23rd Lecture on the Apocalypse of John (Documentation)

We are currently in the 5th cultural epoch. There will be serious changes until the end of this epoch.
From the 7th-8th millennium onwards, some people will no longer incarnate in the flesh.

After that, the 6th development period (or 6th main age) will begin. The "war of all against all", the 7 seals. Now the preparation of the abilities for this development is taking place. We are the seals.
The whole earth must develop.

Rudolf Steiner speaks of living and animate technical means.

If the laboratory table becomes an altar, this technique (artificial life) could develop positively. Egoistic impulses must be eliminated.
Our soulfulness must acquire a worldliness... in everything we encounter.

Humans have been causing species extinctions for 70,000 years.

Human forms can be eliminated as physical forms in the future. The I, however, remains. In a subtle way, an intervention in procreation could take place.
Artificial insemination. Genes and races could be eliminated.
In the USA and Russia - for 20-30 years: Trans-humanists want to technically improve humans, especially their brain capacity.

Francis Bacon: "Knowledge is power".

Information technology has power over the world. In 20 years, much will have changed technically. There is a danger that the machine will be implanted in humans, e.g. in the military. Fear can be switched off by electrodes.

Technically, you can read minds. Emotions are blocked. According to Rudolf Steiner, there will also be positives.

The novel by Aldous Huxley (published in 1932!) "Brave New World" describes genetic engineering.

The desired goal: All people are to be made happy. Human freedom is eliminated because freedom is the cause of suffering.

Reserve of the so-called "savages". Tourist destination. Naturally begotten people who argue and have problems.

Youth and beauty are preserved for a long time. People slip into death through a twilight sleep.

There will also be counter-impulses, since the human being is to become a free spiritual being.

7th seal = suffering of the people for those who strive for development upwards by freeing themselves from the bondage to the earth.

In the "war of all against all", minds will be divided. There will be people who drop out and become adversaries. We must counteract this!
Becoming human or becoming an adversary. Forging the human being together with the technical "locked-in" syndrome.

The spiritual I must seize the ego. The impulse of will comes from the spiritual I.

We have to transform the soul. We have to work out the individual soul (the immortal soul).

Towards the end of the earth's development, help as many as possible who are in danger of falling. There are cracks going through ourselves. We suffer from the negative things we have within us.

Realisation of separating good and evil. Now it is about the individual immortal soul. We have to transform astral forces through the I. I-shell for spirit-self.

Create soulfulness out of nothing with Christ-power, if we really want it. I have to recognise what I need to improve about myself.

Rudolf Steiner said: "There is no human being who is not capable of the very worst deeds". In dealing with this, we can further develop our I.

Small steps. To give yourself away in the spiritual is the highest image of LOVE. The more you give, the richer you become. Being able to give yourself away makes you richer in creative power.

Goal of the earth's development = LOVE. Love as a creative force (Jupiter = New Jerusalem).

Complacency = obstacle.

Other extreme: judging oneself to be too small. Pride versus despondency (pusillanimity), in between: Michaelic courage.Looking at myself with humour.

It is important to have a goal: To want to suffer self-confidently, to recognise our imperfections and to take the next step.

Develop positive forces = the Christian path. We must have the will impulse, the whole spiritual world will then help us!

I want to develop - my real ME must want to!

LOVE also means respecting the freedom of the other.

Whoever strives, we can redeem him (FAUST 2).

Consciousness Soul Age:
We have to detect suffering. Where is suffering in the world that others do not even feel (they miss their spiritual development). We - as a counterweight - can find suffering.
Consolation: With CHRIST in us and around us we reach our goal.

The power is there, in each of us. Nothing will happen as long as we do not surrender to black magic.

Apocalypse 6.ch., 11: At the opening of the 5th seal below the altar...sacrificial death...white robe, remain only a short time in the world of rest....until all the brothers suffer death.

The image of the 6th seal already concerns us today: the gaze opens to the spiritual world. Coming to spiritual perception in a fully conscious way (currently already more common in the Americans). As a rule, we Europeans can come to perception through living thought.

Great earthquake, sun turns black, moon turns red like blood, stars fall from heaven to earth, all mountains and islands move from their place. Wrath of the Lamb. Who can stand before the wrath of the God (love of God)? Experience of death = cosmos collapses.
We have to want to be shaken by it, which then leads to imagination.

The 144,000 elect (figurative symbolic number) is related to the number "12".

A person who works on himself spiritually has a good charisma, without words (gaze).

Dear Ones! We are standing at the Book with the 7 Seals, we said that this refers above all to the 6th main age, the great period that follows the time of our cultural epochs. We are now in the 5th cultural epoch, there are still two to go, then there will be a great break, which R. Steiner very threateningly called the "war of all against all". After that, in truth, comes the age of the 7 seals, i.e. the 6th main age, which is described in strong imaginative images. At the same time, however, in the last two lectures we have also related these 7 seals to our cultural epochs or to our present in general, because we must now actually prepare the forces that will then emerge in the 6th main age. So when we study the seal pictures of the Apocalypse here, we are actually studying the task or the abilities that we have to develop so that we will have them available in the 6th main age. We must, as it were, seal these powers within us. We are actually the seals in which this is inscribed in the form of spiritual abilities that are then available. 

We have already spoken about the fact that at the end of the seven cultural epochs, i.e. at the end of the fifth main age, very serious changes will already take place in the development of humanity, namely that a smaller or larger part of humanity will no longer incarnate on earth, i.e. they will already be so far advanced that they can go through a development that no longer requires a physical body. At least no longer a material-physical body, that is, a body as we are used to it now. That sounds very close, but in terms of the development of humanity and the Earth, it is an incredibly short period of time until then, because we are entering the 7th - 8th millennium. Actually, it already begins at the end of the 6th cultural period, the Slavic cultural epoch, that more and more people no longer incarnate. 

Therefore, it is also clear that we have to go through quite a pace of development until then. In other words, we have to go through a tremendous spiritual development until then. A spiritual development that balances out and is equal to the external technological development that is coming. In a certain way, technology will accompany us until that time and it will become even more decisive than it is today. The whole earth is facing a development in which it will, on the one hand, be caught up in technology, whereby the question is still very much what kind of technology? It is not only to be seen as a negative picture, there are different kinds of technology, but there will be both, a very positive, supportive one and one that is restrained in a certain way, that is, that hinders spiritual development. We will have to deal with this very strongly and this has already begun. If you look at the fantasies that now exist with regard to the technical future, then ultimately the plans are basically to improve human beings completely through technology, and perhaps even to replace them. We will have to deal with what that actually means. 

For in truth, development will go much further than the technicians can dream of today. For R. Steiner speaks very clearly of the fact that there will also be "machines",  that are alive and animated. So if today the information scientists, the developers of artificial intelligence, dream or imagine that someday computers will develop consciousness, then one has to say: On the technical basis as it is today, not, no matter how complex they are, further steps will be necessary, namely that the basic material is actually a living one, i.e. one that is constantly renewed and transformed and formed, that is actually constantly in flux, that a metabolism is basically inside, however not in the naturally grown, but in the actually artificially generated life. That will come, that is one of the next stages that will come and of which R. Steiner says quite clearly that this is where it starts to become very dangerous. These forces will be utilised, but in a positive sense they can only be utilised when "the laboratory table to the altar" will. 

That is to say, it will depend absolutely on the attitude of the people when they develop these techniques, and not only in general, but in their activity within themselves, so their inner spiritual attitude and their soul attitude will directly influence how this artificial life will first of all take shape. Here, above all, the soul forces will play a great part, which, if they are more directed in the egoistic, then this life will have a destructive power. That is to say, by then, when it comes, we must have purified the soul life to such an extent that it is really free from these narrow egoistic impulses. I deliberately say from the narrow egoistic impulses, because the problem is the egoism that is too small. Not that which is too big, interestingly enough. 

If it is in my egoism that it is good for the whole world, and by that I mean the earth plus the whole planetary system, if that is in my egoism, then that is actually something positive, because I care for the good of the whole world and feel the good of the whole world as my task and that it hurts me when something goes wrong. So egoism is especially harmful the more petty it is and the more it wants to separate itself from something else. The more it extends to the whole cosmos, then it can no longer be distinguished from altruism in truth. And that is why egoism is an important ability, it has led us to come to ourselves first, in the small earthly consciousness and was necessary for that and our present task is to extend it more and more to the whole world, to expand it. That is an important point.

