25th Lecture on the Apocalypse of John (Documentation)

From the 6th millennium onwards, people will begin to no longer incarnate on earth.

In the age of the 7 trumpets there will no longer be physically embodied people. It is already beginning that people can perceive the spiritual world. Soul drama is in store for us.
Ahriman wants to talk us into happiness and prevent our spiritual development.
We must consciously seek out suffering because we also have the strength to do so. The Christ Impulse lives in our I as a 
Power. We must learn to use it. We have the power to create ourselves in the self.

We did not create our physical body, our astral body and our etheric body ourselves, but spiritually we have to transform these three bodies.
Astral body becomes spirit self
Etheric body to life spirit and
Physical body to spiritual man.

7 seals = imagination = mental experience of the spiritual world in pictures.

7 Trombones = Inspiration

Helpful ways to achieve this goal:
- Spending years on the apocalypse - without intellect!
- pray for others.

A mood of the soul will speak to me (not over the head).

We will then (spirit self) no longer have a material body, but a spiritual physical body.
Our relationship to the liquid element remains. When we think alive, we think in the liquid. Our angel thinks with us in the watery.
("I exist because my angel thinks me").

When the 7th age will be here, the earth will dissolve. The earth and our whole solar system will pass away.
First comes an astral state with formed and unformed spiritual until it dissolves in the source of creation. After that, a new cosmos will arise: the New Jerusalem.
A higher order will emerge from the power of love. Huge changes will come our way. We can participate today in what will happen in the future. 
God created a world in which natural laws apply, which are the framework. Within this framework, what matters is our spiritual deeds. For example, there will be climate change because everything is changing. Changes will come, and we will have a say in their direction. There is a need for action.

We can develop the spiritual solar forces within us.we have to make a decisive contribution (spiritual development).

In the age of the 7 trumpets we live in the etheric. We will come to a musical physics.
The life ether (word ether "in the beginning was the word") is formative. Love becomes a life-creating force in the new cosmos.

Stimulation to lively thinking: awareness and artistic activity on all levels, lively design.
Clearly grasping the life forces that are in a landscape while the picture is being created. Consciously experiencing what I see.
The natural science of the future will combine science and art. This concerns all the arts:
Speaking, singing, making music, eurythmy. Healing and life-giving forces lie in it. Love must develop life-giving forces. 

The illness is a chance to develop spirituality. We should not be afraid of anything, because fear is Ahriman.
We leave earthly life because we want to at this time. Death confirms the decision: My task is complete. Doctors and loving relatives may try to keep us alive, yet we will go at the right time for us. The spiritual attitude of the doctor treating us at the end of our life is very important.

After the 4th trumpet there is a big break. We are to become active in our ego by means of the Christ-power, that is: to be a Christian! All religions will come to an end. The institution of the church has led to materialism.

From the 5th trumpet onwards, the I begins to consciously bring about changes.

We have to wait patiently - mentally listening - for imaginations to speak to us.

Attack on the etheric body: "The earth shook and lightning flashed...".
1. hail and fire mixed with blood: a third of the earth burnt.  
2. a mountain burning in fire falls into the sea: a third of the sea is turned into blood
3 Then a great star fell from heaven: a third of all the rivers and waters were turned into wormwood.
4. a blow struck 1/3 of the sun, 1/3 of the moon and 1/3 of the stars: a third of the light was lost.

This has reference to the opening of the 4th seal: There appears the pale horse, whose rider is death. He is given authority over 1 quarter of the earth (1/4 = physical body) the remaining 3 quarters are divided into one quarter each for the I, one for the astral body and one for the etheric body of the human being.

Keywords: Seven seals - Seven trombones - Symbols and mental drama - What powers do we have within us? - Seven seals and imagination - Seven trombones and inspiration - solid-liquid-air-warmth-parts in us - living thinking, thinking with the watery (brain water/liquor) - warmth ether, light ether, sound ether and life ether/word ether - love as a life-giving force - living thinking and consciously being artistically active - the oneness of science and art - Corona and fear. Prolongation of life at any price? - the working of the Christ-power in the I - the first four trumpets.

Heading: Transition seven seals to seven trumpets

My dear ones! I welcome you all very warmly to the 25th lecture on the Apocalypse. We have already made some progress. We have been discussing the opening of the 7 seals lately and we are now at a great leap to the age of the 7 trumpets. The 7 trumpets refer to that age, actually to the last main age of the physical development of the earth. This is something that is still relatively far in the future in terms of time, whereby external time indications do not really make much sense. Because the time scale as we know it today is in truth only somewhat valid for our time of cultural epochs. It's already a bit difficult to assign it exactly before that, and it's the same in the future. So the further you get, the more difficult it becomes with the concept of time. Simply because our experience of time will already be completely different. Isn't it true that we basically only have this current experience of space and time in this way during the time of our 7 cultural epochs? It started when the ice age receded about 7,000 - 8,000 B.C. The ice age receded and the cultural epochs began, there was a long transitional period until it really started and the end of the cultural epochs also went into the 8th millennium. So that is still ahead of us. And outside this period, we can no longer say that our experience of the world will be the same as it is today. It will have changed and just because we will see the world in a completely different way, the concept of time that we use today will basically no longer make sense.

Even if natural science describes externally how the world will then continue in a spatio-temporal sense, we will in any case no longer experience it in this way. So especially not from the time when we will no longer be naturally incarnated on earth in a body like the one we have now. We have often talked about the fact that this already began in the 6th millennium AD. We have often talked about the fact that this will begin in the 6th millennium AD, that people will no longer incarnate on earth. And this will then progress, it will still take a long time until no human being will incarnate on earth any more, it will still take quite a long time, especially through the age of the 7 seals, which we have already spoken about, which follows on from the 7 cultural epochs, there will simply be fewer and fewer people incarnated on earth. Outwardly it will look as if humanity is dying out, but in reality it is passing into another state. And in the age of the seven trumpets, which we are now talking about, which is the last major period where we can still speak of a physical earth, there will basically be no more people physically embodied. 

The world will look completely different then, that is an even more distant future from our present perspective. Of course, this must also be taken into account in the descriptions in the Apocalypse. Basically, the Apocalypse nowhere and never gives external descriptions. Even where it is about our cultural epochs, many of the images that are in there are not meant in an external sensual sense, but are in fact spiritual perceptions. But only in order to be able to communicate them do we have to clothe them in sensual images and sensual concepts. I have already mentioned this several times and I will mention it again and again, because it is very important. Because one of the most important things is simply to recognise that the world itself is not simply the way we experience it today, but that this is a perspective. It is the perspective that is still appropriate for us today. But the age is already beginning where people who are developing spiritually are also gaining the ability to perceive the spiritual world. At least to some extent. And there will be a longer period of time when we can experience the sensual and the spiritual side by side, together. At the beginning, the change from one world to the other is difficult, but with a lot of practice you can even see both together. This is particularly difficult: to experience the spiritual and at the same time be awake to the outer world. But this age will also pass, especially in the age of the seven seals, we will only experience spiritually. And clearly we will only experience more spiritually when we are no longer embodied on earth. And since this will already begin in the 6th millennium, from that time onwards there will already be people who experience the world in a different way than we do today. That is very important. 

The images that occur in the Apocalypse are to be taken as symbols, not as images of an external event. But as symbols for a spiritual event. That is important! The fact that very dramatic and, in the following chapters, ever more dramatic images are described does not simply mean external drama, that is the least of all, but it means psychological drama into which we are entering. And it is above all the people who will develop spiritually who will face this very strongly. I also said very clearly in the last lecture that there is of course also a way to circumvent many of these dramas, these dramas of the soul, with the help of the adversaries. To lead a life without these dramas, so to speak. A life that is then said to be "happiness", that is what Ahriman above all wants us to believe, that that would be "happiness", that is, nothing dramatic any more, no more overcoming that one has to do, no more suffering from certain mistakes that one may still have, suffering from mistakes that are present in the world.

On the contrary, whoever wants to develop spiritually must consciously seek out this suffering. It will haunt us less and less, but we will seek it out if we want to progress. But above all, we will also have the strength to cope with it. Because this power is already present in our I. It is actually already available to us. It is actually already available to us, but we do not yet know how to use it. We will continue to learn this in the future. But we have to become active. And in this context I would also like to answer a question that was asked by a listener on YouTube. The question was based on the fact that it comes from a Christian background, and anthroposophy also comes from this Christian background, because the Christ impulse lives very strongly in it, because that is the power that is in truth active in our I. We have said this several times. We have already said this several times. The same power is given to us in our I that the Christ received through his Father.

