Lecture V

In the sixth post-Atlantean epoch he will no longer be able to believe in the colors of nature. At present the physicists only talk about there being nothing outside us but vibrations, and that it is these that, for example, bring about red in us. What the physicists dream of today will come true. At present they only dream of it, but it will then be true. People will no longer be able to distinguish properly between a red face and a pale one. They will know that all those things are caused by their own organism. They will consider it a superstition that there are colors outside that tint objects. The outer world will be grey in grey and human beings will be conscious of the fact that they themselves put the colors into the world. Just as people today say, “Oh, you crazy anthroposophers, you talk about there being an etheric body, but it is not true, you only dream it into people!” People who then see only the outer reality will say to the others who still see colors in their full freshness, “Oh, you dreamers! Do you really believe there are colors outside in nature? You do not know that you are only dreaming inside yourself that nature has these colors.” Outer nature will become more and more a matter of mathematics and geometry. Just as today we can do no more than speak of the etheric body, and people in the world outside do not believe that it exists, people in the future will not believe that the capacity to see colors in the outer world has any objective significance; they will ascribe it purely to subjectivity.