The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fourth Lecture

[ 1 ] As the soul that has become clairvoyant progresses further and further, it moves from what has been referred to here in recent days as the elemental world deeper into the actual spiritual world. Much of what has already been hinted at must be taken into account to an even greater degree when it comes to the ascent of the human soul into the true spiritual world. Within the elemental world, many of the processes and things that the now clairvoyant soul encounters still recall qualities, forces, and all manner of things in the sensory world. But when the soul ascends into the spiritual world, the qualities and characteristics of the processes and beings there present themselves in a completely different way than is the case in the sensory world. To a much greater extent, the soul must, so to speak, wean itself from the desire to make do with the faculties and powers of perception that are suitable for the sensory world. And indeed, one of the most unsettling things for the human soul is to face a world to which it is completely unaccustomed, a world that necessitates, as it were, leaving behind everything it has hitherto experienced and observed. Nevertheless, if you look at the descriptions of the actual spiritual world in my *Theosophy* or in my *Outline of Esoteric Science*, or now again in the fifth and sixth images of “The Awakening of the Soul,” you will notice that these depictions—both the more scientific ones and the more vivid, scene-like ones—are presented in visual material that is, so to speak, entirely drawn from impressions and observations of the physical-sensory world.

[ 2 ] Recall for a moment how the passage through what is called Devachan—or, as I have called it, the Spirit Realm—is depicted. You will find that the images used there contain features drawn from sensory perception. This must necessarily be the case from the outset if one undertakes to depict on stage the spiritual realm—the realm that the human soul experiences between death and a new birth. It is therefore necessary to characterize the processes, everything that happens, in images drawn from the physical-sensory world. For you can easily form a mental image of what one would bring from the truly spiritual world—and which could have absolutely nothing in common with the sensory world—today’s theater practitioners would know little what to do. Thus, when depicting the spiritual realm, one is compelled to express oneself through images drawn from sensory observation. But this is not the only reason. One might easily believe that one must proceed in this way in the portrayal—because what is used there as sensory images points to a world that has nothing in common with the sensory world in its characteristics—one might believe that whoever wishes to portray this world simply takes refuge in sensory images. But that is not the case. For the soul that has become clairvoyant, when it enters the spiritual world, truly sees this scene in precisely the images that you see depicted in the drama in the two images of the realm of spirits. These images are not invented to characterize through them something that is entirely different; rather, the soul that has become clairvoyant is truly and genuinely within such a scene, which constitutes its environment. Just as the soul in the physical-sensory world is in a landscape where rocks, mountains, forests, and fields surround it, and just as it must regard these as reality when it is healthy, so too is the soul that has become clairvoyant, when observing from outside the physical and also the etheric body, situated exactly in such a scene composed of these images. These images are not chosen arbitrarily, but are in fact the true environment of the soul in the world in question. Thus, it is not the case that these fifth and sixth images of *The Awakening of the Soul* came about because something was to be expressed from an unknown world, and then one thought: How can this be expressed? — but rather, it is a world that the soul has around itself and, in a sense, merely reproduces.

[ 3 ] It is, however, necessary for the soul that has become clairvoyant to develop the proper relationship to the spiritual realm—to the spirit world—and to its true reality, which has nothing in common with the sensory world. One can form a mental image of this relationship that the soul must establish with the spiritual world by attempting to characterize the way the soul must perceive this spiritual world as follows. Imagine that you open a book. Up there, you find something like a line from the top left to the bottom right, then a line from the bottom left to the top right, then another line from the top left to the bottom right parallel to the first, and another from the bottom left to the top right parallel to the second; then comes something that has a circle at the top and a not-quite-closed circle at the bottom; then comes something that has two vertical lines connected at the top, and another such thing. Isn’t that right? That’s not how you do it when you open a book and take in the first thing you see; instead, you read the word: Wenn. You don’t describe the W as lines and the e as a circle at the top and a circle that isn’t quite closed at the bottom, and so on; instead, you read. By taking in the shapes of the letters before you, you gain a relationship to something that isn’t on the page of the book, but to which what is on the page of the book points.

[ 4 ] This is indeed the case with the soul’s relationship to the entire world of images in the spiritual realm. What one is engaged in there is not merely a description of what is present, but rather it can be compared to reading; and the images one has before one are, in essence, a cosmic script; and one has the right state of mind for this when one positions oneself in such a way that one feels one has a cosmic script before one in the images, and the images convey and signify to one that which is the reality of the spiritual world, before which this entire world of images is actually woven. Therefore, one must speak in the genuine, true sense of reading the cosmic script in the spiritual realm.

