The Michael Mystery
GA 26
VI. Mankind's Future and the Work of Michael
[ 1 ] How does Man stand to-day, at his present stage of evolution, with regard to Michael and Michael's Company?
[ 2 ] Man stands over against a world which once was wholly divine, spiritual Being—divine spiritual Being, of which he himself was a living part. The world therefore, in those times when World and Man belonged together, was a world of divine spiritual Being. In a following stage of evolutionary progress, this had ceased. The world was then, the cosmic Revelation of Divine spirit; the Divine Spirit in its essential Being hovered behind the Revelation. Yet still it weaved and lived in this, its revealed glory. A world of stars was there; in their shining and their motion Divine Spirit weaved and lived as revelation. One may say, that in the place of a star's standing, in those days, or in the manner of its moving, might directly be seen the action of Divine Spirit.
[ 3 ] In all that here went on—the manner in which the Divine Spirit wrought within the Cosmos—the life of Man, as he grew up in every way a product of divine-spiritual action in the Cosmos—in all of this, Michael was still in his own element unopposed. He was mediator in the relations of the Divinity to Man.
[ 4 ] Other times came. The star-world ceased to be the immediate and present bearer of the divine-spiritual action. Its life and motion was but the persistent continuation of the same form of action which had once worked within it. Divine Spirit lived no longer in the Cosmos as Revelation, but only as Workings. A marked distinction had now taken place between the Divine-Spiritual and the Cosmic: they had become two against the Ahrimanic Powers, which will save us from falling into their snare.
Michael, from his own fundamental being, remained with the Divine-Spiritual. He endeavoured also to keep Man as close to it as possible. And he continued to do so. It was his purpose to preserve Man from living all too intensely in a world which was only the workings—not the being, and not the revelation—of Divine Spirit.
[ 5 ] Michael accounts it a matter of deepest satisfaction that he has succeeded, through Man, in keeping the star-world still directly connected with the divine-spiritual element, and in the following manner:—When Man has accomplished his life between death and new birth, and is on his way down to take up a new existence upon Earth, he himself endeavours, as he comes down towards this new existence, to establish a harmony between the course of the stars and his own earth-lives. This harmony was a matter of course in times of yore, since Divine Spirit was at work within the stars, and Man’s life had its source in them. To-day, when the stars merely continue in their courses to carry on the Divine Spirit’s workings, this harmony would not exist, unless Man sought for it. Man brings his own divine-spiritual element, that has been conserved from earlier times in him, into relation with the stars, in which the divine-spiritual element only exists as after-effect of an earlier time. Thus a divine element is introduced into Man’s relation with the world, which corresponds to earlier times and yet appears in later ones. That this is so, is the act of Michael; and this act gives him such deep satisfaction, that a great part of his life-element, his life-energy, his radiant, sun-like life-will, lives in this satisfaction.
[ 6 ] To-day, however, when he looks with a spirit’s eye at the earth, he sees there another and essentially different state of things. Man, during his life now in the physical sphere between birth and death, has all round about him a world which is no longer directly even the workings of Divine Spirit, but only something left behind from these workings,—what one can only call the work wrought by Divine Spirit. This wrought work is in its forms altogether of a divinely spiritual kind. The Divinity manifests itself to human perception in the forms, in the natural processes, of this wrought world. But Divinity is no longer within it as a living presence. Nature is this divinely wrought work of the Divinity, and everywhere the moulded likeness of the divine workings.
[ 7 ] In this sun-brightly divine, but not livingly divine world, lies the life of Man. But owing to Michael’s work upon - him, he has conserved as Man his connection with the essential being of Divine Spirit. He lives as a God-pervaded being in a non-God-pervaded world.
[ 8 ] Into this God-voided world, Man will introduce what is in himself—what his own being has come to be in this age.
[ 9 ] Mankind will take its place in a world-evolution, and expand its own form there. The Divine Spirit-Being from which Man first sprang, spread abroad as Man-Being throughout all the worlds, will then have power to fill with light that Cosmos, which now exists only in the wrought likeness of Divine Spirit.
[ 10 ] It will no longer be the same Being, which once was Cosmos, which will then shine forth in light through Man. Divine Spirit, in its passage through Mankind, shall realise a quality of being, which it had not brought to manifestation before.
