Esoteric Development

Selected Lectures and Writings from the Works of Rudolf Steiner

By Rudolf Steiner Various translators, edited by lice Wulsin Various ! "#s
Steiner depicts here the experience of his non-mystical, scientifically clear path to a cultivation of inner faculties for experiencing supersensible realities. Topics covered include the "six basic exercises," fasting, suitable content and practical requirements for meditative training, changes and stages of inner awareness, the role of love in acquiring higher knowledge, the development of higher sense organs or chakras, and the three types of esoteric paths !riental "oga, #hristian-$nostic, and %uropean &osicrucian. '(ith an informative introduction by )lan *oward, %soteric +evelopment is a useful introduction to the spiritual development exercises taught by &udolf Steiner., -ew )ge .ook &eview. %dited by )lice (ulsin and with a cover design by /eter 0an !ordt, this volume is presented here with the kind permission of the &udolf Steiner -achlassverwaltung,

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1ecture, )pril <, 45448 $) 9=7. Translated by !lin +. (annamaker. ;irst published by )nthroposophic /ress, 2nc. Translation revised for this volume. 1ecture 222 Supersensible >nowledge )nthroposophy )s a +emand of the )ge September ./, *+.0 1ecture, September ?@, 45?=8 $) 9<:. Translated by !lin +. (annamaker. ;irst published by )nthroposophic /ress, 2nc. 45:=. Translation revised for this volume. ASee this original translation as 1ecture 2 in the lecture series, Supersensible Knowledge (Anthroposophy) as a Demand of the Age. 1ecture 20 )ttainment of Supersensible >nowledge September .(, *+.. 1ecture, September ?6, 45??8 $) 9=67. ;irst published in the Anthroposophy Quarterly 0ol. :, -o. ? A45?5B. Translation revised extensively for this volume. /ermission to revise original translation kindly granted by &udolf Steiner /ress. #hapter 0 $eneral +emands (hich %very )spirant for !ccult +evelopment Cust /ut to *imself (ritten work8 $) 9?:7. /reviously published by &udolf Steiner /ress as part of the volume Guidance in Esoteric Training. &evised for this volume with the kind permission of &udolf Steiner /ress. #hapter 02 ;urther &ules in #ontinuation of $eneral +emands (ritten text8 $) 9?:7. &evised for this volume from an unpublished manuscript. 1ecture 022 The $reat 2nitiates

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-ote The lectures in this volume were given by &udolf Steiner at different points in his lifetime. )t the time when the earlier lectures were given, &udolf Steiner was still actively participating in the $erman Section of the Theosophical Society and was using the terms 'theosophy, and 'theosophical,, although often in the sense of the anthroposophical science of the spirit presented by him from the beginning. 2n accordance with a suggestion he made later, after forming the )nthroposophical Society, these designations have been replaced by 'anthroposophy, and 'anthroposophical,, except in instances where he is referring historically to the theosophical movement.

2ntroduction
This book is about how to obtain supersensible knowledge, or knowledge of 'higher, worlds. 2t contains ten lectures on that theme given by &udolf Steiner to different audiences in different places, but arranged here in a certain evolving depth of content. 2n a time like the present, therefore, when so many people are looking for a spiritual understanding of life E and when many are being led astray by unscrupulous teachers E it is a matter of no little importance that such a book should appear now, a book that demands nothing of the reader but an independent, open-minded Fudgment of what it has to say. )s this book is likely to come to the attention of those who know little or nothing about &udolf Steiner, and perhaps even less of supersensible knowledge, it may be well to introduce it by saying something about both its author and his subFect. This kind of prospective reader will then be better able to adapt himself to what it has to say, while those more familiar with Steiner can plunge straight into the book without spending any more time with this introduction. &udolf Steiner was a philosopher with a strong scientific background who attracted a great deal of attention in the first quarter of this century with his books and lectures on the nature of the supersensible. *e not only gave detailed descriptions of higher worlds and their beings that are inaccessible to ordinary sense-perception, but he explained how knowledge of these worlds could be acquired by anyone willing to follow a strict and guided development of the ordinary powers of cognition. Steiner based all that he said on the ability of the human mind to now! *e would have nothing to do with any method that imposed strange, mystical practices on the aspirant for higher knowledge, or that demanded implicit obedience to the will of a teacher or guru. %verything he suggested can be explored only on the basis of the consciousness that modern man has acquired in the pursuit of knowledge of nature. (e are accustomed to calling this knowledge of nature 'scientific,, and though this knowledge was to Steiner merely the outer aspect of a world of phenomena and beings active 'behind the scenes,, as it were, he was so much in accord with the basic principles of scientific methodology that he called this higher knowledge spiritual science! The spiritual scientist directs thinking to what is given, as does the natural scientist, but does not confine himself only to that which is given to the senses. *e applies thinking to thought itself as the primary manifestation of supersensible reality. The world that spiritual science explores, therefore, is the world of creative purposes and intentions in contrast to the world of sense-perceptible phenomena, or the 'wrought work,, as Steiner called it on one occasion. >nowledge of these higher worlds is, therefore, 'occult,, hidden from ordinary consciousness, and hence the term 'occultism, used in the opening lines of this book to distinguish this knowledge from the comprehensive term 'anthroposophy,, which &udolf Steiner uses to describe his work as a whole. -ow occultism" referring as it does to something ordinarily inaccessible to us, has a strong fascination for some people. !thers, of course, are Fust as strongly repelled by it. )s it is the former who are likely to be attracted to this book Athe others will hardly get beyond the titleB, we can proceed at once to offer certain cautionary remarks to the former, for Fust because of this strong fascination one might attempt to embark forthwith upon the discovery of this extraordinary knowledge without further reflection. 2t should be remembered, however, that Steiner had already written a book on this subFect, Knowledge of #igher $orlds and %ts Attainment" and the people who heard the lectures reproduced here would, for the most part, have been familiar with that book, and with anthroposophy in general. To begin with, then, it needs to be said that as these higher worlds are indeed 'hidden, from ordinary knowledge and consciousness, the reader would be well advised to get some information about them before embarking on a quest for higher knowledge. &udolf SteinerGs two books, Theosophy and &ccult Science" an &utline" are excellent sources of such information. There are several reasons for this suggestion. !ne is that Steiner himself held it as a sine 'ua non for the acquisition of higher knowledge that the aspirant should get some idea beforehand of these worlds from those able to speak of them from firsthand experience. This is not only important in light of much that is referred to in the book itself, but it is also a matter of common sense. )nyone contemplating traveling to a part of the world that he has never visited will invariably find out as much about it as he can beforehand from those who have already been there. *e will then not only know what to expect, but he is likely to understand all the better what he sees when he gets there. This is even more relevant in the quest for knowledge of higher worlds, for one is seeking access to worlds that not only one has never seen, but that are utterly unlike anything one could see with physical eyes.

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There is another and even more pressing reason. Such a study of the information about the higher worlds, already existing in what are called the 'five basic books, of anthroposophy, is itself the first step to such knowledge. ) reading of the first chapter of &ccult Science" an &utline will do much to explain this. 2f the reader finds in such a preliminary study something to which he can with sound Fudgment say, "es, he will be able to proceed on solid foundations with what this book has to offer. The reader will discover by such study the reality of something with which he has long been familiar as a figure of speech, but which he now recogniHes as an inner faculty E his sense of truth. *e will have learned something of the knowledge-potential of the inner nature of thought, and what can happen in thin ing will take on a new depth of meaning for him. 2f he can combine this with a study of SteinerGs The (hilosophy of )reedom" he will find his confidence in thinking enhanced, even in thinking about matters of which he has as yet no direct experience. This is important, because he will find as he reads this book that thinking itself is not only a supersensible activity, but is the very vehicle by which he finds his way to experience of these worlds. There is something else the reader will have to determine for himself before he takes up a quest such as this book describes E that is, whether he is both ready and able to embark upon it. (hile this might seem to call into question the statement already made that anyone can take this path, it does not really. The exercises outlined in this book are indeed such that anyone can practice them, but they are not easy. !ne must be aware of this. They are quite strict, and no one should embark on them without carefully weighing what that strictness involves. (e have already touched on the fact that the occult has a fascination for people. Cany would like to have such knowledge, but it is of the utmost importance to understand why one wants to obtain this knowledge. The aspirant must be able to put that question to himself and to answer it with the utmost honesty and sincerity, for if anything of the nature of mere curiosity or personal advantage should lie at the root of that desire, harmless as that might be in itself, it will become an obstacle in the attainment of higher knowledge. (e touch here on the moral aspect of the acquisition of higher knowledge, a matter to which the reader will find &udolf Steiner calls attention again and again throughout this book. 2t is not a matter, however, of Steiner laying down moral inFunctions, but rather of the aspirant discovering the morality which is implicit in the attainment of knowledge. *ere the strictest scientific integrity, demanding the exclusion of all personal gratification and desire, is essential. 2f the aspirant is not yet ready to accept that morality, then it would be better for him to continue studying the literature of spiritual science Awhich he should be doing in any caseB until he is ready. *ere self* nowledge precedes self*de+elopment" and if that knowledge is obFective and thorough enough, it will be found to be essential to selfdevelopment. )s #arl Inger, a pupil of &udolf Steiner, once put it, '%very knowledge transforms the knower,, and the path to higher knowledge is primarily a transformation of the self. ) word or two on what was meant by being 'able, to embark on this quest would not come amiss here, particularly regarding the 'strictness, already mentioned. .eing 'able, refers primarily to regularity in carrying out the exercises described by Steiner. !nce having embarked on this path there should be no, but no, 'letup., (hether the reader has the ability to do that, especially if he is young, is something that needs careful reflection. ')ble, here has nothing to do with superior intelligence8 it is exclusively a matter of the will! This is why Steiner sets such a modest time limit on the duration of these exercises a quarter of an hour, or even five minutes, is enough if used properly. .ut the exercises must be done e+ery day. &egularity is everything8 and if one considers all the eventualities that might upset that regularity, one might well reflect on whether one will be able to carry this through. There is nothing quite so discouraging as having to face having reneged on such work as this, even with the best reason in the world. 2t is like dropping from a great height a ball of string that one has Fust carefully wound, and having to face the prospect of winding it all up again. The reader should also be aware of what will be happening to him if he decides to follow this path, and although Steiner makes this abundantly clear, it will not hurt to underline one thing. !ne is engaged in transforming the soul into an organ of perception, and one is doing this largely as the result of exercises based on thinking. (e usually imagine perception and thinking to be two entirely different activities, but we cannot really keep them apart. !ne need only recall how, after a strenuous bout of thinking, when the concept for which we are searching at last appears, we invariably say, ')hJ -ow 2 see,- to realiHe that perceiving Ain this case, perceiving conceptsB is closely interwoven with thinking. !ne does 'see, the concept that has appeared in consciousness8 and it is this seeing in thin ing that the aspirant will be exercising in everything he does. ')s color is to the eye,, says Steiner in Goethe the Scientist" 'and sound to the ear, so are concepts and ideas to thinking it .thin ing/ is an organ of perception!;inally, one must discover that the satisfaction in doing these exercises should be in the feeling they engender. There can be no setting a goal for oneself, such as, '2 will do these exercises for a certain length of time, and then see what happens,, or of drawing an imaginary chart to plot oneGs progress, as business executives do to show whether their profits are going up or down. /aradoxical as it may seem, although one undertakes these exercises in order to achieve a certain result, that result should be the last thing with which one is concerned. ;or, again paradoxically, that result is not something one can ac'uire0 it is something that is gi+en when the higher powers deem that the time is ripe for enlightenment to be given. )nd that is something no man can foresee. 2t may take months, it may take years. The satisfaction, therefore, that one can legitimately hope to feel is only that which can be found in the work itself. 2t is 'love for the action, that must be discovered. !ne must come to the point where one would rather omit anything else in the course of the day than miss the satisfaction which comes from this work. Then and then only will one become aware that something is beginning to happen in the soul, a genuine intercourse between oneself and higher worlds8 and although one may still not be able to 'see a thing,, that will not be important. !ne will now that such seeing will and must come, as come it only can, 'in $odGs good time.,

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There is Fust one more thing that should be said about this book and that should recommend it regardless of what the reader does about the book otherwise that is, the way it reveals what 2 can only describe as the inner logic of knowledge. -o one who reads this book with an open mind and the attention it deserves can lay it down without being convinced not only that such knowledge is possible, but that it is only really possible in the way the author describes. The reader may not want to advance to such knowledge himself E there may be reasons best known to him why he should not attempt it yet E but there can be no doubt that this knowledge is possible to anyone who has the determination to see it through. )nd to know Fust that from reading such a book is something unique. ;urthermore, the material in this book is offered by a man who knows from personal experience what he is talking about, who 'lays all his cards on the table, with regard to what is involved, and yet never once uses that authority to impose upon the freedom of the reader as to what he does about it. There are two things with which our time has yet to come to grips one is the extension of manGs knowledge and human consciousness into regions of the mind hitherto declared forever inaccessible8 and the other is the real nature of human freedom. 2n this book the author lays out a plan of approach for the one, and by the way he does so he acknowledges the indisputable existence of the other. )lan *oward

2 2nner +evelopment
The concepts concerning the supersensible world and its relationship with the world of the senses have been discussed here in a long series of lectures. 2t is only natural that, again and again, the question should arise, '(hat is the origin of knowledge concerning the supersensible worldK, (ith this question or, in other words, with the question of the inner development of man, we wish to occupy ourselves today. The phrase 'inner development of man, here refers to the ascent of the human being to capacities which must be acquired if he wishes to make supersensible insights his own. -ow do not misunderstand the intent of this lecture. This lecture will by no means postulate rules or laws concerning general human morality, nor will it challenge the general religion of the age. 2 must stress this because when occultism is discussed the misunderstanding often arises that some sort of general demands or fundamental moral laws, valid without variation, are being established. This is not the case. This point requires particular clarification in our age of standardiHation, when differences between human beings are not at all acknowledged. -either should todayGs lecture be mistaken for a lecture concerning the general fundamentals of the anthroposophic movement. !ccultism is not the same as anthroposophy. The )nthroposophical Society is not alone in cultivating occultism, nor is this its only task. 2t could even be possible for a person to Foin the )nthroposophical Society and to avoid occultism altogether. )mong the inquiries which are pursued within the )nthroposophical Society, in addition to the field of general ethics, is also this field of occultism, which includes those laws of existence which are hidden from the usual sense observation in everyday human experience. .y no means, however, are these laws unrelated to everyday experience. '!ccult, means 'hidden,, or 'mysterious., .ut it must be stressed over and over that occultism is a matter in which certain preconditions are truly necessary. Lust as higher mathematics would be incomprehensible to the simple peasant who had never before encountered it, so is occultism incomprehensible to many people today. !ccultism ceases to be 'occult,, however, when one has mastered it. 2n this way, 2 have strictly defined the boundaries of todayGs lecture. Therefore, no one can obFect E this must be stressed in the light of the most manifold endeavors and of the experience of millennia E that the demands of occultism cannot be fulfilled, and that they contradict the general culture. -o one is expected to fulfill these demands. .ut if someone requests that he be given convictions provided by occultism and yet refuses to occupy himself with it, he is like a schoolboy who wishes to create electricity in a glass rod, yet refuses to rub it. (ithout friction, it will not become charged. This is similar to the obFection raised against the practice of occultism. -o one is exhorted to become an occultist8 one must come to occultism of oneGs own volition. (hoever says that we do not need occultism will not need to occupy himself with it. )t this time, occultism does not appeal to mankind in general. 2n fact, it is extremely difficult in the present culture to submit to those rules of conduct which will open the spiritual world. Two prerequisites are totally lacking in our culture. !ne is isolation, what spiritual science calls 'higher human solitude., The other is overcoming the egotism which, though largely unconscious, has become a dominant characteristic of our time. The absence of these two prerequisites renders the path of inner development simply unattainable. 2solation, or spiritual solitude, is very difficult to achieve because life conditions tend to distract and disperse, in brief to demand sense-involvement in the external. There has been no previous culture in which people have lived with such an involvement in the external. 2 beg you not to take what 2 am saying as criticism, but simply as an obFective characteriHation. !f course, he who speaks as 2 do knows that this situation cannot be different, and that it forms the basis for the greatest advantages and greatest achievements of our time. .ut this is the reason that our time is so devoid of supersensible insight and that our culture is so devoid of supersensible influence. 2n other cultures E and they do exist E the human being is in a position to cultivate the inner life more and to withdraw from the influences of external life. Such cultures offer a soil where inner life in the higher sense can thrive. 2n the !riental culture there exists what is called "oga. Those who live according to the rules of this teaching are called yogis. ) yogi is one who strives for higher spiritual knowledge, but only after he has sought for himself a master of the supersensible. -o one is
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able to proceed without the guidance of a master, or guru. (hen the yogi has found such a guru, he must spend a considerable part of the day, regularly, not irregularly, living totally within his soul. )ll the forces that the yogi needs to develop are already within his soul. They exist there as truly as electricity exists in the glass rod before it is brought forth through friction. 2n order to call forth the forces of the soul, methods of spiritual science must be used which are the results of observations made over millennia. This is very difficult in our time, which demands a certain splintering of each individual struggling for existence. !ne cannot arrive at a total inward composure8 one cannot even arrive at the concept of such composure. /eople are not sufficiently aware of the deep solitude the yogi must seek. !ne must repeat the same matter rhythmically with immense regularity, if only for a brief time each day, in total separation from all usual concerns. 2t is indispensable that all life usually surrounding the yogi cease to exist and that his senses become unreceptive to all impressions of the world around him. *e must be able to make himself deaf and dumb to his surroundings during the time which he prescribes for himself. *e must be able to concentrate to such a degree E and he must acquire practice in this concentration E that a cannon could be fired next to him without disturbing his attention to his inner life. *e must also become free of all memory impressions, particularly those of everyday life. Lust think how exceedingly difficult it is to bring about these conditions in our culture, how even the concept of such isolation is lacking. This spiritual solitude must be reached in such a way that the harmony, the total equilibrium with the surrounding world, is never lost. .ut this harmony can be lost exceedingly easily during such deep immersion in oneGs inner life. (hoever goes more and more deeply inward must at the same time be able to establish harmony with the external world all the more clearly. -o hint of estrangement, of distancing from external practical life, may arise in him lest he stray from the right course. To a degree, then, it might be impossible to distinguish his higher life from insanity. 2t truly is a kind of insanity when the inner life loses its proper relationship to the outer. Lust imagine, for example, that you were knowledgeable concerning our conditions on earth and that you had all the experience and wisdom which may be gathered here. "ou fall asleep in the evening, and in the morning you do not wake up on %arth but on Cars. The conditions on Cars are totally different from those on %arth8 the knowledge that you have gathered on %arth is of no use to you whatsoever. There is no longer harmony between life within you and external life. "ou probably would find yourself in a Cartian insane asylum within an hour. ) similar situation might easily arise if the development of the internal life severs oneGs connection with the external world. !ne must take strict care that this does not happen. These are great difficulties in our culture. %gotism in relation to inward soul properties is the first obstacle. /resent humanity usually takes no account of this. This egotism is closely connected with the spiritual development of man. )n important prerequisite for spiritual development is not to seek it out of egotism. (hoever is motivated by egotism cannot get very far. .ut egotism in our time reaches deep into the innermost soul. )gain and again the obFection is heard, '(hat use are all the teachings of occultism, if 2 cannot experience them myselfK, (hoever starts from this presumption and cannot change has little chance of arriving at higher development. !ne aspect of higher development is a most intimate awareness of human community, so that it is immaterial whether it is 2 or someone else having the experience. *ence 2 must meet one who has a higher development than 2 with unlimited love and trust. ;irst, 2 must acquire this consciousness, the consciousness of infinite trust toward my fellow man when he says that he has experienced one thing or the other. Such trust is a precondition for working together. (herever occult capacities are strongly brought into play, there exists unlimited trust8 there exists the awareness that a human being is a personality in which a higher individuality lives. The first basis, therefore, is trust and faith, because we do not seek the higher self only in ourselves but also in our fellow men. %veryone living around one exists in undivided unity in the inner kernel of oneGs being. !n the basis of my lower self 2 am separated from other humans. .ut as far as my higher self is concerned E and that alone can ascend to the spiritual world E 2 am no longer separated from my fellow men8 2 am united with my fellow men8 the one speaking to me out of higher truths is actually my own self. 2 must get away completely from the notion of difference between him and me. 2 must overcome totally the feeling that he has an advantage over me. Try to live your way into this feeling until it penetrates the most intimate fiber of your soul and causes every vestige of egotism to disappear. +o this so that the one further along the path than you truly stands before you like your own self8 then you have attained one of the prerequisites for awakening higher spiritual life. 2n situations where one receives guidance for the occult life, sometimes quite erroneously and confusedly, one may often hear that the higher self lives in the human being, that he need only allow his inner man to speak and the highest truth will thereby become manifest. -othing is more correct and, at the same time, less productive than this assertion. Lust try to let your inner self speak, and you will see that, as a rule, no matter how much you fancy that your higher self is making an appearance, it is the lower self that speaks. The higher self is not found within us for the time being. (e must seek it outside of ourselves. (e can learn a good deal from the person who is further along than we are, since there the higher self is visible. !neGs higher self can gain nothing from oneGs own egotistic '2., There where he now stands who is further along than 2 am, there will 2 stand sometime in the future. 2 am truly constituted to carry within myself the seed for what he already is. .ut the paths to !lympus must first be illuminated before one can follow them. ) feeling which may seem unbelievable is the fundamental condition for all occult development. 2t is mentioned in the various religions, and every practical occultist with experience will confirm it. The #hristian religion describes it with the well-known sentence, , which an occultist must understand completely, '%xcept ye become as little children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven., This sentence can be understood only by he who has learned to revere in the highest sense. Suppose that in your earliest youth you had heard about a venerable person, an individual of whom you held the highest opinion, and now you are offered the opportunity to meet this person. ) sense of awe prevails in you when the moment approaches that you will see this person for the first time. There, standing at the gateway of this personality, you might feel hesitant to touch the door handle and open it. (hen you look up in this way to such a venerable personality, then you have begun to grasp the feeling that #hristianity intends by the statement that one should
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become like little children in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. (hether or not the subFect of this veneration is truly worthy of it is not really important. (hat matters is the capacity to look up to something with a veneration that comes from the innermost heart. This feeling of veneration is the elevating force, raising us to higher spheres of supersensible life. %veryone seeking the higher life must write into his soul with golden letters this law of the occult world. +evelopment must start from this basic soul-mood8 without this feeling, nothing can be achieved. -ext, a person seeking inner development must understand clearly that he is doing something of immense importance to the human being. (hat he seeks is no more nor less than a new birth, and that needs to be taken in a literal sense. The higher soul of man is to be born. Lust as man in his first birth was born out of the deep inner foundations of existence, and as he emerged into the light of the sun, so does he who seeks inner development step forth from the physical light of the sun into a higher spiritual light. Something is being born in him which rests as deeply in most human beings as the unborn child rests in the mother. (ithout being aware of the full significance of this fact, one cannot understand what occult development means. The higher soul, resting deep within human nature and interwoven with it, is brought forth. )s man stands before us in everyday life, his higher and lower natures are intermingled, and that is fortunate for everyday life. Cany persons among us would exhibit evil, negative qualities except that there lives along with the lower nature a higher one which exerts a balancing influence. This intermingling can be compared with mixing a yellow with a blue liquid in a glass. The result is a green liquid in which blue and yellow can no longer be distinguished. So also is the lower nature in man mingled with the higher, and the two cannot be distinguished. Lust as you might extract the blue liquid from the green by a chemical process, so that only the yellow remains and the unified green is separated into a complete duality, so the lower and higher natures separate in occult development. !ne draws the lower nature out of the body like a sword from the scabbard, which then remains alone. The lower nature comes forth appearing almost gruesome. (hen it was still mingled with the higher nature, nothing was noticeable. .ut once separated, all evil, negative properties come into view. /eople who previously appeared benevolent often become argumentative and Fealous. This characteristic had existed earlier in the lower nature, but was guided by the higher. "ou can observe this in many who have been guided along an abnormal path. ) person may readily become a liar when he is introduced into the spiritual world, because the capacity to distinguish between the true and the false is lost especially easily. Therefore, strictest training of the personal character is a necessary parallel to occult training. (hat history tells us about the saints and their temptations is not legend but literal truth. *e who wants to develop towards the higher world on any path is readily prone to such temptations unless he can subdue everything that meets him with a powerful strength of character and the highest morality. -ot only do lust and passions grow E that is not even the case so much E but opportunities also increase. This seems miraculous. )s through a miracle, the person ascending into the higher worlds finds previously hidden opportunities for evil lurking around him. 2n every aspect of life a demon lies in wait for him, ready to lead him astray. *e now sees what he has not seen before. )s through a spell, the division within his own being charms forth such opportunities from the hidden areas of life. Therefore, a very determined shaping of the character is an indispensable foundation for the so-called white magic, the school of occult development which leads man into the higher worlds in a good, true, and genuine way. %very practical occultist will tell you that no one should dare to step through the narrow portal, as the entrance to occult development is called, without practicing these properties again and again. They build the necessary foundation for occult life. ;irst man must develop the ability to distinguish in every situation throughout his life what is unimportant from what is important, that is, what is perishable from the imperishable. This requirement is easy to indicate but difficult to carry out. )s $oethe says, it is easy, but what is easy is hard. 1ook, for instance, at a plant or an obFect. "ou will learn to understand that everything has an important and an unimportant side, and that man usually takes interest in the unimportant, in the relationship of the matter to himself, or in some other subordinate aspect. *e who wishes to become an occultist must gradually develop the habit of seeing and seeking in each thing its essence. ;or instance, when he sees a clock he must have an interest in its laws. *e must be able to take it apart into its smallest detail and to develop a feeling for the laws of the clock. ) mineralogist will arrive at considerable knowledge about a quartH-crystal simply by looking at it. The occultist, however, must be able to take the stone in his hand and to feel in a living way something akin to the following monologue '2n a certain sense you, the crystal, are beneath humanity, but in a certain sense you are far above humanity. "ou are beneath humanity because you cannot make for yourself a picture of man by means of concepts, and because you do not feel. "ou cannot explain or think, you do not live, but you have an advantage over mankind. "ou are pure within yourself, have no desire, no wishes, no lust. %very human, every living being has wishes, desires, lusts. "ou do not have them. "ou are complete and without wishes, satisfied with what has come to you, an example for man, with which he will have to unite his other qualities., 2f the occultist can feel this in all its depth, then he has grasped what the stone can tell him. 2n this way man can draw out of everything something full of meaning. (hen this has become a habit for him, when he separates the important from the unimportant, he has acquired another feeling essential to the occultist. Then he must connect his own life with that which is important. 2n this people err particularly easily in our time. They believe that their place in life is not proper for them. *ow often people are inclined to say, 'Cy lot has put me in the wrong place. 2 am,, let us say, 'a postal clerk. 2f 2 were put in a different place, 2 could give people high ideas, great teaching,, and so on. The mistake which these people make is that they do not enter into the significant aspect of their occupation. 2f you see in me something of importance because 2 can talk to the people here, then you do not see the importance of your own life and work. 2f the mail-carriers did not carry the mail, the whole postal traffic would stop, and much work already achieved by others would be in vain. *ence everyone in his place is of exceeding importance for the whole, and none is higher than the other. #hrist has attempted to demonstrate this most beautifully in the thirteenth chapter of the $ospel of Lohn, with the words, 'The servant is not greater than his lord8 neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him., These words were spoken after the Caster had washed the feet of the )postles. *e wanted to say, '(hat would 2 be without my )postlesK They must be there so that 2 can be there in the world, and 2 must pay them tribute by lowering myself before them and washing their feet., This is one of the most significant allusions to the feeling that
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the occultist must have for what is important. (hat is important in the inward sense must not be confused with the externally important. This must be strictly observed. 2n addition, we must develop a series of qualities. M;or another description of these exercises, see &ccult Science an &utline A)nthroposophic /ress, Spring 0alley, -ew "ork, 453?B #hapter 7, p. ?<=.N To begin with, we must become masters over our thoughts, and particularly our train of thought. This is called control of thoughts. Lust think how thoughts whirl about in the soul of man, how they flit about like will-oG-the wisps. *ere one impression arises, there another, and each one changes oneGs thoughts. 2t is not true that we govern our thoughts8 rather our thoughts govern us totally. (e must advance to the ability of steeping ourselves in one specific thought at a certain time of the day and not allow any other thought to enter and disturb our soul. 2n this way we ourselves hold the reins of thought life for a time. The second quality is to find a similar relationship to our actions, that is, to exercise control o+er our actions. *ere it is necessary to undertake actions, at least occasionally, which are not initiated by anything external. That which is initiated by our station in life, our profession, or our situation does not lead us more deeply into higher life. *igher life depends on personal matters, such as resolving to do something springing totally from oneGs own initiative even if it is an absolutely insignificant matter. )ll other actions contribute nothing to the higher life. The third quality to be striven for is e+en*temperedness. /eople fluctuate back and forth between Foy and sorrow. !ne moment they are beside themselves with Foy, the next they are unbearably sad. Thus, people allow themselves to be rocked on the waves of life, on Foy or sorrow. .ut they must reach equanimity and steadiness. -either the greatest sorrow nor the greatest Foy must unsettle their composure. They must become steadfast and even-tempered. ;ourth is the understanding for e+ery being. -othing expresses more beautifully what it means to understand every being than the legend which is handed down to us, not by the $ospel, but by a /ersian story. Lesus was walking across a field with his disciples, and on the way they found a decaying dog. The animal looked horrible. Lesus stopped and cast an admiring look upon it, saying, '(hat beautiful teeth the animal hasJ, Lesus found within the ugly the one beautiful aspect. Strive at all times to approach what is wonderful in every obFect of outer reality, and you will see that everything contains an aspect that can be affirmed. +o as #hrist did when he admired the beautiful teeth on the dead dog. This course will lead you to the great ability to tolerate, and to an understanding of every thing and of every being. The fifth quality is complete openness towards everything new that meets us. Cost people Fudge new things which meet them by the old which they already know. 2f anyone comes to tell them something new, they immediately respond with an opposing opinion. .ut we must not confront a new communication immediately with our own opinion. (e must rather be on the alert for possibilities of learning something new. )nd learn we can, even from a small child. %ven if one were the wisest person, one must be willing to hold back oneGs own Fudgment, and to listen to others. (e must develop this ability to listen, for it will enable us to meet matters with the greatest possible openness. 2n occultism, this is called faith. 2t is the power not to weaken through opposition the impression made by the new. The sixth quality is that which everyone receives once he has developed the first five. 2t is inner harmony. The person who has the other qualities also has inner harmony. 2n addition, it is necessary for a person seeking occult development to develop his feeling for freedom to the highest degree. That feeling for freedom enables him to seek within himself the center of his own being, to stand on his own two feet, so that he will not have to ask everyone what he should do and so that he can stand upright and act freely. This also is a quality which one needs to acquire. 2f man has developed these qualities within himself, then he stands above all the dangers arising from the division within his nature. Then the properties of his lower nature can no longer affect him8 he can no longer stray from the path. Therefore, these qualities must be formed with the greatest precision. Then comes the occult life, whose expression depends on a steady rhythm being carried into life. The phrase 'carrying rhythm into life, expresses the unfolding of this faculty. 2f you observe nature, you will find in it a certain rhythm. "ou will, of course, expect that the violet blooms every year at the same time in spring, that the crops in the field and the grapes on the vine will ripen at the same time each year. This rhythmical sequence of phenomena exists everywhere in nature. %verywhere there is rhythm, everywhere repetition in regular sequence. )s you ascend from the plant to beings with higher development, you see the rhythmic sequence decreasing. "et even in the higher stages of animal development one sees how all functions are ordered rhythmically. )t a certain time of the year, animals acquire certain functions and capabilities. The higher a being evolves, the more life is given over into the hands of the being itself, and the more these rhythms cease. "ou must know that the human body is only one member of manGs being. There is also the etheric body, then the astral body, and, finally, the higher members which form the basis for the others. The physical body is highly subFect to the same rhythm that governs outer nature. Lust as plant and animal life, in its external form, takes its course rhythmically, so does the life of the physical body. The heart beats rhythmically, the lungs breathe rhythmically, and so forth. )ll this proceeds so rhythmically because it is set in order by higher powers, by the wisdom of the world, by that which the scriptures call the *oly Spirit. The higher bodies, particularly the astral body, have been, 2 would like to say, abandoned by these higher spiritual forces, and have lost their rhythm. #an you deny that your activity relating to wishes, desires, and passions is irregular, that it can in no way compare with the regularity ruling the physical bodyK *e who learns to know the rhythm inherent in physical nature
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increasingly finds in it an example for spirituality. 2f you consider the heart, this wonderful organ with the regular beat and innate wisdom, and you compare it with the desires and passions of the astral body which unleash all sorts of actions against the heart, you will recogniHe how its regular course is influenced detrimentally by passion. *owever, the functions of the astral body must become as rhythmical as those of the physical body. 2 want to mention something here which will seem grotesque to most people. This is the matter of fasting. )wareness of the significance of fasting has been totally lost. ;asting is enormously significant, however, for creating rhythm in our astral body. (hat does it mean to fastK 2t means to restrain the desire to eat and to block the astral body in relation to this desire. *e who fasts blocks the astral body and develops no desire to eat. This is like blocking a force in a machine. The astral body becomes inactive then, and the whole rhythm of the physical body with its innate wisdom works upward into the astral body to rhythmiciHe it. 1ike the imprint of a seal, the harmony of the physical body impresses itself upon the astral body. 2t would transfer much more permanently if the astral body were not continuously being made irregular by desires, passions, and wishes, including spiritual desires and wishes. 2t is more necessary for the man of today to carry rhythm into all spheres of higher life than it was in earlier times. Lust as rhythm is implanted in the physical body by $od, so man must make his astral body rhythmical. Can must order his day for himself. *e must arrange it for his astral body as the spirit of nature arranges it for the lower realms. 2n the morning, at a definite time, one must undertake one spiritual action8 a different one must be undertaken at another time, again to be adhered to regularly, and yet another one in the evening. These spiritual exercises must not be chosen arbitrarily, but must be suitable for the development of the higher life. This is one method for taking life in hand and for keeping it in hand. So set a time for yourself in the morning when you concentrate. "ou must adhere to this hour. "ou must establish a kind of calm so that the occult master in you may awaken. "ou must meditate about a great thought content that has nothing to do with the external world, and let this thought content come to life completely. ) short time is enough, perhaps a quarter of an hour. %ven five minutes are sufficient if more time is not available. .ut it is worthless to do these exercises irregularly. +o them regularly so that the activity of the astral body becomes as regular as a clock. !nly then do they have value. The astral body will appear completely different if you do these exercises regularly. Sit down in the morning and do these exercises, and the forces 2 described will develop. .ut, as 2 said, it must be done regularly, for the astral body expects that the same process will take place at the same time each day, and it falls into disorder if this does not happen. )t least the intent towards order must exist. 2f you rhythmiciHe your life in this manner, you will see success in not too long a time8 that is, the spiritual life hidden from man for the time being will become manifest to a certain degree. )s a rule, human life alternates among four states. The first state is the perception of the external world. "ou look around with your senses and perceive the external world. The second is what we may call imagination or the life of mental images which is related to, or even part of, dream life. There man does not have his roots in his surroundings, but is separated from them. There he has no realities within himself, but at the most reminiscences. The third state is dreamless sleep, in which man has no consciousness of his ego at all. 2n the fourth state he lives in memory. This is different from perception. 2t is already something remote, spiritual. 2f man had no memory, he could uphold no spiritual development. The inner life begins to develop by means of inner contemplation and meditation. Thus, the human being sooner or later perceives that he no longer dreams in a chaotic manner8 he begins to dream in the most significant way, and remarkable things reveal themselves in his dreams, which he gradually begins to recogniHe as manifestations of spiritual beings. -aturally the trivial obFection might easily be raised that this is nothing but a dream and therefore of no consequence. *owever, should someone discover the dirigible in his dream and then proceed to build it, the dream would simply have shown the truth. Thus an idea can be grasped in an other-than-usual manner. 2ts truthfulness must then be Fudged by the fact that it can be realiHed. (e must become convinced of its inner truth from outside. The next step in spiritual life is to comprehend truth by means of our own qualities and of guiding our dreams consciously. (hen we begin to guide our dreams in a regular manner, then we are at the stage where truth becomes transparent for us. The first stage is called 'material cognition., ;or this, the obFect must lie before us. The next stage is 'imaginative cognition., 2t is developed through meditation, that is through shaping life rhythmically. )chieving this is laborious. .ut once it is achieved, the time arrives when there is no longer a difference between perception in the usual life and perception in the supersensible. (hen we are among the things of our usual life, that is, in the sense world, and we change our spiritual state, then we experience continuously the spiritual, the supersensible world, but only if we have sufficiently trained ourselves. This happens as soon as we are able to be deaf and dumb to the sense world, to remember nothing of the everyday world, and still to retain a spiritual life within us. Then our dream-life begins to take on a conscious form. 2f we are able to pour some of this into our everyday life, then the next capacity arises, rendering the soul-qualities of the beings around us perceptible. Then we see not only the external aspect of things, but also the inner, hidden essential kernel of things, of plants, of animals, and of man. 2 know that most people will say that these are actually different things. True, these are always different things from those a person sees who does not have such senses. The third stage is that in which a consciousness, which is as a rule completely empty, begins to be enlivened by continuity of consciousness. The continuity appears on its own. The person is then no longer unconscious during sleep. +uring the time in which he used to sleep, he now experiences the spiritual world. !f what does sleep usually consistK The physical body lies in bed, and the astral body lives in the supersensible world. 2n this supersensible world, you are taking a walk. )s a rule, a person with the type of disposition which is typical today cannot withdraw very far from his body. 2f one applies the rules of spiritual science, organs can be developed in the astral body as it wanders during sleep E Fust as the physical body has organs E which allow one to become conscious during sleep. The physical body would be blind and deaf if it had no eyes or ears, and the astral body walking at night is blind and deaf for the same reason, because it does not yet have eyes and ears. .ut these organs are developed through meditation which provides the means for training these organs. This meditation must then be guided in a regular way. 2t is being led so that the human body is the mother and the spirit of man is the father. The physical
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human body, as we see it before us, is a mystery in every one of its parts and, in fact, each member is related in a definite but mysterious way to a part of the astral body. These are matters which the occultist knows. ;or instance, the point in the physical body lying between the eyebrows belongs to a certain organ in the astral organism. (hen the occultist indicates how one must direct thoughts, feelings, and sensations to this point between the eyebrows through connecting something formed in the physical body with the corresponding part of the astral body, the result will be a certain sensation in the astral body. .ut this must be practiced regularly, and one must know how to do it. Then the astral body begins to form its members. ;rom a lump, it grows to be an organism in which organs are formed. 2 have described the astral sense organs in the periodical, 1ucifer Gnosis! They are also called 1otus flowers. .y means of special word sequences, these 1otus flowers are cultivated. !nce this has occurred, the human being is able to perceive the spiritual world. This is the same world he enters when passing through the portal of death, a final contradiction to *amletGs 'The undiscoverGd country from whose bourn no traveler returns., So it is possible to go, or rather to slip, from the sense world into the supersensible world and to live there as well as here. That does not mean life in never-never land, but life in a realm that clarifies and explains life in our realm. Lust as the usual person who has not studied electricity would not understand all the wonderful workings in a factory powered by electricity, so the average person does not understand the occurrences in the spiritual world. The visitor at the factory will lack understanding as long as he remains ignorant of the laws of electricity. So also will man lack understanding in the realm of the spirit as long as he does not know the laws of the spiritual. There is nothing in our world that is not dependent on the spiritual world at every moment. %verything surrounding us is the external expression of the spiritual world. There is no materiality. %verything material is condensed spirit. ;or the person looking into the spiritual world, the whole material, sense-perceptible world, the world in general, becomes spiritualiHed. )s ice melts into water through the effect of the sun, so everything sense-perceptible melts into something spiritual within the soul which looks into the spiritual world. Thus, the fundament of the world gradually manifests before the spiritual eye and the spiritual ear. The life that man learns to know in this manner is actually the spiritual life he carries within himself all along. .ut he knows nothing of it because he does not know himself before developing organs for the higher world. 2magine possessing the characteristics you have at this time, yet being without sense-organs. "ou would know nothing of the world around you, would have no understanding of the physical body, and yet you would belong to the physical world. So the soul of man belongs to the spiritual world, but does not know it because it does not hear or see. Lust as our body is drawn out of the forces and materials of the physical world, so is our soul drawn out of the forces and materials of the spiritual world. (e do not recogniHe ourselves within ourselves, but only within our surroundings. )s we cannot perceive a heart or a brain E even by means of D-ray E without seeing it in other people through our sense organs Ait is only the eyes that can see the heartB, so we truly cannot see or hear our own soul without perceiving it with spiritual organs in the surrounding world. "ou can recogniHe yourself only by means of your surroundings. 2n truth there exists no inner knowledge, no self-examination8 there is only one knowledge, one revelation of the life around us through the organs of the physical as well as the spiritual. (e are a part of the worlds around us, of the physical, the soul, and the spiritual worlds. (e learn from the physical if we have physical organs, from the spiritual world and from all souls if we have spiritual and soul organs. There is no knowledge but knowledge of the world. 2t is vain and empty idleness for man to 'brood, within himself, believing that it is possible to progress simply by looking into himself. Can will find the $od in himself if he awakens the divine organs within himself and finds his higher divine self in his surroundings, Fust as he finds his lower self solely by means of using his eyes and ears. (e perceive ourselves clearly as physical beings by means of intercourse with the sense world, and we perceive ourselves clearly in relation to the spiritual world by developing spiritual senses. +evelopment of the inner man means opening oneself to the divine life around us. -ow you will understand that it is essential that he who ascends to the higher world undergoes, to begin with, an immense strengthening of his character. Can can experience on his own the characteristics of the sense world because his senses are already opened. This is possible because a benevolent divine spirit, who has seen and heard in the physical world, stood by man in the most ancient times, before man could see and hear, and opened manGs eyes and ears. 2t is from Fust such beings that man must learn at this time to see spiritually, from beings already able to do what he still has to learn. (e must have a guru who can tell us how we should develop our organs, who will tell us what he has done in order to develop these organs. *e who wishes to guide must have acquired one fundamental quality. This is unconditional truthfulness. This same quality is also a main requirement for the student. -o one may train to become an occultist unless this fundamental quality of unconditional truthfulness has been previously cultivated. (hen facing sense experience, one can test what is being said. (hen 2 tell you something about the spiritual world, however, you must have trust because you are not far enough to be able to confirm the information. *e who wishes to be a guru must have become so truthful that it is impossible for him to take lightly such statements concerning the spiritual world or the spiritual life. The sense world corrects errors immediately by its own nature, but in the spiritual world we must have these guidelines within ourselves. (e must be strictly trained, so that we are not forced to use the outer world for controls, but only our inner self. (e are only able to gain this control by acquiring already in this world the strictest truthfulness. Therefore, when the )nthroposophical Society began to present some of the basic teachings of occultism to the world, it had to adopt the principle there is no law higher than truth. 0ery few people understand this principle. Cost are satisfied if they can say they have the conviction that something is true, and then if it is wrong, they will simply say that they were mistaken. The occultist cannot rely on his subFective honesty. There he is on the wrong track. *e must always be in consonance with the facts of the external world, and any experience that contradicts these facts must be seen as an error or a mistake. The question of who is at fault for the error ceases to be important to the occultist. *e must be in absolute harmony with the facts in life. *e must begin to feel responsible in the strictest sense for every one of his assertions. Thus he trains himself in the unconditional certainty that he must have for himself and for others if he wishes to be a spiritual guide.

