Review of the Twilight and Resurrection of Humanity - the History of the Michaelic Movement since the death of Rudolf Steiner - by Ben-Aharon

 Review of The Twilight and Resurrection of Humanity, the History of the Michaelic Movement since the Death of Rudolf Steiner – an Esoteric Study by Yeshayahu Ben-Aharon

Temple Lodge, 2020, 338 pages 

Rudolf Steiner said, “As far as Anthroposophy is concerned, the Christmas Conference was either everything or nothing.” (GA 240). The same can be said of this book as a representative product of the whole of Ben-Aharon’s life and work: either this book is everything or it is nothing! 

The text contains 5 lectures that were originally given by Ben-Aharon in 2019 at the annual meeting of the School of Spiritual Science. The center of the book is a powerful call for us to wake up! Can we take off our blinders and see the painful but real spiritual position of humanity right now in the 21st century? The new light and love is now raying forth with growing energy from the Etheric Christ Event that is taking place in the spiritual fields closest to our daily consciousness – but do ‘anthroposophists’ remember, sense, and behold it? 

He writes that without developing this new form of imaginative cognition schooled through pure thinking, and also enlightening such free insight with the spiritual light of the Second Coming, we are no longer really connected as loyal students to the continual rebirth of the spiritual being of Anthroposophy. (p 327) “In order to experience and embody this infinite wisdom, truth, beauty and love and grow with it, each one must recognize, confront, heal and transform his and her lower nature... On this one decisive cliff, on the edge of this abyss, we repeatedly turn backward and therefore fall and lose our humanity...[but] we are eternally responsible for all our deeds and misdeeds.” (p 198)

This new etheric Christ-enlivened, Imaginative capacity, coupled with the basic self-knowledge required to approach the real spiritual world, as demonstrated in Steiner’s basic books, can then be used to penetrate into the dark and unconscious elements in each of our souls. Ben-Aharon humbly describes his own tumultuous biography – the opportunities, limits, and failures he encountered after meeting the etheric Christ at the age of 21 and while trying to bring His work to the earth over 40 years. He shows that these painful life lessons can be understood in their archetypal form through the Grail mysteries of Amfortas and Parsifal. “My two natures, the higher and the lower, became like opposite mirror images, and I was standing in the middle, unable to merge them into harmonious wholeness.” (p 18)  He then describes in detail how he was able to spiritually transform and heal these wounds by opening his whole heart and penetrating with feeling to the depth of his being. Like Parsifal, he had to recognize precisely how he had hurt his family in a soul and spiritual way before he could become whole. (pp 24-25) 

He shows that each one of us also has to walk this path in self-knowledge. Each one of us has to admit the painful reality that any spiritual scientific striving that does not feel the shock of World War 2 and the powers that warped the whole earth and the very nature of every human being, cannot really take one step forward. Yet each one of us must create a spark in order to join the spiritual flame. No passivity is possible any longer, as Ben-Aharon showed in his book The Spiritual Event of the 20th Century, because the Gods will no longer just give us the answer or the necessary forces. Here he deepens the description of that Event that took place between Michaelic souls and the Christ Spirit in the Spiritual World from 1933-1945. “It is an important part of our work to connect the three events, the twilight of the gods, the twilight of humanity in the twentieth century and its possible resurrection in the twenty-first century. We must become ourselves the seeds of humanity’s future resurrection.” (p 43) 

In order to contribute to this resurrection, new karmic plans were developed in the spiritual world in a spiritual council from 1945-1955. The reincarnation of a small band of Aristotelian souls who remained loyal to Rudolf Steiner was postponed, and instead a small group of the Platonic souls incarnated in the 2nd half of the 20th century. The task was now shifted into a small pioneering band of Platonic souls to use their high spiritual faculties to consciously develop a spiritual scientific path from human consciousness to the new Christ Event and Rudolf Steiner’s continued work in the Michael School. Only then could some of the Aristotelian souls begin to incarnate. Ben-Aharon’s work on the Christ Event has made this new co-working between reincarnating Aristotelians and Platonists possible in the 21st century. A community must now create a living etheric heart organ to pass down and expand during the whole Michael Age. The Michaelic Spirits are now working in an intensified way to help such honest community building work, such as through the new Reversed Cultus Ben-Aharon is developing. These heart practices are already becoming a reality in the Global Event College and the School of Spiritual Science (established in 2009).  In this book, we get the rare glimpse into the growth of a Michaelic esoteric school in real time. The book is a call for inspired people to join this work. 

