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THE FIRST FIVE EVENTS IN THE CURRENT AGE OF MICHAEL
~ Thomas Meyer
Today we are living in the seventh small archangelic period with the fifth post - Atlantean Epoch; we can express this in abbreviated form as 5/7. This seventh smaller period is the Age of Michael, which began in 1879.
The present Age of Michael has been characterized thus far by five great spiritual events. The mere relating of the dates in which these events have fallen can already reveal to the observer familiar with spiritual science something of the spiritual span of this Michael Age. These dates are: 1879, 1899, 1933, 1998, and today. This spectrum of events becomes all the more expressive when we refer even superficially to the spiritual events that have occurred at these times: the rise of the Archangel Michael to the rank of Time Spirit ( 1879 ), the end of the Kali Yuga period ( 1899 ), the beginning of the etheric appearance of Christ ( 1933 ), the beginning of the activity of Sorath, who is the cosmic opponent of Christ ( 1988 ), and finally the incarnation of Ahriman 'before even a part of the third millennium of the Christian era has run its course'.
The five events all fall in the current Michael Age. That these so completely different processes all occur in the first half of our Michael Age characterizes this Michael Age and the Michael Spirit leading it much more concretely than would be possible through any kind of direct conceptual discussion of the being of Michael, for theoretically, the five events could be shared out among different archangelic ages by the spiritual guidance of the world. However, it was evidently the intention of the spiritual leaders of mankind to have them all occur during the first half of the current Michael Age...
1. The Beginning of the Age of Michael in November 1879.
The first spiritual event is of course at the beginning of the Age of Michael itself. It occurred exactly at the time of the first Moon Node which the young Rudolf Steiner experienced shortly after his arrival in Vienna in autumn 1879.
Steiner was therefore a direct witness in his soul and spirit of the beginning of the new Age of Michael. At this time also occurred Steiner's meeting with one of his 'Masters', if not with both of them. This meeting planted the seed for a comprehensive spiritualization of his intellect, as is shown in Steiner's basic work: 'The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity', from which resulted a spiritual observation of the evolution of the world and mankind, as was later expressed in his 'Occult Science: An Outline'. How far 'The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity' was Steiner's and actual Michaelic work will be briefly discussed later. First, it should be pointed out that it was the only one of his works which is mentioned in his last written work, the so - called 'Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts', at the centre of which are considerations about Michael.
Symptomatic of one of the tasks of the Age of Michael, noted by Walter Johannes Stein, that in 1879 the concept of the 'world economy' first made its appearance. Here the cosmopolitan element is evident, as well as the task of needing to enter into the most earthly realities in accordance with spiritual perspectives. During his lifetime ( 1861 - 1925 ) Steiner was not only a witness of the first and second events in the early Age of Michael but was a herald of the three later events.
2. The End of Kali Yuga on 19 February 1899
In 1899 the 5,000 year - long Age of Darkness ( Kali Yuga ) came to an end: according to one indication by Elizabeth Vreede this occurred on 19 February 1899.
As the concept of Kali Yuga is less familiar to the Western spiritual seeker than that of a new Age of Michael, it will be outlined a little further here. For 5,000 years, mankind had developed from the condition of ancient clairvoyance into one of grasping the physical world through the senses and the intellect. Indian tradition sees the beginning of Kali Yuga at the time of the 'death' of the god Krishna in 3101 B.C. The "Bhagavad Gita' relates how Krishna first instructs the hero Arjuna that spiritual truths are no longer to be merely inspirational or imaginative but are to be grasped by means of pure thinking. So in the Second Song comes the great teaching of the immortality of the human soul in the form of thoughts -- a revolutionary innovation for the time. Pure thinking emerged as the final remnant, or as the newest transformative product of the old imaginative and inspirational clairvoyance. It rose up into the same, light spiritual heights from which earlier Intuitions, Inspirations and Imaginations had streamed into human consciousness.
In the course of 5,000 years, human thinking sank from the exalted heights of its origins down to a mere grasping of material sense reality. Over many centuries this certainly enabled the development of natural science and technology, but in its devotion to grasping the world of the senses, thinking was threatened with the loss of its own spiritual origins.
