The two halves of an evolutionary cycle

This page should be considered together with: Overlapping evolutionary periods

The great cosmic dynamic is characterized by cycles, that can be imagined to correspond with a cosmic inhalation and exhalation by spiritual beings at a certain level. These cycles and levels are nested and this leads to the Three dimensions of evolution with Conditions of Consciousness (CoC), Life (CoL) and Form (CoF).

Considering for example two CoL - see Schema FMC00.240A below) - each mantavara evolutionary cycle between two pralayas is characterized by a quite different nature in its two different halves.

• The first half corresponds to a cosmic exhalation part where the spiritual hierarchies 'give' and actively weave in consecutive layers as part of creation. Beings at a lower level receive.
• The other half corresponds to a cosmic inhalation, whereby what has been created is left to its own development. This causes a contribution, metamorphosis, and redemption of what was received: they give to the received the contributions of their own evolution. All of it is then 'rolled up' or sucked in again, in to the higher budhi and nirvana planes at pralaya.

This can be seen as two aspects of an earth day, as in day and night, or alternatively as AM and PM. (See also Book of Genesis and Schema FMC00.276 on Overview of solar system evolution)

Everything in evolution is subject to the metamorphosis of taking and giving. This is related to the Twelve Conditions of Consciousness, at CoC level 9 beings can emanate their own substance out of sacrifice, see eg the Thrones in the Old Saturn planetary stage. Man is on its way developing along this 'ladder of CoC', currently at waking consciousness CoC level 4.

Human beings take in the first half of a cycle; in the second half they give back what they have taken. Man owes his development to lower kingdoms, and will redeem them in his ascent, see Man and nature's kingdoms in evolution. See also Schema FMC00.055 below and for more detail Earth rounds perspective.

Aspects

• In the first half of a round, the human being develops the organs by means of which he reaches out, in the second half he draws those organs into himself again. Only in the second half of a cycle or round can an entity gather karma, for this will be when it begins to be active. The karmic development of an entity will therefore have significance specifically on the plane where it is evolving at the time. (1904-10-31-GA089)
• in the second half of the Earth evolutionary stage (and always towards the end of a planetary stage), the being of central importance (and on the Earth this is Man) is left free, so that the qualities with which he was originally endowed may pass more freely into his own hands. (1912-06-20-GA133)
  • this has to do with the evolution of all spiritual beings in the great cosmic fractal of evolution, see Schema FMC00.276 on Overview of solar system evolution that sketches the principle across planetary stages. The same view is available per planetary stage, eg for Old Sun

• considering an evolutionary period represented by an 'arc' (descending and ascending again, subdivided in seven subperiods), the speed of the evolutionary dynamic is not the same throughout this main period, but it begins faster, than slows down to a relatively stable period, then speeds up again (o.a. 1918-10-13-GA184, but there are other better references, also Harrison describes this).
• an evolutionary stage consists of a first half which is like an outbreathing and giving by the higher hierarchies, and then from the middle onwards the receiving party or parties is set free and this can be regarded as an inbreathing, all the way into pralaya and the higher worlds of budhi and nirvana. Hereby specific illustrations and link references:
  • at the highest level of a solar system chain, see Cosmic breath of Brahma
  • during the Old Saturn stage of evolution, the Thrones who were giving in the first half did not longer concern themselves any more with humanity in the second half (1904-GA011 quote B)
  • during the Earth stage of evolution, similarly there is the transition between the SoF who withdraw and give over to the archai, see Transition between 4th and 14th century
  • to see how the breathing dynamic of the spiritual hierarchies related to the evolutionary periods, see Spiritual hierarchies and their eigenperiods

Inspirational quotes

1904-11-01-GA089

Human beings take in the first half of a cycle; in the second half they give back what they have taken.

...

In the second half of the cycle, human beings thus redeem the mineral world, metamorphosing it. They give to the mineral world the achievements of their own evolution ..

Absolutely everything in human evolution is subject to the metamorphosis of taking and giving. This determines our ethical attitudes to the highest degree. Anything we make our own may only be taken, so that it may be given back again later on.

see: Planetary spirit#1904-11-01-GA089

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.240 depicts the quote from Cosmic Memory (1904-GA011). The illustration on the right can be read as showing the SoF (green) handing over to the Archai (yellow). See the case study of the SoF handing over to the archai around the 4th century.

Schema FMC00.240A puts the above in perspective and shows how this corresponds to the cosmic breathing pattern

Schema FMC00.055 gives a schematic representation centered on the Development of Man.

