“Austin Texas and The Archai Michael” by Bradford Riley

Rudolf Steiner

” To the materialistic man of to-day, the Spirit of the Age is something quite abstract, without any reality; it would be still more difficult for him to see a real being in the Spirit of the Age. Nevertheless behind the word Zeitgeist, or ‘Spirit of the Age’, there is concealed a real being, and indeed none other than one three stages above the stage of humanity.

The Zeitgeist, Time Spirits or Spirits of the Ages lay down the great outlines for the several epochs. The extension of the Spirit of the Age over the whole earth is made possible through the various folk-individualities. Whilst the Spirits of the Age endow the Folk-spirits, care is taken that these may flow into the individual human beings; so that these individuals may fulfill their mission. The fact that individual persons become instruments in this mission of the Folk-spirits, is brought about by Beings who are between men and the Folk-spirits, namely, by the Angels or Angeloi.”

  • Angels (Angeloi, Sons of Twilight, Sons of Life; all Men have individual angels as guardians and carriers of their eternal Selves)

  • Archangels (Archangeloi, Spirits of Fire; the “folk-spirits” are of this rank)

  • Archai (singular “Arche”; Spirits of Personality, Primal Beginnings, Principalities; the “Time Spirit” or “Zeitgeist” is of this rank)

  • Exusiai (Spirits of Form, Powers, Authorities; the “Elohim” and “Jehovah” are of this rank)

  • Dynamis (Spirits of Motion, Mights, Virtues)

  • Kyriotetes (Spirits of Wisdom, Dominions)

  • Thrones (Spirits of Will)

  • Cherubim (Spirits of Harmony)

  • Seraphim (Spirits of Love).

Sometimes we get lucky when we try to track the trail of Michael the current Zeitgeist or Time Spirit. It was a lucky day in Austin, Texas when my friend Kevin Dann came to Austin and stayed with us for over a month.

Writing in 1795 about the altarpiece and its dismemberment, the local historian Giovanni Battista Sasso noted that, “It was sold in quarters, as one does with butcher’s meat.” What happened to the full figure of the Archangel Michael, the cosmic scales of Justice and human equilibrium of The Tenth Hierarchy, and the pictorial sign of the Zodiac Libra in the cycle of the year when Michaelmas arises in late September? According to the historian Giovanni Battista Sasso the image was carved up and sold like butcher’s meat.

“…The Youthful HeadAustin Texas Michael Archai” had been the central figure in the altarpiece! Back in London one night, the curator who had come to Austin, Xavier Salomon, suddenly realized that the ‘Head of an Angel” that he had seen on his visit here, was actually MICHAEL’s portrait that had been cut from the original painting. I still can’t get over the fact that the focal point of that altarpiece, the visage of the Archangel Michael, was right here in Austin while the other pieces floated round the world. Amazing. “

I have followed the Archai and Time spirit, the ZeitGeist Michael since I learned of him in London. It was from London that a Celtic Eurythmist named Jean Lynch pointed us towards Emerson College and Francis Edmunds. Francis Edmunds pointed my wife and I to Dornach Switzerland. Where if we really wanted to immerse ourselves in the Archai Michael and learn of how the Archangel Michael, that appeared to Joan of Arc, who had singly and soulfully saved the Archangelic language of French and Folk Soul of France from being absorbed by England, we could go to Dornach, Switzerland the actual citadel and cosmic fortress of all things Michael.

These were things you could do, adventures you could take, if destiny allowed you to, all through the early 1970’s people were trekking off seeking each our own unique Grail quests and living like peasants, hitchhiking, living in communes, sharing food, sharing rides, sharing chores, cutting down on conservative conventions and living or crashing where generosity and understanding of the quest allowed you to make no apologies for your poverty.

Well Dr. Kevin Dann, Professor Kevin Dann ended up at our house. Naturally we understood his quest and we shared the same Michael interests.

Kevin and my other companion and old Dornach Grail chum Robert Powell had just written an amazing little book together, on 2012. “Christ and the Maya Calendar 2012 and the coming of the Antichrist” So Kevin was on his quest, and lived in that attitude of quest and brotherhood that still lives in the best of those who carry the Michael Spirit.

Excerpt from Christ and the Maya Calendar

“Rudolf Steiner lived through on Earth the meta-historical reality of the impulse of the Archangel Michael, and he communicated more concerning the Archangel Michael than anyone else in the entire history of the Earth. Towards the end of his life, in 1924, Steiner founded an esoteric school. Called The Michael School…Steiner’s life and work-particularly through the founding of a Michael School on Earth-also clearly fulfill the Apocalyptic image of the Archangel Michael, the leader of the heavenly hosts in the war in heaven.” (pg 164-165)

The great West Window of the School of Spiritual Science reveals the great Archai and Zeitgeist Michael, the current Time Spirit, from his standpoint of having stood by Christ at Golgotha, and the westward moving power of the Christ revelation as it was planted where the ancient Arthurian and Grail stream intersect in Dornach Switzerland. There the new historical footprint of Michael was planted, uniting the ancient past of Michael, Marduk, Alexander the Great, Raphael’s school of Athens with Plato and Aristotle at the helm to the present karmic love story that was left in tragedy for humanity and the Tenth Hierarchy several times.

