20th Lecture on the Apocalypse of John (Documentation)

I-consciousness present!

All being is in truth consciousness.

7 states of life

7 Shape states
Von schöpferisch Geistigem zu geformten geistigen Bildern  (z.b. Urpflanze ungeformt) = Seelisches wirkt von Außen, damit die Pflanze entstehen kann.
"The astral world kisses every blossom".

We can develop lotus flowers within us.

Der Hüter der Schwelle (od. Doppelgänger)  steht hinter mir. Wenn ich mich umdrehe, kommt es einem Todeserlebnis gleich. Das können wir im Imaginativen erleben.

Milder way: What comes to me from the spiritual? (Separation from what pleases me).
I stand opposite the spiritual being (= guardian).

7 Main Ages
From the "Big Bang" to the end of our cosmos.

After our last incarnation (7th millennium) we will first exist in water (not spatially limited), then in air, then in heat, which then forms the transition "away from the material".

Christ has gone before us.

Now - in this century - the development of LIVING THINKING is very important and necessary!!!

We've got a lot behind us, but we still have a lot ahead of us. We discussed a heavy topic last time, all these world development cycles. How many cycles are piling up. How many periodic processes are in there. A very short repetition today, it should only serve to see where we actually stand? What a tiny area we are basically in now, in a very large developmental structure that is inside. 

We have a total of 7 planetary stages of development, actually cosmic stages of development, because a whole cosmos belongs to each of them. From the Old Saturn, via the Old Sun, via the Old Moon, until we finally come to our Earth development in the middle, i.e. actually to the development of our solar system plus the whole cosmos that belongs to it. So everything that we see out there when we look out into the sky. That all belongs to it. And now it follows natural laws that were prepared on the previous cosmic stage on the Old Moon in the first place and are now already there by nature in the development of the Earth, in the development of the cosmos to which our Earth belongs. The laws of nature are simply already there. They did not exist before. The ancient moon was completely different from our world today, and even more so the ancient sun and Saturn, which are very difficult to compare with our existence today. Then our earth's development will be followed by three future cosmic development stages. These are the New Jupiter, which follows our earth evolution, then the New Venus, then the volcanic state. I don't want to explain why these names were chosen, they have some reference to our present planets. It is not by chance. But they are not directly comparable to our planets today. It has a much deeper background, you would have to investigate that more.

What is important is that these planetary or cosmic states of development are in truth above all states of consciousness. That is, what it is really about is that on each of these stages a certain consciousness is developed, a consciousness that becomes brighter and brighter. It starts with a very dull consciousness on Old Saturn and today we are at our awake daytime consciousness. In between there is sleep consciousness on Old Sun, which we would normally call unconscious, but nevertheless it is also a consciousness. Yes, even Saturn consciousness is a consciousness, namely a co-knowing in truth with what is happening in the whole cosmos. It is quite dull, but nevertheless one aligns oneself with it. Minerals, for example, have this consciousness today. The mineral world has this very great cosmic consciousness, with which it lives quite dully with what is happening in the cosmos. It is difficult to imagine. But that has an influence on how they shape themselves in the subtleties. A crystal has a given crystal form, but that is not at all the interesting thing about it. The interesting thing is that it is never one hundred percent perfect, but every single crystal has its very small deviations. Even the one that appears to be the most perfect has its small deviations. There are worlds in there. They are connected with the way each crystal in the mineral world feels the whole cosmos in its own way. That has a great influence on it. 

Not only what happens in its immediate vicinity, but also what happens in the farthest distance, simultaneously, without any news having to come from outside, because in truth the whole cosmos is a unity. Only we, through the kind of sensual consciousness we have today, do not notice this at first. We have the feeling that I am standing here, I am standing there and the whole world is facing me and the stars are quite far away from me. In truth, we are connected to the whole cosmos according to our nature. 

That the world appears to us in this way is typical of our present-day I-consciousness. Here I am and the world is opposite me. But it has actually become quite alien to me. That was a necessary development in order to come to ourselves. Today we have to look again for the connection that is there in truth, but which we no longer notice in our I-consciousness. Not at all any more. It is also difficult, because it is difficult to get down into the mineral consciousness and then it is normally very dull, but it will change in the future in the volcanic state, because the old Saturn is reflected there, then this very dull mineral consciousness will be very bright, because the I will be completely there. Then a completely new state of consciousness will arise that is consciously connected with the whole cosmos. Perhaps not yet in all details and in all sharpness, but still to a certain degree. 

Today, such a high consciousness has high spiritual entities like the seraphim. This is the highest hierarchy of angels just below the Trinity. They have a consciousness for the whole cosmos, namely for all spiritual entities that are in the cosmos. All of them! Now you have to imagine that each of these stars that we see outside in the sky is its own planetary system perhaps, with spiritual entities connected to it. Because stars and planets are colonies of spiritual entities. Not necessarily as physical-material-corporeal as we are. Most of them are not sensually visible, sensually tangible. You also have to distinguish between physical and material. They are not the same thing. The purely physical could only be experienced supersensually. Only when it becomes material, when it is filled with substances, does it become sensually visible and the spiritual behind it invisible. Ideally, when we experience it spiritually, we would certainly experience a physical form, but one that would also be transparent for the etheric, the life forces that are behind it, the spiritual, etc. We would then experience the world differently. Then we would experience the world differently. There are many entities in our world that have a physical body but are not visible. These include all the elemental beings. Because all elemental beings also have a physical body, the salamanders, the fire spirits, in that case it's true, because the fire spirits have something I-like, they have the same members of the being as human beings, in terms of their nature, so I, astral body, etheric body, physical body, but actually they are not sensually tangible, ok, you see flames, fire phenomena, but that's actually only the outer side, they are behind it, behind a flame there are perhaps hundreds of such fire beings. We see the flame, but we don't see the elemental beings that are working inside, but they are there. They work in the physical world. They are not visible to the senses, but they do have effects that they leave behind in the physical world. That is precisely their task. They are the direct masters who work on nature, in all elements, in the fire element, air element, water element, right into the solid, there are countless elemental beings. None of them is sensually visible. Children can sometimes perceive them because they still have a touch of this supersensible seeing. We actually have it all the time, but our attention is so concentrated on the sensory world that we don't notice that it's always there in the background. We all have imaginations, we are all actually clairvoyant in truth, we all have inspirations and intuitions with which we would not find our way in the whole world. Only - we usually don't have them in our waking I-consciousness. That is the problem. But if you scratch a little, you may come to it very quickly. It's all not so far away and so mysterious, but it's something omnipresent. 

So these 7 planetary cosmic states are actually states of consciousness. That is what it is all about. Today, in the development of the earth, it is above all about the I-consciousness and now, especially in the time when we are standing inside, it is now about directing this I-consciousness, which initially developed in the sensual outer world, towards the spiritual world. That is, to consciously perceive in the spiritual world as well. This is now possible in principle in a self-conscious way. But it has to be distinguished from the way it was possible in pre-Christian times, when the I was not involved, but the whole thing ran through the astral body. The I was switched off. That is to say, divine beings actually intervened and received these impressions and transmitted them to our astral body, but our own I was switched off. We perceived it more like in a dream-like state of consciousness, but not really awake. In the Egyptian times it was also like this, when the initiation student awoke from his spiritual experience, then he described it, like today one describes a dream from which we have just awakened, one must also hurry very much, so that one can still describe it somehow, put it into words, otherwise it is gone, this is also what happened to the initiation students. They were trained that when they came out, it was quickly expressed in precise words, in precise sounds, they were trained in speaking, in the sound of the voice, the rhythm of the words, gave expression to the whole of what they had experienced over there. But that was spoken out of dream consciousness. 

At first, in their state of initiation, they were really transferred into this dull mineral consciousness, because they were transferred into a death-like state, there is actually only this consciousness. With this they experienced the cosmos to a very great extent, and only then, when they emerged, did something come over the sleep and dream consciousness, a dream consciousness for the spiritual world, that is what they were just able to take with them when they woke up. From this they have described. The priests took this in and understood it. That's how the spiritual insights came in.

