The Michael Mystery
GA 26
XXII. Men's Freedom and the Michael Age
[ 1 ] In the human faculty of Remembrance, there lives the reproduction in personal form of a cosmic power which once worked at the formation of Man's being, as was described in the last few letters. The same cosmic power continues however to be active at the present time. It works as the force of growth, as life-giving impulse, behind the scenes of human life. Here it expends the greater part of its force. Only one little part is separated off, to become a function of the Spiritual Soul. There it works as the power of Memory or Remembrance.
[ 2 ] One must look at this power of Remembrance in the proper light. When Man to-day, in the present age of cosmic evolution, perceives through his senses, this ‘perceiving’ is a momentary lighting-up in consciousness of world-images. The lighting-up comes when the sense is directed upon the outer world; it illumines the field of consciousness, and disappears when the sense ceases to be turned upon the outer world. But what here lights up in the human soul, can have no duration. For unless Man could dismiss it promptly from his consciousness, he would become merged in this content of his consciousness, and lose himself. He would no longer be himself. Only for a brief time—in the so-called after-images, which so much interested Goethe—may this lighting-up from a sense-perception have life in the consciousness. Neither must this content of consciousness become set, or harden into real existence; it must remain image. It must no more become real than the image in the looking-glass can become real.
[ 3 ] With anything that ended by making itself a reality in his consciousness, Man would no less lose himself, than with something that of itself was permanent. Here again, he could no more be himself.
[ 4 ] Sense-perception of the outer world is, then, an inward painting of the human soul. A painting without paints; a painting in spirit-waxing and spirit-waning. As in Nature the rainbow comes and goes again and leaves no trace behind, so too all sense-perception comes and passes away, without itself—of its own nature—leaving any memory behind.
[ 5 ] But with every perception, there is at the same time another process transacted between the human soul and the world outside. It is a process that goes on in the background, in remoter parts of the soul's life—there, where the forces of growth, the life-impulses are at work. And in this part of the soul's life, not a transitory image merely, but a real and lasting reproduction is imprinted with each act of perception. This Man can bear, for it is a real World-content, playing in part in Man's existence. It can take place without his losing himself, any more than he loses himself when without his own full consciousness he grows, or is nourished by his food.
[ 6 ] When Man now calls up his memories from the inner depths, it is an internal perception of what was permanently left by this second process that accompanies the external perception. [ 7 ] Again the soul paints; but now she paints the Past that is living in her own human inner being. And again with this painting, no lasting reality must be formed within the consciousness, but only an image that comes and goes.
[ 8 ] Such is the connection, in the human soul, between the forming of mental conceptions—mental images—in the moment of perception, and remembrance.
[ 9 ] The forces of remembrance have however a constant tendency to become more than they can be, if Man is not to lose himself as a self-conscious being.
[ 10 ] For these forces of remembrance are remnants of the Past in Man's evolution, and as such they fall under the dominion of Lucifer. It is Lucifer's endeavor to give substance in Man to the impressions of the outer world and to condense them, so that they may continue to shine on as lasting mental conceptions in his conscious life.
[ 11 ] This endeavor of Lucifer's would be crowned with success, were it not released by the Michael-forces. These will not let what is painted in the mind's inner light harden into real existence, but keep it coming and going as a fleeting picture.
[ 12 ] The excess of power which thus streams up—but through Lucifer—out of the inner man, will be changed in the Michael Age into Imagining power. For, little by little, the power of spiritual Imagination will make its way into the general intellectual consciousness of mankind. That ‘present instant’ consciousness however, which Man now possesses, will not be thereby burdened with any weight of lasting reality. It will continue to live in pictures that come and go. But with his Imaginations Man rears himself aloft into a higher spirit-world; even as with his Remembrances he reaches inward, into this own human being. Man does not retain the Imaginations within himself; they are engraved in permanent cosmic-existence; and thence he can reproduce them ever afresh in the passing pictures of his mental life.
