The Rudolf Steiner Archive

6. What is the Angel Doing in Our Astral Body?

[ 1 ] The anthroposophical understanding of the spirit is not meant to be merely a theoretical worldview, but rather a purpose in life and a life force. And only when we enable ourselves to internalize our anthroposophical worldview in such a way that it truly comes alive within us does it truly fulfill its purpose. For by uniting our souls with the anthroposophical understanding of the spirit, we have, in a certain sense, become guardians of very specific, significant processes in the development of humanity.

[ 2 ] People who otherwise strive toward one worldview or another are, as a rule, convinced that thoughts and ideas, apart from what they are in their human souls, are nothing else in the context of the world; rather, people with such worldviews believe: thoughts and ideas, as ideals, will take root in the world precisely to the extent that human beings—insofar as they perform only sensory acts—succeed in bringing them to bear in the world. An anthroposophical outlook presupposes that we are clear about the fact that, in order to be realized, our thoughts and ideas must find paths other than those that occur through our sensory actions, through our actions in the sensory world. Recognizing this vital necessity already implies the call for the anthroposophist to participate in a certain way in keeping watch over the signs of the times. Many things are happening in the course of world development; it is incumbent upon human beings—especially those of our age—to gain a true understanding of what is taking place in the course of world development into which they themselves have been placed.

[ 3 ] When it comes to the individual, everyone knows that one must take into account their development, not just the external facts surrounding them. Just consider this for a moment—I’d like to put it very roughly: The external, sensory facts that are happening right now surround people who are five, ten, twenty, thirty, fifty, and seventy years old. Nevertheless, no reasonable person would demand that the same relationship between a person and these facts be applied to five-year-olds, ten-year-olds, twenty-year-olds, fifty-year-olds, and seventy-year-olds. How people should relate to their external environment can only be determined by taking into account the development of the individual themselves. Everyone will admit this when it comes to the individual human being. But just as the individual human being undergoes a very specific development—just as he possesses, so to speak, different kinds of forces as a child, in middle age, and as an elderly person— so, too, does humanity, in the course of its development, possess ever-changing forces; and one stands, as it were, merely asleep within the course of world history if one fails to recognize that humanity, in its very essence, is something different in the 20th century than it was in the 15th century, or even in the time of the Mystery of Golgotha or before. One of the greatest shortcomings, aberrations, and confusions of our time in particular is that people refuse to take what I have just said into account; they believe they can speak of the human being or of humanity in general in entirely abstract terms and do not need to know that humanity is subject to a process of development.

[ 4 ] Now the question arises: How can one gain a more precise understanding of these matters? — As you know, we have often discussed an important aspect of this development. In the Greco-Roman period, from the 8th century B.C. to approximately the 15th century A.D., we consider this to be the so-called cultural epoch of the intellectual or emotional soul, and since the 15th century, we consider it to be the cultural epoch of the conscious soul. This characterizes an essential aspect of human development, particularly as it pertains to our own time. We know, therefore, that the primary force driving human development from the 15th century into the 4th millennium—up to the beginning of the 4th millennium—is the soul of consciousness. But in spiritual science—in true spiritual science—one must never remain stuck at the level of generalities and abstractions; one must always strive to grasp concrete facts. Abstractions are of use at most if one is merely curious in a very ordinary sense. If one wishes to make spiritual science the content of one’s life, the very force of one’s life, then one must be more serious than merely curious; one must not stop at such abstractions as I have just described. That we live in the age of the conscious soul, that the development of the conscious soul is the primary focus—that is quite correct, and it is also extraordinarily important—but one must not stop there.

[ 5 ] If we wish to arrive at a specific view of things, we must first and foremost take a closer look at the nature of the human being itself. As human beings, in the spiritual-scientific sense—if we descend, so to speak, from above—we are structured into the “I,” the astral body, the etheric body (which I have recently also called the body of formative forces), and the physical body. Of these components of human nature, it is actually only the “I” in which we initially live and act on a soul-spiritual level. The “I” is, after all, given to us through our earthly evolution and the spirits of form that guide it. Essentially, everything that enters our consciousness does so through our “I.” And if the “I” does not develop in such a way that it can be in connection—albeit through the bodies—with the outer world, then we have just as little consciousness as we do from the moment we fall asleep until we wake up. The “I” is what connects us to our surroundings. The astral body was bestowed upon us through the lunar evolution that preceded our Earth evolution; our etheric body through the solar evolution that preceded that; and the physical body, in its earliest form, through the Saturn evolution.

