In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1:1

Today’s speech is, for the most part, devoid of soul and spirit. Our expressions are abstract and few people make the effort required to ensoul words. If we are able to look at evolution as far back as Atlantis we find that language was infused with the will. We wouldn’t see Atlanteans standing around discussing the state of affairs. In Atlantis language aroused the will, so when danger threatened it summoned us to defend ourselves. In pre-Christian times a feeling spirit entered language. Since the purpose of speech was now to name things, the inner nature of things was expressed in the name. If we spoke about ploughing a field the word ‘plough’ gave a feeling of the ploughing. In this present stage of the evolution of language we have lost the feeling content and we have to describe the ploughing because the spirit of thought lives in our speech.

The spirits that guide our speech are the Archangels, the folk spirits. If our speech is empty of spiritual ideals we have no connection with the Archangels. If we engage in abstract speech during the day, at night when we sleep our connection with these beings is lost.

Rudolf Steiner says, “Within language lives the genius of language that is not dependent for its evolution on the decision of man.” It is through the instrument of the Archangels that this evolution takes place.

Try to imagine the interplay of the Hierarchies as evolution moves forward. Archangels don’t manage this alone; they need the assistance of a higher Hierarchy. In Atlantis we arrived at our speech through intuition which arose through the Archangels connecting with the Hierarchy above them, the Exusiai (Elohim), the Dynamis and the Kyriotetes. Then at the beginning of the Post-Atlantean epoch when language took on the feeling element, we no longer utter speech through intuition, now it was inspired. This inspiration came through the teamwork of the Archangels with the first Hierarchy; the Thrones, Cherubim and Seraphim.

Then at the time of Aristotle when thinking entered into our speech there was no higher Hierarchy from which the Archangels could channel the speech forming power. Since now our speech requires imagination they had to go into the past for these imaginations – “what came from an earlier time had to be carried on into the future, there was no longer any immediate and present flow of the speech forming power. In as much as speech now took its source from an earlier stage an Ahrimanic element crept in.” Steiner says, “Language became polished and at the same time paralysed.”

This situation called for the most dramatic action in heaven and on earth. Language could only receive new life through the death of a God in the physical world. The Hierarchy had to experience death; they had only experienced metamorphosis, till now. Golgotha was this moment; the Hierarchy tasted death for the first time and the Trinity was able to evolve and stand outside the Hierarchy. Once again the Archangels could go to a still higher source for the life-giving form of speech.

This closed the gap on Ahriman. However, there is a catch. Now it is up to us to take into ourselves the Christ impulse; only in this way can we give life to our speech. The more the Christ impulse enters into us the more it will also enter into the Archangels, assisting them to get imagination from the present and through the Trinity, rather than from the past. This is why St Paul says that they wait in eager longing for us.

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. Romans 8:19-21 RSV

Buddha emphasised Right Speech because he knew that the use of the living word depended entirely on us. Rev Mario Schoenmaker always reminded us that the best possible place to cultivate the living word of Christ was in the Gospels. Understanding the Gospels comes from the presence of Christ himself as he works upon our etheric body. Right Speech therefore points to the living Christ Impulse proceeding from the speech-forming power of the Archangels.

The word has now become flesh; the word is now within us. Through the ruling Archangel, Michael, who represents will-filled thought, we have the power and the freedom to choose Right Speech.

Ideas from The Recovery of the Living Source of Speech Rudolf Steiner 13 April, 1923 available on www.rsarchive.org/