Today, in principle, we can do this awake consciously in our ME. In reality, we cannot hold on to what we take out of an imagination. The normal memory does not take in these imaginative images. It is simply trained for sensual images. That is why the imagination disappears from us the moment we step out of it. Then it is gone and we only have an echo of it. But we can go back to the imagination at any time today and experience it again. Perhaps from a slightly different side. But if we want to have it again, we have to go back to the imagination. In principle, we can do that today. We are at the beginning of that. It is not as far away as one would like to believe. I don't like to use the word "clairvoyance" today, because it usually only arouses misunderstandings, because people then think, what tremendous experiences are coming? Yes, they can come, but you need a lot of training for that, but they are not like sensual experiences. They are not like dream images in truth, but it is a purely spiritual experience that becomes very concrete with the appropriate training, is very rich, it virtually bubbles up. But it is a purely soul experience, by that I mean it is with moods where you feel connected or you feel pushed back. Those are the two basic forces. Sympathy and antipathy. However, an objective sympathy and antipathy. It has nothing to do with the fact that I find something nice or beautiful. Rather, it lies in the spiritual beings themselves that I experience. Every spiritual being has something that holds me back at times. Otherwise it wouldn't be a spiritual being in its own right. It has to have that. But on the other hand, it also has the tendency to invite me, to connect with me, which is different with every being. The imaginations develop out of that. 

Of course, one can start from a sensual image, which we have very often in the Apocalypse, that something is described in sensual images, but these are not yet the actual imagination. The imagination arises when I occupy myself with it over years, perhaps decades, so that a concrete mood of the soul is connected with each image. And that is the important thing. When I finally remove the image from my consciousness and only hold on to this mood, then I am inside the imagination. Then I notice how rich it is and the more I stay with it in my consciousness, the richer it becomes. More and more bubbles out. Much more than is contained in the sensual image from which I started. The most important thing that comes out of the imagination cannot be in there at all, because it is only a crutch, like a signpost that shows me where I have to go with my experience so that I can get to this imagination. It shows my soul life the way. Go to a certain place of the soul and there you will experience this imagination. That is what these descriptions are for. Unconsciously or semi-consciously we have that. Every one of us. We experience it subconsciously. It's like this today, it's very just below the surface.

But today we have to become active out of our I in order, firstly, to grasp the sensual image that has prepared it strongly enough so that the mood is attracted and stimulated, but then also to have the strength to brush away the sensual image and to experience the actual imagination, i.e. this mood of the soul, and to remain concentrated within it. This is how one arrives at imaginations in truth. This is not always so clear, because R. Steiner sometimes describes it in the short form, i.e. he describes the imagination through the sensual image that belongs to it. Into which I also have to translate it when I want to tell it to someone else. Because: How do I speak about a mood of the soul? It's very difficult to put into words. I can only put it into sensual comparisons and hope that I stimulate the same mood in the listener. I can't do anything else because our language today doesn't have the words for it. We don't have the terms for it. For these rich nuances that are there. It's not just: I feel sadness, I feel joy, I feel love, that's much too crude. It all has millions of different nuances. These nuances are the important thing. They are there in the imaginative experience. In the beginning, very blurred and not yet so rich. But that can be deepened over time through practice.  

Basically, we have all the higher levels of knowledge that exist within us. It is only a question of raising them into consciousness through practice. That's what the exercises do. They don't create something that wouldn't actually be there, but they help us to raise it into consciousness. That is the point. Today, we have to attain it on the level of the I-consciousness, whereas before it was on the level of the astral body, and on the next planetary embodiment it will be on the level of the spirit-self. The spirit-self is something like the astral body, but now infused with the I-force or transformed by the I-force. What we practise today with great effort will then simply be available to us. That is to say, we will then have an imaginative consciousness as a quite normal consciousness. Today we still have to struggle a little to get there. 

These planetary states of development serve to develop different degrees of consciousness, which on the one hand become brighter and brighter, and on the other hand become wider and wider. The widest consciousness was the old Saturn consciousness, then it shrinks more and more, today our everyday I-consciousness is very narrow, but very bright. For the future we take the brightness with us, but the circle becomes larger and larger, until in the end it encompasses the whole cosmos again. But with the brightness, perhaps even with a stronger brightness than we have today towards the outer world, the sense world. That is the meaning of the development of these ever brighter degrees of consciousness. 

I.e. we should also be aware: all being, ourselves and everything that exists outside in the world, all being is in fact consciousness. There is no such thing as being completely unconscious. For us, perhaps, because we still sleep through it and it is dark for us. Nevertheless, it is there. It takes more strength to become awake there. Today, natural science, brain science, neuroscientists are puzzling over the riddle of consciousness: why are there nerve reactions, why is there consciousness? You can explain almost everything with the nerves, because they are a wonderful image of the soul and mental activity of the human being, namely the conscious mental activity, i.e. you can really measure what is happening in the brain today, when I look at a face, then you can register that. The nerves do something, certain nerve centres then become active, and from this you can recognise that he is now seeing a face. Today, you can narrow it down so precisely, possibly even which face. Nevertheless, this does not explain that he has an experience and experiences it consciously. He is not experiencing a nervous reaction, but he is experiencing the face. They don't know what to do. This cannot be explained materialistically. Because in their concept of matter they only have the concept of being inside. Being is like an external dead object. But in every being, even in the dead object, consciousness is inside at the same time. If it is not only a dead object, but if it is animate, then it already has a higher degree of consciousness. At least this sleep consciousness. Just as plants have it. In the case of animals, dream consciousness is added. Even if they are awake in themselves, it is still an awake dreaming that is inside. One must not imagine that animals experience the world as we do. The way we experience it, with our I-consciousness, that is exclusive to us. Therefore, we must also not imagine that the world is as we experience it. It is a reality of course. It is true that today we have to experience it exactly like that with our level of consciousness. That has its justification. But to conclude that the world must be exactly as we imagine it today or as we experience it today is not true!

There are other beings who experience it quite differently and who experience quite different sides of the world. We only experience a small part of it with our sensual consciousness. Now we have to take the big step to the spiritual level. First of all, to the next level, to the level of the life forces, the etheric forces. There we enter into living thinking, into the living imagining of inner images and from there into the Imagination in. That is the next stage that we so urgently need today. That we come into this imaginative experience. You don't have to be afraid of it. You can call it clairvoyance, but the word clairvoyance is suspect. Both with people who engage in it and with people who don't engage in it. How is that? So basically it's better not to. 

Of course, it is a step into an initially unknown territory, but it lies completely beneath the surface. You don't have to believe right away that you'll have the great experiences. You begin by experiencing the spiritual world like a small child. It takes time. It takes longer than for a small child to awaken to sense consciousness. So we begin slowly, when we occupy ourselves with the imagination, to come into it, that we begin to experience the spiritual world in very diffuse outlines. Getting a few main points. There is a long way to go before we can describe things the way R. Steiner does. You have to know that. But a beginning is important. That today, here and now, we make the leap from the old rational thinking, which is actually completely oriented towards the sensory world, it does come from the spiritual, it arose from a dead remnant of the old clairvoyance, but it has led to the emergence of a method of thinking that in truth only works for the outer sensory world and not for the spiritual that lies behind it. Not even for the level of life that lies behind it. But today we need this very urgently. 

On the one hand, we have the technical development, which is very strong and which ultimately also goes into the sub-sensible, into the dead. Technology is something dead. It is certainly not an aberration. At least not in principle, although there are many mistakes in detail. But the development is there, it is necessary, it will continue, it will certainly continue. But we need the counterweight of a lively way of thinking above all. For technology, I need this dead thinking. Not to have a brilliant idea, for that I need the living in truth. A little bit of it is there, but mostly it is not quite conscious. But the implementation is this dead thinking. But if we are only active out of that, then the world dies and we no longer have the space to complete our spiritual development here in a proper form. That is the big problem we are facing now. 

Because we have already talked about it, basically the development for us human beings is going so fast, namely the spiritual development above all, that there is not so much time until we should be finished with this development, insofar as we need a physical-material body for it. R. Steiner speaks of the time of incarnations coming to an end, at least for a part of humanity, already in the 6th - 8th millennium. In world-historical terms, this is nothing. A blink of an eye in the history of the earth. If you think that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old according to current estimates. What are these few thousand years then? That's nothing. There - in that time the greatest spiritual development takes place. In these few millennia we must be so far advanced that we can develop further on a completely different level, with preservation of the full I-consciousness. That is the problem. We have learned or are still learning I-consciousness on the physical-material body, which confronts the outer world. That is our great teacher for our free I-consciousness. And we have to take that with us. We must succeed in this in the next few thousand years. That we can take this with us, even without a physical body. 