[ 5 ] However, one must not form a mental image of learning to read this cosmic script as being the same as learning to read in the physical world. Reading in the physical world is based—at least today, though this was not the case in humanity’s primeval times—more or less on the relationship between arbitrary symbols and what they signify. One does not need to learn to read the cosmic script—which presents itself to the now clairvoyant soul as a powerful tableau expressing the spirit realm—in the same way one learns to read these arbitrary symbols. Rather, one should simply accept the imagery that presents itself with an open mind and a receptive soul, for what one experiences in it is already the act of reading. These images, so to speak, radiate their meaning of their own accord. Therefore, it can easily happen that a kind of commentary or interpretation of the images of the spiritual world in abstract mental images is more of an obstacle to the soul’s immediate drawing toward what lies behind the occult script than it is a support in this reading. In such matters, both in the book *Theosophy* and in the images of *The Awakening of the Soul*, the main point is to allow things to take effect on you without preconceptions. Through the deeper forces that sometimes come to consciousness in a very shadowy way, one already experiences the hint of the spiritual world. To receive this hint of the spiritual world—take this to heart—one need not even strive for clairvoyance, but one need only perceive such images in such a way that one has an open, receptive soul for them, that one does not approach the matter with a crude, materialistic mindset and say: “This is all nonsense; it doesn’t even exist!” — A receptive soul that responds to the unfolding of such images already learns to read them. Through the soul’s devotion to these images, the understanding that should be sought for the world of the spirit realm arises. And because what I have said is truly so, the numerous objections to Spiritual Science arise from our present materialistic worldview.

[ 6 ] Such objections are, on the one hand, quite obvious; on the other, they can be very witty and seem extraordinarily logical. One might say—and this is truly an objection that is not without merit—that if, for example, one is a Ferdinand Reinecke, who is so clever that he is considered as such not only by people but also, quite justifiably, by Ahriman, one might say: Yes, you who describe clairvoyant consciousness to us, who speak of the spiritual world—you are merely assembling this entire spiritual world from the material of mental images; you are grouping the material of mental images. How can you claim—since you are really just assembling a scene out of nothing but familiar sensory images—that through this one should experience something new, something one would not otherwise experience if one did not approach the spiritual world? — This is an objection that must blind very many people, and which, from the perspective of present-day consciousness, one might say is made with a certain apparent—and yet, in turn, full—right. And yet, if one delves deeper into such objections by Ferdinand Reinecke, then the following is correct. Such an objection would be quite similar to another one someone might make if they were to say to a person who had just received a letter: “Yes, look, you’ve received a letter; I see nothing there but letters and words I’ve known for a long time; how do you expect to learn anything new from this letter! You can only learn something we’ve known for a long time.” — And yet, through what we have long known, we may under certain circumstances learn something we could never have dreamed of. So it is with the pictorial scenes, which must not only appear in the representation but are revealed to the clairvoyant consciousness all around. In a certain sense, they are composed of reminiscences of the sensory world; but as they present themselves as cosmic writing, they depict that which human beings cannot experience within the sensory world, nor within the elemental world. It must be emphasized again and again that this relationship to the spiritual world must be compared to reading, not to direct viewing.

[ 7 ] While, then, the earthly human being who has become clairvoyant must, if he wishes to relate to the things and events of the sensory-physical world with a healthy soul, perceive them by observing them and describing them as faithfully as possible, the relationship to the spirit world is different. Once one has crossed the threshold into the spiritual world, one is dealing with something that can be compared to reading. If one takes into account what must be recognized for human life from this spiritual realm, then there is indeed something else that can refute Ferdinand Reinecke’s objections. Such objections must not be taken lightly; one must, so to speak, grapple with these objections if one wishes to understand Spiritual Science in the proper way. One must bear in mind that people today often cannot help but raise such objections, because their entire imaginative life, because the habits of thought of people today, are such that, out of shyness, out of fear of being left with nothing when they hear of the spiritual world, they simply reject this spiritual world. One can gain a good understanding of the relationship of people today to the spiritual world by considering what such people think about the spiritual world—people who, in a certain sense, are actually well-meaning toward it.