[ 11 ] Against the progress of evolution in this direction, the Ahrimanic Powers turn all their force. They do not want the Divine-spiritual Powers of its origin to illumine the Universe on its further course. Their aim is that the whole of the new Cosmos should be lit by the cosmic intellectual light which they have absorbed into themselves, and that Man should live on henceforth in this intellectualised and Ahrimanised cosmos.
[ 12 ] In a life of this kind, Man would lose the Christ. For Christ came into the world with an Intellectuality which is in every way the same as it was, when once it lived in the Divine Spirit, when Divine Spirit in Being still informed the Cosmos. If, to-day, we speak in such a manner that our thoughts can also be the Christ’s, then we set something against the Ahrimanic Powers, which will save us from falling into their snare.
[ 13 ] To understand the meaning of the Michael-Mission in the Cosmos, means the ability to speak like this. One must be able in these days to speak about the world of Nature in the way demanded by the present stage of the Spiritual Soul's development. One must be able to make one's mind familiar with the purely scientific, naturalistic mode of thought.
But one must also learn to speak—which means, to feel—about the world of Nature too in a manner befitting the Christ. Not only about redemption from Nature, not only about the soul and things divine, but about the Cosmos, we must learn the Christ-language.
[ 14 ] That our human link with our first divine-spiritual origin may be so preserved, that we may know how rightly to speak the Christ-language about the Cosmos—this is something to which we shall in the end attain, if with inward sincerity of heart we learn to feel and ever more fully enter into all that Michael and Michael's Company are amongst us—in their mission, in all that they perform. For to understand Michael, means, to-day, to find the way to the Logos, as lived by Christ amongst men on earth.
[ 15 ] Anthroposophy sets due value upon all that the naturalistic form of scientific thought has learnt to say about the world during the last four to five hundred years. But Anthroposophy has another language to speak besides this one, about the Being of Man, the Evolution of Man, the Growth of the Cosmos. Anthroposohy would speak the Christ-Michael language.
[ 16 ] For if both languages are spoken, then the continuity will remain unbroken, and evolution will not pass over to Ahriman, before finding again its first, divine, spiritual origin. The language of the natural sciences, by itself alone, in a manner of speech that befits the detachment of the intellectual force from the Divine Spirit of its origin. It may become the language of Ahriman, if Michael's mission be neglected. It will not do so, if, through the might of Michael's great example, the freed and detached intellect comes to itself once more in that Cosmic Intellectual power of the beginning, which, severed from Man, has become objective to him, but which lies at Man's source, and appeared in its living essence in Christ within the realm of human kind, after having left Man for a while, in order that he might unfold his freedom.
Leading Thoughts
[ 17 ] 1. Divine Spirit manifests itself in various ways in the Cosmos, in the following stages: 1. In its own primal and essential Being. 2. In the Revelation of this Being. 3. In its Workings—when the Being withdraws from the Revelation. 4. In its Wrought Work, when in the Universe, as this appears, no longer the Divine itself but only the Forms of the Divine are there.
[ 18 ] 2. Man's present view of the natural world gives him no relation to the Divine but only to this finished Work, wrought by the Divine. The effects communicated to the human soul by this view of the natural world are such that Man may use them, either to ally himself with the Christ-Powers, or with the forces of Ahriman.
[ 19 ] 3. Michael's whole aim and effort is, that the pristine relation to the Cosmos, which has been conserved in Man from the ages of the divine manifestation in Being and Revelation, should by the free effect of Michael's own example, become incorporated in the further human and cosmic evolution. For then the present naturalistic view, which tells only of the Image or empty Form of the Divine, will be able to pass over into a higher view of Nature, more befitting the Spirit. This higher view of Nature will have present existence in Man; but it will be a human after-realization of the God's relation to the Cosmos during the first two stages of cosmic evolution. While giving assent, in this manner, to the view of the natural world which belongs to the Age of Consciousness (Age of the Spiritual Soul), Anthroposophy supplements and completes this view by another—the result of observation with the awakened eye of the Spirit.
Menschheitszukunft und Michael-Tätigkeit
[ 1 ] Wie steht heute der Mensch auf seiner Entwickelungsstufe zu Michael und den Seinen?