That is, we have to educate our soul so that it gets this breadth, this worldliness. That is a very important prerequisite. That everything becomes our business in a certain sense, that we take care of everything we encounter. I say consciously what we encounter, because not every one of us has to be active in every corner of this world, that would not be possible at all as long as we are physical beings, but everything that we encounter we have to include and we have to connect our spiritual and our soul forces with it. The spiritually creative powers will then be particularly important when it comes to increasing this artificial life even further to artificially created consciousness. In concrete terms, this means that life forces, i.e. ethereal forces and also astral forces, will enter into the outer manifestations of this artificial world. At any rate, this is the future perspective that R. Steiner describes to us. This really goes far beyond the technical fantasies that we have today. Today we have technical fantasies that computer technology in the broadest sense, artificial intelligence, will develop in such a way that it will soon outstrip human beings. In certain areas, this is already the case. But we will see in more detail that these are precisely the abilities that we must eliminate in reality. 

It is not true that when we look at the whole development of the earth, as we have often said, the whole earth with its mineral kingdom, its plant kingdom, its animal kingdom is actually a product of the human being, of the spiritual human being.  So we have put something out of ourselves that would have initially held us back in our development, but which on the other hand gives us the solid ground on which we can stand here and on which we can develop. Because figuratively speaking, we could not have developed in a vacuum. We need the earth nature, we need the plants on earth, the animals on earth, so that we can develop here as an I-being. The future will mean nothing other than that we will increasingly take the further transformation of the earth into our own hands, so that we can Transforming the natural world as such into a cultural world - and that in all realms. From the mineral kingdom to the plant kingdom to the animal kingdom.

In truth, we are already helping to shape it. In truth, we have been working on this for a long time, namely spiritually, not only spiritually, but also externally or both together. Since the human being in his approximately physical form as a Homo sapiens on earth, he has had a tremendous influence on the outer nature. The transition is already beginning, where we are not only working spiritually, that was before we entered the earth as a physical human being, but where we are also changing the earth very strongly through our outer activity, everything, the climate, the plant world, the animal world. It is quite striking that when man spread out on earth, everywhere he went, as can be proved today by external research, there was an enormous extinction of species in the animal and plant kingdoms. In the order of 80 - 85 % have disappeared. In other words, the issue that is so big in the media today, that humans are causing species extinction, has been causing it since prehistoric times, for about 70,000 years. That is roughly the time when we were Homo sapiens have appeared for the first time.

Before we are in the shape of the Homo sapiens When we stepped out of the human race, other human forms emerged from us, but they did not continue their development and became extinct. The Neanderthals, for example, or Homo habilis. This is also something very important that we should be aware of, we are still excreting something from our being. That is to say, first of all, we are eliminating what we cannot support at the moment because it would hinder our development. Under certain circumstances, this will also lead to human forms being eliminated and no longer participating in human development, but this does not mean that their I has to be lost, but what is lost is the physical form of embodiment, i.e. the physical disposition, i.e. the physicality of the human being will still change very strongly in the next few millennia and in the process certain forms will no longer reproduce and will ultimately be eliminated. It is quite dramatic to see this and it is delicate to talk about something like this, but it is a process that runs through the whole evolution of the earth. It would be quite fatal, for example, if something like this were to be practised in the way the Nazis did, that is, there is an unworthy life, etc., and it is not allowed to reproduce or is even destroyed, so it must not happen in this way. In reality, it will not happen in this way, but there is a danger that it will happen in a very subtle way, for example by interfering with the process of procreation, which we have already done, there is already artificial insemination, where one can already exert a certain influence. With artificial insemination we already have the possibility to test the genes and then the moral question arises, do I make a selection if I see that there are perhaps problematic genes in there? Do I want to eliminate them or not? Is that the right way to deal with it? These things are already a reality because they are already possible. It is still ethically despised and outlawed at the moment, but it is safe to say that if the technical possibility exists, then it will be done at some point in the not so distant future. In fact, there are plans and dreams of technicians, of so-called transhumanists - this is a strong current that comes mainly from America, but is also strongly represented in Russia, for example - who would like to improve human beings in a technical and scientific way. 

This includes: intervening in genetics, improving the human being by combining it with the machine, e.g. expanding the brain's capacity through technical possibilities, because in the meantime artificial intelligence has come so far that it can do many things better than humans. This is already the case in very specific areas. But that is only the beginning. Of course, there is one thing that machines cannot do and will never be able to do, and that is to deliver the whole broad spectrum of human beings by purely technical means, i.e. with the dead mineral or even sub-sensory element that is inside computer technology. But there are very far-reaching things where machines are easily superior to human beings. Just think of calculations. A pocket calculator is already faster than most mathematicians. And computers even more so. The large computer systems even more than the small PCs. They can do it in minutes where PCs take months. That already exists now. 

The temptation is very great to bind these abilities to the person. Because, of course, you get something out of it? What did the old Francis Bacon say? "Knowledge is power!" The more knowledge I have at my disposal, that I can call up, the more power I can exercise over the world. And he was quite right. At that time, there was no talk of information technology. But the real exercise of power over the world is not through the external machines that do anything. It is through the information technology behind it. Because all the external activity would still be harmless if it weren't for the control system behind it. These are very real fantasies, some of which are actually no longer fantasies at all, that ultimately the whole globe will be controlled by machines. Basically, this is already happening. Power plants, all sensitive areas, are already electronically controlled and networked worldwide, and therefore vulnerable worldwide. This is already a reality. With the pace of technological development we have today, we can expect it to be much more advanced in twenty years' time. Even more fantastic in some areas than some people imagine today. Even the most daring people. There will be divisions, for example, that a computer will develop consciousness, that will not be the case until life forces and astral forces are added. That is a completely different and further step. These people don't think about that. 

But of course there is a danger that they will do it in a roundabout way, by harnessing the human being into the machine or, conversely, implanting the machine into the human being. These are things that are within reach. They already exist. The brain can be controlled via electrodes or even externally via electrical impulses, which already has an influence on the mental activity of the human being. The military, for example, is researching and using this very intensively. Because it has been discovered that it is very easy to suppress fear reactions in soldiers, for example, by magnetic stimulation of the cerebral cortex from the outside via a helmet in which it is built in. One is the electroencephalogram, where you measure what's happening on the basis of the brain waves, which is now so far developed that you can "read thoughts" to a certain extent, because you can already assign it. This already has a practical application. And that immediately raises the question: is it just bad or? The question is not so easy to answer because, for example, it can be used to detect so-called logged-in patients, who are conscious but have no power over their bodies. They can't move their hands, they can't speak, they may not even be able to move their eyes, so you don't know from the outside whether they are in a deep coma or not, but you can very well determine via the brain waves that they are awake and not only that, you can communicate with them in the meantime by taking the impulses, it is a very lengthy process of course, but they can then make certain yes/no decisions and so you can continue to dangle and actually communicate with them. These are things that are already working. They already have a practical meaning today. To distinguish: Is the really without consciousness or is it awake conscious in truth. These things will certainly be followed up. 

But you can also turn it around. You can influence the brain's activity by doing this, and you can block fear reactions, lack of concentration, emotions and the like in soldiers, for example, and then they work like a machine. This has been tested with people in stress reactions, until they reacted and shot, they didn't stand a chance. But when it's switched on, it's completely cool, quick-quick, without emotion, without being distracted. Then he kills twenty people who are rushing at him. In the simulation, of course. So huge interventions are already possible today. This is really only the modest beginning of what is coming. But things will not disappear. The only question is: what direction do we give them? That will be the crucial question. We must not hope or believe that they will simply disappear from the world and they will also have their positive side. R. Steiner also says that quite clearly. At that time there was no talk of transhumanism at all. It was an invention of the last 20-30 years. That's when it came up so slowly, when it seemed at least realisable in the imagination. 

In literature also: Aldous Huxley, "Brave New World". There are the two great novels, "1984", which we have basically already almost overtaken somewhere, at least in terms of technical possibilities, and this "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley. He describes a world where people are really artificially bred. There is no longer normal procreation, it is frowned upon. People are bred in suitable vessels. And are influenced, back in Huxley's day, I think it was written in the 1930s. Of course, there was no talk of genetic engineering then. But he was already talking about influencing development. Depending on the situation, alphas, betas, gammas, deltas, epsilons are bred, a whole layer of people. The epsilons are just the simple workers at the bottom, who are also constructed in such a way that they only have simple needs. Basically working and sleeping and not much else in between. So there are different stages. Everything else is simply driven out of them through conditioning during the developmental phase or even afterwards, that is, in the first months of life.