Headline: What powers do we have?

In principle, we have this power in all its fullness at our disposal. Only we must first learn to use it. Just as a small child must first learn to use its powers. Spiritually speaking, we are still very small gnashers and still have a long way to go. But we have a lot of strength in us. The question of this lady who was listening on YouTube was, first of all, she comes from a Christian background, she has the habit of praying for other people and also of blessing them, out of a certain awareness that the Holy Spirit is working through her. Now this is nothing arrogant or so, but actually something quite right. Because if one really sets out on the Christian path or also on the anthroposophical path, then this power is actually present. And I would now like to describe this very briefly in a little more detail. 

So we have the central force in our I. Out of this I we have the power to create ourselves. Yes, we have been doing it unconsciously all along, otherwise we wouldn't have a self. Because having an I means being able to create ourselves. So as far as our I is concerned, we are creators, pure creators and nothing else. In the I we cannot be anything else. We are not creatures, but creators ourselves. The problem is that we are not only I, but we have a physical body. We did not create it ourselves, this physical body is alive, we did not create the life that sustains this physical body and renews it again and again. Even that which is the basis of our soul forces, what one could call the soul body or astral body, as R. Steiner calls it, we did not create ourselves in the first place. And our primary task consists in gradually developing all these so-called members of our being, i.e. the Astral body, the Etheric body and sometime in the distant future also the physical body to transform it into something completely new through its own spiritual power. 

And the interesting thing is the transformation of the physical body. Because one might think, well, after the 6th millennium we will no longer embody ourselves on earth, brrr, what about the physical body then? Is it just gone and done with? No! You have to distinguish between the physical body and the material body. In truth, the physical body is something absolutely spiritual and supersensible and in this form the physical body will still play a very great role in the very distant future. The physical body will play a role as the highest possible spiritual creative power. There are also the highest spiritual forces behind it, namely the father forces. This means that once we have acquired this ability, then the father power will also be effective through our I in a completely individualised form. That is only now beginning to be the case. 

As far as the life forces are concerned, the so-called etheric body, the Christ forces are particularly active in it. So once we have reached the point where we are fully conscious of our life forces, creatively shaping and controlling them out of the I, then the Christ force will work through us in its full strength. What we have now is only a promise for the future, because we only have a small piece of it. The comparatively simplest task on which we can already work very intensively today is to transform our soul body and make it into something entirely our own. And to the extent that we do that, the Holy Spirit works through us. But in a very individualised form. That is very important. And it is quite right that when we pray, when we pray for others by name, for example, or when we bless others, then we work especially out of this power of the spiritualised astral body, i.e. which we have transformed through our I. This is what is called in anthroposophy, the "spiritualised body". In Anthroposophy this is also called the Spirit Self. The spiritual etheric body is called the Spirit of life. And the spiritualised physical that is called the Intellectuals. These are terms coined by R. Steiner to make it clear that this is something we have to work out for ourselves, in that high spiritual forces work through us, but we seize them and make them our own in the truest sense. And out of these forces we ultimately not only transform ourselves but also participate in the transformation of the world. We do that very strongly. This is just an insertion into the whole, to see what forces we potentially have at our disposal.  

Trusting in these forces and that we can develop these forces does not need to frighten us before the challenges, which will be very great. It is about having the courage to lean on and rely on these forces. We can rely on them. It is actually despondency if we don't seize them and wait for someone else to do it for us. In pre-Christian times this was not yet possible, but now in our time since the turn of the millennium it is becoming more and more possible. This is the source of strength par excellence. What comes from this power we give away to the world at the same time. That is the power of love. Ultimately. We give ourselves away with it. That is the highest form of love there can be. Christ has gone before us on this path and we follow him on this path. Just as a midget. But still. With this perspective we may now enter into this situation where the 7 trumpets sound. The 7 trumpets are also an indication that we are entering a completely new level of perception and knowledge. 

Not true with the 7 seals we have already reached the level of knowledge of the Imagination come. Imagination is a kind of pictorial soul experience of the spiritual world. I emphasise soul experience, by image I do not mean a sensory image, but a real image of the soul world emerges, or first of all of our own soul. In the path of development we have to learn to separate our own soul from what is the outer world of the soul. That is the most important step at the beginning, that we can keep them apart, because otherwise we will not be able to judge what we experience correctly, because we will always mix the objective and the subjective, so to speak. So we have to be able to keep them apart. At the same time, however, we must also extend our soul to the objective world, so that at some point in the end both become one, but in a very individual way. That is the important thing. If we now go on to the age of the 7 trumpets, then we now ascend to an even higher level, to the level of the Inspiration. 

For when we experience the mental images, we do not yet know what they mean. We experience them, but in truth we have no idea what they want to tell us. What they mean. The worst way to find out is to brood over it with the mind or to look it up in the dictionary, oh, there are such symbols and a symbol has appeared to me in this imagination. What does it mean? Then I guarantee that you will end up on a wrong track. It cannot be grasped in the mind. You simply have to wait perhaps 10, 20 or even 30 years until the meaning of this image is revealed through inspiration. That we learn to read, so to speak, what the picture means, or hear it spoken. Of course, this is meant in a figurative sense. It simply requires patience. I will therefore not interpret all these pictures in such a way that I say: this means this, this means that. I just want to give you an incentive. Immerse yourselves in the images depicted in the Apocalypse. Immerse yourself in them for years. Over time, learn to let go of the symbolic content, i.e. the sensory content, and to concentrate entirely on what I am experiencing spiritually. And to feel this more and more strongly and concretely. And at some point there comes a time when this mood of the soul begins to speak, when it becomes understandable. But not in a mental way, but where I simply experience the image and know immediately what it means.

Then I get to the stage of Inspiration into it. And this stage is what it is all about. We, or most of us, will have this stage as a matter of course when the age of the 7 trumpets has dawned. Then most people will have already developed this ability. Because what state will we be in then? Let us try to think about that too. That we don't think we are still in the physical body and we see the world as it is now. No! We will no longer be embodied, i.e. we will no longer have a material body, we will no longer have sense organs as we have them today. That is, sense organs that are directed towards the outer world. They are simply gone. But we still have the spiritual physical bodyWe still have the Etheric forcesWe have our soul body, that is, the soul body. Astral body, we have our I and we have what we have developed from the higher members of the being, thus Spirit Self, hopefully already developed a little bit of it, maybe a little bit of the Spirit of life and very little of the Intellectuals. We have all that, but the material-physical body is gone. That is also a gradual process.

Headline: Solid, liquid, airy and warmth parts in us

Because material body, what does that mean? We have in us the solid in the form of the bones, that is, the mineral. We have in us the liquid, a lot of liquid, we consist of about 70 - 80 percent, the baby even over 90 percent at the beginning, when it is born between 80 - 90 percent, when we get older it sinks down, yes, I can't spare you, but we dry up a little with time and then we only have 60 percent. That's just the way it is. But we will be rid of this problem when we are no longer embodied in a solid physical body. Because only that gives us this compact form that we have, so it also belongs to the physical-solid that we have this sharp border, that we have this shape as it looks now. That will be the first thing we lose. But we will still retain a relationship to the liquid element at first, i.e. one must not imagine this transition from physical embodiment into a more spiritual existence at first in the same way, or not exactly in the same way, as our state is now after death. But instead of earthly life, as we have it now, we will then first of all live for a certain period of time in the liquid element live. Really in the liquid element of the earth. But we will not have a compact body then.  This is how the angelic beings live today. The angelic beings are connected to the waters, to the lakes, to the rivers, to the sea. So that perhaps in a particular lake hundreds of angels are involved. 

Comment from a listener: With this sea? 

W.: Yes, with this sea too - in us. Yes, yes! So everywhere where it is liquid. What Rubin said is quite right, because only when we think, for example, when we really think alive, then we no longer use the hardened brain, but we actually think with the brain. Fluid organismespecially also with the spinal fluid that comes up to the Brain water. And we think in the rhythm with which this brain water rises and falls with every breath. It swings back and forth. We build, so to speak, currents inside living thinking, i.e. we still make use to a certain extent of a physical tool on the edge, but it does not have the hardness of the brain. The brain has become very rigid, despite its plasticity, which it still has, it is of course not as rigid as a crystal, but compared to this watery thing, which for itself has something fluid, which for itself would not hold its shape, this fluid is something much more mobile than the brain itself. Processes also take place in the brain itself. Today we know that the nerve pathways are constantly reconnecting and linking. But nevertheless it is a relatively rigid structure compared to the watery part of us. And when we think in the watery part of our organism in living thought, so to speak, then our angel actually thinks with us. There we are one with him in essence. There we are a little bit our angel. 

