XI. Before the Door of the Spiritual Soul

> 1. At the beginning of the Age of Consciousness, the human soul develops her intellectual forces only as yet to a very small extent. There arises a lack of connection between what the soul yearns for in her unconscious, underlying depths, and what can be given her by the forces from the region where Michael is. > 2. This lack of connection affords the Luciferic Powers an enhanced possibility of detaining Man within the forces of his cosmic childhood, so as to cause his further evolution to take place, not along the paths of those divine, spiritual Powers with whom he was united from the first, but along the paths of Lucifer. > 3. It further affords an enhanced possibility for the Ahrimanic Powers to cut Man off from the forces of his cosmic childhood, and draw him over into their own realm, for further evolution there. > 4. Both of these things failed to take place, because the Michael-Forces were nevertheless at work; but the spiritual evolution of mankind had to go on amidst the obstacles arising from these two possibilities, and it thereby became what it has hitherto become.