A few weeks ago, I had begun speaking about a first possible scenario that we could imagine in order to offer a counterbalance, possibly, to all the other scenarios that exist. And at that time, I read aloud a passage from a lecture by Rudolf Steiner. He says that it is truly time that the human being in his time, and then all the more so in ours, realises that the sensory reality is not the whole reality, and that we must become aware that a spiritual reality lies at the foundation, we might say, forming the sensory reality, and that one could learn to know this reality — this spiritual reality — by studying spiritual science. That is of the greatest importance in our time, and that should actually be the first scenario: that one imagines a world in which people at least in large numbers no longer stand still at what the material has to offer but are also truly permeated by the fact that there is a spiritual reality.

This is how it goes; this is how I was reminded in myself of another lecture by Rudolf Steiner that is very well known in anthroposophical circles: with the title: What does the angel do in our soul? And I then spoke about it in a following video and — how shall I say it — said that the angels in our time weave certain ideals as images in the soul, which we therefore carry within us. And that the question addressed to us by the angels is, in fact, that we should awaken in ourselves in such a way that we become aware of these ideals and can embrace them. And what are these ideals? First of all, that a true brotherhood arises among human beings, that one cannot be happy if one’s fellow human is unhappy. The second is that we set ourselves to see the true individuality in the fellow human being and not the illusion of the personality.

And what is connected with this is that, when one does that, one then also respects an absolute freedom of religion, because that naturally belongs to that individuality. That is the second; and the third is then the study and the recognition of spiritual science. That is how far I had come, and I interrupted it then because the Michaelmas time began and because I had published a little book about children between 7 and 14 years old. I now take this up again and would like to add to what I said about the angels in the soul that in this lecture it is said that in fact the human being — and of course not the whole of humanity, but nevertheless a considerable part of it — should become so far awake for his own soul, for the impulses in his own soul, that those ideals which are woven into it as images become conscious, and I believe that this is also the case with many people.

Thus Rudolf Steiner says: Before the beginning of the third millennium — and the third millennium begins in the year 2000 — before that time people should have become awake to this. If not, then something completely different will happen. It is a matter of us as human beings becoming awake to the spirit, that we do not have our humanity only in the sensory existence, but that we can also look inwardly and objectively perceive certain things there. That is actually where our human development stands. If that should not happen, this awakening to the ideals in the soul which the angels weave into it, then it would mean that the angels must make use of another member of the human being. And now it is so that when we sleep, our souls are not consciously connected with the body. Everyone will have to admit that. But meanwhile the body lies in bed and is permeated with life. And what we must now imagine is that those ideals which the angels want to make known to us by our awakening in the soul, are written one step lower by the angels, that is to say in the life body, which remains lying in bed at night. And there the soul is not, and there also the spirit is not; there the I of the human being is not present. So a whole work is carried out there that cannot simply become conscious through awakening in the soul. That time would then be past. And what then happens is that that which first had a high moral quality becomes instinctive.

And Rudolf Steiner describes what would happen if humanity — and then a large part of humanity, or an important part of humanity — would not have this awakening in the soul before the beginning of the third millennium. What would then happen is that instead of brotherhood an instinctive degeneration of the sexual impulses would arise. That which the human being has always had from a moral conscience — what the boundaries of a moral sexuality and an immoral sexuality are — those boundaries would then begin to shift, and the human being would then also be truly convinced that that is good. They would not even realise that it is actually not good at all, and they would also not want these excesses to be labelled immoral.

That is the first thing, and it can take on dreadful forms. Sometimes we do indeed see something of that. The second is that in medicine an aberration arises, namely that although the instinctive knowledge of illness and healing increases tremendously, morality declines, and that this leads to the human being — knowing how certain illnesses can be caused — also doing that. It is of course terrible to think such a thing, but Rudolf Steiner is of course a seer, someone who looked into the future and saw there that if the human being does not awaken in the soul, those good impulses pass over into the instinctive, and then one gets more or less by natural necessity these deviations, through which medicine develops a power over the human being to decide that someone may be healed, but also to decide that it is better to cause certain illnesses, whereby then morality is not questioned. One will then be convinced that what is done is good. And the third is that instead of the study of spiritual science there would come a flight into technology. Now this is something — Rudolf Steiner says nothing about possible artificial intelligence — but he does speak about certain wave movements in technology that can be harmonised, through which a tremendous increase in the power of machines would arise, which could then be used in the most horrible ways. A demonic development of technology, therefore. And I assume — this is how I see it — that we must count a wrong development of artificial intelligence among this. So not artificial intelligence in its totality, I certainly do not see it that way, but of course there are certain excesses possible that then truly lead to that technology actually coming into the realm of the immoral. And among the immoral I also count taking into one’s hands the freedom of the human being, thus limiting it. These are the prospects that Rudolf Steiner paints, and that is then — the beginning at least of the twentieth century. These prospects he paints and says: yes, they will appear more and more if the human being does not, before the beginning of the third millennium, become attentive to the moral impulses in the soul that are woven there by the angels. And yes, I gladly leave it to you, dear viewer, to ask yourself: how is it now with us? What do we see of the one and what do we see of the other? Now of course it is so that it is clear that not every person can become clairvoyant and that that therefore cannot be what Rudolf Steiner means when he says: awakening to the ideals in the soul. We have of course had the fifties and sixties in which a wave of idealism arose that then also subsided again. One could imagine that this was an expression of that, although not entirely pure, of course. You also know it in your own life, that you have moral impulses that you could attribute to this working of the angels in your soul. But of course, it is a matter of awakening to this. And that is very interesting, what Rudolf Steiner then recommends, and with that I will then close. He says yes, look, if you now in the evening look back on the day, and you look at all the things that have happened, then there are always remarkable phenomena, which you normally pass by and which you should not pass by, but which you should look at every day. And you will notice that, if you do this, you see more and more of those moments. For example, that you, while you are doing something, get an inspiration: I can better do this or that, but you do not do it, and it goes completely wrong. Or you are about to go to an appointment, and you are disturbed, for example by a phone call or by someone who comes by, and you go too late to that appointment. So, such things. Normally you live past them more or less annoyed, but if we would now look every evening at such things — perhaps you do not really see them in the beginning and think: Well, I hardly have such things — but of course you do. The whole day is full of them, and when you then consider that every phenomenon in this area that occurs can be a salvation of your life! If you had gone to that appointment at exactly the right time, you might have had an accident. Then you can of course say: what are you busy with now? But just try it. It is extraordinarily, not only interesting, but also stimulating to become aware of the spiritual part in your life and to awaken to that which is happening in your soul. That is actually the advice that Rudolf Steiner then gives at the end of that lecture, and with this advice I will now close.