' Large temptations will emanate from these machine-animals produced by people themselves & it will be the task of a spiritual science that explores the cosmos to ensure all these temptations do not exert any damaging influence on human beings' In an increasingly digitised world where both work & play are more & more taking place online & via screens Rudolf Steiner's dramatic statements from 1917 appear prophetic Speaking of 'intelligent machines' that would appear in the future Steiner presents a broad context that illustrates the multitude of challenges human beings will face If humanity & the Earth are to continue to evolve together with the cosmos & not be cut off from it entirely we will need to work consciously & spiritually to create a counterweight to such phenomena In the lectures gathered here edited with commentary & notes by Andreas Neider Rudolf Steiner addresses a topic that he was never to speak of again the secret of the 'geographical' or the 'ahrimanic' doppelganger The human nervous system houses an entity that does not belong to its constitution he states This is an ahrimanic being which enters the body shortly before birth & leaves at death providing the basis for all electrical currents that are needed to process & coordinate sense perceptions & react to them Based on his spiritual research Rudolf Steiner discusses this doppelganger or 'double' in the wider context of historic occult events relating to 'spirits of darkness' Specific brotherhoods seek to keep such knowledge to themselves in order to exert power & spread materialism But this knowledge is critical says Steiner if the geographical doppelganger & its challenges are to be understood