XII. Before the Door of the Spiritual Soul

> 1. At the beginning of the Age of the Spiritual Soul, the emancipated intellectual power in Man begins to busy itself in examining the truths of religious faith and worship. Man's soul-life is thereby inevitably thrown into uncertainty. Essential realities which men had formerly realized in the inner life of the soul, they now seek to prove logically. Contents of religious ritual, which should be grasped in Imaginations, they now try to grasp by logical deduction—and even to determine the forms accordingly. > 2. This is all connected with the fact, that Michael under all circumstances is resolved to avoid every contact with the present earth-world, on which Man is obliged to set foot; but that nevertheless Michael has to remain with the stream of Cosmic Intellectuality, of which he was regent in the past, and to conduct it further within Man. Hereby there arises through the Michael Forces—necessarily for the progress of human evolution—a disturbance of the cosmic equilibrium. > 3. The difficulty of Michael's mission is lightened by certain persons—the genuine Rosicrucians—who so arrange their external way of life on earth that it exerts no sort of influence upon the inner life of their souls. By this means they are able, in their inner-life, to develop forces by which they can work with Michael in the spiritual field, without Michael's incurring the danger of becoming involved with the present doings of earth-life—which, for him, would be impossible.