In the middle of this developmental crisis of human thinking, which had originally been born of the spirit, with the end of Kali Yuga -- hardly 20 years after the end of the Age of Michael -- came the turning point towards the Age of Light.
In Rudolf Steiner's development the years 1898 - 9 likewise show a spiritual turning point. In his autobiography 'The Course of My Life' he speaks of a
'struggle against demonic powers which wanted to facilitate not a spiritual way of seeing in understanding nature but a mechanistic - naturalistic way of thinking [...] At that time I had to save my spiritual vision in the midst of inner storms [...] Before the turn of the century my soul was tested as described. My soul development came to the point where, in spirit, I stood before the Mystery of Golgotha in a most intimate, most solemn celebration of knowledge'.
The 26th chapter of 'The Course of My Life' closes with the last two sentences, and the following three sentences introduce the 27th chapter: 'It was clear to me then that the turn of the century would bring a new spiritual light to mankind. It seemed to me that the isolation of human thinking and will from the spirit had reached a peak. A turnaround in mankind's path of development seemed to me to be a necessity'.
3. The Reappearance of Christ in the Etheric from 1933
Steiner referred to this third, most important spiritual event in general form from 1909 onwards. He spoke about it quite unequivocally on 12 January 1910 in a special lecture in Stockholm to members of the Theosophical Society. This "happened to be' the same day which in Adyar ( India ) saw completion of the 'initiation' of Krishnamurti who was presented by leading Theosophists there as the physically reincarnated Bodhisattvas or Christ -- no clear distinction was made between these two beings. ( see T. H. Meyer: "The Bodhisattvas Question' )
No stenographic record has survived of the Stockholm lecture. Only some notes by Marie von Sivers provide some information about it in the form of abbreviated phrases. First she wrote: '3000 B.C.Kali Yuga began, lasted until 1899'. According to the brief notes by Marie von Sivers, it was foreseen that the Reappearance of Christ would take place in the year 1933. Later, a few years were grouped around 1933.
[ Translation of Notes by Marie von Sivers:
3000 BC. Kali Yuga began, lasted till 1899 . Time of transition.
1933 -- people will emerge again with clairvoyant capacities, which will develop in natural ways.
In the times we are approaching, emerging clairvoyant faculties will have to be encountered and experienced which they ( people ) will have to begin to do.
I am with you all always to the end of the world.
Christ will appear in etheric form. The physical Christ became the spirit of our Earth -- that was the mid - point, the fulcrum, of Earth development.
5 Letter of the Apocalypse: I shall come but be alert lest you do not recognize me.
Mankind has 2,500 years to redevelop clairvoyant gifts. Around 1933 the Gospels must be so well understood in their spiritual sense that they will have worked to prepare the way for Christ. Otherwise, there would be unending confusion in the soul. Around 1933 there will be emissaries from black magic schools who will falsely proclaim a physical Christ. Every time Christ is supposed to be perceptible, he is perceptible for other capacities'. ]
The Reappearance of Christ in the Etheric as well as the two following events announced by Steiner were not experienced by him on the physical plane.
4. The Attack of Sorath in 1998 and its Precursors in the Twentieth Century
The fourth event in the renewed incursion into the course of history of 'the most powerful demons in our solar system', one of the "greatest ahrimanic demons', who is ralated to the number 666 and who bears the name Sorath. Rudolf Steiner calls him the 'Sun - Demon'. For the audience of priests at his lectures on the Apocalypse ( GA 346 ) in 1924 he drew the occult sign of the demon on the blackboard, as he had done before during the Apocalypse cycle lecture in Nuremberg in 1908. Observation of this sign can reveal much of its spiritual nature, which is also true in the most positive sense for the signs of Christ and Michael.
In the Apocalypse lectures for the priests Steiner refers to the year 1998 as the third 'Sorath year' of the Christian era. Anti - spiritual impulses of the strongest kind are associated with every one of these Sorath years.
The first Sorath year, 666, is related to the Academy of Gondishapur, the activities of which were intended to bring about a premature development of humanity intellectualty; this was prevented and dampened down by the impulse of Mohammed ( Islam ).
