I. Spiritual Science and the Future of Humanity

Somebody who knows something of the basic character of the Middle Ages knows that the peculiar spiritual development of the Middle Ages can be explained if one knows that the Middle Ages were the time in which gradually the old clairvoyance disappeared. The biggest impulse in the human development, the Christ impulse that will once induce humanity to take up clairvoyance completely had the task to make the old clairvoyance withdraw. Thus, a peculiar phenomenon appears with the advent of the new time: the old clairvoyance withdraws, only the traditional truths remain which one had gained with the old clairvoyance. Thus, the branches of knowledge propagated in the Middle Ages which were gained on the basis of the old clairvoyance. However, one did not know that, one had only understood the ideas which were found in primeval times, yes, one applied them even quite wrong at the end of the Middle Ages.