The Rudolf Steiner Archive

3. Inner Evolution and Opportunities for External Development

[ 1 ] In the development of both the individual human being and humanity as a whole, we must never seek something too simple or too straightforward, for otherwise we cannot truly understand the complex processes of life as they unfold before our eyes day by day. Even in the individual human being, we must be clear that, so to speak, two currents of development converge. You will recall that we—as explained, for example, in the short booklet *The Education of the Child from the Standpoint of Spiritual Science* —distinguish individual periods within a single human life: the period from physical birth until about the age of 7, extending into the time of tooth replacement; then from 7 to about 14; and again from about 14 to 21—periods, in other words, that run roughly from seven to seven years. This division of human life into such individual periods follows a fairly regular pattern in the first half of a normal life. This division, this structuring into seven-year periods, becomes irregular in the second, descending half of life. The reason for this is that, with regard to the first half of our lives, we are actually living out today those laws and facts that are a kind of repetition of the regular course of human development since time immemorial, whereas in the second half of our lives we are not yet living out something that has already happened in the outer world, but rather what will only happen in the future. The second half of human life will therefore become much more regular in the future than it is today, becoming ever more and more regular. But let this be said merely to point out that such a regular development takes place in human life. We know that this can be expressed in such a way that we can say: Until the age of 7, the human being is still in an etheric state, in an etheric sheath. So to speak, in relation to their etheric body, they are not truly born until the age of 7. In relation to their astral body, they are born around the age of 14, and so on. What we are describing here is actually a current of human development; it is the more external current of development. Alongside this developmental current, there is also an inner one that proceeds to a certain extent independently of the outer current. The inner current encompasses all that pertains to the deeper processes, causes, and effects within our karma, which continues from incarnation to incarnation.

[ 2 ] When we say that up to the age of 7, or up to the age of 14 or 21, a person develops in a very specific way, we must be clear that this applies, more or less, to the average person. We can regard the rules set forth, for example, in the aforementioned short treatise as correct for all human beings. These rules are correct for the upbringing of a person in our time who has few talents and few abilities, but they are also correct for geniuses, for all human beings, because this is a law according to which the human sheaths develop. What lies within this line of development thus applies more or less to all human beings, but it is by no means irrelevant what these human beings have experienced, for example, in their earlier incarnations. One person has experienced much that is wise, much that is beautiful, much that is good. Their abilities are shaped accordingly, their destiny is shaped accordingly; the actual inner core of the human being is shaped accordingly, and this is now individual to every human being. What runs alongside the outer development as a kind of inner current of development is, in a sense, what constitutes the particular nuance of each person’s being. Consequently, it can happen that—even though the general structure of seven-year periods applies to all human beings—the mysteries of development are, in turn, different for different people. Someone may enter the world with great, expansive abilities; they will indeed have to wait until the age of 7 for the complete formation of their physical body, and they will also have to wait until the age of 14 for the complete development of their etheric body, but what is at work within them is quite different from that in a person who possesses fewer abilities.

[ 3 ] So two lines of development run parallel to one another, and from this we can now also see how, so to speak, certain ambivalent states of mind can arise in human beings. When it comes to external development, one cannot help but think—and this is entirely in line with spiritual science—that up until the age of 14, let’s say, a person develops the capacities of their etheric body. By the age of 14 or 15, their astral body actually becomes free and is born. Now it may be that we are dealing with an individuality—that is, with what comes from previous incarnations—that possesses strong, great inner soul capacities. We are thus assuming the case of a person who, through their karma and their earlier development in past lives, possesses strong inner capacities. To live out these capacities in the world, one needs the forces and organs of each human sheath. Let us now suppose that, in the education of a person who possesses such abilities, we neglect to ensure that they can express them specifically through the astral body; we neglect the development of their astral body at the right time. What will happen then? To understand what happens, let us consider a concrete example.

[ 4 ] Let us suppose we have such a child. It is growing up. We do take care to ensure that it develops normally until the age of seven, making sure that it eats and drinks well and develops chubby cheeks. This is viewed quite favorably. The child looks well-nourished. We continue to ensure that the child is well-nourished after the age of seven, but now we begin to disregard the rules that should reasonably govern the child’s upbringing from the age of seven onward. We now begin to disregard these rules, and we make the mistake, for example, of succumbing to materialistic prejudices regarding such a person and saying that we want to focus primarily on ensuring that the child arrives at rational judgments as early as possible, that it learns to form its own judgments as early as possible. This is, after all, common practice today stemming from our materialistic way of thinking. I have cited this example on several occasions.