[ 6 ] But if you go through the description of these bodies in Outline of Esoteric Science, you will see the complex process by which what humanity is today—in its composition of the four characterized members—came into being. Do we not see from the facts handed down to us by Outline of Esoteric Science that spirits from all manner of hierarchies have contributed to this division into the three sheaths of the human being? Do we not see that what envelops us as the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body is of a very, very complex nature? But not only have these hierarchies contributed to the formation of our sheaths—they are still at work within them. And anyone who believes that the human being is merely a combination of bones, blood, flesh, and so on—as conventional natural science, physiology, biology, or anatomy would have us believe—does not understand the human being.

[ 7 ] When one approaches the reality of this human physical being—when one sees this human physical being in its truth—one sees how spiritual beings of the higher hierarchies work together, purposefully and wisely, in all that takes place within our physical bodies without our awareness. From the—I would say—sketchy outlines I provided in my Outline of Esoteric Science regarding the interaction of the individual spirits of the higher hierarchies in the process of human formation, you can deduce just how complex this matter must be in its details. Nevertheless, if one wishes to understand the human being, one must also grapple with these matters in ever greater detail and in ever more concrete terms.

[ 8 ] Now, it is incredibly difficult to even begin to consider a specific question in this field. These specific questions are incredibly complicated. Just imagine if someone were to ask: What is the Hierarchy of the Seraphim or the Dynameis doing in the human etheric body during the current cycle of human development, in the year 1918? — For this question can be posed just as easily as one might ask whether, say, it is raining in Lugano right now or not. However, one cannot find out either one or the other simply by thinking about it or through mere theory, but rather by approaching the facts. Just as one must inquire—say, by telegram or letter or the like—whether it is raining in Lugano right now, so too must one, by truly delving into the facts, inquire into such matters as: What exactly is the task of the Spirits of Wisdom or the Thrones in the present age of humanity, say, within the human etheric body? — But now, a question such as the one just raised is of extraordinary complexity, and we can, so to speak, only ever approach the realms in which such questions arise. In this realm, it is actually ensured that a person’s wings do not grow into the heavens and that he does not become overconfident and proud when he strives for true knowledge.

[ 9 ] In a sense, the next entities that directly concern us are those we can clearly perceive. But we must also see clearly through them if we do not want to remain asleep with regard to our place within human evolution. And so I would like to speak to you about a question that is not so vague, not so indefinite—although it is very concrete, just like this question: What do the Dynameis or the Thrones do in our etheric body? — I would like to pose another question that is not so vague, not so indefinite, but is in fact intended to concern people of the present. This question is: What do the beings of the Angeloi, who are most closely active with human beings in the present age of humanity, do within the astral body?

[ 10 ] When we look into our inner being, the astral body is closest to our human “I.” We can therefore hope that the answer to the question just posed will be of great relevance to us. The Angeloi are the hierarchy immediately above the human hierarchy itself. So we ask a modest question, and we will see later that the answer to this question—What are the Angeloi doing right now in the current age of humanity, which is passing through the 20th century, in this age of humanity that began in the 15th century and will last until the beginning of the 4th millennium—what are the Angeloi doing in the human astral body? — will be very important for us.

[ 11 ] Well, what can one even say about how such a question might be answered? One can only say: spiritual research, when pursued seriously, is not a play on ideas or a play on words, but rather it truly delves into the realms where the spiritual world becomes tangible. And something as immediate as this can indeed be observed. But this question can actually only be fruitfully answered in the age of the conscious soul itself.

[ 12 ] You might think: If this question could have been raised and answered in other eras, there would probably have been an answer. — But neither in the age of atavistic clairvoyance nor in the age of Greco-Roman culture could this question be answered, for the reason that the images received in the soul through atavistic clairvoyance obscured the observations of the angels’ deeds in our astral body. There was nothing to be seen, precisely because one had the images provided by atavistic clairvoyance. And in the Greco-Latin era, thinking was not yet as strong as it is now. Thinking has already undergone a strengthening—precisely through the age of natural science—so that the age of the conscious soul is the one in which one can consciously delve into a question such as the one just posed. It is precisely in this that the fruitfulness of our spiritual science for life must be demonstrated: that we do not merely fob people off with theories, but that we know how to say things that have a profound significance for life.