We might love a love story, but love small ‘l’ and LOVE big ‘L’ meant that if we looked back through history to find the origins of how the footprint of the Archai Michael arrived in Switzerland during the onslaught of the horrors that led to WWI and WWII, we find an intimate moment between two obscure historical individuals. Sigune of the Grail family and Schionatulander diplomatic representative to Harun al-Raschid out of Baghdad.

Schionatulander was killed in a knightly ambush and jousting action meant to take down Parsifal. Instead it was Schionatulander who was killed leaving Sigune, who loved him with a love that has outlived and traveled through incarnations that go all the way back to Sumerian Iraq, Uruk, which I visited in the 1980’s. I was there before the Ahrimanic forces who knew of this ancient karma attacked and destroyed Saddam Hussein.

The love story of the troubadour tales of Wolfram Von Eschenbach and his Parsifal include the greatest star crossed lovers tale of them all, Sigune and Schionatulander. This karmic history and love story goes right through brotherly love, companion love, friendship, higher esoteric schooling, world conquering and the Christ Event. The entire tale trails back to Ephesus and the Greek culture itself…to arrive there, in the place of the thorns, the hill of thorns, Dornach. To the utter surprise of our hearts this love affair and mission for humanity under the Michael wing of serving The mission of The Tenth Hierarchy lands once again very near the geographical location where Schionatulander, diplomat and emissary of the Arthurian Michael stream was murdered. Schionatulander karmically ended up serving as liaison between Baghdad and Harun al-Raschid and Arthur’s court and the Grail.

“Schionatulander is a name derived from the Old French and means “young man with the dog.” The quest for the Grail from the time period 768 – 800 AD, reveals manifestations of Mani in Parzival and Titurel and RS incarnated as “Schionatulander,” as described by Wolfram von Eschenbach in his poetic works “Parzival” and “Titurel,” written around 1220 AD. (It is probably incorrect to describe Parzival as an “incarnation” of Mani, while Mani may have been manifest in the historic Parzival, the Parzival described by Wolfram.) Schionatulander has a tragic, early death, having sacrificed his life for Parzival. There is also a dog, named Gardevias, meaning “Guard the Way,” who is instrumental in the tragic events, and the dog signifies, in the heavenly script, Sirius.

Titurel was one of the founders of the Grail Mysteries. The first historical Grail site was in Spain at San Juan de la Pena (St. John of the Rock) in 793 – 852 AD. The Holy Cup was here among the knights, c. 800 AD. Later it was moved to Arlesheim, where Parzival had encountered Sigune with the corpse of her beloved Schionatulander. Destiny led the reincarnated Schionatulander, RS, to build the Goetheanum 1 1/2 miles southwest of the hermitage at Arlesheim.”

Schionatulander was the loftiest Romantic Intellect of the Grail stream and he was murdered and lay in his beloved Sigune arms, as she wept and tongue lashed Parsifal in Eshenbach’s saga to continue onto the Grail for the sake of this fallen Knight who tragically lay in her lap exactly like the Pieta. This became the foundation stone of the Karma that brought about the mighty Citadel of Michael the Archai at the Goetheanum Michael Goetheanum overlooks the West Windowand brought together the Grail School of the 20th and 21st century. The entire School of Spiritual Science is made up of streams that converge on the New Grail mysteries of the 21st century.

This profound and intimate tale is seen in the stream of Wagner’s “Parsifal”. What we mean, when we imply the above history and include the controversial Richard Wagner, is that the entire body of work, the operas and the music of Parsifal were the carried memory of a bit player, a small player in the Arthurian Michael drama I have described. Wagner, as a bit player was none other, and carried in his astral body the great memory and profound tales and intuitions of none other than, the fabled Merlin. Merlin, much degraded as a person, lived as a magician in Wagner’s legitimate artistic work.

Rudolf Steiner

“There is, however, a medium through which man’s understanding can be reached, even without words, without concepts or ideas. This medium is music. Wagner’s music holds within it all the truths that are contained in the Parsifal story. His music is of such a unique character that those who listen to it receive in their ether body quite special vibrations. Therein lies the secret of Wagner’s music. One does not need to understand it — not in the least! One receives in one’s ether body the benign and healthful effect of the music. And man’s ether body is intimately connected with all the movements and throbbings of the blood. Wagner understood the mystery of the purified blood. In his melodies are rhythms and vibrations that must needs beat in the ether body of man if he is to be cleansed and purified so as to be ready to receive the Mysteries of the Holy Grail.”

Wagner stood thwarted and branded with the same racism as Nietzsche, because Nietzsche was Ahriman’s pet monkey in the worst sense of the “Thus Spake Zarathustra” and his “Anti-Christ”. Yet Wagner’s “Parsifal” of 1879 was an unsurpassed contribution to the dawning Michael Age.

Kevin arrived  as troubadour in a city of Singers and Romantics, Austin, and brought his mandolin and he and my wife invaded several bars and played and sang guitar and mandolin just for the fun of it while Kevin was with us.