[ 8 ] A book has recently appeared in contemporary literature that is worth reading even for those who have already acquired a genuine understanding of the spiritual world, for it comes from a man who is actually well-meaning and who would very much like to form some kind of understanding of the spiritual world: Maurice Maeterlinck. The book has also been translated into German and is titled: “On Death.” It comes from a man who, in the first chapters, shows that he wishes to understand something of these matters. Since we know that he is, in a certain sense, a subtle mind who was inspired, among others, by Novalis, who in a certain way made mystical Romanticism his own, and who himself achieved many things—both theoretically and artistically—regarding the relationship of human beings to the supersensible world, his example is particularly interesting. In the chapters of Maurice Maeterlinck’s book *On Death* where he addresses the actual relationship of human beings to the spiritual world, the book becomes quite foolish and absurd. And it is an interesting phenomenon that a well-meaning person, operating within the intellectual habits of the present, becomes foolish. I say this not to offer a scathing critique, but to objectively point out that such a well-meaning person becomes foolish when he attempts to grasp the relationship of the human soul to the spirit realm. For Maurice Maeterlinck cannot even conceive of the possibility that the human soul can be strengthened and empowered to the point where it can leave behind everything that enters it through sensory observation and through ordinary thinking, feeling, and willing on the physical plane—and even in the elemental world. For minds such as Maurice Maeterlinck’s, if the soul leaves behind everything that constitutes sensory perception and the associated thinking, feeling, and willing, there is simply nothing left. That is why, in the aforementioned book, Maurice Maeterlinck demands proof of the spiritual world and its realities. It is, of course, entirely justified to demand proof of the spiritual world. One is quite right to do so. But one cannot demand it in the way Maurice Maeterlinck does. He would only accept evidence that is as tangible as the evidence based on the scientific model for the physical plane. He would also accept—because in the elemental world things still resemble the physical world—that the existence of the spiritual world be proven through experiments modeled on physical ones. That is what he demands. But in doing so, he demonstrates precisely that he has not the slightest understanding of the true spiritual world. For he wants things and processes that have nothing in common with the things and processes of the physical world to be proven by means borrowed from the physical world. Rather, the task would be to show how such proofs, as demanded by Maurice Maeterlinck, are simply impossible for the spiritual world. I must repeatedly compare a desire such as that of Maurice Maeterlinck with something that has taken place in mathematics. Until recently, the various academies received, time and again, treatises on the so-called squaring of the circle. That is to say, attempts were made to prove geometrically how a circle can be transformed into a square. Countless mathematical treatises using mathematical proof have been written on this subject. Today, anyone who would still attempt such a treatise is an amateur, for it has been proven that such squaring of the circle is not feasible, not possible, by geometric means. What Maurice Maeterlinck demands as proof for the spiritual world, when transferred to the spiritual realm, is nothing other than squaring the circle, and is just as misplaced for the spiritual world as squaring the circle is for mathematics. What does Maurice Maeterlinck essentially demand? If one knows that, as soon as one crosses the threshold into the spiritual world, one lives in a world that has nothing in common with the physical or even the elemental world, then one cannot demand: “Yes, if you want to prove something to me, then kindly go back to the physical world and prove to me there the things of the other, the spiritual world.” — One must first familiarize oneself with the nature of Spiritual Science by recognizing that even the most well-meaning people commit absurdities which, when transferred to ordinary life, immediately appear as absurdities. It is as if someone were to say that one should stand on one’s head and yet walk on one’s feet. If one demands that, everyone recognizes it as nonsense. If one does it in relation to proofs of the spiritual world, then it is considered ingenious, then it is a scientific requirement, then the author is the least likely to notice it, and his followers, especially if he is a famous author, naturally do not notice it either. The whole error of such demands stems precisely from the fact that people who make such demands have never enlightened themselves about the relationship between human beings and the spiritual world.

