The Mission of Michael

Paul Laffoley

Greetings friends on this Michaelmas day. Two years ago Laura Scappaticci did an interview with me for the The Anthroposopher Podcast called ‘Preserve the Light’ – Enjoy!

Human consciousness is ever evolving. The Zeitgeist is flavored by the various attributes of the 7 Archangels who take turns ruling a portion of each epoch. In 1879 Michael became the Time Spirit of our age. When he was last up, he ruled the Hebrew folk as they were preparing the vessel for the Christ Being to enter a human form. Back then he held the countenance of Jehovah, the god of the Hebrew people. And before that this mighty being worked thru Aristotle & Alexander the Great to bring Michael’s cosmopolitan impulse from East the West. And before that in the ancient Chaldean time he was called Mithras – born from Sophia to conquer Tiamat, an early form of the dragon in the human being…

At the ‘Turning point of Time’ Michael got a promotion to become an Archai & took on the countenance of The Christ.

Spiritual Science speaks about the Kali Yuga as lasting from about 3000 BC until 1899 AD. During this time humankind gradually lost contact with the spiritual world. This was necessary for us in the course of our evolution so that we could cultivate a sense of individuality & self-reliance.

Mosaic Of Saint Michael On The Facade Of Serbian Orthodox Church In Trieste  Stock Photo, Picture And Royalty Free Image. Image 36395509.
Mosaic Of Saint Michael On The Facade Of Serbian Orthodox Church In Trieste

In ‘Spiritualization of Knowledge of Space – The Mission of Michael’ Dornach, December 17, 1922, Steiner spoke of the shift that occurred after this long dark age calling us back to the spirit: “In the last third of the nineteenth century, the Spiritual Being we call Michael became the ruler of everything of a spiritual character in human events on earth… Michael is the active being who pulses through our breath, our veins, our nerves, to the end that we may actively develop all that belongs to our full humanity in connection with the cosmos. What stands before us as a challenge from Michael is that we become active in our very thoughts, working out our view of the world through our own inner activity. We belong truly to the Michael Age only when we do not sit down inactively and seek to let enlightenment come to us from without. We must cooperate actively in what the world offers us by way of experiences and opportunities for observation.”

Synaxis of the Archangel Michael and the Other Bodiless Powers – Orthodox Church in America

In 1899 the Kali Yuga ended & the gates to the spiritual world were opened once again.  Around that time, at the end of the 19th century, the fixed date of September 29th came to be called: The Feast Day of St. Michael & All the Heavenly Hosts. The old legends would always preface the famous story of the battle against the dragon, with an enumeration of the 9 angelic realms, with Michael standing before us as the King & herald of all the hierarchies.

Cape Byron Rudolf Steiner School

Michael’s message to humanity is not to try to slay the dragon within ourselves, for we would not live in freedom if we did, but rather to overcome it with consciousness. It is the consciousness in our thinking which calls for exactitude & selflessness, as well as the strength of will needed to follow a moral path in life. Michaelmas is a festival of inner strength & initiative. It is a time when our higher being can conquer anxiety & fear, for it is the task of Michael to awaken humankind to the eternal within. It is to this inner light that the mighty Sun-Being Michael directs our gaze; which we must in turn direct to the world of nature –Replacing dead sense-bound thinking, represented by the Dragon, with Imaginative Cognition, (to reclaim the Cosmic intelligence) living heart-thinking, fostered by Michael, to reveal  the Living Christ, as the fundamental force of the Universe.

May Michael fortify our “I” & strengthen our Will, giving us the courage to find the Spirit as the very essence of the living Cosmos.

~hag

29 September 2021- “Speaking with the Stars”: On the mornings of September 29 and 30, 2021, you can see Bella Luna near the two brightest stars of the constellation Gemini the Twins-Castor and Pollux.

Rudolf Steiner’s Lectures on this day

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

The Feast Day of St. Michael All the Heavenly Hosts, also called MICHAELMAS

1227 – Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, is excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX for his failure to participate in the Crusades. A man of extraordinary culture, energy, & ability Frederick II was called stupor mundi (the wonder of the world), by Nietzsche, also the first European, the first modern ruler – by many historians, Frederick established in Sicily & southern Italy a modern, centrally governed kingdom with an efficient bureaucracy.

He was a King of Germany, of Italy, & Burgundy. His other royal title was King of Jerusalem by virtue of marriage & his connection with the Sixth Crusade.

