An Outline of Occult Science, by Rudolf Steiner

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(Part 4)

The object of meditation on the previously characterized symbolic mental images and feelings is, correctly speaking, the development of the higher organs of perception within the human astral body. They are created from the substance of this astral body. These new organs of observation open up a new world, and in this new world man becomes acquainted with himself as a new ego. The new organs of observation are to be distinguished from the organs of the physical sense world through the fact of their being active organs. Whereas eyes and ears remain passive, permitting light and sound to act upon them, the soul-spirit organs of perception are continually active while perceiving and they seize upon their objects and facts, as it were, in full consciousness. This results in the feeling that soul-spirit cognition is the act of uniting with the corresponding facts, is really a “living within them.” — The soul-spirit organs that are being individually developed may, by way of comparison, be called “lotus flowers,” according to the forms which they present imaginatively to supersensible consciousness. (Granted, it must be clear that such a designation has nothing more to do with the case than the expression “chamber” has to do with the case when we speak of the “chamber of the heart.”) Through quite definite methods of inner meditation the astral body is affected in such a way that one or another of the soul-spirit organs, one or another of the “lotus flowers,” is formed. After all that has been described in this book it ought to be superfluous to accentuate the fact that these “organs of observation” are not to be imagined as something that, in the mental representation of its sense-image, is a picture of its reality. These “organs” are supersensible and consist of a definitely formed soul activity; they exist only as far and as long as this soul activity is practiced. The existence of these organs in the human being produces nothing of a sensory character any more than human thinking produces some sort of a physical “vapor.” Whoever insists on visualizing the supersensory as something sensory becomes involved in misunderstandings. In spite of the superfluity of this remark, it is made here because again and again there are those who accept the supersensory as a fact, but who, in their thoughts, desire only what is sensory, and because again and again there appear opponents of supersensory cognition who believe that the spiritual researcher speaks of “lotus flowers” as though they were delicate, physical structures. Every correct meditation that is made in regard to imaginative cognition has its effect upon one or another organ. (In my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, certain methods of meditation, and exercises that affect one or another of the organs, are outlined.) Proper training sets up the several exercises of the student of the spiritual and arranges them to follow one another so that the organs are able to develop correspondingly, either singly, in groups, or consecutively. In connection with this development the spiritual student must have great patience and endurance. Anyone having only the measure of patience possessed, as a rule, by most human beings through the ordinary relationships of life will find that this does not suffice. For it takes a long time, often a very long time, before the organs are sufficiently developed to permit their employment by the spiritual student in perceiving the spiritual world. This is the moment when something occurs for him that may be called illumination, in contrast to the preparation or purification consisting of the exercises that develop the organs. (We speak of purification, because the corresponding exercises purify the student in a certain sphere of his inner life of all that springs only from the sensory world of observation.) It may happen that the student, even before his actual illumination occurs, may experience repeatedly “flashes of light” coming from a higher world. He should accept such experiences gratefully. Through them he can already become a witness for the spiritual world. But he should not waver if this does not occur during this period of preparation, which may perhaps seem to him altogether too long. If he exhibits any impatience whatever “because he does not yet see anything,” he has not yet gained the right attitude toward a higher world. This attitude can only be grasped by someone for whom the exercises performed in his training can be, as it were, an end in themselves. These exercises are, in truth, work performed on the soul-spirit nature, that is to say, on the student's own astral body, and although he “sees nothing,” he may “feel” that he is working on his soul-spirit nature. If, however, one forms a definite opinion right at the beginning of what one actually expects to “see,” one will not have this feeling. Then one will consider as nothing what in truth is of immeasurable significance. But one should be subtly observant of everything one experiences during the exercises and that is so fundamentally different from all experiences in the sense world. One will then certainly notice that one's astral body, upon which one is working, is not a neutral substance, but that in it there lives a totally different world of which one knows nothing in one's life of the senses. Higher beings are working upon the astral body, just as the outer physical-sensory world works upon the physical body, and one encounters this higher life in one's own astral body if one does not close oneself to it. If someone repeatedly says to himself, “I perceive nothing!” then, in most cases, he has imagined that spiritual perception must take place in this or that manner, and because he does not perceive what he imagines he should see, he says, “I see nothing!”

