VI. Present and Future Evolution of the World and of Mankind

Throughout the fifth epoch the knowledge of supersensible worlds will thus continue to flow into the consciousness of men, and by the time the sixth begins it will be possible for mankind to have regained on a higher level the knowledge they possessed in pristine ages by virtue of the dim and dreamlike supersensible vision of those ancient days. But the renewed possession will be of quite another form than the old. What the soul knew of higher worlds in olden time was not yet permeated with her own human powers of intelligence and feeling. It came of its own accord—was “given” as a kind of spiritual inspiration. In future, man will not only be receiving “inspirations” of this kind, but will understand them through and through, feeling them as his very own, the true expression of his inmost being. When spiritual knowledge comes to him concerning beings or events, his own intelligence will find it true and sound and thus confirm the knowledge. Or if in spiritual knowledge some moral precept or principle of human conduct dawns upon him, he will say to himself: My feeling about it is only vindicated if I put into practice the implications of this knowledge. By the sixth epoch this mood and disposition of the soul should be achieved in a sufficiently large number of human beings.