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So you see that 2 needed to indicate to you today a series of qualities and methods. (e will have to speak about these again in order to add the higher concepts. 2t may seem to you that these things are too intimate to discuss with others, that each soul has to come to grips with them on its own terms, and that they are possibly unsuitable for reaching the great destination which should be reached, namely the entrance into the spiritual world. This entrance will definitely be achieved by those who tread the path 2 have characteriHed. (henK !ne of the most outstanding participants in the theosophical movement, Subba &ow, who died some time ago, has spoken fittingly about this. &eplying to the question of how long it would take, he said, 'Seven years, perhaps also seven times seven years, perhaps even seven incarnations, perhaps only seven hours., 2t all depends on what the human being brings with himself into life. (e may meet a person who seems to be very stupid, but who has brought with himself a concealed higher life that needs only to be brought out. Cost human beings these days are much further than it seems, and more people would know about this if the materialism of our conditions and of our time would not drive them back into the inner life of the soul. ) large percentage of todayGs human beings was previously much further advanced. (hether that which is within them will come forth depends on many factors. .ut it is possible to give some help. Suppose you have before you a person who was highly developed in his earlier incarnation, but now has an undeveloped brain. )n undeveloped brain may at times conceal great spiritual faculties. .ut if he can be taught the usual everyday abilities, it may happen that the inner spirituality also comes forth. )nother important factor is the environment in which a person lives. The human being is a mirror-image of his surroundings in a most significant way. Suppose that a person is a highly developed personality, but lives in surroundings that awaken and develop certain preFudices with such a strong effect that the higher talents cannot come forth. Inless such a person finds someone who can draw out these abilities, they will remain hidden. 2 have been able to give only a few indications to you about this matter. )fter #hristmas, however, we will speak again about further and deeper things. 2 especially wanted to awaken in you this one understanding, that the higher life is not schooled in a tumultuous way, but rather quite intimately, in the deepest soul, and that the great day when the soul awakens and enters into the higher life actually arrives like the thief in the night. The development towards the higher life leads man into a new world, and when he has entered this new world, then he sees the other side of existence, so to speak8 then what has previously been hidden for him reveals itself. Caybe not everyone can do this8 maybe only a few can do it, one might say to oneself. .ut that must not keep one from at least starting on the way that is open to everyone, namely to hear about the higher worlds. The human being is called to live in community, and he who secludes himself cannot arrive at a spiritual life. .ut it is a seclusion in a stronger sense if he says, '2 do not believe this, this does not relate to me8 this may be valid for the after-life., ;or the occultist this has no validity. 2t is an important principle for the occultist to consider other human beings as true manifestations of his own higher self, because he knows then that he must find the others in himself. There is a delicate distinction between these two sentences 'To find the others in oneself,, and 'To find oneself in the others., 2n the higher sense it means, 'This is you., )nd in the highest sense it means to recogniHe oneself in the world and to understand that saying of the poet which 2 cited some weeks ago in a different connection '!ne was successful. *e lifted the veil of the goddess at Sais. .ut what did he seeK Ciracle of miraclesJ *e saw himself., To find oneself E not in egotistical inwardness, but selflessly in the world without E that is true recognition of the self.

22 The /sychological ;oundations of )nthroposophy 2ts Standpoint in &elation to the Theory of >nowledge
The task which 2 should like to undertake in the following exposition is that of discussing the scientific character and value of a spiritual trend to which a widespread inclination would still deny the designation 'scientific., This spiritual trend bears E in allusion to various endeavors of its kind in the present period E the name theosophy. 2n the history of philosophy, this name has been applied to certain spiritual trends which have emerged again and again in the course of the cultural life of humanity, with which, however, what is to be presented here does not at all coincide, although it bears many reminders of them. ;or this reason we shall limit our consideration here to what can be described in the course of our exposition as a special condition of the mind, and we shall disregard opinions which may be held in reference to much of what is customarily called theosophy. !nly by adhering to this point of view will it be possible to give precise expression to the manner in which one may view the relationship between the spiritual trend we have in mind and the types of conception characteriHing contemporary science and philosophy. 1et it be admitted without reservation that, even regarding the very concept of knowledge, it is difficult to establish a relationship between what is customarily called theosophy and everything that seems to be firmly established at present as constituting the idea of 'science, and 'knowledge,, and which has brought and surely will continue to bring such great benefits to human culture. The last few centuries have led to the practice of recogniHing as 'scientific, only what can be tested readily by anyone at any time through observation, experiment, and the elaboration of these by the human intellect. %verything that possesses significance only within the subFective experiences of the human mind must be excluded from the category of what is scientifically established. -ow, it will scarcely be denied that the philosophical concept of knowledge has for a long time adFusted itself to the scientific type of conception
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Fust described. This can best be recogniHed from the investigations which have been carried out in our time as to what can constitute a possible obFect of human knowledge, and at what point this knowledge has to admit its limits. 2t would be superfluous for me to support this statement by an outline of contemporary inquiries in the field of the theory of knowledge. 2 should like to emphasiHe only the obFective aimed at in those inquiries. 2n connection with them, it is presupposed that the relationship of man to the external world affords a determinable concept of the nature of the process of cognition, and that this concept of knowledge provides a basis for characteriHing what lies within the reach of cognition. *owever greatly the trends in theories of knowledge may diverge from one another, if the above characteriHation is taken in a sufficiently broad sense, there will be found within it that which characteriHes a common element in the decisive philosophical trends. -ow, the concept of knowledge belonging to what is here called anthroposophy is such that it apparently contradicts the concept Fust described. 2t conceives knowledge to be something the character of which cannot be deduced directly from the observation of the nature of the human being and his relationship to the external world. !n the basis of established facts of the life of the mind, anthroposophy believes itself Fustified in asserting that knowledge is not something finished, complete in itself, but something fluid, capable of evolution. 2t believes itself Fustified in pointing out that, beyond the horiHon of the normally conscious life of the mind, there is another into which the human being can penetrate. )nd it is necessary to emphasiHe that the life of the mind here referred to is not to be understood as that which is at present customarily designated as the 'subconscious., This 'subconscious, may be the obFect of scientific research8 from the point of view of the usual methods in research, it can be made an obFect of inquiry, as are other facts of the life of nature and of the mind. .ut this has nothing to do with that condition of the mind to which we are referring, within which the human being is as completely conscious, possesses as complete logical watchfulness over himself, as within the limits of the ordinary consciousness. .ut this condition of the mind must first be created by means of certain exercises, certain experiences of the soul. 2t cannot be presupposed as a given fact in the nature of man. This condition of mind represents something which may be designated as a further development of the life of the human mind without the cessation, during the course of this further development, of selfpossession and other evidences of the mindGs conscious life. 2 wish to characteriHe this condition of mind and then to show how what is acquired through it may be included under the scientific concepts of knowledge belonging to our age. Cy present task shall be, therefore, to describe the method employed within this spiritual trend on the basis of a possible development of the mind. This first part of my exposition may be called

) Spiritual Scientific Code of )pproach .ased upon /otential /sychological ;acts.

(hat is here described is to be regarded as experiences of the mind of which one may become aware if certain prerequisite conditions are first brought about in the mind. The epistemological value of these experiences shall be tested only after they have first been simply described. (hat is to be undertaken may be designated as a 'mental exercise., The initial step consists in considering from a different point of view contents of the mind which are ordinarily evaluated to their worth as copies of an external item of reality. 2n the concepts and ideas which the human being forms he wishes to have at first what may be a copy, or at least a token, of something existing outside of the concepts or ideas. The spiritual researcher, in the sense here intended, seeks for mental contents which are similar to the concept and ideas of ordinary life or of scientific research8 but he does not consider their cognitional value in relation to an obFective entity, but lets them exist in his mind as operative forces. *e plants them as spiritual seed, so to speak, in the soil of the mindGs life, and awaits in complete serenity of spirit their effect upon this life of the mind. *e can then observe that, with the repeated employment of such an exercise, the condition of the mind undergoes a change. 2t must be expressly emphasiHed, however, that what really counts is the repetition. ;or the fact in question is not that the content of the concepts in the ordinary sense brings something about in the mind after the manner of a process of cognition8 on the contrary, we have to do with an actual process in the life of the mind itself. 2n this process, concepts do not play the role of cognitional elements but that of real forces8 and their effect depends upon having the same forces lay hold in frequent repetition upon the mindGs life. The effect achieved in the mind depends preeminently upon the requirement that the same force shall again and again seiHe upon the experience connected with the concept. ;or this reason the greatest results can be attained through meditations upon the same content which are repeated at definite intervals through relatively long periods of time. The duration of such a meditation is, in this connection, of little importance. 2t may be very brief, provided only that it is accompanied by absolute serenity of soul and the complete exclusion from the mind of all external sense impressions and all ordinary activity of the intellect. (hat is essential is the seclusion of the mindGs life with the content indicated. This must be mentioned because it needs to be clearly understood that undertaking these exercises of the mind need not disturb anyone in his ordinary life. The time required is available, as a rule, to everyone. )nd, if the exercises are rightly carried out, the change which they bring about in the mind does not produce the slightest effect upon the constitution of consciousness necessary for the normal human life. AThe fact that E because of what the human being actually is in his present status E undesirable excesses and peculiarities sometimes occur cannot alter in any way oneGs Fudgment of the essential nature of the practice.B ;or the discipline of the mind which has been described, most concepts in human life are scarcely at all usable. )ll contents of the mind which relate in marked degree to obFective elements outside of themselves have little effect if used for the exercises we have characteriHed. 2n far greater measure are mental pictures suitable which can be designated as emblems, as symbols.
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Cost fruitful of all are those which relate in a living way comprehensively to a manifold content. 1et us take as an example, proven by experience to be good, what $oethe designated as his idea of the 'archetypal plant., 2t may be permissible to refer to the fact that, during a conversation with Schiller, he once drew with a few strokes a symbolic picture of this 'archetypal plant., Coreover, he said that one who makes this picture alive in his mind possesses in it something out of which it would be possible to devise, through modification in conformity with law, all possible forms capable of existence. (hatever one may think about the obFective cognitional value of such a 'symbolic archetypal plant,, if it is made to live in the mind in the manner indicated, if one awaits in serenity its effects upon the mindGs life, there comes about something which can be called a changed constitution of mind. The mental pictures which are said by spiritual scientists to be usable in this connection may at times seem decidedly strange. This feeling of strangeness can be eliminated if one reflects that such representations must not be considered for their value as truths in the ordinary sense, but should be viewed with respect to the manner in which they are effective as real forces in the mindGs life. The spiritual scientist does not attribute value to the significance of the pictures which are used for the mental exercises, but to what is experienced in the mind under their influence. *ere we can give, naturally, only a few examples of effective symbolic representations. 1et one conceive the being of man in a mental image in such a way that the lower human nature, related to the animal organiHation, shall appear in its relation to man as a spiritual being, through the symbolic union of an animal shape and the most highly idealiHed human form superimposed upon this E somewhat, let us say, like a centaur. The more pictorially alive the symbol appears, the more saturated with content, the better it is. Inder the conditions described, this symbol acts in such a way on the mind that, after the passage of a certain time E of course, somewhat long E the inner life processes are felt to be strengthened in themselves, mobile, reciprocally illuminating one another. )n old symbol which may be used with good result is the so-called staff of Cercury E that is, the mental image of a straight line around which a spiral curves. !f course, one must picture this figure as emblematic of a force-system E in such a way, let us say, that along the straight line there runs one force system, to which there corresponds another of lower velocity passing through the spiral. A#oncretely expressed, one may conceive in connection with this figure the growth of the stem of a plant and the corresponding sprouting of leaves along its length. !r one may take it as an image of an electro-magnet. Still further, there can emerge in this way a picture of the development of a human being, the enhancing capacities being symboliHed by the straight line, the manifold impressions corresponding with the course of the spiral.B Cathematical forms may become especially significant, to the extent that symbols of cosmic processes can be seen in them. ) good example is the so-called '#assini curve,, with its three figures E the form resembling an ellipse, the lemniscate, and that which consists of two corresponding branches. 2n such a case the important thing is to experience the mental image in such a way that certain appropriate impressions in the mind shall accompany the transition of one curve form into the other in accordance with mathematical principles. !ther exercises may then be added to these. They consist also in symbols, but such as correspond with representations which may be expressed in words. 1et one think, through the symbol of light, of the wisdom which may be pictured as living and weaving in the orderly processes of the cosmic phenomena. (isdom which expresses itself in sacrificial love may be thought of as symboliHed by warmth which comes about in the presence of light. !ne may think of sentences E which, therefore, have only a symbolic character E fashioned out of such concepts. The mind can be absorbed in meditating upon such sentences. The result depends essentially upon the degree of serenity and seclusion of soul within the symbol to which one attains in the meditation. 2f success is achieved, it consists in the fact that the soul feels as if lifted out of the corporeal organiHation. 2t experiences something like a change in its sense of existence. 2f we agree that, in normal life, the feeling of the human being is such that his conscious life, proceeding from a unity, takes on a specific character in harmony with the representations which are derived from the percepts brought by the individual senses, then the result of the exercises is that the mind feels itself permeated by an experience of itself not so sharply differentiated in transition from one part of the experience to another as, for example, color and tone representations are differentiated within the horiHon of the ordinary consciousness. The mind has the experience that it can withdraw into a region of inner being which it owes to the success of the exercises and which was something empty, something which could not be perceived, before the exercises were undertaken. .efore such an inner experience is reached, there occur many transitional stages in the condition of the mind. !ne of these manifests itself in an attentive observation E to be acquired through the exercise E of the moment of awaking out of sleep. 2t is possible then to feel clearly how, out of something not hitherto known to one, forces lay hold systematically upon the structure of the bodily organiHation. !ne feels, as if in a remembered concept, an after-effect of influences from this something, which have been at work upon the corporeal organiHation during sleep. )nd if the person has acquired, in addition, the capacity to experience within his corporeal organiHation the something here described, he will perceive clearly the difference between the relationship of this something to the body in the waking and in the sleeping state. *e cannot then do otherwise than to say that during the waking state this something is inside the body and during the sleeping state it is outside. !ne must not, however, associate ordinary spatial conception with this 'inside, and 'outside,, but must use these terms only to designate the specific experiences of a mind which has carried out the exercises described. These exercises are of an intimate soul-character. They take for each person an individual form. (hen the beginning is once made, the individual element results from a particular use of the soul to be brought about in the course of the exercises. .ut what follows with utter necessity is the positive consciousness of living within a reality independent of the external corporeal organiHation and supersensible in character. ;or the sake of simplicity, let us call such a person seeking for the described soul experiences a 'spiritual researcher, MGeistesforscherN. ;or such a spiritual researcher, there exists the definite consciousness E kept under complete selfpossession E that, behind the bodily organiHation perceptible to the senses, there is a supersensible organiHation, and that it is possible to experience oneself within this as the normal consciousness experiences itself within the physical bodily organiHation. AThe exercises
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referred to can be indicated here only in principle. ) detailed presentation may be found in my book, Knowledge of the #igher $orlds and %ts Attainment.B Through appropriate continuation of the exercises, the 'something, we have described passes over into a sort of spiritually organiHed condition. The consciousness becomes clearly aware that it is in relationship with a supersensible world in a cognitional way, in a manner similar to that in which it is related through the senses to the sense world. 2t is quite natural that serious doubt at once arises, regarding the assertion of such a cognitional relationship of the super-sensible part of the being of man to the surrounding world. There may be an inclination to relegate everything which is thus experienced to the realm of illusion, hallucination, autosuggestion, and the like. ) theoretical refutation of such doubt is, from the very nature of things, impossible. ;or the question here cannot be that of a theoretical exposition regarding the existence of a supersensible world, but only that of possible experiences and observations which are presented to the consciousness in precisely the same way in which observations are mediated through the external sense organs. ;or the corresponding supersensible world, therefore, no other sort of recognition can be demanded than that which the human being offers to the world of colors, tones, etc. "et consideration must be given to the fact that, when the exercises are carried out in the right way E and, most important, with never relaxed self-possession E the spiritual researcher can discern through immediate experience the difference between the imagined supersensible and that which is actually experienced8 Fust as certainly as in the sense world once can discern the difference between imagining the feel of a piece of hot iron and actually touching it. /recisely concerning the differences among hallucination, illusion, and supersensible reality, the spiritual researcher acquires through his exercises a practice more and more unerring. .ut it is also natural that the prudent spiritual researcher must be extremely critical regarding individual supersensible observations made by him. *e will never speak otherwise about positive findings of supersensible research than with the reservation that one thing or another has been observed and that the critical caution practiced in connection with this Fustifies the assumption that anyone will make the same observations who, by means of the appropriate exercises, can establish a relationship with the supersensible world. +ifferences among the pronouncements of individual spiritual researchers cannot really be viewed in any other light than the different pronouncements of various travelers who have visited the same region and who describe it. 2n my book, Knowledge of the #igher $orlds and %ts Attainment" that world which, in the manner described, appears above the horiHon of consciousness has been called E in accordance with the practice of those who have been occupied as spiritual researchers in the same field E 'the imaginative world., .ut one must dissociate from this expression, used in a purely technical sense, anything suggesting a world created by mere 'fancy., 2maginative is intended merely to suggest the qualitative character of the content of the mind. This mental content resembles in its form the 'imaginations, of ordinary consciousness, except that an imagination in the physical world is not directly related to something real, whereas the imaginations of the spiritual researcher are Fust as unmistakably to be ascribed to a supersensibly real entity as the mental picture of a color in the sense world, for instance, is ascribed to an obFectively real entity. .ut the 'imaginative world, and the knowledge of it mark only the first step for the spiritual researcher, and very little more is to be learned through it about the supersensible world than its external side. ) further step is required. This consists in a further deepening of the life of the soul than that which has been considered in connection with the first step. Through intense concentration upon the soul life, brought about by the exercises, the spiritual researcher must render himself capable of completely eliminating the content of the symbols from his consciousness. (hat he then still has to hold firmly within his consciousness is only the process to which his inner life was subFected while he was absorbed in the symbols. The content of the symbols pictured must be cast out in a sort of real abstraction and only the form of the experience in connection with the symbols must remain in the consciousness. The unreal symbolic character of the forming of mental images E which was significant only for a transitional stage of the soulGs development E is thereby eliminated, and the consciousness uses as the obFect of its meditation the inner weaving of the mindGs content. (hat can be described of such a process actually compares with the real experience of the mind as a feeble shadow compares with the obFect which casts the shadow. (hat appears simple in the description derives its very significant effect from the psychic energy which is exerted. The living and moving within the content of the soul, thus rendered possible, can be called a real beholding of oneself. The inner being of man thus learns to know itself not merely through reflecting about itself as the bearer of the sense impressions and the elaborator of these sense impressions through thinking8 on the contrary, it learns to know itself as it is, without relationship to a content coming from the senses8 it experiences itself in itself, as supersensible reality. This experience is not like that of the ego when in ordinary self-observation, attention is withdrawn from the things cogniHed in the environment and is directed back to the cogniHing self. 2n this case, the content of consciousness shrinks more and more down to the point of the 'ego., Such is not the case in the real beholding of the self by the spiritual researcher. 2n this, the soul content becomes continuously richer in the course of the exercises. 2t consists in oneGs living within law-conforming interrelationships8 and the self does not feel, as in the case of the laws of nature, which are abstracted from the phenomena of the external world, that it is outside the web of laws8 but, on the contrary, it is aware of itself as within this web8 it experiences itself as one with these laws. The danger which may come about at this stage of the exercises lies in the fact that the person concerned may believe too early E because of deficiency in true self-possession E that he has arrived at the right result, and may then feel the mere after-effects of the symbolic inner pictures to be an inner life. Such an inner life is obviously valueless, and must not be mistaken for the inner life which appears at the right moment, making itself known to true circumspection through the fact that, although it manifests complete reality, yet it resembles no reality hitherto known. To an inner life thus attained, there is now the possibility of a supersensible knowledge characteriHed by a higher degree of certitude than that of mere imaginative cognition. )t this point in the soulGs development, the following manifestation occurs. The inner experience gradually becomes filled with a content which enters the mind from without in a manner similar to that in which the content of sense perception enters through the senses from the outer world. !nly, the filling of the mind with the supersensible content consists
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in an actual living within this content. 2f one wishes to employ a comparison with a fact taken from ordinary life, it may be said that the entering of the ego into union with a spiritual content is now experienced as one experiences the entering of the ego into union with a mental picture retained in memory. "et there is the distinction that the content of that with which one enters into union cannot be compared in any respect with something previously experienced and that it cannot be related to something past but only to something present. >nowledge of this character may well be called knowledge 'through inspiration,, provided nothing except what has been described is associated in thought with this term. 2 have used the expression thus as a technical term in my book, Knowledge of the #igher $orlds and %ts Attainment! 2n connection with this 'knowledge through inspiration,, a new experience now appears. That is, the manner in which one becomes aware of the content of the mind is entirely subFective. )t first, this content does not manifest itself as obFective. !ne knows it as something experienced8 but one does not feel that one confronts it. This comes about only after one has through soul-energy condensed it, in a sense, within itself. !nly thus does it become something which can be looked at obFectively. .ut, in this process of the psyche, one becomes aware that, between the physical bodily organiHation and that something which has been separated from this by the exercises, there is still another entity. 2f one desires names for these things, one may employ those which have become customary in so-called theosophy E provided one does not connect with these names all sorts of fantastic associations, but designates by them solely what has been described. That 'something, in which the self lives as in an entity free from the bodily organiHation is called the astral body8 and that which is discovered between this astral body and the physical organism is called the etheric body. A!ne is, of course, not to connect this in thought with the 'ether, of modern physics.B -ow, it is from the etheric body that the forces come, through which the self is enabled to make an obFective perception of the subFective content of inspired knowledge. .y what right, it may be asked with good reason, does the spiritual researcher come to the standpoint of ascribing this perception to a supersensible world instead of considering it a mere creation of his own selfK *e would have no right to do this if the etheric body, which he experiences in connection with his psychic process, did not in its inner conformity to law compel him to do so with obFective necessity. .ut such is the case, for the etheric body is experienced as a confluence of the allencompassing complex of laws of the macrocosm. The important point is not how much of this complex of laws becomes the actual content of the spiritual researcherGs consciousness. The peculiar fact is that direct cognition sees clearly that the etheric body is nothing else than a compacted image reflecting in itself the cosmic web of laws. >nowledge of the etheric body by the spiritual researcher does not at first extend to showing what content from the sum total of the universal cosmic web of laws is reflected by this formation, but to showing what this content is. !ther Fustifiable doubts which the ordinary consciousness must raise against spiritual research, together with much besides, are the following. !ne may take note of the findings of this research Aas they appear in contemporary literatureB and may say ')ctually, what you there describe as the content of supersensible knowledge proves upon closer scrutiny to be nothing more, after all, than combinations of ordinary conceptions taken from the sense world., )nd, in fact, this is what is said. A1ikewise, the descriptions of the higher worlds which 2 myself felt Fustified in giving in the volumes, Theosophy and &ccult Science"! an &utline" are found to be, so it seems, nothing but combinations of conceptions taken from the sense world E as, for instance, when the evolution of the earth through combinations of entities of warmth, light, etc., is described.B )gainst this view, however, the following must be said. (hen the spiritual researcher wishes to give expression to his experiences, he is compelled to employ the means available to sense-conceptions for expressing what is experienced in a supersensible sphere. *is experience is not to be conceived, then, as if it were like his means of expression, but with the realiHation that he uses this means only like the words of a language which he requires. !ne must seek for the content of his experience, not in the means of expression E that is, not in the illustrative representations E but in the manner in which he uses these instruments of expression. The difference between his presentation and a fantastic combining of sensible representations lies in the fact that fantastic combining arises out of a subFective arbitrariness, whereas the presentation of the spiritual researcher rests upon a conscious familiarity with the supersensible complex of laws, acquired through practice. *ere, however, the reason is also to be found why the presentations of the spiritual researcher may so easily be misunderstood. That is, the manner in which he speaks is more important than what he says. 2n the how is reflected his supersensible experience. 2f the obFection is raised that, in this case, what the spiritual researcher says has no direct relationship with the ordinary world, it must be emphasiHed in reply that the manner of his presentation does, in fact, meet the practical requirements for an explanation of the sense world drawn from a super-sensible sphere, and that the understanding of the world process perceptible to the senses is aided by real attention to the findings of the spiritual researcher. )nother obFection may be raised. 2t may be asked what the assertions of the spiritual researcher have to do with the content of ordinary consciousness, since this consciousness, it may be said, cannot subFect them to testing. /recisely this latter statement is, in principle, untrue. ;or research in the supersensible world, for discovering its facts, that condition of mind is necessary which can be acquired only by means of the exercises described. .ut this does not apply to the testing. ;or this purpose, when the spiritual researcher has communicated his findings, ordinary unpreFudiced logic is sufficient. This will always be able to determine in principle that, if what the spiritual researcher says is true, the course of the world and of life as they proceed before the senses becomes understandable. The opinion which may be formed at first concerning the experiences of the spiritual researcher is not the important point. These may be viewed as hypotheses, regulative principles Ain the sense of >antian philosophyB. .ut if they are simply applied to the sense world, it will be seen that the sense world confirms in the course of its events everything which is asserted by the spiritual researcher. A-aturally, this is valid only in principle8 it is obvious that, in details, the assertions of so-called spiritual researchers may contain the gravest errors.B
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)nother experience of the spiritual researcher can come about only provided the exercises are carried still further. This continuation must consist in the fact that the spiritual researcher, after having attained to beholding the self, shall be able by energetic power of will to suppress this experience. *e must be able to free the mind from everything that has been achieved through the continued after-effects of his exercises resting upon the outer sense world. The symbol-images are combined out of sense-images. The living and moving of the self within itself in connection with achieved inspired knowledge is, to be sure, free from the content of the symbols, yet it is a result of the exercises which have been carried out under their influence. %ven though the inspired knowledge thus brings about a direct relationship of the self to the supersensible world, the clear beholding of the relationship can be carried still further. This results from the energetic suppression of the self-view which has been attained. )fter this suppression, the self may, as one possibility, be confronted by a void. 2n this case the exercises must be continued. )s a second possibility, the self may find that it is more immediately in the presence of the supersensible world in its real being than it had been in connection with inspired knowledge. 2n the latter experience, there appears only the relationship of a supersensible world to the self8 in the case of the kind of knowledge we are now describing the self is completely eliminated. 2f one wishes an expression adapted to ordinary consciousness for this condition of mind, it may be said that consciousness now experiences itself as the stage upon which a supersensible content, consisting of real being, is not merely perceived but perceives itself. A2n the volume, Knowledge of the #igher $orlds and %ts Attainment, 2 have called this kind of knowledge 'intuitive knowledge,, but in connection with this expression the ordinary term intuition must be disregarded E which is used to designate every direct experience of a content of consciousness through feeling.B Through intuitive knowledge, the whole relationship in which the human being as 'soul, finds himself with respect to his bodily organiHation is altered for the direct observation of the inner being of the soul. .efore the faculty of spiritual vision, the etheric body appears, in a sense, as a supersensible organism differentiated within itself. )nd one recogniHes its differentiated members as adapted in a definite way to the members of the physical bodily organiHation. The etheric body is experienced as the primary entity and the physical body as its copy, as something secondary. The horiHon of consciousness appears to be determined through the law-conforming activity of the etheric body. The coordination of the phenomena within this horiHon results from the activity of the differentiated members of the etheric body striving towards a unity. The etheric body rests upon an all-embracing cosmic web of laws8 basic in the unification of its action is the tendency to relate itself to something as a center. )nd the image of this uniting tendency is the physical body. Thus the latter proves to be an expression of the (orld-%go, as the etheric body is an expression of the macrocosmic web of laws. (hat is here set forth becomes clearer if we refer to a special fact of the inner life of the soul. This shall be done with reference to memory. )s a result of the freeing of the self from the bodily organiHation, the spiritual researcher experiences the act of recollecting differently from one with ordinary consciousness. ;or him, recollecting, which is otherwise a more-or-less undifferentiated process, is separated into partial factors. )t first, he senses the attraction toward an experience which is to be remembered, like a drawing of the attention in a certain direction. The experience is thus really analogous to the spatial directing of oneGs look toward a distant obFect, which one has first seen, then turns away from, and then turns toward again. The essential aspect of this is that the experience pressing toward remembrance is sensed as something which has stopped far away within the temporal horiHon, and which does not merely have to be drawn up from the depths below in the soulGs life. This turning in the direction of the experience pressing toward remembrance is at first a merely subFective process. (hen the remembrance now actually occurs, the spiritual researcher feels that it is the resistance of the physical body which works like a reflecting surface and raises the experience into the obFective world of representations. Thus the spiritual researcher feels, in connection with the process of remembering, an occurrence which AsubFectively perceptibleB takes place within the etheric body and which becomes his remembrance through its reflection by the physical body. The first factor in recollecting would give merely disconnected experiences of the self. Through the fact that every remembrance is reflected by being impressed upon the life of the physical body, it becomes a part of the ego-experiences. ;rom all that has been said it is clear that the spiritual researcher comes to the point in his inner experience where he recogniHes that the human being perceptible to the senses is the manifestation of a human being who is supersensible. *e seeks for a consciousness of this supersensible human being, not by way of inference and speculation based upon the world that is directly given, but, on the contrary, by so transforming his own condition of mind that this ascends from the perceiving of the sense-perceptible to real participation in the supersensible. *e arrives in this way at the recognition of a content of soul which proves to be richer, more filled with substance, than that of ordinary consciousness. (hat this road then leads to further can only be suggested here, of course, since a thorough exposition would require a comprehensive treatise. The inner being of the soul becomes for the spiritual researcher the producer, the builder, of that which constitutes the single human life in the physical world. )nd this producer manifests in itself that it has E interwoven into its life as realities E the forces, not only of the one life, but of many lives. That which may be considered as evidence of reincarnation, of repeated earthly lives, becomes a matter of actual observation. ;or what one learns of the inner core of the human life reveals, one might say, the telescoping together of interrelated human personalities. )nd these personalities can be sensed only in the relationship of the preceding and the succeeding. ;or one which follows is always manifested as the result of another. There is, moreover, in the relationship of one personality to another no element of continuity8 rather, there is such a relationship as manifests itself in successive earthly lives separated by intervening periods of purely spiritual existence. To the observation of the soulGs inner being, the periods during which the core of the human being was embodied in a physical corporeal organiHation are differentiated from those of the supersensible existence through the fact that, in the former, the experience of the content of the mind appears as if proFected against the background of the physical life8 while, in the latter, it appears as merged in a supersensible element which extends into the indefinite. 2t has not been the intention to present here anything more concerning so-called reincarnation than a sort of view of a perspective which is opened by the preceding reflections. )nyone who admits the possibility that the human self may be able to become familiar with the core of being which is supersensibly visible will also no longer consider it unreasonable to suppose that, after further insight into this core of being, its content is revealed as differentiated, and that this differentiation provides the spiritual view of a succession of forms of existence extending
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back into the past. The fact that these forms of existence may bear their own time-indications may be seen to be intelligible through the analogy with ordinary memory. )n experience appearing in memory bears in its content also its own time-indication. .ut the real 'resurvey in memory, of past forms of existence, supported by rigid self-supervision, is still very remote, of course, from the training of the spiritual researcher which has thus far been described, and great difficulties for the inner soul life tower up on the path before this can be attained in an incontestable form. -evertheless, this lies on the direct continuation of the path to knowledge which has been described. 2t has been my desire at first to register here, so to speak, facts of experience in the inner soul-observation. 2t is for this reason that 2 have described reincarnation only as one such fact, but this fact can be established also on a theoretical basis. This 2 have done in the chapter entitled '>arma and &eincarnation, in the book, Theosophy. 2 undertook there to show that certain findings of modem natural science, if thought out to their conclusion, lead to the assumption of the ideas of reincarnation of the human being. &egarding the total nature of the human being, we must conclude from what has been said that his essential nature becomes understandable when viewed as the result of the interaction of the four members 4B the physical bodily organiHation8 ?B the etheric body8 =B the astral body8 :B the ego Athe '2,B, which develops in the last-named member and comes to manifestation through the relationship between the central core of manGs being and the physical organiHation. 2t is not possible to deal with the further articulation of these four life-manifestations of the total human being within the limits of one lecture. *ere the intention has been to show only the basis of spiritual research. ;urther details 2 have sought to provide 4B as to the method, in the volume, Knowledge of the #igher $orlds and its Attainment0 and, ?B as to the system, in Theosophy and &ccult Science" an &utline.