[ 9 ] When one gains mental images—which can only be derived from the spiritual world—through clairvoyant consciousness, these mental images are naturally subject to much skepticism on the part of people like Ferdinand Reinecke. All the mental images we are to gain regarding so-called reincarnation, regarding repeated earthly lives—that is, truly real recollections of past lives—can only be attained through the very attitude of the soul toward the spiritual world that is necessary. They can only be attained from within the spiritual world. If one now has impressions or mental images in the soul that point back to past lives on Earth, such impressions will be particularly exposed to opposition in our present time. It should not be denied from the outset that, in this very field, the worst kind of nonsense is naturally being perpetrated, for all sorts of people have this or that mental image and relate it to this or that previous incarnation. There the opponent will have an easy time saying: Yes, mental images of experiences between birth and death are flooding into your soul life, which you simply do not recognize as such. — That can certainly—one must admit—be the case in hundreds upon hundreds of instances. One must simply be clear that the spiritual researcher must be well-informed about such matters. It is quite possible that someone experiences something in childhood or adolescence, and that, completely transformed, what was experienced there resurfaces in consciousness at a later stage of life. It may be that they do not recognize this and then take it for a recollection of previous earthly lives. That may be the case. We also know within Spiritual Science how easily this can come about. You see, memories can form not only of what one has clearly experienced. One can have an experience that passes so fleetingly that one does not bring it fully into consciousness while experiencing it, and yet it can later emerge as a memory and then be clear. If one is not sufficiently critical, one will swear that one has something in one’s soul that one has never experienced in this present life. Because this is the case, it is understandable that all sorts of nonsense is perpetrated with such impressions by various people who engage in Spiritual Science—but not with sufficient seriousness. This can happen particularly with the doctrine of reincarnation, since, moreover, so much human vanity and human ambition come into play in relation to reincarnation. For some people, it is so desirable to have been Julius Caesar or Marie Antoinette in a previous incarnation. I could, for example, list twenty-five or twenty-six reincarnated Mary Magdalenes whom I have encountered in my life! So many factors come into play here that the spiritual researcher has every reason to draw attention himself to the nonsense that is being perpetrated in this regard. But in contrast to this, something else must be emphasized.

[ 10 ] In true clairvoyance, when impressions of past earthly lives arise, these impressions appear in a certain way, with a certain characteristic—provided that the clairvoyant soul is a healthy soul—such that one can then recognize very clearly, and it is unmistakable, that one is not dealing with something that could originate from the present life between birth and death. For these reminiscences, these true, genuine memories of true clairvoyance regarding past incarnations on Earth have something far more surprising, something far more striking, than one might believe; the soul does not bring them up from its depths using the means available to it as a human being, unless it draws upon not only what is in its consciousness but also what lies in its subconscious depths. As a person engaged in Spiritual Science, one must simply familiarize oneself with what a soul may encounter from the outside after its experiences. It will not merely be the desires and cravings that play a major role when impressions are drawn up from the unknown currents of the soul in a transformed form, so that one does not recognize them as experiences of the present life; many other things are also at play. But what are mostly the shattering impressions from previous earthly lives can be very easily distinguished from such impressions from the present life. To give an example: When someone has a true impression from a previous earthly life, it will be the case, for instance, that the person in question experiences inwardly, as if emerging from the soul’s depths: you were so-and-so in your previous earthly life. — And then it will become clear that at the very moment this impression arises, one has absolutely no idea what to do with this knowledge in the physical world. This knowledge can advance one’s development, but it usually manifests in such a way that one says to oneself: Well, you were simply endowed with this ability in your previous incarnation. But by the time one has such an impression, one is already so old that one can no longer do anything with what one was in the previous life. And there will always be circumstances that show you these impressions cannot possibly stem from anything you might have experienced in your present life, for if you were to work your way out of the ordinary dream, you would attribute entirely different characteristics to a previous incarnation. You usually don’t dream about what you were like in your previous incarnation. It is usually all different from what one thinks. If one has the impression that one had this or that relationship with an earthly human being, if this appears in true clairvoyance as a real, correct impression from a previous earthly life, one must of course again point out that in false clairvoyance many previous incarnations are described in such a way that they relate to the friends and enemies one has in one’s immediate surroundings. This is usually nonsense. If one has a genuine, accurate impression, it becomes clear that one has a relationship with a personality whom one cannot reach, even if one has the impression, so that it is impossible to apply these things to one’s immediate practical life.

[ 11 ] And one must also develop a state of mind toward such impressions that is necessary for clairvoyant consciousness. Of course, when one has the impression: “This is how you relate to that personality”—then the things conveyed by the impression must play out. One must, through the impression, re-establish a relationship with the personality. This may occur in a second or third earthly life. One must have the disposition to wait calmly, a disposition that can be described as true inner peace of mind, spiritual serenity. This is part of the correct assessment of what one experiences in the spiritual world.