I think I already described this in an earlier lecture, Johannes Scottus Eriugena describes it so wonderfully, he lived in the 9th century, at the court of Charles the Bald in France, in Paris in particular he was active. And he actually talks about it. "I exist because my angel thinks me, the angel exists because I think him".. We are one in thinking in truth. And that is exactly true. Only our angel can do much more. But it is also involved in thinking for us, but that it can think for us in this way, our I must also become active. It must actually think with us. More and more. So we will be in such a state, i.e. we will then be very consciously on a first-name basis with the angelic world. And live very consciously with it in the watery element. 

And at some point we also break away from the watery element and move into the Air element. That is to say, we live with the blowing air of the earth, with the storms, and so on. Incidentally, when we are in the air element, we already enter the stage of inspiration. It is not for nothing that air is the element that carries the sounds on the outside. But it is also the element that is very closely connected with the inspirational. The word inspiration even comes from breathing. Breathing in - inspiration.  We have always known that this level is very strongly connected to the breath. The breath is, so to speak, the wind that we let flow into us and out again. At some point we will no longer need a body for this, but we will live in the great air currents ourselves. That will be a very decisive factor in the age of the trumpets. That we live in this element. 

And finally, there is the heat element. That is the finest. There we pass from the outer element, if you like, to the ethereal. Not true, in the Heat is the transition from physical warmth, which can be measured externally with the thermometer, so to speak, into purely etheric warmth. This happens continuously in nature. It happens continuously in us with the heat of the blood. Our blood has a temperature of about 37 °. Blood consists mainly of water. And water has a very interesting transition point where it changes its structure. During this structural change, physical heat, i.e. heat that can be measured with a thermometer, continuously changes into etheric heat and vice versa. This happens continuously, i.e. it is precisely there in the blood heat that we find the easiest transition to the next level, to the purely etheric level. That is where it begins. And when we are beyond this stage, then we live only in our etheric body. Yes, in the physical body only insofar as, of course, the spiritual physical body remains, but the material elements, that is, the solid, the liquid, the aeriform and finally also the warmth, that is gone. That no longer has any meaning for us. 

Headline: Transition to the New Jerusalem

That will be in the late phase of this age of the 7 trumpets. So in any case above the middle of this age. Then we will live in the purely ethereal. And when this 7th main age comes to an end, then the physical aspect of the earth will also disappear externally and the etheric aspect, i.e. the life forces of the earth, will disappear. That is, externally it will look like this, that first of all life on earth will become desolate. That the earth will become a certain slag, at least in part. We will hear what happens to the other part. That everything disappears. And ultimately the earth itself will pass into a purely psychic, into an astral state - and not only the earth, but with it our whole solar system. That happens at the end of this age of the 7 trumpets, that the earth itself loses everything physical and in truth our whole cosmos that we know today disappears with it. We have to think big. We have already spoken about this several times, that actually our whole cosmos is connected with it. Isn't it true that the cosmos, as we know it now, actually began the development of the Earth on a grand scale, because it was through this that the conditions were created for our planetary system with our Earth and with our Sun to come into being, and at some point it will all disappear. The earth will disappear, the sun will disappear, the other planets will disappear and ultimately the whole cosmos will disappear. 

And it will first pass over into a purely astral state, that is, something that can only be experienced in the soul world, then it will spiritualise even further. We have already spoken about this. Then there is the formed spiritual, the unformed spiritual, that is the higher, those are the archetypal thoughts, so to speak, if you want to call it that, if you want to compare it with something human. And then, even for the spiritual experience, as we can now experience it with the greatest effort, which R. Steiner was capable of to a certain degree, it still goes beyond this sphere. Until it finally disappears completely into the source of creation. And then basically NOTHING is left that one could somehow describe externally, indeed what one could describe at all. And then a new cosmos comes into being. This new cosmos, as we have already said several times, is described in the Apocalypse as the New Jerusalem. This means nothing less than a completely new cosmos with completely new laws. And a great difference to our cosmos will be that there will then not be such laws of nature as we have today, but a higher order. And this order will arise from the power of love, i.e. from a direct creative power that will work everywhere in this nature. Even directly in nature there. You can't even imagine that yet. These are tremendous changes that are coming. So you see, the scope of this apocalypse is very wide. And yet we must or we can already work here and now and today on how exactly all this will happen in the future. 

It is not planned in advance how exactly this will happen. When we often talk about the great plan of the world, the divine plan of creation, we do not mean that every detail has already been determined. I have already mentioned this a few times. It is not the case that God has a finished plan somewhere in his heavenly drawer and everything will happen according to it. No. The plan of creation is a great creative impulse from which a very rich world can emerge. How it will come into being in detail, however, is open. But this plan, and that is why one can rightly speak of a plan, has been given a certain direction. It has an infinite number of possibilities for development, but also many other possibilities that are not provided for. So a direction is given. But it is a wide road on which there are infinite possibilities for development.

In our present cosmos, for example, the road is narrowed, if you like, or given the direction that everything must follow the laws of nature. And even the dear God cannot say: I am now showing myself by abolishing the laws of nature. No! He has created a world whose framework conditions are now the laws of nature, among other things, it has other laws too, but as far as the physical world is concerned, it is the laws of nature, they are irrevocable for this cosmos. Whether they are exactly as physics describes them today or what physics already knows about them, that is another chapter. But there are fixed laws that create the framework conditions. But within these framework conditions, everything is basically open. And how much or how little of these possibilities will be realised remains to be seen. As far as our earthly world is concerned, we are very much involved, i.e. the future of the earth depends on our deeds. On our outer deeds, but even more on our spiritual deeds, from which the outer deeds actually flow as an impulse. 

We are now in the phase where we work on the world in a dual way, as it were, namely on the one hand externally, when we are incarnated on earth, with the impulses that we bring down from the spiritual and then, when we go through life after death to a new birth, what we send down in spiritual forces from there, that works together and that determines the development of the earth. I have already described this in the last lectures. On the subject of climate change, there will be climate change and it will be much greater than the greatest horror scenarios that we are now describing. The climate will change fundamentally. Because we and the whole of nature will also change fundamentally. We will no longer have bodies like the ones we have now. It will change. In a relatively short time even. Even during the time we are still incarnated. We don't need to believe that in the 6th and especially in the 7th cultural epoch we will walk around in exactly the same bodies as we have now. It will change. It has changed in the past and it will change in the future. And nature will change with it. So transformations will be there. Very strong ones.

It will be up to us whether they go in the right direction or whether they hinder the earth's development. They will stand in the way. In other words, the climate problem is actually much bigger than what we read about it today. That is the external side, I do not mean to say that there is no urgent need for action here. There is! I would like to see many things work. Austria has a plan to switch completely to renewable energies in the next ten years, and I am curious to see whether this will work. That means that the conventional power plants, where coal, gas or something like that was burnt, will no longer exist. Instead, it will happen through the use, ultimately, of solar power. But in many different ways. Solar power works in almost everything. In fact, solar power also works in coal and gas, because what we get out of it when we burn it is sunlight, which the plants once used in the past.  have absorbed. But releasing these forces is not so beneficial. Because these are very old forces that are now being brought out after millions of years and that are damaging. We need to keep our finger on the pulse of the solar forces that are now at work. So this concerns the energy transition.

But it also concerns the spiritual work, that we develop the spiritual solar forces within us.  If we don't do that, we won't get anywhere with just solar cells and things like that or wind power plants. That will be too little. So we have to connect spiritual development with that as well. We have to be aware that this has an influence on how the earth will develop. The future of the Earth cannot be guaranteed by external means alone. Even if you have the best ideas about it externally, in the scientific sense. That is not enough! A central element is that as many people as possible consciously strive for spiritual development from within themselves. The possibilities for this are there and they are stronger than - I would say - at any time before. By that I really mean our age now. And it will become even stronger. 

We are now actually faced with the challenge of recognising this in our days. To make ourselves aware of it. Even though we may not yet manage to awaken the spiritual vision or something like that. That is not so important. But to seriously deal with the thought of what enormous world-shaping power lies within our spiritual, within our I. Because it has to come from there. Because that is where it must come from. That determines the future. The future of our earth. The future of our entire solar system. And in any case, it very essentially determines the new cosmos that will one day come into being. We are involved in this, at least as creative forces. Who knows how many others. That is a question that we cannot yet answer. 