He was frequently at war with the Papacy, hemmed in between Frederick’s lands in northern Italy & his Kingdom of Sicily (the Regno) to the south. Pope Gregory IX went so far as to call him an Antichrist.

Speaking six languages (Latin, Sicilian, German, French, Greek & Arabic, Frederick was an avid patron of science & the arts. He played a major role in promoting literature through the Sicilian School of poetry. His Sicilian royal court in Palermo, saw the first use of a literary form of an Italo-Romance language, Sicilian. The poetry that emanated from the school had a significant influence on literature & on what was to become the modern Italian language.

He was also the first king who explicitly outlawed trials by ordeal as they were considered irrational.

Renaissance Master Caravaggio Didn't Die of Syphilis, but of Sepsis | Live  Science

1571 – Birthday of Caravaggio, Italian painter

1717 – An earthquake strikes Antigua Guatemala, destroying much of the city’s architecture & making authorities consider moving the capital to a different city

David Newbatt.

1812- Birthday of Caspar Hauser, grown up in the total isolation of a darkened cell. Theories link  him with the grand ducal House of Baden.These claims, & his subsequent death by stabbing, sparked much debate & controversy.

“…It was the case of that human being, so enigmatic for many people, who was once placed into this city in a mysterious way, and who in just as mysterious a way met his death in Ansbach. An author, in order to indicate the mystery of his life, wrote that as he was carried out to burial the sun was setting on the one horizon and the moon was rising on the other. I speak, as you know, of Caspar Hauser. If you disregard all the pros and cons that have been asserted, if you look only at what has been fully verified, you will know that this foundling — who was one day simply there in the street, and who since he did not know whence he came, was called the Child of Europe — could neither read nor write when he was found. At an age of twenty years he possessed nothing of what is gained through the intellect but he had a remarkable memory. As they began to instruct him, as logic entered his soul, his memory disappeared. This transition in consciousness was accompanied by something else. He possessed at first an incredible, an entirely inborn truthfulness and it was precisely in this truthfulness that he went more and more astray. The more he nibbled, so to say, at intellectuality, the more it vanished. There would be many things to study were we to enter deeply into this human soul which had been artificially held back. It is not difficult for the student of Spiritual Science to credit the popular tradition, so unacceptable to the learned people of to-day, which relates that while Caspar Hauser still knew nothing, while he still had no idea that there were beings besides himself of different form, he exercised a remarkable effect upon quite savage creatures. Savage animals humbled themselves and became mild, something streamed from him that made such beasts gentle, although they savagely attacked anyone else. We could in fact penetrate deeply into the soul of this remarkable personality, so enigmatic to many, and you would see how things that cannot be explained from ordinary life are led back through Spiritual Science to spiritual facts. Such facts cannot be learnt by speculation but only by spiritual observation, though they are comprehensible to an unbiased and logical thinking.

All this has only been said in order to show you that the modern consciousness has evolved from another, an age-old-state when man was not in direct touch with outer objects in the modern sense, but on the other hand was in connection with facts and beings of the spiritual world.” ~Rudolf SteinerThe Apocalypse of St. John, Spiritual Science — The Gospel — The Future of Mankind

1902 – Deathday of Émile Zola a French novelist, playwright, journalist, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, & an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism. He was a major figure in the political liberalization of France & in the exoneration of the falsely accused & convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus, which is encapsulated in the renowned newspaper headline J’accuse. Zola was nominated for the first & second Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901 & 1902. His death from carbon monoxide poisoning is suspected to have been murder

1924 – Ludwig Polzer holds his 1st First Class Lesson

1954 – The convention establishing CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) is signed

1957 – Twenty MCi of radioactive material is released in an explosion at the Soviet Mayak nuclear plant at Chelyabinsk

1981 – Deathday of Adolf Arenson, German composer & Anthroposopher. Arenson editied many of Rudolf Steiner’s works, & composed the music for many of the plays & productions. Steiner mentions him at the end of Wonders of the World lecture 1

Biggest 1-day drops for the Dow Jones industrial average | The Seattle Times

2008 – Following the bankruptcies of Lehman Brothers & Washington Mutual, The Dow Jones Industrial Average falls 777.68 points, the largest single-day point loss in its history

REGISTRATION CLOSES OCTOBER 1ST

  • 1st make sure you are registered at https://www.anthroposophy.org/fallconference and have indicated that you will be attending in person at the RSBranch Chicago.
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You will enjoy a pre-AGM dinner on Thursday Oct. 7 Doors open at 5 pm. 
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and Lunch post-conference on Sunday.
As well as Snacks/Coffee-Tea during the breaks.

