I. The Path through the Gospels and The Path of Inner Experience

That the bearer of the Ego first becomes really capable of living in the 20th or 21st year is not often observed in our present time, because we are not yet inclined to pay attention to these things. What does it mean that the bearer of the Ego first becomes really active in the 20th or 21st year of life? Here we must observe, by occult means, the growing man and view the deeper forces of his organization. These forces continually change: from birth until the seventh year, from the seventh year until sexual maturity, from sexual maturity until the unfolding of the Ego. But they change in such a way that they cannot be tested by the methods of ordinary anatomy or physiology. By occult means, one can say that only around the 20th year does man develop his forces in such a way that a self-sufficing Ego-bearer now exists. Earlier this Ego-bearer is not yet formed; earlier the human corporeality, even the super-sensible, is not yet a proper Ego-bearer. So if we consider the members of man in the light of the great world-principle, we must say that, through the peculiarities of his organization, man is really ripe to develop an Ego out of himself only in his 20th or 21st year, not earlier.