But you have to think, there are billions or quadrillions of stars and suns out there, most of which also have planets, which definitely have spiritual entities living on them. Spiritual entities. We are also spiritual entities. The question of whether some of them are also physically embodied in some form or whether they live purely spiritually, I don't want to go into that now because I can't say anything about it. Who wants to know? It may be, it doesn't have to be, but what is important is that we are aware that there are billions, quadrillions of worlds of spiritual entities out there. Some of them, many of them, are also working on this development. So of course it goes beyond our little corner. But in any case, we have a decisive contribution to make. And above all, of course, it will be a highly decisive contribution to the world in which we will then live, just as we live now on earth, which we will then live in another cosmic area, I am deliberately saying it so carefully now, because it will probably no longer be exactly as our cosmos is now, but it will look different. But no matter what it looks like, we will have our corner where we will go through our further development and what that will look like depends entirely on us. I deliberately say entirely. I'll leave it open how it is with the other star systems. That exceeds my possibilities by far and I say our human possibilities to recognise that, at least completely today, that will perhaps also expand at some point. 

So a big dimension that we are looking at and that we should have in mind, already here and now. Even if we don't know the details yet. But above all, to be aware that we have a responsibility for it. Very concretely! In that it will simply be up to us what will happen. So no excuse to say, "Yes, someone will fix it." That will not be the case! That is why our cosmos was created in such a way that beings can unfold their freedom here. For the first time! Fully and completely! That is the task of our cosmos, because only that makes it possible for beings to really give themselves away out of freedom and therefore to pour love into the world. Of their own accord! Not that love, not as it was in ancient times, that love flows from above from the spiritual source, and only from there, but the leap in development is that it flows from the periphery. From many spiritual entities. That is what is special about our cosmos, to which our earth belongs. So all this has to be taken into account.

Heading: Heat Ether, Light Ether, Sound Ether and Life Ether/Word Ether

So when we are now in the 7th main period in the age of the trumpets, then we will experience the world quite differently. Because then we will gradually discard everything from the material up to the warmth element, then live in the etheric, in the ever finer etheric, because the etheric also has many levels: It has the Heat ether, which is the lowest level, it has the Light etherThat is, one day we will live only in light, that is, in something that basically has solar quality, because the light in the cosmos today comes essentially from the stars, from the sun, the other stars are also suns in principle. Sound ether come. Sound ether is what one can also call the so-called harmony of the spheres, in it live, for example, the forces by which the laws of nature are determined or according to which the laws of nature are determined, these are forces that come out of the sound ether in truth, therefore - and I already mentioned this at the beginning, I don't really know whether physics already knows all the laws of nature and the deeper background, because the deeper background comes out of this sound ether area - the sound ether is something alive, but nevertheless with a certain order inside. Just like in music, there is also a clear order inside. So the comparison of sound ether is no coincidence, you could also say musical ether. So that means that if composers get their inspiration from this ether of sound, from the harmony of the spheres, then they are something like the natural scientists of the future. For they eavesdrop on something of the true background of the laws of nature. And we will arrive at a physics which is at the same time artistic, which is at the same time musical in truth, which will then go even to a further level, the highest etheric form, the Life Ether. The life ether, which R. Steiner quite consciously calls the word ether. The word ether is really the formative forces that shape all living things, even into the physical. Where it is said: "In the beginning was the Word." This is this creative power, which now works through the element of life ether into the physical. 

Headline: Love - life-giving power and natural law in the New Jerusalem

So, for example, crystals, the seemingly dead, solid, geometric element, arises from a life ether process. The life ether is the only one that can have a formative effect into the crystalline solid element today. The sound ether works into the liquid element. The light ether into the air element. The ether of warmth into the physical warmth. There is the transition, i.e. physics will be complete when it understands how the physical-physical events flow out of the life-ether forces. From there come the laws that determine this. That will come. 

It must be said that this life ether has only existed since our earthly cosmos came into being. The cosmos that preceded the earth did not yet have this life ether element. The highest form was the sound ether. And from this came the mathematically comprehensible laws that now innately work in our nature. The laws of the ether of life are now gradually being imprinted on nature. And fully and completely they will come out of nature to meet us in the New Jerusalem. In the next cosmos. There, where love also has a formative effect. Love, which has a formative effect through these life etheric forces above all, because I have already mentioned this a few times, one can only speak of love in the real sense where it is a life-creating force. Love is not only feeling. It is not only on the level of the soul. That is also part of it. But the real Love power is life-giving power. Life-giving power into the solid physical. This will characterise the new cosmos. Now it is underway that it is becoming more and more interwoven with nature. Now the learning process is there, so to speak, where this is being developed. But in the new cosmos it will be there from the beginning. 

Headline: Lively thinking - being consciously artistic 

So that is a very big perspective. But we can already practise all this today. That is, if we, for example, make our soul life so mobile and alive. How do I do that? This question has often been asked because I have said that we have to move from rigid, logically working intellectual thinking to living thinking. How do I do it? How do I approach it? More concretely! Then perhaps a few suggestions. 

So first of all, it is very important to connect the Awarenesswhich we have today only in intellectual thinking, with the artistic activity on all levels. But please, by God, that doesn't mean that I create my art out of my head. Mentally. Not at all! Then I kill the living inside. But the other way round, I have to create out of the living, which until our days is still basically unconscious - you have some impulse, you start to create and it becomes, but you don't know how - that we begin to experience it consciously. There is no mental pre-planning. Yes, I can have a plan, I want to create a work of art now that represents a natural landscape. I can plan that. But how I do it in detail, especially if I want to capture the essence of this part of nature, this area of nature, is certainly not done today by painting something like a photograph. Those are just the finger exercises. When I get so far that I can grasp the life forces that work in a landscape, that shape the trees there, that raise the mountains, because that is also a living force, not just a mechanical force. If I can grasp this and translate it into an image of coloured forms that no longer have anything to do with what it looks like on the outside sensually. But which simply reflect these currents of force. Which reflect in the colours the qualities of the soul behind them. And when I do this so consciously that I can grasp these laws, i.e. how everything works together, quite clearly in my mind - then I am in a living thinking inside, for example. Just for example. But the preliminary exercise is in the artistic doings to get inside. 

For example, in painting and while I paint and while the picture is being created and also while I look at it afterwards, to consciously experience the forces from which it has emerged. And that won't take anything away from this, so to speak, completely intuitive doing, this inspired doing, because that's what you call: yes, it simply came over me. And now it is there. The future is that I consciously experience, yes, what is actually there? Because in painting, for example, the external painting never really was. There, too, the artist was concerned with how does it come into being? How does the shine come into being, on the glass for all I care. Just something very simple now. How do I have to paint it? And at that moment he actually experiences artistically and still half-consciously or unconsciously, how does that actually come about? The physicist would describe it physically. How the light refracts or reflects on the glass. The artist experiences it in his own way. This must be combined in the future.

So that will be the science of the future: That art and science are one. Absolutely one. Today, they are worlds that could not be further apart. Goethe tried to start down this path in his Theory of Colours or in his Theory of Metamorphoses. But that is a small beginning in truth. We can and must make much more progress. But this does not only concern painting or something like that, it concerns all the arts. Whether we paint, sing, whether we make music with an instrument, whether we speak, recite, act, where the whole body movement is also part of it, isn't it true that I am authentic. What do I do, we practise this in speech formation, when I rehearse a role: Then I must actually be able to experience at last what this role does to me? With my whole body movement. It changes. It becomes different. Namely in such a way that it corresponds to the role. In other words, I experience how a certain spiritual-emotional thing, which corresponds to this role, takes hold of a body and does something with it in a very special way. Only then can we understand how the soul-spirit takes hold of and can take hold of the body. Isn't it true that today neuroscientists, brain researchers, are puzzling over how it happens that the brain box now takes hold of the body and controls it somehow? And soul? Spirit? Yes, we have already looked through the microscope and discovered nothing. Of course, they can't either! 