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For those who are longing for a deep dive: The Applied Anthroposophy Course (AAC) brings transformative online content into the alchemy of individual and group inner work. The mission is to explore the urgent issues of our time through the lens of spiritual philosophy, awakening meaning, inner reflection, and outer action.

I will be facilitating one of the Chrysalis Groups: ‘The Cycle of the Year as a Path of Initiation into the New Mysteries’ –

The Royal Art of community awaits your participation.

See you there

~hag

10 thoughts on “The Mission of Michael

  1. You mention that at the “Turning Point of Time” Michael became an Archai. I’ve heard this before, and it confuses me, because as of Sept. 25, 1924, Steiner stated that “Michael, who has the degree of an archangel, does not have the rank of Satan, who has the degree of an archai. Michael is ‘only’ an archangel.” (Lecture 11 from the Book of Revelation, given in Dornach). Later in the same lecture, he repeats this, saying “Michael works from the Sun and has become what occultism calls the archangel of the orbital periods.”

    So I’m left to thinking that one of Steiner’s students has put this idea into the minds of Anthroposophists, and it keeps getting repeated as fact. Is there a simple explanation to this confusing point?

    1. Yes, it is confusing because Steiner also is very clear about the evolution of this Being.
      The quote you site is making the point of Michael’s origin, but as we know there is an upward movement with the progressive beings & especially after the Mystery of Golgotha.
      I had this same conversation with another & was able to provide the reliant quotes, but alas I am not organized enough at the moment to find them.
      I will try to return to this after the conference when my time is more free…
      Thank you for your ever keen discernment & potent questions

      1. Okay, thanks Hazel. I’ve been puzzling over this for a while, so can patiently wait a while longer. The conference has a set date that you need be prepared for; wouldn’t want to interfere with that. Cheers.

        1. This is an excellent explanation of Michael’s advancement from Archangel to Archai from May of 1913:

          “We are standing at an important turning-point. To understand Spiritual Science means fundamentally nothing else than to have a true feeling for the turning-point to which we have come in our age.

          Now all the Beings who belong to the Hierarchy of the Archangels are not of the same nature nor of the same rank. When we speak of the Hierarchy of the Archangels we can say that they ‘relieve’ one another in the way I have described to you, but the highest in rank, as it were the chief, is the one who takes over the leadership in our age — Michael. Michael is one of the order of Archangels, but he is from a certain aspect the most advanced. Now there is, as you know, evolution; and evolution embraces all Beings. Beings are in an ascending evolution, and we live in the era when Michael, the chief of those of the nature of the Archangels, passes over into the nature of the Archai. He will gradually pass over into a Guiding Being, he will become the Spirit of the Time, the Being who leads and guides the whole of humanity. It is of the utmost importance that we should understand this. It means that something which in all previous epochs has not been there for the whole of mankind, now can and must become a possession of all mankind. What formerly appeared among certain peoples here and there — spiritual deepening — can now be something for the whole of humanity.”

          https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA/GA0152/19130518p01.html

          1. Rudolf Steiner would go on to elaborate Michael as the leading Time Spirit of our age the next year when in September 1914 he spoke these words on the verge of World War I:

            “My friends, these are the days when every soul that has learned to look into the spiritual world needs to send imploring thoughts to the spirits it believes to be its guardians. These spirits may be asked to show us the right way into our age. And we shall know in our hearts what is right, shall be conscious of the right power in our souls, as we turn to the spirit that is to guide us through our incarnations on earth to what will be truly right for ourselves. You may ask how we are able to know that we are addressing the right spirit. We shall be able to be aware of this if we approach this spirit in a way that is in accord with the true Christ impulse.

            For the spirit that guides us towards what is right — and we can be quite certain of this, dear friends — is allied with Christ, is in dialogue with Christ. This spirit is holding such a dialogue with the Christ in the spiritual world now — so that out of the purpose for which battles are fought and blood is shed the right thing may come for the good of mankind. It is in the spirit of Christ that we turn to the spirit who we hope will protect us. Then it will be the right spirit.

