Michaelmas E-Book

Rudolf Steiner

• Herausgeber: Rudolf Steiner Press
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Rudolf Steiner, the often undervalued, multifaceted genius of modern times, contributed much to the regeneration of culture. In addition to his philosophical teachings, he provided ideas for the development of many practical activities, including education - both general and special - agriculture, medicine, economics, architecture, science, religion and the arts. Steiner's original contribution to human knowledge was based on his ability to conduct 'spiritual research', the investigation of metaphysical dimensions of existence. With his scientific and philosophical training, he brought a new systematic discipline to the field, allowing for conscious methods and comprehensive results. A natural seer from childhood, he cultivated his spiritual vision to a high degree, enabling him to speak with authority on previously veiled mysteries of life. Samples of Steiner's work are to be found in this introductory reader in which Matthew Barton brings together excerpts from Steiner's many talks and writings on Michaelmas. The volume also features an editorial introduction, afterword, commentary and notes. Chapters: Sinking Earth, Rising Spirit; Michael and the Dragon; Michael, Spirit of Our Age; Towards a Michael Festival.

Leseprobe

RUDOLF STEINER (1861–1925) called his spiritual philosophy ‘anthroposophy’, meaning ‘wisdom of the human being’. As a highly developed seer, he based his work on direct knowledge and perception of spiritual dimensions. He initiated a modern and universal ‘science of spirit’, accessible to anyone willing to exercise clear and unprejudiced thinking.

From his spiritual investigations Steiner provided suggestions for the renewal of many activities, including education (both general and special), agriculture, medicine, economics, architecture, science, philosophy, religion and the arts. Today there are thousands of schools, clinics, farms and other organizations involved in practical work based on his principles. His many published works feature his research into the spiritual nature of the human being, the evolution of the world and humanity, and methods of personal development. Steiner wrote some 30 books and delivered over 6000 lectures across Europe. In 1924 he founded the General Anthroposophical Society, which today has branches throughout the world.

Victorious spirit

flame through the faintness

of hesitant souls.

Burn up ego’s self-craving,

ignite compassion,

so that selflessness,

the life-stream of mankind

wells up as the source

of spirit’s rebirth.

MICHAELMAS

Also available:

(Festivals)

Christmas

Easter

St John’s

Whitsun

(Practical Applications)

Agriculture

Architecture

Art

Education

Eurythmy

Medicine

Religion

Science

Social and Political Science

(Esoteric)

Alchemy

Atlantis

Christian Rozenkreutz

The Druids

The Goddess

The Holy Grail

RUDOLF STEINER

MICHAELMAS

An Introductory Reader

Compiled with an introduction, commentary and notes by Matthew Barton

Sophia Books

Sophia Books An imprint of Rudolf Steiner Press Hillside House, The Square Forest Row, RH18 5ES

www.rudolfsteinerpress.com

Published by Rudolf Steiner Press 2012

For earlier English publications of individual selections please see Sources

The material by Rudolf Steiner was originally published in German in various volumes of the ‘GA’ (Rudolf Steiner Gesamtausgabe or Collected Works) by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach. This authorized volume is published by permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach (for further information see Note Regarding Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures)

All translations revised by Matthew Barton

The editor would like to thank Margaret Jonas, librarian at Rudolf Steiner House, for her invaluable help in locating volumes used in compiling this book.

