The power to become invisible is a fascinating idea explored in many works of fiction. In his book, The Invisible Man, H. G. Wells’ main character is an optics expert who develops a procedure that makes him invisible. A magical ring makes its wearer invisible in The Lord of the Rings books and a magical cloak makes its wearer invisible in the Harry Potter books. Like these characters, we might enjoy the obvious advantages of being invisible. However, none of us would be happy if the people we know and love were invisible to us.
So, as we’ll see, it takes a moment to get used to the idea that they are.
We need to create new ways of thinking about the human material/physical body—the visible body—because the more comfortable we become with the premise that what we are seeing is just the material vessel of the people around us, that who they really are is invisible, the more we might actually “see” them. Of course, we are invisible too, so if all we focus on when we think of ourselves is our physical body, we are missing what matters the most, our invisible self.
Let’s see what Dr. Steiner has to say:
When you encounter a fellow human being today, your conscious impression is really an entirely materialistic one. You tell yourself (not aloud of course, and perhaps not even as a conscious thought, but on a deeper level of awareness), “This is a person made of flesh and blood, composed of earthly substances.” And you say the same of animals and plants…
Let us take the most extreme case, human beings… What your physical eyes perceive is the mineral element that fills out the structure. You see whatever the person has absorbed from the external mineral world. You do not see the being who did the absorbing, who united with the mineral element. Hence, when we encounter another human being, we speak correctly only if we say to ourselves: “What stands before me are material particles that this individual’s spirit-form has stored and gathered, thereby making something invisible visible.”
Actual human beings are invisible, truly invisible. All of you sitting here listening to this lecture are invisible to physical senses. But a certain number of shapes with a certain capacity to attract particles of matter are sitting here, and these particles are visible… the real individuals sitting here are supersensible beings, hence invisible.
Excerpt from: The Mission of the Archangel Michael: Revelation of Essential Secrets of the Human Being, Lecture 3 by Rudolf Steiner, November 23, 1919, Dornach, Switzerland.
Steiner calls the above thought experiment “Michaelic thinking”. Who is Michael?
As described in Historic UK, “St. Michael (pronounced Micha-el) is one of the principal angelic warriors, protector against the dark of the night and the Archangel who fought against Satan and his evil angels.” Rudolf Steiner has written and lectured extensively about the Archangel Michael as the bringer of light, an exalted being who is the ruler of cosmic intelligence. Michael is one of seven archangels who, one after the other, guide humankind throughout time; he is now once again overseeing humanity. His wish is to guide us toward a conscious experience of the spiritual world, to make the invisible visible through the light of spiritual knowledge. We, however, must do the work of preparing ourselves to meet him.
One of the ways we can prepare ourselves is to acknowledge that we, and everyone else, existed before our birth and will continue to exist after our death; we are eternal beings. Another way of preparing ourselves is by reminding ourselves every morning that everyone we see as we walk through the day is invisible. When we can accept that, we will learn to accept that there are other beings that exist who are not in physical bodies at all, who are completely invisible to us. We need to know and acknowledge these beings too.
https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Michaelmas/