VI. The Mystery of the Future

In times when men will have long since ceased to need the teachings of religion to tell them of the ancient gods, because they will again be living among gods, they will find in Christ that source of strength which enables them to find their own firm centre among the gods. Men will no longer require religion in order to believe in gods whom they will once again behold, any more than they required religion in former times when they lived and moved among gods. Themselves spiritualised, men will live consciously among spiritual Beings, fulfilling their tasks in communion with these Beings. In a future by no means far distant, man will find that the physical world is losing its importance for him, that physical things are becoming evanescent. Their reality will have already paled long before man's existence on the earth has drawn to its close.[^1] But when the things of the physical world of sense cease to be all-important and fade into shadow, man will either find that the physical is losing its importance while he is still incapable of believing in the spiritual realities before him, or he will be able to believe and preserve for himself the consciousness of these spiritual realities—and then for such a man there will be no spiritual death.