By Dr Wolfgang Peter
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Date of the lecture: 8 September 2020
Summaries (2)
From fellow listener M. L.
5th Period: Post-Atlantean Earth Evolution : Consciousness Soul
Imagination power. I must actively perceive = mental/spiritual activity.
In the next cultural period, the 6th, Slavic: Brotherhood (worldwide).
The I will become the source of creative power.
Reference to Thomas HOBBES' "LEVIATHAN" from the 17th century (horses).
Chimpanzee and gorilla are closer to humans than the orangutan.
Around 70,000 years ago, Neanderthal man became homo sapiens.
From the 6th millennium onwards, there will no longer be a physical body as we know it today.
In thinking we make use of the etheric forces.
1st seal of the Apocalypse is opened: white horse , light, crown on the head = spiritual victory. The etheric powers of the horse are symbolised by the Pegasus.
Clairvoyance takes place through the activity of the mind. We have to become spiritual "riders on the white horse" by our own efforts.
In St.Exupéry's "petit prince", the fox says to the little prince: "Tame me!"
This makes the little prince responsible for the fox.
Animals that live closely with humans (pets) can become good elementals.
Cardinal König said we should never ask WHY (e.g. I have this disease), but rather WHY?
From fellow listener B. G.
Episode 21 of the Apocalypse: We are basically at the birth of the I, in the 21st year of life, when the I-consciousness really awakens. There were already preliminary stages, the first awakening is in the 3rd year of life, then there are all kinds of stages, but it really gets going around the 21st year of life. Today we will plunge into a big topic: the opening of the 7 seals.
To repeat very briefly at the beginning, where does this leave us in the development of the earth and humanity, at least roughly? I say roughly, because the images of the Apocalypse refer above all to future events, but one must not think of it only in terms of linear time, but all these images that now come with the opening of the seals can certainly also be related to our present. To certain phenomena of our present or to other epochs. It is, after all, a description that comes from the spiritual realm, and in the spiritual realm there is not simply a linear concept of time, but something archetypal, which manifests itself very intensively at certain outer times, but is always there in the background. In the etheric, the course of time is something holistic, we have already spoken about this several times. The future and the past always work together in truth. In every moment of the present, something comes from the future, something works from the past. What works are the forces of spiritual beings, which now clothe themselves in certain imaginations, in certain archetypes, and these can be related to the most diverse events, to the most diverse periods of time, not only to a very specific one.
But if we look at it in the great course of human development, then one can very well relate the opening of the seven seals to the sixth main age. We have already discussed this twice in relative detail: it is about the time of the physical development of the earth, from the beginning of the physical cosmos to its end, which will also come in the future. There are 7 main ages that divide this physical state of the Earth: 1) the Polar Age, 2) the Hyperborean Age, 3) the Lemurian Age, 4) the Atlantean Age, all of which lie in the past. The Atlantic period ends with the great floods at the end of the Ice Age about 11,000 - 12,000 thousand years ago, approximately, then comes as 5) the age of the cultural epochs, the so-called post-Atlantean period. We are still in this period, in fact we are now in the 5th cultural epoch, which is dedicated to the development of the consciousness soul, which is to be especially elaborated.
Consciousness soul has two aspects. On the one hand, it has a strong, alert awareness of the sensual outer world, in which we are already quite advanced, sometimes I fear that we have already progressed beyond that and are beginning to lose it again, the alertness for the outer world, because today we are again perceiving a great many fleeting impressions, one has to make a great effort to really observe something sensually, to keep the mind out of it for a while and just really look, what is there? What is happening? What is developing? What am I seeing? What am I hearing? The second side of the consciousness soul is already going there, to develop an awareness for the spiritual itself, that is, for the spiritual world, as a first step for the etheric forces that are behind it, the soul world, and then once really for higher spiritual things. But at least to make a beginning, to become spiritually perceptive. Spiritually perceiving means developing the power of imagination. Imagination power is not only fantasy, but it is really already spiritual perception. However, it is different from sense perception in that I have to be actively involved in bringing about the perception. But nevertheless something reveals itself that has its own objective content, but I have to make it visible through my soul-spiritual activity. Make it visible to me. Visible, however, is now a concept taken from the sensual world. We have often spoken about the imagination, which is actually a purely spiritual perception at first, that is, I perceive on the spiritual level alone, which begins with the fact that I first perceive spiritual moods and learn to distinguish between my own spiritual moods, that is, I say that this is beautiful, likeable, I like this or I don't like this, but this has to do with my spiritual. But every spiritual being - spiritual beings are also behind the sensual outer world - also have an objective soul, an objective spirit behind it, and I begin to perceive that in the imagination.
I can start by looking at the sensual world, by observing the moods of the soul that are connected with it, by learning to separate what my personal feelings are about it, one person loves roses, the other prefers daisies, but that basically says nothing about the daisy or the rose, it says something about me. I have to be able to separate that. That's incredibly difficult at the beginning. And the most important exercises at the beginning serve to keep that apart. That is, to separate the objective mood of the soul in the perception of nature or in the perception of other people, animals, etc., from my personal feelings. Today we are standing very close to the border of this imaginative ability. In principle, we have all had it for a long time. The trick is to bring the experiences that we have unconsciously had for a long time into consciousness and to separate them from our purely personal emotions and feelings. Then we enter into the imagination and this imagination marks the age that is connected with the opening of the seven seals. This age, however, to which this mainly refers, is not our present one, we have to develop this ability, but it does not really refer to one of the seven cultural periods in the development of humanity, but to the great main age that comes after, that is, the 6th main age.
Because we are in the 5th main age, that is the post-Atlantean time, the time of the cultural epochs, we still have a lot to do with our consciousness soul, we are basically only relatively at the beginning. Then comes the sixth cultural period, the so-called Slavic cultural epoch, which will be devoted entirely to the development of brotherhood on a global scale, which must already be prepared today, can be prepared today, but we still have a certain amount of time until it will mature, in part, because people will go along with this impulse, which is actually the contemporary one, and there will be people who, however, also harden more and more in egoism.
Because today we have two developments: There is a growing gap between the forces that really point to the future, that develop this brotherhood, and that results from nothing other than that we learn to recognise from our I, yes, what is the I? The I is the source of creative power that we have available to us individually. If this source is to bubble up, then we have to give away what bubbles out of it to other people in order to give them impulses and, conversely, of course, to receive impulses from other people, to appropriate them in the sense that we make them our own. In other words, we don't just take it in one-to-one, as the other person does, because it is good for them, but we have to take it in, but transform it further, then it becomes fruitful.
And conversely, we have to reckon with the fact that what we give to other people only becomes fruitful if we also allow them to make it their own, to make it something of their own quite individually. So don't expect, I've found the greatest thing in the world, this will save the whole world and you must all do the same, then you will be happy and find your goal. That is the best way into doom. But it has to be totally freeing. That is the important thing. Just as we as individuals have the chance to become more and more free in our creative activity, there must also be complete freedom with regard to what I give away. So I must not expect anyone to take it over one-to-one. Yes, perhaps he rejects it altogether because it is not useful to him. Then it is all right. We have to be very careful not to become world-glorifiers and humanity-glorifiers, in the sense that we have the patent solution for everyone. That is not the case. But we can cross-fertilise each other. This will experience a certain climax in the next cultural epoch, but now we have to start with it on a small scale. Because in the next cultural epoch, in the sixth cultural epoch, this will be a truly worldwide phenomenon, a worldwide connectedness, at least for some people. But there will also be others who will harden themselves completely into egoism. There will be a division.
In the 7th cultural epoch not much new will happen, only the forces that are present will mature to a certain degree in the positive but also in the negative. It is precisely where there is negativity, where egoism gains the upper hand, that will lead to what R. Steiner calls the war of all against all. This is not a term that is found in the Bible. The term was coined in modern times by Thomas Hobbes, who at that time regarded it as a state of nature for human beings in general. Which in truth is not true at all. You might think that people were once like that, everyone against everyone, and in the future it will hopefully get better and better. In the past, there was indeed a strong sense of togetherness, but it was primarily tied to blood ties. Thomas Hobbes wrote the famous novel: "Leviathan". It was named after the biblical monster. He describes the social conditions of his time (17th century) and where this can lead for the worse, but perhaps also for the better. R. Steiner has taken up this term and with it characterises precisely this state which will occur at the end of the 7th cultural epoch, where this first separation of the spirits will take place.
