עברית The new karmic plan of Michael
The Centenary of the Karma Lectures cycle
16 February-28 September 1924
Dear Friends,
I promised not to let the very last central centenaries of Rudolf Steiner’s life and work escape our attention, as this sacred rhythm of 3x33 years comes to a close very soon…
Therefore, today we can celebrate the beginning of one of Rudolf Steiner’s greatest deeds, the lecture cycle on karma, in which he gave 84 lectures from 16 February until 28th September. As you know, after he laid the systematic foundations, illuminating and explicating the general laws of karma, and demonstrating it in concert individual detail in the repeated lives of historical personalities, on July 1st he began to speak about the karmic background and relationships of the souls that find their way to anthroposophy, which he continued until his last address in Michaelmas.
On this centenary day, when its resurrection cycle of 3x33 is complete, we may feel prompted to dedicate some time to contemplate again the new Michaelic karmic plan, that I could begin to describe in my lectures in Sweden, on 12 February 2019, published in the book, The Twilight and Resurrection of Humanity. This was- and is- a great moment in our work, a blessed event, when I could finally speak about these new Michaelic mysteries. This could take place because of the recent development of the school, after the global school journey on Easter 2017 to Israel and the global meeting in Germany in February 2018. This was an expression of what I called in Sweden, ’the threefold heartbeat of Michael’, that was now actualized for the first time through our school, and could incorporate itself in the newly formed etheric body and chalice of our community. Now Michael’s heartbeat could pulsate, following the Christ, whose ‘fire was now fully kindled in the East and formed in the West’, as the original foundation stone says, between Israel, the middle of the Earth, Germany, the Middle of Europe, and the youth bringing, all rejuvenating, Vidar forces in Scandinavia, to which a year later, in August 2020, the confrontation with Ahriman’s forces in North America was added.
This was also a sacred occasion for me, in which the coming centenary of the Christmas foundation conference stood before my inner gaze most clearly, and I could begin to prepare the formation and laying of the renewed foundation stone, that we laid in Christmas.
I would like therefore to post a short passage from the Foreword to the Twilight and Resurrection, about the new karmic plan, to stimulate you to contemplate it again.
From the Foreword of The Twilight and Resurrection of Humanity
Above all, it must be understood today that these souls were also the first human souls who could consciously grasp and participate in the revelation of the new etheric Christ through the School of Michael during the 1930s-1940s. While their Aristotelian partners on the earth— apart from a very few exceptions-—lost the track of Michael in the darkness that engulfed humanity, they collaborated consciously and actively with Michael and the Christ during the world-shaking events and catastrophes that threatened the very existence of humanity and the earth. This mighty world drama was described for the first time in 1993, in my book, The Spiritual Event of the 20th Century. An Imagination. The occult significance of the 12 years 1933-45 in the light of spiritual science. The most significant spiritual events that determined the goals of Anthroposophy at the end of the twentieth century and in the beginning of the twenty-first century took place in the etheric world in the 30s, 40s and 50s of last century.
As we shall see in greater detail in the second lecture below, after the apocalyptic crisis of the 1930s and 1940s, Michael gathered his hosts that remained loyal to him in the great tribulations on the earth and in heaven. From the middle of the 1940s until the middle of the 1950s, a new conference and consultations were taking place, about the future of humanity and how the Michaelic stream could intervene again in the totally changed conditions of the earth and humanity. In this conference a new Michaelic plan was drafted, and a new agreement was reached between the leaders of the two streams. Because the first Michaelic plan could not be realized, a new division of spiritual labour between them would be necessary. Instead of the hoped-for incarnation on the earth of the two streams in their entirety at the end of the century, they would again divide their places between the spiritual world (now the etheric world) and earth, and exchange the earthly leadership roles: the small group of Aristotelian souls, who remained loyal to Rudolf Steiner, will remain, to begin with, in the etheric world, while a small group of Platonists will incarnate in the second half of the century to become fully active in the transition between the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
At the end of the twentieth century their central task will be—so it was agreed—to resurrect the old Anthroposophy to new life in their etheric hearts. This they will be able to do, provided they can find the way, on the earth, to the new revelation of the etheric Christ that they experienced so vividly in the 1930s and 1940s in the etheric world. On the foundations of this resurrected Anthroposophy, brought to new life through the new forces of the etheric Christ, their task in the beginning of the twenty-first century will be to build anew the foundations of the School of Michael on the earth. This school community, in its turn, will be able to receive the new Michaelic impulses that may begin to flow to the earth in the second and third decades of the twenty-first century.
The new Michaelic agreement, described here, was aimed toward this eventuality: that when the centenary of the Christmas Foundation Conference would arrive in 2023-2024, there will exist on the earth for the first time since Rudolf Steiner’s death, such a Michaelic community, that will be able to receive the new Michaelic impulse for the first part of the twenty-first century.