Effects of the Christ-Impulse Upon the Historical Course of Human Evolution

What is one of the most evident facts in the present time which is so fraught with destiny? Oh, one of its most obvious facts is undoubtedly the one that so many young people are passing through the portal of death! We know what takes place with them when they pass through the portal of death. We know that a human being first goes out of his physical body with his etheric body, his astral body and his Ego, and that after, e.g. relatively short time he sheds his etheric body and continues his pilgrimage with an extract of the etheric body. But can you not imagine that there must be a difference between an etheric body shed between the 20th and 30th year of life, an etheric body which might still have continued its functions in life for many decades, and an etheric body cast off at a later age? Yes, there is a great difference! When a person dies as a result of illness or old age, the etheric body has fulfilled its task. But, in the case of a young person—and countless young people are-now passing through the portal of death—the etheric body has not yet been able to fulfil all that it might have fulfilled.