[ 12 ] If one wishes to learn something about a person in the physical world, one does whatever one deems necessary to gain that knowledge. This cannot be achieved through a sense of mental calm, inner peace, or the ability to wait patiently. It is a perfectly valid description of the state of the soul in relation to the true impressions of the spiritual world to say:

Seeking nothing—only to be peaceful and calm,
The inner being of the soul is all expectation.

[ 13 ] In a certain sense, this mood must permeate the entire inner life if the experiences of the spirit world are to reach the clairvoyant soul in the proper way.

[ 14 ] But the Ferdinand Reineckes are not always so easy to refute, not even in a case where impressions arise in the soul of which one can say: It is not humanly possible for the soul, with the powers and habits it has acquired in its present earthly life, to create a mental image of what is emerging from the floods of the soul—on the contrary, if it were up to the soul, it would have created a different mental image. — Even if one can say what is a sure sign of true, genuine impressions from the spiritual world, a clever Ferdinand Reinecke might still come along and raise an objection. And in Spiritual Science, one must absolutely take the stance that one does not say to opponents who are far removed from Spiritual Science and wish to know nothing of it: The soul’s inner being is entirely expectation. — That is the right attitude toward the spiritual world. But with regard to the objections of opponents, one should, precisely as a spiritual researcher, expect nothing, but rather raise all these objections oneself, so that one knows what can be objected to. And there is an objection that is obvious today, one that is actually raised in psychological, psychopathological, and physiological literature, as well as in writings that sometimes consider themselves scholarly and scientific; the objection is: Well, the human soul life is complicated. In its depths there are many things that do not rise to the surface of consciousness. — Where people today want to be overly clever, they not only say that desires and cravings bring up all sorts of things from the depths of the soul, but they also say: When the soul experiences something, it secretly experiences something like a rebellion, a kind of opposition to what it is experiencing. People are generally unaware of this opposition, which they always experience, but it can then rise from the lower to the higher regions of the soul life. — In psychological, psychopathological, and physiological literature, because the facts cannot be denied, people even frequently admit to things like the following: Now, when a soul is truly in love with another, it cannot help but develop, in the unconscious depths of the soul alongside the conscious infatuation, a terrible antipathy toward the beloved soul as well. — And it is in the spirit of some psychopathologists to say: When one truly loves, there is hatred in the depths of the soul. This hatred is merely overpowered by the desire for love, but hatred is still present. — When such things — say the Ferdinand Reineckes — rise up from the depths of the soul, they are impressions that can very easily give the false impression that they cannot have their seat in the individually experienced soul; yet they can have a place there, because the life of the soul is complicated, say the Ferdinand Reineckes. One can only say: Certainly, the spiritual researcher knows this just as well as the contemporary psychologist, psychopathologist, or physiologist. It is deeply rooted in the materialistic consciousness of our time to raise such objections. One has this experience already when one goes through the aforementioned literature today, which deals precisely with the life of the soul—both healthy and diseased—and gains the impression that Ferdinand Reinecke is a realistic, ubiquitous, and extraordinarily significant figure in the present. Ferdinand Reinecke is no invention. When one goes through all the writings that appear so numerous today, page by page, when one turns the pages, one gets the impression: the strange face of Ferdinand Reinecke leaps out everywhere. He is running around everywhere in contemporary science. But in contrast to this, it must be emphasized again and again—and I do not hesitate to repeat this point again and again—that the proof that something is not fantasy but reality must be provided by life itself. I must say it again and again: this part of Schopenhauer’s philosophy—as if the world were merely a mental image and one could not distinguish a mental image from actual perception—can only be refuted by life. Likewise, Kant’s argument against the so-called proof of God—that a hundred possible thalers contain just as many pennies as a hundred real thalers—is refuted by anyone who wants to pay their debt with possible thalers rather than real ones. And so, too, what is called preparation, the soul’s immersion into clairvoyance, must be taken in its reality. One does not merely theorize here; one acquires a way of life through which one distinguishes, in the spiritual realm, a real impression from a previous earthly life just as clearly as one distinguishes hot iron placed against the skin from merely imagined iron. When one considers this, one will also realize that Ferdinand Reinecke’s objections in this area actually mean nothing at all, because they come from people who have not—I will not even say—entered the spiritual realm clairvoyantly, but have also never brought it to their understanding.