The %xperiences of the Spiritual &esearcher and the Theory of >nowledge

The exposition which has been presented will render it clear that anthroposophy, rightly understood, rests upon the foundation of a way of developing the human soul which is to be rigidly systematiHed in its character, and that it would be erroneous to suppose that there exists in the condition of mind of the spiritual researcher anything of the nature of what is ordinarily called at present enthusiasm, ecstasy, rapture, vision, and the like. Cisunderstandings arise which may be presented in opposition to anthroposophy precisely through the confusion between the condition of mind here characteriHed and these other conditions. ;irst, the belief is created through this confusion that there exists in the mind of the spiritual researcher a state of rapture, of being transported beyond self-possession in oneGs consciousness, a sort of striving after immediate instinctive vision. .ut the truth is Fust the opposite. The condition of mind of the spiritual researcher is even further removed than is ordinary consciousness from what is ordinarily called ecstasy, vision, from every sort of ordinary seer-ship. %ven such states of mind as those to which Shaftesbury refers are nebulous inner worlds in comparison with what is striven for by means of the exercises of the genuine spiritual researcher. Shaftesbury finds that by means of the 'cold intellect,, without the rapture of the feeling nature, no path can be discovered leading to deeper forms of knowledge. True spiritual research carries with it the whole inner mental apparatus of logic and self-conscious circumspection when it seeks to transfer consciousness from the sensible to the supersensible sphere. 2t cannot be accused, therefore, of disregarding the rational element of knowledge. 2t can, however, elaborate its contents in concepts through thinking after perception, for the reason that, in passing out of the sense world, it always carries with it the rational element and always retains it, like a skeleton of the supersensible experience, as an integrating factor of all supersensible perception. -aturally, it is impossible here to show the relationship of spiritual research to the various contemporary trends in theories of knowledge. The effort will be made by means of a few rather sketchy observations, therefore, to point out that particular conception of the theory of knowledge and its relationship to spiritual research which must experience the greatest difficulties in relation to spiritual research. 2t is, perhaps, not immodest to call attention to the fact that a complete basis for discrimination between philosophy and anthroposophy can be obtained from my two publications, Truth and Science and The (hilosophy of )reedom! To the epistemology of our time it has become increasingly axiomatic to maintain that there are given in the content of our consciousness only pictures, or even only 'tokens, A*elmholtHB of the transcendent-real. 2t will be needless to explain here how critical philosophy and physiology A'specific sense-energies,, views of Lohannes Cueller and his adherentsB have worked together to make of such a conception an apparently irrefutable idea. -aive &ealism, which views the phenomena within the horiHon of consciousness as something more than subFective representations of something obFective, was considered in the philosophical development of the nineteenth century to have been invalidated for all time. .ut from that which lies at the foundation of this conception, there follows almost as a matter of course the reFection of the anthroposophical point of view. ;rom the critical point of view, the anthroposophical viewpoint can be considered only as an impossible leap over the limits of knowledge inherent in the nature of our consciousness. 2f we may reduce to a simple formula an immeasurably great and brilliant expression of the critical theory of knowledge, it may be said that the critical philosopher sees in the facts within the horiHon of consciousness representations, pictures, or tokens, and holds that a possible relationship to a transcendental external can be found only within the thinking consciousness. *e holds that consciousness, of course, cannot leap beyond itself, cannot get outside itself, in order to plunge into a transcendental entity. Such a conception, in fact, has within it something that seems self-evident, and yet it rests upon a presupposition which one need only see into in order to refute it. 2t seems almost paradoxical when one brings against the subFective idealism expressed in the conception Fust cited the charge of a veiled materialism. )nd yet one cannot do otherwise. /ermit me to render clear by a comparison what can be said here. 1et a name be impressed in wax with a seal. The name, with everything pertaining to it, has been transferred by the seal into the wax. (hat cannot pass across from the seal into the wax is the metal of the seal. ;or the wax, substitute the soul life of the human being and for the seal substitute the transcendental. 2t then becomes obvious at once that one cannot declare it impossible for the transcendental to pass over
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into the impression unless one conceives the obFective content of the transcendental as not spiritual, since this passing over of a spiritual content could be conceived in analogy with the complete reception of the name into the wax. To serve the requirement of #ritical 2dealism, the assumption would have to be made that the content of the transcendental is to be conceived in analogy with the metal of the seal. .ut this cannot be done otherwise than by making the veiled materialistic assumption that the transcendental must be received into the impression in the form of a materially conceived flowing-across. 2n the event that the transcendental is spiritual, it is entirely possible that the impression could take this up. ) further displacement in the simple facts of consciousness is caused by #ritical 2dealism through the fact that it leaves out of account the question of the factual relationship existing between the cognitional content and the ego. 2f one assumes a priori that the ego, together with the content of laws of the world reduced to the form of ideas and concepts, is outside the transcendental, it will be simply self-evident that this ego cannot leap beyond itself E that is, that it must always remain outside the transcendental. .ut this presupposition cannot be sustained in the face of an unbiased observation of the facts of consciousness. ;or the sake of simplicity, we shall here refer to the content of the cosmic web of law in so far as this can be expressed in mathematical concepts and formulae. The inner conformity to law in the relationships of mathematical forms is acquired within consciousness and is then applied to empirical factual situations. -ow, no distinction can be discovered between what exists in consciousness as a mathematical concept when, on the one hand, this consciousness relates its own content to an empirical factual situation, and when, on the other, it visualiHes this mathematical concept within itself in pure abstract mathematical thinking. .ut this signifies nothing else than that the ego, with its mathematical representation, is not outside the transcendental mathematical law-conformity of things but inside this. Therefore, one will arrive at a better conception of the ego from the viewpoint of the theory of knowledge, not by conceiving the ego as inside the bodily organiHation and receiving impressions 'from without,, but by conceiving the ego as being itself within the law-conformity of things, and viewing the bodily organiHation as only a sort of mirror which reflects back to the ego through the organic bodily activity the living and moving of the ego outside the body in the transcendental. 2f, as regards mathematical thinking, one has familiariHed oneself with the thought that the ego is not in the body but outside it, and that the bodily activity represents only the living mirror, from which the life of the ego in the transcendental is reflected, one can then find this thought epistemologically comprehensible concerning everything which appears within the horiHon of consciousness. !ne could then no longer say that the ego would have to leap beyond itself if it desired to enter the transcendental8 but one would have to see that the ordinary empirical content of consciousness is related to that which is truly experienced in the inner life of manGs core of being as the mirrored image is related to the real being of the person who is viewing himself in the mirror. Through such a manner of conceiving in relation to the theory of knowledge, conflict could be decisively eliminated between natural science, with its inclination toward materialism, and a spiritual research, which presupposes the spiritual. ;or a right of way should be established for natural scientific research, in that it could investigate the laws of the bodily organiHation uninfluenced by interference from a spiritual manner of thinking. 2f one wishes to know according to what laws the reflected image comes into existence, one must give attention to the laws of the mirror. This determines how the beholder is reflected8 it occurs in different ways depending on whether one has a plane, concave, or convex mirror. .ut the being of the person who is reflected is outside the mirror. !ne could thus see in the laws to be discovered through natural scientific research the reasons for the form of the empirical consciousness, and with these laws nothing should be mixed of what spiritual science has to say about the inner life of manGs core of being. (ithin natural scientific research one will always rightly oppose the interference of purely spiritual points of view. 2t is natural that, in the area of this research, there is more sympathy with explanations which are given in a mechanistic way than with spiritual laws. ) conception such as the following must be congenial to one who is at home in clear natural scientific conceptions 'The fact of consciousness brought about by the stimulation of brain cells does not belong in a class essentially different from that of gravity connected with matter, ACoriH .enediktB. 2n any case, such an explanation gives with exact methodology that which is conceivable for natural science. 2t is scientifically tenable, whereas the hypotheses of a direct control of the organic processes by psychic influences are scientifically untenable. .ut the idea previously given, fundamental from the point of view of the theory of knowledge, can see in the whole range of what can be established by natural science only arrangements which serve to reflect the real core of manGs being. This core of being, however, is not to be located in the interior of the physical organiHation, but in the transcendental. Spiritual research would then be conceived as the way by which one attains knowledge of the real nature of that which is reflected. !bviously, the common basis of the laws of the physical organism and those of the supersensible would lie behind the antithesis, being and mirror! This, however, is certainly no disadvantage for the practice of the scientific method of approach from both directions. (ith the maintenance of the antithesis described, this method would, so to speak, flow in two currents, each reciprocally illuminating and clarifying the other. ;or it must be maintained that, in the physical organiHation, we are not dealing with a reflecting apparatus, in the absolute sense, independent of the supersensible. The reflecting apparatus must, after all, be considered as the product of the supersensible being who is mirrored in it. The relative reciprocal independence of the one and the other method of approach mentioned above must be supplemented by a third method coming to meet them, which enters into the depths of the problem and which is capable of beholding the synthesis of the sensible and the supersensible. The confluence of the two currents may be conceived as given through a possible further development of the life of the mind up to the intuitive cognition already described. !nly within this cognition is that confluence superseded. 2t may thus be asserted that epistemologically unbiased considerations open the way for rightly understood anthroposophy. ;or these lead to the conclusion that it is a theoretically understandable possibility that the core of manGs being may have an existence free of the physical organiHation, and that the opinion of the ordinary consciousness E that the ego is to be considered a being absolutely within the body E is to be adFudged an inevitable illusion of the immediate life of the mind. The ego E with the whole of manGs core of being E can be viewed as an entity which experiences its relationship to the obFective world within that world itself, and receives its experiences as reflections in the form of impressions from the bodily organiHation. The separation of manGs core of being from the
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bodily organiHation must, naturally, not be conceived spatially, but must be viewed as a relatively dynamic state of release. )n apparent contradiction is then also resolved which might be discovered between what is here said and what has previously been said regarding the nature of sleep. 2n the waking state the human core of being is so fitted into the physical organiHation that it is reflected in this through the dynamic relationship to it8 in the state of sleep the reflecting ceases. Since the ordinary consciousness, in the sense of the epistemological considerations here presented, is rendered possible only through the reflection Athrough the reflected representationsB, it ceases, therefore, during the state of sleep. The condition of mind of the spiritual researcher can be understood as one in which the illusion of the ordinary consciousness is overcome, and which gains a starting point in the life of soul from which it actually experiences the human core of being in free release from the bodily organiHation. )ll else which is then achieved through exercises is only a deeper delving into the transcendental, in which the ego of ordinary consciousness really exists although it is not aware of itself as within the transcendental. Spiritual research is thus proved to be epistemologically conceivable. That it is conceivable will be admitted, naturally, only by one who can accept the view that the so-called critical theory of knowledge will be able to maintain its dogma of the impossibility of leaping over consciousness only so long as it fails to see through the illusion that the human core of being is enclosed within the bodily organiHation and receives impressions through the senses. 2 am aware that 2 have given only indications in outline in my epistemological exposition. "et it may be possible to recogniHe from these indications that they are not isolated notions but grow out of a developed fundamental epistemological conception.

222 Supersensible >nowledge )nthroposophy as a +emand of the )ge

.e sure to read another version of this 1ecture Supersensible Knowledge2 1ecture %.

)nyone who speaks today about supersensible worlds lays himself open at once to the quite understandable criticism that he is violating one of the most important demands of the age. This is the demand that the most important questions of existence be seriously discussed from a scientific point of view only in such a way that science recogniHes its own limitations, having clear insight into the fact that it must restrict itself to the physical world of earthly existence and would undoubtedly become a degenerate fantasy if it were to go beyond these limits. -ow, precisely the type of spiritual scientific perception about which 2 spoke at the last 0ienna #ongress of the )nthroposophical Covement Aand shall speak again todayB, lays claim not only to being free from hostility toward scientific thinking and the scientific sense of responsibility of our times, but also to working in complete harmony with the most conscientious scientific demands of those very persons who stand on the ground of the most rigorous natural science. 2t is possible, however, to speak from various points of view regarding the scientific demands of the times that are imposed on us by the theoretical and practical results in the evolution of humanity, which have emerged in such a splendid way in the course of the last three or four centuries, but especially during the nineteenth century. Therefore, 2 shall speak today about supersensible knowledge in so far as it tends to fulfill precisely this demand, and 2 wish to speak in another lecture about the supersensible knowledge of the human being as a demand of the human heart, of human feeling, during the present age. (e can observe the magnificent contribution which scientific research has brought us even up to the most recent time E the magnificent contribution in the findings about relationships throughout the external world. .ut it is possible to speak in a different sense regarding the achievements which have come about precisely in connection with this current of human evolution. ;or instance, we may call attention to the fact that, through the conscientious, earnest observation of the laws and facts of the external world of the senses, as is supplied by natural science, very special human capacities have been developed, and that Fust such observation and experimentation have thrown a light also upon human capacities themselves. .ut 2 should like to say that many persons holding positions deserving the greatest respect in the sphere of scientific research are willing to give very little attention to this light which has been reflected upon man himself through his own researches. 2f we only give a little thought to what this light has illuminated, we see that human thinking, through the very fact that it has been able to investigate both narrow and vast relationships E the microscopic and the telescopic E has gained immeasurably in itself has gained in the capacity of discrimination, has gained in power of penetration, to associate the things in the world so that their secrets are unveiled, and to determine the laws underlying cosmic relationships, and so forth. (e see, as this thinking develops, that a standard is set for this thinking, and it is set precisely for the most earnest of those who take up this research the demand that this thinking must develop as selflessly as possible in the observation of external nature and in experimentation in the laboratory, in the clinic, etc. )nd the human being has achieved tremendous power in this respect. *e has succeeded in setting up more and more rules whose character prevents anything of the nature of inner wishes of the heart, of opinions, perhaps even of fantasies regarding oneGs own being such as arise in the course of thinking, from being carried over into what he is to establish by means of the microscope and the telescope, the measuring rule and the scales, regarding the relationships of life and existence.