If the student has acquired the right attitude toward the exercises of spiritual training, they will constitute something for him that he loves more and more for its own sake. He then knows that through the practice itself he stands in a world of soul and spirit, and with patience and serenity he awaits what will result. This attitude may arise in the consciousness of the student most favorably in the following words, “I will do everything that is proper in the way of exercises, and I know that just as much will come to me at the proper time as is important for me. I do not demand it impatiently, but I am ever ready to receive it.”

It is not valid to object that “the spiritual student must thus grope about in the dark, perhaps for an immeasurably long time; for he can only know clearly that he is on the right path in his exercises when the results appear.” It is untrue that only results can bring knowledge of the correctness of the exercises. If the student takes the right attitude toward them, he finds that the satisfaction he draws from the practice gives him the assurance that what he is doing is right; he does not have to wait for the results. Correct practice in the sphere of spiritual training calls forth satisfaction that is not mere satisfaction, but knowledge that is to say, the knowledge that he is doing something which convinces him that he is making progress in the right direction. Every spiritual student may have this knowledge at every moment, provided he is subtly attentive to his experiences. If he does not employ this attention then the experiences escape him, as is the case with a pedestrian who, lost in thought, does not see the trees on both sides of the road, although he would see them were he to direct his attention to them. — It is not at all desirable that a result be hastened different from the one that must always occur from correct practice. For this result might easily be only the smallest part of what should actually appear. In regard to spiritual development a partial success is often the reason for a strong retardation of the complete success. The movement among such forms of spiritual life that correspond to the partial success dulls the sensitivity in regard to the influences of the forces that lead to higher stages of evolution, and what we may have gained by having “peered” into the spirit world is only an illusion, for this “peering” cannot furnish the truth, but only a mirage.

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(Part 5)

The psycho-spiritual organs, the lotus flowers, are fashioned so as to appear to supersensible consciousness, in the student undergoing training, as though located in the neighborhood of certain organs of the physical body. From among these soul organs the following will be mentioned here. First, the one that is felt between the eyebrows — the so-called two-petalled lotus flower; the one in the neighborhood of the larynx — the sixteen-petalled lotus flower; a third in the heart region — the twelve-petalled lotus flower; a fourth in the region of the solar plexus. Other similar organs appear in the neighborhood of other parts of the physical body. (The names “two-petalled” or “sixteen-petalled” may be used because the corresponding organs may be likened to flowers of a corresponding number of petals.)

One becomes conscious of the lotus flowers through the astral body. The moment one has developed one or another of these organs, one is aware of its existence. One feels that one can employ it and through its use really enter into a higher world. The impressions that one receives from that world still resemble in many ways those of the physical-sensory world. He who possesses imaginative cognition will be able to speak of the new, higher world in such a way that he designates the impressions as sensations of heat or cold, as perceptions of tones and words, as effects of light and color, for he experiences them as such. But he is aware that these perceptions in the imaginative world express something quite different from sense reality. He recognizes that behind them stand not physical material, but soul-spirit causes. If he experiences something like an impression of heat, he does not, for instance, ascribe it to a piece of hot iron, but he considers it the outflow of a soul process that, up to the present, he has only known in his inner soul-life. He knows that behind imaginative perceptions stand soul and spiritual things and processes just as behind physical perceptions stand material physical beings and facts. — Beside this similarity of the imaginative with the physical world there is, however, a significant difference. Certain phenomena in the physical world appear quite different in the imaginative world. In the former can be observed a continual growth and decay of things, an alternation of birth and death. In the imaginative world a continual transformation of one thing into another takes the place of these phenomena. One sees, for example, the decay of a plant in the physical world. In the imaginative world, in proportion to the withering of the plant the growth of another formation makes its appearance that is not perceptible physically and into which the decaying plant is gradually transformed. When the plant has disappeared, this formation stands completely developed in its place. Birth and death are ideas that lose their significance in the imaginative world. In their place appears the concept of transformation of one thing into another. — Because this is so, the truths about the being of man become accessible to imaginative cognition, truths that have been described in Chapter 2 of this book, entitled “The Essential Nature of Mankind.” To physical-sensory perception only the processes of the physical body are perceptible. They occur in the “region of birth and death.” The other members of human nature — life body, sentient body, and ego — come under the law of transformation, and perception of them is acquired through imaginative cognition. Whoever has advanced to this point perceives the releasing itself from the physical body of what at death continues to live on in another state of existence.