In the first half Man of this solar evolution, at the highest level .. Man receives upto CoC=4 and CoL=3 in the exhalation (of the creation by the Father principle), at CoC=4 and CoL=4 however there is the start of something new. The Christ becomes the guiding owner and coordinator of a new cycle, that will lead to new spiritual hierarchies (Man are to become Gods) and the Earth (starts shining at the moment of the MoG) and is to become a new Sun. Man is set free and becomes a co-creator, starting with the impact of our thoughts, feelings and actions (as seeds for future worlds). In the future, Man will evolve to ever greater capabilities of creation.

Schema FMC00.534: is a schema intended to support study of the fourth and fifth cultural ages and gain insights of the patterns underlying evolutionary development of humanity, see also Schema FMC00.059 on History. This schema has:

• a) a lower section with key dates and phases described in Rudolf Steiner's lectures, and focus on i) the period of the 4th century (see also 325) and the Transition between 4th and 14th century (including aspects such as Central European cultural basin but also 869, the Christ Impulse - meeting of two streams, Academy of Gondishapur, and more); and ii) the period 1840 and it's relation to the new start in the age of the consciousness soul (see 1840 and 1879)
• b) an upper section showing the inhale-exhale cycle of cosmic breathing and the two halves of an evolutionary cycle related to this. In this case focus is on a cultural age corresponding to an archai time spirit, whereby certain centuries or periods represent crucial transitions on the timeline of the development of mankind. History and evolution does not progress linearly but with jumps or step changes represented by the spiral symbol. This is linked to the activity of spiritual activities (above) and their emanation that can be observed (below).
  • For example: the year 333 is described (in 1918-10-16-GA182) as the time the intellectual soul was coming to its prime, up to then it was developing on the ascending arc, then began the arc of descent.

The Discussion Note The two halves of an evolutionary cycle#Note 1 - First and second half of a cultural age provides a narrative to the schema with explanations and relevant lecture excerpts and references, to explain the point the schema conveys, and how it helps to understand the 'jump' in Schema FMC00.535.

See also related Schema FMC00.052 and Schema FMC00.052A.

For purposes of personal study, this scaled down image on the site can be saved as high resolution JPG file and printed on A3 format for readability, so one can add personal annotations.

Lecture coverage and references

Regarding transitions between cycles:

C.G. Harrison (1855-1936)

links the cycles to the hierarchies, and makes the connection to the precession of the equinoxes and the ice ages.

In the last of his six lectures delivered in 1893, he describes the 'law of cataclysms', that is .. why each epoch cyclically ends in a major discontinuity:

... they occur at the end of every 'root race' because the Principalities (or 'angels of periods') [editor: Spirits of Time, in Steiner's nomenclature] of the succeeding one are then evolving at their minimum rate, having completed one-half of their minor cycle. At such times, the centripetal resistance to the attraction of the Eight Sphere is at its weakest. These periods coincide with the precession of the equinoxes, the last was the end of the glacial epoch in the northern hemisphere, and is preserved in the memory of a universal flood in the traditions of all nations.

1904-GA011

(Cosmic Memory) (SWCC)

quote A

This work is not yet completed at the end of the life of Old Saturn; it continues into the first Old Sun cycle.

One should consider that the labor of the higher spirits which has been described here does not coincide with the beginning and end of a smaller cycle (of a round), but that it continues from the middle of one to the middle of the next.

• It increases from the middle of a cycle (Manvantara) onward,
• becomes strongest in the middle of a period of rest (Pralaya),
• and then ebbs in the next.

It has already been mentioned in the preceding chapters that life by no means ceases during the periods of rest. Its greatest activity is developed in the periods of rest between the cycles.

quote B

When the Saturn development began, .. [the Thrones] already had attained a level of consciousness which man will reach only after his Future Vulcan life, that is, a high creative (supra-spiritual) consciousness.

These 'creators' too, once had to pass through the stages of Man. This took place on heavenly bodies which preceded Old Saturn.

However, the connection of these beings with the development of mankind lasted until the middle of the life of Old Saturn.

1904-10-31-GA089

... there is a vast difference between the first and second halves of a round.

• In the first half, the human being develops the organs by means of which he reaches out.
• In the second half he draws those organs into himself again.

The first half is meant to prepare him for that withdrawal. In the second half of the round every spirit will find redemption for its own kind of life, at the appropriate level.