It is not irreversible, there are many possibilities to return, but at first there will certainly be a certain separation between those who have attained brotherhood and those who have sunk completely into egoism. This will lead not so much to external wars as to very strong spiritual conflicts. It is not necessary to think that in the war of all against all, that it will be waged with cannons. In truth, we are already on the way to slowly getting rid of these wars with cannons. If you read the newspapers, you wouldn't believe it, but the truth is that the major wars have been decreasing since the second half of the 20th century and now in the 21st century in general. Of course, there are many trouble spots where fierce fighting is going on, but nevertheless these are local phenomena. And there is a very specific reason for this. Because basically, when the big strong nations wage war with each other today, no one has anything to gain from it. It leads to total destruction and there is not really a winner in the end. It just escalates. Then there is the threat of the atomic bombs and even more so today the war on a cyber basis, on the level of information technology, which is now the much greater threat.
It is bigger in that relatively small groups can take hold of this technology and paralyse a major city in America. Paralyse to the point of interfering with the control of nuclear power plants and causing them to burn out. That's theoretically possible, things like that. Because all these things today are dependent on being connected to the internet, to the network. Because otherwise, control is ultimately not possible at all. But that also makes them vulnerable. It is enough to paralyse the electrical power supply in a country. That alone creates chaos nowadays. In other words, the nature of conflicts is becoming completely different, and they are beginning to shift more and more to the psychological level. To what one person does to the other mentally. Maybe on the outside it looks quite nice and harmless, but in the underground it is something that affects the other psychologically, destroys the other psychologically, and we are already noticing these effects today. Often with the best of intentions. Just the current Corona crisis. The measures, which are understandable to a certain extent, the politicians have no choice but to take certain measures, but you have to see very well what happens, for example, in terms of psychological damage for people who are pushed into loneliness. I mean, suicide rates have gone up significantly by 60 % or so, that's considerable, simply because of loneliness, because of not being able to speak like that any more, being handicapped in speaking, in the way people sometimes treat each other, out of fear, that alone has an effect. If someone is there, they immediately jump to the side if someone comes near them, so it's an antipathy attitude, a total pushing back. It's understandable somewhere, of course. But it has a psychological effect.
In other words, we have to build up very strong spiritual forces in people today and connect them with the fact that we have a strong spiritual being active inside with the strengthened soul, which can really pass on forces to others, that is already becoming important today. Because some are weaker in there, some are stronger and it is therefore very important what spiritual forces one radiates oneself, that is already becoming very important and that will increase more and more until the end of the seven cultural epochs and the forces that one can radiate in the positive will become much more effective, but also the negative forces. This means that the war of all against all will then consist of very negative forces that will also have a soul-destroying effect. And quite real soul-destroying, because we have already talked about it in the past lectures, the so-called "immortal soul" is not something that is given from the outset, at least not the individual immortal soul. In the past there was more of a group soul that cared for a community, so to speak, this group soul was very well immortal at least over a long period of time and is still there today in transformations. But the individual immortal soul is something that has to be acquired first, because most of the soul that we have in everyday life, what has to do with the world of the senses, what has to do with our intellectual thoughts, is gone very quickly after death. That only has a meaning for this one earthly life.
Building up a truly immortal soul only comes from consciously beginning to work with our I on our soul. This begins so slowly in the 8th-9th century, which is also where the dispute between the Christian theologians and the Arab thinkers begins, because the Arab thinkers have the impression that the soul - there is nothing immortal. It goes back into the general soul after death and it is heresy to believe that everyone has their own immortal soul. That is only bestowed for this earthly life. The Christian theologians, or a large part of the Christian theologians, had the feeling that something was wrong, that it wasn't so, but they couldn't really argue for a long time, not until High Scholasticism, the time of Thomas Aquinas or so, when there was a very strong struggle for the idea that human beings do have an immortal soul, but only with very vague arguments, because people at that time no longer had spiritual vision, especially people like Thomas Aquinas at first.
Augustine has certain experiences very well, but that is at the time when there is this strong confrontation, between the Arabist and the Christian thinkers, people no longer understand even Augustine properly. That is the problem, namely what it really is in essence. Because it has not yet been described with scientific intellectual clarity. Augustine in particular describes with an enormous passion and intensity of feeling, out of which he describes. His autobiography is fantastic to read, the heart with which he is involved, the openness with which he also speaks about his failures. From this, he struggles to grasp certain core Christian ideas and takes a diversion via the Manichaeans, who do not appeal to him, although what he has come to know of the Manichaeans is not yet what Manichaeism will one day become. Augustine struggles with this very strongly in his emotional life. Thinking plays a role.
Augustine anticipates Descartes' sentence. Descartes said the famous sentence: "I think, therefore I am." That is, in thinking I feel myself as I somewhere. Steiner always said that it would have been wiser to say: "I think, therefore I am not", because what I perceive as I in normal intellectual thinking is not the reality of the I, but mere appearance. But at least it is a powerful experience to feel oneself in one's own thinking. Basically, the fact that we still adore intellectual thinking so much today has to do with the fact that it is precisely there that we feel ourselves most strongly. And feel ourselves very powerfully. I can form my thoughts, I can work in there, I can have my own opinion, I can distance myself from everyone else, and so on. There we feel ourselves strongly, but we are neither strongly attached to the reality of the outer world, nor to our own reality. Therefore, we are also in the age today where we have to go beyond mere intellectual thinking. This awareness begins with Augustine. In thinking there is something, there I feel myself in particular. Even if I am uncertain about everything, I admit I don't really know anything, I don't know my way around, I think about time, about the past, the present, the future, but what about time? As long as I don't think about it, I have the feeling that I know it, but as soon as I start thinking about it, I realise that I don't really know anything clever about it. But one thing I do know is that I am the one who knows nothing, who doubts, who thinks about it.
There is a wide range up to Descartes, who of course also read Augustine. He came out of the Christian context. Today it is about a much further step into truly spiritual perception. Also of one's own self. It begins with a deepening of thinking to the point of perceiving one's own spiritual activity - in thinking at first. This is what Steiner calls in his Philosophy of Freedom: the "observation of thinking". That's where it starts slowly. Not just "I think", but "I observe my thinking". Not the result of the thoughts. Intellectual thinking does not observe thinking in truth, but only the result that comes out, the thoughts I have. We have to go one step beyond that. The source from which thoughts are formed and observe ourselves in the activity of forming thoughts. Then we will also find out how many prejudices we have in truth. How many thoughts we have simply adopted. Fixed and ready. We have a definition, but in reality we don't think them ourselves. We take them over ready-made. This is very strong in intellectual thinking. This is also the case to a great extent in the sciences. Because, of course, there are always thinkers who are quite creative, who bring us something new. Who really think for themselves. But that is not the broad mass.
The broad mass of people work with the ingenious thoughts that great minds have produced before them and they now apply them to all kinds of things. With this, one can explore and enlighten a great deal, but the actual thinking is not in there at all. There again, I'm no longer getting close to the actual reality, taking a step deeper into reality, but I'm only sounding out in broad terms what I can explain and describe with a certain theory. But this basically does not involve any really new thought. Real thinking is where it becomes truly creative, but it also becomes creative in recognising the forces that are at work outside. Because the spiritual reality that stands behind nature and behind everything is also always continuously creatively active. Where I have nothing creative in nature, that is the dead remnant that muddles along somewhere in time and changes. A plant that comes back next year in the same way, every year, is actually already in a certain way something dead, a certain life process rolls on. But where it becomes a new species or begins to change, to transform, there is something creative, almost an artistic process inside.
In truth, this also happens everywhere in nature. Because nothing stays exactly the same - forever. We then try to artificially breed something like that as humans, also with genetic engineering and so on, although the plants then also resist it and in the end it doesn't work in the long run. Genetically modified plants don't reproduce on their own, they need all kinds of help to make it work. Nature also does something similar, gene "technology" I wouldn't say, gene "nature", but it deals creatively and creatively and not simply blindly or according to a predetermined scheme or plan. It simply designs, and in this way it also redesigns the hereditary disposition, constantly, with a great deal of creativity that is inside, there is no ready-made plan, but there is also no complete chaos. Instead, it takes on board the forces that are present in nature and incorporates them. Even the natural sciences know today that the changes in the genes are not simply blind mutations, but that many other factors also play a role. The process is not as blind as was believed for a long time and as Darwin thought. But it is also not a simple mechanical process that can be predicted, but there is a creativity in it. It's like in art. An artist doesn't know beforehand exactly how he will do it. It comes about in the doing. During the doing. If an artist has a ready-made plan, then the plan is already the work of art.
