Waldorf/Steiner Community Courses and Programs
Sophia Institute Festivals Studies
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Please join us for a free 12 week study during the Michaelmas Season beginning on Michaelmas Day, September 29th. We will turn to legends about St. Michael which take us back in time and to different phases of the development of the consciousness of humanity. St. Michael is being portrayed in these legends in different ways and with differing tasks.
Our common studies include the study material found here following. Please study the stories and legends provided for the week in the following way turning to the study material and the subject material on three days during the week. Step 1 / Day 1: Study the stories and legends for the week by reading them to yourself or to your small group, ideally in a semi formal setting during a dedicated period of time. Step 2 / Day 2: Recall and retell from memory the stories and legends for the week to yourself or to your small group, ideally in a semi formal setting during a dedicated period of time. Share observation regarding the content, and the mood and emotional aspects you are experiencing regarding the stories and legends for the week. Step 3 / Day 3: Turn to artwork, for instance watercolor painting, and create artwork out of your contemplations of the stories and legends for the week with emphasis on recalling and deepening the mood and emotional aspects you are experiencing regarding the stories and legends for the week. Please feel free and encouraged to join the conversation by posting comments, artwork and observations via this submission form. |
Michael’s Cosmic Activity
The Twelfth Chapter of the Revelation of St. John
And there appeared a great wonder in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. And there appeared a second wonder in heaven: Behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them upon the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. And she brought forth a man-child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron.
And her child was caught up unto God, and to His throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days. And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. And the dragon fought, and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world. He was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven: Now is come salvation and strength and the Kingdom of our God and the Power of Christ. For the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. And they loved not their lives unto the death.
Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea. For the Devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. And when the Dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man-child. And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. But the earth helped the woman, and opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.
And the Dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
And when I saw this, I stood upon the sand on the shore of the sea.
And her child was caught up unto God, and to His throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days. And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. And the dragon fought, and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world. He was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven: Now is come salvation and strength and the Kingdom of our God and the Power of Christ. For the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. And they loved not their lives unto the death.
Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea. For the Devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. And when the Dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man-child. And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away by the flood. But the earth helped the woman, and opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth.
And the Dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
And when I saw this, I stood upon the sand on the shore of the sea.
Concerning the Iron in the Kalewala and the Spiritual Forge in the North
by Herbert Hahn
There exists one fact that will ever fill with admiration anyone who contemplates history. If he looks at historical events or conditions taking place within a narrow space or a limited duration, something like sadness will grasp him. He sees turmoil and obscuration. Many a knot seems to be insoluble for all time. But if he can rise in his contemplations to a height from which his eyes can survey wide realms and long spans of time, his breath will suddenly be liberated. What he sees can encourage him and fill him with enthusiasm. For he can recognize in the utmost clarity what gives meaning to man’s single life as well as to history: the spiritual guidance of mankind.
Then he will also learn to perceive and admire the grandiose technique of this spiritual guidance. We see, for instance, what a seemingly almost unbearable burden is laid on a certain earthly space through the crude and cruel elementary forces of history. But only a short time before, a man has been born in the same earthly space with the mission of grasping this burden, lifting it up, and making it bearable. And since this necessitates the working together of many persons, something like a rejuvenating stroke of lightning injects formative forces into stagnating life. Human hands, through the mercy of divine forces, begin to move. A new impulse is given to history. What seemed at first like a misfortune becomes a source of fresh, inexhaustible blessing.
How unbearable seemed the historical burden laid abruptly on the Finnish people in the beginning of the 19th century, when it became separated from Sweden, isolated from Scandinavia, and pushed into the shadow of the Russian giant! Dependence on the Czar residing in St. Petersburg brought it into a field of forces sucking out its independence. Finnish national self-consciousness that had barely been born was threatened with extinction. But only a few years before this misfortune had arisen, Elias Loennrot had been born, the man chosen by the spiritual world to illuminate, through a single deed, his people’s entire spiritual horizon. What Loennrot was chosen to do could be called a spiritual forging. A hard apprenticeship enabled him to discover, in the loneliness of the Karelian forests, a great poem that was to fructify the whole world. Listening to the song of the bards, he found the fragments of the heroic poem “Kalewala” which, inspired by divine creative forces, he forged into a whole.
And now something akin to a historical miracle happened. At a time when it was felt that the stanzas of the “Edda,” the songs of the Homeric epical poems were, despite their aesthetic beauty, only after-sounds of dried-up springs, the Finnish people discovered only now that it possessed an almost untouched spring of its own. Perhaps the publication of the Kalewala was nothing but a literary event for the greatest part of the Occident. It was more for Finland. The people, in experiencing these runes, were awakened to a new self-consciousness. And something even more amazing happened. This awakening consciousness became creative, in unbelievable measure, and crystallized a rich indigenous culture round the core of the Kalewala. This epical poem does not speak of dim, prehistoric ages. In the limelight of the intellectualized 19th century, the myth became immediate reality. A national epic poem awakened and formed a people. A whole round of forces was called upon, forces that were strong enough to resist all the foreign impulses trying to suck in the national culture and perhaps even destined to perform future deeds only forefelt at present.
The name Kalewala could be translated as “Place of the Forge.” And it can be said that this name has been justified by its historical effect. Yet this “Place of the Forge” has another, less easily grasped significance.
Rudolf Steiner spoke of this in his Helsinki lectures, which have become fundamental for the spiritual interpretation of the Kalewala. He pointed to a vigorous center of formative forces existing in the North and sending out impulses for the fundamental forms of continental culture. He brought these forces into connection with the mysterious Sampo, which is mentioned in lays of the Kalewala. Loennrot called these lays “runes,” and this designation, differing from the conventional meaning of rune, should be maintained. In this sense, several of the runes speak unmistakably of the “Forge in the North,” as I have called it.