[ 2 ] Der Mensch steht einer Welt gegenüber, die einstmals ganz göttlich-geistiger Wesenheit war. Einer solchen göttlich-geistigen Wesenheit, der auch er selbst als ein Glied zugehörte. Damals also war die dem Menschen zugehörige Welt göttlich-geistiger Wesenheit. In einer folgenden Entwickelungsetappe war sie es nicht mehr. Da war sie kosmische Offenbarung des Göttlich-Geistigen, und dessen Wesenheit schwebte hinter dieser Offenbarung. Aber sie webte und lebte doch eben in der Offenbarung. Eine Sternenwelt war schon da. In ihrem Scheinen und Sich-Bewegen webte und lebte als Offenbarung das Göttlich-Geistige. Man kann sagen: wie damals ein Stern stand oder sich bewegte, darinnen konnte unmittelbar die Tätigkeit des Göttlich-Geistigen gesehen werden.
[ 3 ] In alledem, wie der göttliche Geist in dem Kosmos wirkte, wie der Mensch in seinem Leben ein Ergebnis war der Tätigkeit des Göttlich-Geistigen im Kosmos, da war Michael widerstandslos noch in seinem Element. Er vermittelte das Verhältnis des Göttlichen zum Menschen.
[ 4 ] Andere Zeiten kamen. Die Sternenwelt hörte auf, unmittelbar gegenwärtig die göttlich-geistige Tätigkeit in sich zu tragen. Sie lebte und regte sich, indem sie beharrend weiter fortsetzte, was solche Tätigkeit früher in ihr war. Das Göttlich-Geistige lebte im Kosmos nicht mehr als Offenbarung, sondern nur noch als Wirksamkeit. Es war eine deutliche Zweiheit zwischen dem Göttlich-Geistigen und dem Kosmischen aufgetreten. Michael hielt sich auf Grund seiner eigenen Wesenheit beim Göttlich-Geistigen. Er suchte den Menschen so nahe als möglich bei diesem zu erhalten. Das tat er immer weiter. Er wollte den Menschen davor bewahren, zu stark in einer Welt zu leben, die nur Wirksamkeit des Göttlich-Geistigen ist, nicht Wesenheit und nicht Offenbarung.
[ 5 ] Michael rechnet es sich zur tiefsten Befriedigung an, daß es ihm gelungen ist, die Sternenwelt durch den Menschen noch unmittelbar mit dem Göttlich-Geistigen auf die folgende Art verbunden zu erhalten. Wenn der Mensch, nachdem er das Leben zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt vollbracht hat, wieder den Weg zu einem neuen Erdendasein antritt, dann sucht er beim Hinabstieg zu diesem Dasein eine Harmonie zwischen dem Sternengang und seinen Erdenleben herzustellen. Diese Harmonie, die vor Zeiten selbstverständlich da war, weil das Göttlich-Geistige in den Sternen wirkte, in denen auch das Menschenleben seinen Quell hatte: sie würde heute, wo der Sternengang bloß die Wirksamkeit des Göttlich-Geistigen fortsetzt, nicht da sein, wenn der Mensch sie nicht suchte. Er bringt sein aus früherer Zeit bewahrtes Göttlich-Geistiges in ein Verhältnis zu den Sternen, die ihr Göttlich-Geistiges nur noch als Nachwirkung einer früheren Zeit in sich haben. Dadurch kommt ein Göttliches in das Verhältnis des Menschen zur Welt, das früheren Zeiten entspricht, doch aber in späteren Zeiten erscheint. Daß dies so ist, das ist die Tat Michaels. Und diese Tat gibt ihm eine so tiefe Befriedigung, daß er in dieser Befriedigung einen Teil seines Lebens-Elementes, seiner Lebens-Energie, seines sonnenhaften Lebenswillens hat.
[ 6 ] Heute aber sieht er, wenn er das Geistes-Auge zur Erde richtet, noch einen wesentlich anderen Tatbestand. Der Mensch ist während seines Lebens im Physischen zwischen Geburt und Tod von einer Welt umgeben, die unmittelbar auch nicht mehr die Wirksamkeit des Göttlich-Geistigen zeigt, sondern nur etwas, das von dieser Wirksamkeit geblieben ist; man kann sagen, nur noch das Werk des Göttlich-Geistigen. Dieses Werk ist in seinen Formen durchaus göttlich-geistiger Art. Für das menschliche Anschauen zeigt sich das Göttliche in den Formen, in dem naturhaften Geschehen; aber es ist nicht mehr als Lebendiges darinnen. Die Natur ist dies gottgewirkte Werk des Göttlichen und ist überall Abbild der göttlichen Wirksamkeit.
[ 7 ] In dieser sonnenhaft göttlichen, aber nicht lebendig göttlichen Welt lebt der Mensch. Er aber hat, als Ergebnis des Wirkens Michaels an ihm, als Mensch den Zusammenhang mit dem Wesen des Göttlich-Geistigen bewahrt. Er lebt als Gott-durchdrungenes Wesen in einer nicht Gott-durchdrungenen Welt.
