Lecture Four

What, then, was meant to happen from 666 on, if the Mystery of Golgotha had not occurred and the Beast of that time had been able to intervene in the evolution of mankind; what could have happened? You will be able to form some idea of what might have happened if you think over what I have just been describing. Men were hurrying on towards the fifteenth century; if the Beast had gone on stirring up mischief among men from 666 until the fifteenth century, he would by then have gained complete control of what was approaching. What was approaching was the grasping of the world through a ghost-like natural science—and with that the unleashing of human instincts. Because the Consciousness Soul was to grasp man as a mere ghost, the real man lagged behind; he did not understand himself. And in the age of the Consciousness Soul man can become man only by becoming conscious of what he is; otherwise he remains an animal, lags behind in his human evolution.