But this own conscious soul-spiritual experience is part of it. But also in connection with the physical body movement. And it is the same in dance. In eurythmy it continues. There the etheric level also comes in very strongly, the life forces that play a role in it. And all these arts can also become sciences. And they will. And art will only attain its perfection when it has this scientific clarity inside. When I feel with every movement, what is actually happening? What effect does it have? That I can experience that. And through that, art will also develop further. All the arts will develop further. Eurythmy will develop further. Everything! In that it is really drawn from direct experience. There are no external rules, do it this way or that way. Because the external guidelines have only arisen from the fact that a person like R. Steiner was able to experience what was happening. And from this he could give tips that if you do this and that, you will set these and those forces in motion. But it is fully experienced when we experience it directly in action, when I experience, for example, with every sound when I speak, what is it actually doing? What is it doing? How does it change the person? Because every sound we make changes us in reality and it also has an effect on other people. Because, as I have often said, when we speak, the listeners speak with us. Quietly. Unconsciously. Inaudibly. But they speak with us, the larynx speaks with us, the muscles speak with us, because speaking is not just something that happens. (Wolfgang clasps his neck region with both hands)It happens in the whole body. Everywhere. Everything vibrates. So subtly that we don't even consciously experience it. We have only been able to visualise this with high-speed cameras. They then came to the conclusion that every single sound produces characteristic muscle twitches. They are so fine that you can't see them with the naked eye. But what we will be able to do one day is to dive in consciously from the inner experience. Isn't it true that today we only have consciousness sitting up there mainly (Wolfgang reaches with both hands to the area of his forehead), in the foot only when something falls on our foot. Then we say, "Ow!" Then we have consciousness down there too. Otherwise we hardly get anything. We will once and once means as long as we are still incarnated in the physical-material body, because later, when we no longer have that, then it no longer works, then it is too late, we will experience down to the finest muscle fibres what is happening. And what it means spiritually. Because we will see how the spiritual-mental impulse drives into us and takes hold of the muscles and the whole bone system and everything that is in there, to experience that. I mean, then we will also be able to produce tremendous healing effects, just through the word alone. Because with it, we can simply transfer these life-giving forces in the other person who is listening, who is listening and actually imitates it inwardly. By arousing it in us and making it resonate in him. This is what medicine will look like in the distant future. But it is not that far away in terms of millennia. Because all this still concerns the time when we are still physically embodied. That has to be said. The world will change. Completely change.

Now we can do the first preliminary exercises. This is not even primary schools. Learning to spell, so to speak. We are at the very beginning. But it can and must and will continue. Much more intensively. That's exactly where these healing and life-giving forces lie. That is to say, where I practise art and raise this more and more into consciousness and therefore also have this awake element inside, which the mind has undoubtedly given us and which we have to thank it for, if we can connect this, connect heart and brain, so to speak, then we slowly come into this living thinking which is at the same time life-giving. For ourselves, but also for the people we meet. Life-giving. Love also means giving life. Only then is it real love. Everything else is pre-training for it. It starts there, where life-giving power really flows out from me. This is something that must be taken to heart by all those who say, yes, it is about developing love in the world. But then you have to know what dimension it goes into and has to go into for it to be really effective. That it is far too small to develop a sentimental feeling of love: I love you all. I mean it sincerely. Yes, but even if you mean it sincerely, that is the pre-school class. It's all right to do that, but that's the preschool class. It starts where I make it so strong in me that it radiates as a life force. And that becomes more important every day. 

Headline: Corona and fear - life extension at any price?

There are enough counter-forces. The Ahrimanic forces are such forces in truth. I am not saying that we should fight against Ahriman, because the forces are also necessary. We have discussed that many times anyway. But we also have to know that we have to deal with them and oppose them with a complement. And only in the connection does the healing happen. We already need the Ahrimanic resistance, but we have to do something against it. So, for example, if we now take our present, with the Corona crisis and with the fear element that comes, which is an extremely ahrimanic element. Because actually man should not be afraid. Of what? Of death? Disease? That can only mean that I come into the spiritual and illness is really nothing other than a chance to develop something spiritual. Yes, there is pain involved. That is already clear! And there can be death at the end. Death is actually the most beautiful moment there can be. The entrance into the spiritual!  To bring the fruits that I have gathered in my life on earth to ripen over there. Basically, there is nothing more beautiful. That doesn't mean that we should all jump into the water as quickly as possible. That is not what I mean. Because the way our human existence is in the present is that we are now developing forces in our physical embodiment on earth in order to take them into the spiritual world and let them mature there. Actually, it is already something that we give away into the spiritual world. It is really only at the moment of death. Everything we have acquired then no longer remains ours alone, but passes into the whole world. We can give it to one person or another in our earthly life, perhaps, or give a spark of it, but when we pass on, we basically give it to the whole world. And that's when it really becomes what it's meant to be. So what should we be afraid of? Actually, we should be looking forward to it. We shouldn't be afraid. And it doesn't matter whether it happens at a young age or in old age. It also has to do with our own destiny. Think what great works a Mozart put into the world and crossed over at actually a very young age. And it was just the right thing for him. You can't say, yes, what other works would have been written if he had been 70 or 80 years old. Nothing would have been created! Nothing! He gave the fullness of what he could give in this short time. And with that, his life's task was fulfilled. That does not depend on the length of time. Some are just a little quicker in how they can give it, others need a little longer. 

I mean today we usually need longer because we have to deal very strongly with the ahrimanic impulses. And these are the ones that make us old. They also help us to live a long life on earth or force us to live a long life on earth. But the spiritual impulse that we can take over does not depend on the length of our earthly life, but on the forces that I have stimulated in it. One person may have produced some great idea in the 15th year of his life. His I was not yet consciously awakened, but he brought it out unconsciously. And it is enough. That alone was worth living this life. Yes, even if a baby dies two minutes after birth, it was there and experienced something in those first few breaths and did something with it. Not yet consciously - but the I was there. And what it experienced in those two or three breaths, it takes with it. And with that, the task is fulfilled for this human being. I know that from our earthly perspective it looks different, but we simply have to have the courage to see the other side, to see the whole. Then the fear will disappear. Fear is the Ahriman who reaches from below. It is always there. And it is as unjustified as it can be. Because no matter when and how it comes to us, we take something great with us. And that is what counts for the future. That must be clear to us.

I know I'm not saying it's nothing if you die from Corona or anything else, whereas there aren't that many. There are more who die with Corona, but who cares? I'm not trying to minimise the tragedy from an earthly perspective. Not at all! But from the spiritual perspective, which is also part of it, it is unimportant. Completely unimportant. It's a question of what do I take with me? Let's assume that someone dies at the age of 50 and the Corona virus was the impetus. Then the guidance of destiny, in which our I is essentially involved, namely our real I, is so wise that at that time the development that he was able to make in this life on earth is complete. We pass out of life on earth, and always in every case, no matter whether by accident, by so-called external causes, by illness or whatever, we pass through life after death because we want to at that time. The real cause of death is in fact our free will. Because we say, only we don't realise it in the earth consciousness, but death always occurs through the decision: "My task is completed!", which I have undertaken. And I must/will now go over in order to assimilate these fruits of the spiritual world and come down strengthened by it all to a new life. And that is the case whether I die a minute after birth or at 105. It makes no difference. Take it in once! I know that's a strong statement now. 

One could now make an objection, yes, am I not allowed to help a person if he is ill. To try to save his life. Very well! That is all part of the plan. We do not live as individual beings on earth, but are fatefully connected with other people, also with doctors who treat us, with people who care for us, with people who strengthen us through their power of love. All this is part of it. And that gives us new possibilities to do something. But we decide to leave at the moment when we know that my possibilities for this life on earth are exhausted. At that moment we leave. We want to go. Then I don't need to be afraid any more. Ahriman creates the fear because he basically strives for this perfection, which we actually strive for in the spiritual, here in the physical world and basically wants to create the perfect physical world. Of course it's a drama when the body breaks down. That's where I will try to preserve it with all my might. And the really devilish thing about it is that it could succeed in keeping people here who actually want to leave of their own free will, and thereby hinder their spiritual development. Because actually, when the moment comes where I say, now I want to cross over, because it's finished, but now I have to live for another 20 years just because of the technology. Not because there is a doctor who consciously or unconsciously has a feeling for the fate of the person. But I am simply tied to the earthly world. Then it's quite dramatic! 