[ 5 ] While between the ages of 7 and 14, particular attention should be paid to developing the child’s memory, calculators are being introduced. Whereas in the past children were taught that 2 × 2 = 4 and similar facts before they understood them, today it is said that one should not teach a child anything that it learns merely by rote; the child should know only what it can form a judgment about. Red and white balls are used for this purpose. Instead of accustoming the child to authority—which should be the source of truth for the child between the ages of 7 and 14—the child is encouraged to become precocious in judgment. While a child of this age should feel: “I must believe what the revered authority says”—one neglects the fact that the child needs to have parents and teachers whom it looks up to with deep reverence and from whom it accepts truth out of a sense of self-evident authority.

[ 6 ] Let us assume that we disregard the fact that the word “authority” must be a sacred one for the period between the ages of 7 and 14. If we disregard such important laws between the ages of 7 and 14, then a properly developing astral body cannot emerge from an inadequately developed etheric body starting at the age of 14 or 15. And let us now assume we are dealing with a person who has brought with them from past lives special powers, good, strong abilities—but talents for which they need an astral body capable of being inspired by high ideals. It depends, for example, on the astral body that when one sees an injustice in one’s surroundings, one can be stirred to righteous anger long before one can judge it through independent, clear thinking. Such qualities of a healthy astral body would have to be present in the nature of the person in question, for he needs them so that what lives within him from his past incarnations can emerge. Now let us assume that we have neglected the principles that must be observed so that the astral body is born capable of devotion and enthusiasm at the age of 14 or 15; then, despite significant aptitudes and great abilities brought over from earlier lives, the possibility of developing these aptitudes is lacking, because the astral body does not allow these aptitudes to emerge. It lacks those forces, those currents, which the I—which passes from incarnation to incarnation—must make use of in order to unfold its aptitudes. Now we have an ego that could develop high abilities; but the organs of the astral body, through which this ego could express its abilities, are crippled. The current of development that governs the progression of the sheaths has not come into its own.

[ 7 ] Anyone who observes life—especially today, in our terribly materialistic age—will find that the situation I have just described actually occurs countless times in life. Countless times in life, it happens that the person who can see through life—who, through occult development, is able to see through it—sees with a bleeding heart: There is something within the individuality, but it cannot come out because the other stream of development has not been properly attended to by the appropriate time. It is precisely at that moment, when the absent organs would be needed, that the characteristic symptoms appear which are referred to as “early-onset insanity”—dementia praecox. All manner of evil, terrible passions arise, aberrations of the most dreadful kind. Where do these aberrations come from? They do not arise merely because the individual in question also has predispositions that lean toward the evil, but because in the present incarnation he lacks the organs necessary to develop his good predispositions. It may therefore be a blessing for them that these tendencies of the ego destroy and tear apart the shell, in order to create a better opportunity for their development in a subsequent incarnation. As strange as this may seem, it must nevertheless be taken into account, because development is often viewed far too simplistically, even by those who come to spiritual science.

[ 8 ] Inner evolution and external opportunities for development must be in harmony. This is true for the individual, just as it is true for the development of an entire era. I have presented you with only a radical example to help you more easily grasp what is present in many forms. It will not always occur in this radical way, but in our time it occurs even more frequently in what is so common today: in discontented moods, in hopelessness, in not knowing what to do with oneself, especially during the years from 14 to 21. Then it remains and can no longer be made up for in life. Then it remains an inner mood of hopelessness, aimlessness, pessimism, and dissatisfaction. And in this milder form, it would occur more and more frequently if humanity were not set on a different course through a spiritual, anthroposophical worldview—a course different from the one it has followed until now, due to the fact that materialistic thinking has increasingly imprinted itself even upon the deepest thoughts and feelings of human beings.