Wherever there is a forge, a smithy, there will also be a smith as well as iron. Actually both appear in the Kalewala, playing not only a secondary but a decisive role. The whole events of the Kalewala are borne by three super-human, heroic, half-divine figures: by a divine Bard called Vainamoinen; a divine adventurer and wooer called Lemmenkainen; and the divine smith Ilmarinen. This smith is especially significant for the happenings because he forges the Sampo, round which a whole whirlpool of dramatic forces is gathered. Yet not only the smith Ilmarinen, but also Vainamoinen and Lemmenkainen have been connected by destiny with iron. The first decisive things told us concerning iron are connected just as much with Vainamoinen’s as with Ilmarinen’s experiences. The eighth rune describes how the divine Bard woos a fair virgin from the North. She will give him her heart if he is able to make a boat from the splinters of her spindle.
Vainamoinen, who is “practiced in magic,” should pay attention when being told of a spindle. In all ancient legends and tales, the spindle appears in connection with evil and aggressive forces. It seems to be like the sting of a scorpion. But Vainamoinen is not awake. He is entranced by the gleaming outer side of some higher magic. And so he begins a piece of work that can never be carried out. The punishment is swift. He wounds himself sorely with his ax and the blood streaming out of his knee in powerful waves at first cannot be stilled. The ninth rune tells us how an ancient magician possesses the power to still the blood and heal Vainamoinen’s wound. But first, strange to say, he wants to hear from Vainamoinen himself how iron was created. Here we have to do with a significant episode whose subtlety should be observed. What has happened? Vainamoinen has succumbed to a dimming of consciousness called forth by his desires. In this state, he has misused and desecrated the ax of steel, and he is called upon to begin the healing process by means of his own activity.
In explaining the “Biography of Iron,” he illuminates his own consciousness. And something else: By explaining the cosmic origin of iron, he confronts the desecrating deed with a consecrating thought. For, as spiritual science tells us, things were consecrated and sacrificed in ancient times in the right way, by going back to their cosmic origin. This happened mostly by means of a cultic act symbolizing the deeds of the higher powers. In the tale of Vainamoinen we do not find the cultic act, but the myth.
And there spake Vainamoinen
Words of such a kind and meaning:
“Know full well whence iron came,
Also know how steel was made.
Air is eldest of the Mothers,
Water eldest of the brethren,
Iron youngest of the brethren,
Fire liveth in the middle.
Ukko, He, the first creator,
He Himself, the God of Air,
Did divide from air the water,
Formed from it the solid earth.
Iron was as yet unborn,
Was unborn and uncreated.
“Ukko, God of air divine,
Rubbed His hands, the right and left,
And He laid the two together
On the pan of his left knee.
Forthwith came to be three virgins,
The most beauteous of all maidens.
They, the rusty iron’s mothers,
Did create its bluish mouth.
To the edge of lofty clouds
They began to move and walk
With the breasts so full and swelling,
With the bosom firm and solid.
And the milk, it dripped to earth
From the breasts so full and swelling,
Dripped to earth and in the swamps,
In the waters still and peaceful.
And the eldest of the virgins
Gives us milk of blackest hue.
And the second, who is younger,
Pours out milk of whitest hue.
But the youngest of the virgins
Red milk doeth she shed around.
Where the black milk had flowed out,
Came to be the supple iron.
Where the white milk had flowed out,
Came to be the steel so hard,
Where the red milk had streamed out,
Was the brittle kind created.”
Thus our glance is directed at first to iron that has not yet become congealed in material form. We are lifted to the sphere in which, as Rudolph Steiner once expressed it, iron is active in its “Highest Might.” There it streams out of the Cosmos in the three above-mentioned components; it has not become congealed. It is active in a dynamic form that we call nowadays the “processual.” Yet, at the end of the quoted stanza, there is a certain transition into the earthly. We hear of supple and brittle iron and, strange to say, also of steel. Thus is given the first variation of the origin of steel: its creation from forces working from above.
Then it is told how the iron wants to find its elder brother, the fire. According to its innermost nature, the fire begins to blaze up more and more when seeing the iron. The rune says that the fire begins to rage in its desire to grasp and change the iron. But the iron feels only that it is going to be “burned.” Full of fear, it flees and seeks rescue in different place, mostly in the swamps and also in gushing springs.
What does this mean? The iron, if grasped and shaped by fire, would be obliged to serve earthly purposes. Tools and other useful objects would be made out of it. It removes itself from a state where it would be subjected to a purpose or, as we would express it today, become pragmatic. The iron flees into a deeper, but not wholly pure sphere. The swamps, which are mentioned, signify relative impurity. On the other hand, they have a liquid and thus watery component. It would seem as if the iron, when fleeing into the swamps, made a retrogressive movement, from the liquid back to its original state.
Then we hear that wolves and bears, by running across the swamps and marshes, lift up the iron from its hiding places and thrust it into daylight. Wolf and bear are beasts representing especially vigorous instincts: the wolf the hardening forces manifesting themselves in aggressiveness, the bear a dimly brooding sensuousness married with a groping and slinking cruelty. If we interpreted the terms “wolf ” and “bear” in too earth-bound a way, we would not do justice to the myth. As seen from one side, they express the forces of the fixed stars working into the configurations of definite earthly phases and thus finally producing the more distinct contours of the metals. In other words, we have before us—if reading between the lines—the passing of various evolutionary stages undergone by the iron itself as a biographical process.
If, however, as has been described here, the iron is brought to the light by the footsteps of wolf and bear, something else is undoubtedly indicated. We witness a second birth of the iron: this time, a birth from the depth. And if wolf and bear bring about this birth through their smell, we are told that this birth does not take place in a completely pure manner. It lies under the shadow of an aggressive and of a broodingly bestial element. We forefeel the dramatic developments whose germ is shown at this point.
This dramatic development begins when Ilmarinen, the smith, pulls the iron out of the swamp and leads it, despite its fear and resistance, to the creative fire. From the very beginning, Ilmarinen succeeds to produce some useful objects and even a few weapons. But, on the whole, the mass produced in the melting process is too supple. It could be compared to wheat-porridge. Ilmarinen understands that iron, in order to fulfill its mission, must be united with a “hardening juice.” The smith tries to mix the iron with some dissolved ashes, but sees that this is to no avail. While he is pondering the matter, a bee flies up from the grass. Now the smith has an inspiration. If the bee will gather the right substances, these will give to the iron all that is needful. And so Ilmarinen turns to the bee:
Little bee, thou swiftest insect,
Fetch me honey on thy wings,
Sweetest fluid on thy tongue,
From the chalice of six blossoms,
From the seven points of herbs,
That the steel may be created
And the iron worked upon.
