessons, but rather as what Michael communicates in an esoteric manner to those who feel they belong with him in this age. Therefore, what these lessons contain will be Michael's message for our age.

And it is because of this that the anthroposophical movement will receive its true spiritual strength. For this it is necessary that what membership in this School means be taken with the utmost earnestness. It is really necessary, my dear sisters and brothers, truly and deeply necessary, that it be indicated in the utmost earnest manner the sacred earnestness with which the School must be taken.