9. Interpretations of Fairy Tales

Thus, the question may arise: Was man in an earlier time, as recorded in the spiritual experiences of the intermediate states, of such a form as he is today? No, he was not. Man has gone through completely different forms and has only developed into his present form. But even what humans have overcome, what they have cast out of themselves, appears in a very specific external form. In order to alienate themselves from their enormous power, humans had to cast out these giant forms, overcome them, refine their powers, and raise them up to the intellectual soul and the conscious soul. There are also beings who have remained at the stage of raw forces. Wherever something appears to humans as bad, something that should be overcome but has remained on the astral plane, it appears as a “dragon” or something similar, which is nothing more than a grotesque form, transformed in the spiritual world, of what humans had to transform and cast out of themselves. And here, too, we must be aware that this corresponds to a very specific fact.