Kevin was to be a guest at the University of Texas and research in the private libraries on campus of rare books and have use of an office space for the research work of a new book he was working on. No sooner had he arrived in our house and found his way daily, after running through the GreenBelt of Zilker Park at five in the morning, taking cold dips in the springs and pools, arriving refreshed and filled with natural energy at U.T. in the rare libraries, when a Michael event blazed into our immediate daily experiences.

Suddenly a small, but highly significant Michael Event was happening, as all Michael events happen, without anyone even grasping how this remarkable event came together just as Kevin and myself and however other Austin members of Michael’s impulses, that would include Austin Waldorf School and any and all those people who have a kinship with Michael might have recognized what Kevin and I immediately recognized. The secret piece of the puzzle of the face of Michael from a long lost and cut up painting had been found in Austin.

“…curator Xavier Salomon has concluded that a painting by Paolo Veronese at the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin, heretofore identified as Head of an Angel, is actually a fragment of a long-lost masterpiece by the Venetian artist. The painting is now thought to be a portrait of Saint Michael, the central figure in the so-called Petrobelli Altarpiece, made around 1565 for the church of San Francisco at Lendinara near Padua and dismembered and sold in pieces after the suppression of the Franciscan order in the 1780s. Next year, three other fragments of the altarpiece, along with the Blanton’s Saint Michael, are being reunited and put on public view…”

If you looked close at this Michael portrait that had been cut out of an old Altar piece, you could recognize the youthful face of Michael in Austin. The wonderful youthful and musical spirit of Austin itself lived in the portrait that had been part of a fragmented puzzle that had traveled through the history of The Consciousness Soul and had somehow arrived as a significant piece to a riddle of the great Archai Michael himself.

Kevin was one of our true Troubadour knights of Michael in the room when the puzzle was resorted out and appeared to shimmer for a moment in Austin. A subtle Michael event had just shuddered and shimmered through the city of Austin and few, very few had even celebrated the joy of the event.

At least Kevin, my wife Tara and I, where two or three were gathered together, we understood the amount of recognition, Time, Archai Time Spirit Michael, ZeitGeist hidden connections which had to have been awakened before the once fragmented painting, was restored to the original vision of the youthful Archangel Michael, when he was still an Archangel and caught on canvas as he might even have appeared to Joan of Arc
Michael and Joan of Arc
A young, invigorated and courageous Archangel that Joan of Arc had experienced personally and Austin, Texas had recovered, revealed the ever youthful and courageous face of Michael.

Michael as the current regent or ZeitGeist that sheds the powerful light of cosmic wisdom on science, art and religion is in the midst of an intense battle.

Rather we as humanity and The Tenth Hierarchy are in the midst of an intense battle with Ahrimanic forces and the forces represented as Michael’s fight with the Dragon. I tackle some of this current battle in Etheric Christ Glimpses 2, which will give a more accurate understanding of the Ascension Mysteries of Christ, having experienced the destiny of The Tenth Hierarchy, takes this experience from the realm of humanity up to the Ninth Hierarchy, the Angelic community. This is partially what the subject matter is of the newly discovered “Petrobelli altarpiece” . However only accurate Spiritual Science can follow Christ upwards into His experience in the neighboring Angelic Community.

This is the moment and the time frame for an Archai or Time Spirit, a ZeitGeist to reign or rule. In the case of the Archai Michael, he resumed his leadership in 1879 after a terrific battle to remove the Ahrimanic beings to a place where humanity would have to assist Michael or fall. Ahrimanic beings were sent down into human heads, into the layer of Soul life in humanity called, “The Intellectual Soul” region.

” That approximately three hundred fifty year “age” began, imperceptibly to most, to dawn in 1879. The last age of the Archangel Michael was before the time of Christ when the enlightenment of Plato and Aristotle was spread by Alexander over the area that the Apostle Paul was to evangelize in the Greek language.

Human understanding of the Christ, and of its own nature, had to wait then until the age of the highest Archangel returned again, the Archangel that Hebrew and Christian tradition has always associated with the Sun. It is Michael that strives with and for the Christ to administer the divine intelligence to humanity. And so when Christ spoke of the Spirit of Truth coming, it was of the time when the regency of the Archangel Michael would again return.”

This Michael reign and battle lasts for some 355 years. Starting in 1879 and the Michael battle that is raging now with these included forces against humanity, as of 1998/9 the PNAC document and those who signed that document. So titled, “The Project for a New American, (read AHRIMANIC) Century“, sponsored by the fallen Intel of all those who have betrayed their humanity for Ahrimanic promises of power and short term fame, are still today rewarded daily for lying through every media outlet in the world. In other words the Spirit of Truth is fully under attack.

The Sorathian and anti-sun forces are now driving against any Michael Intel or Michael Intelligence with the strong Ahrimanic forces that have been lodged in the Intellect of humanity. The Ahrimanic citadel of forces in our intellects which strongly oppose Michael, joined in the battle against Michael with the rise of the Sorathian forces (key date surge 1998 click link), fight an Orwellian battle against anything to do with Michael Intel or the manifestation and revelation of the Etheric Christ Being. These sub-sensible beings are waging war through the manipulations of the political intellect, propaganda, false patriotism, torture, lies and using  fragments of humanities fallen intellect to achieve aims that are against humanity itself.