That is why evolutionary theorists rightly resist referring to the great plan of creation, as if the dear God had all the plans ready in his divine office and that is only being implemented. One wonders what the whole thing is about then anyway? That would make the whole story bland. If the divine creative activity is there, then all the angelic hierarchies etc. are involved, then it is more comparable to an artistic-creative process. It's not blind, but it doesn't follow a prefabricated plan either. It goes in a certain direction, yes, but then it begins to create and to try, to perceive and to further refine, to improve. The whole evolution is an artistic process. Goethe understood this very well. The natural sciences have a bit of a hard time with the artistic, so they see it more like a technical process. Hence either fixed planning of the machinery or blind chance! And evolution is then a mixture of both. On the one hand, it is a strictly predetermined process, but on the other hand, it is always influenced by chance. In truth, it is something that lies totally in between and that which is really active are spiritual beings in truth, it is they who are creatively active.
Yes, so we have to get more and more into being able to experience that ourselves. Then we can really give spiritual powers to other people. A great deal will depend on this, on how we make the transition from the age of the cultural epochs to the next great main age, the age of the seven seals, how it will be with the war of all against all, how many will initially fall into egoism, how much brotherhood has developed? That is already beginning to be decided today. Because today we are already laying the foundations for the next cultural epoch. But we will always talk a lot about that anyway.
It also explains why most people today often say: What should I do? I'm not an artist! What am I supposed to bring in? How do I actually find my abilities? My spiritual task that I could fulfil? The truth is that this is incredibly difficult. In the past it wasn't so difficult, the church told us what was good and what was right, and what you should do to be a good decent human being. Then come the politicians, the states, the legal system, which dictates what you should do, that's more the case today, or the economy tells you what is best to buy. But one's own creativity is held back, one's own intellectual activity is held back. We have to get beyond that. That is the time we are in today. We are now on the difficult icy parquet, daring to take the first steps, to step out of the corset a little, to go beyond it here and there and to find: yes, where do my spiritual abilities lie? Where is my spiritual task? Because the truth is that our real I has very much set itself a task for this incarnation, a task that relates to our own development but also beyond that, to what we can give to others out of our own development. We do have strong plans, but not ready in the drawer, but simply a creative drive to become artistically active.
But the embarrassing thing is: In everyday consciousness, we know next to nothing about it at first. Every now and then something comes out from below the subconscious, then we find something that particularly excites us. It can be an impulse. Very often it is something that comes from outside. That tasks present themselves to us from outside. That we would not have thought of at all at first. But then you stand somewhere inside and realise that there is something I can do that I hadn't thought of at all. That is the wise path of destiny, of karma, whereby karma must not only be understood as negative and as a burden, but also as something that opens up possibilities for us in a positive way. It leads us into situations in which we can recognise our spiritual task and fulfil it to a certain extent, i.e. if you don't know what you are supposed to do, then sitting in a closet won't help at all, I won't find anything there. There the ego will spread and make you believe all kinds of dreams, what would be so beautiful, I would like to become rich, powerful, or something else, or a Nobel Prize winner, that is all uninteresting, because if it lies in destiny, then it will perhaps also end there, but that is perhaps also quite unimportant.
So it is a matter of becoming more and more sensitive to the stimuli that come to us from outside. For a person who is active in spiritual contexts, also in the way we are engaged here or if one is active anthroposophically, then you have to pay special attention to that. The tasks often come directly to us. It's often amazing if you're only attentive to it. If you sleep through it, you don't notice anything and ten years later you're just as smart or not as smart as before. But if you are attentive, you notice it. If you have it on one tip, there are usually a few other things that suddenly fit in so perfectly that it's amazing. It's quite good to look back on your own life and observe. Where were the big turning points, where it didn't happen what I thought it should, but where it somehow took a little turn. And then it actually fits. You think, yes, I can do something about that. It's just a question of paying attention. I am convinced that these events can be found in everyone. They fit together somewhere.
You see, this is also an essential point of the consciousness soul, that it begins to turn towards the spiritual. And not merely remain attached to the outer and in truth have only the intellect in the background as the spiritual, which in truth comes from the Greek-Latin time. Our intellectual activity, which today is chiselled out to the finest logic, great, I am not saying anything against this intellect, but it alone is no longer sufficient. Because this mind is only capable of recognising the dead and manipulating the dead according to a plan. But this mind is not capable of being creatively active, that's not in there, and in truth it doesn't get close to reality. It does grope for it. All the sciences are an attempt to approach it, but it is actually a blind approach. We poke around in the void and try to see if our intellectual thoughts fit somehow. If it works to some extent, then we are happy and build a theory on it. With the addendum that it can be overturned by new experiences, which happens often enough in science. Science is also rightly proud of the fact that it is prepared, ideally at least, to throw old theories overboard if they do not agree with reality. In practice, it doesn't always look like that, because that is of course also a power factor. But ideally, at least, it would. But we can't get at the actual reality.
This only begins where we can direct the consciousness soul towards the spiritual, towards the creative. Reality always has to do with what is not yet. The mind has to do with what has become, actually with something that has become dead. In everything where there is still life, and even more so where there is life or even spiritual life, the essential thing is the open future. There where there is creative-creative that cannot simply be derived from the past. It may be steered in a certain direction by the past, and that's a good thing, but there are infinite creative possibilities still open inside and that's where reality happens. The working. That's where something is realised. The moment it is realised, it basically falls out again and is like a stone that remains behind and stays. Perhaps it can also be dissolved again at some point. Reality is where the future is concerned. That which does not yet exist. That is the exciting thing. That determines further development, whether in the theory of evolution or in the great cosmic.
The whole cosmos is subject to evolution, if you like, that is also one of the insights that we have really gained for the first time in modern times, in our age of consciousness. That it is not a finished plan that runs, as many theories of creation seem to proclaim, but in truth it is not, but the misinterpretation then suggests that there is a plan of creation that has existed for eternity and that is exactly how it runs one to one. That is wrong! Because the creative element is in it. In other words, these old ideas have to be overcome. And the idea of evolution has at least brought that about, it is not always repetition of the same thing and such a plan that runs, but it is open for something new. And in the end, the cosmos is not one hundred percent predictable. You can only make certain predictions anyway, because the past continues to have an effect. It has its after-effects, so to speak. As much as there is in our cosmos as the past, the past that continues to have an inert effect, I can foresee that in the future there will also be effects of it or certain things.
That is basically also the point why a person like John can foresee something in the Apocalypse, because he can foresee that certain spiritual tasks exist in the future, namely resulting from the fact that we all have to dissolve this dross of yesterday ultimately. That is our spiritual task. Natural science can predict how this will roll on, how it will continue to have an effect. John can look ahead and say, ok, there are tasks for us in the future, because ultimately all this has to be dissolved. That is the content of this large part of the Apocalypse, which points to the future. So where we are going with the seven seals.
Now it is time to go into these 7 seals a little bit. But it is connected with what I have just said, namely with the thinking of the mind above all. We will see this in a moment with the first four seal images, images or imaginations, which are described here, because they are connected with this intellect, which basically matured slowly during the cultural epochs up to the Greco-Latin period. It is only in the Greco-Latin period that it really emerges, but there are preparatory stages through all the cultural epochs, via Urindian, Urpersian, etc., that it is slowly prepared until it really emerges in the fourth cultural epoch, that is, in the Greco-Latin period. That has to be prepared, and on what level?
On the level of the etheric body, the astral body, the sentient soul, until it finally comes out in the mind soul. If you listen to this again: 1) etheric body, 2) astral body, 3) soul of feeling, 4) soul of mind and soul of feeling, if you say it quite precisely, then perhaps one thing is missing in the human being: the physical body, that is still missing, I am not talking about the I yet, because that only really comes to consciousness there, but the physical body would be quite nice if we had that too. The physical body developed before the cultural epochs during the Atlantic period. The Atlantean period is the time when the physical body is prepared, especially or among other things, so that this tool of understanding can develop, so that the brain can develop accordingly, so that the body can be organised in such a way that it can stand upright, that is quite essential, that is the first prerequisite for us to be able to develop the mind - that is the first step in the development of the mind. Erecting force. The uprightness that leads to us also grasping very skilfully, also grasping, very real, the outer world.