Development, however, does not stop with the imaginative world. The human being who might wish to stop in this world would perceive the beings undergoing transformation, but he would be unable to explain the processes of transformation; he would be unable to orientate himself in the newly attained world. The imaginative world is an unstable region. In it there exist everywhere constant motion and transformation; nowhere are there points of rest. Such points of rest are attained by man only when he has developed himself beyond the stage of imaginative cognition to the stage that may be called “cognition through inspiration.” — It is not necessary that a person who seeks cognition of the supersensible world develop himself in such a way that he advance first to the possession of a full degree of imaginative cognition, and then only advance to “Inspiration.” His exercises may be so arranged that what may lead to imagination and to inspiration proceeds hand in hand. He will then, after a certain time, enter a higher world in which he not only perceives, but in which he is able to orientate himself, and which he can interpret. To be sure, this progress will, as a rule, be of such a character that first of all some of the phenomena of the imaginative world manifest themselves to him; then after a time he will experience the feeling, “Now I am beginning to orientate myself.” — The world of inspiration is, nevertheless, something quite new in comparison with the world of mere imagination. Through the latter one perceives the transformation of one process into another; through the former one learns to know the inner qualities of beings who transform themselves. Through imagination one learns to know the soul-expression of beings; through inspiration one penetrates into their inner spiritual nature. One recognizes above all a host of spiritual beings and discerns a great number of relationships between one being and another. One has to deal with a multitude of individual beings also in the physical-sensory world; in the world of inspiration, however, this multitude is of a different character. There each being has a quite definite relationship to others, not as in the physical world through external influences, but through its inner constitution. If we perceive a being in the world of inspiration, there is no evidence of an outer influence upon another being, which might be compared with the effect of one physical being upon another, but a relationship exists between two beings through their inner constitution. Let us compare this relationship with a relationship in the physical world, by selecting for comparison the relationship between the separate sounds or letters of a word. Take, for instance, the word “man.” It is produced through the concordance of the sounds m-a-n. There is no impulse or other external influence passing over from the m to the a; both sounds act together within the whole through their inner constitution. Therefore observation in the world of inspiration may only be compared with reading, — and the beings in the world of inspiration act upon the observer like the letters of an alphabet, which he must learn to know and the interrelationships of which must unfold themselves to him like a supersensible script. Spiritual science, therefore, may call cognition through inspiration — speaking figuratively — the reading of secret or occult script.

How we may read by means of this occult script, and how we may communicate what is read, will now be made clear by means of the preceding chapters of this book itself. How the human being takes shape out of various members was described at the very outset. It was then shown how the cosmic being, within which the human being develops, passes through the various states of Saturn, Sun, Moon, and Earth. The perceptions through which one can, on the one hand, cognize the members of the human being and, on the other, the consecutive states of the Earth and its preceding transformations, disclose themselves to imaginative knowledge. It is, however, also necessary that it be known what relationships exist between the Saturn state and the human physical body, the Sun state and the ether body, and so forth. It must be shown that the germinal human physical body has come already into existence during the Saturn state, and that it has evolved further to its present form during the Sun, Moon, and Earth states. It was necessary to show also, for example, what transformations have taken place within the human being as a result of the separation of the sun from the Earth, and similarly through the separation of the moon. It was necessary also to describe the powers and beings who co-operated in order that such transformations could occur in humanity as are expressed in the transformations during the Atlantean period and also during the successive periods of the ancient Indian, the ancient Persian, the Egyptian cultures, and the subsequent periods of culture. The description of these relationships does not result from imaginative perception, but from cognition through inspiration, by reading the occult script. For this sort of “reading” the perceptions of imagination are like letter symbols or sounds. This “reading,” however, is not only necessary for the purpose of explaining what has just been described, but it would be impossible to understand the life course of the whole human being were it only perceived through imaginative cognition. One would perceive, indeed, how the soul-spiritual members are released at death from what remains in the physical world, but one would not understand the relationships between what happens to the human being after death and the preceding and succeeding states, were one unable to orientate oneself within the imaginatively perceived.. Without cognition through inspiration the imaginative world would remain like writing at which we stare but which we cannot read.

