VI. Christ and the 20th Century

We now know that mankind, who in these days is in a sense confined and only interested in the immediate experiences of his intimate soul-life, may verily raise himself above his present state and assume a more perfect form of soul-being which can live in the Spirit-World, even as the human counterpart lives in the physical world. Through the study of history in the light of Spiritual Science, we learn that the possibility of thus raising the soul-being to spiritual heights through a process of purely intimate individual soul development, has come about gradually during the evolution of mankind, and was not known in primeval times. Whereas the soul may now through its own effort and measures rise freely, and while still possessed of its individual quality acquire the power of spiritual discernment, in pre-Christian times such was not the case; for the soul was then dependent upon an impulse born of certain modes and procedures, which were a part of the rites performed in the Sanctuaries of the Mysteries.