Of course, there are already beginnings of this in the animal kingdom, where this impulse is already working inside, because man in his present form is the last one on the solid earth, but during this time he always puts something out of himself. The whole of nature has basically developed in such a way that man initially puts something out of his being that would hinder him in his further development. And this is how the animal world, but also the plant world, and ultimately also the mineral world, come into being. The mineral world is even the first thing that man puts out during the development of the earth, then come the plants, then come the animals, then come the higher animals, then come the apes, which are put out, until at some point the first animal is put out. AustralopithecusThe pre-humans, who laboriously try to straighten up somehow, you can already see from the anatomy that this is somewhat successful, but it is by no means the natural posture, we can't use that either, so let's put that out too, so the Australopithecus it wasn't either. Well, then all the human forms already come that belong to the genus Homo at least (Hominidae), i.e. early humans, H. rudolfensis, H. habilis, the Neanderthal man, H. denisovawhich is very similar to the Neanderthal, but was found more in the east. Until then, sometime around 70,000 years ago, the H. sapiens which is so anatomically related to us today that we can say that from that time onwards we have the human form that we essentially have today. In the beginning, there were still mating communities between Neanderthals and humans. H. sapiens existed. But somewhere it branches off and Neanderthals and the other prehumans eventually died out.
What remains is us and at some point we will also disappear in this form, we have already spoken about this, that the time of earthly incarnations in a physical-material body, as we have it today, will begin to end from the 6th millennium. That is, at the end of the 6th cultural epoch, that's when it begins, then beyond the 7th cultural epoch and then it goes into this age of war of all against all, with which the time of the cultural epochs will perish, culture will also perish, in the form we know it today, because we will no longer need it in that form. And this physical form, as we have it today, will also disappear. The human being will move on. That's why we don't need to be so frightened when we hear that so and so many will then disappear. We have to distinguish very strongly between what continues spiritually and what simply disappears physically - simply dies out. This happens again and again in development. Today it is certainly laudable to stop the extinction of species in the animal kingdom, because it is simply happening too quickly. But it also has to happen to a certain extent. It would not be in keeping with the times if sabre-toothed tigers were still running around here in Perchtoldsdorf. Not only for us, but also for the sabre-toothed tigers it is not the optimum, because they would not have the climate for it. In general, when we talk about global warming. The sabre-toothed tiger would not be happy about that. And the shaggy mammoths wouldn't be happy either.
One must distinguish between what is the inner core and what is the outer. The outer will always die out and must die out. That is quite a normal process. Our physical corporeality will also die out in form. And it will begin relatively soon, if you measure it in the scales that pertain to earth evolution. Because what are a few thousand years. Sixth - eighth millennium that's a small thing. That's really soon. When I calculate back to the beginning of the cultural epochs in the 8th millennium B.C., we already have more behind us than we still have ahead of us, that is, we are more than halfway through, which is why there is such a strong development now, such a strong pace of development, because we don't have much time. It is no coincidence that we are now also being challenged intellectually, yes, great challenges.
But let us go back once more to the Atlantean man, because there the physical nature of the Homo sapiens was trained. That was essentially the task of the Atlantean period. And to create the physical basis for the upright gait, which is connected with the free use of the front limbs by forming them into hands, which are not hands in apes, for example, or above all the feet are not feet, that is the interesting thing, but actually also organs of grasping. In humans, this is totally differentiated. The one organ with which he stands perfectly, architectural marvel, how that keeps the upright body in a position that is completely unstable basically. It's a crazy idea to create a being that has to constantly balance so that it can stand upright. A tower has a foundation, a tree has roots. An animal that is supposed to walk, it is the most impossible thing to produce a bipedal being. That is the most difficult thing to do.
But that is what makes us I-beings, I-conscious beings. For example, because we constantly have to struggle for this uprightness and unconsciously we do this continuously. This contributes significantly to our I-feeling. If you close your eyes, you notice immediately that you are constantly swaying and always have to compensate, especially when you are standing on one leg. Try that, standing on one leg and closing your eyes. It's even harder than with your eyes open. And don't support yourself while doing it. So the power to straighten up is the prerequisite for the larynx to transform itself in such a way that speech becomes possible. No longer just sensory sounds, some kind of tube that expresses pleasure and suffering or something, but language. Language comes into being. But in truth, language can already contain thought, meaningful spiritual things. Not only mental, sensory, but also spiritual. Parrots can also speak, they don't have their own language, but they can imitate our language perfectly. Like a tape recorder. Because they also have an upright larynx. The system is built differently in birds, but still the larynx is upright, so it's sonically possible. But it is not possible for a mental content to connect with it. The brain must first develop accordingly. That is, as we know today through external research, the last thing to come. It is not the brain that erects the body, but it begins with the erection. There are very strong assumptions in external research, it is always very difficult, because you can only deduce something from the fossils or from any footprints that you have, where you can trace it, yes, there were attempts at the upright gait much earlier. Only when that was more or less established did brain development begin, relatively explosively. It's very interesting how this happens with us humans.
And a big prerequisite was that we also put corresponding animal beings out of ourselves. Which we could not use in our human being. They would have hindered us in the development of the brain and the associated intellectual activity. We had to put something out of ourselves. And that had to precede this development. So relatively shortly before the first human forms appeared, something had to be put out of us in an animal way. R. Steiner gives us an exciting hint that this is the horse. The horses. It is interesting that they actually develop a little earlier than the first Australopitecinae, the pre-humans, early humans, a little earlier, about 3.5 to 3.9 million years ago. So something that can already be called a horse. A little later, the first human forms emerge.
Question from the audience: Is the horse one of the latest animals?
W.: Well, the ape sexes are also different. For example, today's chimpanzees or gorillas probably came out a little later, the orangutans, for example, earlier, they are also less related to us, so it is difficult to assess that today, for example, the chimpanzees and gorillas are closer to us than they are to the orangutans. They are closer to humans than they are to the orangutans. That's exciting, you can see how interesting external research can be. There is absolutely no contradiction with what comes from the spiritual realm. In fact, it's very exciting to illuminate both sides and to look at them together, because then you really have both sides of the development. And you also see what it means, it is not a completely blind process. It is a creative process. Something spiritual is also involved, but certainly not in the form of someone rolling out the divine plan of creation. It is a creative activity in which our I is already very much involved. Until it can really incarnate more and more strongly. It has already incarnated before. Incarnations already begin in Lemurian time, but these are not yet real full incarnations. And everything before that does not yet have a human-like form. form, but only serves to excrete that in the form of various lower and ever higher animals. For this, the I must immerse itself to a certain degree, but in truth these are not yet full incarnations.
Now, however, after the horses have left, whereby this naturally overlaps in time, one must not say, the horses, now they are finally out, hurray, now the human being can start, but it is a process that overlaps. But the departure of the horse nature was of decisive importance for the gradual development of human intelligence, as R. Steiner clearly describes it. That once the physical basis was created. That is why in the imaginations, when one wants to depict them in sensual images, because there is no other way, the horse is again and again the symbol for intelligence. Not because the horse is so intelligent, but because it is the image of what had to be eliminated so that we can become intelligent. Some more, some less.
Question from the audience: Do the centaurs have anything to do with it?
W.: Yes, of course that has something to do with it, because it describes exactly the stage where that begins to separate, where But you must not imagine it externally, there are no centaurs galloping around somewhere externally, but spiritually exactly the same process is taking place, so it is a transitional nature that still has something horse-like in it and the human nature that is already announcing itself. These are these centaur forces, for they have very strong etheric forces, the horse too, especially in the head area there are very strong etheric forces, only the horse cannot draw them in through its nature. If the horse could draw in the strong etheric forces that it has in its head, then it could make a brain formation that would be highly intelligent. That is what man then did. To do this, the horse had to be excreted and it retains its large etheric head. There are wonderful brain-forming powers in there, but they do not become active in the horse. That's why it can remain a horse, be a horse.