In the period of the second Sorath year ( 2 × 666 ), the Order of the Knights Templar was destroyed by Philip the Fair of France and Pope Clement V who was beholden to him: "confessions' obtained under torture ( and later mostly recanted ) were used to convict the Templars, who were arrested in a coup de main which took place throughout France on a single night. In the period around the third Sorath year of 1998 the great world catastrophe of 9/11 took place ( see T.H. Meyer: "Reality, Truth and Evil: Facts, Questions, and Perspectives on September 11, 2001. See all the various books on the subject by David Ray Griffin. ), 77 years after Steiner's momentous revelations about Sorath in September 1924. This resulted in acts of torture committed worldwide by the regime of the US military junta in the name of 'the War on Terror' ( see Sevak Gulbekian: 'Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace' ), which were supposed to secure the conviction of the perpetrators of terrorism and which in their cruelty were on a par with the tortures committed against the Templars.
1914 - 1933: The Preludes to the Third Sorath Attack
In his lectures to the priests on the subject of the Apocalypse, Rudolf Steiner indicated that there would be grim preludes to the third attack by Sorath. The first had played itself out at the time of the outbreak of the First World War: Steiner saw the second in Bolshevism, which burst upon the world in 1917. We can see a third prelude in Hitler's seizure of power in 1933 and its consequences.
On September 12th 1924, Steiner said to the priests ( GA 346 ): "The way will be paved for the entry of the demons which are the servants of the great demon Sorath':
'One only needs to speak to informed people who, for example, know something about the outbreak of the First World War. One will not be wrong when one says that of the approximately 40 individuals who were responsible for the outbreak of the war, almost all of them were in a state of lowered consciousness at the time. This is always the point of entry for ahrimanic demonic powers, and one of the greatest of these demons is Sorath. They are the attempts from the side of Sorath to penetrate, at least temporarily at first, into human consciousness and to bring disaster and confusion'.
On 31May 1924 in the 14th Class Lesson, Steiner had already given an indication in just this same direction. He spoke then too of the 30 - 40 individuals who had taken part in the outbreak of the war and who 'at the decisive moment had a clouded consciousness. He even stated that precisely in this regard, an adequate history of the war could never be written on the basis of documented outer facts alone. "This war can only be written in an occult sense'. A statement ti be taken especially seriously in the 100th year since the outbreak of the war!
In the lectures to the priests in September 1924, the ahrimanic spirituality that was active in the world war was described as sorathic - ahrimanic. It was not the war as such that should be seen as the work of Sorath -- it has causes that had to do with world karma which to a considerable extent were to be traced back to the division of East and West that was initiated by Rome in the ninth century -- but rather 'what followed it and which is dreadful and will become ever more dreadful, for example, the present condition of Russia, that is something which the Sorath spirits pressing into human souls are striving for'. The rising tide of Bolshevism therefore, together with its gualags that showed themselves later, were described as sorathic -- that is, radically anti - human and anti spiritual.
The same must be said in regard to the world - historical events of the year 1933: National Socialism and its anti - human institutions and activities were ahrimanic and sorathic in nature, apart from the more Luciferic pomp and display, which, for example, was on show at the cultic Nazi Party rallies:
'One will see people', said Steiner on 12 September 1924, 'whom one cannot believe are actually human. Outwardly, they will have intensely strong natures with violent dispositions, a destructive will in their emotions: they will pour scorn in the most appalling manner on everything spiritual and fight against it and throw it on the fire'.
Such people did appear during the twelve year - long horror of the Nazi regime: they appeared during the 70 year - long nightmare of Bolshevism. And Steiner prophesied that what was concentrated 'in its core' in Bolshevism at that time, 'would be inserted into the whole earthly development of mankind'.
Doubtless this also applies to what was 'concentrated' in Nazism. The same could be said with regard to developments in China and other states in Asia.