[ 15 ] One must therefore bear in mind that, upon crossing the threshold into the spiritual world, one enters a realm that has nothing in common with what the senses can perceive, nor with what one experiences through volition, thought, and feeling in the physical world.

[ 16 ] One must also approach the peculiarities of the spiritual world through the following. One must tell oneself: whatever and however one experiences and observes in the physical-sensory world, one must leave all of that behind. — When perceiving the elemental world, I used an image that seems quite grotesque: the image of sticking one’s head into an anthill. That is truly how it is with consciousness in the elemental world. One is not dealing there with thoughts that can tolerate everything, that passively tolerate everything, but rather one plunges one’s consciousness into a world—into a world of thoughts, if one wishes to call it that—that tingles and scurries, that has a life of its own. Therefore, one must maintain a strong inner balance in the soul against these self-moving thoughts. But in the elemental world, many things in this realm of tingling and crawling thoughts still remind one of the physical world. When one enters the spiritual world, nothing any longer reminds one of the physical world; rather, one immerses oneself in a world—I will use the expression that I will also use in the book *The Threshold of the Spiritual World*—in a world of thought-beings. In this spiritual world, one finds that which, in the physical-sensory world, when one thinks, one has only as something like shadows, like shadows of thought: the substance of thought from which the beings consist, into which one immerses oneself there. Just as the physical-sensory world consists of flesh and blood, so these beings in the spiritual world consist of thought substance; they are thoughts, pure thoughts, mere thoughts, but living thoughts with an inner being; they are beings of thought. Therefore, these beings of thought, into whom one immerses oneself, cannot perform actions in the same way as with physical hands. What these beings do in terms of actions, what determines the relationship of one being to another, can only be compared in the spiritual world to what exists in the sensory world as faint afterimages of this—to the embodiment of thoughts in speech. One immerses oneself in the spiritual world, experiences beings of thought, and everything they do, everything they are, and how they interact with one another forms a spiritual conversation. One spirit speaks to another, and a language of thought is spoken in this spiritual realm. But this language of thought is not merely a language; rather, in its entirety, it is what constitutes the actions of the spiritual world. As these beings speak, they act, they do, they operate. Thus, when one crosses the threshold into the spiritual world, one enters a world where thoughts are beings, where beings are thoughts, but where, as beings, they are far more real than human beings of flesh and blood in the sensory world. One enters a world where action consists of spiritual conversation, where words move back and forth, and where something happens simply by being spoken. Therefore, within this spiritual world and regarding the processes within it, one must say what is stated in the third scene of *The Guardian of the Threshold*:

In this place, words are deeds,
And further deeds must follow them.

[ 17 ] And all occult perception—everything that the initiates of all ages have accomplished for humanity—has, in a certain sense, perceived the significance of this spiritual dialogue, which is at the same time spiritual action. And this was given the characteristic name “the World Word.”

[ 18 ] You see, now we are directly immersed in our contemplation within the spirit realm, observing the beings and the deeds of these beings. And their connection is the many-voiced, many-toned, action-rich World Word, into which one lives oneself with one’s own soul-being—one’s own World Word—resonating, so that one performs actions within the spiritual world. The term “World Word,” which runs through all ages and peoples, certainly expresses a true reality of the spiritual realm. In our present time, one can only understand what is meant by the World Word by approaching the peculiarity of the spiritual world in the manner we have attempted in this contemplation. Just as the occult traditions of various times and peoples have spoken of the World Word with varying degrees of understanding, so it is necessary in our time—lest humanity become desolate through materialism—that an understanding be gained of such words spoken in reference to the spirit realm:

In this place, words are deeds,
And further deeds must follow them.

[ 19 ] It is essential in our time that souls perceive reality and the mental image of realities when such words are spoken from an understanding of the spiritual world. One must understand to what extent this is just as much a characteristic of the spiritual world as when one applies ordinary mental images to characterize the sensory-physical world.

[ 20 ] To what extent our present age responds with understanding to such words as: “In this place, words are deeds, and further deeds must follow them”—will depend on how the present day receives Spiritual Science and how well the people of the present day will be prepared to prevent human culture from slipping ever further into desolation, impoverishment, and decline as a result of the materialism that would otherwise inevitably prevail.