Lecture II

I have said that the ego was already present to a certain extent, but man could not make use of it when he desired to investigate the secrets of the spiritual world. The ego had in this case to be suppressed and the astral body stimulated. This stimulation of the astral body had become ever more and more impossible. In ancient times suppression of the ego and stimulation of the astral body so that the secrets of the spiritual world could pour into it, was something that belonged to the elemental attributes of man. Advance in evolution consisted in the increasing incapacity of the astral body to receive the secrets of the spiritual world. At this stage men acknowledged:—“My astral body will become ever less able to attain what once was mine through the old form of clairvoyance, my ego also will cease to pass out of me in the way it was wont to do, and as yet it is unable to rise to anything of itself.” The most gifted clairvoyant was at most aware of something empty, something void, within his soul. Such was the ego to which as yet no Impulse had been imparted. At the same time men were aware it was not possible for them to enter the spiritual world through the ego.