All of this, however, represented 'only' a kind of varieagated prelude to the main attack around the year 1998. Now the human beings inspired by Sorath appeared more within the Americanism that had risen to world power since 1945 and which is concerned -- and from the world - historical perspective indeed must be concerned -- to ensure that the sorathic seeds of earthly development that were sown in Nazism and Bolshevism are permanently incorporated in this development; in order words, that the formation of the two sole remaining great 'Races' of the sixth Great Earth Epoch will actually be accomplished -- that of spiritually oriented human individualities and that which rages in fury against everything which is of a spiritual nature.
1933 & the Beast from the Earth.
In his Apocalypse lectures of September 1924 Steiner revealed something that was of great significance with regard to the year 1933. He indicated that the "beasts' in the Apocalypse always have to do with comets and their appearances. Some comets have favourable effects, others negative effects. Such negative effects would have stemmed from a particular comet which, if it had turned up at the time calculated for it, would have destroyed the Earth in the year 1933, but it did not do so because it had broken apart earlier. This indeed happened but, because of it, the Earth was permeated by the substance of the comet which then rose up out of the Earth in the year 1933 -- as the substance of the two - horned beast.
So the year 1933 was both the year of the Etheric Christ and also the year of the strongest prelude to the third world - historical attack by Sorath which culminated in 1998.
Sympathy for the Devil
Rudolf Steiner already indicated in Stockholm in 1910 that around 1933 there will be envoys of black magic schools who will announce the false appearance of a physical Christ. Such teachings about Christ one can find among Seven Day Adventists, so - called Evangelical Christians, the Mormons. In addition, one can speak of a perverse tendency throughout the twentieth century to make sorathic evil even more socially acceptable. Alistair Crowley, the English occultist with black magic inclinations and methods, can be regarded as a groundbreaker in this direction. Crowley identified himself with the "Beast' from the Apocalypse. One of the founder members of the rock band the Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger, became interested in Crowley. ( as was Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page who purchased Crowley's former residence, Boleskine House in Scotland ). Symtomatic of this deviant tendency was the band's song "Sympathy for the Devil', which could be heard playing prior to Barack Obama's first public speech in Berlin before his election as US President.
Also in Berlin, in 1989, the year of 'the fall of the Wall', the 'Sorat' Hotel Group was founded: twelve hotels in Germany now bear the name 'Sorat'. Charles Kovacs created a painting of Sorath ( see painting below ) which portrays in a masterly fashion the glisteningly seductive and utter heartlessness of the "Beast'.
5. The Incarnation of Ahriman in the West at the Beginning of the Third Millennium
The fifth spiritual event in the Age of Michael thus far is the incarnation of Ahriman in the West, which Rudolf Steiner spoke about in a series of lectures in the autumn of 1919 ( see GA 191 and 193 ). This event falls at the beginning of the third millennium. Unlike the exact indications of time for all the previous four events, here we must be satisfied with an approximate indication but one which, seen in the context of the time, is yet quite precise, and which in any case has to do with the beginning of our millennium.
This comes from the following indication by Rudolf Steiner on 1 November 1919. In this lecture, Steiner states that the incarnation of Ahriman will occur "before even a part of the third millennium of the Christian era has run its course" ( GA 191 ). This formulation points to the first decade of this millennium, if by 'part' one understands a hundredth of a millennium. It seems to us improbable that, by 'part', Steiner could have meant a tenth of the third millennium: if so, his prophecy would have referred in a vague fashion to the whole of the twentieth century.
The Sorath attack of 1998 represents the direct historical prelude to the incarnation of Ahriman. It is the first and only incarnation of this being, comparable with the single incarnation of Lucifer in the third millennium B.C. and the Incarnation of Christ at the Turning Point of Time in Palestine.
Steiner indicated a whole series of phenomena and tendencies through which Ahriman has sought to prepare for his incarnation in ways that would be favorable for him. The means by which, in Ahriman's sense, this incarnation can be most successfully prepared for are, amongst others: the spread of the ideology and practice of nationalism and racism; the belief in the omnipotent nature of statistical data, for example also in medical practice; political party management; a one - sided materialistic cosmology; the tendency to spiritual revelations that make no demands on the recipients, and the belief in the omnipotence of the unitary State. And last and not least: the false, that is, the literal understanding of the Gospels, uninformed by spiritual perspectives.
'In the Sign of Five: An Apocalyptic View of Contemporary History'.