But the words said by Ilmarinen to the little bee are heard by the evil hornet lurking under the bark of the birch tree. How much does this correspond with man’s primeval conceptions to see the evil come out of a hiding place! And how significant is it that the evil hides under the bark of a birch tree, a tree whose bright, gleaming trunk is almost more radiant than the light of the white Northern nights. The hornet is immediately recognized as the creature of Hiisis, the god of evil.
Thou, oh hornet, bird of Hiisis,
Lurkest here with squinting glance,
Gazest from the lower roof
Of the birch-tree’s gleaming bark
At the iron that is made,
At the steel that is produced.
And the hornet flapped its wings
And amassed all Hiisis’ terrors:
Mixed the foam of serpents’ tongues
With the poison of the viper,
Mixed corroding juice of ants
With the toads’ concealed poison,
Adding all this to the water
That was hardening steel and iron.
He, the smith called Ilmarinen,
He, the master of the forge,
Now believed and was convinced
That the little bee had come
And had brought the sweetest honey,
Sweetest juices on its tongue.
And he spake and said these words:
“Honey added to the water
That is hardening steel and iron
Is exactly what I need.”
In the mixture was the steel placed,
Was immersed the wretched iron,
Which he took now from the fire,
Which he from the forge released.
But the steel, it now waxed furious,
And the iron started raging,
Broke the vows that it had sworn,
Ate its oaths in dog-like manner,
Cut its brother without pity,
Raged against its friends and kin,
Made the blood stream out of wounds,
Made it drip onto the earth.
“Every tool can become a weapon.” This sentence describes the whole tragedy of iron, such as it has been expressed in the above stanzas in a sober, direct, and even pitiless way. The iron, while being forged into useful tools, wrests itself away from the hands of the smith, becoming the implement of independent, impenetrable, and demonic powers.
It might be asked how such a distortion, such a terrifying aberration could
have taken place. This grandiose Kalewala says it in a few words. Let us quote
them again:
He, the smith called Ilmarinen,
He, the master of the forge,
Now believed and was convinced
That the little bee had come. …
What do these simple words mean? The evil, destructive element, or, to put it in modern terms, the antisocial has interfered with the production of iron because, at the outset, the smith had undergone a dimming of his consciousness. A mere belief, a mere conviction—these are half dreamlike functions, creeping in at a point where wakefulness, clear thinking, and sharp differentiation were needed. This lack enabled the hornet to mix the evil, poisonous, corroding juices with the iron mass.
To summarize the story: Only in this way could the work of the hornet have been substituted for the work of the bee and lead the making of iron into paths quite alien from the original possibilities.
Has not mankind—and especially occidental mankind—suffered during the last two centuries the consequences of this disastrous mixture? From what was originally the “making of iron” has been born the machine age in the classical sense, modern technology in its widest aspects. It became the greatest seduction for all subsequent inventors to weave a delicate, ever thickening net around the earthly space that had been found and conquered by the earlier discoverers, so that this space might be opened up and utilized. But the occidental world lacked self-control when devoting itself to a process that needed a schooling of spirit and soul as well as the development of morality. Technology intoxicated the world. The age of naïve technology began. Naïve because technology was allowed to storm on blindly without looking, in wakefulness, at the effect it had on man, on the earth, and even on the Cosmos. And while this epidemic dimming of consciousness took place, the great tool of technology slipped out of its discoverers’ hands. It became independent, developing destructive and demonic possibilities. Such as it has become, it might possibly be guided by the human intellect. But we no longer know the moral forces guaranteeing its salubrious use.
We can expect every moment—to speak in the words of the Kalewala—that all vows will be eaten in dog-like manner; that brother will be cut into without pity; that blood is made to flow. It seems as if the iron’s lofty power has been dissipated. The ‘‘hornet” has had its say.
Yet one great and weighty question has been left unanswered. If we weigh every word that is said in this rune—and this must be done with the words of the Kalewala—we are left in uncertainty about the further deeds of the bee. It could be asked whether the little bee returned nevermore. Is that which was gathered by the bee from the herbs and the chalices of blossoms lost for all time? May the honey never come to the iron?
Rudolf Steiner has answered, by means of two significant indications, the questions that were left undecided. The first indication concerns the great educational effect that modern scientific thinking exercised on the men of the Occident. The exactitude and transparency, which had to be considered as the implicit premises of this thinking, have educated man to be objective as well as selfless. And selflessness, as Steiner said at a different occasion, will become more and more the innermost principle of an important sector of life closely connected with technology: the principle of economy, of world economy.
Essentially, the age of nationally limited, egotistical economies has passed. Every economy, which wants to maintain itself within a narrow horizon, will become unprofitable and decay. A healthy economy will be possible only on a worldwide scale.
The problem posed here in connection with the rune of the Kalewala was still more clearly answered when a question prompted by the deepest concern was asked of Rudolf Steiner while he was speaking of the elementary and even demonic forces of destruction which could be unleashed by technological development. A fearful threat to mankind penetrating into man’s innermost being had been mentioned. The question arose: Will these destructions come to mankind like a predestined fatality or can they be opposed? Rudolf Steiner answered that a powerful protection exists. Something exists which could heal the disease of our time: Fraternity within the economic system. It was a simple answer.
It was not only simple but also encompassing. Is not the selflessness unfolding and maturing in the form of fraternity a living expression of the pure and completely human power of love? Love is the genius giving its gift to counteract the hundreds of demands which embitter and fatigue us day in, day out. Love is the Christmas element sought by our age and working on throughout the year: the Honey.
The hornet’s poison merged with the iron through a lack of wakefulness, through the element of original sin to which our forefathers were subject. From the heights where Michael’s spirit-sword is gleaming, iron was thrust into slavery and now begins to rebel. By leading technology into wider horizons and penetrating it with an objective—which means spiritualized—fraternity, we unite the iron with lofty forces of a new kind. These lofty forces come out of man. They can be found only in highest wakefulness without depending on “believing and being convinced.” They point to a deed emerging from knowledge. Thus they complete, in Michaelic form, the making of iron left behind as a fragment by Ilmarinen.