We train this again and again when we die and then go through the spiritual world until we come down to a new incarnation, we train this because we don't have a physical body, we even lay down the etheric body in essence and large parts of the astral body, and still have a consciousness. We have it in the form of a human consciousness, but because the moment of death is a very strong awakening of consciousness. We have to be clear, our earthly I-consciousness is basically based on the destruction of the physical-material body. That is why we age, that is why we ultimately die, because we destroy the body through our consciousness. We try to regenerate it every night, and we succeed to a certain extent, otherwise we would not grow very old, otherwise we would leave the world again soon after the third year of life, because at that point the process of destruction really begins. The greatest process of destruction is at the end of life, when we completely discard the physical-material body in one fell swoop. And that is an enormous thrust of consciousness that carries us through the life we live between death and a new birth, with certain rhythms. There are also more awake and less awake moments. But it is this light that carries us through. In the beginning, it can be so strong that we don't see anything, that is, we don't notice anything at first, because it is so strong until we get used to it. But it carries us through. 

Basically, with every death that we go through, this consciousness gets a new boost. This also helps us when we embody ourselves again, then it is also a force that helps us to further develop this I-consciousness on earth. That's where we are. That is the cycle in which we are now standing, since we are really embodied on earth in the material-physical-physical body. There we go back into the so-called Lemurian time. We will come back to that. Yes, so that's what it's all about during our earth evolution. But it is already a question of taking the first delicate steps, yes, how does it work to get along without a physical body, but still to become conscious, because that is what we need for the imagination. The physical body is in the imagination, although we don't simply discard it when we have an imagination, but the actual experience is not connected with the physical tool. The symbolic image that I start from, as it is perhaps written in the Apocalypse, is very well connected with the physical, so also the sensual image, the sensual image that I make for myself, is still completely connected with the physical. But at the moment when I manage to strip that away and remain only in the mood of the soul, and yet not fall asleep, fall into deep sleep, yet remain awake, then I already detach myself from the physical body and become conscious in the etheric body - that is, the next level. Today, in our time, in the 21st century, we are in a situation where this is gradually becoming a human ability, but one that should be consciously cultivated. There are more people than you think who have such experiences, but they are not necessarily fully aware of them. There are certain predispositions that people bring with them from earlier lives, which also determine certain physical predispositions that make it easier for some people. But all in all, we as humanity have crossed the threshold in truth without really being aware of it. In other words, this imaginative, "clairvoyant" element is very close. We must slowly raise it into consciousness. That is the task until the 6th - 8th millennium, when we will no longer incarnate. So that's where we are now concretely. So much for the states of consciousness. This is connected with the 7 planets. I just want to briefly summarise the rest.

Each planetary or cosmic state of development is divided into 7 states of life (great cycles), each of these states of life goes through 7 so-called states of form. Now, of the states of life, the middle 4th state of life could be called, with some justification, the mineral kingdom. Today, for example, we are in the 4th cosmic planetary state of development, we are in the 4th state of life. What about the 7 states of form? 

The shape states start from a still quite the unformed archetypal creative-spiritual The unformed impulse of creation is concretised there. Assuming that the unformed is still the pure original plant, it is neither a rose nor a daisy, nor an oak tree nor anything else, but it contains everything that can create plant life in all imaginable variations and far beyond those that we now have on earth or have ever had, but much, much more that is possible inside. But then I have to translate it into a concrete spiritual image, I am talking about a spiritual image. What is necessary for a rose? That is already something much more compact, but still very much alive, because a rose is not a rigid structure, but first of all it has different growth processes that it goes through and every rose is nevertheless a little different, if you look closely, then they are nevertheless not quite the same, so there is still variation in there, there we would first come to the formed spiritual archetype of the rose. Then it must merge into something MentalThen it is formed in the soul, yes, this is also important with the rose, also with the plants, one will say, do they actually have something soulful in them? They are alive - but they are not animated. Yes, but there is something spiritual that has to work from the outside so that the whole plant can come into being and that even begins to work very delicately into the plant, especially when the blossoms are formed. Every plant that begins to blossom is kissed by the astral world, you could say. The beautiful picture, the plant, the blossom and the insects, the animals that are above it, that are themselves still very little conscious, that are themselves only living beings with very little consciousness, that's exactly where it touches. An elephant does not fertilise the flower. But these very small, delicate animals, the insects, which are just beginning to be animals themselves, where the astral, the soul begins to touch this sphere of life, that's where the blossom comes into being, that's where it blossoms. This is also the case with us, the lotus flowers, the soul organs come into being, this is also connected with the fact that the astral touches the soul, when I develop soul forces through the exercises and these then touch the life forces in certain places, then these so-called chakras or lotus flowers come into being - these soul organs of perception. 

Please I say clearly soul organs of perception, because in dissecting I will not find anything. In the etheric, in the life forces, I will perhaps find a certain concentration of power, but actually these are soul organs that I am training. For example, when I train the imagination, I train the forehead chakra between the eyebrows, where you can feel this centre. This is very much connected with the ability to imagine. It is not by chance that this is in the area of the eyes, which is why we also speak of imaginations, because one also comes very well to imaginations when one starts from sensual optical images, from images in the truest sense of the word, starts from images of meaning. But you still have to strip away the sensual and draw it more into the spiritual, then you come to the imagination. You feel very clearly that the centre is up there somewhere (Wolfgang points to his forehead). 

The next thing that is important here in the larynx area, that is the throat chakra, the lotus flower there has to do with inspiration. Not by chance either, because that is our organ of speech and song. Whereas the ear belongs to it. With the eye it's in one. In the case of hearing and speaking, it's divided between two organs, which actually belong together. It's not true that we only understand language because when we hear sound from outside and it's language, we then speak quietly along with it, which we don't normally notice consciously. In speech formation you can train this a little bit, so that you notice how it goes along, you can even strengthen it, then as a teacher you can immediately sense what is going on, what the pupil is doing wrong. When new students come in and croak, I have such a sore throat afterwards because I have to be attentive and inhale what comes from there. It goes right into your own vocal chords. You can feel it. In other words, the hearing organ and the speech and singing organ are connected. Together they form the forces that are necessary for the organ of inspiration to form at the level of the throat. But this then moves purely in the soul, i.e. detaches itself from the sensual sound, which one can experience when one listens to good beautiful music, lets it reverberate, when it fades away, when the whole thing goes into the inaudible - and what do I continue to experience inwardly? What do I experience there? That's where I approach this sphere. In truth, it is a certain transition, because it becomes real inspiration when I begin to understand very deeply what this sound expresses. That is, what does a spiritual being want to tell me through it? Because basically there is a spiritual being in every piece of music,  there are even many spiritual beings inside, there are elemental beings inside, but also something higher in the whole piece of music. When a composer writes a work, a song, a whole opera, he is actually making a portrait of spiritual beings, a sound portrait that he experiences, with an unconscious inspiration in truth. Most people are not aware of that, that they are actually experiencing a spiritual being that they are listening to. They translate that into sensual music, but that is actually what it is, an encounter with spiritual beings, in an opera an encounter with many spiritual beings. Or in a symphony, for example. Where I just close my eyes and listen and live in the sound, I live in a sound-imaginative image, behind which there are also strong inspirations, I say consciously sound-imaginative image, as long as I do not quite concretely recognise which spiritual being it is that is now speaking through, as long as it is not yet a full inspiration, but on the imaginative level, i.e. at first I do experience spiritual beings. That is, first of all I experience something, I can describe it, somehow grasp it, I can also say how it makes me feel, but I don't know what it is. I have no idea, not really. Unless someone has written down what it is supposed to mean. 