‘Round’ is also ‘cycle’ in esoteric terminology. In every cycle, evolution proceeds from the arupic to the archetypal. This is known as an ‘epicycle’ [= globes].

It is thus only in the second half of a cycle or round that an entity can gather karma, for this will be when it begins to be active. The karmic development of an entity will therefore have significance specifically on the plane where it is evolving at the time.

1904-11-01-GA089

Human beings take in the first half of a cycle; in the second half they give back what they have taken.

• In the first half of the one cycle, the mineral world was thus separated out, since it was a hindrance to human beings. They were then using for themselves all the energy which would otherwise have served to develop the mineral world further; later on they absorbed this world again.
• In the second half of the cycle, human beings thus redeem the mineral world, metamorphosing it. They then give to the mineral world the achievements of their own evolution, having first separated that world out.

Absolutely everything in human evolution is subject to the metamorphosis of taking and giving. This determines our ethical attitudes to the highest degree. Anything we make our own may only be taken so that it may be given back again later on.

1912-06-20-GA133

This will help you to understand that something quite definite will come about during the second half of the period of Earth-evolution into which we have now passed.

...

.. of this we must be clear: the spiritual beings, moving up as they do to higher ranks, have themselves to evolve, and prepare for the next planetary condition of the Earth, in order that during the Future Jupiter-existence they may endow the beings who once belonged to the Earth with forms which will then be appropriate. Towards the end of a planetary age it is always the case that the being of central importance — and on the Earth this is Man — is left free, so that the qualities with which he was originally endowed may pass more freely into his own hands.

see also Transition between 4th and 14th century A more expanded version of this quote from the same lecture:

What is the principle underlying the distinction to be made among the individual forms of men in the course of the evolution of humanity?

Everything that is “form” on the Earth derives from the Spirits of Form (SoF). The name Spirits of Form is actually given to these Beings of the Higher Hierarchies because everything that has form, shape, life — everything that takes on shape inwardly and evolves an outer form, has received the essential impetus for this form from the SoF. Now all these Beings of the Higher Hierarchies are involved in a constant process of evolution. Not only man, but in a certain sense all the Beings of the different Hierarchies are involved in a constant process of evolution.

In our present age,

• the Spirits of Form are moving to the higher rank of Spirits of Movement,
• the Archai to that of Spirits of Form,
• the Archangels to that of Archai.

[Phase-over]

As the Spirits of Form move upwards in rank they no longer function, in the primary sense, as Spirits of Form, but the succeeding Archai do not, at once, assume the functions of Spirits of Form.

This will help you to understand that something quite definite will come about during the second half of the period of Earth-evolution into which we have now passed.

At the beginning of Earth-evolution, the Spirits of Form stamped the principle of form into man; this comes to expression in the different human forms. Just as the various races have developed their characteristic qualities, and individual human beings take on the traits of the several races, so have the various groups of humanity as a whole all over the Earth received their stamp from the Spirits of Form.

What the Spirits of Form stamped into human beings has long since passed into the processes of heredity; it has long since become a heritage, handed down from generation to generation. In a sense, the Spirits of Form leave man greater freedom as they themselves move into a higher category and withdraw from the form-creating function devolving upon them at the beginning of Earth-evolution. So far as the Beings of the Hierarchies are concerned, man is drawing nearer and nearer to his “coming of age.”

But of this we must be clear — The Spiritual Beings, moving up as they do to higher ranks, have themselves to evolve, and prepare for the next planetary condition of the Earth, in order that during the Jupiter-existence they may endow the beings who once belonged to the Earth with forms which will then be appropriate. Towards the end of a planetary age it is always the case that the being of central importance — and on the Earth this is Man — is left free, so that the qualities with which he was originally endowed may pass more freely into his own hands.

1918-10-13-GA184

I have often mentioned .. that as

.. at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, men stood facing the turning-point of the fourth post-Atlantean age, the year 333

.. so we today are facing a turning-point.

The time is rather shorter because the movements of the higher Spirits change in velocity; we cannot reckon that today we have 333 years again before the turning-point. It changes somewhat in the course of time, this speed with which the various separate Spirits of the higher Hierarchies move on.

Thus today, in the first third of the twentieth century, we are facing the approach of an important event for mankind.

1921-05-15-GA325

see: Transition between 4th and 14th century#1921-05-15-GA325

Discussion

Note 1 - First and second half of a cultural age

This provides a narrative to Schema FMC00.534 with explanations and relevant lecture excerpts and references.