And what is the desired goal? The goal is to make humanity happy, because everyone is happy in the process. The world works in such a way that happiness is the supreme principle. In Huxley, everyone is happy with his position. No one strives for any other position. Everything that could be negative is eliminated. If that doesn't work, there is a happiness drug called soma, like the Indian potion that was also used in the initiation, but which now has a completely different meaning, that is, it brings people into a happiness frenzy. But the whole thing has to function like a well-oiled machine. In other words, people's freedom is completely switched off, because freedom is the supreme source of suffering. I am saying this quite deliberately now because it concerns our subject, I will come back to our 5th seal in a moment, where we have stopped. That is, the elimination of suffering by basically eliminating individuality. And that ultimately applies to everyone, right up to the alphas. They have higher demands and higher functions, of course, but what they don't have, what they all have in common: they don't have freedom. There is only one reserve of the so-called "savages", they serve firstly as a tourist destination for the Alphas and Betas and so on down to the Epsilons. As a curiosity somehow, because people live there who are naturally conceived and naturally raised. 

Actually, they are supposed to be shown as a cautionary tale, because there are all kinds of arguments, quarrels, as it happens between people, whereas none of that happens in Huxley's brave new world. There is actually only happiness, no quarrels, no arguments, everyone is good to each other, but in reality there are no interpersonal relationships. The interpersonal relationships are reduced to sex, with changing partners. That serves the pursuit of happiness. The important thing is: with changing partners! If someone has the same partner a few times, then that is already considered suspicious. Then you look at how you can do therapy. Because that would make you unhappy, the attachment to a person. Imagine that you might lose him! The story takes place in the year 2500, in the future, and medicine has progressed to the point where people are healthy for a long time and retain their beauty and youthfulness for a long time. It talks about 70 to 80 years, today one would say 500 or 700 years or something else. But because the end is inevitable, at the end - and they do this voluntarily - they are put into a twilight sleep and slowly slide over into death. This all goes very nicely and quietly, because they are then no longer conscious and are basically disposed of - but in the most pleasant way. So no one should be confronted with death in truth. So that the extinction is then also not felt as a misfortune. 

These are perspectives that are coming closer. What seemed completely fantastic at the time is slowly coming closer. Medical technology has come so far that today it can prolong many things, improve many things, and there is always the question: death on one's own request? In some countries it is already permitted. So to speak, I don't want to suffer to death, but I want to cross over of my own free will as long as I still have half my mental powers. Difficult question! But these are questions that are being asked today. 

Comment from a listener: If some no longer eat, that is also their own decision!

W.: Of course, that is also your own decision. That's right! That is the point. The question is: Where is it still one's own decision? Or where does the whole system make it a general principle? So the fact that it is felt that ageing is bad is something bad. When you reach a certain age or certain signs of decay come, then look, you are disposed of peacefully. You go to sleep peacefully and you are no more. Because of course there is no question of a spiritual being of man. That is frowned upon. That is basically already frowned upon today by the people who have this view, that is, by the transhumanists. There is no such thing as a soul! Because consciousness is only related to brain processes and nothing else. And there is no such thing as spirit. Whereas the distinction between soul and spirit is difficult for most people today anyway. These are things that are getting closer and closer, and that's why we have to deal with them. 

Comment from a listener: Are these promethic or promethean creatures?

W.: Yes, in a way they are promethic creatures. That's right! R. Steiner says that this will come, it cannot be stopped at all. It is even necessary! He speaks of the "Forging Man Together with Machine Beings". That will come! We will not escape it. We don't need to dream ourselves back into a natural world as we used to, into an untouched nature and live idyllically there. It is all connected with the fact that we have to completely transform the earth into a cultural world - in the broadest sense. Only in this way can we really develop our I to such an extent that we then have it available with full I-consciousness when we are no longer embodied. That is all part of it. It also includes the elimination of all the things that have to come out, which is a very complex process in which we also put these machine forces out of us. We will leave all that behind one day. So it is a kind of purification process that we go through. As I said, for the majority of people - and this is the realistic thing about the Huxley story - most people will find this process pleasant, fulfilling and happy. Wrong are the fantasies that fill it with some monsters and where people are tortured or something like that, quite the opposite, the majority or a large number of people will be happy about it. And will be quite unhappy if one wanted to take it away from them. That won't be the way to take it away from them either. It's just a question of what counter-impulses can be developed. 

Counter-impulses in the sense of compensation. That we can rise above this sphere and not sink with it. Yes, that we can even lift up what is threatening to sink. Because the people who go along with the downward path are the ones who are endangered in development. They are at risk of ultimately dropping out of development, out of the development that is possible for human beings, that is intended for human beings in a certain way. But not intended in the sense of a fixed plan that is to take place, but on the whole it is about man becoming a truly free spiritual being. That is the core idea. People who would sink down and who would not only sink down with their physical being but also with their I, would increasingly fall into bondage. But they would be gifted with a great wealth of power, a wealth of power that would, of course, be in the service of the adversaries, but which these people would understand as their own will. They gladly fulfil what Ahriman wants of them and fulfil what Lucifer wants of them. 

Both get their money's worth. That too is so beautifully contained in the story of Huxley, the whole eroticism that is in it, the striving for happiness, this only having joy all day, there is a very strong Luciferic element in it. But the means to realise this lies in the Ahrimanic. And behind them are the Asuras, that is, the third group of adversary entities, retarded primal angels in truth, who are particularly strong and who already reach directly for the I and would then draw the I into a completely different sphere. These are the future impulses that are there in the negative direction and against this it is necessary to find impulses in the opposite direction. 

This means that when the description of the 7th seal talks a lot about the suffering of people, it is precisely those who strive for spiritual development upwards who are meant. That is, they are the ones who take this suffering upon themselves out of freedom. If we look at the old esoteric or religious currents that come from the East: This ultimately culminates in the Teaching of the BuddhaIt is about: How do I lead a life in order to free myself definitively from suffering? Of course, Buddha did not mean it in the sense of the Ahrimanic technique of connecting with the earth, but he describes it as freeing oneself from attachment to the earth. He is saying almost the same thing as the transhumanists, if you like. So illness is suffering, old age is suffering, death and dying is suffering, being united with the unloved is suffering, being separated from the beloved is suffering, i.e. develop in such a way that you overcome all these desires that you have. I.e. the desire for the physical, because that's where you ultimately have illness, old age, death. But ultimately also, what about the connection with people, at least it's no longer about the outer connection. 

Ahriman does not mean us any harm. He actually wants to offer us his version of paradise on earth. The question is whether it is also our version of paradise. But he wants no evil. That is becoming more and more clear, where these adversary forces come out, they will not show themselves with the devil's face. By the figure that is ugly at first sight. Through the suffering that is caused by it. But the dangers lurk where we are simply lulled with promises of happiness, everything will be fine, everything will be beautiful, everything will be peaceful. The world will become peaceful. In a certain way, until the war of all against all comes. Then this system will collapse somewhere. Because it is not sustainable in itself. But for a very long time until then, the world will be very peaceful. In truth, a lot has changed since the middle of the 20th century. There are of course wars in all sorts of corners of the world today, but if you look more closely, they are very localised wars. No large nation can afford to wage war against another large nation today. That would be suicidal. Something like what happened in the 20th century with World War I and World War II can basically no longer happen, because then it's the end of the earth. That means that everyone can only lose. That is the problem. Most people realise that today. That they can only lose. Even the insane dictators do not consciously work to destroy themselves. 

So the danger of deception just gets greater and greater. We don't see the evil because it is hidden behind the cloak of the beautiful and the good, even behind the cloak of the true. If you read through things, these dreams or ideas of the transhumanists, you realise, first of all, that they are fully convinced that it means the happiness of humanity and that that is the only desirable future. They are convinced of this and they want to do good for people. Apart from the fact that many want to earn money in the process. But that's not a bad thing. A lot of money is earned, but in the end it is available to everyone. The gap between rich and poor is widening, but the level of the poor is such that they can still live quite well. This is not yet quite the case in all corners of the world, but that is the desired goal, that all have enough basically for their needs, whatever they may have for their justified needs. The rest of the capital is in fact also available to the rich to further change the world with it, because from a few billion that one has, it is no longer money that one can use for one's own purposes. Even the super-rich can eat with golden cutlery and have things flown in from all over the world, but you can't use that much money for that. 

The truth is that with the help of this money, the world is being changed. Money today has a negative smell on the one hand, but on the other hand you have to see: Money is the spirit active in the economic cycle or in social life. With the help of money, with the means of money, this is done. Spirit even today in the caricatured form that it is only there in the form of electronic data. This will increase more and more. We have long since moved away from the idea that the value of a coin corresponds to what is written on it. If it's a piece of paper with that written on it, that's enough. Or it's enough that it's in a database. That will increase more and more. In other words, it is no longer something material. It is now only a question of whether it is active as a counter-spirit, i.e. in the sense of the adversaries or in the sense of a free spiritual life. That makes the great difference. Therefore, things are very close together and are not so easy to distinguish from each other. It is our task to learn this ability to distinguish, above all so that we have it at our disposal when the war of all against all comes, especially when the separation of spirits really begins and we have to take countermeasures. This counter-steering, so that a larger part of humanity does not sink into this Ahrimanic realm or into the realm of the adversaries in general, or that people themselves become future adversaries, because when I said that people will leave the regular development, then that also means that they are in truth the future adversaries or will thus form a new category of adversaries on the next cosmic embodiment of our Earth. It is a matter of counteracting this! 