But from myself, I can register how it is, but I do not yet know its meaning in the spiritual context. In the end, that means I don't yet recognise the spiritual being behind it. That is a much more difficult step. I say this because I recently had an interesting conversation, can one, in order to come to imaginations, also start from music? Yes, of course! I don't necessarily have to start from visual images, although that is the most common, but I can very well start from a sound image. I can now immerse myself in this sound, experience what mood it creates in me, and what is the really objective part that comes from the music, I don't know, for example, a major has something more joyful and bright than a minor sound, then it also depends on which major and which minor, it all has different moods, each speaks differently to me. Nevertheless, everyone can say, I like this song, the other says: No, I don't like it at all. I don't like it. I have to be able to separate that from what is objectively inside the sound as a mood. That's part of it with these things. 

Just as a side note: It is part of this that when one goes into the imaginative experience, then one should experience the guardian of the threshold or one's own double, i.e. nothing other than experiencing what likes and what dislikes I have (ego). Because I have to put the likes and dislikes to one side. They cloud my imagination. They distort it. Then I only have an illusion. Then I only experience myself. I am reflected in the other. That may also be quite interesting. But then I learn nothing about this spiritual being in truth, but only a little about myself. That is exactly what should happen when one enters into imaginative experience, that one learns to experience what is my part in the experience personally, individually, egoistically perhaps even? And what is objectively inside the being? In truth, that is behind the encounter with the guardian of the threshold or with the double. That is connected with it. It doesn't have to be so spectacular at the beginning, but when you come to the Dweller of the Threshold unexpectedly, it's devastating. Then you get everything you have in terms of personal and egoistic idiosyncrasies slapped down on you as a bang. That is quite frightening. It's as strong as a real death experience. You then usually have the decision. The guardian is behind you at first, you have the decision, do you turn around or not? If you turn around, you die. Not really, but you basically go through the experience, in a reduced form, what you go through at death, with all the trimmings, with the catch that you don't see the light yet, but that you see the guardian first and foremost. The guardian is the set of all the things that we should still be working on, basically. And that's when you see how much it is. That is really devastating. 

But this experience doesn't have to be radical, it can also take the gentler path, the more leisurely path, so that when you approach the imaginative, you learn to be completely awake to it: What is my soul's own nature that I carry into it? What really comes to me from the spiritual? For example, when I look at a flower, when I follow a sound, when I immerse myself in a picture of the Apocalypse of John, that I separate my experience from what is objectively inside. Then I can slowly approach the guardian and have little experiences with it again and again, because I get to know, aha, this is my sympathy, my antipathy and this is the spiritual itself. In other words, I learn to separate them. In the end, at some point the whole guardian is there in the form of all my idiosyncrasies. My own personal ones, both the good ones and often also the bad ones, because we have more than enough of them in us. 

Because we have to think that we have gained our soul life over a long period of time, and that we have made many mistakes along the way. Because we have moved into the world of the adversaries. They seduce us. As a result, we have woven many things into our soul life that are not so positive. Although we often love it in our earthly existence. These are the things that are fun and funny for us. Even if they are not good for us. It's not as if we always take pleasure in what's good for us. That can also go wrong. So you have to separate them to get an objective picture. 

So we are in the 4th cosmic state (planetary state of development) in the earth's development, in the 4th state of life and now in which state of form? It goes from the 1) unformed spiritual to the 2) formed spiritual, thus from the original plant to the idea of the rose, then 3) through the soul, then into the 4) physical-etheric (in which case they are to be taken together), then it emerges as a living plant, as it is outside in nature. That is the state in which we now stand in the development of the earth. So there again in the 4th state of form. 

4th planetary state, 4th life state and 4th form state - that's where we are now. With this, our cosmos basically begins to physically exist. If natural science describes it, then the big bang begins with this. The whole cosmos with the stars. We are also part of this with our solar system and our earth. All this takes place in the 4th cosmic state, in the 4th state of life and the 4th state of form. That is where we are now. According to external science, this began 14 billion years ago with the Big Bang. And it will continue for a while. That's where we are. 

This is where the development is now taking place, which we must now also further subdivide into 7 main ages (starting from the Big Bang until the end of our cosmos): 1) the polar The last thing to emerge is the first plant for our planetary system, in addition to all the other planetary systems and stars that exist, so it must obviously take a very, very long time, at least if you measure it with the external time scale, which is very problematic, I'm only mentioning the numbers known from science now so that you have some kind of comparison, it is to be taken more qualitatively, but you can certainly say that from our point of view these are huge periods of time; 

then during the next stage, the 2) hyperborean In our solar system, the sun as the central star is formed on the one hand, and the planets orbiting around it, including our earth, are also formed, a process that takes many hundreds of millions of years;

Then it gets interesting, in the next epoch, in the 3) lemurian This is the beginning of the earth, which has already dissolved, which is at first still very liquid, perhaps also flammable, where it begins to condense and harden more and more and towards the middle to the end of this Lemurian time man begins to enter the earth. That is when the incarnations begin. That is the moment when the earth element also passes from the liquid to viscous state into the crystalline state. This is described in the apocalypse "the sea of glass" called. That is why it is so important. It has a lot to do with the fact that human beings are beginning to walk the earth. But of course not in the form we are today. It is more like this, figuratively, the human being, who is not yet physical, but who does have the I - the astral, the etheric forces, the physical, but if so, then only supersensible, that is, not yet material - the whole begins to dive deeper and deeper into the material, from the warmth element down into the air element. This is indicated in Genesis, Yahweh-Elohim breathed into him the living breath, i.e. in truth nothing other than that he begins to absorb the air element, i.e. everything that is gaseous. But there he is still hovering above the surface of the earth. The more he descends, further through the so-called fall of man, the deeper he descends, then also once very delicately into the liquid element, so he comes closer to the surface of the earth and there it already begins to crystallise below. So he is not really standing on the earth yet, but man descends and the forces of crystallisation spread. That is very interesting, the forces of crystallisation are very high forces, I have already said earlier that this is connected with the mineral consciousness that encompasses the whole cosmos. Yes, in truth, one more corner. There comes something that is beyond time and space at all, precisely from there comes our I-power too. So the crystal-forming forces are basically the same forces as the I-forces. Only that they now work on the purely mineral level below. I.e. I-Forces on the mineral level, these are the forces that form the crystals below. And this happens to the extent that the human being approaches his first incarnation. 

It takes a while until he really dives into the crystalline. So first into the liquid and then into the crystalline, first very gently, first feeling these forces. You have to think that when you say that the first incarnation takes place in Lemurian time, then it is already in a physical being, a physical being that also already has these crystallisation forces, but materially it is not yet immersed in the solid earth. Difference: physical / material. The difference is quite essential. I.e. the incarnations begin in a physical body, but it is not yet material or at least not yet material into the solid earth element, but at most into the liquid at first. That is to say, at that time the human being is a large current of water or something like that, flowing, raining, cloudily distributed water, in which the I lives. It embodies itself in it. But not yet in something like what we have now. It will also come towards us again in the future.

If we ask ourselves the question, what will be when we have passed our last incarnation? Hooray! Now up into the spiritual world to the highest peak and uninterested in what is down there? No! That's not how it works! Rather, we detach ourselves from this physical, solid body, I say now quite consciously, and pass over into a body that is only liquid, in vapours, perhaps in water surfaces, with which we are connected, like the angelic beings. Angelic beings also work down to the watery element. But they don't have a closed body that can be outlined in any way, but under certain circumstances they are connected with a certain surface of water in a lake and somewhere with another one in America. The spatial separation doesn't matter at all. There is some common ground and an angelic being is loosely connected to it. You can't say incarnated. Because incarnated would mean in a closed physicality. But it still has relations with the physical-liquid element inside, yes, and that's how it will be with human beings too. 

