Most of us can easily recall with gratitude a person who positively influenced our life. We honestly don’t know where we’d be without them; they led us in the right direction. We might also feel gratitude for someone who influenced our whole nation of people to become better. The study of the angelic hierarchies explores the influences of those beings we cannot see. When we learn about these beings, when we actually acknowledge their work, we feel gratitude towards them, too.
Every time we fall asleep, we commune with our Guardian Angel—we enter that realm of angels which is closest to the human being. (See March and April 2021.) Every time we are born, we enter the culture of our birthplace, we are influenced by the Archangel of that people. (See March 2022.) The realm of the Archangels is higher than that of the Angels; whereas Angels guide individuals, Archangels guide groups of people, even nations. We are also born into a specific time, an Age, and this period that lasts over 2000 years is guided by the realm above the Archangels, the realm of the Spirits of Time, historically called the Archai.
Let’s see what Dr. Steiner has to say:
In addition to the evolution of the peoples and all that is associated with their evolution, a progressive evolution of mankind takes place. Whether we consider one particular civilization to be superior to another is of no consequence.
In every age there is something that transcends the Folk Soul (Archangel), which can bring the various Folk Souls together, something that is more or less universally understood. This is the Zeitgeist or Time Spirit, the Spirit of the Age, to use an unfortunate term which is in common usage. Each epoch has its particular Zeitgeist; the Zeitgeist of the Greek epoch is different from that of our own age. Those who understand the Spirit today are drawn towards Spiritual Science. It is this Spirit which, reflecting the Spirit of the Age, transcends the individual Folk Souls…
Thus, for every epoch we can discover the Spirit of the Age (Archai), which is something that permeates the activity of the Archangels. To the materialist of today, the Spirit of the Age is an abstraction, devoid of reality; still less would he be prepared to accept the Spirit of the Age as an authentic entity. Nevertheless, the term ‘Spirit of the Age’ conceals the existence of a real Being who is three stages above man. It conceals the identity of the Beings, the Archai…
We are here dealing with exalted Beings, and the contemplation of their attributes might well overwhelm us. They are the Beings who might be described as the inspirers—or if we choose to use the technical expression of occultism—the “intuitors” of the Spirit or Spirits of the Age. They work in such a way that they take over from one another and mutually support each other. From epoch to epoch, they pass on their mission to their successor. The Spirit of the Age who was active in the Greek epoch handed on his mission to his successor, and so on…
These Spirits of Personality, these inspirers of the Spirit of the Age, are of a higher order than the Archangels. In every epoch one of these Spirits is predominant and sets his seal upon the whole epoch, assigns to the Archangels their specific tasks so that the whole spirit of the epoch is determined by the special or individual characteristics of the Archangel. Then, in the following epoch, another Archai takes over.
Excerpt from: The Mission of the Individual Folk Souls, Lecture: Angels, Folk Spirits, Time Spirits: their part in the Evolution of Mankind, Oslo, Norway, June 7, 1910.
Understanding of the idea of a Spirit of the Age is easier when we recognize that we have an overarching idea about Ancient Greece or Ancient Egypt or Ancient India. In a lecture that follows the one excerpted above, Steiner tells us, for example, that “Kepler, Copernicus and Pericles could not possibly have lived in any other age or under other circumstances” than the epoch into which they were born. Our current Age began in the early 1400s and will end in the late 3500s, so we have a way to go before we reach the goals for humanity of this epoch.
What is the stamp of our Age? One hint is that meditation in our time is becoming ubiquitous. In education, in healthcare, in science, in business, in sports, meditation is being touted as a benefit to everyone. We human beings are recognizing that we have to make an effort to connect our earthly consciousness to our spiritual consciousness—a goal of our epoch—in order to live healthy lives. We are being inspired by the Spirit of our Age to do so.
Knowing ourselves is impossible without acknowledging that we are spiritual beings evolving in a world of other evolving spiritual beings. Learning about these spiritual entities is essential to learning about ourselves.