This selection and translation © Rudolf Steiner Press 2007

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 85584 338 7

Cover by Andrew Morgan Typeset by DP Photosetting, Neath, West Glamorgan

CONTENTS

Introduction by Matthew Barton

SINKING EARTH, RISING SPIRIT

1. Reading More Deeply

2. The Human Earthworm

3. Spirit Shines Brighter as Physical Matter Fades

MICHAEL AND THE DRAGON

4. Swelling Desire, Clarifying Consciousness

5. Nature and Dragon Nature

6. The Michael Imagination

MICHAEL, SPIRIT OF OUR AGE

7. The Signs of Michael

8. The Dawn of a Michael Age

9. Michaelic Thinking

10. The Michael Imagination and the Mystery of Golgotha

TOWARDS A MICHAEL FESTIVAL

11. Thinking with Nature

12. Breathing with the Year

13. A Festival of Human Courage

14. Creating a Michael Festival

15. Breaking the Spell, Kindling the Fire

Afterword

Notes

Sources

Further Reading

Note Regarding Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures

Introduction

Michaelmas Day, or the festival of St Michael and All Angels (29 September), does not even figure on the calendar on my wall. In traditional farming communities there was a large number of country customs at Michaelmas (including stealing your neighbour’s horse with impunity!), but nowadays little is associated with it apart from the name of a university term, a day when quarter rents are due or the day for choosing magistrates. Perhaps the latter, at least, contains the faint trace of a lost insight into a dimension of being—and indeed an actual being—which Rudolf Steiner focuses on in the lecture extracts compiled here. What is a magistrate after all? Derived from the Latin magister or master, it is clearly connected with authority—something, however, which we cannot properly exercise without a degree of self-mastery. A magistrate enforces the law but must also weigh up the merits of each case by using his or her own power of judgement and intuition; and the Michaelic qualities Steiner returns to on several occasions include a conscious quality of inner judgement, resolve and decisive action, informed by the forces of the heart. Chambers Dictionary also tells me that ‘magistery’ is a term in alchemy referring to a ‘transmuting agent, a precipitate or any sovereign remedy’. In these lectures Steiner speaks often of the need for a transformation of the human mind and heart; and in a couple of passages, indeed, he mentions that the time of autumn, when natural forces are waning, can be understood as a season when the human spirit separates from the natural world and comes to a sense of its own, independent existence, much as a substance in solution separates out, forming a precipitate and leaving a purified fluid behind.

The year is a cycle which we can accompany with our feeling and awareness: a sequence of changing phenomena in the external world but also a greater image of processes at work in the human being. At one time (during spring and summer) we are intimately linked to all its flourishing physical processes as an image of our own physical life; at another (autumn and winter), we separate from its waning and death just as the spirit can separate from its ‘suspension’ in the body, becoming more conscious of its non-physical existence. The festival of Michaelmas which Steiner wished to reinstate and wholly reinvigorate is one which he believed was particularly vital in our time: the celebration of a new age which had dawned, when human beings can go beyond the constraints of a narrow materialism and at the same time find their way to true fellowship with one another. He believed a Michaelmas festival worthy of the name would do more to address the social ills of our time than any amount of abstract debate and well-meaning but impotent measures. Typically, he does not dictate what form such a festival would take but—a Michael quality—leaves us completely free, simply urging us to create the right conditions in ourselves out of which such a festival could authentically develop.

The picture of St Michael vanquishing the dragon, various versions of which readers may know from art history or legend, is one which Steiner conjures again before us as an image—in fact a reality—of a battle waged continually between different forces within us: those which harness us to a spellbound enchantment in the material world, and those which we ourselves must activate to penetrate a veil of illusion, to truly meet nature, ourselves, each other and greater realities. This is also something, as Steiner emphasizes, which requires courage—a quality he connects particularly with the beginning of autumn.

As trees grow bare of leaves, revealing, as it were, the skeleton of things, it is easy to sense layers of physical protection falling away from us as greater, lonelier spaces open up. This season, at the fine transition between natural life and death, but equally between a sleepier nature consciousness and a waking consciousness of self, feels like that sword blade in fairy tales that is laid as a sharp reminder between two who are not married—between, you could say, nature and spirit, which divide from each other at this time of year.

But not just at this time of year. Steiner stresses that, since we are not merely natural beings, we can have all seasons in us simultaneously. He continually returns to the theme of our modern era, finding a particular correspondence between the start of autumn and our present state and stage of evolution. We are no longer sustained by past certainties and by a mothering natural world. We have risen above it, coming far adrift in the process from a harmonious balance with ourselves and our environment—a loss so beautifully lamented in Chief Seattle’s address to the conquering white man.1 This evolutionary transition—as people the world over are increasingly aware—is forcing us to awaken to the consequences of our own actions in many different spheres, asking us to exercise moral judgement and take responsibility for ourselves and the planet. To reconnect consciously. And increasingly it is becoming clear, in a way similar to the wider vistas that open up as leaves fall, that a battle is raging between these developing forces of sensitivity, awareness and responsibility and those of—really there is no other word—demonic self-interest, social divisiveness and materialism, often, let’s not deceive ourselves, combined within each one of us. So the battle is with and within ourselves.

Just two aspects of our age are enough, perhaps, to highlight the nature of this battle. I’d like to accentuate each and give an accompanying image that occurred to me in relation to them. Our era, of course, promotes a widespread worship and culture of youth, a pervasive trait that can easily make people feel that the elderly have no value, that the flourish and beauty of youth is the only worthy human state. This is not just the worship of youth and beauty, though, but the adulation of all things physical, the denial of soul and spiritual qualities which, as Steiner points out, can only shine through—like autumn colours—as physical attributes wane. Of course this depends on how we age: whether we cling desperately to physical life, lamenting each wrinkle, or allow non-physical qualities to rise up in us, revealing our true, non-physical nature like the sun shining through thinning clouds. Recently I was walking in the grounds of a National Trust estate and I saw a wonderful sight, a lively young girl and a bent old man together. I do not know if he was her father or grandfather, but there was something blessed about the atmosphere between them, she leaping to touch a branch, he hobbling slowly but with a genuinely illumined, unhurried air. Somehow one could sense the girl’s deep, unspoken love of the old man, and his of her; and this struck me as a powerful image of the relationship between the physical and the spiritual, how each age can honour the other, and how the summer of youth can give way gracefully and willingly to the autumn of age and its spiritual gifts.