[ 13 ] What do the angels do in our astral body? We can only convince ourselves of what they are doing there if we rise to a certain degree of clairvoyant observation, so that we can see what is taking place within our astral body. So we must rise at least to a certain degree of imaginative insight if the question raised is to be answered. Then it becomes apparent that these beings from the hierarchy of the Angeloi—and in a certain sense each individual Angeloi, who has, so to speak, a specific task for every human being, but also specifically through their joint action—form images in the human astral body. Under the guidance of the Spirits of Form, they shape images. Unless one ascends to imaginative insight, one does not know that images are constantly being formed within our astral body. These images arise and pass away. If these images were not formed, there would be no development of humanity into the future that corresponds to the intentions of the Spirits of Form. What the Spirits of Form wish to achieve with us by the end of Earth’s evolution, they must first develop in images; and from these images, the transformed humanity—reality—will later emerge. And the Spirits of Form are already shaping these images in our astral body today through the angels. The angels form images in the human astral body—images that can be perceived through thinking developed to the point of clairvoyance. And one can follow these images that the angels are shaping in our astral body. It then becomes apparent that these images are shaped according to very specific impulses, according to very specific principles. Indeed, they are shaped in such a way that, in the very process by which these images arise, there lie, so to speak, forces for the future development of humanity. If one—as strange as it may sound, one must put it this way—observes the angels in this work of theirs, one sees that these angels have a very specific intention in this work regarding the future social organization of human life on Earth; and they seek to create such images in the human astral bodies that will bring about very specific social conditions in future human coexistence.

[ 14 ] People may be reluctant to acknowledge that angels seek to inspire ideals for the future within them, but this is indeed the case. And a very specific principle is at work in the way the angeloi take shape. It is the principle that, in the future, no human being should find peace in the enjoyment of happiness while others around them are unhappy. There is a certain impulse toward the most absolute brotherhood, the most absolute unification of the human race—brotherhood correctly understood in relation to social conditions in physical life. This is the one aspect through which we see that the Angeloi shape the images in the human astral body.

[ 15 ] But there is a second impulse that shapes these angels; namely, they pursue not only certain intentions with regard to external social life, but also certain intentions with regard to the human soul, to the spiritual life of human beings. With regard to the inner life of human beings, they pursue—through the images they imprint upon the astral body—the goal that in the future every human being will see a hidden divine aspect in every other human being.

[ 16 ] So, let it be clearly understood: Things are to be different according to the intention inherent in the work of the Angeloi. It is to be such that we do not regard human beings, as it were, merely as a more highly developed animal based solely on their physical qualities—neither in theory nor in practice—but that we approach every human being with the fully developed sense that: In the human being appears something that reveals itself from the divine foundations of the world, revealing itself through flesh and blood. — To perceive the human being as an image that reveals itself from the spiritual world—as seriously as possible, as strongly as possible, as understandingly as possible—this is what the angels imbue the images with.

[ 17 ] Once this is realized, it will have a very specific consequence. All free religiosity that will develop among humanity in the future will be based on the recognition, within every human being, that the image of the Divine is truly present in the immediate practice of life—not merely in theory. Then there will be no religious coercion; there will be no need for it, for then every encounter between human beings will, from the outset, be a religious act, a sacrament, and no one will need a specific church—with its external institutions on the physical plane—to sustain their religious life. If the church understands itself correctly, it can have only one purpose: to render itself unnecessary on the physical plane by making all of life an expression of the transcendent.

[ 18 ] This, at least, underlies the impulses of the angels’ work: to pour out complete freedom of religious life upon humankind. And a third principle underlies it: to give human beings the opportunity to reach the spirit through thinking, to cross the abyss through thinking and arrive at an experience in the spiritual realm. Spiritual science for the spirit, religious freedom for the soul, brotherhood for the bodies—this resounds like the music of the worlds through the work of the angels in the human astral bodies. One need only, I would say, raise one’s consciousness to a certain other level, and then one feels transported into this wonderful workplace of the Angeloi within the human astral body.