And then it goes more into the airy element, so into the storms, into the wind, into these forces, into the air currents, that's where we will live one day. Then it goes into the warmth element. And then we detach ourselves completely from the material, only then are we completely detached from the material. Because material is the solid, the liquid, the gaseous, and heat is the transition. Heat is already - is it still material or is it actually no longer material? There is the transition. Heat is a very interesting place. By the time we go through the last incarnation on earth, we should have succeeded in grasping the solid in us. So the Christ has gone before us, in that through his earthly life and through the Mystery of Golgotha he has united himself with the physical down to the mineral bones. That is, down to the mineral elements in the bones. That is the essence. Thus the task of humanity is fulfilled through him in one copy. We must strive for this. In other words, we have not yet reached the point where we are fully incarnated. We are not yet finished with it. Although we should be out of the incarnations again relatively soon. We are actually finished when we have penetrated all the way to the physical and have also penetrated that with our I-consciousness. And we should be able to do that to a certain extent at least until the 6th - 8th millennium. And then we let the mineral fall, i.e. the solid element fall out of our physicality and then it passes over into the liquid and the liquid just melts. It has the property of flowing away. Then we are no longer incarnated in the sense that the word carne contains the K, the edge, the corner, the border. Incarnation basically means incarnation, but it also means that we have a closed form. As we know it today in something. But in any case a limited form. At the moment when I pass into the liquid element, I am still in the material, but the form dissolves, perhaps into the form of drops, the drops disperse, or flow as a stream, or it evaporates, then it slowly passes into the gaseous element, into the vapour element. We will live in these things in the same way as angelic beings live inside today. 

It's not so stupid when today the meteorologists, when today a hurricane or some low comes, then they get names. Yes, there is something behind it in truth. There is something behind it, that there are indeed powerful sublime entities working inside and expressing themselves for a time in this structure. They are inside. And they are fulfilling their task that they have on earth. There is once again something to be reshaped on earth. Also concerning the fate of human beings. For us, it looks terrible when so many people are injured by the hurricane, but there is obviously also a certain spiritual necessity. It is often the case that these things do not just fall from the sky, we also have something to do with the fact that natural disasters and such things happen. In the past, it was more directly triggered by the gods or by the angelic beings who were behind it, in order to bring the development of the earth and humanity in the right direction. 

But today, a great deal already depends on how we treat the earth. An enormous amount depends on it. The fate of the earth is one hundred percent in our hands. We have help, of course, and forces that support us, but whether these forces can work in a positive sense or in a negative sense is up to us. Basically, since the turn of time, this has begun to lie within us and we have now been massively involved in it for two centuries, since the middle of the 19th century. Also through what we do outwardly, but even more through what we do or don't do spiritually. That has a very great influence. Because above all, and this brings me back to the imagination, if we don't develop living thinking today, then we don't carry enough forces into our afterlife, where we are already working with nature outside. That brings the great differences for the next centuries or decades, because today everything goes faster. These are forces that are involved. We are ruining the world not only through pollution and these things like CO2 and climate catastrophe. That's the external. But what is actually even more lasting are the failures in spiritual development. Those have a long-term effect. 

Only through our small, human, dwarfish perspective of the temporal dimension do few people realise this. But we also reshape the world spiritually. That is also our task. That's what the earth is for. That means that today, for the sake of the earth and all other life on earth, we must develop this imaginative, living thinking. Really now! In this century at least. That's where we have to put on our clothes. Actually, it should already be developed in the 20th century, but there were very strong impacts of the adversaries, of course, so just in the middle of the 20th century, or before the middle of the 20th century, but it has already begun with the First World War and the skirmishes that preceded it, and the First World War basically merges smoothly into the Second World War in truth. That held up a great deal of development. You also have to see that. For individuals, the catastrophe has brought a boost, but on the whole, this development has prevented these imaginative forces in humanity from waking up to the extent that they could have and should have. The even worse damper for the spiritual-imaginative consciousness is the time after the end of the Second World War, the economic miracle, going completely into the outer world, going completely into technology, going completely into the economy and with the consciousness away from the spiritual. Investing everything spiritual in external development. 

It has to be said that it was necessary. It only shows us one thing that we have to create, the wrong thing was not to enter into this economic miracle, that was not the mistake. The mistake was that we did not seek the same degree of spiritual immersion. That is the problem. Both and. Spiritual development, as we could or should strive for today, also needs this technical-Ahrimanic counter-attack. Needs it. So spiritual development gets the necessary strength in the confrontation with this technicalahrimanic counter-attack, you with the hard economic counter-attack. That belongs together. The Corona crisis is of our own making. Sure, there have always been epidemics, today there are better means against them, but we will increasingly breed such viruses for ourselves if we do not strive for a more spiritual development. Then we will always have the problem that we do the technical things, but we do them in such a way that they become harmful, that they have harmful effects. That is the problem. 

We need the spiritual in order to make technology in such a way that it helps us in our development and supports us, but does not hinder us spiritually and destroy nature prematurely. That is possible! It is compatible! One can certainly speak of a spiritually appropriate technology. Or one that is not spiritually appropriate. Technology itself will never become spiritual, even the best artificial intelligence will not be spiritual, but it must be able to serve the spiritual. Today, we are more in the grip of technology. There is the problem. So we have to remain the master inside the whole thing. Of course there is something spiritual in technology, but it is not this creative spirituality, it is this combinatorial spirituality that plays through all the possibilities that exist with a tremendous intelligence. But in truth we cannot develop the Michaelic intelligence without dealing with this Ahrimanic intelligence. Michael defeating the dragon means: that we have him. Now we have him. He has brought the dragon down to earth. Now is the time to deal with it. With every step we take in technical and economic development, it is a call to take a stronger step into the spiritual realm. To really take a step into the spiritual. Not to talk about the spiritual in the old sense, like the theologians with the old mind. That is perhaps the beginning, I take a book by R. Steiner and start reading it and try to understand it like a philosophical or theological work.  But it gets really interesting there when I manage to take the step of diving into living thinking. To have that courage. I might have studied the book for ten years, then I close it and then I try to develop the whole picture out of myself. As it comes. It will certainly be a little different from what R. Steiner describes. That doesn't matter. The spiritual world is so rich that it is never a question of me standing at exactly the same crossroads that is described there, but my task is to look, there is also an interesting place next to it. But even if Steiner had spoken all day, all night, the spiritual world is inexhaustible. There are vast white spaces in between, about which not a single word has yet fallen. But they affect us very closely. Developing spiritually means that I find a spot where I can contribute to brightening up something in there. We can be thankful that we have the big framework and the big map, where a lot of things have been opened up and we can therefore always find our way and not get completely lost in an area that is still completely unexplored. But ultimately it's about clearing up the white spots. And everyone can do that, everyone has in fact taken that on as a spiritual task. To brighten up a little spot. Because, in truth, we are setting ourselves a spiritual task down here, but we can do it, for example, with the means of technology or with the external physical means that we also need in order to realise it. That is part of it! It doesn't mean that I only follow a spiritual path if I sit in a lotus position in a monastery and meditate all day. That can also be necessary and good. But if I only do that, then it doesn't correspond to our time, but to our time: place yourself in the middle of life. And really into the middle, where it is, so to speak, completely at the height of its time. There I must be able to develop and find the spiritual. That is where we are today! 

Now in our 4th cosmic state, 4th state of life and in the 4th state of form, of the main ages we have spoken of 1) Polar time, 2) Hyperborean time, 3) Lemurian time, we begin to enter the earth. After the Lemurian follows the 4) Atlantic periodFrom the middle of the Atlantean period onwards, we slowly enter the physical form, which already absorbs more solid matter, which slowly approaches our form. And at the end, beginning about 70,000 years ago, the Homo sapiensWith him we come out of Atlantis and enter the time of the cultural epochs, after the great floods, when the ice age recedes, we enter the ages of the cultural epochs. 

We are now in which main age? 1) Polar time, 2) Hyperborean, 3) Lemurian, 4) Atlantic, 5) Post-Atlanticthat is, in the fifth. There we are not on the fourth step, but on the fifth already. Like the fingers of a hand. Now we are in the fifth, the post-Atlantean time (main age), there are the 7 cultural epochs: 1) Urindian, 2) Urpersian, 3) Egyptian-Chaldean (sentient soul),  4) Greek-Latin (there is the earth life of the Christ with the turn of time, mind and soul, because there is a connection between thinking and feeling), now we are already in the 5th cultural epoch. We are also on the fifth level. 

Question from the audience: Is there also a sounding name for it? 

W.: R. Steiner sometimes calls them Germanic-Anglo-Saxon cultural epochbecause these are the peoples who give the decisive impulse for the development of the consciousness soul (modern times). With the 5th cultural epoch we stand in the development of the consciousness soul. The development of the sentient soul only begins with the Egyptians. This is when this soul internalisation really begins. Then with the Greeks the mind soul. The further I go back into the Greco-Latin period, the stronger it is at the beginning, then it begins to separate more strongly, and today, in science in particular, but also in technology, of course, and in economic thinking, we still live mainly from the mind soul, which, however, has completely atrophied the soul part. That is what determines us today. The ahrimanic forces then live very strongly in it. The Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces, which are also involved, are in balance in the mind and soul. Today they are not in balance as far as thinking is concerned. 

