If one presents a public lecture about spiritual science or anthroposophy, then one is forced to take into account the inability to take in what is offered, by the contemporary world, one must be very much aware of this limited ability. One has to be clearly conscious of the fact that in our time, although there is an influx of insights streaming in from the spiritual world, insights which are necessary for humankind today, it is very difficult nowadays to be uninhibited in taking these truths in. Most people who are not well prepared to receive it will experience the deeper spiritual-scientific truths as a shock, as something which appears as fantastic or as a dream.
Source (German): Rudolf Steiner – GA 127 – Die Mission der neuen Geistesoffenbarung – München, February 25, 1911 (page 86)
Translated by Nesta Carsten-Krüger