I. Spiritual Science and the Future of Humanity

GA 69a/1911-02-24/p017 ·1911-02-24 · English MediumMedium alignmentSome paragraph re-numbering between this translation and the German original — the locus may slip by a paragraph or two.
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Now one may ask, is there anything in the outer world that proves that to some extent what you spiritual researchers behold there, if you look back at prehistory? Is there anything that can deliver a document that once humanity could behold into the spiritual worlds?—Oh, there is such a thing! However, the human beings have to learn to interpret this thing in right way. What is preserved of the prehistoric attempts to penetrate into the inner being of the things? With the prehistoric humanity, we look in vain for a science as we have it today, but legends and myths have been preserved. Now the present enlightened human being says that this corresponds to the childish imagination of the ancient humanity; we have entered into the manhood of science now. However, someone who delves into the myths of the various peoples experiences something else than such a superficial rater, he experiences that these images are associated in miraculous way everywhere [with the spiritual life of humanity]. If one penetrates into these images, deep connections with this spiritual life of humanity and its culture present themselves. One gets more and more respect for the wonderful arrangement of the pictures in the ancient myths and legends, so that you often say to yourself, what are all philosophies of the present compared with the wonderful pictures that the myths have preserved. They agree all over the world and they comply with that which the spiritual researcher can find with his method in the spiritual world, so that we have to ask ourselves, where from do these old images come which can be found all over the world?.

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Cite: GA 69a/1911-02-24/p017 · edition English