And it is then much more difficult, when death occurs, to carry this impulse further, because there is a time in there that brings in a death element, brings in something quite unpleasant. Something that makes us related to the Ahrimanic forces. I am not saying that we cannot use technology in medicine. We will do it. And it will be healing. But the consciousness of the doctor has to be there. The consciousness, he has a spiritual task here. I can give him powers. I am a part of his destiny. I have to know that. And this spiritual exchange of forces is then the important thing. Because through this encounter something new arises. Through this, he then has the possibility to work out the impulse even further in this life. But that has to be there. If it is only an impulse that sustains life and consciousness. It is very bad if then only life is preserved. And someone is now in a coma for thirty years. Artificially kept alive by the machines. That is a horrible state, because they are suspended between not being here and not being there, and they are kept in this suspended state. And that is exactly the state that Ahriman seeks to create with man. If we take it exactly, then Ahriman wants to produce a human being in whom the I goes out, below the body and also the soul is kept alive and the I hovers somewhere above it. But it cannot make its way through the spiritual world, because it is bound down there. Because as long as the organism functions down there, it cannot leave. So it is tied up in the sphere close to the earth. And then, Ahriman hopes, he can tap into the creative powers of the I without it getting away from him and standing up to him. Because he doesn't have the creative powers. Man has access to them. He doesn't! That is precisely the future that he sees as the ideal for man. 

Because at the bottom, in the work that is left behind, with technical means of prolonging life until it is no longer possible, it is doing well at the bottom. There is even a soul in there. It will come that one can do that. He is totally fine. But the I is stuck. It can't go down and it can't go up. There is then the danger that the ahrimanic forces or even stronger forces can then pull this I down into their sphere once again. And then even, at the end of the earth's development, form their own kingdom with it. And this human I will then leave the regular evolution of humanity. We will see that this is not the last turning point. There are very well possibilities to come back then, especially through the help of other people. But that is a danger that is very close at any rate. 

Which is very close at least at the lowest level with life extension and these things, that is within technical reach today. Absolutely! That means a good part of it will be realised in the next 10, 20 years at the latest. Much of it already exists. Whether it is beneficial or satanic will only depend on the spiritual attitude with which it is used. None of it has to be bad. I emphasise again, it is not a question of: we don't want all this, we don't need it. We will need it! And it will help us if it comes out of the right spiritual attitude is made. It will also disappear again at some point. But there is a certain phase where the confrontation with these forces, which approach us to the innermost, the confrontation with the Ahrimanic powers, will be important for us. Depending on our fate, it will happen one way or the other. But this confrontation, this up-close connection with the ahrimanic realm, up-close connection - I deliberately say up-close or even getting under the skin - that will be necessary. Also in the sense of spiritual development. Only you have to be damn careful that the Ahriman doesn't get the upper hand. Because then it can go capital wrong. We will see such descriptions of what can happen then. That is what is described in the Apocalypse, in pictures, but very impressively. We will come to that. So we have a lot to look forward to. 

Especially this age of the 7 trumpets, which actually concerns the future now, which will be the last age of the physical earth, that is one aspect of it. But I have often said that these imaginative images can be related to very different periods of time. Because even on the next world level, i.e. in the etheric and even more so in the soul world, i.e. in the astral, our concept of time is completely invalid. In the etheric, for example, one can move freely in time, which means that everything we experience in temporal succession is there at the same time and has a relationship to each other. The etheric is basically a time organism that shapes developmental relationships in a living way. This means that the final state of life on earth resonates in the first single-celled organism that arose on earth. No matter how one imagines the single-celled organism now. There are also pre-stages where this was much greater, where the whole earth was alive. The whole earth could be compared to a fertile egg. That's what was done. Only when the earth began to die did life begin on earth in today's sense. That is, cellular life. The single-celled organisms and these things. 

Question: How did life come into being? Yes, first there were some molecules. Protein molecules. DNA molecules that were formed. They float around, thunder and lightning, and at some point the first cell develops. The first bacterium or archebacterium or something like that. That is the moment when life on earth begins to die. At the moment when the earth begins to die as a living being, these living descendants come into being. That's when it starts. That is to say, the dying of the earth begins at that very moment. And of course, in the course of time, it has become stronger and stronger and the stronger it has become, the more highly developed living beings come out, the more complex living beings come out. That is, in truth, living beings that also carry more and more death within them. We most of all! We have accumulated the most death forces within us. They give us consciousness. We need them for that. That is to say, we kill ourselves anyway through the way we work spiritually, because we also have the death forces in there to bring this spiritual activity to our consciousness. In earthly life, we cannot do it any other way, on average, as we are today. It will be different when we go into living thought and make use of the etheric forces, then it will be somewhat different. But as long as we have this intellectual thinking, and the first beginnings are already very early, delicate of course, but still, since then we have been carrying on our dying process. With every spiritual activity we develop on earth. That is to say, by being spiritually active on earth, first of all as we can as earthly human beings, if we are not yet so far advanced that we can rise to the next level, then we work towards our death through our spiritual activity. We hurry towards it. The more abstract we are, the more we hurry towards it. And don't say now, but in the modern world there are many more people who are growing old, 80 or 90 years and so on, that is only a sign that the process of life is becoming more and more tenacious and sluggish. In truth, every human being lives for the same length of time from the etheric power he has, depending of course on his fate. But in principle the same length of time. One uses it up in 10 years and dies at 10, the other becomes 110. But then life flows much more weakly during these 110 years in comparison. 

Of course, there are individual differences in that one person brings more life forces with them overall and  one less. But in principle it is always a question of whether I consume it in a short time or in a longer time. That is the difference. Yes, and Ahriman is helping us today to extend this more and more. And in the near future it will be extended even more. They are already working very hard on that. If you look at what is already possible in principle: the cultivation of organs for transplantation. Transplants as they exist today will be obsolete within a very short time; instead, it will be possible to cultivate organs from the cells of the human body, from the DNA of the human being itself. Approaches to this already exist. Even complex organs. Imagine how that will go on. Then I can replace and renew at will. In other words, the body will slowly become a kind of technical device, but one where spare parts are always being replaced. That is very close to the possibilities. These are techniques that are also used at another level. 

The diet will change. There is already food that deceptively imitates meat, fish, a few weeks ago a company opened in Vienna that produces artificial salmon, for example, that not only tastes like it, but looks like it and has the structure of it, that is the essence. The way forward is to really produce a tissue structure that is not inferior to the natural one. That already exists. Now, here and today. But that is the tip of the iceberg and the acceleration of this development is at a hell of a pace at the moment. But you also have to see the other side. What does it also mean. It also means, for example, that if I am a meat eater or a fish eater, I don't have to sacrifice more animals for it. I'm not trying to say anything. But the world will change. That will come. It's guaranteed to come because it's actually already here. So all these things we will have to deal with. Mr Ahriman sends his regards. So it's a question of what do we oppose him with. 

Headline: The work of the Christ-power in the I

Now I want to read you something from the Apocalypse. Namely about these 7 trumpets. By the way, we will also see that there is a very interesting break after the 4th trumpet. Just as with the seals there is basically also a great incision after the 4th seal. And what is that connected with? Yes, I can say something else, where there was a great incision, the greatest of all, in the seven cultural epochs, there was also a great incision after the first four or in the fourth cultural epoch, the effectiveness of which only comes out at the end of the fourth cultural epoch. Namely, the earthly life of the Christ. And with it, that this Christ power can really begin to move into our I fully consciously. And today, in the fifth cultural epoch, we are standing in the age of the consciousness soul, and there it will be a question of our becoming aware that these Christ-power in our I lives inside. And that we can also handle it. Not just aha, I'm marvelling at it, but that we become active from it. Then we are actually Christians. And that no longer has anything to do with any denomination. It has nothing to do with any church, it is simply a reality. Everyone can experience it when they develop this awareness. That will be the real Christianity. Then all religions as we know them today will cease to exist in truth. Because they were aids to get there, sometimes also brakes.

Let us take the Christian Church. The main achievement it made was to prepare materialistic thinking. The monks who studied this, who developed the thought life, at first still very much alive, then it becomes more and more dead, more and more abstract. Because in intellectual thinking, which is also the basis of theology, what is it actually about? It is a juridical thinking. Nothing else. That is, thinking that is about supporting the claim of the EGO. That is what is inside. In the final analysis, this thinking does not lead to Christ, but to materialism and to Ahriman, who is the master of the material world. That is where it leads. That is the task that the Church has accomplished. I say the institution of the Church. 

And the second major pillar that contributed to this, that gave the impetus for it among Christians in the first place, was Arabist thinking in connection with Islam. It is very much in there: Allah - the one and only God who regulates the world according to law and whom everything has to follow. That's how we see the material world today. There are the laws of nature. The God does not exist, but the laws of nature regulate everything. And we are basically a will-less tool or a will-less plaything of these laws of nature. That is how natural science sees it today, by and large. At the most, it still allows for chance, that is, something, there is still a dice in there. But what happens is determined by natural laws. That is the modern form of what is in Islam. It's the same as in the Old Testament, where it's also the one God, Yahweh or something. Although in the beginning there is the community of the 7 Elohim, but then that is slowly forgotten and then there is only Yahweh-Elohim, and then there is only Yahweh - the One who does everything. Legislates. God, the great Lawgiver. 