[ 9 ] When one hears what has just been said, one must say to oneself as a researcher of the spiritual sciences: Spiritual science, if one has grasped even a little of it, must appear to one not as something one pursues as a hobby because one enjoys it, or because one finds subjective satisfaction or bliss through it, but rather, once one has approached its deeper aspects, one must pursue spiritual science as a duty, as a duty toward all of humanity. — For the worldviews that are dominant today lead to an ever-diminishing understanding of life. One will come to understand non-life ever more clearly. And in order to understand non-life ever more clearly, materialism has, after all, been necessary for a time. Based solely on an understanding of life, one would never have been able to build steamships, railroads, or tunnels. Nor could one have hoped to advance our external, physically oriented science as far as it has come today, or to make further progress in this field.

[ 10 ] People had to be guided in such a way that they would, so to speak, absorb into their souls worldviews capable of accurately expressing all kinds of cultures as distinct perspectives on the nature of existence.

[ 11 ] No one may say: Was it not unjust that, over the centuries, people had to adopt materialistic views? No, one cannot speak that way. For it is these very souls who, having had to endure the influence of materialism, will in future incarnations be led back to spiritual life.

[ 12 ] But everything must happen in its own time, at the right time. You need only consider that certain things can be very good, even excellent, when done by day. If the same things are to be done by night, then they are simply bad. Everything has its time, and so it is also in the great course of human development, in the evolution of humanity. What was good in the centuries just past would be a grave sin against humanity if it were to be maintained for the coming centuries. We have now reached the point where materialistic thinking must give way to thinking and seeing that lead into life in the spirit itself. What drove humanity toward materialism in past times must be followed by a spiritual worldview, and people must be found who will take action to bring this spiritual worldview into the human race and its history. You should know: If what might be called a spiritual worldview were not to emerge alongside the materialistic one at this very moment, the right moment for humanity would be missed. But in many other respects as well, we may miss out on what is most important in our time. And we understand to what extent we may miss out on what is most important in our time when we now consider these two currents of development—previously indicated for the individual human being—within the broader context of humanity.

[ 13 ] Human beings pass from incarnation to incarnation, from one embodiment to another. But they do not pass from one embodiment to another in vain. Why does the human being descend again and again from spiritual heights to the Earth? Why is one incarnation on Earth not enough? The reason is that the Earth itself changes over long periods of time—it changes in regard to everything that is physical on it, and in regard to everything that is spiritual and soul-related on it. Now compare the outer face of the Earth—what has grown here—with what was here as long as 2,000 to 3,000 years ago. Compare the landscape around Pforzheim as it looked back then with how it looks today. Even ordinary natural science can provide insight into what the landscape looked like here 2,000 years ago. But also compare what a person learned back then in their childhood and youth with what they learn today, and you will have to admit: physical and spiritual life on Earth are changing. The Earth was quite different 2,000 to 3,000 years ago, and it has become different and different, and will always become different. The Earth is constantly changing. And every time we descend to Earth, we encounter new conditions, we can learn new things, experience new things, and live through new things; we integrate them into our being and carry new experiences back up into the spiritual world. That is why, because we are meant to gradually absorb Earthly experiences within ourselves over successive periods, we are born into successive Earthly lives. We harmonize what external earthly life can offer us over the course of successive eras with what we are meant to learn within that earthly life. These must be in harmony.

[ 14 ] Let us take, for example, any soul that is living today. It has, after all, already lived during the time of ancient Egypt and the time of ancient India. All the souls sitting here today have lived on Earth countless times, have lived here under different circumstances, and are living here again today because what they were able to learn and experience on Earth back then no longer exists, and new things can be experienced and learned today. Let us assume a person who, for example, in ancient Egypt did not make proper use of their incarnations, did not draw out what could be drawn out on Earth at that time. Let us assume that people, such as those who were still isolated in ancient Egypt according to the Earth’s karma and individual karma, had failed to unite their soul with what could be experienced in ancient Egypt. That would not have prevented them from dying at the appropriate time in ancient Egypt. But it would have prevented them from bringing with them, when they were born the next time, what they then needed to be fully developed human beings. They cannot acquire that so easily in subsequent incarnations. However, in a later incarnation, in order to avoid having stunted souls, one needs the abilities and powers that one was able to acquire in the previous incarnation from the earthly conditions of that time. There are things that, once missed, cannot be made up for. Perhaps you will say: Now he’s painting a rosy picture for us! After all, we cannot know whether we have not missed something incredibly important in earlier incarnations. That would indeed be a bleak prospect, for perhaps we have missed something terrible in earlier incarnations, and what good is anything else to us now! What good does it do us, for example, if we now devote ourselves so wholeheartedly to spiritual science and wish to make the best use of our current incarnation? We might not even be able to do it, precisely because we have missed something particularly important in our past incarnations!

