I AM, Page 10

Let us now see if we can discover the meaning of the third sentence. We must first try to picture the conditions prevailing in man’s inner life when the astral body had gradually lost the power to send out its forces like feelers and to see clairvoyantly into the divine-spiritual world. Formerly, when the astral body was activated, man was able to look into that world, but this faculty was disappearing and darkness spreading within him. He had once been able to expand his astral body over all the beings of the spiritual world, but now he was inwardly desolate, inwardly isolated—the Greek word is epnuoc. At that time the human soul lived in isolation, in desolation. This is what the Greek text tells us: Lo, a voice seems to speak in the desolation of the soul—call it “wilderness” of the soul if you like—when the astral body can no longer expand into the divine-spiritual world. Hear the cry in the wilderness, in the desolation of the soul!

What is it that is being proclaimed in advance? First of all we must be clear about the meaning of the word Kyrios, when it was used in Hebrew but also still in Greek in reference to manifestations of the soul and spirit. To translate it simply as “the Lord,” with the usual connotation, is sheer nonsense. In ancient times everyone using the word Kyrios knew perfectly well that its meaning was connected with the development of man’s soul-life and its mysteries. In the astral body, as we know, are the forces of thinking, feeling and willing; the soul thinks, feels and wills. These are the three forces working in the soul but they are actually its servants. In earlier times man was under their domination and he obeyed them, but as his evolution progressed these forces were to become the servants of the Kyrios, the Ruler, the Lord—in short, of the “I.” Used in relation to the soul, the word Kyrios actually meant the “I.” At this stage it would no longer be true to say: “The Divine-Spiritual thinks, feels and wills in me,” but rather: “I think, I feel, I will.” The passage should be rendered more or less as follows.—Prepare yourselves, you human souls, to move along those paths that will awaken the Kyrios, the powerful “I” within you; listen to the cry in the solitude of the soul. Make ready the path (or way) of the “I,” the Lord of the soul. Open the way for his forces so that he may no longer be the slave but the Ruler of thinking, feeling and willing. Lo, the power that is the “I” sends his Angel before you, the Angel who is to give you the possibility of understanding the cry in the solitude of the astral soul. Prepare the paths of the “I,” open the way for the forces of the “I.”—Such is the meaning of these significant words of the prophet Isaiah; they point to the greatest of all events in the evolution of humanity. You will now understand the sense in which he speaks about the future John the Baptist, indicating how man’s soul in its solitude longs for the coming of its Lord and Ruler, the “I.” Such is the real meaning of this passage and in this sense it is to be understood.

_____________________

[Before returning to the text it is important to realize who the angelic “messenger” working through John the Baptist was. When Steiner said the messenger was an angel, it is as though he sensed that the revelation of angelic activity alone was a sufficient leap for his hearers at that moment. But we should not now stop there, for he elsewhere revealed that the messenger was more exalted than would be implied by the hierarchical designation “angel.” We are really speaking of the angel who was to succeed the Archangel Michael, chief among the Archangels, the one related to the Sun (see I-19, especially its last three paragraphs), and Folk-Spirit of the Hebrew people. The student will garner more from this revelation after reading about Elijah in “Widow’s Son” below, especially its fn 15 dealing with this “angel.” See also Occult Science and Occult Development (OSOD), Lect. 2, May 2, 1913, also found in the anthology The Archangel Michael (ARCHM) under the title, “Michael, The Messenger of Christ.”

Aside from Gabriel, Michael is the only Archangel mentioned in the canon (Dan 10,13,21; 12 1; Jude 1,9; Rev 12,7). We see in I-19 that there are seven archangelic regencies, each of something over three hundred years, in each Cultural Age of twenty one hundred and sixty (2,160) years (or one twelfth of a Cosmic Year, the period it takes the Sun to travel around the full Zodiac). Steiner tells us that it was not unusual in esoteric writings such as the Bible for a “day” to mean a year, and perhaps a “year,” in turn, might mean a century (cf. I-65). It is thus curious that in speaking of Michael, Daniel refers to twenty-one days (Dan 10,13). And just after the blowing of the seventh “Trumpet” in Rev 11,15, we find the cosmic events described in Rev 12,7 where Michael appears fighting with the dragon. We will see below that each Trumpet was also associated with a 2,160-year period in a future Cultural Age. Steiner tells us that the number “one thousand two hundred and sixty days” in Rev 11,3 and 12,6 resulted from a transposition in copying whereby two thousand one hundred sixty (2,160) was incorrectly written as one thousand two hundred sixty (1,260). See Lect. 14, Sept. 18, 1924, of the cycle The Apocalypse (APOC-CC).

Why do I belabor the point of this two-millennia period? It is not impertinent, even though supported by the observations in “Karma and Reincarnation” above, to wonder about Steiner’s assertion that karma and reincarnation were not to be taught exoterically by the Church for two thousand years; and that the “Second Coming” would start to be witnessed by some among humanity after two thousand years. The point at issue bears upon this query. The Archangel Michael is the one in charge of administering the divine intelligence, intelligence that enables direct perception of spiritual reality. The heavenly battle caused the dragon, the deceiving Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces (2 Th 2,1-11), to be thrown down to earth to do battle there against the child who was born and the rest of the woman’s offspring (Rev 12,7-13). That battle would rage for the three and a half Cultural Eras left in the post-Atlantean Epoch (see I-1), esoterically called “a time, and times and half a time” (Rev 12,14), though this esoteric phrase may refer to the larger cycles and recurring battles between these adversaries as well. The “woman” is the heavenly Anthroposophia (I-18), the divine wisdom, the most holy virgin, and the child is the Christ delivered to Earth. What is important for us to realize is that the last regency of Michael before the birth of the Christ child was during the period when Greek philosophy culminated in Plato and Aristotle and then through the latter’s pupil prepared the world for Paul’s evangelization (I-19). Michael, the Sun Archangel, would not again reign until the period of three-hundred-plus years beginning in 1879. The former Folk-Spirit of the Hebrew people, the Archangel who had indwelt Elijah and then as the “messenger” (Mk 1,2; Is 40,3) speaking through John the Baptist had prepared the way for Christ in the flesh, has become the guiding spiritual force in preparing humanity to recognize Christ in the etheric world. The former Archangel became an Archai (Time Spirit) in 1879, and was succeeded as Archangel by the former guardian angel of the Buddha (again, see fn 15 in “Widow’s Son”). That combination becomes enormously powerful working together now in the first Michaelic regency since the Christian era began. This makes it possible for human intelligence to begin to rise to the level of recognizing the Christ in the etheric world, and to perceive the spiritual reality of karma and reincarnation, through the development of a new organ of spiritual perception as discussed in “Second Coming.” This could not happen for two thousand years from the Incarnation, i.e., until after 1879.]