The intellect that dominates everything today, the modern intellect, is a very one-sided, highly specialised manifestation of what basically comes from the Greco-Latin period. We peddle it throughout our educational life, it lives on it and it is becoming more and more intensified, on the totally dead intellect. It is high time that we now enter into the Living-Imaginative That's the important thing, that's the decisive step, otherwise technology will overtake us. Otherwise the earth will be destroyed. We need the living, we need it to practise agriculture, because the way we practise it today, with artificial fertilisers and sprays, to get more and more yield, which is of course necessary to a certain extent to feed humanity. Although the economy works so badly that masses of food are thrown away and spoil. If it were better organised, we would not consume so many resources for a long time. Although I concede that it has become more effective over the decades. You can't just rant and say exploitation is getting bigger, that's true, but we've also become more effective nonetheless. We are making more usable things with less raw materials. It's not that it's all downhill, but it's still not easy enough. Because the burdens will increase even more. 

We must therefore continue with the development of living thinking and develop other methods of cultivation, such as those contained in biodynamics, and once again supply the earth with more life forces. Nitrogen fertilisers and other such things are in fact ruining the earth. The seeds monopolised by the big companies, which are completely one-sided, perhaps have a certain resistance to pests or something, but at far too high a price. Namely for nature. These are things that can also be achieved by other means. It is clear that we have a large human population to feed and we need much more if we really want to feed the whole of humanity well, because it is still the case that today not as many people starve to death as in the past, but nevertheless broad masses still live on a low threshold where it is just enough to survive, but, as they say, "too little to live and too much to die. I.e. we need a lot. 

It is also no coincidence that so many people are incarnated in our time, which is one of the reasons why the population is so strong, because so many people want to incarnate at the same time. And this will continue to increase for some time. There are also forecasts in external research that it will increase at least until the end of this century, i.e. until 2100, and then it will begin to decrease, then the population will decline. We can see it in the developed industrial countries, too, how the birth rates are declining there. This is also the case here. If we didn't have the influx from countries that are not yet as technologically advanced, there would usually be more offspring there. But Europe itself is in the process of a strong decline in the birth rate, which is also leading to an ageing of society. There is a reason for this and it is justified, but in the not so distant future this will also be the case worldwide, that incarnations will slowly decline again, that longer periods will develop between incarnations, i.e. not yet that many people will stop incarnating, at most there will be very few, because this will only begin in the 6th - 8th millennium. But it will be the case that the intervals between incarnations will increase again. They are now comparatively extremely dense. 

They were not in the past. Those who have already studied anthroposophy more intensively know that the cosmic average between incarnations is about a thousand years, i.e. in a cultural epoch there are two incarnations on average, which often means one male and one female alternately, although there are deviations from this. There can also be a few female incarnations in a row and then one male or vice versa. On the whole, it balances out somewhere. But today the incarnations are incredibly dense, often only a few decades apart, in extreme cases even shorter, but that is only the case with very high initiates or with people who are extremely materialistic. Because they don't start anything with the spiritual world and very quickly plunge down again into a new incarnation. But that doesn't make it any better, because they basically bring very little spiritual renewal forces with them from over there. 

Yes, we are therefore living in an exciting special time, because we are stuck in the maximum speed of spiritual development. That's why there are so many incarnations, quickly one after the other, down again, developing spiritually again, because now it's all about the sausage. Really now!  What we do now will determine how the next cultural epoch will proceed. How many people will already bring enough spiritual strength with them to then already develop a culture, a real culture of brotherhood, which should ultimately end in at least a larger part of humanity simply having this really spiritual connection, this brotherly connection. Not everyone will manage it. It will be total fragmentation in return. Struggle of all against all. These are the opposite poles. Today, however, a great deal is already being decided about what the relationship will be. How many will be able to develop brotherhood and develop it so strongly that later on they will be able to give new impulses to those who are completely immersed in their egoism, so that they can get out of this swamp. Because otherwise there is a huge fragmentation impulse in there. 

Interestingly, this is also connected with these crystal-forming, but also I-forming forces. On the one hand, they can produce a wonderful spiritual form. This is because it is responsible for the fact that our I, when it has developed this purely spiritual formative power, can also be a completely independent free being in purely spiritual existence. That is why we actually need these crystallising forces. Angel beings, for example, who have come into contact with the liquid and are now in contact with it, do not have this. Their spiritual form melts away. They flow together with the other angels. They cannot hold on to their own spiritual form. That is why they lose their freedom. Even if they are - still - superior to us in spiritual terms. But they cannot. We can. Only: In these crystallisation forces there is also inside, yes, the I-forces can also fragment, everything can disintegrate into individual egos. Yes, even the I-power itself can fragment. We will come to that later. 

Because it is precisely the adversary forces, namely the third group, the so-called asuras, who are very strong today in the background, behind Lucifer and Ahriman, who can really cause I-forces to be splintered. That the I loses splinters, if you translate it figuratively. Neither Lucifer nor Ahriman can do that, but the Asuras strive for exactly that. Since they are already there today in the background and only Lucifer and Ahriman actually push forward, that is why it is often so difficult today to distinguish, is this now Luciferic? Or is it ahrimanic? If I look more closely, it is sometimes something Luciferian, and if I look even more closely, it is also something quite Ahrimanic. Especially in the technical media, a prime example is Lucifer with the beautiful images that are downright addictive, and behind him Ahriman with the technology, that works together one to one. Although otherwise they don't always like each other so much, because they actually have opposing impulses. But it is the asuras who bring them together and who can thus get much closer to the human being. That is the problem! We will deal with this in more detail in the later lectures. 

In other words, these forces of fragmentation, which also lie within the crystal-forming forces, are the problem. Do we manage to create our spiritual form? Or will we allow ourselves to fragment? That is the big question. That decides whether we develop brotherhood, whether we become a pure crystal that unites with the other pure crystals to form a wonderful building. This is connected, for example, with the description of the New Jerusalem, where there is also talk of crystals, of precious stones, where there is talk of the cube shape of this New Jerusalem, but now we must not imagine it externally. It is about these spiritual crystal-forming forces in truth, which are connected with the I-forces, and that out of these I-forces the next cosmic-planetary state is created - the New Jerusalem or R. Steiner calls it the New Jupiter. That is the same thing. It depends very much on which crystal-forming forces, i.e. which I-forces we use to get there. And today we have to work on this the most. That is why so many people are here today. Because everyone has to participate. Now in time, in the next few centuries. In the next few centuries. Now is the crucial time, you can say the Michael Age about. The Michael Age began in 1879 and will last 350 - 400 years, part of which we have already completed, roughly 150 years have already passed, so we still have about 250 years to go. 

Then, at the latest, the sequences of incarnations will become less dense, then this task will be mastered or not mastered, that is the question. But in this Michael Age in which we are standing, in which we must, if we want to do something positive for the development of humanity and the Earth, we must have consciously developed all these higher cognitive abilities such as imagination, inspiration and intuition to a certain degree. In truth, we do not have much time left for this. We will certainly have two or three more incarnations during this time, but we have to step on the gas in spite of everything, because then the time is over when the favourable conditions are still there for developing this, i.e. it will become much more difficult. That is the problem. In other words, anyone who doesn't succeed now will be even less able to do so without the help of others. A lot of help will be necessary. That means that if not enough people make it now, there will be too little help for those who are lagging behind, who will have to make up for what they have already failed to do under more difficult and less favourable conditions, where the conditions would actually be favourable. 

