After the encroachment of Ahriman, still another kind of Initiation was added to this one. Ahriman concealed from man everything out of the spiritual world which would have appeared behind physical sense-perception, had he not interfered in human affairs from the middle of the Atlantean period onward. The Initiates of the Mysteries owed the revelation of what he had thus kept hidden, to the fact that they had developed within their souls all those faculties which man had attained since that time, beyond the degree necessary for physical sense-impressions. Thus there were revealed to them the spiritual powers lying behind the forces of nature. They could speak of the spiritual beings behind nature. The creative might of those forces acting in nature below man, was revealed to them. That which had been active since Saturn, Sun and the old Moon and had shaped man’s physical, etheric and astral body as well as the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms, formed the contents of a certain kind of mystery-secrets,—namely those over which Ahriman held his hand. That which had formed the sentient-, rational-and consciousness-souls and which had been concealed from man by Lucifer, was revealed in a second kind of Mystery-secrets. But what the Mysteries could only prophesy was, that in time a man would appear possessing an astral body which, despite Lucifer, could become conscious of the light-world of the Sun-spirit through the etheric body, apart from any special condition of the soul. And the physical body of that human being must be of such a nature, that everything in the spiritual world would be revealed to him, which Ahriman is able to conceal from man up to the time of physical death. Physical death could bring no change into the life of such a being, that is to say, could have no power over it. The “Ego” so manifests in such a human being that the entire spiritual life is at the same time contained in his physical life. Such a being is the vehicle of the Spirit of Light, to whom the Initiate ascends from two directions, being led, under special conditions of the soul, either to the Superhuman Spirit or to the Being of the forces of nature. When the Initiates of the Mysteries foretold the appearance in the course of time, of such a human being, they were prophets of the Christ.