3. The Spiritual Signature of the Present

What anthroposophical spiritual science wants is for us to receive from the spirit what nature no longer gives us, just as naively as we used to receive it from nature, to develop the courage to receive from the spiritual realm what we can no longer receive from the natural realm. The spiritual signature of our time points out to us the necessity of developing our full humanity, which we can no longer obtain from nature, out of spiritual, free will activity. This does not establish a decadence. No, decadence is established precisely by the fact that in a time that demands the spirit, one only wants to abandon oneself to nature. Materialism has emerged as a necessary phenomenon. Overcoming materialism must likewise occur as a necessary phenomenon. Anthroposophical spiritual science believes it can read this from the signs of the times, from the signature of the times. From this consciousness of the world and humanity, it wants to have an effect.