Research & Reviews And the biography of Novalis, who died at age 28, is a kind of repetition of Raphael’s, who lived to the age of 38: The Raphael-entelechy: absolved, as it were, its Raphael life once more, likewise with a mere 30-year life span, in Novalis. And so we see Raphael die young, Novalis die young, one entity, gone forth from Lazarus-John, sent down to people on earth, presenting itself to humanity in two different forms, and in this way preparing the Michael-mood in painting and in poetry. […] Everything that could be seen by human eyes through Raphael: human hearts could permeate themselves with it when it resurrected in Novalis. And Steiner goes on to point out that the short lives the two men lived is not the only thing they had in common; he makes clear that, as had been the case with Raphael, Novalis had not had a strong connection with earthly life – as evidenced by his declaration that the sole purpose of his life was to “die after” his fiancée Sophie von Kühn, who had died at the age of 15. Here, skeptics may raise the objection that he went on to become a mining assessor (not as ‘Novalis’, but rather as Friedrich von Hardenberg), not to mention his second engagement not long before his death, with Julie Charpentier – hardly evidence of being ‘poorly incarnated’. To be sure. Nevertheless, for Hardenberg these episodes, too, are no more and no less than means to the end of “living out his Magical Idealism [nay: inspiring it] by not wanting to come into contact with earthly life.” That can account for the way in which “everything in Novalis’ poetry appears in a nearly heavenly poetic radiance”, and how he is able to make “the most trivial material things resurrect through his poetic-magical idealism.” Moreover, the very aff liction that ended his life – tuberculosis, which consists in the dissolution of the physical body – is a purely physiological indication of how it became progressively impossible for him to incarnate. But in what way does all this make Novalis “a shining harbinger of the Michael mood”? Raphael and Novalis, says Steiner in the “Last Address”, are a single entity showing itself to humankind in two brief life spans, preparing the mood of Michael through painting, through poetry. Why would it be necessary to distribute the normal duration of a single lifetime over two separate incarnations lasting 28 and 38 years, respectively? And in what sense is this something that can prepare what needs to be accomplished? In what 32 • b e i n g h u m a n
way would this bear witness to the fact that they are “intimately bound up with the Michael stream”? In the absence of the second part of what Rudolf Steiner began to say in the “Last Address”, 2 my speculation on the matter is this: If the “entity” had spent sixty-plus years in a single earth incarnation, it would necessarily have entered into old age, and would thus have had to incarnate more fully. So if, say, Raphael had lived into his 60s, it might actually have been possible for someone like Hermann Grimm to write a biography of him. To be sure. But it would also – so this author assumes – have given Ahriman more ready access to this incarnation together with the artistic works that arose out of it. And Steiner would not have been able to ascribe heavenly, lovely attributes to these works in the way he did. In what sense, then, are Novalis and Raphael to be considered “Michaelic”, or as precursors of the Michael stream, of the anthroposophical movement? In the way just described, they possess at least this one of the many traits Steiner ascribes to Michael (in contexts other than the “Last Address”): The difficulties, nay the impossibilities for Michael to work into human souls have to do with the fact that he himself with his being does not in any way want to come into contact with the physical presence of earthly life. […] Any and all contact with what human beings must come into contact with in their present physical life on earth could only be seen by Michael as a defilement of his own being. (“Continuation of the Second Contemplation…”, GA 26 [1976], p. 146) So we might say that Raphael and Novalis are precursors to the Michaelic Age inasmuch as there is no Ahrimanic element in the lives they live; none, that is, that could lend any inappropriate earthly heaviness to their artistic activity. What Steiner says about anthroposophy in the following remark would thus also apply – at all events to the extent that this was possible in their respective centuries – to Raphael and Novalis: In the science of the spirit, another sphere is created in which there is no Ahrimanic element; and it is just by receiving this spirituality in the form of knowledge to which the Ahrimanic powers have no access [underline J. B.] that the human being has sufficient strength to confront Ahriman within the world. (Last paragraph of