Now it is important not to fall prey to this striving for happiness, nor to fall prey to the striving: I want to detach myself from the earth as quickly as possible, as was still the case in pre-Christian times. Because in pre-Christian times one always looked back at what one had lost, one descended from a spiritual world in which one was not yet a free being, but in which one basically had a high spirituality at one's disposal that worked through one. It was only when the incarnations became stronger and stronger, when the human being descended more and more, which was in the fourth cultural epoch, that the human being really became a human being in truth. That is when it really begins. That is when the development of the I out of the self really begins. Because the I became inflamed much earlier and it begins with the first embodiment in Lemurian times, we talked last time about how this happens step by step. But that we become active out of our own, out of freedom, out of the I, that has in truth only been possible since the turn of time, since the highest spiritual source of creation itself became human, that is, since Christ embodied himself on earth. Basically, this is the impetus for us to become truly human. From then on we have the chance to become truly human. We have that now until the end of the earth's development.

But also the danger of becoming an adversary. That is the switch that is made - on the one hand becoming human, on the other hand becoming an adversary. We are in this. And it is made more difficult by the fact that the adversaries show an ever more beautiful face. A seductive face. That makes it incredibly difficult for us in truth. Things that are positive and things that are negative will be seamlessly interlocked, because when I think about the forging together of human beings with machine beings, if I thereby open up a possibility of communication for a human being who suffers from the "logged-in" syndrome, which he otherwise does not have, which he also cannot achieve through mental exercise, because he even has to do mental exercises in order to get his brain activity under control to such an extent that the communication works, that is yet another point, that requires training, that takes weeks until it works. It has only been done in a few cases, but it obviously works and that means quite strong mental training as well. Mental training that is geared towards really being able to consciously control certain brain functions mentally. That is the interesting thing about it. This is the element where we really consciously intervene in brain activity from the spiritual realm. Neuroscientists do not even notice that there is really a direct intervention of the spiritual. Because it is always said that the spiritual or the mental, consciousness, is a consequence of brain activity. But the brain alone does not do that. There it is in the "logged-in" syndrome. It does something, but it has no way of making the connection. On its own, the brain doesn't do anything. And I can't do anything from the outside to bring that about if the person doesn't participate in it himself. Participates even of its own volition. These are things where people learn to consciously dispose of their brain activity, at least to a certain extent. 

Comment from an audience member: "But that's free will!"

W.: There is a free will. That's where the tracks will separate, precisely whether man can not only preserve his freedom in the process, but even increase it, or whether he can comfortably ride the rail that the apparatus ultimately does everything. That is the big problem. And this thing with the promise of happiness and the actual happiness that comes: everything is good, everything is fine, etc., that actually serves to put the consciousness of one's own I to sleep. What is happy is not the I, but the ego that is being fed. It feels good. The EGO is very well bound to the activity of the body, of the body and also of all the machines that are then connected with it, and the ego then feels quite well, but the actual I does not intervene. The healthy thing would be for the spiritual I to seize and educate the EGO and not vice versa. 

Comment from an audience member: "Isn't it also the soul that is involved?"

W.: Yes, the impulse of will comes from the spiritual. The impulse of the will then goes on to form the soul, from there it intervenes in the life forces and from the life forces it even intervenes in the physical. That is the sequence of stages. It starts from the spiritual, from the I. The first activity of the I is to constantly create itself, the next is that it begins to transform the soul. immortal soulWe have to acquire the individual immortal soul by our own efforts. That is not given to us innately. It is something we have to work for. This has been going on since about the turn of the century, or really since the 7th - 9th century.  Century after Christ. 

Comment from an audience member: "Acquire the soul?"

W.: You have to acquire the immortal soul! That is the exciting thing. In pre-Christian times, right up to Egyptian times, there was indeed an immortal soul, but it was not individual but collective. That is to say, it was the group soul, the folk soul, the tribal soul, the family soul, which had an immortal character to a certain degree at least. But when man became completely self-reliant, that is in the fourth cultural epoch, all that disappeared, because this instinctive connection with the collective was lost. Then we came to the conclusion, phew, there's not much of our own soul there, ohhh, there's already something there, namely all our transgressions, the karma packets, as we've often called them, they're already there, that's why the Greeks or all the other peoples at that time experience life after death as a life in the underworld. Because in truth they don't pursue the I that passes through, but they look at what the soul is doing. And the soul is very strongly attached to the karma packages. That's a huge rucksack and the rest, the biggest part of the other dissolves. Not true, because the part of the soul that is responsible for the perception of the sensory world and for our life here on earth, that is all body-bound and also disappears with the body after death. That dissolves. Because in the world of the soul we no longer need sense perception. We also don't need the desire for food and these things, they all disappear. So these are lower soul forces, earth-bound soul forces that are discarded after death. These are the forces that come from the lowest astral sphere in truth. They are necessary! We need not grumble about them. They are necessary for us to have consciousness and soul here on earth.  

But that is not yet what continues. I have often said that we must not confuse our soul life, which we have here on earth, unless someone has gone through an initiation, there is practically nothing in it that continues after death. That lasts for a bit and then it's gone. It's all gone. Our temperament system, that is, the etheric is gone, our temperament sits inside the etheric body. All these things disappear. If I was a brave, angry, strong guy on earth, that has nothing to do with our I at all. 

Comment by a listener: "It is actually also the soul that can freely decide what tasks I have here on earth."

W.: Yes! That's the first thing we have to be aware of: Where is the way up? Where is the way down? And that leads us to the question: "What does this have to do with suffering? Suffering, in any case, in contrast to this pursuit of happiness, which is also being widely discussed and striven for in truth today. Of course, it is also driven by the economy, because happiness comes from external means, that has to be said. This happiness does not come from an inner satisfaction in creative activity, what the I can do for the world, but it actually comes from what comes from outside. 

Comment from a listener: "You have to distinguish between being lucky and being happy." 

W.: Yes, yes, that's right. That is an essential point. It's about this striving for happiness that is basically satisfied from the outside, that is actually generated by external means. External means are also those that I implant in my body. In truth, that is also something external. In the final analysis, external means everything that is external to the self. So that means that in later times, I have spoken of the machines thinking or something like that, but they will also live, there will be artificial life, there will be artificial consciousness, but all that counts as external. All this is only valid for the earthly world. None of this goes with it into the spiritual. Not true, not even of the spiritual, which we will then create artificially. And with which we will bury our earthly world in a certain way. Our machines or whatever you call them. So there is still a lot to come. 

So all that is not what leads in the right direction, but it will be necessary that we develop on it. That we put it out of ourselves. That is in fact the process of putting it out of ourselves as a first step. The next step will anyway be that towards the end of the earth's development, towards these phases we will still come, we must/should bring it back into our being. This consists of helping as many as possible who are in danger of falling into this adversary world to free themselves from it. Because if they fall into it, then they are exactly those who are eliminated from development and also remain eliminated. Then they fall into the realm of the adversary and become adversaries themselves. 

But we have the opportunity to help them get out of it. That we help each other to come out of it. Because it won't be like that either, that would be too simple, there are those who have always been striving spiritually anyway, who pull upwards, and there are the others who fall downwards, but in truth the rift goes through each of us ourselves, because we have parts in us that have the strength to go upwards, and we have parts in us that sink downwards. That is to say, we ourselves, each of us, are right in the middle of it. We don't need to believe that we are the spiritually highly developed ones who so generously help the others down there to get out of the swamp. We also help them by fighting with our own negative forces that pull us down. That is also the Manichaean thought, that we have to unite with evil, so to speak, with that which pulls downwards and redeem it through this union - as far as it is possible. To what extent, that will become apparent, that is also open. Otherwise freedom would not be there! So there are no guarantees how many will make it. 

Comment by a listener: Unification means that one accepts it in a non-judgemental way and thus does not go along with this emotion, with this negative force, but always also perceives the higher in oneself and through this radiance and the love of this unification has the power that pulls the other along? And does not go along with the other.