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Inder these influences a type of thinking has gradually developed about which one must say that it has worked out its passive role with a certain inner diligence. Thinking in connection with observation, with experiment, has nowadays become completely abstract E so abstract that it does not trust itself to conFure anything of the nature of knowledge or of truth from its own inner being. 2t is this gradually developed characteristic of thinking which demands before everything else E and above all it seems E the reFection of all that the human being is in himself by reason of his inner nature. ;or what he himself is must be set forth in activity8 this can really never exist wholly apart from the impulse of his will. Thus we have arrived at the point E and we have rightly reached this point in the field of external research E of actually reFecting the activity of thinking, although we became aware in this activity of what we ourselves mean as human beings in the universe, in the totality of cosmic relationships. 2n a certain sense, the human being has eliminated himself in connection with his research8 he prohibits his own inner activity. (e shall see immediately that what is rightly prohibited in connection with this external research must be especially cultivated in relationship to manGs own self if he wishes to gain enlightenment about the spiritual, about the supersensible element of his own being. .ut a second element in the nature of man has been obliged to manifest its particular side in modem research, a side which is alien to humanity even though friendly to the world that is, the human life of sentiment, the human life of feeling. 2n modem research, human feeling is not permitted to participate8 the human being must remain cold and matter-of-fact. "et one might ask whether it were possible to acquire within this human feeling forces useful in gaining knowledge of the world. !ne can say, on the one hand, that inner human caprice plays a role in feelings, in human subFectivity, and that feeling is the source of fantasy. !n the other hand, one can reply that human feeling can certainly play no distinct role as it exists chiefly in everyday and in scientific life. "et, if we recall E as science itself must describe it to us E that the human senses have not always, in the course of human evolution, been such as they are today, but have developed from a relatively imperfect stage up to their present state, if we recall that they certainly did not express themselves in earlier periods as obFectively about things as they do today, an inkling may then dawn in us that there may exist, even within the life of subFective feeling, something that might evolve Fust as did the human senses themselves, and which might be led from an experience of manGs own being over to a comprehension of cosmic relationships in a higher sense. /recisely as we observe the withdrawal of human feeling in connection with contemporary research must the question be raised could not some higher sense unfold within feeling itself, if feeling were particularly developedK .ut we find eminently clear in a third element in the being of man how we are impelled from an altogether praiseworthy scientific view to something different this is the will aspect of the life of the soul. (hoever is at home in scientific thinking knows how impossible it is for such thinking to grasp the relationships of the world other than through causal necessity. (e link in the most rigid manner phenomena existing side by side in space8 we link in the strictest sense phenomena occurring one after another in time. That is, we relate cause and effect according to their inflexible laws. (hoever speaks, not as a dilettante, but as one thoroughly at home in science, knows what a tremendous power is exerted by the mere consideration of the realms of scientific fact in this manner. *e knows how he is captivated by this idea of a universal causality and how he cannot do otherwise than to subFect everything that he confronts in his thinking to this idea of causality. .ut there is human will, this human will which says to us in every moment of our waking life of day '(hat you undertake in a certain sense by reason of yourself, by reason of your will, is not causally determined in the same sense that applies to any sort of external phenomena of nature., ;or this reason, even a person who simply feels in a natural way about himself, who looks into himself in observation free from preconception, can scarcely do otherwise than also to ascribe to himself, on the basis of immediate experience, freedom of will. .ut when he turns his glance to scientific thinking, he cannot admit this freedom of will. This is one of the conflicts into which we are brought by the condition of the present age. 2n the course of our lectures we shall learn much more about the conflicts. .ut for one who is able to feel this conflict in its full intensity, who can feel it through and through E because he must be honest on the one side concerning scientific research, and on the other side concerning his self-observation E the conflict is something utterly confounding, so confounding that it may drive him to doubt whether there is anywhere in life a firm basis from which one may search for truth. (e must deal with such conflicts from the right human perspective. (e must be able to say to ourselves that research drives us to the point where we are actually unable to admit what we are everyday aware of that something else must somehow exist which offers another approach to the world than that which is offered to us in irrefutable manner in the external order of nature. Through the very fact that we are so forcibly driven into such conflicts by the order of nature itself, it becomes for human beings of the present time a necessity to admit the impossibility of speaking about the supersensible worlds as they have been spoken about until a relatively recent time. (e need go back only to the first half of the nineteenth century to discover individuals who, by reason of a consciousness in harmony with the period, were thoroughly serious in their scientific work, and yet who called attention to the supersensible aspect of human life, to that aspect which opens up to the human being a view of the divine, of his own immortality8 and in this connection they always called attention to what we may at present designate as the 'night aspects, of human life. Cen deserving of the very highest regard have called attention to that wonderful but very problematical world into which the human being is transferred every night to the dream world. They have called attention to many mysterious relationships which exist between this chaotic picture-world of dreams and the world of actuality. They have called attention to the fact that the inner nature of the human organiHation, especially in illness, reflects itself in the fantastic pictures of dreams, and how healthy human life enters into the chaotic experiences of dreams in the forms of signs and symbols. They pointed out that much which cannot be surveyed by the human being with his waking senses fords its place in the half-awake state of the soul, and out of such matters conclusions were drawn. These matters border upon the subFect that many people still study today, the 'subconscious, states of the life of the human soul, which manifest themselves in a similar way. .ut everything which appears before the human being in this form, which could still give a certain satisfaction to an earlier humanity, is no longer valid for us. 2t is no longer valid for us because our way of looking into external nature has become something
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different. *ere we have to look back to the times when there existed still only a mystically colored astrology. Can then looked into the world of the senses in such a way that his perception was far removed from the exactness which we demand of science today. .ecause he did not demand of himself in his sense life that complete clarity which we possess today, he could discover in a mystical, halfconscious state something from which he could draw inferences. This we cannot do today. Lust as little as we are able to derive today, from what natural science gives us directly, anything other than questions regarding the true nature of man, Fust so little can we afford to remain at a standstill at the point reached by natural science and expect to satisfy our supersensible needs in a manner similar to that of earlier times. That form of supersensible knowledge of which 2 shall speak here has an insight into this demand of our times. 2t observes what has become of thinking, feeling, and willing in man precisely through natural science, and it asks, on the other side, whether it may be possible by reason of the very achievements of contemporary humanity in thinking, feeling, and willing to penetrate further into the supersensible realm with the same clarity which holds sway in the scientific realm. This cannot be achieved by means of inferential reasoning, by means of logic8 for natural science Fustly points out its limitations with reference to its own nature. .ut something else can occur the inner human capacities may evolve further, beyond the point at which they stand when we are in the realm of ordinary scientific research, so that we now apply to the development of our own spiritual capacities the same exactness which we are accustomed to applying to research in the laboratory and the clinic. 2 shall discuss this first in connection with thinking itself. Thinking, which has become more and more conscious of its passive role in connection with external research, and is not willing to disavow this, is capable of energiHing itself inwardly to activity. 2t may energiHe itself in such a way that, although not exact in the sense in which we apply this term to measure and weight in external research, it is exact in relationship to its own development in the sense in which the external scientist, the mathematician, for example, is accustomed to follow with full consciousness every step in his research. .ut this occurs when that mode of supersensible cognition of which 2 am here speaking replaces the ancient vague meditation, the ancient indistinct immersion of oneself in thinking, with a truly exact development of this thinking. 2t is possible here to indicate only the general principles of what 2 have said regarding such an exact development of thinking in my books, &ccult Science" an &utline" Knowledge of the #igher $ords and %ts Attainment" and other books. The human being should really compel himself, for the length of time which is necessary for him E and this is determined by the varying innate capacities of people E to exchange the role of passive surrender to the external world, which he otherwise rightly assumes in his thinking, for that different role that of introducing into this thinking his whole inner activity of soul. This he should do by taking into his mind day by day, even though at times only for a brief period, some particular thought E the content of which is not the important matter E and, while withdrawing his inner nature from the external world, directing all the powers of his soul in inner concentration upon this thought. .y means of this process something comes about in the development of those capacities of soul that may be compared with the results which follow when any particular muscles of the human body E for instance, the muscles of the arms E are to be developed. The muscles are made stronger, more powerful through use, through exercise. Thus, likewise, do the capacities of the soul become inwardly stronger, more powerful by being directed upon a definite thought. This exercise must be arranged so that we proceed in a really exact way, so that we survey every step taken in our thinking Fust as a mathematician surveys his operations when he undertakes to solve a geometrical or arithmetical problem. This can be done in the greatest variety of ways. (hen 2 say that something should be selected for this content of concentration that one fords in any sort of book E even some worthless old volume that we know quite certainly we have never previously seen E this may seem trivial. The important point is not the content of truth in the thing, but the fact that we survey such a thought content completely. This cannot be done if we take a thought content out of our own memory8 for so much is associated with such a thought in the most indeterminate way, so much plays a role in the subconscious or the unconscious, and it is not possible to be exact if one concentrates upon such a thing. (hat one fixes, therefore, in the very center of oneGs consciousness is something entirely new, something that one confronts only with respect to its actual content, which is not associated with any experience of the soul. (hat matters is the concentration of the forces of the soul and the strengthening which results from this. 1ikewise, if one goes to a person who has made some progress in this field and requests him to provide one with such a thought content, it is good not to entertain a preFudice against this. The content is in that case entirely new to the person concerned, and he can survey it. Cany persons fear that they may become dependent in this way upon someone else who provides them with such a content. .ut this is not the case8 in reality, they become less dependent than if they take such a thought content out of their own memories and experiences, in which case it is bound up with all sorts of subconscious experiences. Coreover, it is good for a person who has had some practice in scientific work to use the findings of scientific research as material for concentration8 these prove to be, indeed, the most fruitful of all for this purpose. 2f this is continued for a relatively long time, even for years, perhaps E and this must be accompanied by patience and endurance, as it requires a few weeks or months in some cases before success is achieved, and in some cases years E it is possible to arrive at a point where this method for the inner molding of oneGs thoughts can be applied as exactly as the physicist or the chemist applies the methods of measuring and weighing for the purpose of discovering the secrets of nature. (hat one has then learned is applied to the further development of oneGs own thinking. )t a certain moment, then, the person has a significant inner experience he feels himself to be involved not only in picture-thinking, which depicts the external events and facts and which is true to reality in inverse proportion to the force it possesses in itself, in proportion as it is a mere picture8 but one arrives now at the point of adding to this kind of thinking the inner experience of a thinking in which one lives, a thinking filled with inner power. This is a significant experience. Thinking thus becomes, as it were, something which one begins to experience Fust as one experiences the power of oneGs own muscles when one grasps an obFect or strikes against something. ) reality such as one experiences otherwise only in connection with the process of breathing or the activity of a muscle E this inner activity now enters into thinking. )nd since one has investigated precisely every step upon this way, so one experiences oneself in full clarity and presence of mind in this strengthened, active thinking. 2f the obFection is raised, let us say, that knowledge can result only from observation and logic, this is no real obFection8 for what we now experience is experienced with complete inner clarity, and yet in such a way that this thinking becomes at the same time a kind of 'touching with the soul., 2n the process of forming a thought, it is as if we were extending a feeler E not, in this case, as the snail extends a feeler into the physical world, but as if a feeler were extended into a spiritual world, which is as yet present only for our feelings if we have developed
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to this stage, but which we are Fustified in expecting. ;or one has the feeling '"our thinking has been transformed into a spiritual touching8 if this can become more and more the case, you may expect that this thinking will come into contact with what constitutes a spiritual reality, Fust as your finger here in the physical world comes into contact with what is physically real., !nly when one has lived for a time in this inwardly strengthened thinking does complete self-knowledge become possible. ;or we know then that the soul element has become, by means of this concentration, an experiential reality. 2t is possible then for the person concerned to go forward in his exercises and to arrive at the point where he can, in turn, eliminate this soul content, put it away8 he can, in a certain sense, render his consciousness void of what he himself has brought into this consciousness, this thought content upon which he has concentrated, and which has enabled him to possess a real thinking constituting a sense of touch for the soul. 2t is rather easy in ordinary life to acquire an empty consciousness8 we need only fall asleep. .ut it requires an intense application of force, after we have become accustomed to concentrating upon a definite thought content, to put away such a content of thought in connection with this very strengthened thinking, thinking which has become a reality. "et we succeed in putting aside this content of thinking in exactly the same way in which we acquired at first the powerful force needed for concentration. (hen we have succeeded in this, something appears before the soul which has been possible previously only in the form of pictures of episodes in oneGs memory the whole inner life of the person appears in a new way before the eyes of his soul, as he has passed through this life in his earthly existence since birth, or since the earliest point of time to which oneGs memory can return, at which point one entered consciously into this earthly existence. !rdinarily, the only thing we know in regard to this earthly existence is that which we can call up in memory8 we have pictures of our experiences. .ut what is now experienced by means of this strengthened thinking is not of the same kind. 2t appears as if in a tremendous tableau so that we do not recollect merely in a dim picture what we passed through ten years ago, for instance, but we have the inner experience that in spirit we are retracing the course of time. 2f someone carries out such an exercise in his fiftieth year, let us say, and arrives at the result indicated, what then happens is that time permits him to go back as if along a 'time-path, all the way, for instance, to the experiences of his thirty-fifth year. (e travel back through time. (e do not have only a dim memory of what we passed through fifteen years earlier, but we feel ourselves to be in the midst of this in its living reality, as if in an experience of the present moment. (e travel through time8 space loses its significance, and time affords us a mighty tableau of memory. This becomes a precise picture of manGs life, such as appears, even according to scientific thinkers, when anyone is exposed to great terror, a severe shock E at the moment of drowning, for instance E when for some moments he is confronted by something of his entire earthly life in pictures appearing before his soul E to which he looks back later with a certain shuddering fascination. 2n other words, what appears before the soul in such cases as through a natural convulsion now actually appears before the soul at the moment indicated, when the entire earthly life confronts one as in a mighty tableau of the spirit, only in a time order. !nly now does one know oneself8 only now does one possess real self-observation. 2t is quite possible to differentiate this picture of manGs inner being from that which constitutes a mere 'memory, picture. 2t is clear in the memory picture that we have something in which persons, natural occurrences, or works of art come upon us as if from without8 in this memory picture what we have is the manner in which the world comes into contact with us. 2n the supersensible memory tableau which appears before a person, what confronts him is, rather, that which has proceeded from himself. 2f, for instance, at a certain definite point of time in his life he began a friendship with a beloved personality, the mere memory picture shows how this person came to him at a certain point of time, spoke to him, what he owes to the person, and so on. .ut in this life tableau what confronts him is the manner in which he himself longed for this person, and how he ultimately took every step in such a way that he was inevitably led to that being whom he recogniHed as being in harmony with himself. That which has taken place through the unfolding of the forces of the soul comes to meet one with exact clarity in this life tableau. Cany people do not like this precise clarity, because it brings them to enlightenment regarding much that they would prefer to see in a different light from the light of truth. .ut one must endure the fact that one is able to look upon oneGs own inner being in utter freedom from preconceptions, even if this being of oneself meets the searching eye with reproach. This state of cognition 2 have called imaginative knowledge, or 2magination. .ut one can progress beyond this stage. 2n that which we come to know through this memory tableau, we are confronted by those forces which have really formed us as human beings. !ne knows now '(ithin you those forces evolve which mold the substances of your physical body. (ithin you, especially during childhood, those forces have evolved which, approximately up to the seventh year, have plastically modeled the nerve masses of the brain, which did not yet exist in well-ordered form after your birth., (e then cease at last to ascribe what works formatively upon the human being to those forces which inhere in material substances. (e cease to do this when we have this memory tableau before us, when we see how into all the forces of nutrition and of breathing and into the whole circulation of the blood stream the contents of this memory tableau E which are forces in themselves, forces without which no single wave of the blood circulates and no single process of breathing occurs. (e now learn to understand that man himself in his inner being consists of spirit and soul. (hat now dawns upon one can best be described by a comparison. 2magine that you have walked for a certain distance over ground which has been softened by rain, and that you have noticed all the way tracks or ruts made by human feet or wagon wheels. -ow suppose that a being came from the moon and saw this condition of the ground, but saw no human being. *e would probably conclude that there must be all sorts of forces underneath the earth which have thrust up these traces and given this form to the surface of the ground. Such a being might seek within the earth for the forces which have produced the tracks. .ut one who sees through the matter knows that the condition was not caused by the earth but by human feet or wagon wheels. -ow, anyone who possesses a view of things such as 2 have Fust described does not at all look, for this reason, with less reverence, for example, upon the convolutions of the human brain. "et, Fust as he knows that those tracks on the surface of the earth do not derive
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from forces within the earth, he now knows that these convolutions of the brain do not derive from forces within the substance of the brain, but that the spiritual-psychic entity of man is there, which he himself has now beheld, and that it works in such a way that our brain has these convolutions. This is the essential thing E to be driven to this view, so that we arrive at a conception of our own spiritsoul nature, so that the eye of the soul is really directed to the soul-spiritual element and to its manifestations in the external life. .ut it is possible to progress still further. )fter we strengthen our inner being through concentrating upon a definite thought content8 and after we then empty our consciousness so that, instead of the images we ourselves have formed, the content of our life appears before us8 now we can put this memory tableau out of our consciousness, Fust as we previously eliminated a single concept, so that our consciousness is empty of this. (e can now learn to apply this powerful force to efface from our consciousness that which we have come to know through a heightened self-observation as a spirit-soul being. 2n doing this, efface nothing less than the inner being of our own soul life. (e learned first in concentration to efface what is external, and we then learned to direct the gaHe of our soul to our own spirit-soul entity, and this completely occupied the whole tableau of memory. 2f we now succeed in effacing this memory tableau itself, there comes about what 2 wish to designate as the truly empty consciousness. (e have previously lived in the memory tableau or in what we ourselves have set up before our minds, but now something entirely different appears. That which lived within us we have now suppressed, and we confront the world with an empty consciousness. This signifies something extraordinary in the experience of the soul. ;undamentally speaking, 2 can describe at first only by means of a comparison what now appears to the soul, when the content of our own soul is effaced by means of the powerful inner force we apply. (e need only think of the fact that, when the impressions of the external senses gradually die away, when there is a cessation of seeing, hearing, perhaps even of a distinct sense of touch, we sink into a state closely resembling the state of sleep. -ow, however, when we efface the content of our own souls, we come to an empty state of consciousness, although this is not a state of sleep. (e reach what 2 might call the state of being merely awake E that is, of being awake with an empty consciousness. (e may, perhaps, conceive this empty consciousness in the following way imagine a modern city with all its noise and din. (e may withdraw from the city, and everything becomes more and more quiet around us8 but we finally arrive, perhaps deep within a forest. *ere we find the absolute opposite of the noises of the city. (e live in complete inner stillness, in hushed peace. 2f, now, 2 undertake to describe what follows, 2 must resort to a trivial comparison. (e must raise the question whether this peace, this stillness, can be changed still further into something else. (e may designate this stillness as the Hero point in our perception of the external world. 2f we possess a certain amount of property and we subtract from this property, it is diminished8 as we take away still more, it is further diminished8 and we finally arrive at Hero and have nothing left. #an we then proceed still furtherK 2t may, perhaps, be undesirable to most persons, but the fact is that many do this they decrease their possessions further by incurring debt. !ne then has less than Hero, and one can still diminish what one has. 2n precisely the same way, we may at least imagine that the stillness, which is like the Hero point of being awake, may be pushed beyond this Hero into a sort of negative state. ) super-stillness, a super-peace may augment the quietness. This is what is experienced by one who blots out his own soul content he enters into a state of quietness of soul which lies below the Hero point. )n inner stillness of soul in the most intensified degree comes about during the state of wakefulness. This cannot be attained without being accompanied by something else. This can be attained only when we feel that a certain state, linked with the picture images of our own self, passes over into another state. !ne who senses, who contemplates the first stage of the supersensible within himself, is in a certain state of well-being, that well-being and inner blissfulness to which the various religious creeds refer when they call attention to the supersensible and at the same time remind the human being that the supersensible brings to him the experience of a certain blissfulness in his inner being. 2ndeed, up to the point where one excluded oneGs own inner self, there was a certain sense of well-being, an intensified feeling of blissfulness. )t that moment, however, when the stillness of soul comes about, this inner well-being is replaced completely by inner pain, inner deprivation, such as we have never known before E the sense that one is separated from all to which one is united in the earthly life, far removed not only from the feeling of oneGs own body but from the feeling of oneGs own experiences since birth. )nd this means a deprivation which increases to a frightful pain of soul. Cany shrink back from this stage8 they cannot find the courage to make the crossing from a certain lower clairvoyance, after eliminating their own content of soul, to the state of consciousness where resides that inner stillness. .ut if we pass into this stage in full consciousness there begins to enter, in place of 2magination, that which 2 have called, in the books previously mentioned, 2nspiration E 2 trust you will not take offense at these terms E the experience of a real spiritual world. )fter one has previously eliminated the world of the senses and established an empty consciousness, accompanied by inexpressible pain of soul, then the outer spiritual world comes to meet us. 2n the state of 2nspiration we become aware of the fact that the human being is surrounded by a spiritual world Fust as the sense world exists for his outer senses. )nd the first thing, in turn, that we behold in this spiritual world is our own pre-earthly existence. Lust as we are otherwise conscious of earthly experiences by means of our ordinary memory, so does a cosmic memory now dawn for us we look back into preearthly experiences, beholding what we were as spirit-soul beings in a purely spiritual world before we descended through birth to this earthly existence, when as spiritual beings we participated in the molding of our own bodies. So do we look back upon the spiritual, the eternal, in the nature of man, to that which reveals itself to us as the pre-earthly existence, which we now know is not dependent upon the birth and death of the physical body, for it is that which existed before birth and before conception which made a human being out of this physical body derived from matter and heredity. -ow for the first time one reaches a true concept also of physical heredity, since one sees what super-sensible forces play into this E forces which we acquire out of a purely spiritual world, with which we now feel united Fust as we feel united with the physical world in the earthly life. Coreover, we now become aware that, in spite of the great advances registered in the evolution of humanity, much has been lost which belonged inherently to more ancient instinctive conceptions that we can no longer make use of today. The instinctive supersensible vision of humanity of earlier ages was confronted by this pre-earthly life as well as human immortality, regarding which we shall speak a little later. ;or eternity was conceived in ancient times in such a way that one grasped both its aspects. (e speak nowadays of the immortality of the human soul E indeed, our language itself possesses only this word E but people once spoke, and the more ancient languages continue to show such words, of
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unborn-ness M3ngeborenheitN as the other aspect of the eternity of the human soul. -ow, however, the times have somewhat changed. /eople are interested in the question of what becomes of the human soul after death, because this is something still to come8 but as to the other question, what existed before birth, before conception, there is less interest because that has 'passed,, and yet we are here. .ut a true knowledge of human immortality can arise only when we consider eternity in both its aspects that of immortality and that of unborn-ness. .ut, for the very purpose of maintaining a connection with the latter, and especially in an exact clairvoyance, still a third thing is necessary. (e sense ourselves truly as human beings when we no longer permit our feelings to be completely absorbed within the earthly life. ;or that which we now come to know as our pre-earthly life penetrates into us in pictures and is added to what we previously sensed as our humanity, making us for the first time completely human. !ur feelings are then, as it were, shot through with inner light, and we know that we have now developed our feeling into a sense organ for the spiritual. .ut we must go further and must be able to make our will element into an organ of knowledge for the spiritual. ;or this purpose, something must begin to play a role in human knowledge which, very rightly, is not otherwise considered as a means of knowledge by those who desire to be taken seriously in the realm of cognition. (e first become aware that this is a means of knowledge when we enter the supersensible realms. This is the force of love. !nly, we must begin to develop this force of love in a higher sense than that in which nature has bestowed love upon us, with all its significance for the life of nature and of man. 2t may seem paradoxical what 2 must describe as the first steps in the unfolding of a higher love in the life of man. (hen you try, with full discretion for each step, to perceive the world in a certain other consciousness than one usually feels, then you come to the higher love. Suppose you undertake in the evening, before you go to sleep, to bring your dayGs life into your consciousness so that you begin with the last occurrence of the evening, visualiHing it as precisely as possible, then visualiHing in the same way the next preceding, then the third from the last, thus moving backward to the morning in this survey of the life of the day8 this is a process in which much more importance attaches to the inner energy expended than to the question whether one visualiHes each individual occurrence more or less precisely. (hat is important is this reversal of the order of visualiHation. !rdinarily we view events in such a way that we first consider the earlier and then the subsequent in a consecutive chain. Through such an exercise as 2 have Fust described to you, we reverse the whole life8 we think and feel in a direction opposite to the course of the day. (e can practice this on the experiences of our day, as 2 have suggested, and this requires only a few minutes. .ut we can do this also in a different way. Indertake to visualiHe the course of a drama in such a way that you begin with the fifth act and picture it advancing forwards through the fourth, third, toward the beginning. !r we may place before ourselves a melody in the reverse succession of tones. 2f we pass through more and more such inner experiences of the soul in this way, we shall discover that the inner experience is freed from the external course of nature, and that we actually become more and more self-directing. .ut, even though we become in this way more and more individualiHed and achieve an ever-increasing power of self-direction, we learn also to give attention to the external life in more complete consciousness. ;or only now do we become aware that, the more powerfully we develop through practice this fully conscious absorption in another being, the higher becomes the degree of our selflessness, and the greater must our love become in compensation. 2n this way we feel how this experience of not living in oneself but living in another being, this passing over from oneGs own being to another, becomes more and more powerful. (e then reach the stage where, to 2magination and 2nspiration, which we have already developed, we can now add the true intuitive ascending into another being we arrive at 2ntuition, so that we no longer experience only ourselves, but also learn E in complete individualism yet also in complete selflessness E to experience the other being. *ere love becomes something which gradually makes it possible for us to look back even further than into the pre-earthly spiritual life. )s we learn in our present life to look back upon contemporary events, we learn through such an elevation of love to look back upon former earth lives, and to recogniHe the entire life of a human being as a succession of earthly lives. The fact that these lives once had a beginning and must likewise have an end will be touched upon in another lecture. .ut we learn to know the human life as a succession of lives on earth, between which there always intervene purely spiritual lives, coming between a death and the next birth. ;or this elevated form of love, lifted to the spiritual sphere and transformed into a force of knowledge, teaches us also the true significance of death. (hen we have advanced so far, as 2 have explained in connection with 2magination and 2nspiration, as to render these intensified inner forces capable of spiritual love, we actually learn in immediate exact clairvoyance to know that inner experience which we describe by saying that one experiences oneself spiritually, without a body, outside the body. This passing outside the body becomes in this way, if 2 may thus express it, actually a matter of obFective experience for the soul. 2f one has experienced this spiritual existence one time outside of the body, clairvoyantly perceived, 2 should like to say, then one knows the significance of the event of laying aside the physical body in death, of passing through the portal of death to a new, spiritual life. (e thus learn, at the third stage of exact clairvoyance, the significance of death, and thus also the significance of immortality, for man. 2 have wished to make it transparently clear through the manner of my explanation that the mode of supersensible cognition about which 2 am speaking seeks to bring into the very cognitional capacities of the human being something which works effectually, step by step, as it is thus introduced. The natural scientist applies this exactness to the external experiment, to the external observation8 he wishes to see the obFects in such Fuxtaposition that they reveal their secrets with exactitude in the process of measuring, enumerating, weighing. The spiritual scientist, about whom 2 am here speaking, employs this exactness to the evolution of the forces of his own soul. That which he uncovers in himself, through which the spiritual world and human immortality step before his soul, is made in a precise manner, to use an expression of $oetheGs. (ith every step thus taken by the spiritual scientist, in order that the spiritual world may at last lie unfolded before the eyes of the soul, he feels obligated to be as conscientious in regard to his perception as a mathematician must be with every step he takes. ;or Fust as the mathematician must see clearly into everything that he writes on the paper, so must the spiritual scientist see with absolute precision into everything that he makes out of his powers of cognition. *e then knows that he has formed an 'eye of the soul, out of the soul itself through the same inner necessity with which nature has formed the corporeal eye out
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of bodily substance. )nd he knows that he can speak of spiritual worlds with the same Fustification with which he speaks of a physicalsensible world in relationship to the physical eye. 2n this sense the spiritual research with which we are here concerned satisfies the demands of our age imposed upon us by the magnificent achievements of natural science E which spiritual science in no way opposes but, rather, seeks to supplement. 2 am well aware that everyone who undertakes to represent anything before the world, no matter what his motive may be, attributes a certain importance to himself by describing this as a 'demand of the times., 2 have no such purpose8 on the contrary, 2 should like to show that the demands of the times already exist, and the very endeavor of spiritual science at every step it takes is to satisfy these demands of the times. (e may say, then, that the spiritual scientist whom it is our purpose to discuss here does not propose to be a person who views nature like a dilettante or amateur. !n the contrary, he proposes to advance in true harmony with natural science and with the same genuine conscientiousness. *e desires truly exact clairvoyance for the description of a spiritual world. .ut it is clear to him at the same time that, when we undertake to investigate a human corpse in a laboratory for the purpose of explaining the life which has disappeared from it, or when we look out into cosmic space with a telescope, we then develop capacities which tend to adapt themselves at first solely to the microscope or telescope, but which possess an inner life and which misrepresent themselves in their form. 2f we dissect a human corpse, we know that it was not nature that directly made the human being into this bodily form, but that the human soul, which has now withdrawn from it, made it. (e interpret the human soul from what we have here as its physical product, and one would be irrational to assume that this molding of the human physical forces and forms had not arisen out of what preceded the present state of this human being. .ut from all that we hold back, as we meanwhile investigate dead nature with the forces from which one rightly withdraws oneGs inner activity, from the very act of holding back is created the ability to develop further the human soul forces. Lust as the seed of the plant lies out of sight under the earth when we have laid it in the soil, and yet will become a plant, so do we plant a seed in the soul in the very action of conscientious scientific research. *e who is a serious scientist in this sense has within himself the germ of imaginative, inspired, and intuitive knowledge. *e needs only to develop the germ. *e will then know that, Fust as natural science is a demand of the times, so likewise is supersensible research. (hat 2 mean to say is that everyone who speaks in the spirit of natural science speaks also in the spirit of supersensible research, only without knowing this. )nd that which constitutes an unconscious longing in the innermost depths of many persons today E as will be manifest in another public lecture E is the impulse of super-sensible research to unfold out of its germ. To those very persons, therefore, who oppose this spiritual research from a supposedly scientific standpoint, one would like to say, not with any bad intention, that this brings to mind an utterance in $oetheGs ;aust all too well known, but which would be applied in a different sense

The little man would not sense the +evil %ven if he held him by the throat.

2 do not care to go into that now. .ut what lies in this saying confronts us with a certain twist in that demand of the times that those who speak rightly today about nature are really giving expression, though unconsciously, to the spirit. !ne would like to say that there are many who do not wish to notice the 'spirit, when it speaks, although they are constantly giving expression to the spirit in their own wordsJ The seed of supersensible perception is really far more widespread today than is supposed, but it must be developed. The fact that it must be developed is really a lesson we may learn from the seriousness of the times in reference to external experiences. )s 2 have already said, 2 should like to go into the details another time but we may still add in conclusion that the elements of a fearful catastrophe really speak to the whole of humanity today through various indications in the outside world, and that it is possible to realiHe that tasks at which humanity in the immediate future will have to work with the greatest intensity will struggle to birth out of this great seriousness of the times. This external seriousness with which the world confronts us today, especially the world of humanity, indicates the necessity of an inner seriousness. )nd it is about this inner seriousness in the guidance of the human heart and mind toward manGs own spiritual powers, which constitute the powers of his essential being, that 2 have wished to speak to you today. ;or, if it is true that man must apply his most powerful external forces in meeting the serious events awaiting him over the whole world, he will need likewise a powerful inner courage. .ut such forces and such courage can come into existence only if the human being is able to feel and also to will himself in full consciousness in his innermost being, not merely theoretically conceiving himself but practically knowing himself. This is possible for him only when he comes to know that this being of his emerges from the source from which it truly comes, from the source of the spirit8 only when in ever-increasing measure, not only theoretically but practically, he learns to know in actual experience that man is spirit8 and can find his true satisfaction only in the spirit that his highest powers and his highest courage can come to him only out of the spirit, out of the supersensible.

20

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The )ttainment of Spiritual >nowledge