If we recapitulate the grandiose simplicity and dramatic power of this rune concerning the forging of iron, we begin to understand what Rudolf Steiner said about the whole Kalewala poem: The images of the Kalewala runes are less concerned with echoes of the past than with youthful imaginations. These images, if grasped with the activity of spiritual organs, could tell us things of immeasurable importance for the present and the future. And what a span of time does Rudolf Steiner concede to this marvelous work of art! He said that the Kalewala would be as important for the future as the Homeric epic poems have been for the past.
Such an utterance must make us modest. We recognize that, at first, only a few pearls can be lifted out of the vast ocean sheltering such infinite treasures. Anyone studying the whole of the Kalewala, valiantly and patiently, will discover that it is thoroughly penetrated with forces of spiritual iron. For now we must content ourselves with pointing to two other runes in which the themes of iron and forging are treated in a way especially appealing to modern man.
It is told in the fourteenth rune how Lemmenkainen, the “divine adventurer,” is confronted with seemingly insoluble tasks by the Hostess of the North, whose daughter he woos. One of these tasks is the taming of Hiisis’ fire-flashing steed. Lemmenkainen proceeds in search of the fiery bayard. With him he takes a “golden rein” and a “silver harness.” For two days he searches in vain. Only on the third day, after mounting a high summit and looking Eastward does he see the horse. But Lemmenkainen immediately realizes that he cannot tame it through his own forces. He prays to the heavenly powers:
Ukko, highest God in Heaven,
Ukko, Ruler of the clouds,
Who dost guide the fleecy clouds:
Open wide the vault of heaven
And the air open like windows,
Let fall down hailstones of iron,
And let mighty clumps of ice
On the horse’s mane rain down,
On its forehead and its croup.
Ukko hears this prayer. The iron hailstones crackling down tame the fiery steed on which then Lemmenkainen lays the reins of gold and the silver harness. The symbolism of this tale can be recognized by two facts. Among the Kalewala’s heroic figures, Lemmenkainen is the one most intensely connected, on the one side, with the passions whirling in the bloodstream. On the other side, he advances further than all the others towards the waking consciousness of modern man. The horse, as in all legends and myths, is a symbol of the intellect.
The fiery-hued, fire-flashing steed speaks of intellectual forces which are not purified and of a thinking able to swallow up the glowing power of instincts. This image places before us the psychological truth connected with modern thinking: The more abstract it becomes, the more it whips up the passions dwelling in the depths. Here we have a symptom of far-reaching significance. Rudolf Steiner drew our attention to this decisive and shattering phenomenon, and modern psychology has confirmed his sayings.
We must recognize the following: This fiery-hued steed—animalized intellect—cannot be tamed unless the Michaelic-Cosmic forces of iron come down from above. The iron hailstones indicating meteoric iron are the symbol of these higher forces.
What Lemmenkainen experiences as a single person becomes a dramatic soul-spiritual experience of a stage in mankind’s evolution. Also the “golden rein” and “silver harness” are not mentioned by accident. In a macrocosmic sense, they point to sun and moon forces; in a microcosmic sense, to a youthfully renewed thinking and feeling that work in unison with one another. We cannot enter more thoroughly into these connections. But how much would be gained if we learn, in the spirit of the Kalewala, to guide the red steed with the golden rein! Then the intellect would be restrained and guided by the heart and sun forces of a feeling through which the spirit is pulsating.
The end of the Kalewala tells us, in a most impressive way, of these sun and moon forces that must be newly attained, that is, of a youthful feeling and thinking. We allude to the three runes preceding the last, the Marjatta rune. Here it is told how dark forces have stolen sun and moon and how no more fire is to be found in Kalewala’s halls, that is, in the spiritual forge in the Finnish North. Profound darkness is ruling. Ukko, the god of airy space, strikes fire “out of the sword’s fiery steel.” The fiery spark, after hastening with lightning-like speed across nine heavens, falls into a lake. Here it is swallowed by a fish, the blue salmon. But the fish suffers terrible torment through the fire burning inside of it. Restlessly, it swims to and fro in search of a remedy. Finally it meets an orange trout which, in its turn, swallows the salmon. But the trout is also plagued by the fire, which burns with undiminished strength through both the walls. The spark is so unbearable that the trout swims restlessly up and down in the vast waters. At last it is swallowed by a huge pike which, in its turn, is delivered to the scorching torment.
Let us impress the details of this image on our mind. The spark fallen down from heaven, which is to bring new light to the world, is now surrounded by three sheaths.
Finally Vainamoinen and Ilmarinen catch the pike with a linen net, liberating the thrice-enfolded fire-spark. But at first they have no power over it. The spark escapes with elementary force, burning the smith Ilmarinen most sorely. Then the spark sets fire to the forest and begins to spread.
But at last the spark is caught. Ilmarinen, whose burns have been healed, is able to forge a new sun and a new moon out of this fire. At first they do not radiate brightly enough. They are imprisoned by the evil Louhi, the hostess of the North and enemy of light. But when Louhi hears that the indefatigable Ilmarinen goes on forging—that he wants to make new implements for freeing the sun and moon—she liberates her prisoners. These, arising victoriously, bestow their blessing on all.
Hail thee, Moon, in new-found radiance,
Show anew thy countenance.
Golden Sun, we hail thy rising,
Ever higher in the sky.
Let us ask in concluding: What signifies this fiery spark enclosed within a threefold sheath, out of which a new sun and a new moon are to be forged? As Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual science has shown us, the innermost core of the human soul is surrounded by three sheaths. As it were, the fiery bud of the human Ego lies hidden beneath the layers of three elements: one surging to and fro in the sentient sphere; one streaming in the sphere of formative forces; one becoming solidified in space. Unless something extraordinary happens, this fiery Ego germ today sends flames, restlessness, and discord into each of the three sheaths. The spark wants to be lifted, in new spiritual activity, from the belly of the fish, indicating, in the language of mythical symbolism, super-sensible vision. This points to the new, exact clairvoyance to be born in the Michaelic Age. Out of this new clairvoyance is to be hammered and forged the image of the new man desiring to arise from everyday man.