W.: Yes, right! But it starts with the fact that you really have to see it in yourself. It starts with that. There is the beginning. That is, the beginning begins and here we are now at the point: suffering. It starts with us suffering from the negative things we still have in us. And that is more than enough. And it is not for nothing that R. Steiner calls our present epoch, the fifth cultural epoch, which began with the modern age, the epoch that is about this: The knowledge of good and evil. We have to separate this now, that is the task. The Greco-Latin period had above all the task of somehow coming to terms with the riddle of death, of accepting death, of recognising that there is a way down, that the soul, for example, is something mortal and always becomes more and more and that it requires an impulse to go up. All this is still in the Greco-Latin period. When I say: the regaining - or regaining should actually be said, because before there was no individual immortal soul, but a collective one - but the gaining of an individual immortal soul begins around the 7th - 9th century, the Christ impulse that came in is already strong enough that people really begin to acquire their own immortal-individual soul and that is therefore just the moment when practically all the collective soul forces have more or less disappeared or have already become quite weak. They have become so weak that they no longer have any meaning for the individual after death.

Whereas in pre-Christian times, if you think about Abraham's time, so 2,000 BC, that's still the Egyptian-Chaldean time, we still know the saying today: "Safe as in Abraham's bosom". However, Abraham is not just a single individuality, but in truth such a large individuality that it is actually a group soul that is basically connected with the whole Hebrew people. In this one is secure! That is, it is not an individual soul at all. It is much more. It was imperishable in a certain way. Now we are talking about the individual immortal soul.

But this individual immortal soul, that was still recognised in the Greco-Latin period, I have to develop it myself, but of course the task is far from complete. We must continue to work intensively on it. This further work means really transforming soul forces/ astral forces more and more consciously through the I. This is also the power that comes out of the soul. This is also the force that makes of the astral/astral body what we call the "I". Spirit Self name. We have talked about this many times now. The spirit self are the consciously transformed soul forces. And everything that has become spirit-self has become part of our spiritual individuality. Because actually it means that the spirit self is not an astral body or something like that, or a soul, but it is the power to create spirituality. And quite individually. That is actually it. That is, the soul is immortal because the spirit has matured to such an extent that it can recreate and continue to create its soul at any time. That is the spirit self in truth. Therefore, the spirit self is something that within the I is or is part of the I-power. 

If we take the physical body, the life body/etheric body and the astral body as the shells that surround the I, in which the I embodies itself, then one would actually have to say that the I, as we have it now, is the shell for the higher spiritual members of the being, namely 1) for the Spirit SelfThis is the ability to create the soul/astral out of nothingness, this is the crux of the matter, this is more than merely transforming existing soul, but to create soul out of nothingness. Spirit of lifeThe next stage is to be able to create life forces/etheric things out of nothing. We are only at the very beginning. We are not yet able to do this on our own, and during our existence on earth we basically need the help of the Christ.

Comment from a listener: Isn't it always there, the Christ power?

W.: Of course it is always there! But the point is, in order to preserve human freedom, it can only intervene if we really want it. If we really want it, it's more than just saying: Please Dear Lord, help me! Because I'm in a bad way right now. 

Comment from a listener: "Is that where Christ says if faith were as big as a mustard seed, it would grow into a tree, but by not being that, it doesn't happen?"  

W.: Exactly! Of course, in our present condition, if we had these powers, it would also be dangerous. 

Comment from an audience member: "Because people would take advantage of it!"

W.: Of course! The point is that when development progresses, we will scratch at some things a little, because of course the adversaries also open up certain possibilities for us to deal with them. These will not be life forces in the sense that they will actually be death forces, but they are closely related to it. They also have an influence on it. But we will certainly discuss that later. 

What do these forces of suffering mean? These forces of suffering mean, first of all, that I relentlessly recognise in myself what I still have to work on. To face it. Step by step. No one is asking me to do this in one fell swoop. That I face the whole abyss that is really there in me in one fell swoop. And I mention it again, I have already mentioned it in earlier lectures, R. Steiner says it quite clearly for our consciousness soul age: "There is no man on earth who stands within in the Consciousness Soul Age who is not capable of the very worst deeds." It is all there! The worst evil slumbers in each of us. And it is only by gradually becoming aware of it and gradually gaining control over it that we can develop our I at all. Therefore, these negative forces, which, when things are going well, we keep within ourselves, but which become destructive when we put them out into the world, are actually there so that we can develop our free I, develop our free will. Because the free I can only develop where it also has the possibility of absolute evil. Only there is it free. It has the possibility for good, but also for evil. And it does so in exactly the same measure. Out of itself. 

So the first suffering is simply to become a little aware of it. The point is, in principle, you are only confronted with the negative forces when you are already mature enough to deal with them, i.e. to counter them with something. It is always right at the border! The spiritual world helps us so far by slowing us down, so to speak, so that we don't rush into it too quickly. There is a certain counterweight. But it is always exactly the borderline. So we actually always walk along the borderline. Or let's put it this way, if we want to consciously continue this development, then we always have to go to the borderline. It's no use for us to retreat somewhere, into a safe haven, so to speak, and say, yes, I've already acquired a little bit of something good anyway, I'll leave everything else alone, but rather we have to accept this challenge to go to the borderline in order to take the next step with the help of the spiritual world. And this spiritual world then helps us when we want it to help, through our ME. And it makes it possible that  I also said last time that it is only about the next step. It is not a question of having fantasies about what everything could become, one can have ideals of course, the ideal is the free human being who integrates himself into the spiritual world in such a way that he ultimately carries on the creative forces, the creative powers that are in there, carries on these impulses out of himself out of freedom. 

But this distant goal, I often use the image for it, we navigate according to the pole star, because it gives us the direction to the north, it shows us the direction, therefore we do not need to believe that we will arrive at the pole star at some point, but we reach our goal on earth, namely the north direction. We will find that direction. In other words, when we speak of ideals, of images that we orientate ourselves by, we must also be clear that it is not a matter of dreaming that we will end up at this ideal,  it will take us at least a very long time to get there. But it is the fixed point of orientation. And it's about the small steps. For me, finding the right direction once in the small pond, then finding the right direction in the river. Maybe we'll get to a bigger lake and find the right direction there. And at some point we'll sail out to the big sea. But then Polaris will still be very far away. That might be of some concern to us in the next cosmic incarnations of the earth. 

Because the point of orientation is actually the one that stands at the end of our entire cosmic chain of development with the volcanic planet, where the old Saturn, that is, the first stage, is now reflected on a much higher level and then the development of humanity is completed on a very grand scale, we have already ascended to higher beings in the meantime, because at the end of this volcanic development we have reached the point where we have really become gods. Have become gods! Gods comparable to the Elohim, the community of Elohim, who have accomplished the creation of the earth with the help of the Christ, who works through. The Christ is of course something much higher than the Elohim. The goal of development is that we ourselves will have matured to such an extent that we will be world creators on a grand scale. Namely, really out of our own strength. 

Comment from a listener: Wanting to share what is of us by our own strength, and thereby being able to grow and multiply?

W.: Yes! It is the act of the greatest love! What greater love can I give than to give oneself away in such a way that a whole world, a whole cosmos comes out of it. That is the greatest form of love. To give away one's own being in such a way that a whole cosmos comes into being. And this cosmos has all dimensions: It has spirituality, it has soul, because there are spiritual beings in it, there is a soul world in it and there is life in it, there is perhaps also a physical appearance in it. I think that is an unimaginable love for us today, but the world came out of such love. To the highest degree, the Christ has it, but in the next stage, the Elohim have it too, because they give away their being, and through that, creation comes into being. They even give away their I-power in a certain way, because by giving it away, they give away something of their creative power, namely the igniting impulse to be able to create. 

It is not true that new spiritual entities come into being when an already spiritual being gives something away out of its spiritual strength, i.e. renounces part of its spiritual being, if you like, but in truth becomes richer itself through this, because that is the greatest deed. And to give oneself away in the spiritual means in truth to become richer and richer. This is also the life of love, for which R. Steiner often uses the image of taking a glass and pouring it out, which is now an image for love, or taking a half-full glass and pouring it out. The image for love is that this glass becomes fuller and fuller as it is poured out. And that is exactly what it is. Even someone who is artistically active will have felt this at some point, the more he does and the more it goes and the more he can give, the more creative power he gets. The creative power becomes richer and richer. Yes, when a great work is out, there comes a breathing space. Then comes the seventh day of rest, so to speak. It is no different with the Elohim. When this work is over and a great impulse has been placed in the world, then there is a great taking of a deep breath and a withdrawal, but when one comes out of this withdrawal again, then one has basically risen a level higher. So this ability to give oneself away is a becoming richer, a becoming richer in creative power in truth. That means that even richer possibilities will grow out of it, how one can create a whole cosmos. 

Not true, if you go back, as R. Steiner also describes, e.g. the Old Moon that preceded us, by the Old Moon we really mean a whole cosmos, which is why R. Steiner also calls it the "Cosmos of Wisdom", because at that time the goal was, i.e. what was realised in the end, that a wisely ordered world would come into being. In the beginning, the Old Moon was still a completely chaotic cosmos, chaotic right down to the laws, e.g. the laws of nature as we know them today did not exist in that form at that time. In other words, a cosmos that is very difficult for us to imagine. The fact that there are laws of nature and that these laws of nature were already there from the very first second when our cosmos appeared, because they were developed on the old moon and are now there immediately, because the power of creation is inside, which is sufficient to immediately enter these laws and to go on, to grow beyond them, i.e. new things come into it. 