Building on the first three sections to sketch a general frame of understanding, it provides in section four an outlook on the remainder of the current fifth cultural age and the centuries to come.

References: Schema FMC00.534 and Schema FMC00.535 on 1840 and 1879, and also 325 and Transition between 4th and 14th century.

1. Introduction

A lifelong student of spiritual student once pondered in a conversation about the nearly 1000 years between the 4th century and the start of the new age around 1413, and ao the image of Schema FMC00.449 on Future Oriphiel age came up in discussing this millenium.

However this millenium can also be to be positioned much better from a spiritual scientific point of view, and this notes covers exactly that. The fourth century can be seen to correspond to the maximum of the exhalation of the archai-time-spirit led influences of the fourth cultural age, and therefore it is really the fifteenth century which provides the next new start. Many different storyline threads come together in this high level picture and Schema FMC00.534, ao:

• the topic of this page, how the ages and epochs of evolution correspond to the spiritual or cosmic breathing process of the hierarchies, and how this accounts for very different patterns in the first and second halves of an evolutionary period
• the Transition between 4th and 14th century, which zooms into this also at a higher level, the handing over between SoF and archai. This 'passing the baton' at epoch level overlaps with the change(s) at cultural age level and the handover of one archai time spirit to another.
  • this handover from SoF to archai will be linked below 1840 and 1879#1918-11-29-GA186, and how the adverse influences came into play
• the change or 'passing the baton' from one archai time spirit of the age to the next, see Schema FMC00.459 on Folk souls. For this it is good to appreciate the nature of the archai as time spirits (see Third Hierarchy, ao1905-08-14-GA091 and other lecture extracts on that page)

As in many cases, from the study of spiritual science these multiple angles of perspectives, each with their storyline, can be gathered and layed over one another. The picture that emerges is multi-dimensional and has an intrinsic complexity which is humbling, as it shows that even this picture that emerges is still a huge oversimplification that is only scratching the surface of the spiritual realities.

2. Concatenating some relevant key excerpts

Building on the frame set above, this section takes a few key excerpts with the goal of concatenating them to a string, that allows one to see a pattern emerge, and through this highlighting may support one in gaining insight.

2.1 - Second half of fourth cultural age

First the shortened key extract from 1921-05-15-GA325 (for full extract see link higher on this page) now with bold and underlined highlights to the point of this note:

This example shows us that the concepts and ideas of men in the time immediately preceding the fifteenth century were quite different from ours. Going backwards from the fifteenth century, we come to a lengthy period generally referred to as the dark Middle Ages, during which we find no such progress in the realm of thought as is apparent from the fifteenth century onwards. The development of thought that has taken place since the days of Galileo and Copernicus, leading up to the achievements of the nineteenth century, bear witness to unbroken progress, but in the time preceding the fifteenth century we cannot speak of progress in this sense at all. We can go back century alter century, through the twelfth, eleventh, tenth, ninth, eighth, seventh and sixth centuries, and we find quite a different state of things.

We see the gradual spread of Christianity, but no trace of progressive evolution in the world of thought such as begins in the fifteenth century and in the middle of the nineteenth century undergoes the radical change of which we have spoken. We come finally to a most significant point in the spiritual life of Europe, namely, the fourth century AD

Gradually it dawns upon us that it is possible to follow stage by stage the progressive development beginning in the middle of the fifteenth century with Nicolas Cusanus, expressing itself in the thought of men like Galileo and Copernicus and ultimately leading on to the radical turning-point in the nineteenth century, but that things are not at all the same in earlier centuries.

We find there a more stationary condition of the world of thought and then, suddenly, in the fourth century of our era, everything changes.

This century is a period of the greatest significance in European thought and civilisation. Its significance will be brought home to us all the more when we realise that events after the turning-point in the fifteenth century, for example, the movements known as the Renaissance and the Reformation, denote a kind of return to conditions as they were in the fourth century of the Christian era.

... The history of this fourth century of our era is truly remarkable. ...

What, then, is the state of things in the age immediately following the fourth century A.D.? ...

• ... Spiritual life in the real sense makes no headway. The impulses of an earlier spirituality which had been taken over and remoulded by the priesthood, are inculcated into the uneducated peasant population of Europe; and not until these impulses have been inculcated does the blood now flowing in the veins of the people of Europe work in the direction of awakening the spirit which becomes manifest for the first time in the fifteenth century.