We must draw a part of it in, because the highest etheric forces are necessary to shape this brain. That is the foremost front, behind it, of course, there is still higher spiritual, that is clear. There is still soul, that is, astral, behind it. The I-power is behind it. And there is also a great deal coming in from the higher hierarchies that we can develop. But the foremost front, the sculptor who shapes it, the brain, that is the etheric body, that is the active one, that shapes it. One could say that the powers of thought, the powers of thought form the brain. Because actually the life forces, in general in the whole body, are the same forces that we also use in thinking. In thinking we primarily use the living etheric forces, of course the I is behind them and the astral body and the soul, but in thinking it comes down to the level of the etheric body. The forces which we stimulate in thinking are the forces which form the whole of nature out of the living, the plants, the animals in their life activity, but also ourselves. And finally it forms this highly complex organ of the brain, which is then able to mirror this activity and then this is lifted into consciousness in the form of our thoughts. In other words, thinking forms its own tool. Its tool, that it needs in order to be able to look at itself, so to speak. To be able to look at myself first in the form of the deeds of thought that I perform. At first I only see the finished thoughts on the physical brain. I no longer see the living process. This has been necessary to form the brain and to keep it going again and again.
Because basically with every mirroring process, with every nerve process that takes place in the brain, Something is destroyed up there, it has to be regenerated. We don't actually notice this regeneration process. But we do notice the destruction. It gives us this consciousness. Consciousness has something in common with pain. Pain is just a non-specific consciousness. Basically every kind of consciousness, when it becomes too strong, turns into pain. It's related somewhere. It has to do with the fact that processes of consciousness are related to processes of destruction. In truth, this is also clear, because spiritual things actually destroy material things. Where the spiritual intervenes in the material, it ultimately begins to destroy the material. The spiritual/astral also has a destructive effect on it. The spiritual wants to spiritualise and spiritualising means dissolving the material. That is of no use. That's just the way it is. But we can in any case first become aware of these things on the level of the mind, because we have put the horse out of us. Figuratively speaking. As long as this process works, until this thinking of the mind has reached its maturity, the image of the horse is justified.
Today, in the age of the consciousness soul, this intellectuality is still very strong and has perhaps reached its highest flowering, but it is something that actually goes back to the Greco-Latin period. In other words, it is not really the task of our time. The task of our time is actually to form these imaginations, the living formative thinking that approaches reality. From that point on, the image of the horse is no longer relevant. It then no longer has anything to do with the powers of the horse. Because the powers of the horse, those are the powers that we have taken in to form the brain. Imaginative thinking, thinking that is already immersed in the spiritual, no longer uses the physical brain for this thinking. It will still need it for a long time for everything else, because even the mind in the old form will not disappear immediately. There will be a long transitional period. But for the actual living imaginative thinking we do not need the physical brain. We need the etheric body. The etheric body relies to a certain extent on the fluid mechanism, that has something to do with the Brain water still to do, so there it somehow leaves its traces, but in truth it is a process that takes place in the etheric, no longer in the physical. And yet it becomes conscious. That is what we have to learn now. If we want to attain imaginative consciousness, it means that we become conscious with the help of the etheric body. There it is completely alive, there is no logical deduction. There is also no calculation, as we do it, although there is certainly the sound or number ether, but number ether is not calculation, as we do it today, but it is about number rhythms, which stand in a certain relationship to each other, stand in a certain harmony with each other, that where Pythagoras investigated or the Pythagoreans, it was not only about calculating, that was basically the waste product of it, but it was about studying these number harmonies and how they have a formative effect in the world. That is something completely different!
These harmonic numerical ratios, that is connected with the sound ether. There are different etheric forces. There is the Heat ether, there is the Light ether, there is the Sound etherIt has to do with these harmonies, with these harmonies of numbers, which is why it is also called number ether, sometimes also mathematical ether. Something of this is reflected in the mathematical laws, but you have to realise that mathematics itself cannot be proven one hundred percent mathematically. That is the interesting thing about it. In the 20th century there was this exciting theorem by Gödel. He was a great mathematician, and until then people had the great project that we do everything mathematically, we can calculate everything, and then I must also be able to represent the fundamentals of mathematics by mathematical means, in their entirety. But then Gödel proved that yes, it doesn't work. It doesn't work! If a mathematical system is sufficiently complex, one can no longer prove it with one's own means, but I always come to propositions that are logically undecidable, i.e. I don't know whether I should go further to the left or further to the right and thus every proof fails. Because I always come up against a void somewhere.
In other words, sound ether is more than just calculating with fixed laws. Then there is the Life EtherThat is the highest form. The life ether is very important for us, it even shapes into the solid, into the crystalline element. The sound ether works strongly in the liquid. The life ether even goes into the crystalline element. Light ether has something to do with the air element. The heat ether has to do with heat. Ether and physically measurable heat are very close together. This is a transition point. Therefore, etheric heat can always change into physical heat, i.e. into physically measurable heat. It can go back and forth. These are very important transition points. Just where etheric warmth changes into physical warmth or vice versa, that is always a very exciting point. That is the point where the spiritual can intervene in the physical. In truth, this always happens through the heat gate. Everything else is an indirect effect, but it is direct. On the heat level. That's why it's quite interesting in the blood. Blood heat is 37° Celsius, body heat approximately. There is the transition point in the water - and blood consists largely of water - that is a point where physical heat passes continuously into etheric heat or vice versa. It goes in both directions. Directly through the blood, not only the ether of warmth, but of course also everything that is spiritual above it, can intervene directly through this gate.
Question from the audience: Fever is then actually a transition?
Yes, fever is a transition, if you look at it from the spiritual side, then it means that something is being brought into the physical from the etheric warmth, because I cannot measure that with the thermometer. In other words, something of the etheric forces is now being increasingly brought into the physical. And as a result, the chemical and biochemical processes in the body begin to accelerate, so the metabolism is heated up in the process, so to speak, now creative forces basically run faster, right into the biochemistry. This then creates protection, for example against viruses and the like. Under certain circumstances, one gets something from the other world, whereby one must say that with the fever fantasies that come in, one must look at them with caution, one does not have to immediately believe that this is a contact from the higher world. It can be, but it doesn't have to be. As a rule, it is an experience of what is happening in the body. It is clothed in all kinds of images. You also process something, yes. It is therefore always a great opportunity. A lot can change. When you have gone through a fever, you have become a different person. Something has changed. And if you look closely, you realise that something has actually improved. You may have lost something, which was perhaps disturbing anyway, and you have gained something in maturity. Often, fever is simply a process of maturing.
Firstly, it does not make medical sense, because it is precisely the fever that can accelerate the defence reactions against viruses and the like and bring them up to the right speed, i.e. vaccinating and then immediately taking a fever-reducing agent is a contradiction in terms. The second thing is that you then prevent certain transformation processes, that in reality you have gone through the fever in which the I had to prove itself, because that is behind it, because it then brings the warmth of the I into it through the blood, because the spiritual quality ultimately comes out of the I and the I can then anchor itself more strongly in the body and take hold of it better. That is simply what it is about, i.e. incarnating better in truth. Therefore, if this is suppressed on principle, it is wrong. You don't have to provoke it, please I want a fever now, because a change is about to happen. If you need it, if it helps you, the fever and it can help, then it will come. Then it is not good to suppress it unnecessarily. Of course, if you notice that it's getting too high and it's life-threatening, then you have a duty to do something about it. That doesn't mean letting nature take its course, but we also have the possibility to intervene, to make sure that it doesn't overshoot the target.
It's not that a person necessarily has to die because of it. As a rule, it is not always written so firmly in the karma, and it is never forbidden to help. It doesn't harm the karma at all, on the contrary, it's good for the karma of both the survivor and the doctor. Because then the problem is solved differently. But you have to be careful how you do all that, so that a person has a chance to really overcome his karma. And not just try everything to avoid this karmic problem. Therefore, in the future it will become more and more important to feel why a person is actually ill? Why does he want to be ill? The truth is that the I is behind it. He wants to be ill for certain reasons. Because he knows from his real I that I need this impulse. Yes, perhaps even if it is a fatal illness, I need it in order to take it with me into the next life. It is not arbitrary.
But as a doctor I can still do something good for the person if I perhaps prevent him from dying, but above all give him an impulse somewhere to deal with his karma himself. Because karma can be fulfilled in many different ways. It's always about the task that has to be accomplished. If it is mastered, it is good. It can be accomplished by drastic means, but perhaps also by gentler ones. That is not said anywhere. It is totally wrong to see karma as a beating. That would be totally wrong. God's punishment or something like that. It is our self-education. We have done something bad in the past, seduced by the adversaries, something that harms the world and ourselves. We want to put that right. Because we know that this is the only way we can move forward spiritually. Because it is of no use to us if we make five giant steps in one area, but in another we are still ten steps behind. Because we have left a problem there. We have done something wrong. We are doing a balancing act that we will no longer be able to do over time. In other words, we ourselves want to work through these things. We ourselves. I know that at the moment of crisis this is not the obvious thought, then you curse, why me of all people? This doesn't fit into my life at all? But in reality it does fit in. Maybe also because it changes your life drastically. After ten years, I know that now it has brought me to my real mission in life. If I am awake enough.