And what is the goal of earth development? The love. That is the goal of the earth's development. Just as we find natural laws outside in nature today, as R. Steiner also says very often, love will smell out of nature towards us. In the next cosmos. On the next cosmic embodiment of our earth (New Jupiter or also called New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse of John). I.e. love will be something that is anchored in all of nature. Love as a creative force, because love is creative force. 

Comment from a listener: We have the ideal of freedom on earth!

W.: As far as we make it happen. Exactly! To take suffering upon ourselves means first of all to become aware of what task is involved, what we can achieve. And it has to hurt us basically, for every thing we fail to do. But as I said, that must be our own decision, that we pay attention - want to. The adversaries have the task to lull us in this respect, to say, you live happily anyway, you are the best, the most beautiful, what more do you want? You are doing well. Everyone admires you. Anyway, it's all right. This trait will become stronger and stronger. That we become complacent, so to speak. This complacency is one of the biggest obstacles. We always need a shot of dissatisfaction. By that I don't mean we should fall into depression, which is really just the other reflection of it: "Oh, I can't do anything, I'm so bad, I'm not capable of anything. I am the smallest and the stupidest". That is also incredibly comfortable, because then I don't need to do anything mentally anyway, because I can't do it at all. These are the two ways, there are different natures, it is also different and alternating in different incarnations, but we always fluctuate between these two poles, the one who is euphoric, who is always more fantastic, although in reality it is not so, the other who respects himself far too little and thinks too little of himself. Both are bad. Bad in the sense that it paralyses our intellectual activity. 

Comment from a listener: Can this be called arrogance and despondency? 

W.: Yes! Exactly! There is the Michaelic courage in between, which is not arrogance but also not pusillanimity. In other words, we have to be aware that we have the potential to become gods. And on the other hand, we must have the humility to see how small we still are. That's why, for example, it's so important that in esotericism, when you talk about these things, there's a lot of humour in it. Humour means that I have to be able to look down on myself and my smallness, my "patschertheit" in good Viennese, i.e. on my clumsiness, with a smile and say: Good, you still have eons ahead of you, and don't dream yourself to the North Star already. That is still a few cosmic incarnations away. We will be at Polaris when we have gone through the last round at the volcano and have finished developing. Then we will arrive at the North Star. But until then, we navigate from afar.

Comment from an audience member: But the important thing is that we have the goal!

W.: The important thing is the goal, exactly! That is the point of orientation. But the adversaries are distracting us more and more from that. In the future, they will increasingly ensure that we no longer pay attention to "that we are doing well". And forget our real task. That is the problem! That's why it's a question of consciously wanting to suffer in this sense, which doesn't mean being whipped or beaten or anything else, but wanting to suffer, it's really only a question of becoming aware of our imperfections and seeing that as a task, of improving that, of taking the next step. And in truth that always hurts a little. It hurts because it means overcoming negative forces and it requires effort to develop positive forces. That is not something that comes easily. That is actually the Christian path, but it has only been possible since the turn of time, or really only now, and for which it is not appropriate to follow the old Buddhist path: Backwards, dissolution in a collective spiritual, where individuality is lost.

I say this because today many spiritual currents, esoteric currents, refer to this old form of Buddhism, with which the real Buddha no longer has anything to do, but where they strive to go back in order to merge with the All-Spiritual and ultimately to cast off individuality. In Buddhism, the highest goal of the path is: realise that your I is just an illusion, detach yourself from it and lose it. The point is that they do in fact - and this was not yet possible in pre-Christian times, nor was it possible for the Buddha himself to recognise this, who was thus embodied in about the 5th - 6th century BC - that in truth the real I is something quite different. What he means is the EGO. It is not the real I. Because he says quite clearly, the Buddha, it's about blowing away in Nirvana, "blowing away in Nirvana". Nirvana has something to do with "not fancying", where I can no longer fancy anything. Where I can no longer say anything about it, because there it is the pure source of creative power in truth. And in that sense - nothing. It is not small or big, thick or thin or anything else. It is nothing created. It is the creating power itself. Which defies description, I can only see it by the traces it leaves behind by being creative. But that is something that it sacrifices out of itself in truth. 

Comment from an audience member: "Like the sun, for example!"

W.: Of course. That is a good image for it. That is indeed the case. 

Comment from a listener: Why is it that many people subscribe to this?

W.: It has different aspects. It is so that this impulse of the Buddha naturally also has a meaning for the future, namely with the dissolution, with the going out of the incarnations. However, in a different way. Not with the loss of the I, but this very resolution, however, out of the incarnations. In other words, we will need it. And relatively soon we will need to go out there and lead a life that overcomes the ego, namely overcomes this small ego, that is very important. And if you understand it in this way, understand it correctly, then it is very valid and it will be especially valid towards the end of the next cultural epoch, when it will be very much a question of people being so far advanced, more people really, that they can really come out of the incarnations and continue to maintain and develop their I-consciousness without a physical body.

Comment from a listener: And these beings already exist? More evolved impulses and life forms that support us to grow with them?

W.: The whole spiritual world supports us in this! Now it is only a matter of us, as far as our own I is concerned, having to muster our own impulse of will, because no one can help us. No one can decide for us, do I go this way or don't I go this way. The moment we decide to go, we basically have an infinite spiritual power potential at our disposal, because the whole spiritual world can work through our ME. The degree depends only on how far we have already developed our ME. But it will never be that we are pushed there. The adversaries do not adhere so strictly to the rule. The positive spiritual world has strict orders not to interfere with human freedom. No one will save us from falling into the abyss, so to speak. No one will hold us back. It will be up to us human beings to offer help to others, to offer support, to offer encouragement, to reach out to them when they fall. But also we must not stop someone who wants to go down there. We can't do it against his will! 

Of course, one has to distinguish between what the ego wants and what the real I wants. In other words, you can help the other you to deal with your own ego. And to keep it in check. To become master of one's own ego. But if the impulse to go down there really comes from the I, which then already goes in the direction of black magic, then we cannot intervene there. Then we must not intervene there. Because then we become black magicians ourselves. Then we abuse the spiritual powers. Then we violate the highest law of our cosmos, that freedom must be preserved, it is about the cosmos of freedom. Cosmos of love also means cosmos of freedom. These are two words for the same thing. One is related to the other. Love also means respecting the freedom of others. Unfortunately, this will also happen, because it must be possible for people to choose the other path out of freedom. I.e. who go the black magic way. The way to found an empire or to ally themselves with the empire of the adversaries. To strive for a completely different development. But that then shears off from our direction of development. That is also part of the point of suffering, to be aware of it: It is up to us to decide! 

We don't need to be afraid of stumbling. We don't need to be afraid of making mistakes. Not at all! We will only make our development by making many mistakes. And again and again! As they say in Faust: "Whoever strives eternally, we can redeem." And has love even taken part in him from above, it meets him "the blessed flock with a warm welcome". In other words, it is not a question of always having to be perfect, of everything having to succeed. The Faust drama is a prime example of this. Basically, when I look at it at first sight, I always think to myself: And he is supposed to go to heaven now? Until the end, Faust basically does everything wrong, wherever possible, he leads so many people into ruin, into mental corruption, into physical ruin, until the end in the fifth act, when he wants to drain his sea and gain land, how many people perish in the process. So right up to the end he does tremendous deeds. Terrible things on a large scale. Basically, even at the end, he can't think of anything more clever than that basically his name or his thing is preserved forever, he still dreams of that somewhere. What does he say: "For the moment I might say, linger, you are so beautiful!" That's the adversary! He has that in there right at the end. Because he pronounces it at the end, Mephisto believes that he has it, he is already reaching for it, because he has pronounced precisely this word, which would be the state of eternal happiness. Of being eternally in the beautiful inside. He holds on to it until the end, he still says it himself. And yet he struggled again and again. And always got a little further somewhere. And that's what counts. That won't be Faust's last incarnation, if we take it a little further, so he will still have a few tasks to accomplish. It's not the last word on the subject. But it means that as long as we are in this striving, we will continue. As long as we are not lost. We are lost when we give up striving altogether or, even worse, consciously decide out of freedom to go in a completely different direction, i.e. to become adversaries. Yes, some people will go this way. Otherwise, the next category of adversaries would not exist. 