[ 15 ] It seems, then, that this truth I have just spoken might cast a terrible shadow over your soul, might become a source of despair for you. For if one can no longer make up for what one has once missed, then I must say that no matter how earnestly I begin to work on my soul, it will no longer help, for I can no longer make up for what I have missed—what I might have been able to pour into this soul perhaps in ancient Indian or Egyptian times.

[ 16 ] This bleak prospect would only exist if the conclusion that has now been drawn were the correct one. But it is not the correct conclusion, for the matter is different. It is certainly true, however, that whatever our soul failed to acquire in the ancient Egyptian, Indian, Persian, and Greek eras, it could no longer make up for today; that would be impossible. The point is simply this: that at present, in our time, the very first human incarnations are taking place in which one can consciously, through one’s own fault, fail to achieve something in this direction. And this will continue for some time yet. And this may also explain why spiritual science is now beginning to emerge into the world: because only now is the possibility arising for human beings to fail to achieve something. Now these truths must begin to reach people, for now human beings are entering into incarnations in which, if one were not to apply them properly, it would become more difficult to make up for what has been missed in later earthly conditions. And now it is also the case that people, if they only wish, can come to understand the spiritual scientific explanation of reincarnation and karma and of other truths in spiritual science, so that they need not take this self-inflicted guilt upon themselves. Spiritual science will do everything in the coming centuries and millennia to ensure that people have the opportunity to apply these incarnations in the right way and do not need to take this guilt upon themselves. A single incarnation matters less, but if, in our age—which has just begun and will last 2,000 to 3,000 years—one has used two or three incarnations in such a way that one has not drawn the right lessons from what can be gained on Earth, then one will have missed something important in the times to come. That is why spiritual science is now stepping forward and telling people how important it is that they make proper use of their incarnations.

[ 17 ] Now let us ask ourselves: Why, then, were people in earlier times unable to make these mistakes? The reason is that human beings have evolved from incarnation to incarnation in such a way that, in the distant past, they themselves were companions of the spiritual worlds. What we consider our abilities today—especially the limitation of our senses to the physical world—was not always present. In earlier times, human beings possessed a dim form of clairvoyance; they could look into the spiritual worlds. And this clairvoyance grew stronger the further back in time we go. In those days, people knew: I come from the spiritual world. And they did not merely possess this abstract knowledge; they also knew what that world looked like and were familiar with the laws of the spiritual world. They fulfilled these laws as if by instinct; instinctively. Because they were still connected to the spiritual world, our souls essentially lived out their incarnations in an orderly manner. Because human beings were still linked to the divine-spiritual worlds, therefore the knowledge continued to work within them, and under the influence of this ancient knowledge, they instinctively did what was right. Only in our time do we live in an age where, so to speak, the gates to the spiritual world are closed, where between birth and death, human beings are entirely dependent on perceiving solely within this sensory-physical world.

[ 18 ] This age, in which the ancient clairvoyance through which people received insights as if from heaven has disappeared, began—we can pinpoint the exact date—3,101 years before Christ walked the earth. In earlier times, there were such ages in which people—even if they did not possess today’s strong self-awareness or a clear consciousness of their ego—could still glimpse into the spiritual worlds, albeit dimly and hazily, and even further back, they could look into them clearly. This brings us to an age prior to the year 3101, in which people had a rather clouded but nonetheless a knowledge of the spiritual world. This age is called the Dvapara Yuga. This Dvapara Yuga, or Iron Age, spans the ancient Egyptian-Babylonian-Chaldean and Persian periods. Going even further back, to even older times, we find an even deeper insight into the spiritual world among the people of the Treta Yuga, or Silver Age. And then we move beyond the Atlantean catastrophe, where those people who were incarnated there still looked into the spiritual worlds in such a way that they felt themselves to be companions of those beings whom you can only perceive today in the state between death and a new birth. That is then the Krita Yuga, which begins there.