[ 19 ] The fact is that we are living in the Age of the Consciousness Soul, and in this Age of the Consciousness Soul, the angels do within the human astral body what I have just described. People should gradually come to consciously grasp what I have just described. This is part of human evolution. How does one even come to say something like what I have just said? Where, so to speak, does one find this work? Well, today it can still be found in the sleeping human being. It is found in the states of sleep that people experience from falling asleep to waking up. It is also found in the states of waking sleep. I have often spoken of how people, even though they are awake, actually sleep through the most important matters of their lives. And I can assure you—though it is not a very pleasant assurance—that if one goes through life consciously, one really does find many, many sleeping people today. They let whatever happens in the world happen without taking an interest in it, without caring about it, without connecting with it. Major world events often pass people by just as events in the city pass by a sleeping person—even though people are apparently awake. But then, when people—even while awake—miss something so special, it becomes clear how, in their astral bodies—completely independent of what they want to know or do not want to know—this important work of the Angeloi, of which I have spoken, takes place.

[ 20 ] Such things often unfold in ways that must seem quite mysterious, quite paradoxical to people. One might consider some people entirely unworthy of entering into this or that connection with the spiritual world. But in truth, the person in question is nothing more than—at least in this incarnation—a terrible sleepyhead who sleeps through everything that is happening around him; yet in his astral body, the angel from the community of angels is working on the future of humanity. The astral body is nevertheless being used, and one can observe such things in their astral body. But what matters is that such things force their way into human consciousness. The soul of consciousness must be raised to the recognition of that which can only be found in this way.

[ 21 ] Having laid this groundwork, you will understand when I now draw your attention to the fact that this very age of the conscious soul is driving us toward a very specific event, and that—because we are dealing with the conscious soul—it will depend on human beings how this event unfolds in the course of human development. The event may occur a century earlier or later, but it must ultimately enter the course of human development. And this event can be characterized precisely by saying: Human beings must, purely through their consciousness soul and through their conscious thinking, come to see how the angels work to prepare the future of humanity. — What spiritual science teaches in this area must become practical wisdom for humanity—such practical wisdom that people can have the firm conviction that it is their own store of wisdom, as they recognize that the angels desire precisely what I have described.

[ 22 ] But now the human race has advanced so far in its journey toward freedom that it is entirely up to the human race itself whether it will sleep through this event or meet it with full awareness. What would it mean to meet it with full awareness? To meet it with full awareness means the following: One can study spiritual science today; it is available; one truly need not do anything else but study spiritual science. If, in addition, one engages in various forms of meditation and takes into account the practical guidance provided in works such as How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, one further supports the cause. But the necessary work is already being done simply by studying spiritual science and understanding it with true awareness. One can study spiritual science today without acquiring clairvoyant abilities; anyone can do so who does not allow their own prejudices to stand in the way. And as more and more people study spiritual science, as they assimilate the concepts and ideas presented in spiritual science, their consciousness will awaken to such an extent that certain events will not be overlooked, but will pass before them with full awareness.

[ 23 ] And we can characterize these events even more precisely. For essentially, the fact that we know what the angel is doing is merely the preparation. The main point is that, at a specific point in time, a threefold event will occur. As I said, depending on how people behave, that moment will occur sooner or later—or, in the very worst case, not at all. But what is to occur is precisely that humanity will be shown a threefold reality through its angelic world. First, it will be shown how one can truly grasp the deeper side of human nature through one’s most immediate human concerns. Yes, a time will come—one that people must not sleep through—when people will receive, through their angels, a stimulating impulse from the spiritual world that will lead us to have a much deeper interest in every human being than we are inclined to have today. This heightened interest in our fellow human beings should not develop merely in a subjective way—as people so conveniently allow it to develop within themselves—but rather with a sudden jolt, whereby a certain mystery regarding what another human being is is actually instilled in us from the spiritual realm. By this I mean something very, very concrete—not some theoretical consideration, but rather: people will experience something that can make them take an interest in every human being.

[ 24 ] That is one thing, and it is something that social life will achieve in a very special way. And the second will be that, from the spiritual world, the angel will irrefutably show humanity that the Christ impulse, above all else, also entails complete religious freedom for people—that true Christianity is only that which makes absolute religious freedom possible. And the third is precisely the irrefutable insight into the spiritual nature of the world.

