II. The Human Soul before the Dawn of the Michael Age

But into these views of external materiality, there may enter anew a living, inner realization of the spirit in the world, and therewith once more a spiritual view of it. The science of Nature, that has been acquired under the sign of Materialism, may receive a spiritual form of conception in the inner life of the soul. Michael, who once spoke ‘from above,’ may be heard ‘from within,’ where he will make his new abode. In more imaginative language, it may be thus expressed: That Sun-life, which through long ages Man drew from without, from the Cosmos only, will begin to shine within, in the soul. Man will learn to speak of an ‘inner Sun.’ He will know none the less well on this account, that he is a being of the Earth in his life between birth and death; but he will be conscious that his own being is Sun-guided on its earthly travels. He will learn to be aware in truth of a being that lives within him and that sheds a light which lights the life of Earth, but is not lit there. In the first dawn of the Michael Age, it may still seem as though mankind were very far from all this. But ‘in the spirit’ it is not far; it is close at hand; it only needs to be ‘ seen.’ That Man's Ideas do not remain merely ‘thinking’ only, but turn in thought to ‘ seeing,’ is a fact on which immeasurably much depends.