Just as in 2010, in Austin,  how the discovery of how Michael passed through  the University of  Texas without much serious recognition so too Michael events go uncelebrated and unnoticed by the majority of humanity. We are deliberately entrained to not recognize a Michael event when we see it. We celebrate lies over truth in all our media outlets.

Austin is famous for it’s singer and troubadour traditions and the University of Texas. Poets, singers, scientists and business types arise out of Austin Texas. The University of Texas hardly gave passing notice to such an interesting spiritual discovery or reveled in the full tracing of the pedigree of the why or how Michael ended up in Austin at all. For materialism, the why or how do not include any interest in the vast history of Michael or in the hidden and unknown depths of how Christ was lifted to the neighboring Angelic Community at His Ascension after the event of Golgotha.

Austin is home to a full running 12 grade level Waldorf School, which is one of the shining products of Michael Intelligence. It was Michael’s Intelligence and the Tenth Hierarchy, through Spiritual Science that brought together, not only the best education in the entire world, Waldorf Education into Austin, but the finest science of chemistry, matter and the relationships between matter and spirit, in The Agricultural Course by Rudolf Steiner.The University of Texas and Texas A&M would do well to study such an Agricultural document of Michael Intelligence for it raised matter itself and farming to a process that includes a kind of Galileo planetary cosmology of chemistry into it’s research. Nobody has ever seen anything like the sciences of The Agricultural Course by Rudolf Steiner LINK(focus for a moment on lectures 2 & 3).

Since Austin prides itself on the inspirations of musicians, we know that both music and matter are an astonishing study of what is known in Michael lore as “The Music of the Spheres“. It so happens that the atomic table of elements and matters sub-atomic weights are solidly based on the interrelationships and arrangements of matter that arise from the interrelationships of the spirit and the ancient tones produced out of the Music of the Spheres. The mathematical principles of musical harmony are directly related to geometry — which Goethe described as ‘frozen music’. Matter itself and all it’s various relationships are not only frozen at different speeds and ratios but matter is actually various degrees of concentrated or decayed light. Kepler and others understood that matter are relationships of tone.

A being such as Christ or Michael or an Angelic Being move through matter as musicians move through tone, songs and musical scores. Our own intimate biographies are Symphonic scores integrated with the Planets and Zodiac. Shakespeare’s dramas are Symphonies of the Spirit. The atomic table itself are all based on the interrelationships of cosmic tone and The Music of the Spheres themselves. Chemistry operates with the same creative sets of relationships as musicians attempt to individualize in tone. Some of these relationships are researched in Steiner’s “Agricultural Course.”

The name for Michael goes all the way back to Marduk and Tiamat. Tiamat the body of Space and Time was cut up and reorganized by Marduk/Michael and matter and spirit were brought into related but separate distinct relationships. It was Marduk/Michael who established along with the Logos/Christ the material and spiritual destiny of humanity and organized the hidden alchemical mystery of the symphony known as the Music of the Spheres.

Marduk’s victory saves the gods and opens the
way for him to fashion the cosmos, order it, and
to create man to be servant and laborer of the
gods.”

Marduk wielded a magic net and had at his command the Four Winds, two factors that contributed to his eventual conquest over Tiamat, after a long and terrible battle. Michael and TiamutHe subsequently used her carcass to form Heaven and Earth. Marduk was made King of the Gods. He created Babylon and human beings to dwell there and toil for the gods. He created Language and established Order amongst the ranks of beings.

The unfolding activity of humanity and Christ are richly outlined in the Alpha/Omega witness St. John/Lazarus in his Revelation. But what physics and the study of matter fails to comprehend is that the body of matter and the same matter which we cloth our spirits with was brought into related, intimate, musical, symphonic alchemy just through the deeds of Michael/Marduk. That is why science has the Logos tag added to it. Geology, biology,archeology, angelology, paleontology, all our specialized studies reveal distinct organization of thought, tone, music, matter into an atomic table and a Periodic table of the elements that are based on musical interrelationships.

There was a time when the Archangel Michael stood with Joan of Arc amidst the other Archangels of the various languages and cultures, and imbued Joan of Arc with the courage to stand the attacks on her lofty and humble insights.The Priests hated her because the Archangel Community talked with her and Ahrimanic forces hated her because the Archangel Michael, youthful Michael, stood guard over the spirit of Joan of Arc.

In becoming a ZeitGeist and Time Spirit, Michael assumed this post in 1879 with The Fall of the Spirits of Darkness into human intelligence.

Michael the Archai and ZeitGeist that was uncovered and revealed at the University of Texas in Austin,  the youthful and courageous Michael that inspired Joan of Arc was pieced together and for a moment it was almost whole, along with the Ascension of Christ into the Angelic Community.

We are so unfamiliar with the scope of our own relationship to the hierarchy of the Angels that we have lost all understanding that the Angelic Community is the Ninth Hierarchy above humanity, which is the Tenth Hierarchy. So called science and education are afraid to study these items and include them because it would take education outside the Ahrimanic paradigm that must be maintained for the sake of materialism.

That Archangels rule over different language and cultures, the flora, fauna, food and spoken languages of Spanish, Norwegian, Swedish, German, Italian, French, English, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, all have different Archangel Beings connected to them and the Archangels, unlike the Angelic Community above humanity, the Archangels are the Eighth hierarchy.