[ 8 ] In diese Gott-leergewordene Welt wird der Mensch hineintragen, was in ihm ist, das, zu dem seine Wesenheit in diesem Zeitalter geworden ist.
[ 9 ] Menschheit wird sich hineinentfalten in eine Welt-Entwickelung. Das Göttlich-Geistige, dem der Mensch entstammt, kann als kosmisch sich ausbreitende Menschenwesenheit durchleuchten den Kosmos, der nur noch in dem Abbild des Göttlich-Geistigen vorhanden ist.
[ 10 ] Nicht mehr dieselbe Wesenheit, die einst als Kosmos war, wird da durch die Menschheit aufleuchten. Das Göttlich-Geistige wird im Durchgang durch das Menschentum ein Wesen erleben, das es vorher nicht offenbarte.
[ 11 ] Daß die Entwickelung diesen Fortgang nehme, dagegen wenden sich die ahrimanischen Mächte. Sie wollen nicht, daß die ursprünglichen göttlich-geistigen Mächte das Weltall in seinem weiteren Fortgang erleuchten; sie wollen, daß die von ihnen aufgesogene kosmische Intellektualität den ganzen neuen Kosmos durchstrahle und daß der Mensch in diesem intellektualisierten und ahrimanisierten Kosmos weiterlebe.
[ 12 ] Bei einem solchen Leben würde der Mensch den Christus verlieren. Denn dieser ist mit einer Intellektualität in die Welt hereingetreten, die ganz so ist, wie sie einst in dem Göttlich-Geistigen gelebt hat, da dies noch in seiner Wesenheit den Kosmos bildete. Sprechen wir heute so, daß unsere Gedanken auch die des Christus sein können, so setzen wir den ahrimanischen Mächten etwas entgegen, das uns behütet, ihnen zu verfallen.
[ 13 ] Den Sinn der Michael-Mission im Kosmos verstehen, heißt, so sprechen können. Man muß heute über die Natur so sprechen können, wie es die Entwickelungsetappe der Bewußtheitsseele fordert. Man muß die rein naturwissenschaftliche Denkungsart in sich aufnehmen können. Aber man sollte auch so über die Natur sprechen - das heißt empfinden-lernen, wie es Christus gemäß ist. Nicht bloß über Erlösung von der Natur, nicht bloß über Seele und Göttliches sollen wir die Christus-Sprache lernen, sondern über den Kosmos.
[ 14 ] Daß unser menschlicher Zusammenhang mit dem ursprünglich Göttlich-Geistigen so gewahrt bleibe, daß wir über den Kosmos die Christus-Sprache zu pflegen verstehen, dazu werden wir kommen, wenn wir uns in innerlichem herzlichen Erfühlen ganz in das einleben, was Michael und die Seinen mit ihren Taten, mit ihrer Mission unter uns sind. Denn Michael verstehen, heißt heute Weg finden zu dem Logos, den Christus unter Menschen auf der Erde lebt.
[ 15 ] Anthroposophie schätzt in rechter Art, was die naturwissenschaftliche Denkweise gelernt hat, seit vier bis fünf Jahrhunderten über die Welt zu sagen. Aber sie spricht außer dieser Sprache eben noch eine andere über das Wesen des Menschen, über die Entwickelung des Menschen und über das Werden des Kosmos; sie möchte die Christus-Michael-Sprache sprechen.
[ 16 ] Denn werden beide Sprachen gesprochen, dann wird die Entwickelung nicht abreißen und vor dem Finden des ursprünglich Göttlich-Geistigen auf das Ahrimanische übergehen können. Die bloße naturwissenschaftliche Art zu sprechen, entspricht der Loslösung der Intellektualität von dem ursprünglich Göttlich-Geistigen. Sie kann ins Ahrimanische übergehen, wenn der Mission Michaels nicht geachtet wird. Sie wird es nicht, wenn der frei gewordene Intellekt sich durch die Kraft des Michael-Vorbildes wieder findet in der vom Menschen losgelösten, ihm gegenüber objektiv gewordenen ursprünglichen kosmischen Intellektualität, die im Quell des Menschen liegt und die in Christus innerhalb des Menschheitsbereiches wesenhaft erschienen ist, nachdem sie aus dem Menschen zur Entfaltung seiner Freiheit gewichen war.