In other words, there has probably never been an epoch in the entire development of humanity that has been so favourable for the development of the higher spiritual faculties as now. Since the dawn of the Michael Age, perhaps with a bit of a prelude, the Goethe Age, where it is already pushing in this direction, where preliminary impulses are visible, but actually beginning  with the Michael Age, from then on 350-400 years, that is the time when the greatest development is possible and therefore the highest speed is also demanded of us. That will increase. Question from the audience: So it doesn't make sense to limit the number of people to 500 million, because it makes sense that there are so many of us? W.: Yes, it makes sense now and it will make sense afterwards, when this time is over, the population will decrease anyway. And it will decline quite fast and quite extremely. You don't have to believe that in 300-400 years there will be as many people on earth as there are today. Precisely because the incarnations will then be further apart. Then the distances between the incarnations will be greater again and it won't be so many incarnations until we are ready to live without a physical body. So 6th - 8th millennium. There will then be perhaps 500 to 700 years between the individual incarnations. The incarnations that still lie ahead of us can be counted on two hands. Until then we will have to manage without physical incarnation. 

Question from the audience: This development of consciousness presupposes imagination, inspiration, intuition? If it is to go according to the spiritual side, at least to some extent. You have to think that imagination, inspiration, intuition have such a broad spectrum, how deeply you penetrate all these things. It's about getting to know each other for the first time. With imagination, you always have the overall picture that you are focussed on, but you don't have it as clearly in all the details as R. Steiner does. One has one's own approach, more or less. That is, the picture is still blurred and still very vague. But it is something to start with. It is important that I enter into my own experience and that I begin to build up the picture from my own living thinking and then I realise that on the one hand I am painting it, but in terms of content it is also painting itself. It is paradoxical. But in thinking, we don't really do it any differently, because I can't think of the concept of a triangle in a completely arbitrary way. A triangle is something different from a quadrilateral. I cannot declare a triangle to be a quadrilateral. Then my thinking is not correct. And yet the thought of the triangle only comes forth when I am active. I have to think it actively! And in a heightened form this is the case with the imagination. I have to form it so that it is there in my consciousness at all, but nevertheless something objective is expressed in it. Not just a subjective fantasy or phantasm. If it were a fantasy, then it would almost be an unconscious imagination anyway. 

Real fantasy differs from phantasmagoria simply in that there is actually an imagination in the background, but I don't experience it as such, only the transformation into the sensual-fantastic image. Like a dream image or something. The dream does the same. In truth, however, a real fantasy is the result of a subconscious imagination. The fairy tales, for example, the storytellers, there were certainly some who also saw the imagination, but those were certainly the few, the majority were those who unconsciously had the imagination behind them and that dresses itself up in this fantasy image. But there is something very real behind it. It is not just a fantasy. It is not always like that with today's made-up fairy tales. It can be when a person writes from imagination, but sometimes it is fantasy that comes in, because then the mind comes in and the mind does not experience the imagination. The mind comes in at the expense of the imagination. 

Plato still has that, the vision of ideas. A few other philosophers too. But proper philosophical logical thinking comes at the moment when imagination sinks underground and becomes unconscious. That is why Aristotle, for example, essentially no longer has any imagination. He does have the knowledge that this existed and that people around him still have it, and he also understands what they say. But he no longer has it himself. He has to go through it, so to speak. And he has to go through it as his later incarnation as Thomas Aquinas. Throughout his life, until shortly before the end of his life, he pushes this to the extreme. Because basically this is the finest elaboration of what began with Aristotle, then shortly before the end of his life on St. Nicholas' Day in 1273, suddenly the imagination breaks through during mass. From that point on he didn't write or dictate a line. Where he says: "What I have written so far is all dry straw. It's all worth nothing." He died in 1274. There is a great imagination before him and it is a thousand times richer than all his works put together. Nevertheless, he did a great thing in bringing this mind soul to blossom. In this case, the mind and the soul, because he had the power of faith with him, which is connected to the mind. 

What we have today is the mind-soul freed from the mind-soul. That is scientific thinking today. On the whole, imagination is not part of it. Except in the case of individual leading scientists who have a brilliant intuition somewhere, an Einstein, something like that comes out of an imagination, or a Wolfgang Pauli, the quantum physicist. He has experienced very definite imaginations. He experiences the spirit of matter, that is, Mr Ahriman. And he appears in his dreams. And C. G. Jung helps him to raise this into consciousness so that he can record it afterwards. And besides that, he is also a completely rational person. But then something breaks through from the other side. There are individuals who have such experiences, but we have to tackle that consistently in the 21st century. We have to say that the rational soul, as it is today, is no longer sufficient. It is also no longer sufficient to really take spiritual science further. It is enough to perhaps understand what we have read, but we must take it further today. So much has been given by R. Steiner, but certainly also by a few others who have contributed something to it, but nevertheless a main burden has been borne by him, that is an impulse that must become fruitful now at the latest. Actually it was meant for the 20th century, but there it perished by and large and saved itself, like Christianity in the catacombs at that time. 

It is now time to emerge from these catacombs, but prudently, step by step, to say that we may have the courage today to take the first step into our own spiritual perception, because it is actually there quite beneath the surface. It won't help us any more if we simply interpret with our intellect for another century what has been handed down in spiritual writings, we won't get anywhere with that. That is the point. But it is possible. In the beginning it won't be anything earth-shattering, but small things are what's important today. No one today will be able, as R. Steiner did, to draw out of himself this whole development of the world in an arc, with the path from Old Saturn to the volcano and in all its details, so that it really becomes present to you in an imagination fully and in all clarity in all its details. We will still need a while to do that. But to experience a little bit of an image of it and not just to take over the description from the text, but to experience it, that's where we are in truth, that's what we can achieve. People who aspire to that can achieve that. I would be glad if this were not burdened with the pompous word "clairvoyance", but really imaginative thinking. That is the step. 

That is, it has the consciousness of thinking, it has the knowledge that I lead this thinking, that I must actively exercise it in order for it to come about. But it expresses an objective spiritual content that places itself before my consciousness as a purely mental image, as a purely mental experience. I "paint" this mental image. I can also say that I let it sound. It contains everything that cannot be expressed in words. What I can only experience, and perhaps, when more people experience it, we can create new words, new concepts to communicate it. We still have to rely on the vernacular languages that exist, that we grew up in, that we know, but they have a limited vocabulary. And precisely for this imaginative world, it has hardly any real vocabulary. Instead, it has to express it in sensual images. But language will also go there, that it will find words directly from the experience of these imaginations. In other words, language will also change. All this in the not so distant future. 

Poets have always tried to do this, especially Goethe, who sometimes invents words. If the language is too narrow for him, then he changes it in such a way that something new comes out of it, but not just putting a word together, but really working on it from the sound and shaping it further artistically. So that it expresses the nuance of the soul that he needs for his semi-conscious imaginings. Because the great thing about Goethe is that he has this totally pronounced, he stands exactly on this border, he has this sensual-supersensual experience, i.e. he has the imagination in the background and the sensual in the foreground at the same time. He knows that there is something behind it, be it the sensual-moral effect of the colours. Behind the moral effect there is actually the imaginative behind the colour as the first thing. Because that is a purely spiritual-moral experience. Every colour has a certain soul quality, that's what he means by the moral behind it. This always resonates with him, i.e. when he looks sensually into the world, his imagination is always in the background. So that in the end he really comes to the original plant and sees it inwardly before his eyes, probably also as a mixture between the pure imagination and the translation into the sensual image, which is constantly changing and reshaping itself. What we can and should do today, however, is really to separate the sensual imagination, if it is a mobile sensual imagination, from the actual imagination. That we can keep it apart, consciously, but also bring it together, for example, to be able to talk about it with today's language. These are the things that are really within reach today.

We will need this kind of experience the next time we really go into the opening of the seven seals from the beginning. There we will deal with the 7 seals. Today I have again taken the preparation to go into this imaginative experience first of all and in what form it is accessible to us today, as it was not the case perhaps a hundred years ago. A hundred years is an extremely long time today, perhaps it flies by, but an extremely long time in the sense that an incredible number of developmental steps have happened. The pace is increasing immensely. It really began very strongly with industrialisation, i.e. with the working of the Ahrimanic forces, that they have such a strong influence, which on the other hand is connected with the acceleration of the course of time. On the other hand, this also enables us to pick up the pace of spiritual development. This would not have been possible in an untouched nature as it was a thousand years ago. Today, this is necessary in the confrontation with this technical world. That is why we need Ahriman to be able to develop this spirituality now. That is why we need technology in order to have to deal with it. Because only through it can we develop this tempo in spiritual evolution. Tempo with power and intensity behind it. Not flitting about superficially, but with absolute deepening. That is possible today, and in truth the Ahrimanic forces help us to do it. Although they are not so directly in consciousness that they want to help us, but they do in any case.  They give us the incentive. They virtually invite us to do so. 