[ 25 ] This event, as I said, is to take place in such a way that the human consciousness-soul enters into a certain relationship with it. This is what lies ahead for humanity in its evolution. For the angel is working toward this through his images in the human astral body. Now, however, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that this impending event is already placed within human will. People can, after all, choose not to do certain things. And even today, many people still refrain from doing many things that are meant to lead to a conscious experience of the moment I have described.

[ 26 ] But as you know, there are other beings in the evolution of the world who have an interest in leading humanity astray: these are the Ahrimanic and Luciferic entities. What I have just said is part of humanity’s divine evolution. If human beings were to truly surrender to their own nature, they would actually come to perceive what the angel unfolds in its astral body. But the Luciferic development aims to prevent humanity from gaining insight into the work of the Angelic Hierarchy. And these Luciferic beings go about preventing humanity in the following way: they do so by hindering human free will. They attempt to shroud human beings in darkness regarding the exercise of their free will by, on the one hand, making them good beings—from this perspective I am now addressing, Lucifer actually desires the good and the spiritual in human beings—but, on the other hand, he wants to make them automatic, without free will; human beings are to be led into clairvoyance according to good principles, but in a sense automatically; the Luciferic beings want to deprive human beings of their free will, of the possibility of evil. They want to make them act—though from the spirit—as if they were spiritual images, namely without free will. The Luciferic beings want to make them automatic.

[ 27 ] This is connected to certain secrets of evolution. The Luciferic beings, as you know, are entities that have remained stuck at other stages of evolution and introduce foreign elements into normal evolution. These Luciferic beings have a strong interest in influencing human beings in such a way that they do not attain free will, because they themselves have not attained free will. Free will can only be attained on Earth. But they want nothing to do with the Earth; they want only the development of Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon, and to remain there, having nothing to do with Earth’s development. In a sense, they hate human free will. They act in a highly spiritual manner, but they act automatically—this is extraordinarily significant—and they want to elevate human beings to their own level, to their spiritual height. They want to make him automatic; spiritual, but automatic. This would create the danger, on the one hand, that if a human being becomes a spiritually automatic being too early—before his full conscious soul is functioning—he would miss the revelation that is to come and that I have just described.

[ 28 ] But the Ahrimanic beings, too, work against this revelation. They do not strive to make human beings particularly spiritual, but they strive to kill within human beings the awareness of their own spirituality. They strive to instill in human beings the view that they are, in fact, nothing more than fully developed animals. Ahriman is, in truth, the great teacher of materialistic Darwinism. Ahriman is also the great teacher of all those technical and practical endeavors within Earth’s evolution that recognize nothing but the outer, sensory human life; that seek only an expanded technology so that human beings may satisfy—in a more sophisticated way—the same needs for food, drink, and other necessities that animals also satisfy. In human beings, the Ahrimanic spirits of our time seek to kill and obscure the consciousness that they are an image of the Divine, and to stifle the striving for the conscious soul through all manner of sophisticated scientific means.

[ 29 ] In earlier ages, it would have been of no use to the Ahrimanic spirits to obscure the truth for human beings in this way through theories. Why? Even during the Greco-Roman era, but even more so in the earlier era when human beings still possessed atavistic clairvoyance—the visions—it made no difference at all how they thought. They had their visions. Through these images, they looked into the spiritual world. Whatever Ahriman might have taught them about their relationship to animals would have had no significance whatsoever for their way of life. Thinking only became powerful—powerful in its powerlessness, one might say—in our fifth post-Atlantean epoch, since the 15th century. Only since that time has thinking been capable of bringing the consciousness soul into the spiritual realm, but also, as a result, of preventing it from entering the spiritual world. Only now are we experiencing the time when a theory, through science, consciously robs human beings of their divinity and their experiences of the divine. This is possible only in the age of the soul of consciousness. That is why the Ahrimanic spirits strive to spread teachings about human beings that obscure the divine origin of humanity.

[ 30 ] From this description of the currents that run counter to humanity’s normal-divine development, one can deduce how one must conduct oneself in life so as not to miss what has been spoken of—that which is to come as a revelation in human development. Otherwise, a great danger arises. And humanity must be alert to this danger; otherwise, instead of the momentous event that is to intervene powerfully in the future shaping of Earth’s evolution, something will occur that could prove quite dangerous to that evolution.