The forces of personality, such as they were preserved from old times, have been consumed and used up. Our whole Occidental culture is marked by a rapidly spreading crisis concerned with the loss of these old forces. This, in its turn, causes the decay of those moral forces which have been borne aloft by a tradition lasting thousands of years. The old morality has decayed before a new one is born. Now we must nurture the future of the new fiery spark described in the Kalewala Runes. We have only one choice: We can either let it escape from our scorched hands and inflame the whole world, or we can follow the smith Ilmarinen by learning how to forge it. Then a wealth of youthful forces struggling to be born will begin to stir. There will be hope to see the golden sun arising new. If we think of all the spiritually potent indications presented so richly by the Kalewala, we are reminded again of the fact that the spiritual world offers the remedies that are needed by a diseased and ailing age. The Kalewala came just in time to inject iron forces into a spiritual Finland, when the physical Finland was undergoing a historical crisis. But we could ask: Was this was the only mission of the Kalewala?
Has not this gift from the spiritual world been bestowed on all of mankind in order to show us at a time when civilization dazzles us with its attainments, but culture is obscured, how new paths can be opened up, which will lead us to think of the “Honey-Forces” of the iron and a new spiritual work of forging? If this be true, the “Spiritual Forge in the North” will have an historical significance that cannot be fully estimated at the present time.
There exists one fact that will ever fill with admiration anyone who contemplates history. If he looks at historical events or conditions taking place within a narrow space or a limited duration, something like sadness will grasp him. He sees turmoil and obscuration. Many a knot seems to be insoluble for all time. But if he can rise in his contemplations to a height from which his eyes can survey wide realms and long spans of time, his breath will suddenly be liberated. What he sees can encourage him and fill him with enthusiasm. For he can recognize in the utmost clarity what gives meaning to man’s single life as well as to history: the spiritual guidance of mankind.
Then he will also learn to perceive and admire the grandiose technique of this spiritual guidance. We see, for instance, what a seemingly almost unbearable burden is laid on a certain earthly space through the crude and cruel elementary forces of history. But only a short time before, a man has been born in the same earthly space with the mission of grasping this burden, lifting it up, and making it bearable. And since this necessitates the working together of many persons, something like a rejuvenating stroke of lightning injects formative forces into stagnating life. Human hands, through the mercy of divine forces, begin to move. A new impulse is given to history. What seemed at first like a misfortune becomes a source of fresh, inexhaustible blessing.
How unbearable seemed the historical burden laid abruptly on the Finnish people in the beginning of the 19th century, when it became separated from Sweden, isolated from Scandinavia, and pushed into the shadow of the Russian giant! Dependence on the Czar residing in St. Petersburg brought it into a field of forces sucking out its independence. Finnish national self-consciousness that had barely been born was threatened with extinction. But only a few years before this misfortune had arisen, Elias Loennrot had been born, the man chosen by the spiritual world to illuminate, through a single deed, his people’s entire spiritual horizon. What Loennrot was chosen to do could be called a spiritual forging. A hard apprenticeship enabled him to discover, in the loneliness of the Karelian forests, a great poem that was to fructify the whole world. Listening to the song of the bards, he found the fragments of the heroic poem “Kalewala” which, inspired by divine creative forces, he forged into a whole.
And now something akin to a historical miracle happened. At a time when it was felt that the stanzas of the “Edda,” the songs of the Homeric epical poems were, despite their aesthetic beauty, only after-sounds of dried-up springs, the Finnish people discovered only now that it possessed an almost untouched spring of its own. Perhaps the publication of the Kalewala was nothing but a literary event for the greatest part of the Occident. It was more for Finland. The people, in experiencing these runes, were awakened to a new self-consciousness. And something even more amazing happened. This awakening consciousness became creative, in unbelievable measure, and crystallized a rich indigenous culture round the core of the Kalewala. This epical poem does not speak of dim, prehistoric ages. In the limelight of the intellectualized 19th century, the myth became immediate reality. A national epic poem awakened and formed a people. A whole round of forces was called upon, forces that were strong enough to resist all the foreign impulses trying to suck in the national culture and perhaps even destined to perform future deeds only forefelt at present.
The name Kalewala could be translated as “Place of the Forge.” And it can be said that this name has been justified by its historical effect. Yet this “Place of the Forge” has another, less easily grasped significance.
Rudolf Steiner spoke of this in his Helsinki lectures, which have become fundamental for the spiritual interpretation of the Kalewala. He pointed to a vigorous center of formative forces existing in the North and sending out impulses for the fundamental forms of continental culture. He brought these forces into connection with the mysterious Sampo, which is mentioned in lays of the Kalewala. Loennrot called these lays “runes,” and this designation, differing from the conventional meaning of rune, should be maintained. In this sense, several of the runes speak unmistakably of the “Forge in the North,” as I have called it.
Wherever there is a forge, a smithy, there will also be a smith as well as iron. Actually both appear in the Kalewala, playing not only a secondary but a decisive role. The whole events of the Kalewala are borne by three super-human, heroic, half-divine figures: by a divine Bard called Vainamoinen; a divine adventurer and wooer called Lemmenkainen; and the divine smith Ilmarinen. This smith is especially significant for the happenings because he forges the Sampo, round which a whole whirlpool of dramatic forces is gathered. Yet not only the smith Ilmarinen, but also Vainamoinen and Lemmenkainen have been connected by destiny with iron. The first decisive things told us concerning iron are connected just as much with Vainamoinen’s as with Ilmarinen’s experiences. The eighth rune describes how the divine Bard woos a fair virgin from the North. She will give him her heart if he is able to make a boat from the splinters of her spindle.
Vainamoinen, who is “practiced in magic,” should pay attention when being told of a spindle. In all ancient legends and tales, the spindle appears in connection with evil and aggressive forces. It seems to be like the sting of a scorpion. But Vainamoinen is not awake. He is entranced by the gleaming outer side of some higher magic. And so he begins a piece of work that can never be carried out. The punishment is swift. He wounds himself sorely with his ax and the blood streaming out of his knee in powerful waves at first cannot be stilled. The ninth rune tells us how an ancient magician possesses the power to still the blood and heal Vainamoinen’s wound. But first, strange to say, he wants to hear from Vainamoinen himself how iron was created. Here we have to do with a significant episode whose subtlety should be observed. What has happened? Vainamoinen has succumbed to a dimming of consciousness called forth by his desires. In this state, he has misused and desecrated the ax of steel, and he is called upon to begin the healing process by means of his own activity.