2 should like to respond to the kind invitation to lecture this evening by telling you how, by means of direct investigation, it is possible to acquire the spiritual knowledge which we are proposing to study here in its application to education. 2 shall be dealing today with the methods whereby supersensible worlds may be investigated and on another occasion it may be possible to deal with some of the actual results of supersensible research. .ut apart from this, let me add by way of introduction that everything 2 propose to say will refer to the investigation of spiritual worlds, not to the understanding of the facts yielded by supersensible knowledge. These facts have been investigated and communicated, and they can be grasped by healthy human intelligence, if this healthy intelligence will be unpreFudiced enough not to base its conclusions wholly on what goes by the name of proof, logical deduction, and the like, in regard to the outer sense world. !n account of these hindrances it is frequently stated that unless one is able oneself to investigate supersensible worlds, one cannot understand the results of supersensible research. (e are dealing here with what may be called initiation-knowledge E that knowledge which in ancient periods of human evolution was cultivated in a somewhat different form from that which must be fostered in our present age. !ur aim, as 2 have already said in other lectures, is to set out along the path of research leading to supersensible worlds by means of the thinking and perception proper to our own epoch E not to revive what is old. )nd precisely in initiation-knowledge, everything depends upon one being able to bring about a fundamental reorientation of the whole human life of soul. Those who have acquired initiation-knowledge differ from those who have knowledge in the modern sense of the word, and not only by reason of the fact that initiation-knowledge is a higher stage of ordinary knowledge. 2t is, of course, acquired on the basis of ordinary knowledge, and this basis must be there. 2ntellectual thinking must be fully developed if one wishes to reach initiationknowledge. .ut then a fundamental reorientation is necessary8 for he who possesses initiation-knowledge must look at the world from an entirely different point of view from one without initiation-knowledge. 2 can express in a simple formula how initiation-knowledge principally differs from ordinary knowledge. 2n ordinary knowledge, we are conscious of our thinking, and of all those inner experiences whereby we acquire knowledge, as the subFects of this knowledge. (e think, for example, and we believe that we are understanding something through our thoughts. (hen we conceive of ourselves as thinking beings, we are the subFect. (e seek for obFects, in that we observe nature and human life, and in that we make experiments. (e seek always for obFects. !bFects must press against us. !bFects must yield themselves to us so that we may grasp them with our thoughts and apply our thinking to them. (e are the subFect8 that which comes to us is the obFect. )n entirely different orientation is brought about in a man who is reaching out for initiation-knowledge. *e has to realiHe that, as man, he is the obFect, and he must seek for the subFect to this human obFect. Therefore the complete reverse must begin. 2n ordinary knowledge we feel ourselves to be the subFect and we seek the obFects that are outside us. 2n initiation-knowledge we ourselves are the obFect and we seek for the subFect E or rather in actual initiation-knowledge the subFect appears of itself. .ut that is then a matter of a later stage of knowledge. So you see, even this rather theoretical definition indicates that in initiation-knowledge we must really take flight from ourselves, that we must become like the plants, the stones, the lightning and thunder which, to us, are obFects. 2n initiation-knowledge we slip out of ourselves, as it were, and become the obFect which seeks for its subFect. 2f 2 may use a somewhat paradoxical expression E in this particular connection in reference to thinking E in ordinary knowledge we think about things8 in initiation-knowledge we must discover how our being is 'thought, in the cosmos. These are nothing but abstract principles, but these abstract principles you will now find pursued everywhere in the concrete data of the initiation method. -ow firstly E for today we are dealing only with the form of initiation-knowledge that is right and proper for the modern age E initiation-knowledge takes its start from thinking. The life of thought must be fully developed if one wishes to attain initiationknowledge today. )nd a good training for this life of thought is to give deep study to the growth and development of natural science in recent centuries, especially in the nineteenth century. *uman beings proceed in different ways when they embark upon the quest for scientific knowledge. Some of them absorb the teachings of science with a kind of naivetO, hearing how organic beings are supposed to have evolved from the simplest, most primitive forms, up to man. They formulate ideas about this evolution but pay little heed to their own being, to the fact that they themselves have ideas and in their very perception of outer processes are themselves unfolding a life of thought. .ut there are some who cannot accept the whole body of scientific knowledge without turning a critical eye upon themselves, and they will certainly come to the point of asking '(hat am 2 myself really doing when 2 follow the progress of beings from the imperfect to the perfect stageK, !r again, they must ask themselves '(hen 2 am working at mathematics 2 evolve thoughts purely out of myself. Cathematics in the real sense is a web which 2 spin out of my own being. 2 then bring this web to bear upon things in the outer world and it fits them., *ere we come to what 2 must say is the great and tragic question that faces the thinker '*ow do matters stand regarding thinking itself E this thinking that 2 apply with all knowledgeK, -ot for all our contemplation shall we discover how matters really stand regarding thought itself, for the simple reason that thinking there remains at the same level. )ll that we do is to revolve around the axle which we have already formed for ourselves. (e
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must perform something with thinking, by means of what 2 have described as meditation in my book, Knowledge of the #igher $orlds and its Attainment! !ne should not have any 'mystical, ideas in connection with meditation, nor indeed imagine that it is an easy thing. Ceditation must be something completely clear, in the modern sense. /atience and inner energy of soul are necessary for it, and, above all, it is connected with an act that no man can do for another, namely, to make an inner resolve and then hold to it. (hen he begins to meditate, man is performing the only completely free act there is in human life. (ithin us we have always the tendency to freedom and we have, moreover, achieved a large measure of freedom. .ut if we think about it, we shall find that we are dependent for one upon heredity, for another upon education, and for a third upon our life. )nd ask yourself where we would be if we were suddenly to abandon everything that has been given us by heredity, education, and life in general. 2f we abandoned all this suddenly, we would be faced with a void. .ut suppose we undertake to meditate regularly, in the morning and evening, in order to learn by degrees to look into the supersensible world. That is something which we can, if we like, leave undone any day8 nothing would prevent that. )nd, as a matter of fact, experience teaches that the greater number of those who enter upon the life of meditation with splendid resolutions abandon it again very soon. (e have complete freedom in this, for meditation is in its very essence a free act. .ut if we can remain true to ourselves, if we make an inner promise E not to another, but to ourselves E to remain steadfast in our resolve to meditate, then this in itself will become a mighty force in the soul. *aving said this, 2 want to speak of meditation in its simplest forms. Today 2 can deal only with principles. (e must place at the center of our consciousness an idea or combination of ideas. The particular content of the idea or ideas is not the point, but in any case, it must be something that does not represent any actual reminiscences or memories. That is why it is well not to take the substance of a meditation from our own store of memories but to let another, one who is experienced in such things, give the meditation. -ot, of course, because he has any desire to exercise 'suggestion,, but because in this way we may be sure that the substance of the meditation is something entirely new for us. 2t is equally good to take some ancient work which we know we have never read before, and seek in it some passage for meditation. The point is that we not draw the passage from the subconscious or unconscious realms of our own being which are so apt to influence us. (e cannot be sure about anything from these realms because it will be colored by all kinds of remains from our past life of perception and feeling. The substance of a meditation must be as clear and pure as a mathematical formula. (e will take this sentence as a simple example '(isdom lives in the light., )t the outset, one cannot set about testing the truth of this. 2t is a picture. .ut we are not to concern ourselves with the intellectual content of the words E we must contemplate them inwardly, in the soul, we must repose in them with our consciousness. )t the beginning, we shall be able to bring to this content only a short period of repose, but the time will become longer and longer. (hat is the. next stageK (e must gather together the whole human life of soul in order to concentrate all the forces of thinking and perception within us upon the content of the meditation. Lust as the muscles of the arm grow strong if we use them for work, so are the forces of the soul strengthened by being constantly directed to the same content, which should be the subFect of meditation for many months, perhaps even years. The forces of the soul must be strengthened and invigorated before real investigation in the supersensible world can be undertaken. 2f one continues to practice in this way, there comes a day, 2 would like to call it the great day, when one makes a certain observation. !ne observes an activity of soul that is entirely independent of the body. !ne realiHes too that whereas oneGs thinking and sentient life were formerly dependent on the body E thinking on the nerve-sense system, feelings on the circulatory system, and so on E one is now involved in an activity of soul and spirit that is absolutely free from any bodily influence. )nd gradually one notices that one can make something vibrate in the head E something which remained before totally unconscious. !ne now makes the remarkable discovery of where the difference lies between the sleeping and waking states. This difference lies in the fact that when one is awake, something vibrates in the whole human organism, with the single exception of the head. That which is in movement in the other parts of the organism is at rest in the head. "ou will understand this better if 2 call your attention to the fact that as human beings we are not, as we are accustomed to think, made up merely of this robust, solid body. (e are really made up of approximately ninety per cent fluid, and the proportion of solid constituents immersed and swimming in these fluids is only about ten per cent. -othing absolutely definite can be said about the amount of solid constituents in man. (e are composed of approximately ninety per cent water E if 2 may call it that E and through a certain portion of this water pulsates air and warmth. 2f you thus picture man as being to a lesser extent solid body and to a greater extent water, air, and the vibrating warmth, you will not find it so very unlikely that there is something still finer within him E something which 2 will now call the etheric body. This etheric body is finer than the air E so fine and ethereal indeed that it permeates our being without our knowing anything of it in ordinary life. 2t is this etheric body which in manGs waking life is full of inner movement, of regulated movement in the whole of the human organism, with the exception of the head. The etheric body in the head is inwardly at rest. 2n sleep it is different. Sleep commences and then continues in such a way that the etheric body begins to be in movement also in the head. 2n sleep, then, the whole of our being E the head as well as the other parts of the organism E is permeated by an inwardly moving etheric body. )nd when we dream, perhaps Fust before waking, we become aware of the last movements in the etheric body.
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They present themselves to us as dreams. (hen we wake up in a natural way we are still aware of these last movements of the etheric body in the head. .ut, of course, when there is a very sudden waking, it cannot be so. !ne who continues for a long time in the method of meditation which 2 have indicated is gradually able to form pictures in the tranquil etheric body of the head. 2n the book, Knowledge of the #igher $orlds and %ts Attainment" 2 have called these pictures 2maginations. )nd these 2maginations, which are experienced in the etheric body independently of the physical body, are the first supersensible impressions that we can have. They enable us, apart altogether from our physical body, to behold, as in a picture, the actions and course of our life back to the time of birth. ) phenomenon that has often been described by people who have been at the point of drowning, namely that they see their life backwards in a series of moving pictures, can be deliberately and systematically cultivated so that one can see all the events of the present earthly life. The first thing that initiation-knowledge gives is the view of oneGs own life of soul, and it proves to be altogether different from what one generally supposes. !ne usually supposes in the abstract that this life of soul is something woven of ideas. 2f one discovers it in its true form, one finds that it is something creative, that it is that which, at the same time, was working in our childhood, forming and molding the brain, and is permeating our whole organism and producing in it a plastic, form-building activity, kindling each day our waking consciousness and even our digestive processes. (e see this inwardly active principle in the organism of man as the etheric body. 2t is not a spatial body but a time-body. Therefore you cannot describe the etheric body as a form in space if you realiHe your doing so would be the same thing as painting a flash of lightning. 2f you paint lightning, you are, of course, painting an instant E you are holding an instant fast. The same principle applies to the etheric body of man. 2n truth, we have a physical space-body and a time-body, an etheric body which is always in motion. (e cannot speak intelligently of the etheric body until we have discovered in actual experience that it is a time-body which comes before us in an instant as a continuous tableau of events stretching back to birth. This is what we can first discover in the way of the supersensible abilities in ourselves. The effect of these inner processes upon the evolution of the soul, which 2 have described, manifests itself above all in the complete change of mood and disposition of soul in the man who is reaching out for initiation-knowledge. /lease do not misunderstand me. 2 do not mean that he who is approaching initiation suddenly becomes an entirely transformed person. !n the contrary, modern initiation-knowledge must leave a man wholly in the world, capable of continuing his life as when he began. .ut in the hours and moments dedicated to supersensible investigation, man becomes, through initiation-knowledge, completely different from what he is in ordinary life. )bove all, 2 would like now to emphasiHe an important moment which distinguishes initiation-knowledge. The more a man presses forward in his experience of the super-sensible world, the more he feels that the influences from his own corporeality are disappearing, that is to say regarding those things in which this corporeality takes part in ordinary life. 1et us ask ourselves, for a moment, how our Fudgments occur in life. (e develop as children, and grow up. Sympathy and antipathy take firm root in our life sympathy and antipathy with appearances in nature, and, above all, with other human beings. !ur body takes part in all this. Sympathy and antipathy E which to a large extent have their basis actually in physical processes E enter quite naturally into all these things. The moment he who is approaching initiation rises into the supersensible world, he passes into a realm where sympathy and antipathy connected with his bodily nature become more and more foreign to him. *e is removed from that with which his corporeality connects him. )nd when he wishes again to take up ordinary life he must, as it were, deliberately invest in his ordinary sympathies and antipathies, which otherwise occurs quite as a matter of course. (hen one wakes in the morning, one lives within oneGs body, one develops the same love for things and human beings, the same sympathy or antipathy which one had before. 2f one has tarried in the supersensible world and wishes to return to oneGs sympathies and antipathies, then one must do it with a struggle, one must, as it were, immerse oneself in oneGs own corporeality. This removal from oneGs own corporeality is one of the signs that one has actually made headway. (ide-hearted sympathies and antipathies gradually begin to unfold in one who is treading the path to initiation. 2n one direction, spiritual development shows itself very strongly, namely in the working of the memory and the power of remembering during initiation-knowledge. (e experience ourselves in ordinary life. !ur memory, our recollection, is sometimes a little better, sometimes a little worse, but we earn these memories. (e have experiences, and we remember them later. This is not so with what we experience in the supersensible worlds. This we can experience in greatness, in beauty, and in significance E it is experienced, then it is gone. )nd it must be experienced again if it is again to stand before the soul. 2t does not impress itself in the memory in the ordinary sense. 2t impresses itself only if one can first, with all effort, bring what one sees in the supersensible world into concepts, if one can transfer oneGs understanding to the supersensible world. This is very difficult. !ne must be able to think there, but without the help of the body. Therefore oneGs concepts must be well grounded in advance, one must have developed before a logical, orderly mind and not always be forgetting oneGs logic when looking into the supersensible world. /eople possessed of primitive clairvoyant faculties are able to see many things8 but they forget logic when they are there. )nd so it is precisely when one has to communicate supersensible truths to others that one becomes aware of this transformation in the memory in reference to spiritual truths. This shows us how much our physical body is involved in the practice of memory, not of thought but of memory, which indeed always plays over into the supersensible. 2f 2 were to say something personal, it would be this when 2 give a lecture, it is different from when others give lectures. 2n others, what is said is usually drawn from the memory8 what one learns, what one thinks, is usually developed out of the memory. .ut he who is really unfolding supersensible truths must at that very moment bring them to birth. 2 can give the same lecture thirty, forty, or fifty times, and for me it is never the same. !f course this may happen in other cases too8 but at all events the power to be independent of ordinary memory is very greatly enhanced when this inner stage of development is reached.
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(hat 2 have now related to you concerns the ability to bring form into the etheric body in the head. This then makes it possible for a man to see the time-body, the etheric body, stretching back to his birth, bringing about a very particular frame of mind vis-P-vis the cosmos. !ne loses oneGs own corporeality, so to speak, but one gradually becomes accustomed to the cosmos. The consciousness expands, as it were, into the wide spaces of the ether. !ne no longer contemplates a plant without plunging into its growing. !ne follows it from root to blossom8 one lives in its saps, in its flowering, in its fruiting. !ne can steep oneself in the life of animals as revealed by their forms, but above all in the life of other human beings. The slightest trait perceived in other human beings will lead one into the whole life of the soul, so that during these supersensible perceptions one feels not within but outside oneself. .ut one must always be able to return. This is essential, for otherwise one is an inactive, nebulous mystic, a dreamer E not a knower of the supersensible worlds. !ne must be able to live in these higher worlds, but at the same time be able to bring oneself back again, so as to stand firmly on oneGs own two feet. That is why in speaking of these things 2 state emphatically that for me as for a good philosopher a knowledge of how shoes and coats are sewn is almost more important than logic. ) true philosopher should be a practical human being. !ne must not be thinking about life if one does not stand within it as a really practical human being. )nd in the case of one who is seeking supersensible knowledge this is still more necessary. >nowers of the supersensible cannot be dreamers or fanatics E people who do not stand firmly on their own two feet. !therwise one loses oneself because one must really come out of oneself. .ut this coming-out-of-oneself must not lead to losing oneself. The book, &ccult Science" an &utline" was written from such a knowledge as 2 have described. Then the question is whether one can carry this super-sensible knowledge further. This occurs through further cultivating oneGs meditation. To begin with, one rests with the meditation upon certain definite ideas or a combination of ideas and thereby strengthens oneGs life of soul. .ut this is not enough to enter the supersensible world fully. )nother exercise is necessary. -ot only is it necessary to rest with definite ideas, concentrating oneGs whole soul upon them, but one must be able, at will, to drive these ideas out of oneGs consciousness again. Lust as in material life one can look at some obFect and then away from it, so in supersensible development one must learn to concentrate on some idea and then to drive it entirely away. %ven in ordinary life this is far from easy. Think how little a man has under his control, to be always impelled by his thoughts. They will often haunt him day in and day out, especially if they are unpleasant. *e cannot get rid of them. This is a still more difficult thing to do when we have accustomed ourselves to concentrate upon a particular thought. ) thought content upon which we have concentrated begins finally to hold us fast and we must exert every effort to drive it away. .ut after long practice we shall be able to throw the whole retrospective tableau of life back to birth, this whole etheric body, which 2 have called the time-body, entirely out of our consciousness. This, of course, is a stage of development towards which we must bring ourselves. (e must first mature. .y the sweeping away of ideas upon which we have meditated, we must acquire the power to rid ourselves of this colossus, this giant in the soul. This terrible specter of our life between the present moment and birth stands there before us E and we must do away with it. 2f we eliminate it, a 'more wakeful consciousness, E if 2 may so express it E will arise in us. #onsciousness is fully awake but is empty. )nd then it begins to be filled. Lust as the air streams into the lungs when they need it, so there streams into this empty consciousness, in the way 2 have described, the true spiritual world. This is 2nspiration. 2t is an in-streaming not of some finer substance but of something that is related to substance as negative is to positive. That which is the reverse of substance now pours into a human nature which has become free from the ether. 2t is important that we can become aware that spirit is not a finer, more ethereal substance. 2f we speak of substance as positive Awe might also speak of it as negative, but that is not the point8 these things are relativeB E then we speak of spirit as being the negative to the positive. 1et me put it thus suppose 2 have the large sum of five shillings in my possession. 2 give one shilling away and then have four shillings left. 2 give another away E three shillings left, and so on until 2 have no more. .ut then 2 can make debts. 2f 2 have a debt of a shilling, then 2 have less than no shillingJ 2f, through the methods that 2 have described, 2 have eliminated the etheric body, 2 do not enter into a still finer ether, but into something that is the reverse of the ether, as debts are the reverse of assets. !nly now 2 know through experience what spirit is. The spirit pours into us through 2nspiration8 the first thing that we now experience is what was with our soul and with our spirit in a spiritual world before birth, or rather before conception. This is the pre-existent life of our soul-spirit. .efore reaching this point we saw in the ether back to our birth. -ow we look beyond conception and birth, out into the world of soul and spirit, and behold ourselves as we were before we came down from spiritual worlds and acquired a physical body from the line of heredity. 2n initiation-knowledge these things are not philosophical truths that one thinks out they are experiences, but experiences which have to be earned by means of the preparations 2 have now indicated. The first truth that comes to us when we have entered the spiritual world is that of the pre-existence of the human soul and the human spirit respectively, and we learn now to behold the eternal directly. ;or many centuries %uropean humanity has had eyes for only one aspect of eternity E namely, the aspect of immortality. Cen have asked only this what becomes of the soul when it leaves the body at deathK This question is the egotistical privilege of men, for men take an interest in what follows death from an egotistical basis. (e shall presently see that we can speak of immortality too, but at all events men usually speak of it from an egotistical basis. They are less interested in what preceded birth. They say to themselves '(e are here now. (hat went before has only worth in knowledge., .ut one will not win true worth in knowledge unless one also directs oneGs attention to existence as it was before birth, or rather, before conception.
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(e need a word in modem parlance with which to complete the idea of eternity. ;or we should not speak only of immortality8 we should speak also of Ingeborenheit E Inborn-ness E a word difficult to translate. %ternity has these two aspects immortality and unborn-ness. )nd initiation-knowledge discovers unborn-ness before immortality. ) further stage along the path to the supersensible world can be reached if we now try to make our activity of soul and spirit still freer of the support from the body. To this end we now gradually guide the exercises in meditation and concentration to become exercises for the will. )s a concrete example, let me lead you to a simple exercise for strengthening the will. 2t will help you to be able to study the principle here involved. 2n ordinary life we are accustomed to think with the course of the world. (e let things come to us as they happen. That which comes to us earlier, we think of first, and that which comes to us later, we think of later. )nd even if we do not think with the course of time in more logical thought, there is always in the background the tendency to keep to the outward, actual course of events. -ow in order to exercise our forces of spirit and soul we must get free of the outer cause of things. ) good exercise E and one which is at the same time an exercise for the will E is to try to think back over our dayGs experiences, not as they occurred from morning to evening, but backwards, from evening to morning, entering as much as possible into details. Suppose in this backward review we come to the moment when, during the day, we walked up a staircase. (e think of ourselves at the top step, then at the one before the top, and so on, down to the bottom. (e go down that staircase backwards in thought. To begin with we will only be in the position to visualiHe episodes of the day in this backward order, say from six oGclock to three oGclock, or from twelve to nine, and so on to the moment of waking. .ut gradually we shall acquire a kind of technique by means of which, in the evening or the next morning, we are actually in a position to let a retrospective tableau of the experiences of the day or the day before pass before our soul in pictures. 2f we are in the position E and we will arrive at it E to free ourselves completely from the kind of thought which follows three-dimensional reality, we will see what a tremendous power our will becomes. (e will reach this also if we can arrive at the position where we can experience the notes of a melody backwards, or visualiHe a drama in five acts, beginning with the fifth, then the fourth, and so on, to the first act. Through all such exercises we strengthen the power of will, for we invigorate it inwardly and free it from its bondage to events in the material world. *ere again, exercises 2 have indicated in previous lectures can be appropriate if we take stock of ourselves and realiHe that we have acquired this or that habit. (e now take ourselves firmly in hand and apply an iron will in order within two years or so to have changed this particular habit into a different one. To take only a simple example something of a manGs character is contained in his handwriting. 2f we strain ourselves to acquire a handwriting bearing no resemblance to what it was before, this takes a strong inner force. -ow this second handwriting must become quite as much a habit, Fust as fluent as the first. That is only a trivial matter but there are many things whereby the fundamental direction of our will may be changed through our own efforts. $radually we bring it to the point where not only is the spiritual world received in us as 2nspiration, but actually our spirit, freed from the body, is submerged in other spiritual beings outside of us. ;or true spiritual knowledge is a submerging in spiritual beings who are spiritually all around us when we look back at physical phenomena. 2f we would know the spiritual, we must first, as it were, get outside ourselves. 2 have already described this. .ut then we must also acquire the ability to sink ourselves into things, namely into spiritual things and spiritual beings. (e can do this only after we also practice such initiation exercises as 2 have described, bringing us to the point where our own body is no longer a disturbing element but where we can submerge ourselves in the spirituality of things, where the colors of the plants no longer merely appear to us, but where we plunge into the colors themselves8 where we do not only color the plants, but see them color themselves. -ot only do we know that the chicory blossom growing by the wayside is blue, when we contemplate it8 but we can submerge ourselves inwardly in the blossom itself, in the process whereby it becomes blue. )nd from that point we can extend our spiritual knowledge more and more. 0arious symptoms will indicate that these exercises have really been the means of progress. 2 will mention two, but there are many. The first lies in the fact that we receive a way of viewing the moral world completely different from before. ;or pure intellectualism, the moral world has something unreal about it. !f course, if a man has abided by the laws of decent behavior in the age of materialism, he will feel it incumbent upon him to do what is right according to well-worn tradition. .ut even if he does not admit it, he thinks to himself when 2 do what is right, there is not so much taking place as when lightning strikes through space or when thunder rolls across the sky. *e does not think it real in the same sense. .ut when one lives within the spiritual world one becomes aware that the moral world-order not only has the reality of the physical world, but has a higher reality. $radually one learns to understand that this whole age with its physical constituents and processes may perish, may disintegrate, but that the moral influences which flow out of us strongly endure. The reality of the moral world dawns upon us. The physical and the moral world, 'being, and 'becoming,, become one. (e actually experience that the world has moral laws as obFective laws. This increases responsibility in relation to the world. 2t gives us a totally different consciousness E a consciousness of which present-day humanity stands in sore need. ;or modern mankind looks back to the earthGs beginning, where the earth is supposed to have been formed out of a primeval mist. 1ife is thought to have arisen out of the same mist, then man himself, and from man E as a ;ata Corgana E the world of ideas. Cankind looks ahead to a death of warmth, to a time when all that mankind lives within must become submerged in a great tomb, and they need a knowledge of the moral world-order which can only be received fundamentally through fully obtaining spiritual knowledge. This 2 can only indicate. .ut the other aspect is that one cannot reach this 2ntuitive knowledge, this submerging in outer things, without passing through intense suffering, much more intense than the pain of which 2 had to speak when 2 characteriHed 2maginative knowledge, when 2 said
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that through oneGs own efforts one must find the way back into oneGs sympathies and antipathies E and that inevitably means pain. .ut now pain becomes a cosmic experiencing of all suffering that rests upon the ground of existence. !ne can easily ask why the $ods or $od created suffering. Suffering must be there if the world is to arise in its beauty. That we have eyes E 2 will use popular language here E is simply due to the fact that to begin with, in a still undifferentiated organism, the organic forces were excavated which lead to sight and which, in their final metamorphosis, become the eye. 2f we were still aware today of the minute processes which go on in the retina in the act of sight, we should realiHe that even this is fundamentally the existence of a latent pain. )ll beauty is grounded in suffering. .eauty can only be developed from pain. )nd one must be able to feel this pain, this suffering. !nly through this can we really find our way into the supersensible world, by going through this pain. To a lesser degree, and at a lower stage of knowledge, this can already be said. *e who has acquired even a little knowledge will admit to you for the good fortune and happiness 2 had in life, 2 have my destiny to thank8 but only through pain and suffering have 2 been able to acquire my knowledge. 2f one realiHes this already at the beginning of a more elementary knowledge, it can become a much higher experience when one becomes master of oneself, when one reaches out through the pain that is experienced as cosmic pain to the stage of 'neutral, experience in the spiritual world. !ne must work through to a point where one lives with the coming-into-existence and the essential nature of all things. This is 2ntuitive knowledge. .ut then one is also completely within an experience of knowledge that is no longer bound to the body8 thus one can return freely to the body, to the material world, to live until death, but now fully knowing what it means to be real, to be truly real in soul and spirit, outside the body. 2f one has understood this, then one has a picture of what happens when the physical body is abandoned at death, and what it means to pass through the gate of death. *aving risen to 2ntuitive knowledge, one has foreknowledge, which is also experience, of the reality that the soul and spirit pass into a world of soul and spirit when the body is abandoned at death. !ne knows what it is to function in a world where no support comes from the body. Then, when this knowledge has been embodied in concepts, one can return again to the body. .ut the essential thing is that one learns to live altogether independently of the body, and thereby acquires knowledge of what happens when the body can no longer be used, when one lays it aside at death and passes over into a world of soul and spirit. )nd again, what results from initiation-knowledge on the subFect of immortality is not a philosophical speculation but an experience E or rather a pre-experience E if 2 may so express myself. !ne knows what one will then be. !ne experiences, not the full reality, but a picture of reality, which in a certain way corresponds with the full reality of death. !ne experiences immortality. *ere too, you see, experience is drawn into and becomes part of knowledge. 2 have tried now to describe to you how one rises through 2magination to 2nspiration and 2ntuition, and how one finally through this becomes acquainted with oneGs full reality. 2n the body one learns to perceive oneself, so long as one remains within that body. The soul and spirit must be freed from the body, for then one becomes for the first time a whole man. Through what we perceive through the body and its senses, through the ordinary thinking which, arising from the sense-experiences, is bound up with the body, especially with the nerve-sense system, one becomes acquainted with only a limb of man. (e cannot know the whole, full man unless we have the will to rise to the modes of knowledge which come out of initiation-science. !nce again 2 would like to emphasiHe if these things are investigated, everyone who approaches the results with an unpreFudiced mind can understand them with ordinary, healthy human reason E Fust as he can understand what astronomers or biologists have to say about the world. The results can be tested, and indeed one will find that this testing is the first stage of initiation-knowledge. ;or initiation-knowledge, one must first have an inclination towards truth, because truth, not untruth and error, is oneGs obFect. Then one who follows this path will be able, if destiny makes it possible, to penetrate further and further into the spiritual world during this earthly life. 2n our day, and in a higher way, the call inscribed over the portal of a $reek temple must be fulfilled 'Can, know thyselfJ, Those words were not a call to man to retreat into his inner life but a demand to investigate into the being of man into the being of immortality Q body8 into the being of unborn-ness Q immortal spirit8 and into the mediator between the earth, the temporal, and the spirit Q soul. ;or the genuine, the true man consists of body, soul, and spirit. The body can know only the body8 the soul can know only the soul8 the spirit can know only the spirit. Thus we must seek to find active spirit within us in order to be able to perceive the spirit also in the world.

0 $eneral +emands (hich %very )spirant ;or !ccult +evelopment Cust /ut to *imself
ASubsidiary %xercisesB 2n what follows, the conditions which must be the basis for occult development are presented. 1et no one think that he can make progress by any measures applied to the outer or the inner life if he does not fulfill these conditions. )ll meditation, concentration, or other exercises are worthless, indeed in a certain respect actually harmful, if life is not regulated in accordance with these conditions. -o forces can actually be given to a human being8 it is only possible to bring to development the forces already within him. They do
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not develop by themselves because outer and inner hindrances obstruct them. The outer hindrances are lessened by the rules of life which follow8 the inner hindrances by the special instructions concerning meditation, concentration, and so on. The first condition is the cultivation of an absolutely clear thinking. ;or this purpose one must rid oneself of the will-oG-the-wisps of thought, even if only for a very short time during the day E about five minutes Athe longer, the betterB. !ne must become master in oneGs world of thought. !ne is not master if outer circumstances, occupation, some tradition or other, social relationships, even membership in a particular race, or if the daily round of life, certain activities, and so forth, determine a thought and how one enlarges upon it. Therefore during this brief time, one must, entirely out of free will, empty the soul of the ordinary, everyday course of thoughts, and by oneGs own initiative place a thought at the center of the soul. !ne need not believe that this must be a particularly striking or interesting thought. 2ndeed it will be all the better for what has to be attained in an occult respect if one strives at first to choose the most uninteresting and insignificant thought. Thinking is then impelled to act out of its own energy, which is the essential thing here, whereas an interesting thought carries the thinking along with it. 2t is better if this exercise in thought control is undertaken with a pin rather than with -apoleon. The pupil says to himself -ow 2 start from this thought, and through my own inner initiative 2 associate with it everything that is pertinent to it. )t the end of the period the thought should stand before the soul Fust as colorfully and vividly as at the beginning. This exercise is repeated day by day for at least a month8 a new thought may be taken every day, but the same thought may also be adhered to for several days. )t the end of such an exercise one endeavors to become fully conscious of that inner feeling of firmness and security which will soon be noticed by paying subtler attention to oneGs own soul8 then one concludes the exercise by focusing the thinking upon the head and the middle of the spine Abrain and spinal cordB, as if one were pouring that feeling of security into this part of the body. (hen this exercise has been practiced for about a month, a second requirement should be added. (e try to think of some action which in the ordinary course of life we certainly would not be likely to perform. Then we make it a duty to perform this action every day. 2t will therefore be good to choose an action which can be performed every day and will occupy as long a period of time as possible. )gain it is better to begin with some insignificant action which we have to force ourselves to perform8 for example, to water at a definite time of day a flower we have bought. )fter a time a second, similar act should be added to the first8 later, a third, and so on E as many as are compatible with the carrying out of all other duties. This exercise should also last for one month. .ut as far as possible during this second month, too, one should continue the first exercise, although it is a less paramount duty than in the first month. -evertheless it must not be left unheeded, for otherwise it will quickly be noticed that the fruits of the first month are soon lost and the slovenliness of uncontrolled thinking begins again. #are must be taken that once these fruits have been won, they are never again lost. 2f, through the second exercise, this initiative of action has been achieved, then, with subtle attentiveness, we become conscious of the feeling of an inner impulse of activity within the soul8 we pour this feeling into the body, letting it stream down from the head to a point Fust above the heart. 2n the third month, a new exercise should be moved to the center of life E the cultivation of a certain equanimity towards the fluctuations of Foy and sorrow, pleasure and pain8 'heights of Fubilation, and 'depths of despair, should quite consciously be replaced by an equable mood. #are is taken that no pleasure shall carry us away, no sorrow plunge us into the depths, no experience lead to immoderate anger or vexation, no expectation give rise to anxiety or fear, no situation disconcert us, and so on. There need be no fear that such an exercise will make life arid and unproductive8 rather one will quickly notice that the moods to which this exercise is applied are replaced by purer qualities of soul. )bove all, if subtle attentiveness is maintained, one will discover one day an inner tranquility in the body8 as in the two cases above, we pour this feeling into the body, letting it stream from the heart, towards the hands, the feet and, filially, the head. This naturally cannot be done after every single exercise, for here it is not a matter of a single exercise but of a sustained attentiveness to the inner life of the soul. !nce every day, at least, one should call up this inner tranquility before the soul and then undertake the exercise of pouring it out from the heart. ) connection with the exercises of the first and second months is maintained, as in the second month with the exercise of the first month. 2n the fourth month, as a new exercise, one should take up what is sometimes called a 'positive attitude, to life. 2t consists in seeking always for the good, the praiseworthy, the beautiful, and so on, in all beings, all experiences, all things. This quality of soul is best characteriHed by a /ersian legend concerning #hrist Lesus. !ne day as *e was walking with *is disciples, they saw a dead dog lying by the roadside in a state of advanced decomposition. )ll the disciples turned away from the repulsive sight8 #hrist Lesus alone did not move but observed the animal thoughtfully and said '(hat beautiful teeth the animal hasJ, (here the others had seen only the repulsive, the unpleasant, *e looked for the beautiful. So must the esoteric pupil strive to seek for the positive in every phenomenon and in every being. *e will soon notice that under the mask of something repulsive there is a hidden beauty, that even under the mask of a criminal there is a hidden good, that under the mask of a lunatic the divine soul is somehow concealed. 2n a certain respect this exercise is connected with what is called 'abstention from criticism., This is not to be understood in the sense of calling black white and white black. There is, however, a difference between a Fudgment which, proceeding merely from oneGs own personality, is colored with oneGs own personal sympathy or antipathy, and an attitude which enters lovingly into the alien phenomenon or being, always asking *ow has this other being come to be like this or to act like thisK Such an attitude will by its very nature strive more to help what is imperfect than simply to find fault and to criticiHe. The obFection that the very circumstances of their lives oblige many people to find fault and condemn is not valid here. ;or in such cases the circumstances are such that the person in question cannot go through a genuine occult training. There are indeed many circumstances in life which make a productive occult schooling impossible. 2n such a case the person should not impatiently desire, in spite of everything, to make progress which can only be possible under certain conditions.

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*e who consciously turns his mind, for one month, to the positive aspect of all his experiences will gradually notice a feeling creeping into him as if his skin were becoming porous on all sides, and as if his soul were opening wide to all kinds of secret and subtle processes in his environment, which hitherto entirely escaped his notice. (hat is important here is that every human being combat a prevalent lack of attentiveness to such subtle things. 2f one has once noticed that the feeling described expresses itself in the soul as a kind of bliss, one seeks in thought to guide this feeling to the heart and from there to let it stream into the eyes, and thence out into the space in front of and around oneself. !ne will notice that an intimate relationship to this space is thereby acquired. !ne grows out of and beyond oneself, as it were. !ne learns to regard a part of oneGs environment as something that belongs to oneself. ) great deal of concentration is necessary for this exercise, and, above all, a recognition of the fact that all tumultuous feelings, all passions, all overexuberant emotions have an absolute destructive effect upon the mood indicated. The exercises of the first months are also repeated, as was suggested for the earlier months. 2n the fifth month, one should seek to cultivate in oneself the feeling of confronting every new experience with complete impartiality. The esoteric pupil must break entirely with the attitude of men in which, in the face of something Fust heard or seen, they say '2 never heard that, or 2 never saw that before8 2 donGt believe it E itGs an illusion., )t every moment he must be ready to accept an absolutely new experience. (hat he has hitherto recogniHed as being in accordance with natural law, or what has appeared possible to him, must not be a shackle preventing acceptance of a new truth. )lthough radically expressed, it is absolutely correct that if anyone were to come to the esoteric pupil and say, 'Since last night the steeple of such-and-such a church has been tilted right over,, the esotericist should leave a loophole open for possibly believing that his previous knowledge of natural law could somehow be widened by such an apparently unprecedented fact. *e who turns his attention, in the fifth month, to developing this attitude of mind, will notice creeping into his soul a feeling as if something were becoming alive in the space referred to in connection with the exercise for the fourth month, as if something were stirring. This feeling is exceedingly delicate and subtle. !ne must try to be attentive to this delicate vibration in the environment and to let it stream, as it were, through all five senses, especially through the eyes, the ears, and through the skin, in so far as this last contains the sense of warmth. )t this stage of esoteric development, one pays less attention to the impressions made by these stimuli on the other senses of taste, smell, and touch. )t this stage it is still not possible to distinguish the numerous bad influences which intermingle with the good influences in this sphere8 the pupil therefore leaves this for a later stage. 2n the sixth month, one should try to repeat again and again all five exercises, systematically and in a regular alternation. 2n this way a beautiful equilibrium of soul will gradually develop. !ne will notice especially that previous dissatisfactions with certain phenomena and beings in the world completely disappear. ) mood reconciling all experiences takes possession of the soul, a mood that is by no means one of indifference but, on the contrary, enables one for the first time to work in the world for its genuine progress and improvement. !ne comes to a tranquil understanding of things which were formerly quite closed to the soul. The very gestures and bearing of a person change under the influence of such exercises, and if, one day, he can actually notice that his handwriting has taken on another character, then he may say to himself that he is Fust about to reach a first rung on the upward path to comprehension. !nce again, two things must be stressed ;irst, the six exercises described paralyHe the harmful influence other occult exercises can have, so that only what is beneficial remains. Secondly, these exercises alone ensure that efforts in meditation and concentration will have a positive result. The esotericist must not rest content with fulfilling, however conscientiously, the demands of conventional morality, for that morality can be very egotistical, if a man says to himself 2 will be good in order that 2 may be thought good. The esotericist does not do what is good because he wants to be thought good, but because little by little he recogniHes that the good alone brings evolution forward, and that evil, stupidity, and ugliness place hindrances along its path.

02 ;urther &ules in #ontinuation of the $eneral +emands

The following rules should be understood so that every esoteric pupil arranges his life in such a way that he continuously observes and directs himself, especially as to whether he follows these demands in his inner life. )ll esoteric training, particularly if it ascends to higher regions, can lead the pupil only to disaster and confusion if such rules are not observed. !n the other hand, no one need be afraid of such training who strives to live in the sense of these rules. )nd he need not despair when he has to say to himself, '2 am following the demands in a very inadequate way., 2f only he has honestly strived inwardly for his whole life not to lose sight of these rules, this will be sufficient. "et this honesty must be above all an honesty before oneself. 2n this respect many a man may be deceived. *e says to himself, 2 will strive in a pure sense. .ut if he would test this he would observe that much hidden egotism and many cunning feelings of self-seeking lie in the background. 2t is particularly such feelings which very often bear the mask of selfless striving and often mislead the pupil. !ne cannot test too often and too seriously by inner self-observation, whether such feelings are hidden in oneGs inmost soul. !ne becomes ever more free of such feelings through the energetic pursuit of the rules discussed here. These rules are

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;irst -o unproven concept shall enter my consciousness.

!bserve how many concepts, feelings, and will impulses live in the soul of man which are acquired through his position in life, profession, family connections, national connections, conditions of the time, and so on. !ne should not assume that for everyone eradication of these contents of soul would be a moral deed. ;or man, after all, receives his firmness and security in life because he is carried by his nation, the condition of his time, his family, education, etc. *e would soon find himself standing in life without support were he to throw away these things carelessly. %specially for a weak personality it is undesirable to go too far in this direction. The esoteric pupil should be particularly clear that the observance of this first rule must be accompanied by the acquisition of understanding for all the deeds, thoughts, and feelings of other beings. 2t should never happen that following this rule leads to impetuosity, or, for instance, to someone saying, '2 will break with all things into which 2 have been born and into which my life has placed me., !n the contrary, the more one tests, the more one will see the Fustification of what lives in oneGs environment. 2t is not a matter of fighting against or of arrogant reFection of these things, but rather of gaining the inner freedom from them through careful testing of all that stands in relation to oneGs own soul. Then, through the power of oneGs own soul, a light will be shed over oneGs whole thinking and behavior8 consciousness will correspondingly enlarge and one will really acquire more and more, and allow to speak, the spiritual laws which reveal themselves to the soul, and one will stand no longer as blind follower of the surrounding world. !bviously, one can assert regarding this rule, '2f man has to verify everything, he will especially want to test the occult and esoteric teachings given by his esoteric teacher., .ut this testing has to be understood in the right sense. !ne cannot always test a thing directly, but often one has to undertake this testing indirectly. ;or instance, nobody today is in a position to prove whether ;rederick the $reat lived or not. !ne can only prove whether the way through which the accounts of ;rederick the $reat have been transmitted is a trustworthy one. 2nvestigation must be begun in the right place. !ne should hold all faith in so-called authority in the same way. 2f one is told something which one cannot directly comprehend then above all one must check on the basis of available material whether he is a trustworthy authority, whether he says things which call forth the presentiment and perception that they are true. ;rom this example one can see the importance of beginning investigation at the right level.

) second rule is There shall stand before my soul the living obligation continually to increase the number of my concepts.

There is nothing worse for the esoteric pupil than to wish to remain with a certain number of concepts which he already has, and to want to understand everything with their help. 2t is immensely important to acquire ever new concepts. 2f this does not happen the pupil, when he encounters supersensible insights, has no sufficiently prepared concept with which to meet them. *e will then be overwhelmed by these insights either to his disadvantage or at least to his dissatisfaction, the latter because, under such circumstances, he might already be surrounded by higher experiences without being at all aware of them. The number is by no means small of pupils who might already be surrounded by higher experiences but without being aware of this because, through the poverty of their concepts, they have had totally different expectations of these experiences than is accurate. Cany people in their outer life do not at all incline to indolence, yet in their conceptual life they are little disposed to enrich themselves by forming new concepts.

) third rule is this >nowledge will come to me only about such things, the yes or no of which 2 regard without sympathy or antipathy.

)n initiate of old impressed again and again upon his pupils '"ou will only know about immortality of the soul when you can Fust as gladly accept that the soul may perish in death, or may live eternally. )s long as you wish to live eternally, you will gain no concept of the condition after death., )s it is in this important case, so it is with all truths. )s long as man has even the slightest wish that anything might be this way or that, the pure light of truth cannot enlighten him. ;or example, for a man who, in his own review of himself, has even the most secret wish that his good qualities might prevail, this wish becomes an illusion and will not allow him true self-knowledge.

) fourth rule is this 2 must overcome my aversion to the so-called abstract.

)s long as the esoteric pupil depends on concepts whose material is derived from the sense world, he cannot reach truth about the higher worlds. *e must attempt to acquire sense-free concepts. !f all four rules this is the most difficult, especially under the conditions of life in our age. Caterialistic thinking has deprived man to a high degree of the ability to think in sense-free concepts. !ne
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has to try often to think concepts which in outer sense reality never exist in perfection but only in approximation, for example, the concept of the circle. ) perfect circle does not exist E it can only be thought. .ut this conceptual circle is the underlying law of all circular forms. !r one can think a high moral ideal8 this also cannot be totally realiHed by any human being in its perfection E yet it is the underlying law of many human deeds. -obody will advance esoterically who does not recogniHe the full importance for life of this so-called abstract, and who will not enrich his soul with corresponding concepts.