When the student of the spiritual advances from imagination to inspiration he soon sees how incorrect it would be to relinquish the understanding of the macrocosmic phenomena and to limit himself only to facts that, so to say, touch upon immediate human interests. Someone who is not initiated into these things might well say the following. “It appears to me only necessary to learn about the fate of the human soul after death; if I am told something about that, it will suffice; why does spiritual science wish to demonstrate such distant things as the Saturn or Sun state, and the sun and moon separation, and so forth?” Anyone properly informed about these things learns that real knowledge of what he wishes to know is never acquired without an understanding of what seems to him so unnecessary. A description of the human states after death remains completely unintelligible and worthless if man is unable to connect them with concepts that are derived from such remote matters. Even the simplest observation of the scientist of the supersensible makes his acquaintance with such things necessary. If, for example, a plant makes the transition from blossom to fruit, the human observer of the supersensible sees a transformation taking place in an astral being that during the period of flowering has overshadowed the plant from above and enclosed it like a cloud. Had the fructification not occurred, then this astral being would have made a transition into quite a different shape from the one it has assumed in consequence of fructification. Now one understands the entire process perceived by supersensible observation, if one has learned to understand its nature through the macrocosmic process through which the Earth and all its inhabitants have passed at the time of the sun separation. Before fructification, the plant is in a position similar to the entire Earth prior to the sun separation. After fructification, the plant blossom shows itself in a condition similar to the Earth after the sun had severed itself and the moon forces were still present in it. If one has made one's own the concepts that may be gained by studying the sun separation, one then understands adequately the meaning of the process of plant fructification. One will say that the plant is in a sun state before fructification, in a moon state after it. For it is a fact that even the smallest process in the world may be grasped only if we recognize that it constitutes a copy of macrocosmic processes. Otherwise its very nature remains unintelligible, just as Raphael's Madonna would remain unintelligible if nothing were to be seen but a small blue speck when the rest of the picture were covered up. Everything that occurs in the human being is a copy of macrocosmic processes that have to do with his existence. If one wishes to understand the observations of supersensible consciousness concerning the phenomena occurring between birth and death, and again between death and rebirth, one can do this if one has acquired the faculty of deciphering the imaginative observations through the concepts acquired by the study of the macrocosmic processes. — This study gives us the key to the comprehension of human life. Therefore, in the sense of spiritual science, observation of Saturn, Sun, and Moon is at the same time observation of man.

Through inspiration one acquires the knowledge of the relationships between the beings of the higher world. It is possible through a higher stage of cognition to understand the inner nature of these beings themselves. This stage of cognition may be designated intuitive cognition. (Intuition is a word misused in everyday life for an obscure, uncertain insight into a fact, that is, for a certain idea which at times agrees with truth but the justification of which is at the time not provable. What is meant here has naturally nothing to do with this sort of intuition. Intuition denotes here a cognition of the highest, most illuminating clarity, and, if one has it, one is conscious in the fullest sense of its justification.) — To have knowledge of a sense-being means to stand outside it and to judge it according to the external impression. To have knowledge of a spiritual being through intuition means to have become completely one with it, to have become united with its inner nature. Step by step the student of the spiritual ascends to such knowledge. Imagination leads him to sense the perceptions no longer as outer characteristics of beings, but to recognize in them the outpouring of something psycho-spiritual; inspiration leads him further into the inner nature of beings. He learns through it to understand what these beings are to each other; with intuition he penetrates into the beings themselves. — The significance of intuition also may be shown by the descriptions given in this book. In the preceding chapters, not only the course of Saturn, Sun, and Moon evolutions was described, but it was told that beings participate in this development in the most varied ways. Thrones or Spirits of Will, Spirits of Wisdom, of Motion, and others were mentioned. In the Earth evolution mention was made of the spirits Lucifer and Ahriman. The construction of the cosmos was traced back to the beings who participate in it. What may be learned about these beings is won through intuitive cognition. This faculty is also necessary if one wishes to have a knowledge of the course of human life. What is released after death from the human bodily nature goes through various states in the subsequent period. The states directly after death might be described in some measure through imaginative cognition.