Weitere Leitsätze, die für die Anthroposophische Gesellschaft vom Goetheanum ausgesendet werden (Mit Bezug auf die vorangehende Darstellung der Michael-Tätigkeit)
[ 17 ] 112. Das Göttlich-Geistige kommt im Kosmos in den folgenden Etappen auf verschiedene Art zur Geltung: 1. durch seine ureigene Wesenheit; 2. durch die Offenbarung dieser Wesenheit; 3. durch die Wirksamkeit, wenn die Wesenheit aus der Offenbarung sich zurückzieht; 4. durch das Werk, wenn in dem erscheinenden Weltall das Göttliche nicht mehr ist, sondern nur dessen Formen.
[ 18 ] 113. Der Mensch hat in der gegenwärtigen Naturanschauung nicht ein Verhältnis zu dem Göttlichen, sondern nur zu dessen Werk. Mit dem, was sich der menschlichen Seelenverfassung durch diese Anschauung mitteilt, kann man sich als Mensch sowohl mit den Christus-Mächten wie mit den ahrimanischen Gewalten zusammenschließen.
[ 19 ] 114. Michael ist durchdrungen von dem Bestreben, das im Menschen aus den Zeiten der göttlichen Wesensgeltendmachung und der Offenbarung bewahrte Verhältnis zum Kosmos in einer solchen Art durch sein frei wirkendes Vorbild der menschlich-kosmischen Entwickelung einzuverleiben, daß, was die rein auf das Bild, die Form des Göttlichen bezügliche Naturanschauung sagt, einläuft in eine höhere, geistgemäße Naturanschauung. Diese wird zwar im Menschen vorhanden sein; sie wird aber eben ein menschliches Nacherlebnis des göttlichen Verhältnisses zum Kosmos während der zwei ersten Etappen der kosmischen Entwickelung sein. Anthroposophie bejaht in dieser Art die Naturanschauung des Bewußtseinszeitalters; sie ergänzt sie aber auch durch eine solche, die von dem Blick des Geistes-Auges aus sich ergibt.
The future of humanity and Michael's activity
[ 1 ] What is man's relationship to Michael and his own at his stage of development today?
[ 2 ] Man is confronted with a world that was once entirely of divine-spiritual essence. Such a divine-spiritual entity to which he himself also belonged as a member. At that time, therefore, the world belonging to man was of divine-spiritual beingness. In a subsequent stage of development it was no longer so. There it was a cosmic revelation of the divine-spiritual, and its essence hovered behind this revelation. But it was weaving and living in the revelation. A starry world was already there. In its shining and moving the divine-spiritual weaved and lived as revelation. One can say: as a star stood or moved at that time, the activity of the divine-spiritual could be seen directly therein.
[ 3 ] In all this, as the divine spirit worked in the cosmos, as man in his life was a result of the activity of the divine-spiritual in the cosmos, Michael was still in his element without resistance. He mediated the relationship between the divine and man.
[ 4 ] Other times came. The starry world ceased to carry the divine-spiritual activity within itself. It lived and moved by persistently continuing what such activity used to be in it. The divine-spiritual no longer lived in the cosmos as revelation, but only as activity. A clear duality had arisen between the divine-spiritual and the cosmic. Michael stayed with the divine-spiritual because of his own nature. He sought to keep the human being as close to this as possible. He continued to do so. He wanted to protect man from living too strongly in a world that is only the effectiveness of the divine-spiritual, not essence and not revelation.
[ 5 ] Michael counts it to his deepest satisfaction that he has succeeded in preserving the starry world through man still directly connected with the Divine-Spiritual in the following way. When man, after he has completed the life between death and a new birth, sets out again on the path to a new earthly existence, he seeks to establish a harmony between the starry course and his earthly lives as he descends to this existence. This harmony, which was naturally there ages ago because the divine-spiritual worked in the stars, in which human life also had its source: it would not be there today, where the starry course merely continues the effectiveness of the divine-spiritual, if man did not seek it. He brings his divine-spiritual, preserved from an earlier time, into a relationship with the stars, which only have their divine-spiritual in them as an after-effect of an earlier time. Thus a divine comes into the relationship of man to the world which corresponds to earlier times but appears in later times. And this deed gives him such deep satisfaction that in this satisfaction he has a part of his life-element, his life-energy, his sunlike will to live.