Ben-Aharon also shows with uplifting vitality how the Michaelic movement can be resurrected today through the forces of the new work with the spirit of Vidar and the Etheric Christ, “We must take every physical word and deed of Rudolf Steiner and carry them to the presently living and active etheric world, where they can be transformed by the real spiritual events of the last century. Then we must let them be transformed accordingly to activate their spiritual etheric essence in our work with each other here and now.” (p 98)  This book is truly an esoteric study, and there are other important disclosures and hints that cannot be outlined here.

The Afterword describes the world-changing esoteric deeds that were accomplished by the Christ Being from the end of the 19th century, through 1933 and up to 1998, where He not only was spiritually crucified or suffocated, but actually buried and held firm inside His tomb by the evil deeds of humans. Indeed the Angel of the Christ was so wounded, that He needed the second half of the 20th century to be healed by the deeds of human love on the Earth. This intensification and healing of the Christ can also lead to humanity’s resurrection and the growth of a new spiritual consciousness, community, and love in the 21st century. Christ speaks, “The offer of all my love, life and light is constantly streaming into your etheric hearts. Take my offer into your whole being actively, encourage and empower yourself and your fellow humans! Unite with my cosmic deeds of healing and redemption, and join my angelic hosts, to build together the new Earthly-Human Sun!” (p 307) 

Is Ben-Aharon’s work truly connected to the continued work of Rudolf Steiner and the school of Michael in the spiritual world? Yes! This is indeed so, based on my own independent spiritual research and modest experience. The heart-beat of Michael and Christ pulsates through every word of this book, and for me this book is everything!  I mean that this book is a true and clear testimony that the Michaelic movement since the death of Rudolf Steiner is developing further, and that a spiritual scientific path exists to actualize such a new school of Love on the earth in the 21st century. I would recommend that everyone study this book as preparation for the celebration of the centennial of the Christmas Conference and for many years afterwards.

Scott Elliot Hicks, author of The Resurrection of Thinking (2018), and Earthly, Transcendental, & Spiritual Logic (2019). 

A simile to help you become conscious of the various layers and faculties active in thinking and imagining - The Painter and Her Canvas

 

                                                        Painting by Andreea Dumata 

1. Carefully observe a plant or an animal. Make a clear mental image. Make sure you clearly think through the idea of what this plant or animal is. Make all of your normal associations of the ideas and memories that are linked with this plant or animal. 

2. Now let us start to carefully separate the different parts or layers or elements of what you just accomplished while thinking and perceiving in normal consciousness. 

Look at the mental image or memory image of the animal in your mind's eye. Consider these aspects: 

i. The CANVAS - What are the qualities of this substance on which you 'paint' this memory image?  In other words, what is the canvas of memory made of? What are its qualities? 

ii. The BRUSHES - How do you change the colors or size of a mental image or memory picture? How do you change the angle you are viewing it from? What tools do you use to paint on the canvas? 

iii. The PAINT container - Where does the memory image come from? If you change its color or background, how do you dip your cognitive tools or brushes into the paint can? Where are the paint cans stored?  How do the brushes actually work? 

iv. The PAINTER's HANDS - When you rotate or enlarge or change the colors of a mental picture, or a memory image, what 'hands' are you using to turn this image? What are the acts of will that are working with the brushes?

v. The MODEL - How do you know what you are painting on the canvas of memory? How do you know you are still thinking about a duck and not an eagle? How do you compare the memory image on the canvas from the MEANING of the original Model you are using as your reference?  

vi. LOOKING at the MODEL vs. PAINTING - What different activities are taking place when you rotate or enlarge or alter the memory image VS when you understand, see, recognize, and think of the pure content or IMAGELESS concept that controls the meaning of the painting?  (In my Husserl book, I discuss this at length). 

vii. WHY are you PAINTING?  Justify the moral reasons why you are painting this image in the first place? What justifies your right to paint this image or investigate the cognitive apparatus at all? This marks the difference between spiritual-moral research and mere subjective, intellectual, or psychological playing. (I discuss this in my Resurrection of Thinking book). 

viii. The PAINTER - Where is the real painter? Is she inside your body? Where does she take up a vantage point to invite new models to sit? How does he conceive of new paintings? Is the painter being painted?  Are there other painters watching from the corners of the art studio?  How do they affect the painting?  

ix. ERASE the painting and WAIT with devotion. What arises here?  In regard to Dumata's painting above - what is inside the Red light that shines through the Door in the woods? Who paints the painter? (For more, see Yeshayahu Ben-Aharon's works). 

Repeat and enjoy!