This is part of what I mentioned at the beginning, to also feel the impulses that come from outside, even with an illness, which can have external or internal causes, but it can also be external, see the current Covid crisis, there is an external factor, but there is also an internal factor. And this is actually connected to how one reacts to it, whether one becomes ill or not, it depends on many things. I don't mean to say that we don't need to take any measures at all, we could certainly do without a lot of things, that has to be said, many scientists also say that, but basically certain protective measures and the like, that's absolutely okay, and of course all the help that is given, that is reasonable.
Z. For example, the vaccines that are now planned, that are coming out and that are already at the trial stage, that is sheer madness. Because not only from an intellectual point of view, but also from a scientific point of view it is sheer madness, because basically all the test procedures that are otherwise necessary for the development of vaccines are in fact being undermined. Because all safety criteria are mitigated. Normally, 3-stage studies are necessary with ever larger groups on which it is tested, which normally have to be completed one after the other, with breaks in between to see what side effects the first ones have, then the second one is planned, etc., which are now being done in parallel. That means that while the first test is running with a small group, the next test group is already running, perhaps started a little later, is already running, actually it should be behind and there should be a time in between, and the third, the large-scale trial with basically 30,000 volunteers is already running, the experiences that are known from England, with a high percentage that have at least severe side effects. Therefore: vaccination plus painkillers.
Apart from that, with a basically very new vaccination procedure, a vaccination procedure based on DNA, the genetic material of the virus, i.e. there virus DNA is injected so that the body is stimulated to form antibodies. What that does is still very problematic, because if it is actually done with DNA, then there is the possibility that it will be incorporated into the human genome. That's genetic engineering basically. Unintentionally. That happens in nature outside as well. If it's an RNA agent, then the danger is less. It's still experimentation right into the genetic realm. There is DNA, deoxyribonucleic acid, which is the physical basis of our genetic material, and there is ribonucleic acid, RNA, which plays a role in the processes of how the genetic material is interpreted and converted into proteins. RNA does not build itself into the genetic material.
Because viruses have this task in nature of creating a gene transfer between species and individuals and thus giving the great artist nature, if I may put it that way, opportunities to play with everything. We have millions of viruses in us and we need them. All of nature needs them. There are also a lot of corona viruses, not only the one that is current now. We probably have natural immunity to corona viruses for a long time, to a high degree. There are also experiments that show that people who have not yet come into contact with Covid are immune to it, not from antibodies, but from lymphocytes. Because that is the second and more important defence mechanism, the lymphocytes, the white blood cells. They train their whole life long. They have a lot of experience with other corona viruses, because they have been around since time immemorial. The corona viruses as such are nothing new. The current one is just a special mutation. The lymphocytes simply recognise it. The antibodies are very specific to the one that is there now. The leukocytes go against all corona viruses. Because they recognise it by other things, especially the waste products that the virus produces when it multiplies. And these waste products are very similar in the corona viruses and also in other viruses. That's where they pounce. In other words, 80 per cent of us have a natural immunity anyway. This explains why there are relatively few outbreaks of disease. It is irresponsible to say, as politicians do, that the covid crisis will end when vaccination is available. It is when you start distributing the vaccination that the problems will begin in the first place. That can be said with a fair degree of certainty. At least for individual people. Especially those who get vaccinated against it as healthy people.
Vaccinations have a strong influence on the immune system. The etheric forces, the life forces, are very closely connected with the immune activity. Because their tool is precisely the lymphatic system, the immune system, the white blood cells. This is one of the main tools of the etheric body. This is where you basically introduce life-weakening forces, life-destroying forces. This has effects on health in the physical sphere, but it also has effects on the powers of thinking and cognition. These will not be so obvious. Such vaccination measures that intervene in the immune system, thereby also intervene in the etheric body, have effects on the life activity but also on the thinking activity. And also on the possibility of releasing enough etheric forces from the brain in order to go into imaginative thinking, because there particularly healthy and strong etheric forces are needed. And if they are weakened, then they already have enough to do to maintain the brain. So this has influences that are very far-reaching. It's basically dangerous to create this illusion, great, when there's finally the vaccination, then we're rid of the problem. That can very easily lead to the real problems only beginning.
But these are the problems of mind thinking, which first of all has nothing to do with living thinking, which is actually a tool of the ego and less of the I. We had to go through this stage. We had to go through this stage. You can see that: with the Greeks it actually still comes out of the spiritual somewhere, goes down and is slowly seized by the ego, with the Romans then quite strongly. Then the Christian Occident, there is the struggle about whether the I has something to say or whether the ego has something to say and in truth, if you look at the development, the whole theology is to a large extent very strongly characterised by egoism. Power interests etc. play a role, not with people like Thomas Aquinas or so, there are great ones who are recognised, but nevertheless, how their writings are then interpreted, used, that is another chapter again.
So we have to solve the problems associated with the excretion of the horse. What happens now in the apocalypse? Now the horses actually come once. Namely at the opening of the first seals: "And I saw, the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four beasts speak with a voice of thunder. Come! And I saw, behold, a white horse, and his rider held a bow in his hand, and a crown was set upon his head; victorious, he went forth to further victories." Yes, these victories are first of all mental victories. This rider is not yet the great fighter, even if he has a bow in his hand, this bow is perhaps already an image for the arrow that is sent out by thinking, that hits the target precisely, but it is meant less in the external martial sense. It is an image for mental-spiritual events. Yes, they are forces that have emerged because the horse was eliminated in the Atlantean period. And there are now very special forces that are described, namely those that became visible during the cultural epochs, where we could now ask the question. Because first of all it is physically predisposed, but then it also comes out somewhere in the cultural epochs. First a physical basis is created, but this basis must then gradually be grasped spiritually in order to be able to do anything with it. The first, where basically the brain is still very weakly used to bring in these forces, but it is already there, but it is transition. Where it is now no longer the old clairvoyance, the old clairvoyance was indeed also bound to the body, which is no longer the case in contrast to today, but it was more concentrated on the lower regions, that was more the abdominal clairvoyance, perhaps also a chest clairvoyance, but not really a head clairvoyance. That is the last thing to come. Intellectual thinking ultimately arises from head clairvoyance.
But what comes out first is still very weakly intellectual and there is still a lot of old clairvoyance in truth. That is basically what is described here. Hence the white horse. White is the colour for the spiritual. For the spiritual light. And there is also the crown that he has, placed on his head. So now the time begins when old clairvoyance begins to pass over into thinking, but still very much in the etheric, not yet completely bound. And where is this transition in the cultural epochs? In the primeval Indian time at the beginning. There is the transition. The Atlanteans essentially still had clairvoyance, which still has an effect in the primal Indian time. But it is already beginning to pass slowly into what will later become the activity of the mind. It is now the transition that the clairvoyant images pass over into imaginative concepts, which, however, come from the spiritual realm. But in the case of imaginative concepts, the intellectual already intervenes. Not yet so cold and logically precise. Still forming, there is still a lot of living in it, but it is already drawn into the sensual sphere. Fantasy images are already based on sensory impressions that one carries in the memory, on sensory qualities, it represents in sensual images. In other words, in primal Indian times there is a transition from real astral clairvoyance to one that expresses itself only in sensual images, in sensual dream images. This is exactly the transition.
This runs through the entire cultural epochs, as long as clairvoyance still exists at all, that it is increasingly clothed in images similar to the senses, like dream images. That is to say, this old clairvoyance that is now emerging in time, from the primeval Indian period to the beginning of the Egyptian-Chaldean period, and then only for a few, there are of course always some, there are still stragglers today who still have the old, but they are very few. But what is typical of the time is that it dresses itself up in sensual images, the imaginations. Because the imaginations are actually spiritual perceptions. There is no sensual image for them. But now in time, beginning in primal Indian time, it passes from the actual soul-imaginative experience into a sensory-imaginative experience. It is already an inner image, like a living imaginary image, like a living dream image. One can say that it is not the outer world, because they do not yet see it fully awake, but they also no longer see pure imaginations, but the transition, they begin to dream in truth of the spiritual, and they also dream a little of the outer world. That is the transition. But you see, what comes from the outer world obscures the actual inner imagination, the veil of Maja draws over it. Maja is also this goddess of death who draws this dark veil over it, which they actually perceive as an eclipse.