[Fourth century]

In the fourth century AD we find many typical representatives of the forces and impulses working at such a momentous point of time in the evolution of humanity. The significance of this century is at once apparent when we think of the following dates.

..

And so, in this fourth century of our era, we find the human mind involved in the complicated network of Western culture but also in an element which constitutes the starting-point of a new impulse. ... In the depths, however, there is something else at work.

This extract 'explains' quite literally what is taking place, how to see the importance of the 4th and 15th centuries, and also why this period of 1000 years is a mingling and incorporation of all that was exhaled in the first half cycle, all influences mankind received in that first half now intermingle, mix, and have to be incorporated so there can be a new start in the 15th century. That this is more of a spiritual subcurrent and not so much overly visible in the outside world is also explained in lectures on the year 1250. And it helps to understand why this period is spoken of as the dark middle ages.

A second extract to be considered when studying Schema FMC00.534

325#1918-10-16-GA182

Let us now consider the middle point of this cultural age which lasted from 747 B.C. to A.D. 1413.

Up to that middle point the evolution of the intellectual soul was on the ascending arc; then began the arc of descent.

This point you can easily calculate; it is the year 333 after the birth of Christ Jesus. The year A.D. 333 therefore marks a very important point in the evolution of humanity.

... in the Fourth post-Atlantean epoch, towards the year A.D. 333, the intellectual soul was coming to its prime,

That is why the schema shows the second half from 4th century onwards as exhalation, in the next phase things are left to their own and this corresponds to a period of 'incorporation', more on this higher on this topic page.

2.2 - Transition to and start of current fifth cultural age

1 - For this we refer to the topic page 1840 and 1879, from which we highlight Schema FMC00.535 and the lecture of 1921-04-30-GA204 from which the illustration originates. To be studied first.

2 - Furthermore, this very delay between the calendar start of the fifth cultural age (1413), and its true impact (around 1840) can also be studied from Schema FMC00.459 on the page 1840 and 1879 (or on Folk souls). This describes the context for the late appearance of the time spirit for Europe .. only in the 16-17th century preparations were made for the development of the guiding time spirit of the fifth cultural age.

3 - It also shows the complexity of this context, to which has to be added quote B of 1840 and 1879#1918-11-29-GA186, from which the short quote below (linking to the 'fall of the spirits of darkness'):

1918-11-29-GA186

During the fifth decade of the nineteenth century, which I have often designated as an important turning point — the situation became such that Jehovah himself was gradually overpowered in his influence upon human consciousness through the dominance of those lower spirits he had evoked. The result was that, since only the element in the human being that is bound to the natural order of things, to the blood, can be comprehended by means of the forces of Jehovah, Man's earlier seeking for the one God in nature was transmuted, because of the influence of the opposing elements, into mere atheistic natural science; that is, to mere atheistic scientific thinking and to merely utilitarian thinking in the field of practical life.

4 - Other aspects also in this period of 1413 to 1840 to be taken along:

• Man's new organ developed in the period 1525-1879 .. a gland in the brain above the root of Man's nose, and can be used to take in and let spiritual scientific knowledge work on Man's etheric body, as basis for future development of to faculties of clairvoyance and Past life memories.
• the 'maximum working of the spiritual' at the transition points between periods of evolution is also appearing in, or exemplified by, what Rudolf Steiner calls the 'cosmic thunderstorm' in the first third of the 15th century where the first hierarchy (H1) was like 'hard-coding' new 'changes in the wiring' into Man's physical system, the sense-nerve subsystem (1924-07-28-GA237, see also Schema FMC00.167)
  

3. Commentary and notes

Trying to get an overall understanding of evolution and historical development (see Schema FMC00.059 on History); hereby some notes with lateral reflections that point to certain elements (where one can look for parallels or additional supporting correspondences):

1 - One could wonder if this difference between first and second half is also apparent in the third cultural age. Although historical records are less complete and good, nevertheless one can see exactly that. In the Egyptian culture and dynasties there is a first period of approx -3000 to approx -2000 BC, the high days .. and then a period where the culture continues but deteriorates, comes under pressure, receives attacks, etc.

2 - Rome is said to have been founded in -747BC. It is interesting to observe, in the history of nations, the period of 1750-1776 up to the civil war 1860 in the US, and the period 1650-1800 for England and the UK.