[ 19 ] In the year 3101 B.C., the age began in which, little by little, all possibility for human beings to glimpse into the spiritual world through external natural, normal forces first came to an end. In this age—from 3101 B.C.E. to the present day—only faint, inherited remnants of dim, twilight-like clairvoyance remained in some people. In this age, one could only ascend regularly into the spiritual worlds through genuine esoteric training. But human beings’ normal faculties developed in such a way that they extended only to the outer physical world. This age is called, using an Eastern term, the Kali Yuga, the dark age, because human beings can no longer perceive the spiritual world through their natural faculties. The Kali Yuga is thus this age, which began around 3101 B.C.E. and which has led people more and more out onto the physical plane.

[ 20 ] The most important events taking place on the spiritual plane usually go unnoticed by people because they do not pay sufficient attention to them. Important things are happening in our age. The most important thing is that the Kali Yuga came to an end in 1899. This means that the era of human development intended to focus human abilities on the observation and perception of the physical plane has come to an end. And now, since the year 1899, an era has begun in which, over the course of about 2,500 years, other abilities will slowly develop in human souls as normal abilities. We are therefore already living in an age in which other abilities are already being developed. The Kali Yuga has come to an end, and humanity is moving toward an age in which—without being able to do anything to prevent or promote it—certain new abilities will develop naturally in the soul, abilities of a different nature than those that developed during the Kali Yuga.

[ 21 ] What are these abilities? Under the influence of the Kali Yuga, those human faculties that make a person an inventor, an explorer, and a master of the physical forces of the physical plane have become increasingly prominent. This, of course, continues, for abilities that have once been acquired are naturally not lost again. One cannot therefore say that the ability to work with natural forces has now ceased. But other abilities are added to it. Added to what humanity has acquired during the Kali Yuga is a special ability: natural-etheric clairvoyance. That is to say, the age is now beginning in which certain clairvoyant abilities will awaken as normal abilities in human souls—first in a few, then in more and more human souls. We must therefore distinguish this from what is acquired—albeit as a much higher ability—by those who apply the methods of spiritual training to themselves. In every age, such individuals will go beyond what is considered normal for humanity with their abilities. But now an age is beginning in which the ability to see not only the physical but also that which, as the etheric, underlies the physical will be awakened as a normal ability. That is to say, souls will come with such abilities, and indeed in a time that is already here, that has already begun; only they will come ever more frequently. For the time being, they are still quite few and far between on Earth. But these abilities will begin to spread more and more widely among people. They will be present to a significant degree in the years 1930 to 1940. This will be an important epoch, for it is then that the new abilities of human beings will come to the fore. Whereas today human beings see only the physical body, they will then also acquire the ability to see certain essential aspects of the etheric body at first, and then more and more of it. This will come to pass. Humanity will develop in the near future in such a way that there will be people—and more and more of them, eventually a large number of people—who will see not only the human physical body, but this physical body as if enclosed in an etheric body, as if surrounded by etheric rays and an etheric aura. That is one thing they will see. The other thing is that it will seem quite strange to them: images will stand before them, and all manner of things will be revealed in these images. At first, people will not realize what is at stake; then they will regard it as a pathological phenomenon; but then more and more people will realize that such an image is an event that will take place in two to four days and that is reflected etherically beforehand. These abilities will develop as early as the first half of our century.

[ 22 ] There are two possibilities. One is that, in their thinking, feeling, and perception, people today remain stuck at the level they have reached in the Kali Yuga. Those who, with their worldview, their philosophy, their thinking, and their feelings, remain stuck at what they have learned up to now will very soon be done with their judgments of fellow human beings who perceive such things. They will say, “These are fools who are beginning to go mad, who see all sorts of deceptive things that do not even exist.” — But there will be other people who will have heard from spiritual science that these are realities. And this will be emphasized again and again in the coming decades and centuries. They will have heard that such a thing exists as reality, and they will find the right relationship to these newly emerging abilities.