That is, we must not be afraid of all the adversary powers. We have to be very careful with them, we have to have a lot of respect because they are really powerful and they have many powers that are actually superior to ours. Only - we have the free creative I, and they don't have that freedom. Neither does Ahriman. And above all, he does not have this creative. There is a source in us that is inexhaustible. The Ahrimanic source is finite. It is huge, he has a huge arsenal at his disposal. But it is always finite. And there will always come a point somewhere where it will come to an end. And where man can go one step further. We must also be aware of that. He is a seemingly overpowering opponent, but we little dwarves can always be one step ahead of him in truth. That's what it's all about! He can spread out his arsenal, but there is a point where he can't go any further. But we can. That one step is the decisive one. And then we can thumb our noses at him, he may be just ahead of us, but he can't cross the bridge. 

The Apocalypse is not a book that should frighten us, but rather give us courage, even though the next few times we will be confronted with increasingly drastic descriptions. The imaginings in the Apocalypse are violent. I have already said that, too, because it serves to trigger really violent mental shocks, because the imaginings are woven out of them. From the mental shocks that we experience. That is the material from which the imaginations are woven. We have to experience them intensively enough, live through them, live with them, then we are already inside this world. We just have to separate them from our personal feelings and emotions that accompany us, we still have to learn to separate them. That we really experience the objective shocks in the spiritual world and not just our own little ones, that also comes into it, because there it is again the ego that begins to fear, oh so terrible, but that's not what it's about, it's about feeling what spiritual power is behind it. And what task is connected with it. 

We go into the opening of the seals, that is, we go directly into the imagination. Because it's called the book with the seven seals, but in the Apocalypse they are unsealed. And it says somewhere at the end in the 22nd chapter, it says quite clearly that the Apocalypse itself, i.e. the Revelation, it is not sealed. It is accessible to everyone. "And he said unto me, Seal not up the forward-looking words of this book, for the time is short." The truth is that here in the Apocalypse the whole seals are opened, behind the seals is the whole development of humanity as our task, what we can do. This is really being unsealed. But not simply as information, but as an incentive to really go through with this development. So to become apocalyptics ourselves, basically. And to write one's own apocalypse in one's own life, through one's life, not as a book, but with how one is active in life. Yes, more about that next time. 

Question from the audience: Dear Wolfgang, you talked about the big bang, I know so little about the real big bang?

W.: Yes, that is the question, who really knows about the Big Bang?

Question further: I have a problem with the big bang! 

W.: No, I took it because I wanted to take up the contemporary scientific picture. It has a correctness in it, and that was the really progressive thing in the big bang theory, that the cosmos as it is, as we know it today, did not always exist.  but that it emerged from nothingness, that is, in truth from a purely spiritual state. Whereas the old Newton and many other physicists had previously assumed that space and time had existed eternally and will always exist and that everything takes place from eternity to eternity. But that is precisely what is not in harmony with spiritual development. There is no imperishable cosmos, but it came into being once out of nothing and it will pass away again. And then a new cosmos will arise. 

Closing words: I am happy if the lectures are interesting for you and that we can simply share it with each other. They are suggestions. Everyone has to see what they do with it for themselves. But it is important, it gains strength when you share it with each other. It has more power than sitting at home for ten years and studying it. That is also good as preparation and necessary, but then it is good to simply share it. Yes, it is an anticipation of this brotherly or sisterly element of the future. That is being prepared now, basically. Allow spiritual sharing, also that everyone has their point of view, one will also see in the imaginations, depending on which point of view I come from, it looks different. This is also clear with R. Steiner, when he talks about one and the same subject in different places, he often tells it quite differently again. Because he sees it from a different angle. Because he senses that the listeners there need a different perspective. You have to deal with that. And not say: Either I'm right or you're right! No, I'm certainly right! Because I'm the clever one. That doesn't count! Instead, you have to look at what comes out in the imaginations, then try to share them and talk about them, because of course there can be mistakes. In the same way as in the sensual, you may have looked at something the wrong way and not have recognised it correctly. That is what happens in the  Nothing at all at the moment. Just have the courage to enter into this experience. 

Comment from a member of the audience: I have not yet seen the need. I would have had the courage. I have always thought that this is only for the spiritual researchers. And I only have to form the heart forces to the intellect. 

W.: It's good to go on the path once, to go with the mind, with logic, and to have the heart with you, that's the start. It's absolutely okay to stay with it, but the future will ultimately be decided by daring to take the leap into the imagination. But don't immediately think that now I'm a clairvoyant and that I'm a psychic.  see God knows what all. No! Imaginations are quite modest at the beginning. Inspiration and intuition are always there in the background anyway. Even if you think with an open heart and a more lively mind, if you don't just think logically but live a little with the descriptions, then they are also there in the background. Only they remain unconscious. The three higher types of knowledge are always there together, it is only a question of which veil I lift, what do I see then? What do I come across? The source is always intuition, because there I am one with the spiritual being and the spiritual experience really starts from there. Only there do I actually fall asleep when I connect with the spiritual being. Usually at least. I have already told you a few times that this also happens in normal interpersonal encounters, where it happens continuously that I intuitively connect with the other person, but just when I immerse myself in him, then I am gone for myself. Then I have completely lost my self-consciousness. Instead, I am completely devoted to him. Of course, I then have to come back to myself and I take a little bit of that with me. Then comes a bit of an inspiration, what kind of person is this? Actually, it begins a little bit like a dream with the inspiration to experience something. In an imagination, I can form a picture of this person, but often not very consciously. When it comes to describing it, it's often difficult. Somehow I have a sense of who the person is. It's just a matter of becoming more aware of that. The interpersonal encounters are the most important thing, because they are very concrete encounters of spiritual beings. 

Comments from the audience: But as you described it, I always had the club in the background, I have to do the exercises. 

W.: (laughs) No! We don't have to do anything. Just the way we talk about it here will certainly stimulate a lot. That's where it starts. Doing the exercises really consistently makes sense when I say, but now I want to do them. Now I really feel like it. I can no longer hold back from doing them. Then it's the right time to start the exercises. Before that it's no use anyway. Then you do your exercises for ten years and everything is the same as it was before. The right time is crucial. I just want to encourage you, it can be very close for many people. The moment you feel the impulse, yes, now I want to. I then do the exercises and look forward to the next day when I can do it again. Then the time is there! In truth, we are closer to that today than we were a hundred years ago. In between there was an age where this was basically very much hindered. The whole 20th century, basically. But paradoxically now, the very strong adversary impact from 1998 onwards is different, now is the time when the most can go on in the spiritual realm. Much is possible now. 

Question from a listener: As you described it, with the great guardian, passing by, through music, can that also happen, now I ask you, because everything is locked at the moment, can that also happen through the laptop? For example, when you listen to a good opera?

W.: It can be an impulse, because the actual is only stimulated by the external anyway, but it depends on one's own experience. Of course, it is more difficult to get the stimulation through the technical medium, but it is possible. It certainly can. It's also possible that the lectures work here. And before we started, I was extremely sceptical that it was possible to talk about the apocalypse online and that something would come across and above all that I would have a feeling that these are people, not only you who are physically sitting in front of me, but also you out there. I could not have imagined that. But I see that it works. 

Question from a listener: Difference between consciousness and sensation?

W.: It is a matter of raising the sensation into such an awake consciousness as we have today only towards the mental or also towards sensual perception. That would be to direct the consciousness soul to the soul-spiritual, that is the first thing, to really get to know the sensations as awake as we get to know the sensual and the intellectual today. 

Question from a listener: Research asks where is consciousness? How does it get into sensation? Is there a difference?

W.: Yes. That would be a broad topic, to distinguish what comes from the body. We have external senses, we have internal sensory organs, we feel when something changes with the breathing, something physical clearly plays a role, nevertheless, when I get short of breath, there is a sensation of fear, that is physically triggered, but the fear that arises is something purely mental, that is an exciting topic, we still need years to differentiate that.