[ 13 ] That which is saved by Michael from becoming fixed and hardened in the inner life of Man, is in this way received by the spiritual world. All that Man realizes of the power of conscious Imagining is converted at the same time into World-content. That this is possible, is a result of the Mystery of Golgotha. The Christ-Power imprints Man's Imagination upon the Cosmos—the Christ-Power which is united to the Earth. So long as this power was not united to the Earth, but worked from without upon the Earth as a Sun-Power, all impulses of growth and life went into the inner man. Man was built up and maintained by them out of the Cosmos. Since the Christ-Impulse has entered into the life of Earth, Man is given back once more to the Cosmos in his self-conscious being.
[ 14 ] Man, from being a World-being, has become an Earth-being. It lies in him to become a World-being once more after having as Earth-being become himself.
[ 15 ] In this fact—namely that Man, in his momentary acts of mental conception (in the forming of mental images) is living not in real existence, but only in a reflection of real existence. In a picture-existence, lies the possibility of evolving Freedom. All real existence in the consciousness has compelling power. Only pictures cannot compel. Anything that may take place through the impression made by a mere picture, will be quite independent of the picture itself. Man becomes free, when with his Spiritual Soul he lifts himself out of the realm of real Existence and emerges in a non-existent Picture-realm.
[ 16 ] The momentous question then arises: Does not Man lose real existence when with one part of his being he lets go of it and hurls himself into a realm of non-existence?
[ 17 ] Here again is a point where we are faced by one of the great problems in the contemplation of the world.
[ 18 ] What is experienced in consciousness in the act of mental conception—in the forming of mental images—originated in the Cosmos. As regards the Cosmos, Man plunges into non-existence. He frees himself in the act of mental conception from all forces of the Cosmos. He paints the Cosmos, being himself outside of it.
[ 19 ] If this were all, then for one cosmic instant a flash of freedom would light up in the human being; but at the same instant human being itself would be dissolved. Whilst however in his mental conceptions Man finds freedom from the Cosmos, he is nevertheless, in his non-conscious soul-life, grafted into the whole of his previous earth-lives and lives between death and new birth. As conscious man he is in Picture-existence, while he maintains himself in spiritual Reality with his unconscious part. Whilst in the I of the present moment he awakens to freedom, his I of the past holds him firm in real existence.
[ 20 ] In respect of real existence, Man, when forming a mental conception, is wholly reliant upon what he has become in the course of his cosmic and earthly past.
[ 21 ] In human evolution, the path here points to that Abyss of Nothing over which Man leaps in the moment of becoming a free being. Michael's action and the Christ-Impulse make the leap possible.
Leading Thoughts
[ 22 ] In mental conception, Man is living with his Spiritual soul not in Real Existence, but in Picture-Existence—in Non-Existence. Thereby he is freed from experiencing a common life with the Cosmos. Pictures do not compel. Only real existence compels. And if Man nevertheless suits his actions to the pictures, it is done quite independently of the pictures, that is to say, in freedom from the world.
[ 23 ] At the instant of any such act of mental conception, the only thing that links Man to the real existence of the world, is what he himself has grown to be from the Past, through his previous earth-lives and lives between death and new birth.
[ 24 ] This is a leap, as regards the Cosmos, over Non-Existence—a leap which Man is only enabled to achieve through the action of Michael and through the Christ-Impulse.
Die Freiheit des Menschen und das Michael-Zeitalter
(Goetheanum, Januar 1925)
[ 1 ] In der Erinnerungsfähigkeit des Menschen lebt das persönliche Abbild einer kosmischen Kraft, die in der Art am menschlichen Wesen gewirkt hat, wie das die letzten Betrachtungen gezeigt haben. Diese kosmische Kraft ist aber auch gegenwärtig noch tätig. Sie wirkt als Wachstumskraft, als belebender Impuls im Hintergrunde des Menschenlebens. Da wirkt sie mit ihrem größeren Anteile. Sie sondert nur einen kleinen Teil von sich ab, der als Tätigkeit in die Bewußtseinsseele eintritt. Da wirkt er als Erinnerungskraft.