[ 31 ] You see, certain spiritual beings achieve their development through human beings, as human beings develop alongside them. The angels who form their images within the human astral body do not, of course, create these images as a game, but rather so that something may be accomplished. But since what is to be achieved must be accomplished precisely within humanity on Earth, the whole process would indeed become a game if, after attaining the consciousness soul, human beings were to consciously disregard the entire matter. The whole thing would become a game! The angels would merely be playing a game in the development of the human astral body. Only because this is realized within humanity is it not a game, but a serious matter. From this, however, you will be able to deduce that the work of the angels must remain serious under all circumstances. Consider what it would be like behind the scenes of existence if human beings could simply turn the work of the angels into a game through their sleepiness!

[ 32 ] And what if that were to happen after all—what if humanity on Earth were to persist in sleeping through this important spiritual revelation of the future? If, for example, people were to miss the middle part—the matter concerning religious freedom—if they were to miss the repetition of the Mystery of Golgotha on the etheric plane, of which I have often spoken, the reappearance of the etheric Christ, if they were to miss that, or were to miss the other things, then what is to be achieved through the images in the human astral body would have to be pursued by the angels through another means. And what human beings fail to achieve in their astral bodies by becoming awake would, in this case, be pursued by the angels realizing their intentions through the sleeping human bodies. Thus, what human beings would miss out on while awake—and what the angels could not achieve as a result—would be accomplished with the help of the human physical and etheric bodies that remain in bed during sleep. It is there that the forces would be sought to achieve this. What cannot be achieved with the waking human beings—when the waking souls are inside the etheric body and the physical body—is achieved with the sleeping etheric bodies and physical bodies, when the people who should be awake are instead outside, asleep, with their “I” and their astral body.

[ 33 ] This is the great danger facing the Age of Consciousness. This is the event that could still come to pass if people are unwilling to turn toward spiritual life before the beginning of the third millennium. We are now only a short time away from the beginning of the third millennium. As is well known, the third millennium begins in the year 2000. It could still come to pass that, instead of through awakened human beings, what is to be achieved for the angels through their work would have to be accomplished through the sleeping bodies of human beings; that the angels would have to extract all their work from the human astral body in order to immerse it in the etheric body so that it could be realized. But the human being would not be present! Thus, it would have to be realized in the etheric body if the human being were not present, for if the human being were present in a waking state, he would prevent it.

[ 34 ] I have now outlined the general idea of this matter for you. But what would happen if the angels were to carry out such work—without human involvement—in the etheric bodies and physical bodies of human beings while they sleep? This would inevitably bring about a threefold change in human development. First, while the human being is asleep—without their ego or astral body being present—something would be created within their sleeping physical body, which they would then find not through their own free will, but simply discover upon waking in the morning. They always find it there. It becomes instinct rather than a sense of freedom, but it thereby becomes harmful. Specifically, certain instinctive insights that are meant to enter human nature—and which are connected to the mystery of birth and conception, conception, and the entire sexual life—if the danger were to arise that I have spoken of, through certain angels who would then themselves undergo a certain transformation, of which I cannot speak, because this transformation belongs to those higher mysteries of initiatory science that must not yet be discussed today. One can, however, say this: What would happen within the course of human evolution is that, instead of certain instincts arising from sexual life and the sexual nature in a beneficial way within a clear, alert consciousness—and then in a harmful, destructive way—these instincts would not merely constitute aberrations but would spill over into social life, giving rise to certain forms within social life; above all, would cause people—through what would then enter their blood as a result of their sexual life—certainly not to develop any kind of brotherhood on Earth, but rather to constantly rebel against brotherhood. But that would be instinct.

[ 35 ] So here comes the decisive moment when, in a sense, one can turn to the right: but then one must stay awake; or turn to the left: then one can sleep; but instincts will then arise—instincts that will be horrific. What will the natural scientists say when such instincts emerge? The natural scientists will say: This is a necessity of nature. It was bound to happen; it is simply part of human evolution.

