Lecture IX

As we consider this, we are standing more or less within the realm of what a person develops in conscious life, but much that lives in the human being is also unconscious, or not clearly conscious. Now we might say that the connection between an individual and his or her angel is a real one, but then so is one's connection with the hierarchy of the archangels and that of the archai. The misinterpretation of the angel, which is performed more or less consciously, leads also more or less consciously to a materialistic conception of the world, not in the case of the individual human being but gradually over a period of time. When we are talking about an individual's relation to his angel, we are still dealing in some way with conscious processes of the human soul. But in the relationship of the human being to the hierarchy of the archangels, we already stand in the midst of something of which man knows little; something of which he speaks a great deal at times but regarding which he knows almost nothing. Nowadays, to be sure, we have confessions directed not to the hierarchy of the archangels but frequently to one archangel—not a clearly expressed confession but the inclination of the feeling nature to one or another of the archangels. At least in one field this bore obvious fruit during the nineteenth century: in the rise of the idea of nationality. This idea is grounded in an unconscious desire to overlook the cooperation among the archangels and instead, be inclined to always embrace a single archangel. Something egoistic lies at the basis of this as is the case with man's inclination to a single angel, but here the egoism is of a social nature.