[ 2 ] Man muß diese Erinnerungskraft im rechten Lichte sehen. — Wenn der Mensch in der gegenwärtigen Epoche des kosmischen Werdens mit den Sinnen wahrnimmt, so ist dies Wahrnehmen ein augenblickliches Aufleuchten von Weltbildern im Bewußtsein. Das Auf leuchten kommt, wenn der Sinn auf die Außenwelt gerichtet ist; es durchhellt das Bewußtsein; es verschwindet, wenn der Sinn sich nicht mehr an die Außenwelt richtet. — Was da in der Menschenseele aufleuchtet: es darf nicht Dauer haben. Denn brächte der Mensch es nicht rechtzeitig aus seinem Bewußtsein heraus, er verlöre sich an den Bewußtseinsinhalt. Er wäre nicht mehr er selbst. Nur kurze Zeit, in den sogenannten Nachbildern, die Goethe so sehr interessierten, darf im Bewußtsein das «Leuchten» durch die Wahrnehmung leben. Es darf dieser Bewußtseinsinhalt auch nicht zum Sein erstarren; er muß Bild bleiben. Er darf ebensowenig real werden, wie das Bild im Spiegel real werden kann.
[ 3 ] An etwas, das sich als Realität im Bewußtsein auslebte, würde sich der Mensch ebenso verlieren wie an das, was durch sich selbst Dauer hätte. Auch da könnte er nicht mehr er selbst sein.
[ 4 ] So ist das sinnenfällige Wahrnehmen der Außenwelt ein innerliches Malen der Menschenseele. Ein Malen ohne Malsubstanz. Ein Malen im Geistwerden und Geistvergehen. Wie der Regenbogen in der Natur ersteht und dahingeht, ohne eine Spur zu hinterlassen, so ersteht die Wahrnehmung und geht dahin, ohne daß sie Erinnerung durch ihr eigenes Wesen zurückläßt.
[ 5 ] Aber gleichzeitig mit jeder Wahrnehmung verläuft zwischen der Menschenseele und der Außenwelt ein anderer Vorgang. Ein solcher, der im mehr zurückliegenden Teile des Seelenlebens liegt. Da, wo die Wachstumskräfte, wo die Lebensimpulse wirken. In diesem Teile des Seelenlebens prägt sich beim Wahrnehmen nicht nur ein vorübergehendes Bild, sondern ein dauerndes, reales Abbild ein. Das kann der Mensch ertragen, denn das hängt mit dem Sein des Menschen als Weltinhalt zusammen. Indem dies sich vollzieht, kann er ebensowenig sich verlieren, wie er sich verliert, da er ohne sein volles Bewußtsein wächst, sich ernährt.
[ 6 ] Wenn nun der Mensch seine Erinnerungen aus seinem Innern holt, dann ist das ein inneres Wahrnehmen dessen, was geblieben ist in dem zweiten Vorgang, der sich beim äußeren Wahrnehmen abspielt.
[ 7 ] Wieder malt die Seele, jetzt aber das im eigenen menschlichen Innern lebende Vergangene. Wieder darf im Bewußtsein bei diesem Malen kein dauerndes Reales, sondern nur ein erstehendes und vergehendes Bild sich formen.
[ 8 ] So hängen in der Menschenseele wahrnehmendes Vorstellen und Erinnern zusammen.
[ 9 ] Aber die Erinnerungskräfte haben das fortwährende Bestreben, mehr zu sein, als sie sein können, wenn der Mensch als selbstbewußtes Wesen sich nicht verlieren soll.
[ 10 ] Denn die Erinnerungskräfte sind Reste der Vergangenheit im Menschenwerden und kommen als solche in das Machtgebiet Luzifers. Dieser hat das Bestreben, im Menschenwesen die Eindrücke der Außenwelt so zu verdichten, daß sie fortwährend als Vorstellen im Bewußtsein leuchten.
