Lecture I

When a certain number of ages have passed away, then a Spirit of the Age has gone through a further evolution. We must think of it thus: when we, in our age, die, and have gone through our evolution here, our personality passes the result of this earthly life on to the next one. This is also the case with the Spirits of the Age. In each age we have one such Spirit of the Age; then at the end of the age he passes on his office to his successor, who again passes it on to the following one, and so on. The foregoing ones are in the meanwhile going through their own evolution, and then that one who has been longest absent, takes his turn again; so that, in a later age, while the others are then proceeding with their own evolution, the same one returns again as Spirit of the Age and gives to the progressed humanity, by means of intuition, that which he himself has in the meanwhile acquired for his higher mission. We look up to these Spirits of Personality, to these Beings who may be called by the otherwise meaningless name of Spirit of the Age, and may say: ‘We human beings go from incarnation to incarnation, but we very well know, that while we are ourselves passing on from epoch to epoch, that when we look into the future, we see ever different Spirits of the Age, regulating the occurrences of our earth.’