[ 36 ] Science cannot draw attention to such things, for science could explain it if people were to become angels, and it could also explain it if people were to become devils. Science has the same thing to say about both: The latter has emerged from the former—the great wisdom of causal explanations of nature! Science will take no notice of the event I have told you about, for it will, of course, regard it as a natural necessity when people become half-devils through their sexual instincts. So, from a scientific standpoint, the matter cannot be explained at all, for, no matter how it comes about, everything is explainable according to science. Such things can only be understood through spiritual knowledge, through supersensory perception.

[ 37 ] That is one thing. The second is that from this work—this work that brings about changes for the angels—a second effect will result for humanity: the instinctive recognition of certain remedies, but also a harmful awareness of certain remedies. Everything related to medicine will experience an immense—in the materialistic sense, immense—advancement. People will instinctively gain insights into the healing power of certain substances and certain practices, and they will cause immense harm as a result, yet they will call this harm beneficial. People will call what is sick “healthy,” for they will see that they are entering into a certain activity that will then please them. They will simply take pleasure in what leads people in a certain direction toward what is unhealthy. So it is precisely the recognition of the healing power of certain processes, certain activities, that will be heightened—but it will veer into very harmful territory. For above all, people will learn through certain instincts what diseases certain substances and certain activities cause, and they will be able to act entirely out of selfish motives to bring about diseases—or to prevent them.

[ 38 ] The third thing that will come to pass is that people will come to know very specific forces through which—I would say—with only the slightest prompting, through the harmonization of certain vibrations, they will be able to unleash great mechanical forces in the world. It is precisely in this way that people will instinctively learn to recognize a certain spiritual guidance of the mechanical realm, and technology as a whole will veer into turbulent waters. But these turbulent waters will serve and please human selfishness exceptionally well.

[ 39 ] This is a concrete grasp of the development of existence, a view of life that, fundamentally speaking, can only be truly appreciated by those who understand how a non-spiritual view of life cannot possibly lead to clarity on the matter. A non-spiritual outlook on life—were a medicine harmful to humanity to emerge, a terrible perversion of the sexual instincts, a terrible mechanism within the pure workings of the world in the utilization of natural forces by spiritual powers—a non-spiritual worldview would not see through any of this; it would not see how it strays from the true path, just as little as a sleeping person, while asleep, can see a robber approaching to steal from him—it simply passes him by. At most, he sees later, when he wakes up, what has been done. But that would be a very terrible awakening for humanity: He would take delight in an instinctive expansion of knowledge regarding the healing powers of certain processes and certain substances; he would feel a sense of well-being in pursuing certain aberrations of sexual instincts; he would praise this aberration as a particularly lofty expression of superhumanity, of open-mindedness, of impartiality. Ugliness would become beauty and beauty ugliness in a certain sense, and no one would notice it, because everything would be regarded as a natural necessity. But it would be a deviation from the path prescribed for humanity itself—the very essence of human existence.

[ 40 ] I believe that once one has developed a sense of how spiritual science penetrates one’s mindset, one can also muster the seriousness required for truths such as those mentioned today, and one can draw from them what should actually be drawn from all spiritual science: recognizing in this spiritual science a certain obligation, a certain commitment to life. No matter where we stand, no matter what we have to do in the world, what matters is that we can cherish the thought: our actions must be imbued with and illuminated by our anthroposophical consciousness. Then we contribute to humanity’s progress in its development in the true sense.

[ 41 ] People are completely mistaken if they believe that true spiritual science, taken seriously and with dignity, could ever deter them from practical, intensive work in life. True spiritual science awakens us—it awakens us to the very things I have mentioned today. My dear friends, one might ask: Is waking life actually harmful to sleep? — If we wish to use the comparison that looking into the spiritual world is a further awakening compared to ordinary waking, just as ordinary waking is an awakening from sleep, then—to understand the comparison—we can also raise the question: Can waking life ever be harmful to sleep? — Yes, if it is not orderly! If one leads a well-ordered waking life, then one will also have healthy sleep; and if one spends one’s waking hours dozing, being lazy, or being complacent, without work, then one’s sleep will also be unhealthy. And so it is also with regard to the life we acquire through spiritual science as a waking life. If, through spiritual science, we establish within ourselves a proper relationship to the spiritual world, then just as a healthy waking life regulates sleep, this right relationship to the spiritual world will also steer our interest in ordinary, sensory life onto the right path.

