Children will no longer be born in the manner of today

A time will come in the physical evolution of the earth — it will be after the year 5,700 — when, if he fulfills his rightful evolution, man will no longer tread the earth by incarnating in bodies derived from physical parents. In that epoch, women will be barren; children will no longer be born in the manner of to-day, if evolution on the earth takes its normal course.

There must be no misunderstanding about such a fact as this. Something else, for example, might come about. The Ahrimanic Powers, which under the influence of the impulses working in men to-day are becoming extremely strong, might succeed in preventing earth-evolution in a certain respect. It would then become possible for men — by no means for their good — to be held in the same form of physical life beyond this time in the sixth or seventh millennium. They would become much more like animals, while continuing to be held in the grip of physical incarnation. One of the endeavours of the Ahrimanic Powers is to keep humanity fettered too long to the earth in order to divert it from its normal evolution.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 196 – Some Conditions for Understanding Supersensible Experiences – Dornach, January 18, 1920

Translator Unknown

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About anthroposophic terms

It is not good to use the term ‘ahrimanic” without much ado any time we like, for this deadens us in our sentience, our feelings, and we then do not have the least possibility of still having words which, when we think or speak them, have the elemental significant meaning for us which they should have. 

It is extraordinarily significant that we do not fling such things about in everyday life, for this will indeed gradually deprive us of the best thing, the most effective thing that anthroposophy has to offer. The more we have the anthroposophical terms on our lips under everyday conditions, the more do we deprive ourselves of the possibility  that anthroposophy becomes something for us that truly sustains the soul, enters deeply into the soul. 

We need only consider the force of habit and we shall see that there is a difference if we use words such as “aura”, let us say, or “ahrimanic powers” or “luciferic powers” with a certain sense of awe, knowing we are speaking of other worlds. If we always feel that we have to stop, as it were,  before we use such words, using them only when it really is a matter for us of considering our relationship to the supersensible world, it will be something different from talking of these things of the higher world on any occasion in everyday life, having words that are taken from those worlds on our lips all the time.

Source (German): Rudolf Steiner – GA 150 – Die Welt des Geistes und ihr Hereinragen in das physische Dasein – Augsburg, March 14, 1913 (page 12-13)

This English translation has been copied from the book: How the Spiritual World Projects into Physical Existence – The Influence of the Dead  – Published by Rudolf Steiner Press

Previously posted on November 1, 2015