In order to incarnate and choose parents, language a culture that is karmically correct for each individual, mighty Angelic Beings before our births, assist us in placing our capacities and learning within a language, flora, fauna, etheric flavors, thought tones and ideas that will carry our unique destinies forwards.

More specifically the arrangement of the birth of a child is coordinated to have a biographical and mathematical relation to the very stars that Galileo out of Padua first observed. In other words, Michael and the Angelic Beings coordinate the mathematical integration of  Time or ZeitGeist insertion into Earth life or precision landing of a human spiritual being within the region of Space and Time (SEE LINK). Our individual thought processes light up under the system of our TWELVE CRANIAL NERVES (see link), as a mirror of dynamic forces of the very stars and insertion point we entered in from which marked the date and time of our births.  The Archai Michael coordinates the interrelationship between the stars and our biographical, mathematical destinies. We are inserted into the stream of Time and we are reincarnating spiritual beings. We are reinserted again and again through human time portals and female wombs.

In the painting of the Ascension of Christ  from  “The Petrobelli Altarpiece” (see link) “, that had traveled along the St. Francis of Assisi route having encountered in Lendinara, a small town near Padua, the influences of Giotto, Galileo, Dante, Petrarch and Tasso.  The Univ. of Padua right near Lendinara is one of the oldest in Italy after that of Bologna, which was founded in 1222 by teachers and students who had fled from Bologna. Now centered in Il Bo palace, the university established the first anatomy hall (well preserved) in Europe in 1594. Galileo taught (1592-1610) at the university, and Dante, Petrarch, and Tasso were students there.  And “The Petrobelli Altarpiece” was located near the hub of education and art that flourished in and around the great university city of Padua.

Padua and the University of Texas have been united by the Michael stream via the portrait of Michael found and located at The Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin, and the Michael impulse of the Austin Waldorf School which like the city of Lendinara flourished just outside Padua, the Austin Waldorf School based on the Archai Michael’s influence flourishes just outside of Austin as well.

For Austin we can take three very different influences that strike youth through the influence of Galileo. Influence one, is advanced space technology. The next influence that shook through the entire music elements of the head bangers of the world, was the rock group Queen and Galileo and “The Bohemian Rhapsody” out of “Wayne’s World”. The third influence from The Indigo Girls, fits right into Galileo and Austin as well.

Kevin’s notes from Ransom Research Center

“In 1565, in Lendinara, a little village in the Po valley, two wealthy cousins, Girolamo and Antonio Petrobelli, commissioned Paolo Veronese to create an altarpiece for the chapel of the local Franciscan monastery, that would also serve as a backdrop for their tomb in the church. I guess Italian authorities were waging a bit of a war on the Franciscans in the late 18th century, and they closed the Lendinara church and sold off the order’s land. The altarpiece, over 15′ high, was cut up and sold in pieces in 1788, after the abandoned church was demolished. A local historian lamented that this exquisite work “was sold in quarters, as one does with butcher’s meat.” Museums in London, Edinburgh and Ottawa Dulwich acquired three separate pieces of the original painting in the 19th and early 20th century.

“To make the pieces more marketable, the Venetian art dealer who sold the fragments had commissioned artists to paint over parts of the original that no longer made sense with the central section of the painting cut out. Just 4 years ago, two of the museums were doing restoration work on their ‘fragments,’ and one of the curators, a great Veronese scholar, came to Austin to look at a suite of Veronese paintings in the Blanton Museum’s collection. (I found out yesterday that those paintings used to be right downstairs from my office, until they opened the new museum just two years ago!), including a huge Magdalene, and a small “Head of an Angel.” As varnish and paint was removed from the canvas, it became apparent that in between the two large fragments showing the Petrobelli cousins and their patron saints Jerome and Anthony, there appeared first the wing of an angel, then a hand holding a scale in one pan of which was a frail human soul. . . then, on the other fragment, a spear. . . and at the bottom, the prostrate, writhing form of Satan — the “Youthful Michael” had been the central figure in the altarpiece! Back in London one night, the curator who had come to Austin, Xavier Salomon, suddenly realized that the ‘Head of an Angel” that he had seen on his visit here, was actually MICHAEL’s portrait that had been cut from the original painting. I still can’t get over the fact that the focal point of that altarpiece, the visage of the Archangel Michael, was right here in Austin while the other pieces floated round the world. Amazing.

“But here is the odd thing for me. When I arrived at the room where the altarpiece was reconstructed, there was an art historian from the University, giving a talk about the social history of Venice in the 16th century; the tradition of strezzopratura (sp?) — how to show off without showing off; patronage politics. . Petrobelli Ascension of Christ. not one word about Christ’s ascension, or about Archangel Michael. Then I watched the video of the talk that Xavier Salomon had given at the exhibition opening; he told the whole saga of the painting, and it was engaging and delightful. . . but again, the sacred subject of the painting was never discussed. There was also a video of the curator of the Blanton speaking about how common “fragmentation” of great paintings was after the 18th century, about the art market, etc. Never did he once refer to the “fragmentation” of our own relationship to the subjects of these masterpieces.