In explaining the “Biography of Iron,” he illuminates his own consciousness. And something else: By explaining the cosmic origin of iron, he confronts the desecrating deed with a consecrating thought. For, as spiritual science tells us, things were consecrated and sacrificed in ancient times in the right way, by going back to their cosmic origin. This happened mostly by means of a cultic act symbolizing the deeds of the higher powers. In the tale of Vainamoinen we do not find the cultic act, but the myth.
And there spake Vainamoinen
Words of such a kind and meaning:
“Know full well whence iron came,
Also know how steel was made.
Air is eldest of the Mothers,
Water eldest of the brethren,
Iron youngest of the brethren,
Fire liveth in the middle.
Ukko, He, the first creator,
He Himself, the God of Air,
Did divide from air the water,
Formed from it the solid earth.
Iron was as yet unborn,
Was unborn and uncreated.
“Ukko, God of air divine,
Rubbed His hands, the right and left,
And He laid the two together
On the pan of his left knee.
Forthwith came to be three virgins,
The most beauteous of all maidens.
They, the rusty iron’s mothers,
Did create its bluish mouth.
To the edge of lofty clouds
They began to move and walk
With the breasts so full and swelling,
With the bosom firm and solid.
And the milk, it dripped to earth
From the breasts so full and swelling,
Dripped to earth and in the swamps,
In the waters still and peaceful.
And the eldest of the virgins
Gives us milk of blackest hue.
And the second, who is younger,
Pours out milk of whitest hue.
But the youngest of the virgins
Red milk doeth she shed around.
Where the black milk had flowed out,
Came to be the supple iron.
Where the white milk had flowed out,
Came to be the steel so hard,
Where the red milk had streamed out,
Was the brittle kind created.”
Thus our glance is directed at first to iron that has not yet become congealed in material form. We are lifted to the sphere in which, as Rudolph Steiner once expressed it, iron is active in its “Highest Might.” There it streams out of the Cosmos in the three above-mentioned components; it has not become congealed. It is active in a dynamic form that we call nowadays the “processual.” Yet, at the end of the quoted stanza, there is a certain transition into the earthly. We hear of supple and brittle iron and, strange to say, also of steel. Thus is given the first variation of the origin of steel: its creation from forces working from above.
Then it is told how the iron wants to find its elder brother, the fire. According to its innermost nature, the fire begins to blaze up more and more when seeing the iron. The rune says that the fire begins to rage in its desire to grasp and change the iron. But the iron feels only that it is going to be “burned.” Full of fear, it flees and seeks rescue in different place, mostly in the swamps and also in gushing springs.
What does this mean? The iron, if grasped and shaped by fire, would be obliged to serve earthly purposes. Tools and other useful objects would be made out of it. It removes itself from a state where it would be subjected to a purpose or, as we would express it today, become pragmatic. The iron flees into a deeper, but not wholly pure sphere. The swamps, which are mentioned, signify relative impurity. On the other hand, they have a liquid and thus watery component. It would seem as if the iron, when fleeing into the swamps, made a retrogressive movement, from the liquid back to its original state.
Then we hear that wolves and bears, by running across the swamps and marshes, lift up the iron from its hiding places and thrust it into daylight. Wolf and bear are beasts representing especially vigorous instincts: the wolf the hardening forces manifesting themselves in aggressiveness, the bear a dimly brooding sensuousness married with a groping and slinking cruelty. If we interpreted the terms “wolf ” and “bear” in too earth-bound a way, we would not do justice to the myth. As seen from one side, they express the forces of the fixed stars working into the configurations of definite earthly phases and thus finally producing the more distinct contours of the metals. In other words, we have before us—if reading between the lines—the passing of various evolutionary stages undergone by the iron itself as a biographical process.
If, however, as has been described here, the iron is brought to the light by the footsteps of wolf and bear, something else is undoubtedly indicated. We witness a second birth of the iron: this time, a birth from the depth. And if wolf and bear bring about this birth through their smell, we are told that this birth does not take place in a completely pure manner. It lies under the shadow of an aggressive and of a broodingly bestial element. We forefeel the dramatic developments whose germ is shown at this point.
This dramatic development begins when Ilmarinen, the smith, pulls the iron out of the swamp and leads it, despite its fear and resistance, to the creative fire. From the very beginning, Ilmarinen succeeds to produce some useful objects and even a few weapons. But, on the whole, the mass produced in the melting process is too supple. It could be compared to wheat-porridge. Ilmarinen understands that iron, in order to fulfill its mission, must be united with a “hardening juice.” The smith tries to mix the iron with some dissolved ashes, but sees that this is to no avail. While he is pondering the matter, a bee flies up from the grass. Now the smith has an inspiration. If the bee will gather the right substances, these will give to the iron all that is needful. And so Ilmarinen turns to the bee:
Little bee, thou swiftest insect,
Fetch me honey on thy wings,
Sweetest fluid on thy tongue,
From the chalice of six blossoms,
From the seven points of herbs,
That the steel may be created
And the iron worked upon.
But the words said by Ilmarinen to the little bee are heard by the evil hornet lurking under the bark of the birch tree. How much does this correspond with man’s primeval conceptions to see the evil come out of a hiding place! And how significant is it that the evil hides under the bark of a birch tree, a tree whose bright, gleaming trunk is almost more radiant than the light of the white Northern nights. The hornet is immediately recognized as the creature of Hiisis, the god of evil.
Thou, oh hornet, bird of Hiisis,
Lurkest here with squinting glance,
Gazest from the lower roof
Of the birch-tree’s gleaming bark
At the iron that is made,
At the steel that is produced.
And the hornet flapped its wings
And amassed all Hiisis’ terrors:
Mixed the foam of serpents’ tongues
With the poison of the viper,
Mixed corroding juice of ants
With the toads’ concealed poison,
Adding all this to the water
That was hardening steel and iron.
He, the smith called Ilmarinen,
He, the master of the forge,
Now believed and was convinced
That the little bee had come
And had brought the sweetest honey,
Sweetest juices on its tongue.