Today, it is important that one sets the inner impulse oneself. That is very important for today's spiritual perception. One must consciously experience oneself actively in the imagination. It is outdated where, for example, there are Visions are the transition from imagination to symbolic experience that simply comes, that overtakes you, now I have a great intuition, I see something, that concerns everything that is media, a medium that is not conscious at all, that concerns everything that is so modern today, which comes from the New Age movement and is called channelling, you are a channell, some spiritual being speaks through you, or enlightens you, sure you prepare yourself somehow, through meditation or something, but the actual experience is just given to you, you get that from the spiritual world, then that's the old way. You have to be aware today that I'm so awake that I know I'm thinking a certain thought, I'm thinking the thought of the triangle, I know exactly I'm thinking it, and if I don't think it, then I simply don't have it. But I also know very well that this triangle has its own laws, I can't impose on it, dear triangle, I would like you to have a sum of angles of 290 degrees and not 180. Then the triangle, if it is a plane triangle, will resist. I will not bring this together in thought. Nevertheless, I have to actively think this thought and the idea of the triangle doesn't just come to me as an inspiration. My students would be happy if it came to them as an inspiration, but there is a good reason why that is not happening today.
And here we have to make a very strong distinction today, because the great danger today is that only when you are on this conscious path of spiritual experience, that you are aware: I am looking, I am turning my spiritual gaze towards a certain thing, only then can you be sure where you are moving in the spiritual realm. At the moment when this is channeled, I do not know in truth which spiritual entity is giving me this. That is the main trick of the adversaries, that they naturally present themselves in the most beautiful form, speak of love, of peace, of happiness, of the whole world at its best, and bring that along and bring beautiful images, and in truth it goes in a completely different direction. Luciferic spirits usually help, that is the case with 70 - 80 percent of esoteric movements, that Luciferic things come in, which does not exclude the possibility that the Ahrimanic can thereby become more widespread. That is also one of the possibilities of intervention that the adversaries have, because the adversaries work on the one hand through the materialistic external or on the other hand that they try to get in through the spiritual movements, that is even the actual and almost more dangerous point of attack.
Question from a listener: If I connect with the light and with love, which is the All-power, can I turn away the other?
W.: That's right! If I consciously go into meditation and try to connect with the light, and do that, do that myself, then that is certainly very good! There's no question about that. I mean, it's bad when some meditation teacher or guru sends me some kind of instructions and imparts some kind of images or even suggests images to me. There are enough meditation practices that start with images that you imagine, that wouldn't be a problem yet, but which then turn into almost hallucinations or visions that perhaps arise from them. But in a bad way. You come to some experience and say, I have now seen an angel, you see him because the guru has led you there and because you want to see him yourself. Perhaps you also have certain ideas about what the angel should look like.
Question further: But in a group?
W.: In a group, this can become even stronger. That's why group meditations should be treated with caution. They can have a reinforcing effect in a positive sense, but you have to be sure that nothing wrong comes in. Not from any of the participants and certainly not from anyone who might be leading it or something. These are very delicate things. That's why you can see right away in the first image of the seal, the image of the opening of the first seal, that must also interest us today, namely how we deal with it, because exactly such forces are also there today, but now not in a good sense, but in a negative sense. It doesn't fit into our time today. It did fit in and was necessary and good in the primal Indian time, with all its after-effects up to the turn of time, when one could get something positive out of it. Today it has to be transformed, today we have to approach it differently, we see that the opening of the seals really refers to the sixth main age, that is, to the period after the cultural epochs, that there will also be a great task in this respect, because only then will this seal be properly unsealed, i.e. there it will be decided in a big way whether we have found the new forces to come to the spiritual or whether we are still trying to peddle something old. What should have been overcome long ago.
Because today it is already relatively dangerous if we want to connect with the spiritual in the primal Indian way. But it becomes really dangerous in the 6th main age at the beginning. There is this war of all against all. And it is a question of triggering a new development out of this war of all against all. And if I come out of it with the old unchanged forces, then it will be problematic. We will then have to know how to deal with it. Namely out of full I-consciousness and not out of something unconscious, out of unconscious impulses. Because then the adversaries will really have us there. Then the whole full development in the 6th main age is basically endangered. Especially those who fall prey to these old forces at the beginning. Therefore, in the next epoch, the confrontation with these old forces and fighting against them will have to be extremely strong. And to discover that the Luciferic forces are there, but now the Ahrimanic forces are emerging very strongly below, they are spreading, we will discuss this concretely next time, there are actually no concrete details about this from R. Steiner, but we can try to shine a light into it, what will really happen on earth in this 6th main age.
But this phase with the white horse will be followed very quickly by a time of spiritual confrontation, namely a spiritual confrontation of the forces of light that have developed in a good sense, where the I-consciousness is present, the white horse, so to speak, but where he sits securely on it and is the master of it, that is indicated as a task, that he is the rider who even gets the crown, and then goes from victory to victory, a spiritual victory, that is what we have to learn there. But then comes the second epoch, and with it the confrontation with the adversaries, especially with the Ahrimanic forces, because when we have mastered the opening of the first seal, then we have really transformed the old forces into new forces. We now have these at our disposal. Then Lucifer is no longer a big problem for us. Then he can't fool us so easily any more. Because he likes to make use of the old unconscious powers, he likes to make us clairvoyant or observant, but not out of his own strength in truth, and that's why he leads us successively into his kingdom.
So this white horse also means that we have to consciously guide these forces out of the I. We have to ride him. We have to ride it. We are no longer centaurs! We are now the rider on the horse. That is the very important thing! We have become it in the course of time. It is interesting that the horses are tamed, that is only in the Egyptian time, not in the Urpersian time, where the taming of the animals usually begins, but only a little later, that has something to do with the fact that there the sentient soul is developed, i.e. the soul internalisation is developed. Only then can we really begin to deal with the horse within us, or with the forces that we have the horses to thank for, namely these powerful etheric forces that the horse has outside, but which we have taken inside, and then we can also outwardly control the horse, so to speak, or enter into a partnership with it, because the real rider does not rule over the horse, but the horse follows him, it is willing and it carries him there, it also contributes certain things to finding the way under certain circumstances, which the rider cannot do at all. It follows the will of the rider.
Note from a listener: This also shows in the sport of dressage! Lipizzaner.
W.: Yes, that's what we practise. Dealing with horses is something really great! When a rider handles a horse properly and treats it correctly, it is beneficial for the horse. It is also beneficial for the elemental beings that are connected to it. Especially the relationship of humans to animals that are close to them has a lot to do with elemental beings. New elemental beings are also formed there. These would not come into being if the horse only lived in nature and did not meet the human being. Something new comes into being. The group soul of the horse also takes something with it and gains something new. That's why it's important for humans to establish such a close relationship with animals. This will also be the case with other animal species. In other words, the future will not be untouched nature outside somewhere and wild animals that are the way they were thousands of years ago. It will change. The whole earth will change from a natural landscape to a cultural landscape. But if it is possible, not simply by destroying nature, but by transforming nature. That is actually our great task. There we still have a great task ahead of us. On the one hand through external physical deeds, on the other hand also through above all and even more so through spiritual deeds that we set. Because we need the background for this.
Comment from a listener: We still have a lot to do there. With the horses! Horse husbandry is a very brutal one nowadays.
W.: Yes, of course! There is a lot to do and you have to see how many times the Arabs, where they were really at their height, I don't know how it is today, they had developed this real love for the horses, not just with whips and other things, that was actually the bad ones, but where there is really this intimate relationship, where he sleeps with his horses, he is connected with them and the horses with him. That was a very special relationship there, certainly not with all of them. Of course, where one treats the horses badly, where one uses them for one's own ego, in war or something else, beats them and whips them and drives them with spurs and things like that, then it is exactly the opposite of that, then good elemental beings are not created through that, that is also quite clear.