“That once-lost, now-found fragment bearing Michael’s head, hovering in a grey space at the center of the reconstructed altarpiece painting, seems as if it should have inspired un pelèrinage or a festival or a pageant of Austin’s citizenry. If we were in some other time or place, this remarkable rediscovery of a great master’s rendering of the Archangel Michael would be the talk of the town.

Last night I began to dream about writing an article for the local arts & entertainment paper, that would meditate on Michael’s mission in our time; on the local Hispanic traditions of;honoring Michael, and perhaps too speak about the place of Michael within Waldorf education, since there is a Waldorf elementary and high school here in Austin. Then at the end I would call for people to come create a processional to go and see the painting, as a celebration of Michael’s stewardship, and as a step toward renewing our dedication to our cooperation with Michael to lawfully bring down the cosmic intelligence — and, at this crucial time, to recognize and resist the Ahrimanic dragon. I am afraid that Ahriman may look at the widespread ‘forgetting’ of Michael even as this icon was brought to light, as a victory.

“Just as I started to plan this out last night, I found out that the exhibition closes next weekend, but I still may try to write an essay and invite people to join me for a processional/pilgrimage in March, when the “Head of an Angel” painting will be orphaned again, the rest of the altarpiece having returned to London, Edinburgh, and Ottawa. “

“As varnish and paint was removedPetrobelli painting from the canvas, it became apparent that in between the two large fragments showing the Petrobelli cousins and their patron saints Jerome and Anthony, there appeared first the wing of an angel, then a hand holding a scale in one pan of which was a frail human soul. . . then, on the other fragment, a spear. . . and at the bottom, the prostrate, writhing form of Satan — the “Youthful Michael” had been the central figure in the altarpiece!”

My friend Kevin felt dismayed that neither the Ascension mysteries of Christ nor the gaping hole where Michael stood with the scales of Justice over the Satanic or Ahrimanic being or the activity of Michael in our current Time Stream were discussed. And it is with great regret that nobody would comprehend what is normally discussed and comprehended at any Waldorf School in the World, and Waldorf is the biggest private school system in the entire world. Michael and the activity of Michael the Archai are understood and discussed along with the sciences, the seasons and the other ZeitGeist rulerships that have occurred through out history.

“…there are seven archangels (Enoch 24 had spoken of “seven mountains” with Michael speaking, as above, in regard to the “seventh”) among whom Michael is acknowledged as supreme, he who is associated with the Sun. There is a sevenfold series of regencies, one for each successive archangel, so that each one is of something over three hundred years. Whether they are precisely equal or only approximately so has not been made clear, even by Steiner. In the fifteenth century, Johannes Tritheim, the Abbott of Sponheim, is said to have determined each archangelic period to be 354 1/3 years long. Perhaps significantly this is precisely one hundred times the length of twelve lunar synodic months (354 1/3 days each). If he is right and the current age of Michael began in 1879, then the prior age would have run from 601 to 247 B.C., encompassing, as Steiner indicated, the Greek sages Heraclitus, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle as well as the spreading of Greek civilization by Alexander in divine preparation for Paul’s evangelization of the Greek world. We know of Plato’s influence upon John’s Gospel. Socrates and Heraclitus were both singled out by Justin Martyr (ca. A.D. 100-165) as Christians before the incarnation of Christ.”

Now how Michael found his way to the Blanton museum all has to do with Parsifal and Richard Wagner and the impulse of how the Arthurian stream, the Grail and the university of Spiritual Science, the Goetheanum came to be and how you come to be reading this at this very moment. William “Suida was born to Albert Suida and Betha von Heim, his mother a descendant of Richard Wagner. William and his children amassed large personal collections of Baroque art. Suida was an expert in Lombard art and only slightly less Venetian. At his death in 1959, his collection passed to his children… The combined art collection was donated to the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas, Austin, in 1999, as the Suida-Manning Collection.”

Thus the whole mystery of the head and missing body of Michael the current Archai were “part of its Suida-Manning Collection of Renaissance and baroque art. One of them was the head of St. Michael. Only no one knew it was St. Michael; it was listed in the collection only as Head of an Angel, which was what art historian William Suida thought it was when he acquired it in the 1930s. That’s when Salomon e-mailed Jonathan Bober, the Blanton’s curator of prints, drawings, and European paintings, and asked him to check the dimensions of the head of the angel and the character of canvas. If Salomon’s hunch was right, he had solved a centuries-old mystery in Renaissance art.”

William Suida acquired this so called “Head of an Angel” in the 1930’s. In my Etheric Christ Glimpses 1, we trace the rise of the Etheric Christ vision, which the Ahrimanic beings hate, to the rise of the Etheric Christ in counterpoint, 1933, to the rise of Hitler. The Reichstag is a false flag event that was achieved on Rudolf Steiner’s birthday. Ahriman had clear understanding that one of his greatest threats to destroying the mission of The Tenth Hierarchy, was the human being who knew the most concerning The Etheric Christ Event. The true exact reality of the rise of Hitler and diverting the world’s attention from this powerful Etheric event, was Ahriman’s precise clues in cunning. Ahrimanic beings are cunning and accurate and to place the rise of Nazism and the burning of the Reichstag on Steiner’s birthday, where he would have concluded his earthly mission at a full 72 years of age, from the dawning of the Michael Age to the Rise of the Etheric Christ, is just one of those clues that startle one.