AThese four rules were added by &udolf Steiner to the so-called Six Subsidiary %xercises, which carry the subtitle +emands (hich %very )spirant for !ccult +evelopment Cust /ut to *imself.B

022 The $reat 2nitiates

2t may well be said that the anthroposophical conception of the world is distinguished from any other we may meet because it can satisfy to such a great extent the desire for knowledge. 2n the present time we so often hear that it is impossible to gain knowledge of certain things E that our capacity for knowledge has limits and cannot rise above a certain height. !n becoming acquainted with modern philosophical research we constantly hear of such limits to knowledge, especially among those schools of philosophy which owe their origin to >ant. The understanding of anthroposophists and of those who practice mysticism is distinguished from all such doctrines through never setting limits to manGs capacity for knowledge, but rather looking upon it as capable of being both widened and uplifted. 2s it not, to a certain extent, the greatest arrogance for anyone to regard his own capacity for knowledge, from the point at which it stands, as something decisive, and then to say that with our capacities we cannot go beyond definite limits of knowledgeK The anthroposophist says '2 stand today at a certain point in human knowledge, from which 2 am able to know certain things and not others. .ut it is possible to cultivate the human capacity for knowledge, to heighten it., (hat is called a school of initiation has as its essential aim to raise to a higher stage this human capacity for knowledge. So it is quite correct if one from a lower stage of knowledge says that there are limits to his knowledge and that certain things cannot be known. !ne can, however, raise oneself above this stage of knowledge and press on to a higher stage, so that it becomes possible to know what at a lower stage was impossible. This is the essence of initiation, and this deepening or heightening of knowledge is the task of the initiation schools. This means raising man to a stage of knowledge to which nature has not brought him, but which he must acquire for himself through long years of patient exercise. 2n all ages there have been these initiation schools. )mong all peoples, those having a higher kind of knowledge have arisen from these initiation schools. )nd the essential nature of such schools E and of the great 2nitiates themselves, who have soared above the lower stages of the human capacity for knowledge and, through their inspirations, have been acquainted with the highest knowledge accessible to us in this world E finds expression in 2nitiates giving to the various peoples on earth their various religions and worldconceptions. Today we wish with a few strokes to illuminate the essential being of these great 2nitiates. )s in every science, in every spiritual process one must first learn the method through which one penetrates to knowledge. This is also the case in the initiation schools. )nd here too it is a matter of our being led through certain methods to the higher stages of knowledge, about which we have spoken precisely. 2 shall now briefly refer to the stages that here concern us. #ertain stages of knowledge can only be attained in the intimate schools of initiation where there are teachers who have themselves in their own experience gone through each school, have devoted themselves to every exercise, and have really pondered every single step, every single stage. )nd one must entrust oneself only to such teachers in the initiation schools. 2n these schools there is, it is true, no hint of authority, nothing that smacks of dogmatism8 the governing principle is entirely that of counsel, the imparting of advice. (hoever has gone through a certain stage of learning, and has himself acquired experiences of the higher, supersensible life, knows the inner way that leads to this higher knowledge. )nd it is only one such as this who is qualified to say what one must do. (hat is necessary is simply that there be trust between pupil and teacher in this sphere. (hoever lacks this trust can learn nothing8 but whoever has it will very soon perceive that nothing is recommended by any occult, mystic, or mystery teacher other than what the teacher has himself gone through. (hat concerns us here is that, of the whole being of man as he stands before us today, it is essentially only the outward visible part already within human nature that is today complete. This must be made clear to anyone aspiring to become a student of the mysteries E that man as he stands before us today is by no means a completed being, but is in the process of developing so that in the future he will reach many higher stages. That which today has attained to an image of $od, that which has arrived at the highest stage in man, is the human physical body, that which we can see with our eyes and perceive in any way with our senses. That is not, however, the only thing that man has. *e has still higher members of his nature. To begin with, he further possesses a member that we call his etheric body. This etheric body can be seen by anyone who has cultivated his soul organs. Through this etheric body man is not simply a creation in which work chemical and physical forces, but a living creation, a creation that lives and is endowed with capacities for growth, life, and propagation. !ne can see this etheric body, which represents a kind of archetype of man, if, with the methods of the art of clairvoyance E which will be characteriHed still further E one suggests away the ordinary physical body. "ou know how, by the ordinary methods of hypnotism and suggestion, the point can be reached when, if you say to anyone that there is no lamp here, he actually sees no lamp. So you can also, if
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you develop in yourself sufficiently strong willpower E a willpower that shuts out, entirely shuts out, all observation of the physical body E so you can, in spite of seeing into space, completely suggest away physical space. Then you see space not empty but filled by a kind of archetype. This archetype has practically the same form as the physical body. 2t is, however, not of the same nature through and through, but is fully organiHed. 2t is not only interlaced with fine veins and streams but it also has organs. This creation, this etheric body, produces manGs essential life. 2ts color can only be compared with the color of the young peach blossom. 2t is no color that is contained in the sun spectrum8 but it is something between a violet and a reddish tinge. This is then the second body. The third body is the aura, which 2 have often described E that cloudlike formation of which 2 spoke last time when describing manGs origin, in which man is as if in an egg-shaped cloud. 2n this is expressed all that lives in man as lust, passion, and feeling. Loyful self-sacrificing feelings express themselves in this aura in luminous streams of color. ;eelings of hate, physical feelings, express themselves in dark color tones. Sharp, logical thoughts express themselves in sharply outlined forms. 2llogical, confused thoughts come to expression in figures with blurred outline. Thus, we have in this aura an image of what is living in manGs soul as feeling, passion, and impulse. )s man has now been described, so he was set down on the earth E from the hand of nature, so to speak E at the point of time that lies approximately at the beginning of the )tlantean race. 1ast time 2 described what is to be understood by 'the )tlantean race., )t the moment when the fertiliHation by the eternal spirit had already taken place, man confronts us with the three members E body, soul, and spirit. Today this threefold nature of man has taken a somewhat different form, as since that time, since nature has released him, since he has become a being with self-consciousness, man has worked on his own being. This work on himself means the refining of his aura8 it also means sending light into the aura out of this self-consciousness. ) man who stands at a very low stage of development and has never worked on himself E let us say a savage E has the aura which nature has provided him. .ut all those within our civiliHation, our cultural world, have auras on which they themselves have helped to work, for in so far as man is a selfconscious being he works upon himself and this work comes into expression first through changing his aura. )ll that man has learned through nature, all that he has absorbed since he was able to speak and think self-consciously, is a recent acquisition in his aura brought about by his own activity. 2f you put yourself back into the 1emurian age, in which man had already had warm blood flowing in his veins for some time, and in which, in the middle of this 1emurian age, his fertiliHation with the spirit had taken place, man then was not yet a being capable of clear thinking. )ll this occurred at the beginning of evolution when the spirit had Fust taken possession of the corporeality. )t that time the aura was still completely a consequence of forces of nature. !ne could then perceive E as one still can with men at a very low stage of development E how at a certain place in the interior of the head Athat is to say, a place that we have to seek in the interior of the headB there exists a smaller aura of a bluish color. This smaller aura is the outer auric expression of the self-consciousness. )nd the more a man has developed this self-consciousness through his thought and through his work, the more this smaller aura spreads itself over the other, so that often in a short time both become totally different. ) man who lives in outer culture, a refined man of culture, works on his aura in the particular way that this culture impels him. !ur ordinary knowledge, which they offer in our schools, our experiences that life brings us, are absorbed by us and they are perpetually transforming our aura. .ut this transformation must be continuous if a man wishes to enter into practical mysticism. Then he must make a special effort to work upon himself. ;or then he must not incorporate into his aura only what culture offers him, but must exercise an influence upon it in a definite, orderly manner. )nd this happens through so-called meditation. This meditation, this inner immersion, is the first stage which a student of initiation must undergo. -ow in what does this meditation take an interestK Lust try to bring to mind and reflect upon the thoughts that you shelter from morning to night, and upon how these thoughts are influenced by the time and the place in which you live. See whether you can hinder your thoughts, and ask yourself whether you would have them if you did not happen by chance to be living in .erlin at the beginning of the twentieth century. )t the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries, men did not think in the same way as men do today. 2f you consider how the world has changed in the course of the last century, and what kind of changes time has brought about, you will see that what passes through your soul from morning to night is dependent upon time and space. 2t is different when we give ourselves up to thoughts that have an eternal worth. )ctually it is only certain abstract, scientific thoughts to which men have given themselves up, the highest thoughts of mathematics and geometry, that have an eternal worth. Twice two is four holds good at all times and in all places. 2t is the same with the geometrical truths that we accept. .ut leaving aside a certain fundamental stock of such truths, we may say that the average man has very few thoughts that are not dependent on time and space. (hat is thus dependent unites us with the world, and only exerts a trifling influence upon that essence which is in itself enduring. Ceditation means nothing other than surrendering oneself to thoughts which have eternal worth, in order to raise oneself up in a conscious way to what lies above both space and time. Such thoughts are contained in the great religious writings the 0edanta, the .hagavad $ita, the $ospel of Lohn from the thirteenth chapter to the end, and the '2mitation of #hrist,, by Thomas a >empis. *e who sinks himself with patience and perseverance so that he lives in such writings8 he who deepens himself anew every day E perhaps working for weeks on one single sentence, thinking it through, feeling it through E will gain unlimited benefit. Lust as each day one learns more nearly to know and love a child with all its individual characteristics, so one can daily draw into oneGs soul an eternal truth of the kind that flows from the great 2nitiates, or from inspired men. This has the effect of filling us with new life. 0ery significant also are the sayings in the '1ight on the /ath, that have been written down by Cabel #ollins, under the instruction of higher powers. )ctually in the first four sentences there is something that, when applied with patience in the appropriate way, is capable of so seiHing upon manGs aura that this aura is completely shot through with new light. !ne can see this light in the human aura shining and glistening. .luish shades arise in the place of the reddish or of the reddish brown shimmering shades of color, and, in the place of yellow, clear reddish ones arise, and so on. The whole coloring of the aura transforms itself under the influence of such eternal
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thoughts. The student cannot yet perceive this in the beginning, but he gradually begins to notice the deep influence that emanates from the greatly transformed aura. 2f a man, in addition to these meditations, consciously and in a most scrupulous way practices certain virtues, certain achievements of the soul, then, within this aura, his sense-organs of the soul develop. (e must have these if we want to see into the soul-world, Fust as we must have physical sense-organs to be able to see into the material world. )s the outer senses were planted into the body by nature, so must man, in a regular way, implant the higher sense-organs of the soul into his aura. Ceditation leads man to become ripe from within outwards, forming, developing, and interweaving the available capacities of the soulGs senses. .ut if we wish to cultivate these sense organs we must turn our attention to quite definite accomplishments of the soul. "ou see, man has a series of such organs in his organiHation. (e call these sense organs the so-called 1otus flowers because the astral image, which man begins to evolve in his aura when he is developing himself in the way described, takes on a form that may be compared with that of a 1otus flower. 2t goes without saying that this is only a comparison, Fust as one can speak of the wings of the lung, which also bear only a resemblance to wings. The two-petalled 1otus flower is found in the middle of the head above the root of the nose, between the eyes. -ear the larynx is the sixteen-petalled 1otus flower, while in the region of the heart there is the twelve-petalled one, and in the region of the pit of the stomach the one with ten petals. Still farther down are found the six-petalled and four-petalled 1otus flowers. To day 2 want to talk only about the 1otus flowers that have sixteen petals and twelve petals. 2n .uddhaGs teachings you are given an account of the so-called eightfold path. -ow ask yourselves once why .uddha offered precisely this eightfold path as particularly important in the attainment of the higher stages of manGs development. This eightfold path is right resolve, right thinking, right speech, right action, right living, right striving, right memory, right self-immersion, or meditation. ) great 2nitiate such as .uddha does not speak out of a vaguely felt ideal, but out of knowledge of human nature. *e knows what influence the practice of such exercises of the soul will have on the future development of the body. 2f we look at the sixteen-petalled 1otus flower in the average man of today we actually see very little. 2f 2 can so express it, it is in the process of flaring up again. 2n the far-distant past this 1otus flower was once present8 it has gone backward in its development. Today it is appearing again, partly through manGs cultural activity. 2n the future, however, this sixteen-petalled 1otus flower will come again to full development. 2t will glisten vividly with its sixteen spokes or petals, each petal appearing in a different shade of color8 and finally, it will move from left to right. (hat everyone in the future will possess and experience is today being cultivated by those who seek in a conscious way their development in the school of initiation, in order to become leaders of mankind. -ow eight of these sixteen petals have already been formed in the far-distant past8 today eight have still to be developed, if the mystery pupil wishes to have the use of these sense-organs. These will be developed if man treads the eightfold path in a conscious way, observantly and clearly, if he consciously practices these eight soul activities given by .uddha, and if he arranges his whole life of soul so that he takes himself in hand, practicing these eight virtues as vigorously as he can only do when sustained by his meditation work, thus bringing the sixteen-petalled 1otus flower not only into bloom but also into movement, into actual perception. 2 will now speak of the twelve-petalled 1otus flower in the region of the heart. Six petals of this flower were already developed in the far-distant past, and six must be developed by all men in the future, by present-day 2nitiates and their pupils. 2n all anthroposophical handbooks you can find reference to certain virtues in the forefront of those that should be acquired by anyone aspiring to the stage of #hela, or pupil. These six virtues which you find mentioned in every anthroposophical handbook concerned with manGs development are control of thought, control of action, tolerance, steadfastness, impartiality, and equilibrium, or what )ngelus Silesius calls composure. These six virtues, which one must practice consciously and attentively in conFunction with meditation, bring to unfolding the six further petals of the twelve-petalled 1otus flower. )nd these are not gathered blindly in the anthroposophical textbooks, nor are they stamped by haphaHard or individual inner feeling, but they are spoken out of the great 2nitiatesG deepest knowledge. 2nitiates know that whoever really wishes to evolve to the higher supersensible stages of development must bring about the unfolding of the twelvepetalled 1otus flower. )nd to this end he must today develop, through these six virtues, the six petals that were undeveloped in the past. Thus you see how the great 2nitiates essentially gave their directions for life out of their own deeper knowledge of the human being. 2 could extend these remarks to still other organs of knowledge and observation, but 2 only wish to give you a brief sketch of the process of initiation, and for that these indications should suffice. (hen the pupil has progressed so far that he begins to form the astral sense-organs, when he has progressed so far that he is capable of perceiving not only the physical impressions in his surroundings but also what belongs to the soul E in other words, to see what is in the aura of man himself as well as what is in the aura of animals and plants E he then begins a completely new stage of instruction. -o one can see in his environment that which has to do with his soul before his 1otus flowers revolve, Fust as one without eyes can see no color and no light. .ut when the barrier is pierced, when the pupil has gone beyond the preliminary stages of knowledge so that he has insight into the soul-world, then true 'pupil-ship, first begins for him. This leads through four stages of knowledge. -ow what happens in this moment, when man has passed beyond the first steps and has become a #helaK (e have seen how all that we have Fust described related to the astral body. This is organiHed throughout by the human body. (hoever has undergone such a development has a totally different aura. (hen man out of his self-consciousness has illuminated his astral body, when he himself has become the luminous organiHation of his astral body, then we say that this pupil has illuminated his astral body with Canas. Canas is nothing other than an astral body dominated by self-consciousness. Canas and astral body are one and the same, but at different stages of development. !ne must understand this if, in the practice of mysticism, one wishes to apply in a practical way what is given in anthroposophical handbooks as the seven principles. %veryone acquainted with the mystic path of development, everyone who knows something about initiation, will say that these have a theoretical value for study but for the practicing mystic they have value only if the relation existing between the lower and the higher principles is known. -o practicing mystic recogniHes more than four members the physical body, in
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which work chemical and physical laws, the etheric body, the astral body, and finally the self- or %go-consciousness, called at the present stage of development >ama-Canas, the self-conscious thinking principle. Canas is nothing other than that which has been worked into the body by the self-consciousness. The etheric body in its present form is deprived of any influence of the selfconsciousness. (e can indirectly influence our growth and nourishment, but not in the same way as we cause our wishes, our thoughts and ideas to proceed from self-consciousness. (e cannot ourselves influence our nourishment, digestion, and growth. 2n men, these are without connection to the self-consciousness. The etheric body has to be brought under the influence of the astral body, the so-called aura. The self-consciousness of the astral body has to penetrate the etheric body E to be able to work out of itself upon the etheric body E as man, in the way already shown, works upon his astral body, his aura. Then, when man through meditation, through inner immersion, and through practicing activities of the soul, which 2 have described, has come so far that the astral body has organiHed itself, then the work extends to the etheric body, and the etheric body receives the inner word. Then man not only hears what lives in the world around him, but there resounds in him his etheric body, the inner meaning of things. 2 have often said here before that the essentially spiritual in things is a resounding. 2 have drawn your attention to how the practicing mystic, when speaking in a correct sense, talks of a sound in the spiritual world in the same way as of a light in the astral world, or world of desire. -ot for nothing does $oethe say, when guiding his ;aust to heaven '+ie Sonne tRnt nach alten (eise im .ruderspharen (ettgesang ..., A'The sun resounds in ancient fashion, contending with his brother spheres,B. -or are the words of )riel empty when ;aust is being escorted by the spirits into the spiritual world 'TRnend wird fSr $eistesohren schon der neue Tag geboren, A'*ear the new day being born, Spirit ears can hear its ringing,B. This inner sounding which, of course, is not at all a sound perceptible to the outer physical ear, this inner word through which things can express their own nature, is an experience that man has when he becomes able to influence his etheric body from his astral body. Then he has become a #hela, a real student of the great 2nitiates. Then he can be led further upon this path. ) man who has thus ascended this step is called a homeless man, because fundamentally he has found the connection with a new world, because it rings to him out of the spiritual world, and because he thereby no longer has his home, so to speak, in this physical world. !ne must not misunderstand this. The #hela who has reached this stage is Fust as good a citiHen and family man, Fust as good a friend, as he was before he had reached the stage of #hela. *e need not be torn away from anything. (hat he has experienced is an evolution of the soul, thus acquiring a new home in a world lying behind this physical one. (hat then has happenedK The spiritual world sounds within man, and through this sounding of the spiritual world man overcomes an illusion, the illusion which takes in all men before they begin this stage of development. This is the illusion of the personal self. Can believes himself to be a personality separate from the rest of the world. Cere reflection could teach him that even physically he himself is not an independent being. .ear in mind that if the temperature in this room were ?66 degrees higher than it now is, none of us would be able to survive as we now survive. )s soon as the outer situation changes, the conditions for our physical existence are no longer there. (e are simply a continuation of the external world, and are as separate beings absolutely inconceivable. This is still more the case in the world of the soul and of the spirit. Thus we see that man conceived of as a self is only an illusion E that he is a member of the universal divine spirituality. *ere man overcomes the personal self. *ere arises what in the mystic chorus of )aust $oethe has expressed in the words ')lles 0ergTngliche ist nur ein $leichnis., A')ll that is transitory is but a likeness.,B (hat we see is only a picture of an eternal being. (e ourselves are only a picture of an eternal being. (hen we have surrendered our separate being E for we live a separate life through our etheric body E then we have overcome our outer, separate life, we have become part of universal life. There arises in man something which we have called .uddhi. .uddhi is now practically reached as a stage in the development of the etheric body, that etheric body which no longer occasions a separate existence but enters into universal life. The man who has attained this has arrived at the second state of #hela-ship. Then all doubts and reservations fall away from his soul8 he can no longer be superstitious any more than he can be a doubter. Then he has no more need to secure the truth in order to compare his ideas with the outer environment8 then he lives in tone, in the word of things8 then what it is sounds and resounds out of its being. )nd there is no more superstition, no more doubt. This is called the surrendering of the keys of knowledge to the #hela. (hen he has reached this stage, within it there sounds a word from the spiritual world. Then his own words no longer proclaim an echo of what is in this world, but his words are an echo of what stems from another world, which works into this world, but which cannot be perceived with our outer senses. These words are messengers of the $odhead. (hen this stage is passed beyond, a new one comes. This is entered by man gaining influence over what is done directly by his physical body. .efore this, his influence only extended to his etheric body, but now it extends to his physical body. *is actions must set the physical body in motion. (hat man does is incorporated into what we call his karma. Can, however, does not work on this consciously8 he does not know how each of his deeds causes a consequence. 2t is only now that he begins in a conscious way so to fulfill his actions in the physical world that he consciously works on his karma. Thus, through his physical actions, he wins influence over his karma. )nd now there is not only a sounding from the obFects in his environment, but he has come far enough to be able to utter the name of all things. Can lives in our present stage of culture in such a way that he is only able to utter one single name. That is the name he gives himself '2., That is the only name man can really give to himself. A(hoever immerses himself in deeper knowledge can arrive at depths of which psychology does not dream.B 2t is the only instance in which you yourself can give the name in question. -o one else can say '2, to you, only you yourself. To everyone else you must say 'you,, and they in return must say the same. There is something in everyone to which only they themselves can apply the name '2., !n this account the Lewish mystery teachings speak also of an inexpressible name of $od. That is something which is immediately a proclamation of $od in man. 2t was forbidden to utter this name unworthily, sacrilegiously8 hence the sacred awe, the significance and reality when the Lewish mystery teachers uttered this name. '2, is the one word that says something to you that can never approach you from the outer world. So now, as the average man alone names his '2,, so the #hela in the third stage gives to all things in the world names which he has received out of intuition. That means
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he has passed into the world '2., *e speaks out of the world '2, itself. *e may call everything by its most profound name, whereas the man today standing at the average stage can only say '2, to himself. (hen the #hela has arrived at this stage, he is called a Swan. The #hela who has been able to raise himself to the point of naming all things is called Swan because he is the messenger of all things. (hat lies beyond these three stages cannot be expressed in ordinary language. 2t demands knowledge of a special script only taught in mystery schools. The next stage is the stage of what is veiled. )nd beyond this lie the stages which belong to the great 2nitiates, those 2nitiates who at all times have given the great impulses to our culture. They were #helas to begin with. To begin with they acquired the keys of knowledge. -ext they were led further to the regions where were disclosed to them the universal and the names of things. Then they raised themselves to the stage of the universal, where they could have the deep experiences through which they were qualified to found the great religions of the world. .ut it was not only the great religions that came forth from the great 2nitiates8 it was every mighty impulse, all that is important in the world. 1et us take Fust two examples that show the kind of influence that has been exercised on the world by the great 2nitiates who have gone through the schooling. 1et us go back to everyday life at the time when the pupils of the initiation schools were guided under the leadership of *ermes. This guidance was in the end an ordinary, so-called esoteric, scientific instruction. 2 can sketch for you in only a few strokes what such instruction contained. 2t was shown how the #osmic Spirit descended into the physical world, incarnated himself here, and how he began afresh a material existence, how he then reached the highest stage of man and celebrated his resurrection. /aracelsus in particular has expressed this very beautifully in the following words 'The individual beings we meet in the outer world are the single letters, and the word that is formed from them is C)-., !utwardly we have all contributed human virtues or failings to this creation. Can, however, is the fusion of all this. 2t was taught as esoteric instruction in the %gyptian mystery schools, in all detail and with great richness of spirit, how there lives in man, as microcosm, the fusion of the rest of the macrocosm. )fter this instruction came the *ermetic instruction. (hat 2 have said one can grasp with the senses and the understanding. .ut what is offered in the *ermetic instruction can only be grasped if one has attained the first stage of #hela-ship. Then one can learn that special script which is neither arbitrary nor a matter of chance, but which gives us the great laws of the spiritual world. This script is not, like ours, an external picture arbitrarily fixed in single letters and parts8 it is born out of the spiritual law of nature itself, because the man who becomes versed in this script is in possession of this natural law. )ll his conception of soul and astral space itself thus becomes regulated by law. (hat he conceives is conceived in the sense of the great signs of this script. *e is capable of this when he has renounced his self. *e unites himself with primal everlasting law. -ow he has his *ermetic instruction behind him. *enceforward he himself can be admitted to the first stage of a still deeper initiation. -ow, as the next stage, he should experience something in the astral world, the essential soul world, that has a significance reaching beyond the cosmic cycles. )fter he has acquired the capacity for the astral senses to be fully effective, so that they work right down into the etheric body, then for three days he is ushered into a deep mystery of the astral world. 2n that astral world he then experiences what last time 2 described to you as the primal origin of the %arth and man. *e has before him and he experiences this descent of the spirit, this separation of Sun, Coon, and %arth, and the coming forth of man E this whole series of phenomena. )nd at the same time they form themselves into a picture before him. )nd then he emerges. )fter he has this great experience in the mystery school behind him, he goes among the people and relates what he has experienced in the soul and astral world. )nd what he relates runs approximately like this 'There was once a divine couple who were united with the earth, !siris and 2sis. This divine pair were regents of everything that happens on earth. .ut !siris was pursued by Typhon and cut into pieces, and 2sis had to search for the corpse. She did not bring it home, but graves of !siris were distributed among the various parts of the earth. So he was brought completely down into the earth and buried there. .ut a ray from the spiritual world fell upon 2sis, fertiliHing her through immaculate conception with the new *orns., This picture is nothing other than a mighty representation of what we have come to know as the exit of Sun and Coon, as the separation of Sun and Coon and as the dawning of mankind. 2sis is the image of the Coon8 *orns stands for earthly mankind, the earth itself. .efore man was endowed with warm blood, before he was clothed with his physical body, he felt in mighty pictures what proceeded in the soul world. 2n the beginning of the 1emurian, of the )tlantean and the )rian evolutions, man was always prepared by the great 2nitiates to receive the mighty truths contained in such pictures. ;or this reason, the truths were not simply represented but were given in the pictures of !siris and 2sis. )ll the great religions we meet in antiquity are from what the great 2nitiates experienced in astral space. )nd the great 2nitiates emerged from these experiences and spoke to each particular people in the way they could understand, that is to say in pictures of what the 2nitiates themselves had experienced in the mystery schools. This was so in ancient times. !nly through being in such a school of initiation could one rise to higher astral experience. )ll this was changed with the coming of #hristianity. 2t cut into evolution with great significance. )nd since the appearance of #hrist it has been possible for man to be initiated as an initiate of nature, Fust as one speaks of a poet of nature. There have been #hristian mystics who by grace have received initiation. The first who was called to carry #hristianity into all the world under the influence of the words '.lessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed,, was /aul. The appearance on the road to +amascus was an initiation outside the mysteries. 2 cannot go into further detail here. 2t was the great 2nitiates who gave the impulse to all great movements and foundingGs of culture. ;rom medieval times there comes a beautiful myth that may be said to show us this in a time when one did not yet demand materialistic foundations. The myth arose in .avaria and has, therefore, assumed the garb of #atholicism. (hat then happened we will make clear as follows. There arose at that time in %urope the so-called civic culture E modern citiHenship. The onward development of man, the progress of each soul to a higher stage, was understood by the mystic as the advancing of the soul, of the womanly element in man. The mystic sees in the soul something womanly that was fertiliHed by the lower sense impressions of nature and by the eternal truths. 2n every historical process the mystic sees such a process of fertiliHation. ;or those who see more deeply into manGs path of development, for those who see the
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spiritual forces behind physical appearances, the great and deep impulses for the progress of mankind are given by the great 2nitiates. Thus the man with a medieval world outlook ascribed to the great 2nitiates the raising up of the soul to higher stages during the new period of culture that was brought about by means of cities. This city-development was attained by souls making a sudden move forward in history. )nd it was an 2nitiate who brought about this move. )ll mighty impulses were ascribed to the great lodge of 2nitiates surrounding the *oly $rail. ;rom there came the great 2nitiates who are not visible to ordinary men. )nd the 2nitiate who at that time provided the civic culture with its impulse was called, in the Ciddle )ges, 1ohengrin. 2t is he who was the missionary of the *oly $rail, of the great lodge8 and %lsa of .rabant stands for the soul of the city, the womanly element that was to be fructified through the great 2nitiate. The mediator is the swan. 1ohengrin was brought by the swan into this physical world. The 2nitiate must not be asked his name. *e belongs to a higher world. The #hela, the Swan, has been the mediator of this influence. 2 have merely been able to indicate how this great event has again been symboliHed for the people in a myth. 2t is in this way that the great 2nitiates have worked and have put into their teachings what they have to make known. )nd in this way worked all those who have founded manGs early culture E *ermes in %gypt, >rishna in 2ndia, Uarathustra in /ersia, Coses among the Lewish people. !rpheus continued the work E then /ythagoras, and finally the 2nitiate of all 2nitiates, Lesus, who bore within *im the #hrist. *ere only the greatest of 2nitiates are mentioned. (e have tried in these descriptions to characteriHe their connection with the world. (hat has been described here will still remain remote to many peopleGs thoughts. .ut those who have become aware of something of the higher worlds in their own souls have always raised their eyes not only to the spiritual world but also to the leaders of mankind. 2t was only from this standpoint that they have been able to speak in as inspired a way as $oethe. .ut you find among others, too, something of the divine spark leading towards the point to which spiritual science should again bring us. "ou find it in the case of a $erman, a young, intelligent $erman poet and thinker, whose life has all the appearance of a blessed memory of some former existence as a great 2nitiate. Those who read -ovalis will notice something of the breath that guides us into the higher world. There is something in him that also contains the magic word, though not expressed as explicitly as usual. Thus he has written the beautiful words about the relation of our planet to mankind that convey as much to the lowly and undeveloped as they do to the 2nitiate 'Cankind is the sense of our earth-planet, mankind is the nerve that binds the earth-planet with the higher worlds8 mankind is the eye through which this earth-planet lifts its gaHe to the heavenly >ingdoms of the #osmos.,