[ 11 ] Dieses luziferische Bestreben würde von Erfolg gekrönt sein, wenn die Michael-Kraft ihm nicht entgegenwirkte. Sie läßt das im inneren Lichte Gemalte nicht zum Sein erstarren, sondern erhält es im erstehenden und vergehenden Bilde.
[ 12 ] Die überschüssige Kraft, die da aber durch Luzifer heraufdrängt aus dem menschlichen Innern, sie wird im Michael-Zeitalter umgewandelt werden in imaginierende Kraft. Denn allmählich wird in das allgemeine intellektuelle Menschheitsbewußtsein die Kraft der Imagination einziehen. — Damit aber wird der Mensch sein Gegenwartsbewußtsein nicht mit dauerndem Realen belasten; das bleibt in erstehenden und vergehenden Bildern wirksam. Mit seinen Imaginationen aber ragt der Mensch in eine höhere Geistwelt hinauf, wie er mit seinen Erinnerungen in seine eigene Menschenwesenheit hineinragt. Der Mensch behält die Imaginationen nicht in sich; sie sind in das kosmische Sein eingezeichnet; und aus diesem kann er sie immer wieder in dem Bild-Vorstellungsleben abmalen.
[ 13 ] So wird, was Michael bewahrt vor dem Erstarren im Menschen-Innern, von der geistigen Welt aufgenommen. Was der Mensch von der Kraft des bewußten Imaginierens erlebt, das wird zugleich Welt-Inhalt. Daß dies so sein kann, ist ein Ergebnis des Mysteriums von Golgatha. Die Christuskraft prägt die Menschen-Imagination dem Kosmos ein. Die Christuskraft, die mit der Erde verbunden ist. Solange sie nicht mit der Erde verbunden war, sondern von außen auf die Erde als Sonnenkraft wirkte, gingen alle Wachstums- und Lebensimpulse in das Menschen-Innere. Der Mensch wurde durch sie aus dem Kosmos heraus gebildet und erhalten. Seit der Christus-Impuls mit der Erde lebt, wird der Mensch in seiner selbstbewußten Wesenheit dem Kosmos wieder zurückgegeben.
[ 14 ] Der Mensch ist aus einem Weltenwesen ein Erdenwesen geworden; er ist dazu veranlagt, wieder ein Weltenwesen zu werden, nachdem er als Erdenwesen er selbst geworden ist.
[ 15 ] In dieser Tatsache, daß der Mensch in seinem augenblicklichen Vorstellen nicht im Sein, sondern nur in einer Spiegelung des Seins, in einem Bild-Sein lebt, liegt die Möglichkeit der Entfaltung der Freiheit. Alles Sein im Bewußtsein ist ein zwingendes. Allein das Bi/d kann nicht zwingen. Soll durch seinen Eindruck etwas geschehen, so muß es ganz unabhängig von ihm geschehen. — Der Mensch wird dadurch frei, daß er mit seiner Bewußtseinsseele aus dem Sein sich erhebt und in dem nicht-seienden Bildwesen auftaucht.
[ 16 ] Da entsteht die bedeutsame Frage: Verliert denn der Mensch das Sein nicht, indem er es mit einem Teile seines Wesens verläßt und sich in das Nicht-Sein stürzt?
[ 17 ] Hier ist wieder einer der Punkte, wo man mit der Betrachtung der Welt vor einem der großen Rätsel steht.
[ 18 ] Was im Bewußtsein als Vorstellen erlebt wird, ist aus dem Kosmos heraus entstanden. Dem Kosmos gegenüber stürzt sich der Mensch in das Nicht-Sein. Er befreit sich im Vorstellen von allen Kräften des Kosmos. Er malt den Kosmos, außerhalb dessen er ist.
[ 19 ] Wäre es nur so, so leuchtete im Menschenwesen für einen kosmischen Augenblick die Freiheit auf; aber in demselben Augenblick löste sich auch die Menschenwesenheit auf. -Aber, indem im Vorstellen der Mensch frei wird vom Kosmos, ist er doch in seinem nicht-bewußten Seelenleben an seine vorigen Erdenleben und Leben zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt angegliedert. Er ist als bewußter Mensch im Bild-Sein, und er hält sich mit seinem Unbewußten in der geistigen Realität. Während er im gegenwärtigen Ich die Freiheit erlebt, hält ihn sein vergangenes Ich in dem Sein.