I was no less startled to find that William Suida acquired the Michael Head at the time of the Rise of the Etheric Christ in the 1930’s and two X’s 33 years later,in 1999 it ends up in Austin than I was startled to find that William Suida was directly related to Richard Wagner. Richard Wagner aka. pagan Merlin, like wonderful Pagan and musical and Romantic Austin, wrote his “Parsifal” as the opening salvo of the Michael era in 1879. 1879 Steiner was 18.6 years old and the Archai Michael had just finished thrusting Ahrimanic beings of “The Matrix” type down into the region of humanities Intellectual Soul.

Do not doubt for a single moment that these vicious Ahrimanic beings who are parasites thrust into our own soul system are not playing for keeps. They are. And that is the vain illusion that we struggle with, Michael thrust them down into human intellects because humanity would have to take up the cause of the spiritual world or be swept away by a full “Matrix Designed” Ahrimanic doom using humanities own weakness and arrogance as weapons against the mission of The Tenth Hierarchy.

Now the missing body of Michael in the Blanton painting, the one where Michael presses down Ahriman with his foot, well the entire portion of the missing part of the “Paolo Veronese: The Petrobelli Altarpiece” needs a further comment against the complacency and the entire lack of spiritual and historical courage that we approach everything with. Firstly lets look at what is still missing from the Canvas. What is missing looks something like this only with the wonderful face of our own Austin Michael, in something of the posture and position depicted above.

But here we come to a problem that all of us must realize if we are to work in the 21st century and into the future with Michael. I have drawn in the experience of Joan of Arc, but just as importantly was a comment made by Nathaniel Hawthorne in his wonderful book, “The Marble Faun.” In the book Hawthorne brings to light how any discussion of Michael and how humanity seems to think somehow that all this is a dainty romp with well dressed divine beings, always talking in some New Age touchy feely kind of environment. No. No.

Things that have to do with the Michael Age we are in and the Michael ages of the past, have to do with standing in the vital whirlwind of truth while whole hordes stand against you and deny any part of truth and prefer that you are either burned at the stake for telling the truth or out right murdered, eliminated or tortured and put in some rendition center. Ahriman is distinctly Orwellian and distinctly more like “V for Vendetta and is putting up a horrible global front against the core virtues of humanity. And the pity is that humanity is dumb to ahriman’s infiltration and dumb to identifying the difference between it’s highest spiritual mission and humanities lowest lying, scoundrels.

Therefore this quote from Hathorne’s “Marble Faun” about discussing Michael’s battle with Ahriman is far more fitting than any sweet faced Altarpiece with well attired Archangels. What is important is that we understand the character of having Michael in Austin and what it really means to work within the framework of Michael Intel vs Ahrimanic Intel.

From: “The Marble Faun” by Nathaniel Hawthorne

“The drawing had originally been very slight, and had suffered more from time and hard usage than almost any other in the collection; it appeared, too, that there had been an attempt (perhaps by the very hand that drew it) to obliterate the design. By Hilda’s help, however, Miriam pretty distinctly made out a winged figure with a drawn sword, and a dragon, or a demon, prostrate at his feet.

“I am convinced,” said Hilda in a low, reverential tone,” that Guido’s own touches are on that ancient scrap of paper! If so, it must be his original sketch for the picture of the Archangel Michael setting his foot upon the demon, in the Church of the Cappuccini. The composition and general arrangement of the sketch are the same with those of the picture; the only difference being, that the demon has a more upturned face, and scowls vindictively at the Archangel, who turns away his eyes in painful disgust.”

“No wonder!” responded Miriam. “The expression suits the daintiness of Michael’s character, as Guido represents him. He never could have looked the demon in the face!”

“Miriam!” exclaimed her friend reproachfully, “you grieve me, and you know it, by pretending to speak contemptuously of the most beautiful and the divinest figure that mortal painter ever drew.”

“Forgive me, Hilda!” said Miriam. “You take these matters more religiously than I can, for my life. Guido’s Archangel is a fine picture, of course, but it never impressed me as it does you.”

“Well; we will not talk of that,” answered Hilda. “What I wanted you to notice, in this sketch, is the face of the demon. It is entirely unlike the demon of the finished picture. Guido, you know, always affirmed that the resemblance to Cardinal Pamfili was either casual or imaginary. Now, here is the face as he first conceived it.”

“And a more energetic demon, altogether, than that of the finished picture,” said Kenyon, taking the sketch into his hand. “What a spirit is conveyed into the ugliness of this strong, writhing, squirming dragon, under the Archangel’s foot! Neither is the face an impossible one. Upon my word, I have seen it somewhere, and on the shoulders of a living man!”

“”I have never been able,” said Miriam, “to admire this picture nearly so much as Hilda does, in its moral and intellectual aspect. If it cost her more trouble to be good, if her soul were less white and pure, she would be a more competent critic of this picture, and would estimate it not half so high. I see its defects today more clearly than ever before.”

“What are some of them?” asked Kenyon.