0222 The /ath of >nowledge and 2ts Stages The &osicrucian Spiritual /ath
Today a picture of the path of knowledge will be given, and the fruits of this path will also be shown. "ou already know some of the maFor points of view which thereby come into consideration. *owever, for those of you who have already heard lectures pertaining to the path of knowledge or who have read the periodical, 1ucifer" particularly the thirty-second issue, something new will be offered if we discuss the path of knowledge as can occur only in intimate circles of students of spiritual science. The main matter at hand is to discuss this path of knowledge in so far as it is traced through the &osicrucian, (estern spiritual stream, which has guided %uropean culture spiritually by invisible threads since the fourteenth century. The &osicrucian movement worked in complete concealment up until the last third of the nineteenth century. (hat was true &osicrucianism could not be found in books and was also forbidden to be spoken of publicly. !nly in the last thirty years have a few of the &osicrucian teachings been made known to the outer world through the theosophical movement, after having been taught earlier only in the most strictly closed circles. The most elementary teachings of the &osicrucianGs are included in what is called theosophy today E but only the most elementary. 2t is only possible bit by bit to allow mankind to look more deeply into this wisdom which has been fostered in these &osicrucian schools in %urope since the end of the fourteenth century. To begin with, we would like to make clear that there is not Fust one kind of path of knowledge, but three paths to consider. "et this should not be understood as if there were three truths. There is only one truth, Fust as the view revealed from the peak of a mountain is the same for all who stand there. There are, however, various ways by which the peak of the mountain can be reached. +uring the ascent, one has at every point a different view. !nly if one is at the top E and one can ascend to the peak from various sides E can one have a free and full view from oneGs own perspective. So it is also with the three paths of knowledge. !ne is the !riental path of "oga, the second is the #hristian-$nostic path, and the third is the #hristian-&osicrucian path. These three paths lead to the single truth. There are three different paths because human nature is different around our earth. !ne has to distinguish three types of human nature. Lust as it would not be right for someone trying to reach a mountaintop to select a remote path rather than the one next to him, so it would also be wrong if a man wanted to take another spiritual path than the one appropriate to him. Cany muddled ideas about
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this prevail today in the theosophical movement, which must still develop upwards from its initial stage. 2t is often supposed that there is only a single path to knowledge, by which is meant the "oga path. The !riental "oga path is not the only path to knowledge, however, and is in fact not a propitious path for those who live within %uropean civiliHation. *e who considers this matter only from outside certainly can have scarcely any insight into what we are concerned with here, because one could easily come to the conclusion that human nature actually appears to differ little in various lands. 2f one with occult powers observes the great differences in human types, it becomes clear that what is good for the !rientals, and perhaps also for some other men in our culture, is by no means the proper path for everyone. There are people, but only a few within %uropean circumstances, who could follow the !riental path of "oga. .ut for most %uropeans, this is impracticable. 2t brings with it illusions and also the destruction of soul-forces. The %astern and (estern natures, although they do not appear so different to todayGs scientists, are totally different. )n %astern brain, an %astern imagination, and an %astern heart work completely differently from the organs of (esterners. (hat can be expected of someone who has grown up within %astern circumstances should never be expected of a (esterner. !nly one who believes that climate, religion, and social environment have no influence on the human spirit might also think that the external circumstances under which a spiritual training is undergone are also a matter of indifference. .ut one who knows the deeply spiritual influences exerted upon human nature by all these outer circumstances understands that the "oga path is impossible for those who remain within %uropean culture, and can only be tread by those few %uropeans who radically and fundamentally detach themselves from %uropean circumstances. Those persons who today are still inwardly upright and honest #hristians, those who are permeated with certain principle themes of #hristianity, may choose the #hristian-$nostic path, which differs little from the #abbalistic path. ;or %uropeans in general, however, the &osicrucian path is the only right path. This %uropean &osicrucian path will be spoken of today, and indeed the different practices this path prescribes for people and also the fruits it holds for those who follow it will be described. -o one should believe that this path is only for scientifically trained men or for scholars. The simplest person can tread it. 2f one takes this path, however, one will quickly be in the position to encounter every obFection which can be made against occultism by %uropean science. This was one of the main tasks of the &osicrucian Casters to arm those who take this path so that they could travel this path and defend occult knowledge in the world. The simple man who holds only a few popular ideas about modern science, or even none at all, but who has an honest craving for truth, can tread the &osicrucian path alongside trained men and scholars. )mong the three paths of knowledge exist great distinctions. The first important distinction is in the relationship of the pupil to the occult teacher, who gradually becomes the guru or who mediates the relationship to the guru. ) characteristic of the !riental "oga schools is that this relationship is the strictest imaginable. The guru is an unconditional authority for the pupil. 2f that were not the case, this training could not have the right outcome. )n !riental "oga training without a strong submission to the authority of the guru is totally impossible. The #hristian-$nostic or #abbalistic path allows a somewhat looser relationship to the guru on the physical plane. The guru leads his pupil to #hrist Lesus8 he is the mediator. (ith the &osicrucian path, the guru becomes always more a friend whose authority rests on inner agreement. *ere it is not possible to have any relationship but one of strong personal trust. Should but the slightest mistrust arise between teacher and pupil, then the essential bond which must remain between them would be ruptured, and any forces which play between teacher and pupil would no longer work. 2t is easy for the pupil to form false ideas about the role of his teacher. 2t might seem to the pupil that he needs to speak to his teacher now and then, or that his teacher must often be physically near him. #ertainly it is sometimes an urgent necessity for the teacher to approach the pupil physically, but this is not so often the case as the pupil may believe. The effect that the teacher exercises on his pupil cannot be Fudged in the right way at the beginning of their relationship. The teacher has means which only gradually reveal themselves to the pupil. Cany words which the pupil believes to have been spoken by chance are actually of great importance. They may work unconsciously in the pupilGs soul, as a force of right, leading and guiding him. 2f the teacher exercises these occult influences correctly, then the real bond is also there between him and his pupil. 2n addition, there are the forces of loving participation working at a distance, forces that are always at the teacherGs disposal and which later are ever more revealed to the pupil if he fords the entrance to the higher worlds. .ut absolute trust is an unconditional necessity8 otherwise it is better to dissolve the bond between the teacher and the pupil. -ow the various precepts which play a certain role in the &osicrucian training should be mentioned briefly. These things need not meet him in the exact sequence in which they are enumerated here. )ccording to the individuality, the occupation, and the age of the pupil, the teacher will have to extract this or that from the different spheres, and rearrange them. !nly an overview of the information shall be given here. (hat is highly essential for the &osicrucian training is not sufficiently attended to in all occult trainings. This is the cultivation of clear and logical thinking, or at least the striving for itJ )ll confused and preFudiced thinking must first be eliminated. ) man must accustom himself to viewing the relationships in the world broadly and unselfishly. The best exercise for one wishing to undergo this &osicrucian path unpretentiously is the study of the elementary teachings of spiritual science. 2t is unFustified to obFect (hat good does it do me to learn about the higher worlds, the different races and cultures, or to study reincarnation and karma when 2 canGt see and verify it all for myselfK This is not a valid obFection because occupying oneGs thoughts with these truths purifies the thinking and disciplines it so that people become ripe for the other measures that lead to the occult path. ;or the most part, people think in ordinary life without bringing order into their thoughts. The guiding principles and epochs of human development and planetary evolution, the great viewpoints which have been opened by the 2nitiates, bring thought into ordered forms. )ll of this is a part of &osicrucian training. 2t is called the Study. The teacher will therefore suggest that the pupil think deeply into the elementary teachings about reincarnation and karma, the three worlds, the )kashic-#hronicle, and the evolution of the earth and the human races. The range of elementary spiritual science as it is diffused in modern times is the best preparation for the simple man. ;or those, however, who wish to cultivate even sharper faculties of thinking and to undertake a still more rigorous molding of the soul life, the study of books written expressly for bringing thinking into disciplined paths is recommended. Two books written for this purpose E in which there is no mention of the word 'theosophy, E are my two books, Truth and Science, and The (hilosophy of
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)reedom. !ne writes such a book in order to fulfill a purpose. Those who have a foundation in an intensive training in logical thinking and who wish to arrive at a wider study would do well to submit their spirits once to the 'gymnastics for soul and spirit, which these books require. That gives them the foundation upon which &osicrucian study is erected. (hen one observes the physical plane, one perceives certain sense impressions colors and light, warmth and cold, smells and tastes, and impressions from the senses of hearing and touch. !ne connects all of these with oneGs activity of thought and intellect. 2ntellect and thought belong still to the physical plane. "ou can perceive all of that on the physical plane. /erceptions on the astral plane are completely different in appearance. /erceptions are again entirely different on the +evachanic plane, not to mention in even higher spirit regions. The person who has not yet acquired a glimpse into the higher worlds can still try to picture them to himself. 2 am also seeking to give a view of these worlds through pictures in my current manner of representation. *e who ascends to the higher regions sees for himself how they work on him. !n every plane a man has new experiences. .ut there is one which remains the same through all worlds up to +evachan itself, one which never changes that is logical, trained thinking. !nce on the .uddhi-plane, this thinking no longer has the same value as on the physical plane. There, another form of thinking must enter. .ut for the three worlds below the .uddhi-plane, for the physical, astral, and +evachanic planes, the same form of thinking is valid. !ne who therefore schools himself in orderly thinking through this study in the physical plane will find in this thinking a good guide in the higher worlds. *e will not falter as easily as one who seeks to enter the spirit realms with confused thinking. Therefore, the &osicrucian training advises a person to discipline his thinking in order to move freely in the higher worlds. *e who reaches up into these worlds learns new methods of perception, which were not there on the physical plane, but he can master these with his thinking. The second thing which the pupil must learn on the &osicrucian path of knowledge is 2magination. The pupil prepares for this in that he gradually learns to immerse himself in pictorial concepts which represent the higher worlds in the sense of $oetheGs words, ')ll that is transitory is but a likeness., )s man ordinarily goes through the physical world, he takes things up as they appear to his senses, but not that which lies behind. *e is pulled down in the physical world as if by a dead weight. Can only becomes independent of this physical world when he learns to consider the obFects around him as symbols. *e must, for this reason, seek to acquire a moral relationship to them. The teacher can give him much guidance in learning to regard outward appearances as symbols of the spirit, but the pupil can also do a great deal for himself. *e can, for example, look closely at a meadow saffron and a violet. 2f 2 see the meadow saffron as a symbol for a melancholy disposition, then 2 have regarded it not only as it outwardly comes to meet me, but also as a symbol of a certain quality. 2n the violet, one can behold a symbol for a calm, innocent disposition. So you can go from obFect to obFect, from plant to plant, from animal to animal and regard them as symbols for the spiritual. 2n this way, you make your imaginative capacities fluid and release them from the sharp contours of sense perception. !ne comes then to behold the symbol for a characteristic quality in every species of animal. !ne perceives one animal as a symbol for strength, another as a symbol for slyness. (e must try to pursue such things, not fleetingly, but earnestly and step by step. ;undamentally, all of human language is spoken in symbols. 1anguage is nothing but a speaking in symbols. %very word is a symbol. %ven science, which claims to view every obFect obFectively, must make use of language, in that its words work symbolically. 2f you speak of the wings of the lungs, you know that there are actually no wings, yet you nevertheless cherish this designation. *e who wishes to remain on the physical plane would do well not to lose himself too strongly in these symbols, but the advanced occult pupil will not lose himself in them. 2f one investigates, one will perceive the primordial depths in which human language is founded. Such deep natures as /aracelsus and Lacob .oehme owed much of their development to the opportunities they had E which they did not shun E for studying the imaginative significance of language through conversations with vagrants and farmers. There the words 'nature,, 'soul,, and 'spirit, worked completely differently. There they worked more strongly. (hen out in the country, the farmerGs wife plucks a gooseGs feathers, she actually calls the interior of the feather 'the soul., The pupil must find for himself such symbols in language. 2n this way he loosens himself from the physical world and learns to raise himself to the realm of 2magination. 2f the world is thus viewed as a likeness of man, it has a strong effect. 2f the pupil practices this for a long time, he will notice corresponding effects. 2n observing a flower, for example, something gradually loosens from the flower. The color, which once clung to the surface of the blossom, ascends like a small flame, and hovers freely in space. 2maginative cognition forms itself out of these things. Then it is as if the surfaces of all obFects loosen. The whole space fills with colors, the flames hovering in space. 2n this way, the whole world of light seems to detach itself from physical reality. (hen such a color picture detaches itself and hovers freely in space, it soon begins to adhere to something. 2t presses towards something. 2t does not Fust stand still arbitrarily8 it encloses a being, which now itself appears in the color as spiritual being. The color which the pupil has detached from the obFects of the physical world clothes the spiritual beings of astral space. *ere is the point where the occult teacherGs counsel must intervene, as the pupil could very easily lose his bearings. This could happen for two reasons. The first is that each pupil must go through a definite experience. The images which are peeled off from the physical obFects E they are not only colors, but also aural and olfactory sensations E may present themselves as strange, hideous, or perhaps beautiful shapes, as animal heads, plant forms, or even hideous human faces. This first experience represents a mirror-image of the pupilGs own soul. The particular passions and desires, the evils that still lie within the soul, appear before the advancing pupil as in a mirror in astral space. *ere he requires counsel of the occult teacher, who can tell him that it is not an obFective reality that he has seen, but a mirror-image of his own inner being. "ou will understand Fust how dependent the pupil is on his teacherGs advice when you hear more about the manner in which these pictures appear. 2t is often emphasiHed that everything is reversed in astral space, that everything appears as a mirror-image. The pupil can, for this reason, easily be misled through illusions, especially with respect to a mirroring of his own being. The mirror-image of a passion does not only appear as an approaching animal E that would still be quite manageable E but it is something quite different with which one must reckon. 1et us suppose that a man has a hidden evil passion. The reflection of such a desire or lust often appears in an alluring form, whereas a good characteristic may not appear at all alluring. *ere again we are discussing something which has
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been wonderfully portrayed in an ancient saga. "ou find a picture of this in the legend of *ercules. )s *ercules goes on his way, good and evil characteristics stand before him. 0ices are clothed in the enticing form of beauty, but virtues are in modest garb. Still other hindrances can stand in the pupilGs way. %ven when he is already in a position to see things obFectively, there is still the other possibility of his inner will directing and influencing these phenomena as an outer force. *e must bring himself to the point where he can see through this and understand the strong influence that the wish has on the astral plane. )ll things which have a directing force here in the physical world cease to exist when one arrives in the imaginative world. 2f on the physical plane you imagine yourself to have done something you actually have not done, you will soon be persuaded by the facts of the physical world that this is not so. This is not the case in astral space. There, pictures of your own wishes deceive you, and you must have knowing guidance which will piece together how these imaginative pictures work in order to perceive their true significance. The third task in the &osicrucian training is to learn the occult script. (hat is this occult scriptK There are certain pictures, symbols, which are formed by simple lines or the Foining of colors. Such symbols constitute a definite occult sign-language. 1et us take the following as an example. There is a certain process in the higher worlds which also operates in the physical world the whirling of a vortex. "ou can observe this whirling of a vortex when you look at a star cluster, as in the constellation of !rion, for example. There you see a spiral, only it is on the physical plane. .ut you can view this also on all planes. 2t can present itself in the form of one vortex entwining itself into another. This is a figure to be found on the astral plane in all possible forms. (hen you understand this figure, you can grasp through it how one race transforms itself into another. )t the time of formation of the first sub-race of our present main race, the sun stood directly in the sign of #ancer. )t that time, one race entwined itself in the other8 for this reason, one has this occult sign for #ancer. )ll of the signs of the Uodiac are occult signs. !ne must only come to know and understand their meaning. The pentagram is also such a sign. The pupil learns to connect certain sensations and feelings with it. These are the counterpart of astral processes. This sign-language, which is learned as occult script, is nothing other than a reproduction of the laws of the higher worlds. The pentagram is a sign which expresses various meanings. )s the letter . is used in many different words, so can a symbol in the occult script have diverse meanings. The pentagram, hexagram, angle, and other figures can be combined into an occult script which acts as a signpost in the higher worlds. The pentagram is the sign for the fivefold organiHation of man, for secrecy, and also for that which underlies the species-soul of the rose. (hen you connect the petals of the roseGs image, you get a pentagram. Lust as the letter . signifies something different in the words build and bond, so do the signs in the occult script also signify various things. !ne must learn to order them in the right way. They are the signposts on the astral plane. !ne who has learned to read the occult script bears the same relationship to one who only sees these symbols as a literate man does to an illiterate one in the physical world. !ur symbols for writing on the physical plane are for the most part arbitrary. !riginally, however, they were likenesses of the astral sign-language. Take an ancient astral symbol, CercuryGs staff with the snake. That has become the letter % in our system of writing. !r take the letter ( which depicts the wave-movements of water. 2t is the soul-sign of man and at the same time a sign for the (ord. The letter C is nothing other than an imitation of the upper lip. 2n the course of evolution, it has all become more and more arbitrary. !n the occult plane, by contrast, necessity prevails. There one can live these things. The fourth step is the so-called '&hythm of 1ife., /eople know such a life-rhythm only very slightly in everyday life. They live carelessly and egotistically. )t most, for the children in school, the lesson plan still bears a certain life-rhythm in that the sequence of daily lessons is repeated from week to week. .ut who does that in normal lifeK -onetheless, one can ascend to a higher development only by bringing rhythm and repetition into oneGs life. &hythm holds sway in all nature. 2n the revolutions of the planets around the sun, in the yearly appearance and withering of the plants, in the animal kingdom, and in the sexual life of the animals, everything is ruled rhythmically. !nly man is permitted to live without rhythm in order that he can become free. *owever, he must of his own accord bring rhythm again into the chaos. ) good rhythm is established by undertaking occult exercises every day at a definite time. The pupil must carry out his meditations and concentration exercises daily, at the same hour, Fust as the sun sends its forces down to earth at the same time each spring. This is a way of bringing rhythm into life. )nother is one in which the occult teacher brings the proper rhythm into the pupilGs breathing. 2nhaling, holding the breath, and exhaling must be brought into the rhythm for a short period daily, as determined by the experience of the teacher. Thus through man a new rhythm is put in place of the old one. Caking life rhythmic in such a way is a prerequisite for ascent into the higher worlds. .ut no one can do this without the guidance of a teacher. 2t should be brought to awareness here only as a principle. The fifth step is that in which one learns the correspondence between microcosm and macrocosm. This consists of the teacher instructing the pupil on how to concentrate his thoughts on certain parts of the body. Those of you who heard the lecture about the relationship of the senses to the higher worlds will recall that the whole cosmos took part in the formation of the human physical body. The eye was created by light, by the spirits who work in light. %very point of the physical body stands in connection with a particular force in the cosmos. 1et us examine the point at the root of the nose. There was a time when the etheric head protruded way beyond the physical body. %ven in )tlantean times, the forehead was a point where the etheric head stood far out beyond the physical head, as is still the case today with the horses and other animals. (ith horses the etheric head today still protrudes beyond the physical. 2n modern man this point in the etheric head has been brought under protection of the physical head and this gives him the capacity to develop those parts of the physical brain which enable him to call himself '2., This organ, which enables man to call himself '2,, is connected with a definite process which took place during the )tlantean development of the earth. The occult teacher now instructs his pupil thus direct your thoughts and concentrate them on this pointJ Then he gives him a mantra. 2n this way, a certain force in this part of the head is aroused which corresponds to a certain process in the macrocosm. 2n such a way a correspondence between microcosm and macrocosm is evoked. Through a similar concentration on the eye, the pupil acquires knowledge of the sun. !ne finds the entire spiritual organiHation of the macrocosm spiritually within oneGs own organs.

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(hen the pupil has practiced this long enough, he may go on to immerse himself in the things he has thus discovered. *e may, for instance, seek out in the )kashic#hronicle that point during the )tlantean epoch in which the root of the nose reached the condition upon which he had concentrated. !r he finds the sun in concentrating on the eye. This sixth step, this immersion in the macrocosm, is called #ontemplation. This gives the pupil cosmic knowledge, and through it he expands his self-knowledge beyond the personality. This is something different from the beloved chatter about self-knowledge. !ne finds the self not when one looks within, but rather when looking without. This is the same self which produced the eye brought forth by the sun. (hen you wish to seek that part of the self which corresponds to the eye, then you must seek it in the sun. "ou must learn to perceive as your self that which lies outside of you. 1ooking only within oneself leads to a hardening in oneself, to a higher egotism. (hen people say, '2 need only let my self speak,, they have no idea of the danger that lies therein. Self-knowledge may only be practiced when the pupil of the white path has bound himself to self-renunciation. (hen he has learned to say to each thing, 'That am 2,, then he is ripe for self-knowledge, as $oethe expresses in the words of ;aust

Thou leadest past mine eyes the long array !f living things, makGst known to me my brethren (ithin the silent copse, the air, the water.

)ll around us are parts of our self. This is represented, for example, in the myth of +ionysos. 2t is for this reason that the &osicrucian training places such a great value upon an obFective and quiet contemplation of the external world 2f you wish to know yourself, behold yourself in the mirror of the outer world and its beingsJ (hat is in your soul shall speak to you far more clearly from the eyes of companions than if you harden yourself and sink into your own soul. That is an important and essential truth which no one who wishes to walk on the white path may ignore. There are many people today who have transformed their ordinary egotism into a more refined egotism. They call it theosophical development, when they have allowed their ordinary, everyday selves to rise as high as possible. They wish to bring out the personal element. The true occult knowledge, by contrast, shows man how his inner nature is elucidated when he learns to perceive his higher self in the world. (hen a man has developed himself through the contemplation of these convictions, when his self flows out over all things, when he feels the blossom that grows before him as he feels his finger moving, when he knows that the whole earth and the whole world is his body, then he learns to know his higher self. Then he speaks to the flower as to a member of his own body "ou belong to me, you are a part of myself. $radually he experiences what is called the seventh step of the &osicrucian path $odliness. This represents the element of feeling which is necessary to lead man up into the higher worlds, where he may not merely think about the higher worlds, but learn to feel in them. Then the fruits of his striving to learn, under the constant guidance of his teacher, will be shown to him, and he need not fear that his occult path might lead him into an abyss. )ll things which have been described as dangers of occult development do not come into question if one has been guided in the right way. (hen this has happened, the occult seeker becomes a true helper of humanity. +uring 2magination, the possibility arises for the individual to go through a certain portion of the night in a conscious condition. *is physical body sleeps as usual, but a part of his sleep-condition becomes animated by significant dreams. These are the first heralds of his entrance into the higher worlds. $radually, he leads his experiences over into his ordinary consciousness. *e then sees astral beings in his entire environment, even here in the room between the chairs, or out in the woods and meadows. Can reaches three stages during 2maginative knowledge. !n the first stage, he perceives the beings which stand behind physical sense-impressions. .ehind the color red or blue stands a being, behind each rose8 behind each animal stands a species- or group-soul. *e becomes day-clairvoyant. 2f he now waits for a while and practices 2magination quietly, and steeps himself in the occult script, he also becomes day-clairaudient. !n the third level, he becomes acquainted with all the things one finds in the astral world which draw man down and lead him into evil, but which actually are intended to lead him upwards. *e learns to know >amaloca. Through that which forms the fourth, fifth, and sixth parts of &osicrucian training, that is, the life-rhythm, the relation of microcosm to macrocosm, and contemplation of the macrocosm, the pupil reaches three further stages. 2n the first, he attains knowledge of the conditions of life between death and a new birth. This confronts him in +evachan. The next is the ability to see how forms change from one state to another, transmutation, the metamorphosis of form. Can did not always have the lungs he has today, for example8 he acquired them first in 1emurian times. +uring the preceding *yperborean epoch they had another form8 before that, another form, because he found himself in an astral condition8 and before that, yet another form, because he was C +evachan. !ne could also say at this stage, man becomes acquainted with the relationships between the different globes, which is to say that he experiences how one globe or condition of form passes over into another. )s a last step, before he passes over into still higher worlds, he beholds the metamorphosis of the conditions of life. *e perceives how the different beings pass through different kingdoms, or rounds, and how one kingdom passes over into another. Then he must ascend to still higher stages, which cannot, however, be discussed further today.

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(hat has been pursued here will give you enough material to ponder over for the present. Those things must be really pondered over8 that is the first step to ascend to the heights. Therefore, it is a good thing to have the path sketched once in an orderly way. 2t may be possible to take a Fourney on the physical plane without a map of the country. !n the astral plane, however, to be given such a map is necessary. &egard these communications as a kind of map, and they will be useful to you not only in this life, but also when you step through the portal into the higher worlds. (hoever takes up these things through spiritual science will be served well by this map after death. The occultist knows how wretched it often is for those who arrive on the other side and have no idea where they really are and what they are experiencing. !ne who has lived with the teachings of spiritual science knows his way about and can characteriHe these things to himself. 2f man would not shrink from treading the path of knowledge, this would bring him great benefit in the other world.

2D 2maginative >nowledge and )rtistic 2magination

)mong the various instructions which the teacher gives the pupil, 2magination was the second named. This consists in manGs not passing through life as happens everyday, but in the sense of $oetheGs saying ')ll that is transitory is but a likeness8, behind every animal and every plant something that lies behind should arise for him. 2n the meadow saffron, for example, he will discover a picture of the melancholy soul, in the violet a picture of calm piety, in the sunflower a picture of strong, vigorous life, of self-reliance, of ambition. (hen a man lives in this sense, he raises himself to imaginative knowledge. *e then sees something like a cold flame ascend out of a plant, a color picture, which leads him into the astral plane. Thus the pupil is guided to see things which present to him spiritual beings from other worlds. 2t has already been said, however, that the pupil must strictly follow the occult teacher, for this alone can tell him what is subFective and what obFective. )nd the occult teacher can give the pupil the necessary steadiness which is given of itself by the sense-world, as it continuously corrects errors. 2t is different, however, in the astral world8 there one is easily subFect to deceptions8 there one must be supported by one who has experience. The teacher gives a series of instructions to a pupil who wishes to follow the &osicrucian path. 2n the first place, he gives him precise instruction when he has begun to reach the stage of imaginative development. *e tells him strive first of all to love not merely a single animal, nor form a particular relationship with a single animal, or to experience this or that with one or another animal. Seek rather to have a living feeling for whole animal groups. Then you will receive through this an idea of what the group-soul is. The individual soul which with men is on the physical plane is with the animals on the astral plane. The animal cannot say '2, to itself here on the physical plane. The question is often asked '*as the animal no such soul as manK, 2t has such a soul, but the animal-soul is above on the astral plane. The single animal is to the animal-soul as the single organs are to the human soul. 2f a finger is painful, it is the soul that experiences it. )ll the sensations of the single organs pass to the soul. This is also the case with a group of animals. %verything that the single animal experiences is experienced in it by the group-soul. 1et us take, for instance, all the various lions the experiences of the lion all lead to a common soul. )ll lions have a common group-soul on the astral plane, and so have all animals their group-soul on the astral plane. 2f one inflicts a pain on a single lion or if it experiences enFoyment, this continues up to the astral plane, as the pain of a finger continues to the human soul. Can can raise himself to a comprehension of the group-soul if he is able to fashion a form that contains all individual lions, Fust as a general concept contains the individual images belonging to it. The plants have their soul in the &upa region of the +evachanic plane. .y learning to survey a group of plants and gaining a definite relationship to their group-soul, a man learns to penetrate to plant group-souls on the &upa plane. (hen the single lily, the single tulip is no longer something special for him, but when the individuals grow together for him into living, densified imaginations, which become pictures, then the pupil experiences something quite new. (hat matters is that this is a quite concrete picture individually formed in the imagination. Then man experiences that the plant-covering of the earth, that some meadow strewn with flowers, becomes something completely new to him, that the flowers become for him an actual manifestation of the spirit of the earth. That is the manifestation of these different plant group-souls. Lust as the human tears become the expression of the inner sadness of the soul, as a manGs physiognomy becomes an expression of the human soul, so the occultist learns to look on the green of the plant covering as the expression of inner processes, of the actual spiritual life of the earth. Thus certain plants become for him like the earthGs tears, out of which wells forth the earthGs inner grief. There pours a new imaginative content into the soul of the pupil Fust as someone may tremble and feel moved at the tears of a companion. ) person must go through these moods. 2f he endures such a mood vis-P-vis the animal world then he raises himself to the astral plane. (hen he immerses himself in the mood of the plant world he raises himself to the lower region of the +evachanic plane. Then he observes the flame-forms that ascend from the plants8 the plant-covering of the earth is then veiled by a sum of images, the incarnations of the rays of light which set upon the plants. !ne can also approach- the dead stone in this way. There is a fundamental experience in the mineral world. 1et us take the mountain crystal, glittering with light. (hen one looks at this, one will say to oneself 2n a certain way this represents physical material, so too is the stone physical material. .ut there is a future perspective to which the occult teacher leads the pupil. The man of today is still penetrated by instincts and desires, by passions. This saturates the physical nature, but an ideal stands before the occultist. *e says to himself CanGs animal nature will gradually be refilled and purified to a stage where the human body can stand before us Fust
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as inwardly chaste and free of desire as the mineral that craves nothing, in which no wish is stirred by what comes near it. #haste and pure is the inner material nature of the mineral. This chastity and purity is the experience that must permeate the pupil on gaHing at the mineral world. These feelings vary as the mineral world shows itself in different forms and colors, but the fundamental experience which permeates the mineral kingdom is chastity. !ur earth today has a quite particular configuration and form. 1et us go back in the evolution of the earth. 2t once had a completely different form. 1et us immerse ourselves in )tlantis and still further back we come there to ever higher temperatures, in which metals were able to flow all around as water runs along today. )ll the metals have become these veins in the earth because they first flowed along in streams. Lust as lead is hard today and quicksilver is fluid, so lead was at one time fluid and quicksilver will one day become a solid metal. Thus the earth is changeable, but man has always participated in these various evolutions. 2n the ages of which we have spoken, physical man as yet was not in existence. .ut the etheric body and astral body were there8 they could live in the higher temperatures of that time. The sheaths gradually began to form with the cooling process, enveloping man. (hile something new was always being formed in man during the earthGs evolution, something correspondingly new had also been formed outside in nature. The rudiments of the human eye had first arisen in the Sun evolution. ;irst the etheric body formed itself and this again formed the human physical eye. )s a piece of ice freeHes out of water, so are the physical organs formed out of the finer etheric body. The physical organs were formed within man while outside the earth became solid. 2n every age the formation of a human organ took place parallel with the formation of a particular configuration outside in nature. (hile in the human being the eye was called for, in the mineral kingdom the chrysolite was formed. !ne can therefore think that the same forces which outside articulated the nature of the chrysolite in man formed the eye. (e cannot be satisfied in the particular case with the general saying that man is the microcosm and the world is the macrocosm8 occultism has demonstrated the actual relationship between man and the world. (hen the physical organ for the reasoning faculties was formed in the )tlantean age, outside lead solidified8 it passed from the fluid to the solid state. 2t is the same forces which hold sway in the solidifying of lead and in the organ of intelligence. !ne only understands man when one can recogniHe the connections between the human being and the forces of nature. There is a particular group within the socialist movement, a group that has distinguished itself by its moderation from the socialists. 2t is the temperate ones who have always retained a good deal of the reasoning faculties. This special group in the socialist movement consists of the printers, and this is so because printers have to do with lead. The tariffunion between workers and employer was first worked out among the printers. 1ead brings about this frame of mind if it is taken in small quantities. )nother case can be cited from the experience where, in a similar way, one could observe the influence of the nature of a metal upon a man. 2t had become noticeable to a man how easily he discovered analogies in every possible thing. !ne could conclude that he had much to do with copper, and that was the case. *e blew the bugle in an orchestra and therefore had to with an instrument that contains much copper. (hen someday the relationship of the external lifeless world to the human organism is studied, it will be found that a relationship exists between man and the surrounding world in the most varied ways for instance, the relationship of the senses to the precious stones. There exist certain relationships of the senses to precious stones based on the evolution of the senses. (e have already found a relationship between the eye and the chrysolite. There is also a relationship between the onyx and the organ of hearing. The onyx stands in a remarkable relation to the oscillations of manGs ego-life, and occultists have always recogniHed this. 2t represents, for instance, the life that goes forth from death. Thus in $oetheGs ';airy-tale,, the dead dog is changed into onyx through the old manGs lamp. 2n this intuition of $oetheGs lies the outcome of an occult knowledge. Therein lies the relationship of the onyx to the organ of hearing. )n occult relationship exists further between the organ of taste and the topaH, the sense of smell and Fasper, the skin-sense as manGs sense of warmth and the cornelian, the productive power of imagination and the carbuncle. This was used as the symbol for a productive power of imagination, which arose in man at the same time as the carbuncle in nature. !ccult symbols are drawn deep out of real wisdom and if one only penetrates into occult symbolism one finds genuine knowledge there. *e who knows the significance of a mineral finds entry to the upper region of the +evachanic plane. (hen one sees a precious stone and is permeated by the feeling of what the precious stone has to say to us, then one finds entry to the )rupa regions of +evachan. Thus the gaHe of the student widens and more and more worlds dawn for him. *e must not be satisfied with the general indication, but little by little he must find entry into the whole world. !ne finds also in $erman literature how an instinctive intuition regarding the mineral forces is shown by poets who were miners, for example by -ovalis, who had studied mining engineering. >erning has chosen many miners as types for his occult personalities. There is also the poet, %rnst Theodor )madeus *offman, that remarkable spirit who from time to time immersed himself artistically in the secrets of nature, particularly in his tale, 'The Cines of ;alun., !ne will feel many echoes here of the occult relationships between the mineral kingdom and man, and much too that indicates how occult powers take hold in a remarkable way of artistic imagination. The mystery-center is the essential birthplace of art. 2n the astral realm the mysteries were actual and living. There one had a synthesis of truth, beauty, and goodness. This was so to a high degree in the %gyptian mysteries and those in )sia, as well as in the $reek mysteries, especially the %leusinian. The pupils there actually beheld how the spiritual powers submerged themselves in the various forms of existence. )t that time there was no other science than what one thus beheld. There was no other goodness than that which arose in the soul as one gaHed into the mysteries. -or was there any other beauty than that which one beheld as the gods descended.
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(e live in a barbaric age, in a chaotic age, in an age devoid of style. )ll great epochs of art were working out of the deepest life of spirit. 2f one observes the images of the $reek gods one plainly sees three distinct types first there is the Ueus type, to which /allas )thena and )pollo also belong. 2n this type the $reeks characteriHed their own race. There was a definite modeling of the oval of the eye, the nose, the mouth. Secondly, one can observe the circle that may be called the Cercury type. There the ears are completely different, the nose is completely different, the hair is woolly and curly. )nd thirdly there is the Satyr type, in which we find a completely different form of the mouth, a different nose, eyes, and so on. These three types are clearly formed in the $reek sculpture. The Satyr type is to represent an ancient race, the Cercury type the race following, and the Ueus type the fifth race. 2n the earlier times, the spiritual world view permeated and saturated everything. 2n the Ciddle )ges it was still a time when this came to expression in handicraft, when every door-lock was a kind of work of art. 2n external culture we were still met by what the soul had created. The modern age is entirely different8 it has brought forward only one style, namely, the warehouse. The warehouse will be as characteristic for our time as the $othic buildings E for instance, #ologne #athedral E were for the Ciddle )ges of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The cultural history of the future will have to reckon with the warehouse as we have to with the $othic buildings of the Ciddle )ges. -ew life comes to its expression in these forms. The world will be filled again with a spiritual content through the diffusion of the teachings of spiritual science. Then later, when spiritual life comes to expression in external forms, we shall have a style which expresses this spiritual life. (hat lives in spiritual science must stamp itself later in external forms. Thus we must look on the mission of spiritual science as a cultural mission.

D The Three +ecisions on the /ath of 2maginative #ognition 1oneliness, ;ear, +read
(e will think first of those who are standing on the arena of present-day events MThis lecture was given during the first (orld (ar.N

Spirits ever watchful, $uardians of your souls, Cay your wings bring To the men of %arth committed to your charge !ur soulsG beseeching love, That, united with your power, !ur prayer may stream with helpfulness To the souls it lovingly seeks.

)nd for those who as a consequence of these events have already passed through the $ate of +eath

Spirits ever watchful, $uardians of your souls, Cay your wings bring To the men of heavenly spheres committed to your charge !ur soulsG beseeching love, That, united with your power, !ur prayer may stream with helpfulness

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To the souls it lovingly seeks.

)nd may the Spirit for whom we seek through spiritual knowledge, the Spirit who for the salvation of the earth and for the freedom and progress of humanity passed through the Cystery of $olgotha, may *e be with you and your hard tasks.