Natural science says exactly the same thing, only the word God has been removed and it is the laws of nature. In other words, the legislator has been forgotten, so to speak. They are just there somewhere by nature. That is the real task, especially of the book religions. To prepare that. That is one of the tasks they have fulfilled. The other one, that we grasp the real Christian impulse within us, they have not fulfilled on the whole as an institution. I am not saying anything bad against the churches. Because obviously that's what had to take place. And it is part of what we also need in order to develop this truly Christian element, precisely this confrontation. Also with the material forces. The ahrimanic forces. In that sense, the churches or these religions are leading us there, look at that! Even if they don't say it like that. But in the background there is that. And on a large scale it is the struggle or the conflict behind it also between our I and our ego, which is under the influence of the adversaries. And this is what the mind has to do with, because the mind basically has no other task than to serve egoism. No other task. Not even the natural sciences, which actually have very little to do with nature, but are actually more technical sciences. Even a biologist today, if he looks at it with external science alone, basically only gets there,  to see every living being as a complex biochemical apparatus. Something essential is simply missing inside. 

I.e. that is all the result. But that is not a bad thing. It is something necessary. We need the confrontation. Only then do we develop a spiritual consciousness that is strong enough to cope with this world and only then can we use our full I-power. If we now say, phew, that doesn't interest me down there, up into the spiritual, then we would give up everything that we have striven for up to now in truth. Then we will enter Lucifer's realm and will also be a Luciferian angel at some point. That is not the future that is actually possible for us. That's where we deviate. And that is also the great danger - and that is why this comes as a supplement to the materialistic age - the Luciferic element is the many esoteric currents that go into the Luciferic. Happiness, upward, floating in the spirit, ah, that doesn't interest me down there, the ahrimanic dirt, I float up, but there I don't float up into the spiritual, but into the luciferic world. And therefore this occurs together quite clearly and also the religions, which actually move into the ahrimanic, of course always work with Lucifer on the surface too, in order to make it tempting. Come to us! The splendid in the church plays a role. I am not saying that it is bad. Because there is also a strong spiritual expression in it. But when it is taken as impressing people, attracting them, almost arousing their desires, then it is something Luciferian. So we should be aware of that.

So you simply have to see through these world phenomena, what they mean, and the moment you see through them, you see that they make sense, that they are necessary, but that with God they are not the whole story. But that the real essence has not yet been said. And this is what we are called to do, especially in the age of the trumpets. To see this through. And the preparation for this are the first 4 trumpets. They correspond to the period up to which Christ lived on earth. And after that, from the 5th trumpet, the actual task begins. Where the I can consciously begin to shape things, to transform them, to lead them into good. A conscious confrontation with the adversaries. And it will be reflected exactly in the text in the Apocalypse. Because after the 4th trumpet there is a very big break. Then the abyss opens. The adversary is banished into it, but that also means the confrontation with him. And that is only the tender beginning. But I don't want to go into that today. 

Headline: The first four trombones

I want to sound the first 4 trombones. Let them sound in textual form. That is, as inspiration that we want to try to hear through somewhere. But as I said, maybe we need another 10 to 20 years until it really becomes clear to us. Or whatever. But if we deal with it now, at the latest it will become clear to us when we cross over. Even if we have studied it now until our last breath, and have taken the pictures again and again, and still don't know what it's supposed to mean, it all sounds terrible, and the guy there in the video keeps telling me that it's something positive, but I don't understand it. When you're over there, you understand it! If you've dealt with it honestly and didn't want to force a premature understanding. Our mind tends to say, yes, but I want to know right now and immediately what is meant by that. And then I judge whether I want that or not. That is the mind. Real inspiration comes from living with these images, with these imaginations, until they speak to me. Then I am ready to hear this voice, which is actually always there, but only my spiritual ears are not yet open. That is, when they are open, then I hear this voice. Figuratively speaking. But it is always there. Here and now. Always there. The difficulty is to open the ears. The mental ones. 

But if we simply carry in the mind, I have the patience to wait until it comes, then these organs are enough. The surest way for them to always stay closed is for me to want a ready explanation quickly. That is the best way to close the mental ears. I have to wait until I am ripe for it. Because the truth is that the image works and lives in me, it changes me or I change myself by living with it. I stimulate these life forces that are inside. And when it has reached the point where it is viable in me, then at some point the breakthrough comes, that the inspiration also comes. Then I will be ready. And before that, whoever wants to can tell me something about it, who perhaps has really heard the voice of inspiration for himself, the other will not understand it. He will misunderstand it. Because in the end you have to hear it yourself. That is what really takes us further.

Well, let's delve into the images from which the trumpets sound. I remind you that the whole thing already took place or began when the seventh seal was opened. There is a deep silence for half a round of time, then there are 7 angels who come and stand before the Father God, it is quite deliberately the Father God who is addressed and 7 trumpets are given to them. This is during the opening of the 7th seal. After half a round of silence. Then the angels come with the 7 trumpets, then an angel comes with a golden censer and is given much incense, then he pours down this censer filled with the fire of the altar onto the earth. Whatever that may mean. And then thunder rolled, voices sounded and lightning flashed and the earth shook. That's the image for it now. We have already seen the image a little bit with the seals, when the 6th seal was opened, also there actually comes the breakthrough to spiritual perception, there to the Imagination above all. An earthquake, tremors, always play a very strong role. And the whole sensory world disintegrates. That is the important thing. Because when I enter spiritual perception, the sensory world disappears for the time being. And that is dramatic. 

And it is even stronger when it enters the Inspiration goes. It's mainly the sounds that you hear. There "rolling thunder", it "sounded voices", it "twitched lightning", the light is also there, and "the earth shook". So the whole earth roars. Then the trumpets sound. I'll read that out now too: "And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets in their hands prepared themselves to sound. And the first trumpeted, saying, There arose hail and fire mingled with blood, and poured down upon the earth. A third of the earth was burnt up, a third of all the trees were burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up. And the second angel sounded, saying, Then there was something like a great mountain burning in the fire cast down into the sea. And a third of the sea was turned into blood, and a third of all the animate creatures in the sea perished, and a third of all the ships were shattered. And the third angel sounded, saying, A great star came down from heaven, burning like a torch. It struck a third of all the rivers and all the springs of water. The name of the star is "Wormwood". A third of all the waters were turned into wormwood, and many people died from the water that had become so bitter. And the fourth angel sounded the trumpet, saying, Then a stroke fell on the third part of the sun, and on the third part of the moon, and on the third part of the stars, so that a third of them were darkened, and the day lost a third of its light, and the night likewise." 

This is the sounding of the first 4 trumpets. I only want to give one hint now, because it is repeated so often, always the third, the third part. I will read something else, one line only from the letter to the church of Thyatira, which corresponds to the 4th culture period, that is, the culture period in which the Christ came to earth. But it is expressed at the opening of the 4th seal. There is a connection, always those with the same number belong together somehow. One can also experience all of this at the same time. I.e. the 4th seal has a relationship to the 4th cultural epoch. Just as the 4th trumpet has a relationship to it. And here at the opening of the 4th seal the pale horse appears, the name of the rider is Death, and the realm of the dead is his retinue, so there is completely awakened the consciousness of Death. And now it continues: "Authority is given to them over a quarter of the earth." There's a quarter there now. And there is now a third. Or the third part. And here is the fourth part. 

If we take the human being as embodied on earth: 1) with the I inside, perhaps already developed with the higher spiritual members of the being within the I; 2) the astral body, that is, the soul body; 3) the etheric body and 4) the physical-material body, that is, the I is the first, the second is the astral body, the third the etheric body, the fourth the physical-material body. The fourth part means this physical-material body. Nothing else. That is the fourth part of our human being as we live on earth. Now I ask you, what will the third part be? The etheric body, exactly! The third part is the etheric body, i.e. with the events that are now being described, we are actually describing how the attack on the etheric body takes place. This takes place here in the age of the trumpets, because at the end of this age not only the physical of the human being is gone, but also that of the earth - but also the etheric. Not true, with the end of the age of the 7 trumpets seen in the big picture, the physical, the physical-etheric development of the earth, to put it more precisely, comes to an end. And then it passes into a purely spiritual state. That is the one hint I want to give. 