“That Archangel, now,” Miriam continued; “how fair he looks, with his unruffled wings, with his unhacked sword, and clad in his bright armor, and that exquisitely fitting sky-blue tunic, cut in the latest Paradisiacal mode! What a dainty air of the first celestial society! With what half-scornful delicacy he sets his prettily sandalled foot on the head of his prostrate foe! But, is it thus that virtue looks the moment after its death struggle with evil? No, no; I could have told Guido better. A full third of the Archangel’s feathers should have been torn from his wings; the rest all ruffled, till they looked like Satan’s own! His sword should be streaming with blood, and perhaps broken halfway to the hilt; his armor crushed, his robes rent, his breast gory; a bleeding gash on his brow, cutting right across the stern scowl of battle! He should press his foot hard down upon the old serpent, as if his very soul depended upon it, feeling him squirm mightily, and doubting whether the fight were half over yet, and how the victory might turn! And, with all this fierceness, this grimness, this unutterable horror, there should still be something high, tender, and holy in Michael’s eyes, and around his mouth. But the battle never was such a child’s play as Guido’s dapper Archangel seems to have found it.”

“For Heaven’s sake, Miriam,” cried Kenyon, astonished at the wild energy of her talk; “paint the picture of man’s struggle against sin according to your own idea! I think it will be a masterpiece.”

“The picture would have its share of truth, I assure you,” she answered; “but I am sadly afraid the victory would fail on the wrong side. Just fancy a smoke-blackened, fiery-eyed demon bestriding that nice young angel, clutching his white throat with one of his hinder claws; and giving a triumphant whisk of his scaly tail, with a poisonous dart at the end of it! That is what they risk, poor souls, who do battle with Michael’s enemy.”

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ADDENDUM 1
Parsifal arrives before the revelation of the Grail. (Yes, to some this may appear tacky), but the revelation of the Light is something Wagner drew humanity into. In other words humanity would hold it’s voice and heart upwards to the Christ and Michael impulse. Wagner’s opera Parsifal was an 1879 Michael Event brought forward from the 9th century.

ADDENDUM 2
With Reincarnation understanding, we are looking through Wagner to the ancient Celtic Initiation giant Merlin. It was from Merlin’s astral body that Wagner was able to pull the mighty history of his enormous 12 part saga of operas that are astonishing. Parsifal being handed over to humanity as the last at the dawn of the new Michael era.

19 Replies to ““Austin Texas and The Archai Michael” by Bradford Riley”

  1. Wow! Great insights into Michael’s presence in our very own town of Austin, TX! Thanks Brad.

  2. Wonderfully presented, your time and energy involved in this piece is very much appreciated, thank you much.

  3. Hy Brad happy to read your words again.!
    I am “Andrea the italian ” who was on AT and on other mail lists about 1999-2004 discussing with you and with the other “anthro-addicted”.
    Very interesting: Michael face in Austin,Texas….
    Ad majora!

    Andrea

  4. Dear Bradford

    What a wonderful discovery; a long-lost piece of the portrait of Michael. The Face of Michael The Countenance of Christ. It is very sad to think someone had the audacity to cut this portrait into pieces. Thank you for the well researched work into the portrait – possibly sometimes certain things are scattered so they can be found again.

    Bradford I have one question regarding Kevin Dann and Robert Powell’s book ‘Christ and the Maya Calendar 2012 and the coming of the Antichrist’

    It is this one line that stands out like ink on a blotting paper in a text speaking about those who carry the Michael Spirit, the Zeitgeist, the Folk-Spirits, the Angeloi, the Archangels, the Archai, the Exusiai, the Dynamis, the Kyriotetes, the Thrones, the Cherubim, the Seraphim, Archangel Michael and The Christ.

    Also the dynamic portraits of Michael trampling the beast.

    My question to you is how many more times does Michael have to be shown trampling the beast?

    ‘The darkness as been here all the time and they recognized not the darkness they thought it was good.’

    Caryn

  5. But ye, the genuine Sons of Heaven, rejoice!
    In the full living beauty still rejoice!
    May that which works and lives, the ever-growing,
    In bonds of love enfold you, mercy-fraught,
    And seeming’s changeful forms around you flowing,
    Do ye arrest, in ever-during thought.

  6. Brad,

    Glad you shared noticing the Michael face surfacing in Austin and that you also include Concord, & Hawthorne’s “The Marble Faun”.

    Threads weaving from from Europe thence East to West & North to South standing for Michaelic impulses & destiny threads weaving within these United States. Your essay rays into 21st century within which I trust Michael and his angels, may play an ever greater and greater role as this new century unfolds during which more and more Waldorf Schools may become chariots, so to speak, encouraging the Michaelic threads to weave into, shape and inspire while welcoming the future born round individual consciousness, out of an education toward freehood & liberty as more and more individuals each strive for conscious spiritual insight hither & yon from sea to shining sea.

    John

  7. John Moses, so glad to hear from you after all these years. Yep in Austin now for seven years…Rather love Austin. Always loved our talks together.

  8. Hello mr. Riley,
    My name is Drew Price, I’m very interested in steiner’s ideas concerning speech and drama. I came to this area of interest thru the rituals of the Masonic lodge and an interest in scwaller de lubicz and Owen barfield, and also thru an interest in the deeper aspects of Shakespeare’s language. Allen Pittman said you were the one to speak with, so I contacted you.
    Regards,
    Drew Price

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