            The nature of a spirit is, in the language of spiritual science, referred to as the ‘age’ of this spirit. The word is used in this way in the formula you will be hearing next. The term ‘age’ is more or less synonymous with the ‘nature’ of the spirit, for we have come to distinguish spirits on the basis of their age. We speak of Luciferic and Ahrimanic spirits in exactly this way, knowing that they are now at an age when it is not right for them to develop something that during the right epoch would be the proper thing for the evolving world. This is why we speak of the age of a spirit when we mean its essential nature. The formula is as follows:

            Spirit of my space on earth,
            Reveal the light of thine age
            To the Christ-endowed soul,
            That striving it may find
            In harmony of spheres of peace
            Thee ringing with praise and power
            Of mind of man all given up to Christ.

            https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA157/English/RSP1987/19140901a01.html

            1. Thanks once again Steve. This spirit who is in dialogue with Christ, I’m assuming, is Michael? I haven’t read the lecture you referenced.

              So, I know this is a tricky question, but I’m curious? Is that bad, to be curious I mean? Do you think the mysterious “M” whom Steiner met refers to this one who dialogues with Christ? I’ve often wondered who “M” refers to; maybe no one but Steiner knows the answer.

              1. Indeed, Maverick, it is very good to be curious. Curiosity promotes the renewal of the lost art and science of Dialectics, which first formed in the Greek epoch with Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. I just finished an extended conversation with a German friend and anthroposophist on this subject of the *Master* that Rudolf Steiner indicates as being influential in his life. Before meeting the *Master*, Steiner indicates certain emissaries coming into his life in preparation for this meeting. This goes back to when he was a little boy, and then proceeds to other figures, such as the layman he met when the family moved near Vienna in 1879, and was encouraged to sell his school books from the Realschule in order to buy and read all he could of the works of J.G. Fichte. This was followed closely by the meeting with the herb-gatherer on the train into Vienna. As well, there was Karl Julius Schroer, who gave Steiner the assignment to edit Goethe’s scientific writings. He was the emissary that Steiner finally identified as having been Plato in a prior life.

                Now, while it can be shown that Rudolf Steiner’s life was being guided by Michael since 1879, in three specific 7-year periods of development leading to the year 1900, Steiner himself indicates in biographical sketches written for Edouard Schure in September 1907, that his incarnation has to do with Christian Rosenkreutz. And, he reveals that behind Christian Rosenkreutz is Manes. Thus, it is Manes that is the initiator of Christian Rosenkreutz by giving the incentive to write the Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, anno 1459. By the year 1900, this “chymical wedding” had been duly transformed for the occident as Anthroposophical Spiritual Science. We know that Rudolf Steiner is the author of this.

                There is more specific documentation that supports all of this if you and others are interested. Curiosity is like wondering, and how beautiful that is for edification. All it takes is the desire to know.

              2. Thanks again, Steve. This is very helpful information which I wasn’t aware of. And thank your German friend for me as well. Cheers.

            2. Hi Hazel,

              I know that you are busy tweaking and fine-tuning the upcoming AGM Conference, but I wanted to give some encouraging words for it with this opportunity to signify Michael’s Presence today as the leading Time-Spirit of our age. Thus, the previous quotes are designed for this occasion. I am someone that sees that the present anthroposophical scene needs a lot of perspective in order to really begin to appreciate what is going on. For example, when Rudolf Steiner was in England for the last time in August 1924, giving the lectures on “True and False Paths…..”, he was also formulating his very last message to the world. These would be the letters associated with the Michael Mystery in its final summation, and they began on August 17, 1924, and had 29 total submissions until these letters were completed on April 12, 1925, thirteen days after Rudolf Steiner’s death on March 30, 1925.

              https://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA026/English/APC1956/GA026_index.html

              As such, Rudolf Steiner makes it very clear here that Michael is the new Archai Regent who specifically wants to involve itself with Christ in order to create the Michael-Christ connection. This has the effect of extending what Saint Paul is famous for saying, i.e., “Not I, but Christ in me”, to an extended formulation, which now states: “Not I, but Christ and Michael in me”.

              This belief when exercised has untold significance because when entertained it leads directly to the power of Michael. The letters prepare for this, which can be realized every day. Rudolf Steiner’s final summation was rather silent, but very potent for those today who see its working in their daily lives. It has the power to defeat the creeping beast.

              Now, I’m done. I wait in anticipation for the conference. Thanks for having this listening board, Hazel, who encourages conversations.

              1. Thanks Steve – you’ve given us plenty to study here in your final words before the conference. You’ve left no question unanswered, for which I’m grateful. Your advice has been most helpful. Cheers.

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