And he spake and said these words:
“Honey added to the water
That is hardening steel and iron
Is exactly what I need.”
In the mixture was the steel placed,
Was immersed the wretched iron,
Which he took now from the fire,
Which he from the forge released.
But the steel, it now waxed furious,
And the iron started raging,
Broke the vows that it had sworn,
Ate its oaths in dog-like manner,
Cut its brother without pity,
Raged against its friends and kin,
Made the blood stream out of wounds,
Made it drip onto the earth.
“Every tool can become a weapon.” This sentence describes the whole tragedy of iron, such as it has been expressed in the above stanzas in a sober, direct, and even pitiless way. The iron, while being forged into useful tools, wrests itself away from the hands of the smith, becoming the implement of independent, impenetrable, and demonic powers.
It might be asked how such a distortion, such a terrifying aberration could
have taken place. This grandiose Kalewala says it in a few words. Let us quote
them again:
He, the smith called Ilmarinen,
He, the master of the forge,
Now believed and was convinced
That the little bee had come. …
What do these simple words mean? The evil, destructive element, or, to put it in modern terms, the antisocial has interfered with the production of iron because, at the outset, the smith had undergone a dimming of his consciousness. A mere belief, a mere conviction—these are half dreamlike functions, creeping in at a point where wakefulness, clear thinking, and sharp differentiation were needed. This lack enabled the hornet to mix the evil, poisonous, corroding juices with the iron mass.
To summarize the story: Only in this way could the work of the hornet have been substituted for the work of the bee and lead the making of iron into paths quite alien from the original possibilities.
Has not mankind—and especially occidental mankind—suffered during the last two centuries the consequences of this disastrous mixture? From what was originally the “making of iron” has been born the machine age in the classical sense, modern technology in its widest aspects. It became the greatest seduction for all subsequent inventors to weave a delicate, ever thickening net around the earthly space that had been found and conquered by the earlier discoverers, so that this space might be opened up and utilized. But the occidental world lacked self-control when devoting itself to a process that needed a schooling of spirit and soul as well as the development of morality. Technology intoxicated the world. The age of naïve technology began. Naïve because technology was allowed to storm on blindly without looking, in wakefulness, at the effect it had on man, on the earth, and even on the Cosmos. And while this epidemic dimming of consciousness took place, the great tool of technology slipped out of its discoverers’ hands. It became independent, developing destructive and demonic possibilities. Such as it has become, it might possibly be guided by the human intellect. But we no longer know the moral forces guaranteeing its salubrious use.
We can expect every moment—to speak in the words of the Kalewala—that all vows will be eaten in dog-like manner; that brother will be cut into without pity; that blood is made to flow. It seems as if the iron’s lofty power has been dissipated. The ‘‘hornet” has had its say.
Yet one great and weighty question has been left unanswered. If we weigh every word that is said in this rune—and this must be done with the words of the Kalewala—we are left in uncertainty about the further deeds of the bee. It could be asked whether the little bee returned nevermore. Is that which was gathered by the bee from the herbs and the chalices of blossoms lost for all time? May the honey never come to the iron?
Rudolf Steiner has answered, by means of two significant indications, the questions that were left undecided. The first indication concerns the great educational effect that modern scientific thinking exercised on the men of the Occident. The exactitude and transparency, which had to be considered as the implicit premises of this thinking, have educated man to be objective as well as selfless. And selflessness, as Steiner said at a different occasion, will become more and more the innermost principle of an important sector of life closely connected with technology: the principle of economy, of world economy.
Essentially, the age of nationally limited, egotistical economies has passed. Every economy, which wants to maintain itself within a narrow horizon, will become unprofitable and decay. A healthy economy will be possible only on a worldwide scale.
The problem posed here in connection with the rune of the Kalewala was still more clearly answered when a question prompted by the deepest concern was asked of Rudolf Steiner while he was speaking of the elementary and even demonic forces of destruction which could be unleashed by technological development. A fearful threat to mankind penetrating into man’s innermost being had been mentioned. The question arose: Will these destructions come to mankind like a predestined fatality or can they be opposed? Rudolf Steiner answered that a powerful protection exists. Something exists which could heal the disease of our time: Fraternity within the economic system. It was a simple answer.
It was not only simple but also encompassing. Is not the selflessness unfolding and maturing in the form of fraternity a living expression of the pure and completely human power of love? Love is the genius giving its gift to counteract the hundreds of demands which embitter and fatigue us day in, day out. Love is the Christmas element sought by our age and working on throughout the year: the Honey.
The hornet’s poison merged with the iron through a lack of wakefulness, through the element of original sin to which our forefathers were subject. From the heights where Michael’s spirit-sword is gleaming, iron was thrust into slavery and now begins to rebel. By leading technology into wider horizons and penetrating it with an objective—which means spiritualized—fraternity, we unite the iron with lofty forces of a new kind. These lofty forces come out of man. They can be found only in highest wakefulness without depending on “believing and being convinced.” They point to a deed emerging from knowledge. Thus they complete, in Michaelic form, the making of iron left behind as a fragment by Ilmarinen.
If we recapitulate the grandiose simplicity and dramatic power of this rune concerning the forging of iron, we begin to understand what Rudolf Steiner said about the whole Kalewala poem: The images of the Kalewala runes are less concerned with echoes of the past than with youthful imaginations. These images, if grasped with the activity of spiritual organs, could tell us things of immeasurable importance for the present and the future. And what a span of time does Rudolf Steiner concede to this marvelous work of art! He said that the Kalewala would be as important for the future as the Homeric epic poems have been for the past.
Such an utterance must make us modest. We recognize that, at first, only a few pearls can be lifted out of the vast ocean sheltering such infinite treasures. Anyone studying the whole of the Kalewala, valiantly and patiently, will discover that it is thoroughly penetrated with forces of spiritual iron. For now we must content ourselves with pointing to two other runes in which the themes of iron and forging are treated in a way especially appealing to modern man.