[ 23 ] What are we doing when we engage in spiritual science? We are not doing something that satisfies our curiosity and is therefore our favorite pastime; rather, we are doing something that prepares people for what must come and what will come. And this thing that is to come—one simply would not be able to understand it if spiritual science did not exist. Humanity would lose what is to be gained. And that could very well happen if it were to come to pass that spiritual science were completely banned on Earth, if it were to happen that all those who work for spiritual science were perhaps left to starve, perhaps forced out of their positions and left to starve. Then humanity would completely lose the ability to understand what is to come as a natural development. If that were to happen, human development would become desolate and wither away. It would have to continue without this influence and would wither and become desolate. This is what makes spiritual science a responsible duty.

[ 24 ] If we look at it this way, we might also ask: In what form, for example, will what has just been described manifest as an effect? Well, the souls sitting here now will be reincarnated in an age in which the human soul will already have possessed, for a long time, the soul capacities that have just been described. What will this bring about? Along with those capacities, something else will come. It will come to pass that human beings will be able to look back on their present incarnation. As a natural ability, along with the abilities just described—as an inherent part of them—will arise a memory not only of the life between death and birth, but also of the previous life, as a natural characteristic. But now the point will be that we develop something in the present or following incarnation that can be remembered. What we do each day, for what will long since have passed away by the time we are reborn, will not initially be what we will be able to remember. What we can remember will be only what has taken place in the central power of our inner being, in our I. One cannot then remember what happened as part of everyday life. What remains from the present to the next incarnation must already be grasped and felt within the I. It is true, however, that most people do not yet have the inclination to penetrate so deeply into their inner being that they perceive themselves as an I. After all, as Fichte said, most people still consider themselves more a piece of slag on the moon than an “I”! But if one does not cultivate this “I,” does not learn to recognize it through spiritual science, does not learn to feel it, then it is not even there as an inner spiritual asset. First we must create that which we are then to be able to remember in the next incarnation.

[ 25 ] Thus, by learning to recognize the human being, spiritual science creates the elements of the world that find their best expression in the human ego; it creates as facts those things that the human being is to remember in the next incarnation. If a person does not apply what is thus offered to him in the right way, then in his next incarnation he will indeed have the ability to recall, but nothing will come to mind as the object of that recall, because he has created nothing that he can remember.

[ 26 ] One of the greatest torments a human being can experience is to possess an ability yet have nothing upon which to apply it. One will want to look back on past incarnations, since one will have the ability to do so, but will find nothing within oneself that can be brought into this power of remembrance. There will be a terrible thirst to look back on past incarnations. But this will be like an inner torment, an inner desire to look back, and one will see nothing, because one has created nothing that one could see. We therefore work out in the present incarnation that which is to be created as a fact, as an object for memory, for we already attain the ability to recall through the natural course of human development.

[ 27 ] Here again we have two currents. An external one: people acquire abilities; and an internal one: people must do what they can apply these abilities to. We find these two currents everywhere. But what acts as the most important force, as the impulse in all of this, is that as people live their way up into this era, as they acquire the new ability to see the etheric, they will, in connection with this, have a great, indeed the greatest, experience in the course of the first half of the 20th century.

[ 28 ] Back then, when the Kali Yuga had lasted about 3,100 years, people had reached a state where they had to admit to themselves: We can no longer look up into the spiritual realms of heaven. The gates to the spiritual world are closed. — But then first came John the Baptist, then came the Christ, and they showed people that on the physical plane, through appropriate inner development, that which is the central power of the soul—the I—can be awakened, and that through this the spiritual can be understood. God descended as the Christ down to the physical plane because human capacities had become such that they could understand things only on the physical plane. Christ made this sacrifice of descending to the physical plane because the gods, who had not descended that far, were no longer comprehensible to human beings, who had now developed within themselves the capacity to stand only on the physical plane.