So to raise this consciousness. That is why this task is set for the consciousness soul age. It is written so very strongly and so very clearly, this thing with the Suffering. I want to make it very clear today what it means. It is not about corporal punishment, which simply comes from outside. It is up to us to find this suffering in the first place. And to find our task in it. Also to find where is suffering in the world. Perhaps even suffering that people don't even feel. That too will come more and more. The people we are supposed to save or help will certainly not be those who are now hanging in a corner somewhere and have already completely decayed. They may be quite happy. And they think life is great the way it is. And yet they are on the fastest way down. Because they miss out on their spiritual development. What we can offer them is suffering. Yes, I have to say it so clearly for once. But I say it so clearly on purpose, because then many things that promise something else fall away. 

Christianity and that which is thought and lived out of the Christ impulse can basically promise nothing else. Everything else is a nice comforting plaster. I understand that it is needed, but the greatest comfort is that we have the greatest strength in ourselves, through ourselves and through the Christ, who is connected with our I and works through our I, to go through it ourselves. That is the real consolation. Because everything else is like the old joke, a man falls from the 10th floor, that's in the film "The 7 Chlorine Strikes", he tells the joke, on the 9th floor he says, up to now it's still gone well, he says that on every floor, but at some point it's over. Isn't it? People have a bit of a tendency to say at every floor: it's been fine until now anyway. Otherwise we would have already solved some of the problems on earth and not said, actually nothing has happened yet anyway. So we have tasks ahead of us. But at some point it will be too late. At some point the moment will come when we are stuck in the earth without a point. Then it's over. But we still have many floors to fly through. But we are flying in free fall. Flying can be very beautiful and exhilarating. Who wouldn't want to float so freely for once? That is something beautiful! But we don't have the wings for it. That's a nosedive. That is the problem. And many of these promises of happiness are in fact a nosedive. That is the problem. 

The spirituality that really works from the Christ impulse cannot promise that. Because it sees the reality, the reality that lies behind it. And the fact that reality is like that is precisely because we are to become free beings. That is the point. But I want to encourage you to say: The power is there! The power is there, in each one of us. The power is there! Basically, nothing can really happen until then, and there are always possibilities of rescue or return as long as I do not consciously choose the other, the dark, the black magic direction. That is the impulse that is directed against freedom. That is the impulse that is directed against freedom, that is directed towards having power to change the world out of one's own will alone, without taking into account the will of others. That is black magic. And that can be with the best of motives, saying that I have the patent remedy for making everyone happy. But people are so stupid, they don't understand. So I force you to be happy. Then that is black magic. That's what it really is.

Therefore, I will now read the fifth seal. I read it last time, not yet today. It concerns us, because we have to develop these powers today, I will say it again, so that we will have them at our disposal when the mirrors are really opened. Now it is the instruction, or the drawing attention to it, which powers we must now acquire, must seal our being, in order to then bring them out in the 6th main age and there also mainly on the 5th stage of the 6th main age then, must or then can, if we do it. 

"And when it opened the fifth seal, I saw beneath the altar the souls of those who had suffered sacrificial death for the sake of the divine Word and their witness. And they cried out with a loud voice, holy and true Lord of the world, how long will you delay in the judgement which our blood atones for on the inhabitants of the earth? And to every one of them was given a white robe, and they were told to tarry yet a little while in the world of rest, until the destinies of their fellow servants and their brethren, who like them would suffer death, were also fulfilled."

I would now like to go on to the sixth seal. This is very much connected with it. And much of it concerns us today in the sense that we want to prepare something for the next cultural epoch. Namely, people who today are really striving spiritually out of their consciousness, i.e. who turn their consciousness soul towards the spiritual, are in a certain way already working ahead for the next cultural epoch. What powers will they acquire from today onwards? The powers to gradually perceive the spiritual world more and more clearly. This will already be present on a large scale in the fifth cultural epoch and will also have a very special significance in the sixth main age and there in the sixth sub-age. Because that is the actual time of the seals. There it will already be a very strong force. But let's leave that for now, let's take the foresight. 

So it's about opening your eyes to the spiritual world. And quite consciously, not in a visionary way as it was in ancient times, not that it comes over you as a vision, but as clearly and as self-confidently as I lead my thinking today, it then comes to a spiritual perception. Not true, the so-called clairvoyance. I don't like the expression so much because it is seen completely wrongly most of the time today. Let's call it imaginative spiritual perception, which in truth grows out of a living thinking, if you deepen and train it sufficiently, and strip away all the sensual elements inside, i.e. come to a pure thinking, but one that is alive, that is mobile, then it can be increased to imagination, we have already discussed that often enough. Yes, then the world looks different. Then we experience the world differently. And this is now described in the sixth seal image. It is already beginning to occur naturally here and there in people, and as I said last time, it is noticeable that it occurs more often in Americans than in Europeans, for example. What is happening in the East in the Asian areas is still largely based on old skills. What appears with the Americans is based on new abilities that are not yet consciously mastered and that first require mental training. 

We Europeans stand in the middle and basically have neither one nor the other. That is to say, as a rule - there are always exceptions - we can basically only consciously take the path of making thinking come alive, of moving from living thinking into this imaginative truth or perception. And really perceiving, so that we can get to the spiritual truth. And the 6th seal picture now describes exactly this state, where humanity enters the phase of having these spiritual perceptions and slowly the outer perception already disappears or changes. This means that we have to reckon with the fact that humanity itself, i.e. large parts of humanity in the sixth cultural epoch, I am not even talking about the sixth main age, will already experience the world in a completely different way than we do today. That is to say, we will no longer have this pure object consciousness, where we are externally confronted with the world and the objects are completely separate from us, but we will be much more strongly connected with the world, but will therefore also experience it differently, experience something of what works in it soulfully and spiritually, in nature outside, in other people.

Comment of a listener: Already during the sixth cultural epoch still during the embodiments?

W.: Yes, still during the incarnations. And in the case of people who are now beginning to strive spiritually here and now, one can reckon that they will perhaps already have this ability with a high degree of certainty in the individual incarnation, but if they do it energetically in the next incarnation, which we know will take place relatively soon at the moment. How extended it is then is another question. That is to say, into which spiritual depths one can look, that is another matter. But one will have as a matter of course the ability to see the etheric forces that form the plants, for example, something like the aura of the animals, of the plants, because plants are actually also surrounded by an aura, they do not have an astral body of their own, but there is an astral surrounding them, especially when it comes to blossoming, when it comes to fructification. You can see how this astral body from outside leans towards the flower. It leans towards the plant and even begins to penetrate it. To kiss the plant lovingly, so to speak, if I may call it that. 

And that will simply be an experience. Quite normal. That means that natural science will also change. Then we will see how good it is that we have natural science, which is strictly empirical, which observes, which then only includes the spiritual level. The interesting thing is that there are very quiet approaches, not in biology or anything like that, of course, but especially in the study of consciousness, i.e. among psychologists etc., also among neuroscientists. They are not only investigating what happens during meditation or something like that, they are measuring what happens in the brain, but researchers are now beginning to meditate themselves. They are not just examining a test subject, but are looking for their own authentic experiences. This is starting slowly. There are no great results yet. Nor do we need to believe that when we come to the first imaginations, we will have God knows what insights. We start to experience a little bit. That will seem spectacular and confusing enough at the beginning. So it's a long way.

And until one has such abilities as R. Steiner, it is a still further way. But it was prepared for him by at least one incarnation that was completely without this ability. I do not want to say more about this. There will also be possibilities for change. It is the case that you develop it more strongly in one incarnation and less strongly in another. Depending on the task one has set oneself. But basically we can expect, in the very near future, that this ability can be consciously developed by more people. And then we will inevitably come into a different relationship with the outer world and realise that this object consciousness that we have is not yet the full reality, but that there is much more behind it, i.e. the perception of the world in general will change. What we really have to overcome slowly is to believe that the sensual form of the world that we experience today is the reality par excellence. It is not! In truth, it is the greatest of all illusions that exist. Even if it is so solid that one can knock on it. But already compared to the imaginative world, for example, it is weaker. And the imagination is still not the last step. There is still more to it. So there are still much more intense realities, namely realities in the sense of acting. These are realities. Res is the thing. The thing. It is actually the dead thing. In truth, it doesn't work at all. The table doesn't work at all today. It is actually something that has died. 

Yes, but let's look at the picture a little bit and this picture is very characteristic, because you can experience something like that exactly when the spiritual gaze opens. This is a very typical description. This is described for the sixth period, for the sixth seal that will be opened, which will then already be a very widespread ability in the sixth cultural epoch and will then already be a perfect fact for many in the sixth main period, in so far as they are out of the sensual world and then there is a completely different one. I.e. the sensual world will have completely disappeared and one will realise: Ok, that was only the stuff dreams are made of. Nothing else! Reality is something else entirely. 

