The Age of the Archangel Michael
by Floris Books • 15 January 2026 • Extract, The Christian Community • 0 Comments
The idea that periods in human history are guided in turn by seven archangels, with each period lasting for around 350 years, can be found in the work of Rudolf Steiner. Since the end of the 18th century this guiding responsibility has passed to the Archangel Michael. In The Age of the Archangel Michael which draws on biblical and mystical tradition, and the insights of Rudolf Steiner, Emil Bock paints a picture of the guardian spirit of our age.
The Age of the Archangel Michael: Reflections on the True Spirit of Our Time brings together seventeen of Bock’s lectures, most of which are presented for the first time in English. In them he discusses the challenges facing humanity in the age of Michael: the need to develop greater selflessness, to cultivate a broader and more inclusive view of humanity, and the importance of spiritualising our thinking in order to deepen our relationship to Christ.
In this extract from Chapter One Courage in Thinking Bock asks how we can follow the guidance of the Archangel Michael in our own lives.
How do we become co-champions with Michael? By making our thinking into a real questioning and struggle for the spirit, fired by true courage… Instead of the dark, dragon-like life of instincts and drives, our love, goodwill and spiritual courage become the soul of our thoughts. Our active love for the spirit is the spear of light with which we slay the dragon within us. Into the world of our thoughts, which we have allowed to become a ravening wolf, and into the world of the senses, which we endeavour to comprehend through our thoughts, we can carry the spirit won through courage and love when we fight in the army of Michael.
“Instead of the dark, dragon-like life of instincts and drives, our love, goodwill and spiritual courage become the soul of our thoughts.”
It is no longer acceptable for us to ward off the wolf of the critical mind at the threshold of the sanctuary after we have called it into being. But it is also no longer acceptable simply to let it rage. We must approach it with courage and transform it. When we do this, we redeem it in our own thinking and the sensory world that we have populated with ghosts. Thinking must be given a courageous and conscious share in the sanctuary of inwardness, but for this to happen it must be changed from within. Heart and head must be educated to work together in a way of thinking fuelled by the heart and flowing with love. Such thinking is capable of understanding and recognising not only the sense-perceptible world but also the supersensible world and can, therefore, only then find the full truth about the world around us.
St Francis of Assisi once came to the village of Gubbio in the northeastern part of Italy. The village was beset by a monstrous wolf that ate not only animals but also people. St Francis went to confront the ferocious animal, bravely calling out, ‘Come here, brother wolf.’ The wolf came, meekly as a lamb, and lay quietly at St Francis’ feet. From that hour onwards, the wolf lived peacefully in the village without harming anyone. This legend gives us a prophetic picture of the Michaelic deed that must be done to human thinking on a large scale.
“Michaelic spiritual courage…allows us to carry light and warmth into the cold winter of merely intellectual thinking.”
In the yearly cycle, Michaelmas begins on the threshold of autumn, when we enter the colder, darker season. Thus, the Michaelic spiritual courage, through which the heart awakens to become an organ of perception, allows us to carry light and warmth into the cold winter of merely intellectual thinking. Just before Michaelmas, the sun enters the sign of Libra. The heart’s love, now awakened to spiritual courage, holds the balance between the unconscious, instinct-filled abyss of our being and the thoughts of our heads.
“Through the heart’s courage, thinking transforms into seeing.”
Living Michaelically means wedding the inner and the outer through courageous strength of heart. Redeemed thinking is the beginning of the Michaelic life. Those who allow love to flow up from the depths of their inner being into their thoughts and sense perceptions no longer name the things and beings of the world with learned words. Instead, they greet them as brothers and sisters. Their thinking becomes a greeting and a naming out of the rediscovered divine mission of creation (Gen. 2:19). Michaelic thinking also brings us higher truth and wisdom through the world of the senses. It becomes Michael’s spear with which he can pierce the ghostly veil woven by the dragon’s power. Through the heart’s courage, thinking transforms into seeing. In this seeing, we become, ‘knowing out of feeling’, and like Parsifal, we become ‘knowing out of compassion’. The light-spear of beholding thought divides the curtain of material existence, and the spiritual realm where Michael serves Christ among his angels opens up before us.
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About the author
Emil Bock (1895–1959) was one of the founders of The Christian Community in 1922 and led the movement from 1938 until his death.
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