[ 20 ] In bezug auf das Sein ist im Vorstellen der Mensch ganz dem hingegeben, das er durch die kosmische und irdische Vergangenheit hindurch geworden ist.
[ 21 ] Es ist in der Menschen-Entwickelung hier auf den Abgrund des Nichts gedeutet, über den der Mensch springt, indem er ein freies Wesen wird. Michaels Wirken und der Christus-Impuls machen den Sprung möglich.
Goetheanum, Januar 1925.
Leitsätze Nr. 162 bis 164
(22. Februar 1925)
(Mit Bezug auf die vorangehende Betrachtung über die Freiheit des Menschen und das Michael-Zeitalter)
[ 22 ] 162. Im Vorstellen lebt der Mensch mit seiner Bewußtseinsseele nicht im Sein, sondern im Bild-Sein, im Nicht-Sein. Dadurch ist er vom Mit-Erleben mit dem Kosmos befreit. Bilder zwingen nicht. Nur das Sein zwingt. Richtet sich der Mensch doch nach Bildern, so ist das von den Bildern ganz unabhängig, das heißt in Freiheit von der Welt.
[ 23 ] 163. In dem Augenblicke eines solchen Vorstellens hängt der Mensch mit dem Sein der Welt nur durch das zusammen, das er aus der Vergangenheit seiner früheren Erdenleben und seiner Leben zwischen Tod und Geburt geworden ist.
[ 24 ] 164. Diesen Sprung über das Nicht-Sein gegenüber dem Kosmos kann der Mensch nur durch die Tätigkeit Michaels und den Christus-Impuls machen.
The freedom of man and the Michael Age
(Goetheanum, January 1925)
[ 1 ] In man's ability to remember lives the personal image of a cosmic force that has worked on the human being in the way that the last observations have shown. However, this cosmic force is still active today. It works as a growth force, as an invigorating impulse in the background of human life. There it works with its greater part. It separates only a small part of itself, which enters the consciousness soul as activity. There it acts as a power of memory.
[ 2 ] This power of memory must be seen in the right light. - When man perceives with the senses in the present epoch of cosmic becoming, this perception is an instantaneous lighting up of worldimages in consciousness. The illumination comes when the sense is directed towards the external world; it illuminates the consciousness; it disappears when the sense is no longer directed towards the external world. - What lights up in the human soul: it must not last. For if man did not bring it out of his consciousness in time, he would lose himself to the content of consciousness. He would no longer be himself. Only for a short time, in the so-called afterimages that interested Goethe so much, is the "glow" allowed to live in consciousness through perception. This content of consciousness must not solidify into being; it must remain image. It must not become real any more than the image in the mirror can become real.
[ 3 ] Man would lose himself to something that lived itself out as reality in consciousness just as he would lose himself to something that had duration through itself. There, too, he could no longer be himself.
[ 4 ] So the sensory perception of the outside world is an inner painting of the human soul. A painting without painting substance. A painting in becoming and passing away of the spirit. Just as the rainbow arises in nature and passes away without leaving a trace, so perception arises and passes away without leaving remembrance through its own being.
[ 5 ] But at the same time as every perception, another process takes place between the human soul and the external world. One that lies in the more distant part of the soul's life. There, where the forces of growth, where the life impulses are at work. In this part of the soul's life, not only a temporary image, but a permanent, real image is imprinted on perception. The human being can bear this, because it is connected with the being of the human being as the content of the world. As this takes place, he can no more lose himself than he can lose himself, since he grows and nourishes himself without his full consciousness.
[ 6 ] When a person now retrieves his memories from within himself, this is an inner perception of what has remained in the second process that takes place in outer perception.
[ 7 ] The soul paints again, but now the past that lives within the human being. Again, in consciousness, this painting must not form a permanent real, but only an emerging and passing image.