Comment from a member of the audience: But it says the third part, that is, one third. I would have understood it to mean a three-part division, not a four-part division.

W.: Yes, you can also read it that way. Certainly! But if you take the division into 1) body, 2) soul and 3) spirit, then you have to know that in the human being the physical is in the actual sense: 1) physical body, 2) etheric body, 3) astral body: The astral body, for example, in the human being still remains at that time. I don't want to commit you to the one meaning of the etheric body, that is already clear. Especially with such imaginative descriptions, through which the trombone is already sounding through here, that is, the inspiration, they are always ambiguous. And one can read out different aspects. That is very important. So one and the same image can accurately portray very different aspects. And yet it is not arbitrary. Because some outsider might say, well, you can interpret everything into or out of it. It's not like that. But you can describe very different things with it. We will also see that this age of the trumpets, which concerns this seventh and last main period of the physical development of the earth, I can also relate to our time. And really quite specifically to our present time, that is, since about the Middle Ages. Beginning with the age of the crusades and now into our present. The present means the end of the 20th century to the beginning of the 21st century, where we are standing in the 7th trumpet in a certain way. So these images are also very effective. This is the preliminary exercise for what we will do later. 

Comment from a member of the audience: Do we still do the other pictures?

W.: No, they will come next time. Because there are still many dramatic developments in between, until it continues at all. So when the 5th angel trumpets, a whole lot happens once, the abyss opens, it's not by chance that it's always the 5th period, no matter whether with the cultural epochs, with the seals, with the trumpets or with the bowls of wrath, we always have the confrontation with evil in the background. Solving the riddle of evil. I. e. actually ultimately to redeem the adversaries or to work on it, but in any case to deal with it. I.e. for us, since we are standing today in the 5th cultural epoch, then we know what the great riddle of our time is. The riddle of evil. Which everyone must solve for themselves. Namely, it has to be solved by the way in which he deals with the attacks of the adversaries and how far he succeeds in harnessing them for positive things. Because that is the redemption. It is connected with this, that I succeed in using the forces of the adversaries for spiritually right things or in using them in such a way that spiritually right things are made possible. This is not possible without the adversaries. Especially from the 5th period onwards it does not work. 

That is, we would not be able to go through our real spiritual development if the adversaries did not exist. Or if we say we want to escape from them and we want to be good like the little people anyway, so away from the adversaries, then we fail quite capital. That is especially true of our fifth period. You don't have to believe all this. But think it through once. I know, they are all a bit difficult. But the apocalypse is not afraid to go into these things and to put them plainly before our eyes. In this sense, I would like to stop at the 4th trumpet and save the increase in drama for next time. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask, otherwise thank you for being here and I look forward to the next time.

Thank you so much for being part of this. Really, I think it's so great that it works. I somehow feel that you are with me. It's fascinating that this also works with Ahriman, that you are somehow with me and I am with you - somehow it works.

Comment from a listener: You should recognise Ahriman when you're driving alone.

W.: Yes, right!

May I ask a question: Living thinking - isn't it also right, so to speak, first I think, then I realise, was that now alive or was it dead? 

 W.: Yes, yes, that's right. That's how it is. You have to take action once. Yes, yes. Of course. It has to come from activity. Of course. But an important preliminary exercise is the artistic, because then I can also carry it into the thinking activity and when I start to think, then something alive comes into it.

Comment from a listener: Thank you very much for the information. I wanted to say that Ariel Sharon was someone who was in a coma for years.

Audience comment: The question was ...in one's own family...that as a relative you have to fight for the person to be allowed to die.  I didn't know how to help then and I still don't know. 

W.: It's like this, you can already talk about something like this with sensible doctors today. They are already doing it in part, so that life is not prolonged unnecessarily, so to speak, where the person is actually no longer really there, where he is actually only tied up. I think that will be an important point, that doctors see that and more and more doctors are doing that, that they do what is possible to keep the person here, if they feel that he can still do something here, so to speak, to develop spiritually, but also to let him go when that is over. And not to keep them here artificially, so to speak. In Austria, you can give a power of attorney that you will not be kept alive artificially. A power of attorney/ living will would be good today and is taken into account today.

Audience comment: I had a power of attorney, but the doctors reacted a bit strangely, there were 4 or 5 doctors, there was one who supported me, it took me 3 weeks. Today I am still not sure whether I did the right thing, but after this lecture I now feel strengthened that it was indeed the right thing. It's just that I think he's already been damaged, I'm still here, I could do something now, but I have to be honest, I'm totally helpless! What can you do?

Response from a member of the audience: Pray!

W.: Yes, praying is certainly a good start. Simply connect with him in consciousness, in spirit, by thinking about all the things you have experienced with him. The best thing is to go backwards. Go back from the last time to the time when you met each other. And keep that alive in yourself. That is a good basis. Then, when you deal with spiritual things, to address the human being, so to speak, to do it for him, to always have him in your consciousness. R. Steiner has often said that this so-called reading aloud to the dead, i.e. to occupy oneself with a spiritual content and to really recite it to the dead. Of course, he does not hear it in human language, as we have it on earth, but he gets what we experience spiritually. If we experience it strongly, then he gets it. In a certain way, there is an exchange. Even if we are not aware of it here. 

Question from a member of the audience: But you have to read aloud, don't you?

W.: Reading aloud definitely makes it easier. But you don't necessarily have to read it aloud, if you do it purely inwardly, you have to make it as strong as if you were reading it aloud. Because what is decisive is the movement of the soul that arises in the process. And even into the sound formation, even if he doesn't understand the language, but the sound-forming forces, they already have an effect. Especially if it was not so long ago. That goes without saying 10 - 15 years after death. The language goes away, but the powers remain for a relatively long time. 

Comment by a listener: Doesn't it mean that the vowels are more tangible than the consonants?

W.: Yes! The consonants very soon lose their effect. But the vowels are important because the mood of the soul actually lives in them. That is, if you can transfer this into this vocal element in your own soul mood and also feel it, then that is a means, and that is why it is also easier to read it aloud. But then you should really read it out loud. Because it's not so much about the mental understanding. What's really important are the images behind it and the moods of the soul that are ignited by it. That is the real imaginative element behind it. Then it works. But if you are very experienced, you can also do it silently inside. But then with the sound-forming forces also in the inner experience. But that is difficult. So reading aloud is easier. That has positive effects in any case.

Question from a listener: But then you have to speak the language of a deceased person, don't you?

W.: Not necessarily! The vowels do not occur in the same way, but in a similar way in other languages. And this sound element alone has an effect. You have to think that the meaning of the language or the text actually lies beyond the language. Not true, the thought content of a text, that is why I can translate a text into another language, it is difficult, but the thought content is something else than the language in which it is formulated. The thought behind it is one level further. In other words, I can do it very well, if I think it as a German speaker, then a Spaniard or a Chinese person will still get something out of it. Then, of course, the element of reading aloud falls away somewhere, because I suspect we'll have a hard time with Chinese. But by reading out the text in German and having the thoughts, they still reach the Chinese somewhere, so to speak. It's not so easy, but it still has an effect. The effort to translate it yourself is also very good. The important thing is to do it in consciousness: I connect with you, who is over there. That creates the first point of contact, so to speak. Of course, the people who are over there notice when someone is engaged spiritually here. Even if I don't specifically address him. But if I do it very consciously, it naturally makes it easier to establish the connection. 

Question from a listener: Isn't it the case that when it comes to the experience of language, with people who have crossed the threshold, it would be much more skilful to use really artistically designed language, i.e. poems or something, whereas with a humanistic writing or a lecture it is very essentially about the thought content. But for the dead, it is not the abstract thought that can be experienced but the power of thought that is applied to the thought. 

W.: Yes, that's right. Artistic language is of course the ideal case. And now you have to say that if you take, for example, the texts by R. Steiner, especially the writings he wrote, they are artistic. With the lectures it's a bit different, it's more difficult because, firstly, many of them have not been handed down authentically, especially in the old editions, but it's also partly difficult because they were actually edited in order to publish them for print. Because printing and writing is something different from direct, living recitation. That is, it is more difficult. But that is also why it is possible. The artistic language is in R. Steiner's self-written works, for example, if you take the "Anthroposophical Guidelines", which is something really great, or if you take the "Weekly Sayings". That is something really great.

Comment from an audience member: When you listen to an opera in a language other than your own, you also get something on the emotional level, from the expression.

W.: Yes, of course. Right!