First Lecture

The impulses of the old mysteries have unfolded divine substances and divine forces into full reality on earth. Humanity had to develop in such a way that the time came when it was more or less left to its own devices, and that during this time the divine substances and forces could not work directly through people on earth. The forces that have gone through humanity on earth in this interim period of human development have been exhausted. And this is perhaps the most significant, if not the highest, or at least an important and deeply incisive occult truth: that the forces that were allowed to take effect within human evolution without the mysteries have been exhausted, and that human evolution will not continue unless mystery forces enter into it again.