[ 29 ] But now the ability to perceive the supersensible and the etheric is developing once again. As a result, during the period from about 1930 to 1940, a number of people—who will be the first pioneers of this etheric clairvoyance—will see what Christ is in our time. Christ lived in a physical body on our Earth only once. Since that time, however, our Earth has changed. If someone had become clairvoyant in the time before Christ’s birth and had looked into the world of spiritual beings and phenomena that immediately surround our Earth, they would not have found something that they then found once the event of Golgotha had taken place, once Christ had descended to Earth. One individual knew this precisely. There was a person who knew from their teachings: When people become clairvoyant, they do not yet see something on Earth that will, however, be present in the future in the spiritual atmosphere of the Earth once the Christ has descended from the Sun. — This individual said to themselves: We will experience on Earth the great moment when the Christ appears spiritually to those who are becoming clairvoyant, for He will then have descended to Earth and will also be spiritually visible in its atmosphere. — This person knew this, but he was not yet ready to gain the conviction from the events in Palestine that in Jesus of Nazareth this expected being, the Christ, had already been present. He could not acknowledge the Christ Jesus; he did not acknowledge him. Then came the time, long after the event at Golgotha had passed, when this person became clairvoyant: There he saw the Christ in the etheric body. Now he could see something in the earthly environment! Now this person knew that the Christ was there. Physical reality, physical sight, had not convinced him, this man, but clairvoyance, the clairvoyant perception of the Christ in the etheric body, that had convinced him. This individual was Paul. In the Damascus event, he first saw the Christ clairvoyantly in his etheric body, just as he has always been seen since the event at Golgotha by those who rise to the level of clairvoyance.

[ 30 ] This is, in fact, the most important event that befalls those trained in clairvoyance today: that they see the Christ in the spiritual atmosphere of the Earth. Since this ability will manifest in a larger number of people during that period, this group of people will then have a direct perception of the Christ—the Christ in his etheric body—conveyed through natural vision, and they will then interact with him as with a physical personality. Christ will not descend a second time into a physical body, but people will, through their abilities, ascend into the etheric realm in which he now reveals himself. Christ will have returned to them within the realm of their expanded experience.

[ 31 ] This is the Second Coming of Christ, which began around the years 1930 to 1940 of our era. This event could pass humanity by unnoticed if they did not prepare themselves to understand this great event. Spiritual science has prepared humanity for this future event. It is not meant to pass humanity by unnoticed. If it were to pass unnoticed, humanity would become desolate and wither away.

[ 32 ] What I have just said will be proclaimed from various places over the next two decades, expressed in one form or another, for it is a most important truth—a truth intended to prepare people for the most significant events of our time. Once again, the time has come for the most significant events to take place. But in our time, a materialism of the most dreadful kind prevails, and it may happen that even those who hear and accept these teachings will be tempted by the materialistic mindset and led astray by it into the belief that Christ will only appear again if he appears in a physical body. That would be a materialistic belief; only those who have not truly risen to the realization that the spirit is more real than the physical can believe this. Now, materialism could lead people into this temptation to confuse the return of the Christ in a real etheric body—visible to the higher-developed faculties of human beings—with a physical return in the flesh. But if that were to happen, it would be yet another great misfortune for humanity. Yet there are enough individuals in our time, enough personalities, who will exploit this and who, by doing so—either by falling victim to an illusion, a self-deception, or by succumbing to their own base instincts—will present themselves as false Christs, as Christ in the flesh.

[ 33 ] False Christs will appear in this age, in which humanity is to see the true Christ in his etheric body. Anthroposophists, however, are called upon to be able to distinguish between the spiritual and the material and to be firmly armed against all claims, wherever they may come from, that a Christ would come in the flesh. Anthroposophists are called upon to recognize that this would be materialism, the worst temptation that could arise during one of the most important events in human development—the event we call the Second Coming of the Christ— and in which it will have to be proven whether human beings have already progressed far enough not merely to speak of the spirit, but to be able to recognize the essence of the spirit as something higher than the essence of matter.

[ 34 ] It remains to be seen whether people will be ready to recognize Christ in all his significance, precisely because he reveals himself to them as a spiritual being. This will be the greatest test and trial for humanity: that the greatest impulse of our Earth will reveal itself to them and say: You can only recognize me if you do not merely speak of the spiritual, but know that the spiritual is more real, more genuine, and more valuable than the merely physical and material. — This is part of what we must take to heart in order to face the coming decades in the appropriate manner. This event, however, will be important not only for those who will still be in the physical body, but also for those souls who will then already be between death and new birth. For this will be just as important for the so-called dead as the death on Golgotha was important not only for the contemporary people in the physical body, but also for the souls who were in Kamaloka or Devachan. Symbolically expressed, it was said that Christ also descended to those who were in the other world: “descended into hell.” The great test of spirituality in our century will be important for those living on the physical plane, as well as for those living on the spiritual plane—the so-called dead.