[ 42 ] Anyone who observes life, especially in our time, must be asleep if they do not notice certain things. How people have boasted, especially in recent decades, about their “way of life”! In recent decades, things have finally reached the point where those who most despise the ideal, the intellectual, and the spiritual have risen to positions of leadership everywhere. And people were able to keep declaiming about the “practicality” of this life until they had dragged humanity into the abyss. Now some—though most of those who do so act entirely instinctively—are beginning to croak: A new era must dawn; all manner of new ideals must emerge! — But it is merely a croaking. And if things were to arise instinctively, without a conscious immersion in spiritual science, they would lead more toward the decay of what is meant to be experienced in the waking state than toward any fruitful transition in development. Anyone who preaches to people today using the same words they have long been accustomed to will sometimes still find some applause. But people will have to resign themselves to hearing different words, different turns of phrase, so that a social cosmos may once again emerge from the chaos.

[ 43 ] For if, in any age, the people who are supposed to be vigilant fail to be vigilant and do not discover what is truly meant to happen, then nothing real happens at all; instead, the specter of the preceding epoch haunts the present, just as in many religious communities today the spectres of the past simply haunt the present, and just as, for example, the specter of ancient Rome still haunts our legal life in many ways. In this very regard, spiritual science is meant to liberate people in the age of the consciousness soul and truly lead them into the observation of a spiritual fact: What does the angel do in our astral body? — Speaking abstractly about angeloi and so on can be, at best, only the beginning; progress must be achieved by speaking concretely—that is, by answering the next question that concerns us, with reference to our specific age. It concerns us because the angel weaves images within our astral body; these images are meant to shape our future, and this shaping is to be brought about by the soul of consciousness. If we did not have the consciousness soul, then we would not need to concern ourselves with this; other spirits, other hierarchies, would step in to bring about what the angel weaves. But since we are meant to develop the consciousness soul, no other spirits step in to realize what the angel weaves.

[ 44 ] Of course, angels also wove during the Egyptian era. But soon other spirits entered the picture, and it was precisely this that darkened humanity’s atavistic, clairvoyant consciousness. Thus, because they saw this in their atavistic clairvoyance, human beings wove a veil—a dark veil—over the deeds of the angels. But now human beings must unveil them. That is why they must not sleep through what is being brought into their conscious lives in the age that will come to a close before the third millennium. Let us take from anthroposophically oriented spiritual science not only all kinds of teachings, but also resolutions! And these will give us the strength to be watchful human beings. (See note)

[ 45 ] We can get into the habit of being mindful people. We can pay attention to all sorts of things. We can start practicing mindfulness right away and discover that, when it comes down to it, not a single day goes by without a miracle happening in our lives. We can turn the sentence I just spoke on its head; we can say: If we don’t find a miracle in our lives on any given day, it’s only because we’ve lost sight of it. — Try looking back on your day in the evening; you’ll find a small, large, or moderate event in it about which you’ll be able to say: “It really did enter my life in a most remarkable way; it unfolded in a most remarkable way.” — You can achieve this if you only think broadly enough, if you only take in the interconnections of life comprehensively enough with your inner eye. But we don’t do that at all in everyday life, because we usually don’t ask ourselves: “What, for example, was prevented by something?”

[ 46 ] We usually don’t give a second thought to the things that were prevented—things that, had they occurred, would have thoroughly changed our lives. Behind these things, which are removed from our lives in one way or another, lies an immense amount of what shapes us into vigilant people. What could have happened to me today? — When I ask myself this question every evening and then reflect on individual events that could have led to this or that, such questions give rise to reflections on life that instill vigilance in self-discipline. This is something that can serve as a starting point and that, on its own, leads further and further, ultimately leading us not only to explore what it means in our lives—for example, that we wanted to go out at half past ten in the morning and that, at the very last moment, someone came along who held us up; we’re annoyed that they held us up, but we don’t ask what might have happened if we’d actually left at the right time, as we’d planned. We don’t ask: What has changed there?

[ 47 ] I have already spoken about such things in more detail here once before. From observing the negative aspects of our lives—which can, however, bear witness to the wise guidance of our lives—to observing the angel weaving and working within our astral body, there is a straight path, a very straight path, and a sure path that we can take. We will continue discussing this in eight days, when we have the second lecture in this series.