XVIII. What is seen on looking back into Man's previous Lives between Death and the new Birth (II)

> 1. In a second period of evolution in the lives between death and new birth, Man passes into the domain of the Archangeloi. During his period the seed of later Self-consciousness is planted in the human soul, the predisposition for it having already been created in the first period, in the shaping of the human Form. > 2. Man, during the second period, is driven by the Luciferic and Ahrimanic influences deeper into the physical world than would have happened without their influence. > 3. In the third period, Man comes into the domain of the Angeloi, whose influence however is only exerted in the astral body and the I. This period is the present. What took place in the first two periods lives on in human evolution, and explains the fact that in the age of the Spiritual Soul—during the nineteenth century—Man is left staring into the spiritual world as into total darkness.