) week ago we considered souls nearly related to us who, if they are to be located now, must be sought in spiritual worlds. #ertain things were said about these souls which can throw light upon the whereabouts of beings in the spiritual world. Today 2 propose to direct our study more to that path to the spiritual world which the human soul can take while it is still in the body, in order to find those spiritual realms referred to last time as the dwelling place of the souls of the so-called dead. 2t must be emphasiHed over and over that the way into the spiritual worlds that is suitable for souls of the present day requires manifold preparation. Some of this preparation is difficult, but it is necessary. Today 2 wish to point to certain matters connected with the path of knowledge from the point of view of what may be called '2maginative #ognition., 2t is very familiar to you, my dear friends, that the human soul can have experiences in the spiritual world only when it is not using the instrument of the body. %verything we can gain through the instrument of the body can yield only experiences of what is present in the physical world. 2f we wish to have experience of the spiritual worlds, we must find the possibility of working with the soul outside the physical body. -ow although it is difficult, it is possible for the human being today to experience the spiritual world while outside the body. Coreover it is always possible, once observations of the spiritual world have been made, for another who is not himself capable of this to Fudge them with really sound human reason E not with the kind of reason that is called sound, but with reason that is genuinely sound. .ut today we are going to speak of the actual way in which the human soul on the one hand emerges from the physical body, and on the other hand how it enters the spiritual world. ) week ago we spoke of this from another point of view and as today 2 want to consider it from the standpoint of 2maginative #ognition, many pictures will be discussed that will remain to be pursued in your meditations. 2f you do this, you will see that this path of knowledge is of great significance. The spiritual world can be entered, as it were, through three portals. The first may be called the /ortal of +eath, the second the /ortal of the %lements, and the third the /ortal of the Sun. Those who wish to tread the entire path of knowledge must pass through all three portals. The /ortal of +eath has from time immemorial been described by all mystery teachings. This /ortal of +eath can only be attained if we strive to reach it through what has long been known to us as meditation, that is to say, complete surrender and devotion to certain thoughts or perceptions which are suited to our individuality and which we place so entirely in the center of our consciousness that we identify ourselves wholly with them. *uman effort, of course, weakens very easily along this particular path, because there truly are and must be inner hindrances and obstacles to be overcome. 2t is a matter of repeating, again and again, the silent inner efforts to devote oneself so completely to the given thoughts and perceptions that one forgets the whole world and lives wholly in these thoughts and perceptions. )fter constant repetition, however, one gradually begins to perceive that the thoughts that have been made the center of the consciousness are taking on a kind of independent life. !ne receives the feeling that, '*itherto 2 have only VthoughtG this thought8 2 have placed it at the center of my consciousness8 but now it is beginning to unfold a particular life and inner agility of its own., 2t is as if one were in the position of being able to produce a real being within oneself. The thought begins to become an inner structure. 2t is an important moment when one notices that this thought or perception has a life of its own, so that one feels oneself to be the sheath of this thought, of this perception. !ne can then say to oneself 'Cy efforts have enabled me to provide a stage on which something is developing which now, through me, is coming to a particular life of its own., This awakening, this enlivening of the thought, is a moment of great significance in the life of the meditator. *e is then deeply stirred by the obFective reality of the spiritual world8 he realiHes that the spiritual world, so to speak, is concerning itself with him, that it has approached him. -aturally, it is not a simple matter to reach this experience, for before doing so, one must go through various sensations that one would not, from oneGs own inclination, gladly go through. There is a certain feeling of isolation, for example, a feeling of loneliness to be undergone E a feeling of being forsaken. !ne cannot grasp the spiritual world without previously feeling forsaken by the physical world, without feeling that this physical world does many things which crush one, which wear one down. .ut we must come through this feeling of isolation to be able to bear the inner animation to which the thought awakens, to which it is born. Cuch resistance now confronts the human being8 from within himself there is much resistance to what leads to true perception of this inner awakening of the thought to life. !ne feeling in particular comes E an inner feeling that we simply do not wish to have. (e do not admit this, however, but say instead '!h, 2 can never attain that8 it sends me to sleep8 my thinking and inner elasticity forsake me, they will not continue., 2n short, one chooses involuntarily all sorts of evasions of what one must experience that the thought which thus becomes enlivened becomes substantial. 2t becomes substantial and forms itself into a kind of being. )nd then one has not merely the feeling but the vision that the thought is, at first, like a little rounded seed which germinates into a being with definite form, which from outside our head continues inside so that the thought seems to tell us '"ou have identified yourself with it, you are within the thought, and now, you extend with the thought into your own head8 but you are essentially still outside., The thought takes on the form of a winged human head, flowing out into infinity and then extending into oneGs own body through the head. The thought, therefore, grows into a winged angelGs head. !ne must actually achieve this. 2t is difficult to have this experience and we therefore like to believe that in this moment when the thought grows in this way, we lose all possibility of thinking. (e believe we shall be taken at this moment. The body we have known hitherto and into which the thought extends is felt to be like an abandoned automaton. .esides, there are present in the spiritual world all kinds of hindrances which prevent this from becoming visible to us. This winged angelGs head really becomes inwardly visible, but there are all conceivable hindrances preventing its becoming visible. The point thus reached is the real threshold of the spiritual world. (hen one reaches the point 2 have Fust described, one is actually on the threshold of the spiritual world. .ut there, at first quite invisible to one, stands the power whom we have always called )hriman. !ne does not see him. )nd it is )hriman who hinders us from seeing that which 2 have described as the germinating thought-being. )hriman does not wish one to see it. *e wants to hinder this. )nd because it is primarily on the path of meditation that one reaches this point, it always becomes easy for )hriman to erase what one must come to, if one clings to the preFudices of the physical world. )nd truly, one must say The human being does not believe how very much he clings to the preFudices of the physical world8 neither can he imagine that there is another world whose laws are different from those of the physical world. 2 cannot mention today all the preFudices which people bring with them to the threshold of the spiritual world, but 2 will allude to one of the principal and more intimate preFudices. "ou see, people speak of the physical world from a monistic world view, from unity8 they repeatedly say that they can only grasp the world by contemplating the whole world as a unity. (e have sometimes had to go through curious experiences in this respect. (hen the spiritual scientific movement began in .erlin a good many years ago, with only a few members, there were several who felt they were not wholly in sympathy with it. !ne lady, for instance, came to us after a few months and said that spiritual science was not for her because it required too much thinking, and she found that thinking wiped out everything precious for her, making her fall into a kind of sleep8 besides which, she said, there is only one thing of real value, and that is unityJ The unity of the world which the monist seeks in so many areas E and not the materialistic monist alone E had become a fixed idea with her. Inity, unity, and again unityJ That was her quest. 2n $erman culture we have the philosopher 1eibnitH, an emphatically monadological thinker who did not seek for unity but for the many 'Conads, who to him were essences of soul. 2t was clear to him that in the spiritual world there can be no question of unity but only of multiplicity. There are monists and pluralists. The monists speak only of unity and oppose the pluralists who speak of multiplicity. "ou see, however, the fact is that both unity and multiplicity are concepts which are of value only in the physical world, so people believe that they must be of value in the spiritual world as well. .ut that is not so. /eople must realiHe that although unity can be glimpsed, it must immediately be superseded for it reveals itself as multiplicity. 2t is unity and multiplicity at the same time. -or can ordinary calculation, physical mathematics, be carried into the spiritual world. !ne of the very strongest and at the same time most subtle of )hrimanic temptations is the desire to carry into the

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spiritual world, Fust as they are, concepts acquired in the physical world. (e must approach the threshold without 'bag or baggage,, without being weighed down with what we have learned in the physical world8 we must be ready to leave all this at the threshold. )ll concepts E precisely those we have taken the most trouble to acquire E must be left behind and we must be prepared for the fact that in the spiritual world new concepts will be given8 we will become aware of something entirely new. This clinging to what the physical world gives is extremely strong in the human being. *e would like to take with him into the spiritual world what he has conquered in the physical. *e must have the possibility, however, of standing before a completely clean slate, of standing before complete emptiness and of allowing himself to be guided only by the thoughts which then begin to come to life. This entrance into the spiritual world has been called fundamentally the $ate of +eath, because it really is a greater death than even physical death. 2n physical death we are persuaded to lay aside the physical body8 but on entering the spiritual world we must resolve to lay aside our concepts, our notions, and our ideas and allow our being to be built up anew. -ow we confront the winged thought-being of which 2 have spoken. (e already confront it if we really give all our effort to living in a thought. )ll we need to know then is that when the moment comes which makes claims upon us that are different from those we have imagined, we must really stand firm, we must not, as it were, retreat. This retreat is in most cases unconscious. (e weaken, but the weakening is only the sign that we do not wish to lay bag and baggage aside. The whole soul, with everything it has acquired on the physical plane, must perish if it is to enter the spiritual world. That is why it is quite correct to call this portal the /ortal of +eath. )nd then we look through this winged thought-being as through a new spiritual eye that one acquires, or through a spiritual ear E for we also hear, we also feel E and by these means we become aware of what is present in the spiritual world. 2t is even possible, my dear friends, to speak of particular experiences which one can have upon entering the spiritual world. ;or one to be able to have these experiences, nothing else is necessary than perseverance in the meditation 2 have previously described. 2t is particularly important to be very clear that certain experiences that one brings to the threshold of the spiritual world must be laid aside before entering. %xperiences have hence really shown that the spiritual world that confronts one is usually different from that which one would like to have. This then is the first portal the /ortal of +eath. The second portal now is the /ortal of the %lements. This /ortal of the %lements will be the second one to be passed through by those who give themselves up to Healous meditation. .ut it is also possible for a man to encourage his own organiHation in such a way that he can actually reach the second portal without having passed through the first. This is not good for a real knowledge, but it may happen that one reaches this point without first going through the first portal. ) real appropriate knowledge will only yield itself if one has passed through the first portal and then approached the second portal consciously. This second portal shows itself in the following way "ou see, if a man has passed through the /ortal of +eath he feels himself at first to be in certain conditions which in their outward impression upon him resemble sleep, although inwardly they are quite different. !utwardly man is as though asleep while these conditions last. )s soon as the thought begins to live, when it begins to stir and grow, the outer man is really as though he were asleep. *e need not be lying down, he may be sitting, but he is as though asleep. !utwardly it is impossible to distinguish this state from sleep, but inwardly it is absolutely different. -ot until one passes back into the normal condition of life does one realiHe '2 have not been asleep but 2 have been within the life of thought in Fust the same way as 2 am now awake in the physical world and looking with my eyes at what is around me., .ut one also knows '-ow that 2 am awake, 2 think, 2 form thoughts, 2 connect them8 but shortly before, when 2 was in that other state, the thoughts formed themselves. The one approached the other, explained the other, separated from the other8 and what one usually does oneself in thinking was there done by itself., .ut one knows whereas in physical life one is an %go, adding one thought to another, in that other state one swims, as it were, in one thought and then over to another8 one is united with the thoughts8 then one is within a third and then swims away from it. !ne has the feeling that space simply no longer exists. -o longer is it the way it is in physical space, where if one had gone to a certain point and looked back and then went on further, and if one wished to return to the first point, then one would have to travel along the road again8 one would have to make the Fourney both ways. That is not the case in that other state. Space is different there8 one springs through space, so to speak. )t one moment we are in one place, the next we are far away. (e do not pass through space. The laws of space have ceased. (e now actually live and weave within the thoughts themselves. (e know that the %go is not dead, it is weaving in the web of thoughts, but although we are living within the thoughts, we cannot immediately be their master8 the thoughts form themselves and we are drawn along with them. (e do not ourselves swim in the stream of thoughts but the thoughts take us on their shoulders, as it were, and carry us along. This state must also cease. )nd it ceases when we pass through the /ortal of the %lements. Then the whole process becomes subFect to our will, then we can follow a definite line of thought with intention. (e then live in the whole life of thought with our will. This is again a moment of tremendous significance. ;or this reason 2 have even referred to it exoterically in public lectures by saying that the second stage is reached by identifying ourselves with our destiny. Thereby we acquire the power to be within the weaving thoughts with our own will. )t first, when one has passed through the /ortal of +eath, one is in the spiritual world which does as it likes with one. !ne learns to act for oneself in the spiritual world by identifying oneself with oneGs destiny. This can only be achieved by degrees. Thoughts then acquire being which is identical with our own. The deeds of our being enter the spiritual world. .ut in order to achieve this in the right way one must pass through the second portal. (hen, with the power acquired from identifying oneself with destiny, one begins to weave in the thoughts in such a way that they do not carry one along as in a dream-picture but one is able to eliminate a thought and call up another E to manipulate them at will E when this begins one experiences what may be called the 'passing through the portal., )nd then the power of will we are now using shows itself as a simply fearful monster. This has been known for thousands of years in mysticism as the encounter with the 'lion., !ne must go through this encounter with the lion. 2n the life of feelings this gives rise to a dreadful fear, a fear of what is taking place in the world of thought, of this living union with it, and this fear must be overcome, Fust as the loneliness of the /ortal of +eath must be overcome. This fear can in the most manifold ways simulate other feelings that are not fear8 but it is, in reality, fear of what one approaches. )nd what now occurs is that one finds the possibility of mastering this wild beast, this 'lion, who meets us. 2n 2magination it actually appears as if it were opening wide its enormous Faws, wishing to devour us. The power of will which we want to use in the spiritual world threatens to devour us. !ne is incessantly overcome by the feeling8 '"ou are obliged to will, but you must do something, you must seiHe something., "et concerning all these elements of will which one contains, one has the feeling '2f you seiHe it, it devours you, eradicates you from the world., This is the experience of being devoured by the lion. So E and one can speak of this in pictures E rather than surrendering to the fear that the elements of will in the spiritual world will seiHe, devour, and strangle us, one must swing oneself to the back of the lion, grasp these elements of will, and make use of them for action. That is what must be done when this happens. "ou can now understand the essentials. 2f one has first passed through the $ates of +eath, one is outside the body, and can only use the forces of will outside. !ne must insert oneself into the cosmic harmony. The forces that must be used outside the body are also within us, only they rule unconsciously. The forces that circulate our blood and make our hearts beat come from the spirituality into which we plunge when we immerse ourselves in the element of will. (e have these forces within us. 2f, therefore, a man is taken possession of by the element of will without having gone through the prescribed esoteric path, without having passed through the $ate of +eath, those forces seiHe him which otherwise circulate in his blood and beat in his heart8 and then he does not use the forces that are outside his body but those that are within him. This would be 'grey magic., 2t would cause a man to seiHe the spiritual world with the forces with which one is not permitted to seiHe the spiritual world. (hat matters is that one sees the lion, that this monster is actually before one, and that one knows This is what it looks like, this is how the forces of will desire to lay hold of one8 they must be mastered from outside the body. 2f one does not approach the second portal or actually behold the lion, one remains always in danger of wanting to rule the world out of human egotism. That is why the true path of knowledge leads us first of all from within the physical body and physical existence and only then to approach the conditions that are to be arrived at with the essences which are outside. !pposing this there is the inclination of most people to enter the spiritual world by a more comfortable way than through true meditation. Thus it is possible, for example, to avoid the $ate of +eath, and, if the inner predisposition is favorable, to approach the second portal. !ne can reach this through giving oneself up to a particular image, an especially fervent image which speaks about dissolving oneself in the Iniversal )ll and the like, recommended in good faith by certain pseudomystics. .y this means the exertions of thinking are stupefied and the emotions are stimulated. The emotions are whipped into fiery enthusiasm. .y this means one can, to begin with, certainly be admitted to the second portal and be given over to the forces of will, but one does not master the lion8 one is devoured by the lion and the lion does with one what it likes. This means that fundamentally occult things are taking place, but in essence, they are egoistic. That is why it is constantly necessary E although one might say there is also a risk of this from the point of view of true esotericism today E not to censure that which one might say is only a mystical feeling and experience that is lashed into a fury. This appeal to what stimulates a man inwardly, whipping him out of his physical body but leaving him still connected with the forces of the blood and the heart, the physical forces of the blood and the heart, does undoubtedly bring about a kind of perception of the spiritual world which may also have much good in it8 but it causes him to grope about insecurely in the spiritual world, and renders him incapable of distinguishing between egotism and altruism. This

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brings one directly, if one must stress this, to a difficult point, for with respect to real meditation and everything related to it, modern minds have for the most part fallen asleep. They do not like to exert their thinking as strongly as is necessary, if they are to identify themselves with the thinking. They far prefer to be told to give themselves in loving surrender to the #osmic Spirit, or the like, where the emotions are whipped up and thinking is evaded. /eople are led in this way to spiritual perceptions, but without full consciousness of them, and then they are not able to distinguish whether the things they experience spring from egotism or not. #ertainly enthusiasm in feeling and perception must run parallel to selfless meditation, but thought must also run parallel to it. Thinking must not be eliminated. #ertain mystics, however, try to suppress thought altogether, and to surrender themselves wholly to the glow of frenHied emotion. *ere too there is a difficult point, for this method is useful8 those who stimulate their emotions go forward much more quickly. They enter the spiritual world and have all kinds of experiences E and that is what most people desire. The question with most people is not whether they are entering the spiritual world in the right way but only whether they are entering it at all. The uncertainty that arises here is that if we have not first passed through the $ate of +eath but go directly to the $ate of the %lements, we are there prevented by 1ucifer from really perceiving the lion, so that before we become aware of it, it devours us. The difficulty is that we are no longer able to distinguish between what is related to us and what is outside in the world. (e learn to know spiritual beings, elemental spirits. !ne can learn to recogniHe a rich and extensive spiritual world, without having passed through the $ate of +eath, but these are spiritual beings who for the most part have the task of maintaining the human blood circulation and the work of the human heart. Such beings are always around us in the spiritual, in the elemental world. They are spirits whose life-element is in the air, in the encircling warmth and also in the light8 they also have their life-element in the music of the spheres, which is no longer physically perceptible8 these spiritual beings weave and lace through everything that is living. !f course, then, we enter this world. )nd the thing becomes alluring because the most wonderful spiritual discoveries can be made in this world. 2f a man E who has not passed through the $ate of +eath but has gone directly to the /ortal of the 1ion without seeing the lion E perceives an elementary spirit whose task is to maintain the activity of the heart, this elementary spirit, who also maintains the heart-activity of other people, may under certain circumstances bring information about other human beings, even about people of the past, or indeed prophetic tidings of the future. The experience may be accompanied with great success, yet it is not the right path because it does not make us free in our mobility in the spiritual world. The third portal that one must pass through is the /ortal of the Sun. )nd there we must, when we reach this portal, undergo yet another experience. (hile we are at the /ortal of +eath, we perceive a winged angelGs head8 while we are at the /ortal of the %lements, we perceive a lion8 at the /ortal of the Sun, we must perceive a dragon, a fierce dragon. )nd this fierce dragon we must truly perceive. .ut now 1ucifer and )hriman together try to make it imperceptible to our spiritual vision. 2f we do perceive it, however, we realiHe that in reality this fierce dragon has most fundamentally to do with ourselves, for he is woven out of those instincts and sensations which are related to what in ordinary life we call our 'lowest nature., This dragon comprises all the forces, for instance, that we use E if you will forgive the prosaic expression E for digestion and many other things. (hat provides us with the forces of digestion, and many other functions bound up with the lowest part of our nature, appears to us in the form of a dragon. (e must contemplate him when he coils out of us. *e is far from beautiful and it is therefore easy for 1ucifer and )hriman so to influence our subconscious life of soul that unconsciously we do not want to see this dragon. 2nto the dragon are also woven all our absurdities, all our vanities, our pride and self-seeking, as well as our basest instincts. 2f we do not contemplate the dragon at the /ortal of the Sun E and it is called the /ortal of the Sun because in the sun-forces live those forces from which the dragon is woven, and it is the sun-forces that enable us to digest and to carry out other organic processes Athis occurs really through living together with the sunB E if we do not contemplate the dragon at the /ortal of the Sun, he devours us and we become one with him in the spiritual world. (e are then no longer distinct from the dragon, we actually are the dragon, who experiences in the spiritual world. This dragon may have very significant and, in a sense, grand experiences, experiences more fascinating than those which come at the /ortal of +eath or beyond it. The experiences one has at the /ortal of +eath are, to begin with, colorless, shadowlike, and intimate E so light and intimate that they may easily escape us, and we are not in the least inclined to be attentive enough to hold them fast. (e must always exert ourselves to allow what easily comes to life in the thoughts to expand. 2t expands ultimately into a world, but long and energetic striving and work is necessary before this world appears as reality, permeated with color, sound, and life. ;or we must let these colorless and soundless forms take on life from infinity. 2f one discovers, for example, the simplest air or water spirit through what we may now call 'head clairvoyance, Aby which is meant the clairvoyance that arises from animation of thinkingB, this air or water spirit is at first something that flits away so lightly and fleetingly over the horiHon of the spiritual world that it does not interest us at all. )nd if it is to have color or sound this must draw near it from the whole sphere of the cosmos. This happens, however, only after long inner effort. This occurs only through waiting until one is blessed. ;or Fust suppose E speaking pictorially E that you have one of these air spirits if it is to approach in color, the color must stream into it from a mighty part of the cosmos. !ne must have the power to make the colors shine in. This power, however, can only be acquired, can only be won, by devotion. The radiating forces must pour in from without through devotion. .ut if we are one with the dragon we shall be inclined, when we see an air or water spirit, to ray out the forces which are within us, and precisely those which are in the organs usually called the 'lower, organs. This is much easier. The head is in itself a perfect organ but in the astral body and etheric body of the head there is not much color because the colors are expended in forming, for example, the brain and especially the skull. (hen we approach the threshold of the spiritual world and in 'head clairvoyance, draw the astral and etheric bodies out of the physical body, there is not much color in them. The colors have been expended to shape the perfected organ, the brain. (hen, however, in 'belly clairvoyance, M' 4auchellsehen,N we draw the astral body and etheric body out of the organs of stomach, liver, gall-bladder, and so forth, the colors have not yet been as expended in building up perfected organs. These organs are only on the way to perfection. (hat comes from the astral body and etheric body of the stomach is beautifully colored8 it gleams and glitters in all possible radiant colors8 and if the etheric and astral bodies are drawn out of these organs, the forms seen are imbued with the most wonderful colors and sounds. So it could happen that someone may see wonderful things and sketch a picture with gorgeous coloring. This is certainly interesting, as it is also interesting for the anatomist to examine the spleen, liver, or intestines, and from the standpoint of science this is also indispensable. .ut when it is examined by someone very experienced, what appears in these beautifully colored pictures is that which underlies the process of digestion two hours after eating. There is certainly no obFection to investigating these things. The anatomist must necessarily do so and the time will come when science will gain a great deal by knowing what the etheric body does when the stomach digests food. .ut we must be totally clear about this if we do not connect this with our dragon, if we do not consciously approach the /ortal of the Sun, if we are not aware that we summon into the dragon what is contained in the etheric and astral body of the belly, we then radiate it forth into picture-clairvoyance, and then we receive a truly wonderful world. The most beautiful and easiest of attainments does not at first come from the higher forces, from 'head clairvoyance,, but from 'belly clairvoyance., 2t is most important to know this. ;rom the point of view of the cosmos there is nothing vulgar in an absolute sense, but only in a relative sense. 2n order to produce what is necessary for the process of digestion in man the cosmos has to work with forces of colossal significance. (hat matters is that we not succumb to errors or illusions but know what the things are. (hen we know that something which looks very wonderful is nothing other than the process of digestion, this is extremely important. .ut if we believe that some celestial world is being revealed by such a picture, then we are falling into error. )n intelligent person will have no obFection to the cultivation of science based on such knowledge, but only to things being put in a false light. This is what we are concerned with. Thus it can happen, for instance, that someone will always at a certain moment draw out the etheric and astral bodies directly through an occurrence within the digestive processes, at a certain stage of digestion. Such a man may be a natural clairvoyant. !ne must only know what we are concerned with. Through 'head clairvoyance,, where all the colors of the etheric and astral bodies are used for the production of the wonderful structure of the brain, it will be difficult for a man to fill what is colorless and soundless with colors and sounds. .ut with 'belly clairvoyance, it will be comparatively easy to see the most wonderful things in the world. 2n this kind of clairvoyance, of course, also lie forces which a man must learn to use. The forces used in digestion are involved in a process of transformation and we experience them in the right way when we learn more and more to cultivate the identification with destiny. )nd this is also the ground from which we learn that which at first appeared as a flying angelGs head we must trace again to the other element that we have dealt with, so that we do not trace only the forces which serve digestion, but also those of a higher kind, those which lie within the sphere of our karma, our destiny. 2f we identify ourselves with it, we succeed in bearing forth the spiritual entities we see around us, which now have the inclination towards colors and sounds flowing in from cosmic space. The spiritual world then naturally becomes concrete and full of stability, truly so concrete that we fare there as well as we fare in the physical world. !ne great difficulty at the /ortal of +eath is that we really have the feeling E and we must overcome it E 2 am essentially losing myself. .ut if one has stretched oneself and has identified oneself with the life of thought, one may at the same time have the consciousness, '2 lose myself but 2 find myself again., That is an experience that one has. !ne loses oneself on entering the spiritual world, but one knows that one will find oneself again. !ne must make the transition to reach the abyss, to lose oneself in it, but with trust that one shall find oneself again there. This is an experience that one must go through8 all that 2 have described are inner experiences that one

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must go through. )nd one must come to know that what takes place in the soul is important. 2t is Fust as if we were obliged to see something8 if one is shown the way by a friend, it is easier than if one thinks it out for oneself. .ut one can attain all that has been described if one submits oneself to constant inner work and inner self-control through meditation, as you will find described in the book, Knowledge of the #igher $orlds and its Attainment and in the second part of &ccult Science" an &utline! 2t is of very great importance that we should learn to pass through these alien experiences beyond the threshold of the spiritual world. 2f, as is natural to the human being in his naked need, one is prone to imagine the spiritual world merely as a continuation, a duplication of the physical world, if one expects everything in the spiritual world to look Fust the same as in the physical world, then one cannot enter. !ne must really go through what one experiences as a reversal of everything experienced in the physical world. *ere in the physical world one is accustomed, for example, to open oneGs eyes and see light, to receive impressions through the light. 2f one were to expect, in the spiritual world, that one could open a spiritual eye to receive impressions through the light, then one could not enter, for oneGs expectations would be false. Something like a fog would be woven around the spiritual senses, concealing the spiritual world as a mass of fog conceals a mountain. 2n the spiritual world, for instance, one cannot see obFects illuminated by light8 on the contrary, one must be very clear that one streams with the light oneself into the spiritual world. 2n the physical world, if a ray of light falls upon an obFect, one sees it8 but in the spiritual world one is oneself within the ray of light and it is in this way that one touches the obFect. !ne knows oneself to be shimmering with the ray of light, in the spiritual world8 one knows oneself to be within the streaming light. This knowledge can give an indication towards acquiring concepts capable of helping us onward in the spiritual world. 2t is, for instance, extremely useful to picture to ourselves *ow would it be, if we were now within the sunK .ecause we are not within the sun we see obFects illuminated by the sunGs rays, by the refracted rays of the sun. .ut one must imagine oneself to be within the sunGs rays and thus touching the obFects. This 'touching, is an experience inV the spiritual world8 indeed, experience there consists in knowing that one is alive within that world. !ne knows that one is alive in the weaving of thoughts. )s soon as this condition begins, that one knows one is conscious in the weaving of thoughts, then comes an immediate awareness of self-knowledge in the luminous streaming light. ;or thought is of the light. Thought weaves in the light. .ut one can experience this only when one is really immersed in the light, if one is within this weaving of thoughts. The human being has now reached a stage where he must acquire such concepts as these, so that he may not pass through the $ate of +eath into the spiritual world and find himself in completely strange worlds. The 'capital, given to man by the $ods at the primal beginning of the %arth has gradually been consumed. *uman beings no longer bear with them through the $ate of +eath the remains of an ancient heritage. They must now gradually acquire concepts in the physical world which, when they proceed through the $ate of +eath, will serve after crossing to make visible to them the tempting, seductive, dangerous beings confronting one there. The fact that spiritual science must be communicated to humanity, must take shelter in humanity at the present time, is connected with these great cosmic relations. )nd one can observe already in our time, in our destiny-laden time, that crossings are really being created. *uman beings are now passing through the $ate of +eath in the prime of youth8 in obedience to the great demands of destiny, they have, in a sense, consciously allowed death to approach them in the days of their youth. 2 do not mean now so much the moment before death on the battlefield, for instance. 2n those cases there may be a great deal of enthusiasm and so forth, so that the experience of death is not so saturated with as clear an attention as one would like to believe. .ut when the death has actually occurred, it leaves behind a still unspent etheric body, in our time it leaves behind a still unspent etheric body upon which the dead one can look, so that he now beholds this phenomenon, this fact of death, with much greater clarity than would be possible for him if it occurred as the result of illness or old age. +eath on the battlefield is more intense, an event which works more powerfully in our time than a death occurring in other ways. 2t therefore works upon the soul which has passed through the $ate of +eath as an enlightenment. +eath is terrible, or at least may be terrible for the human being so long as he remains in the body. .ut when he has passed through the $ate of +eath and looks back at death, death is then the most beautiful of all experiences possible in the human cosmos. ;or between death and a new birth this looking back to the entrance to the spiritual world through death is the most wonderful, the most beautiful, the most glorious event possible. (hile directly from our birth so little before our physical experience ever really remains E no man remembers his physical birth with the ordinary, undeveloped faculties E nevertheless the phenomenon of death is ever-present to the soul which has passed through the $ate of +eath, from the moment of the sudden emergence of consciousness onwards. 2t is always present, yet it stands there as the most beautiful presence, as the 'awakener., (ithin the spiritual world, death is the most wonderful instructor, an instructor who can prove to the receptive soul that there is a spiritual world, because through its very being it destroys the physical, and from this destruction allows the spiritual to emerge. This resurrection of the spiritual, with the complete stripping off of the physical, is an event ever-present between death and a new birth. 2t is a sustaining, wonderful event, and the soul gradually grows in his understanding of it, grows in a totally unique way if it is to a certain extent 'selfselected, E not, of course, in the sense of a man seeking his own death but by having voluntarily considered it. 2f he has of his own free will allowed death to come to him, this moment gains immensely in lucidity. )nd a man who has not hitherto thought much about death or has concerned himself little with the spiritual world, may in our time receive in his death a wonderful instructor. This is a fact of great significance, precisely in this war, regarding the connection of the physical with the spiritual world. 2 have already stressed this in many lectures about this difficult time8 but what can be done through mere teaching, through words, does not suffice. "et great enlightenment is in store for mankind of the future because there have been so many deaths. They work upon the dead, and the dead, in their turn, set to work on the future development of culture in humanity. 2 am able to communicate to you directly certain words which came from one who in our day passed through the $ate of +eath in his early years, who has, 2 would like to say, come through. These words are, precisely for that reason, rather startling, because they testify to the fact that the dead one E who experienced death with the particular clarity one feels on the battlefield E is finding now in these alien experiences after death how he works himself away from earthly conceptions into spiritual conceptions. 2 will communicate these words here. They are, if 2 may so characteriHe them, intercepted by someone who wanted to bring that which the dying soldier would if he were allowed to return. 2m leuchtenden, +a fiihle ich +ie 1ebenskraft. +er Tod hat mich 0om Schlaf erweckt, 0om geistesschlaf.

2ch werde sein Ind aus mir tun, (as 1euchtekraft 2n mir erstrahlt.

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(ithin the streaming 1ight 2 feel The life force.

+eath has waked Ce from sleep, ;rom spirit sleep.

2 shall live on )nd do, out of myself, (hat the power of light &adiates into me.

This was to a certain extent what the suffering soul had learned from looking back to his death, the learning he had experienced. 2t was as though his being were filled with what must be learned from the sight of death, and he wished to give this information, to reveal it.

(ithin the streaming 1ight 2 feel The light force.

Therefore he feels that he is more alive to grasping the spiritual world than he was before death. *e feels death as an awakener, an instructor

+eath has waked Ce from sleep, ;rom spirit sleep.

)nd now he feels that he will be a doer in the spiritual world

2 shall live on )nd do, out of myself .. .

but he feels that this action is that of the forces of light within him, and he feels the light working within him

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2 shall live on )nd do, out of myself, (hat the power of light &adiates into me.

!ne can see everywhere, can rightly see, that what one can come to perceive in the spiritual world can again and again deliver the most pure confirmation of what can become universally familiar through the form of knowledge called 2magination. This is what we should so like to see resuscitated, rightly resuscitated, through our spiritual scientific movement8 that we have not to do with Fust a naked knowledge of the spiritual world, but that this knowledge becomes so alive in us that we adopt another way of feeling with the world, of experiencing with the world, so that the idea of spiritual science begins to live in us. 2t is this inward enlivening of the thoughts of spiritual science which, as 2 have repeatedly said, will be fundamentally demanded of us, so that it can be our contribution to the evolution of the world. This must be done in order that the thoughts born of spiritual science, which soar into the spiritual world as light forces, may unite with the radiant cosmos, in order that the cosmos may unite with that which those who have passed through the $ate of +eath in our fateful times wish to incorporate into the spiritual movement of culture. Then will begin what is implied in these words with which we will again today conclude our lecture

;rom the courage of the fighters, ;rom the blood on fields of strife, ;rom the suffering of the forsaken, ;rom the peopleGs sacrifice There shall blossom fruit of spirit E 2f souls, conscious of the spirit, Turn their sense to the spirit realm.

-otes to the Texts

'2nner +evelopment., 1ecture, +ec. 3, 45678 $) 7:. Translated for this volume by $ertrude Teutsch. '/sychological ;oundations of )nthroposophy., 1ecture, )pril <, 45448 $) =7. Translated by !lin +. (annamaker. ;irst published by )nthroposophic /ress, 2nc. Translation revised for this volume. 'Supersensible >nowledge )nthroposophy )s a +emand of the )ge., 1ecture, Sept. ?@, 45?=8 $) <:. Translated by !lin +. (annamaker. ;irst published by )nthroposophic /ress, 2nc. 45:=. Translation revised for this volume. ')ttainment of Supersensible >nowledge., 1ecture, Sept. ?6, 45??8 $) =67. ;irst published in the Anthroposophy Quarterly 5ol! :, -o. ? A45?5B. Translation revised extensively for this volume. /ermission to revise original translation kindly granted by &udolf Steiner /ress. '$eneral +emands (hich %very )spirant for !ccult +evelopment Cust /ut to *imself., (ritten work8 $) ?:7. /reviously published by &udolf Steiner /ress as part of the volume Guidance in Esoteric Training! &evised for this volume with the kind permission of &udolf Steiner /ress. ';urther &ules in #ontinuation of $eneral +emands., (ritten text8 $) ?:7. &evised for this volume from an unpublished manuscript. 'The $reat 2nitiates., 1ecture, Carch 4@, 45678 $) 7=. &evised for this volume from an unpublished manuscript. 'The /ath of >nowledge and 2ts Stages The &osicrucian Spiritual /ath., 1ecture, !ct. ?6, 456@8 $) 5@. Translated for this volume by +iane Tatum. '2maginative >nowledge and )rtistic 2magination., 1ecture, !ct. ?4, 456@8 $) 5@. &evised for this volume from an unpublished manuscript.
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'The Three +ecisions on the /ath of 2maginative #ognition., 1ecture, Carch ?, 45478 $) 473. &evised for this volume from an unpublished manuscript. %ditor )lice (ulsin

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