It is told in the fourteenth rune how Lemmenkainen, the “divine adventurer,” is confronted with seemingly insoluble tasks by the Hostess of the North, whose daughter he woos. One of these tasks is the taming of Hiisis’ fire-flashing steed. Lemmenkainen proceeds in search of the fiery bayard. With him he takes a “golden rein” and a “silver harness.” For two days he searches in vain. Only on the third day, after mounting a high summit and looking Eastward does he see the horse. But Lemmenkainen immediately realizes that he cannot tame it through his own forces. He prays to the heavenly powers:
Ukko, highest God in Heaven,
Ukko, Ruler of the clouds,
Who dost guide the fleecy clouds:
Open wide the vault of heaven
And the air open like windows,
Let fall down hailstones of iron,
And let mighty clumps of ice
On the horse’s mane rain down,
On its forehead and its croup.
Ukko hears this prayer. The iron hailstones crackling down tame the fiery steed on which then Lemmenkainen lays the reins of gold and the silver harness. The symbolism of this tale can be recognized by two facts. Among the Kalewala’s heroic figures, Lemmenkainen is the one most intensely connected, on the one side, with the passions whirling in the bloodstream. On the other side, he advances further than all the others towards the waking consciousness of modern man. The horse, as in all legends and myths, is a symbol of the intellect.
The fiery-hued, fire-flashing steed speaks of intellectual forces which are not purified and of a thinking able to swallow up the glowing power of instincts. This image places before us the psychological truth connected with modern thinking: The more abstract it becomes, the more it whips up the passions dwelling in the depths. Here we have a symptom of far-reaching significance. Rudolf Steiner drew our attention to this decisive and shattering phenomenon, and modern psychology has confirmed his sayings.
We must recognize the following: This fiery-hued steed—animalized intellect—cannot be tamed unless the Michaelic-Cosmic forces of iron come down from above. The iron hailstones indicating meteoric iron are the symbol of these higher forces.
What Lemmenkainen experiences as a single person becomes a dramatic soul-spiritual experience of a stage in mankind’s evolution. Also the “golden rein” and “silver harness” are not mentioned by accident. In a macrocosmic sense, they point to sun and moon forces; in a microcosmic sense, to a youthfully renewed thinking and feeling that work in unison with one another. We cannot enter more thoroughly into these connections. But how much would be gained if we learn, in the spirit of the Kalewala, to guide the red steed with the golden rein! Then the intellect would be restrained and guided by the heart and sun forces of a feeling through which the spirit is pulsating.
The end of the Kalewala tells us, in a most impressive way, of these sun and moon forces that must be newly attained, that is, of a youthful feeling and thinking. We allude to the three runes preceding the last, the Marjatta rune. Here it is told how dark forces have stolen sun and moon and how no more fire is to be found in Kalewala’s halls, that is, in the spiritual forge in the Finnish North. Profound darkness is ruling. Ukko, the god of airy space, strikes fire “out of the sword’s fiery steel.” The fiery spark, after hastening with lightning-like speed across nine heavens, falls into a lake. Here it is swallowed by a fish, the blue salmon. But the fish suffers terrible torment through the fire burning inside of it. Restlessly, it swims to and fro in search of a remedy. Finally it meets an orange trout which, in its turn, swallows the salmon. But the trout is also plagued by the fire, which burns with undiminished strength through both the walls. The spark is so unbearable that the trout swims restlessly up and down in the vast waters. At last it is swallowed by a huge pike which, in its turn, is delivered to the scorching torment.
Let us impress the details of this image on our mind. The spark fallen down from heaven, which is to bring new light to the world, is now surrounded by three sheaths.
Finally Vainamoinen and Ilmarinen catch the pike with a linen net, liberating the thrice-enfolded fire-spark. But at first they have no power over it. The spark escapes with elementary force, burning the smith Ilmarinen most sorely. Then the spark sets fire to the forest and begins to spread.
But at last the spark is caught. Ilmarinen, whose burns have been healed, is able to forge a new sun and a new moon out of this fire. At first they do not radiate brightly enough. They are imprisoned by the evil Louhi, the hostess of the North and enemy of light. But when Louhi hears that the indefatigable Ilmarinen goes on forging—that he wants to make new implements for freeing the sun and moon—she liberates her prisoners. These, arising victoriously, bestow their blessing on all.
Hail thee, Moon, in new-found radiance,
Show anew thy countenance.
Golden Sun, we hail thy rising,
Ever higher in the sky.
Let us ask in concluding: What signifies this fiery spark enclosed within a threefold sheath, out of which a new sun and a new moon are to be forged? As Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual science has shown us, the innermost core of the human soul is surrounded by three sheaths. As it were, the fiery bud of the human Ego lies hidden beneath the layers of three elements: one surging to and fro in the sentient sphere; one streaming in the sphere of formative forces; one becoming solidified in space. Unless something extraordinary happens, this fiery Ego germ today sends flames, restlessness, and discord into each of the three sheaths. The spark wants to be lifted, in new spiritual activity, from the belly of the fish, indicating, in the language of mythical symbolism, super-sensible vision. This points to the new, exact clairvoyance to be born in the Michaelic Age. Out of this new clairvoyance is to be hammered and forged the image of the new man desiring to arise from everyday man.
The forces of personality, such as they were preserved from old times, have been consumed and used up. Our whole Occidental culture is marked by a rapidly spreading crisis concerned with the loss of these old forces. This, in its turn, causes the decay of those moral forces which have been borne aloft by a tradition lasting thousands of years. The old morality has decayed before a new one is born. Now we must nurture the future of the new fiery spark described in the Kalewala Runes. We have only one choice: We can either let it escape from our scorched hands and inflame the whole world, or we can follow the smith Ilmarinen by learning how to forge it. Then a wealth of youthful forces struggling to be born will begin to stir. There will be hope to see the golden sun arising new. If we think of all the spiritually potent indications presented so richly by the Kalewala, we are reminded again of the fact that the spiritual world offers the remedies that are needed by a diseased and ailing age. The Kalewala came just in time to inject iron forces into a spiritual Finland, when the physical Finland was undergoing a historical crisis. But we could ask: Was this was the only mission of the Kalewala?
Has not this gift from the spiritual world been bestowed on all of mankind in order to show us at a time when civilization dazzles us with its attainments, but culture is obscured, how new paths can be opened up, which will lead us to think of the “Honey-Forces” of the iron and a new spiritual work of forging? If this be true, the “Spiritual Forge in the North” will have an historical significance that cannot be fully estimated at the present time.
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