[ 6 ] Today, however, when he turns his spiritual eye to the earth, he sees still another essentially different fact. During his life in the physical, between birth and death, man is surrounded by a world which no longer shows directly the activity of the divine-spiritual, but only something that has remained of this activity; one can say, only the work of the divine-spiritual. This work is definitely of a divine-spiritual nature in its forms. For the human eye, the divine shows itself in the forms, in the natural events; but it is nothing more than the living in it. Nature is this divine work of the divine and is everywhere an image of divine activity.
[ 7 ] Man lives in this sunlike divine, but not livingly divine world. However, as a result of Michael's work on him, as a human being he has retained the connection with the essence of the divine-spiritual. He lives as a God-infused being in a world that is not God-infused.
[ 8 ] Into this God-emptied world, man will carry what is in him, that which his essence has become in this age.
[ 9 ] Humanity will unfold into a world development. The divine-spiritual, from which the human being originates, can, as a cosmically expanding human entity, illuminate the cosmos, which is only present in the image of the divine-spiritual.
[ 10 ] The same entity that once was the cosmos will no longer shine through humanity. In its passage through humanity, the divine-spiritual will experience a being that it did not reveal before.
[ 11 ] The Ahrimanic powers are opposed to the development taking this course. They do not want the original divine-spiritual powers to illuminate the universe in its further progress; they want the cosmic intellectuality they have absorbed to shine through the entire new cosmos and for man to continue to live in this intellectualized and ahrimanized cosmos.
[ 12 ] With such a life, man would lose the Christ. For he has entered the world with an intellectuality that is entirely as it once lived in the divine-spiritual, when this still formed the cosmos in its being. If we speak today in such a way that our thoughts can also be those of the Christ, we oppose the ahrimanic powers with something that prevents us from falling prey to them.
[ 13 ] To understand the meaning of Michael's mission in the cosmos means to be able to speak in this way. Today we must be able to speak about nature in the way demanded by the developmental stage of the consciousness soul. One must be able to absorb the purely scientific way of thinking. But one should also speak about nature - that is, learn to feel it as it is according to Christ. We should learn the language of Christ not just about redemption from nature, not just about the soul and the divine, but about the cosmos.
[ 14 ] That our human connection with the originally divine-spiritual may be preserved in such a way that we understand how to cultivate the Christ-language through the cosmos, we will come to this when we, in an inner heartfelt feeling, completely immerse ourselves in what Michael and His own are among us with their deeds, with their mission. For understanding Michael today means finding the way to the Logos that Christ lives among people on earth.
[ 15 ] Anthroposophy appreciates in the right way what the scientific way of thinking has learned to say about the world for four to five centuries. But in addition to this language, it speaks another language about the nature of man, about the development of man and about the becoming of the cosmos; it wants to speak the Christ-Michael language.
[ 16 ] For if both languages are spoken, then the development will not be able to break off and pass over to the Ahrimanic before the original divine-spiritual is found. The merely scientific way of speaking corresponds to the detachment of intellectuality from the original divine-spiritual. It can pass over into the ahrimanic if the mission of Michael is not respected. It will not if the intellect that has become free finds itself again, through the power of Michael's example, in the original cosmic intellectuality that is detached from man and has become objective towards him, which lies in the source of man and which has essentially appeared in Christ within the human realm after it had departed from man to unfold his freedom.
Further guiding principles sent out by the Goetheanum for the Anthroposophical Society (with reference to the previous presentation of Michael's work)
[ 17 ] 112 The Divine-Spiritual comes into its own in the cosmos in the following stages in different ways: 1. through its very own beingness; 2. through the revelation of this beingness; 3. by the effectiveness, when the entity withdraws from the revelation; 4. by the work, when in the appearing universe the divine is no longer, but only its forms.
[ 18 ] 113 In the present view of nature, man has no relation to the divine, but only to its work. With that which communicates itself to the human constitution of soul through this view, one can unite as man with both the Christ-powers and the ahrimanic powers.
[ 19 ] 114 Michael is imbued with the endeavor to incorporate the relationship to the cosmos preserved in man from the times of divine manifestation and revelation in such a way, through his freely working example, into the human-cosmic development that what the view of nature, which relates purely to the image, the form of the divine, says, runs into a higher, spirit-like view of nature. This will indeed be present in man; but it will be precisely a human after-experience of the divine relationship to the cosmos during the first two stages of cosmic development. Anthroposophy affirms in this way the view of nature of the age of consciousness; but it also supplements it with one that arises from the view of the spiritual eye.