Yes, but what is it like when you wake up so suddenly from sensual consciousness to spiritual consciousness and the sensual world begins to swim. "And I saw when it opened the sixth seal, There arose a great earthquake. And the sun became black as a hairy mourning garment, and the full moon became blood-red, and the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as when a fig tree shakes off its unripe fruit in the violent blowing of the wind. And the sky receded like a curling scroll. All the mountains and islands moved from their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the captains of the armies, and the rich men, and the mighty men, and all the slaves, and all the free men, hid themselves in the caves and in the clefts of the mountains, and said unto the mountains and rocks, Fall together upon us, and hide us from the face of him that is on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. The great day of divine wrath is come; who can stand before it?"

Boom! That doesn't sound so good either. I don't want to say much about it today, because it's already time to stop. But there is one thing I would like to remind you of, which I have already mentioned several times in passing: The wrath of God is the love of God! We will have enough opportunity to deal with this. The wrath of God is the love of God! It is not a punishment, but something that is given for the salvation of people. I would also like to say that of course one must not imagine all these descriptions in such an external way. It is an imagination translated into sensual images, in truth it is a purely spiritual experience. The description, however, is deliberately chosen to have a shattering effect on the person reading it, precisely in order to stimulate this mood of the soul from which the actual imagination is woven. You also have to think that people in the Middle Ages, when they read it and it was only the monks who were prepared for it anyway, who didn't know it from the beginning, naturally had completely different emotions than we have today. I guess many people will read this today, yes, it's actually horrible, but there are so many horrible stories today that it doesn't really upset me. I would love to read something more beautiful, but few will say that I am deeply shocked by it today. That's what's really a pity about it. Because basically it's about the soul being deeply shaken, that it gets into this vibration, so to speak, that it feels the tremor - and that is the imagination. 

Comment from a listener: Because you want to get out of this shock!

W.: Well, you could say the shock. But now you have to strip away the sensual images and just take the dynamics of the soul that are behind it. And this dynamic of the soul is stronger than the table and more real than the table. That is why it is so strong. And that is how strongly one experiences it. You experience an intensity of soul life that you never knew before. Because our normal everyday soul life is just a pale shadow of what soul life actually is. That is why it is gone after death. Because it is only the shadow of the soul, or a reflection of the soul, which arises in the body. That is to say, this shadow of the soul would be possible without the activity of the body, brain activity plays a part, breathing activity plays a part, everything, the whole organism plays a part in it, but because of that it is quite shadowy. Even if today we are in a strong emotion, I now say emotion consciously, an emotion is something stronger, something more libidinal than a feeling, feeling is already something led by the I to a certain degree or something endured by the I, emotion is something that goes through with me in truth, even the strongest emotion is weaker than the strength of the soul experience that I have in the imagination. And yet - at the moment when it has built up, I face it with calm. But what I then experience in the imagination has this strength. And it is stronger than the table. But only for a moment, then it's gone.

But only the moment when I really stay inside in meditation is practically endless, because no more time passes externally. We've already talked about this several times. It's simply a question of how intensely I can concentrate. Because this imagination is not a rigid image, a snapshot, but a story, so to speak. A whole moving organism although no external time passes. Inwardly, infinities almost pass. Long periods of time. Really long periods of time. The more intensively I enter into it, it can stretch over millennia. And I survey this development. And outwardly a few minutes have passed. And the fact that a few minutes have passed is only because I needed a little time to get into the imagination in the first place and then to get out again. In truth, it is experienced externally in timelessness. And inside it has unlimited time in which I can move freely. That is, I can go into the past, go into the future. Our concept of time plays no role there. But it is a very intense experience, but one that one faces quite calmly and serenely. 

Because otherwise you can't face the imagination. Because imagination is different from our object consciousness, but still I feel a certain separation. I am much more connected than I am with the sense world, but it is still a counterpart in a way. Only in intuition does this cease completely. Then I become completely spiritually one with what I perceive spiritually. But that is a higher level. But in imagination this separation is there, but it is very intense and this intensity is what I experience as imagination. What is exciting is the transition from the moment when I step out of sensual perception, out of sensual consciousness. There is then very well and from that these images are also created, especially the trembling, that is something quite typical. You really have the feeling that the earth is collapsing and I am falling down with it. It is basically a death experience. You have the feeling that the world, my whole body, is collapsing. Yes, ultimately the whole cosmos collapses with me. This intensity is inside. 

The pictures want to bring us closer to that. And they make it more difficult for us today, because people read that today and are no longer so shocked. It was easier in the Middle Ages. But it's also a good thing that it's harder for us today, because we have to do much more. We have to want to! In the Middle Ages, you could just read it and you couldn't help but be so shaken that one or the other suddenly sprang into imagination. That he didn't even know how, but he studied it. Read. Maybe read it ten times, read it twenty times. And it wasn't like today, that you say, no, but now it's already bland. I've already read it five times anyway. Rather, it has become stronger and stronger. But we don't have this ability today. And it becomes stale the third time we read it. I know this already! In other words, we have to consciously seek out this intensity - and that is actually suffering in this sense. Consciously train ourselves to be able to experience it. That is the great message of these seal images here. That we practise this ability. And it will be very much a task in the next cultural epoch, but we can already prepare it now. The more people start preparing it now, the better. 

We will then see next time how it goes with the so-called 144,000 chosen ones. That is, they are basically those who are already beginning to develop these powers. Whereby the number 144,000 has a figurative symbolic meaning and not a numerical number of people. No! That would take too long to explain today, we will do that next time. It is connected with the number 12. 

Let's leave it for today. If you have any more questions, I'm happy to help. Thank you for listening!

Yes, let's set it. They are big things. We're getting to bigger and bigger things now, of course. Anyway, it's probably best to let things settle, to let them work. Many questions will then solve themselves anyway. Five new questions arise instead. That is the typical way. 

Question from a listener: Whether this immortal soul, whether this is this succus that we take with us from the astrally transformed? But the spirit self is something else, isn't it?

W.: Yes, ultimately it is! In truth, it is already the succus that we take with us, that is actually the spirit self, that is already connected. 

Comment from a listener: You described it very beautifully! And how it works, at first I was at a loss, ...because you see how it is now, that you have to help each other, ...you have to help yourself, it is difficult to help the others in any way. But if you work on your own, you help the others.

W.: Right! That's it! It has to start with one's own work. This creates the forces with which one can also help others. This also has an effect on others. You notice it. A person who works on himself spiritually has a beneficial effect on others. It's very subtle, maybe you don't notice it at all. But you can feel it. You don't have to do much. It is not a matter of lecturing others, you have to do it this way and that way, then you will succeed better. It's already over. Often it can be done without words. It is a look. Often a small thing. Because you have developed the ability to do the right thing at the right moment. The right look or the right word. Or just to reach out and touch the other person on the shoulder. Anything. It's very small subtleties that give an impulse to the other person. Maybe he will ask something, that can also happen. It's the little things. I have often said that the great initiates work in such a way that they are always hidden, as a rule. If the task does not absolutely require them to appear in public, as was the case with R. Steiner, then they avoid it. Because it basically only causes difficulties. It makes everything much more difficult. But as a rule, you meet someone once in your life in a tram or somewhere else and talk to them for five words. And that is an impulse that helps the other person so that twenty years later his spiritual powers or his spiritual impulse that he has brought with him suddenly starts to come out. That is the point. Without instruction, without anything else. And he then begins to search for himself. And then you can also give him a teaching. Give him exercises or something else. And then he will find another teacher who will give it to him. It doesn't have to be the same one. It doesn't have to be the one who turns up after twenty years. Maybe he will have a book then. Maybe you can also get it from the books if you work with them. That is more difficult, of course. But there is no longer a direct need for personal discipleship. Precisely in order to preserve the freedom of the human being. And every spiritual teacher has the absolute obligation not to interfere in any way with the freedom of others. This responsibility is even greater than in normal outer life, because often it is the case that the spiritual disciple looks up to the teacher and worships him, and every word that the teacher says he takes in and absorbs and wants to do it immediately. But it is never meant that way. Because when the teacher tells the student, now you have to do this and do that, and this is how you have to do it and this is how you have to do it. You can only give recommendations! But recommendations must be given in such a way that the spirit of the teacher has read it from the being of the other person in truth. Of course, there are certain general exercises that are in the background. But in detail you have to read it from the other person: What could he need? And then you have to give it to him in such a way that it is completely free. That you don't push him in any direction. 

Comment from a listener: May I say something about this. There is this beautiful prayer by Antoine de Saint-Exupérie, he calls it: "Teach me the art of small steps". Where the student says to the teacher, please teach me the art of small steps. And there is so much in there. In simple language. I can only recommend reading it.

W.: Yes, he said a lot of deep things that are very true. Absolutely!