[ 8 ] So in the human soul, perceptive imagination and memory are connected.
[ 9 ] But the powers of memory constantly strive to be more than they can be if man, as a self-conscious being, is not to lose himself.
[ 10 ] For the powers of memory are remnants of the past in becoming human and as such come into Lucifer's sphere of power. He endeavors to condense the impressions of the outside world in the human being in such a way that they continually shine as representations in the consciousness.
[ 11 ] This Luciferian endeavor would be crowned with success if the power of Michael did not work against it. It does not allow what is painted in the inner light to congeal into being, but preserves it in the emerging and passing image.
[ 12 ] The surplus power, however, which pushes up through Lucifer from the human inner being, will be transformed into imagining power in the Michael age. For gradually the power of imagination will enter the general intellectual consciousness of mankind. - In this way, however, man will not burden his present consciousness with permanent realities; these will remain effective in images that arise and pass away. With his imaginations, however, man reaches up into a higher spiritual world, just as he reaches into his own human nature with his memories. Man does not keep the imaginations within himself; they are drawn into the cosmic being; and from this he can paint them again and again in the pictorial-imaginative life.
[ 13 ] So what Michael preserves from congealing within the human being is absorbed by the spiritual world. What the human being experiences from the power of conscious imagination becomes world content at the same time. That this can be so is a result of the Mystery of Golgotha. The power of Christ imprints the human imagination on the cosmos. The Christ power that is connected with the earth. As long as it was not connected to the earth, but acted on the earth from the outside as solar power, all impulses for growth and life went into the human inner being. Man was formed and sustained by it from the cosmos. Since the Christ impulse lives with the earth, man in his self-conscious being is given back to the cosmos.
[ 14 ] Man has become an earth being from a world being; he is predisposed to become a world being again after he has become himself as an earth being.
[ 15 ] In this fact that man in his momentary imagination does not live in being, but only in a reflection of being, in an image-being, lies the possibility of the unfolding of freedom. All being in consciousness is a compelling one. Only the Bi/d cannot compel. If something is to happen through its impression, it must happen completely independently of it. - Man becomes free through the fact that he rises with his soul of consciousness from existence and emerges in the non-existent image being.
[ 16 ] There arises the significant question: Does man not lose being by leaving it with a part of his being and plunging into non-being?
[ 17 ] Here again is one of the points where one is faced with one of the great riddles when contemplating the world.
[ 18 ] What is experienced in consciousness as imagination has arisen out of the cosmos. Faced with the cosmos, man plunges into non-being. He liberates himself in imagination from all the forces of the cosmos. He paints the cosmos, outside of which he is.
[ 19 ] If it were only so, freedom would light up in the human being for a cosmic moment; but at the same moment the human being would also dissolve. But while in imagination man becomes free from the cosmos, he is still attached in his non-conscious soul-life to his previous earth-lives and lives between death and new birth. As a conscious human being he is in image-being, and he keeps himself with his unconscious in spiritual reality. While he experiences freedom in the present self, his past self holds him in being.
[ 20 ] In relation to being, in imagination man is completely devoted to what he has become through the cosmic and earthly past.
[ 21 ] In the development of man, the abyss of nothingness is indicated here, over which man leaps by becoming a free being. Michael's work and the Christ impulse make the leap possible.
Goetheanum, January 1925.
Guiding Principles No. 162 to 164
(February 22, 1925)
(With reference to the preceding reflection on the freedom of man and the Michael Age)
[ 22 ] 162 In imagination, man lives with his consciousness soul not in being, but in image-being, in non-being. Thus he is liberated from co-experience with the cosmos. Only being compels. If the human being is guided by images, then this is completely independent of the images, i.e. in freedom from the world.
[ 23 ] 163. In the moment of such imagination, man is related to the being of the world only through that which he has become from the past of his previous lives on earth and his lives between death and birth.
[ 24 ] 164. Man can only make this leap beyond non-being in relation to the cosmos through the activity of Michael and the Christ-impulse.