4. Building an understanding of the current fifth cultural age

Rudolf Steiner states that "we have only some 400 years" to dissiminate and develop the important impulse of spiritual science, in context of the Future Oriphiel age to come, and also states that the fifth and sixth cultural ages are really the most important ones for humanity in view of the current epoch and its transition to the next great Sixth epoch.

Given the fact some people in the spiritual stream(s) have made comments to the fact that our current incarnation(s) may or would be (some of) the most important ever, and the huge changes we see in the world the last fifty years, it is normal one tries to understand the meaning of our current times in a bit of a wider picture. And spiritual science provides us with clues to develop an intuition of what is to come (bearing in mind Schema FMC00.059 on History). This is basically the essential purpose of Schema FMC00.534.

Contemplate the lower part of this Schema FMC00.534, and we see that the middle of the current cultural age between 1413 to 3573 is approx 2493. (However the true impulse kicked in some 400 years later, see 1840 and 1879.) What is apparent from the scheme however is that Oriphiel age corresponds to the pivoting point at half of the cultural age.

This is where major events will take place that will provide the key ingredients, the seeds and 'terroir' for the next and more spiritual sixth cultural age (which itself is the preparatory phase for the sample that will seed the sixth epoch). One can intuitively see that this dark Oriphiel age of 'purification', as Rudolf Steiner puts it, could provide a major 'sifting'. After that, another slower millenium of incorporation of a different nature might well probably follow, but (in terms of spiritual development) the card deck will be seriously shaken/shuffled by and around that phase.

To the contextual frame sketched above one can now add Rudolf Steiner's descriptions of important challenges mankind will be facing in the next centuries .. "we stand before something collosal". For more details we refer to what is on: Nostradamus#2.1 - War between the West and Asia and World catastrophy.

For perspective, another element one could line up, though it is untimed (and might as well happen next year), is what is on Three days of darkness.

Summing it up ..

Taking a step back again looking at Schema FMC00.534 and what is still left to go in this first half of the fifth cultural age, one can see that the dies will have been thrown by the period 2500-2600, and to that period humanity faces two phases which will both be difficult but of a very different nature. The first phase will be one of increasing materialism where the spiritual (and include the moral, the human, idealism) comes under ever greater pressure and is being squeezed out (even though spiritual affinity and spontaneous clairvoyance will emerge and grow), nervous diseases and epidemies, growing suicide, and wars oa east with west. The second phase of the Oriphiel purification will be harsh, it is described with words as "famine, chill, pestilence" .. "terrible epidemics and strange nervous diseases; children could be born with a ruined nervous system". It is not unlogical to see how a great world war and/or a cosmic disaster such as the Three days of darkness, could provide a pivoting transition between these two phases described, even though the evolutionary patterns may flow into one another. Things will become so rough, that certain souls no longer choose/want to incarnate. But eventually, what is described as cleansing or purification with these descriptions of 'doom', is that the current materialistic steamroller will go against the wall and come to a hard stop, and this most difficult phase for mankind will "produce a separation into good and evil races". This is the very start of a long process, the initial separation of the seeds of what is called with the biblical expression "separate the wheat from the chaff". Not that this is the end of the process, or the large second segment is lost forever or can and will not be gained back .. it will get another chance in later stages of development, only this will be in various much later stages and not in this first process of the 'refinery'. Maybe a metaphoric image could be that of chemotherapy where the patient is on the border of nearly dying as part of the destruction of the cancer cells.

Note: in the above, the added quotes were inserted without references, but these can be found in full when studying the linked pages that are referenced in the text above.

It seems there is no other way, and that we have to prepare for this future which Steiner calls "necessity", meaning that it will have to happen. Today we live every day as a day in heaven without realizing how things will be in the future. Ignorant of the incredible harsh times ahead, we don't realize today the heavenly world we live in with peace food nature sunshine and the beauty and comfort of life, the warmth of human relations. It's a period we'd better use to "change our ways", as per John the Baptist and Rudolf Steiner. Spiritual science is a door to this, the next step and the best each soul can do to progress is to put all its strength of will in the balance for the path of self-initiation see IIH and initiation exercises. As per Lao Tzu: "if you want to change the world, change yourself".

Concluding these reflections, we refer to more reading on this on the page Contemporary worldview war, with Schema FMC00.422A as an entry point. Furthermore see also Schema FMC00.052.

Related pages

• Overlapping evolutionary periods
• Spiritual hierarchies and their eigenperiods
• Evolution
• Man and nature's kingdoms in evolution
• Twelve conditions of consciousness
• Earth rounds perspective
• Cosmic fractal