III. Historical Occurrences of the Last Century

In 1832 Goethe died. The period belonging to the first generation after his death, that is, up to 1865, was not such that many forces from his spirit influenced it. (This is merely a representative example; of course the forces of other men are active also.) Thus, up to the year 1865 anyone who directed his attention to Goethe's soul would have noticed little influence coming from his forces to the earth. Then after the first thirty-three years the forces began to come from him out of the spiritual worlds into our earth evolution; and they became stronger and stronger up to the year 1898. If we follow it further, beyond this period, we can say: The first period of influence of Goethe's super-sensible forces upon our earth civilization is, then, 1865 to 1898 (as I have said, up to 1865 it was insignificant, then it began). After thirty-three years we have in 1931 the end of a further period, which would be the second; and 1964 would be the end of the third period.