All this is connected with the fact that we know how to ride our spiritual horse, that is very much connected, there is also the winged horse, the Pegasus, which is not an outer horse, but these are actually these etheric forces that we have taken up when the horse was excreted as a separate being. Actually we have got the winged horse, with some it is just stubby wings, with some it is bigger, but that is the spiritual horse. Therefore, the intellect will certainly have a significance for the future, but only if it is fertilised by this imaginative thinking. So it will be very important, especially for our cultural epoch, that we can always find the transition from this lively-imaginative thinking, which really becomes initially perceptive of the spiritual world, which is basically possible for everyone as of today, but one must not immediately expect that now I have a clairvoyant panorama and know everything about the world. I don't know anything, I don't even have such a small imagination as R. Steiner describes somewhere in an approach. It takes a lot to come close to such an imagination. The images that come at the beginning, i.e. the soul experiences that come at the beginning, are even more modest. But a beginning is possible! Everyone in his own field! Someone who is very close to nature will perhaps meet elemental beings first. We can do all this to prepare ourselves for this age in the 6th main period, when this first seal will be opened. That we now use these powers correctly, the winged horse on the one hand, but then it will also be possible at that time to let the old mind powers slowly disappear. Today we need both! But in the 6th main age it will be possible. We will have to talk a lot about this.
Because the question is also, as we have heard, in the 6th - 8th millennium we slowly stop the incarnations, but the 6th main period is only after that, yes how are we there then? We don't have a brain any more. We have to learn to get along without it. We have to have really transformed it. But now we need both. Anthroposophy, that is, modern spiritual science, is based on the fact that if we want to be spiritual researchers, we can of course try to understand the writings of R. Steiner with the powers of the intellect, and they are written in such a way that in principle we can do that once, but the next step is to have certain imaginative impressions ourselves, but then also to be able to translate them into concepts of the intellect. Because otherwise we can't communicate them at all.
Every spiritual insight that I cannot communicate is in truth worthless. I must be able to put it into the world. I have to be able to act from it, I have to be able to give another person a tip, a suggestion, then I have to do it in the way that is possible today. And this intellectual thinking is still the most widespread. We don't even have the language for it. That's where it starts. We don't have the words. A language that is equal to the imaginary must first emerge, we must first form it.
Question from an audience member: The second seal, does it go hand in hand or is it parallel?
W.: Pff! You can see it as a sequence, you can also see it in parallel! That is always the exciting thing. In the etheric, the imagination actually reaches into the etheric, there is not the passage of time as we know it. I can say that there are laws in there that are like those that we have in succession. But it already has the point that the beginning is actually connected with the end, and so on. We have already discussed this several times. There are other connections. Actually, it is an organism of time in which everything is there at the same time, because the beginning is there, but it has the same effect at the end, but conversely, the end is also there at the beginning somehow, so it is a whole. The whole is very complex. With 7 epochs that take place one after the other, the picture just doesn't fit. That's why I have to read the pictures - I can read them one after the other, but that's the most primitive form, so to speak. It has something to it, because the epochs are actually roughly arranged according to it, in which each picture in turn has a particularly strong influence on a particular epoch. But in truth, all images are present at all times. They manifest themselves in certain phenomena.
Comment from a listener: I had the impulse that in truth they are all there at the same time. That they are all there, but since they are only there in sparks, they have to open up, accordingly give everything space, but not give space so that we can internalise it, but also so that something new can emerge, where you really need courage to internalise it.
W.: Yes, absolutely! The important thing is really that we have the courage to internalise this more and more and to take action. That is our task today!
I'd say we'll save the other little horses for next time. I'll read this first horse again, or should I read the second one to you as well? But no explanation then, the transition: "And I saw the Lamb open one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four beasts speak with a voice of thunder. Come! And I saw, behold, a white horse, and his rider held a bow in his hand, and a crown was set upon his head, as a victor he went forth to further victories. And when it opened the second seal, I heard the second beast speak. And there came forth a second horse of fiery red colour, and to his rider was given power to take peace from the earth, so that a mutual slaughter broke out. A great sword was given to him."
It's not such a friendly picture at first glance. We will discuss this next time. It's too much today, I think. My dears, I am still happy to answer questions, if you have them.
Question from a listener: These sleeping dreams that you have, can they also be formed by adversaries?
W.: Well, under certain circumstances today it is. It is very difficult. You have to be careful. You have to try to understand in life what this dream memory that you take with you, what can you do with it in life? Does it have good effects? Whether it has bad effects? In truth, you can't judge it yourself in the dream consciousness. Not really. The adversaries today are damn hard at work blinding us with just such things. There are two groups in humanity, some have more spiritual inclinations, and the best way to seduce them is for the adversaries to lead them into certain spiritual or illusory spiritual experiences, or to distort real spiritual experiences to a certain degree. That happens very easily today.
And there are the others, those are the ones who claim I don't dream anything at night, in truth that's not true, it just means they can't remember it in the morning. They go through anyway. But these are the ones who are predestined to turn completely to Ahriman, to go completely into the sober exterior. This, too, is a fundamental separation of spirits that is about to take place. This will become stronger in the future: There are those who float in the Luciferic-spiritual realm, and those who are hostile to those who are stuck in the Ahrimanic realm, who rely on technology, etc. Neither is the right way. Both are not the right ways.
Question further: So be careful how you interpret that?
W.: Yes! It is good to simply record it once, to say ok, I have had such and such a dream, but you simply have to be very careful with the interpretation. Because Lucifer very easily suggests to us that we interpret according to our half or completely subconscious wishes. It leads very easily to that.
Question from a member of the audience: R. Steiner said that one should only try to find out how I felt during the event. My personal feeling and not so much what did the event mean or so.
W.: Yes, yes. That's right! The dream content as such is actually not the interesting thing at all, but the interesting thing is the mental tensions that arise inside, the solution that arises in the soul. Whether one is relieved, whether one is completely tense inside, because that is the imagination behind it. In truth, the imagination consists in this tension of the soul. In these moods of the soul that alternate. You could say moods of the soul. If one is to describe an imagination on the first level, then it is a panorama of soul moods. I deliberately say a panorama. Because then you have several soul moods at the same time next to each other, which come together to form an overall picture somewhere. Dreams can also come from this. Dreams have very different sources, something can come from the spiritual, and then there is the question of which spiritual? Is it the adversary side or is it the positive side? It can come from the sensory activity that slowly awakens, especially in morning dreams, it can come from the sun shining through the window, you still have your eyes closed, but suddenly I dream of a conflagration. Then it's just the sunlight shining through. And I make a drama out of it. The fire brigade comes and it takes three hours. In reality, that was just the moment when the sun came around the corner and now shines in through the window. That's when the dream was triggered.
One should not make important decisions on the basis of dreams or believe that one can gain important insights directly from them. Instead, simply take note of it. And over time, see if it has anything to do with my life. Then perhaps I can gain insights from it, but it should be treated with caution. Because it is typically these things that the adversaries like to spit in today. Much more dangerous today are the things that are done with some esoteric exercises, where people get into these vision-like imaginations, which are actually distorted imaginations. A lot can go wrong there. Because often one's own weaknesses, one's own very negative sides are shown in a mirror image that looks quite beautiful. This leads to us reinforcing this negative quality even more, because I liked the picture so much.
The healthy path into the spiritual is such that one encounters the guardian of the threshold, the little guardian at least, and that one's own naughtiness then confronts one in its true form. As Dante describes it with the three animals that confront him right at the beginning. That is one of the ways in which it can appear. Then it's healthy! Because then I see, ok, these are basically my bad qualities that are coming towards me. Lucifer looks rather that beautiful radiant angels come towards us or something and advise us to continue to cultivate exactly what is negative, because it is in the service only of egoism. See how good that does you!
Comment from a listener: But it also allows deceased people to speak.
W.: Yes, deceased people can also speak. Of course they do! They do! But the best thing is to take it calmly and not interpret it at first. Because if you allow yourself the calm and the time to carry it with you, if the experience was strong enough that we can keep it in memory, and you can keep the experiences in memory because they are not entirely pure imaginings, but because they already translate into the sensual. You can keep a corner of it in your memory. Then you carry it around and just wait and see.
Thank you for being there. It's nice to share this with you.
Comment from a listener: Dear Wolfgang, you have touched on so much today. I am so grateful that the anthroposophical view helps us to understand much of it better. Two things: when you said, why does one become ill, I remembered that Cardinal König once said that one should never ask, why do I have this illness, but one should ask, what for?
W.: Yes, exactly, that's a good approach!
And the second: The author Saint-Exupérie, whom you admire so much, was about the animals that live together with people and have the chance to become good elemental beings, and there is also a passage in the Little Prince where the fox says: "Tame me! That's what you meant.
W.: Exactly!