What, however, takes place when man advances further into the period between death and rebirth would have to remain quite unintelligible to imaginative cognition, if inspiration did not come to the rescue. Only inspiration is able to discover what may be said about the life of man in the land of spirits after purification. Then something appears for which inspiration no longer suffices, where it reaches, so to say, the limits of understanding. There is a period in human evolution between death and rebirth when the being of man is accessible only to intuition. This part of the being of man, however, is always present in him; and if we wish to understand it according to its true inner nature, we must investigate it by means of intuition also in the period between birth and death. Whoever wished to fathom the nature of man by means of imagination and inspiration alone, would miss the innermost processes of his being that take place from incarnation to incarnation. Only intuitive cognition, therefore, makes possible an adequate research into repeated earth lives and into karma. The truth communicated about these processes must originate from research by means of intuitive cognition. — If man himself wishes to have a knowledge of his own inner being, he can only acquire this through intuition. By means of it he perceives what progresses in him from earth life to earth life.

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(Part 6)

Man is able to attain knowledge by means of inspiration and intuition only through soul-spirit exercises. They resemble those that have been described as meditation for the attainment of imagination. While, however, those exercises that lead to imagination are linked to the impressions of the sensory-physical world, this link must disappear more and more in the exercises for inspiration. In order to make clear to himself what has to happen there, let a person consider again the symbol of the rose cross. If he ponders upon this symbol he has an image before him, the parts of which have been taken from the impressions of the sense world: the black color of the cross, the roses, and so forth. The combining of these parts into a rose cross has not been taken from the physical sense world. If now the student of the spirit attempts to let the black cross and also the red roses as pictures of sense realities disappear entirely from his consciousness and only to retain in his soul the spiritual activity that has combined these parts, then he has a means for meditation that leads him by degrees to inspiration. One may place the following question before one's soul. What have I done inwardly in order to combine cross and rose into a symbol? What I have done — my own soul process — I wish to hold fast to; I let the picture itself, however, disappear from my consciousness. Then I wish to feel within me all that my soul has done in order to bring the image into existence, but I do not wish to hold the image itself; I wish to live quite inwardly within my own activity, which has created the image. Thus, I do not intend to meditate on an image, but to dwell in my own image-creating soul activity. Such meditation must be carried out in regard to many symbols. This then leads to cognition through inspiration. Another example would be the following. One meditates on the thought of a growing and decaying plant. One allows to arise in the soul the image of a slowly growing plant as it shoots up out of the seed, as it unfolds leaf on leaf, until it develops flower and fruit. Then again, one meditates on how it begins to fade until its complete dissolution. One acquires gradually by meditating on such an image a feeling of growth and decay for which the plant remains a mere symbol. From this feeling, if this exercise is continued with perseverance, there may arise the imagination of the transformation that underlies physical growth and decay. If one wishes, however, to attain the corresponding state of inspiration, one has to carry out the exercise differently. The student must recall his own soul activity that has gained the visualization of growth and decay from the image of the plant. He must now let the plant disappear completely from consciousness and only meditate upon what he has himself done inwardly. Only through such exercises is it possible to ascend to inspiration. In the beginning it will not be entirely easy for the student of the spirit to comprehend completely how he should go about such an exercise. The reason for this is that the human being who is accustomed to have his inner life determined by outer impressions immediately finds himself uncertain and wavering when he has to unfold a soul-life that has discarded all connection with outer impressions. In a still higher degree than in the acquiring of imagination the student must be clear, in regard to these exercises that lead to inspiration, that he ought only to carry them out when he accompanies them with all those precautionary measures that can lead to safeguarding and strengthening of his power of discrimination, his life of feeling, and his character. If he takes these precautions, then he will have a twofold result. In the first place, he will not, through these exercises, lose the equilibrium of his personality during supersensible perception; secondly, he will at the same time gain the faculty of being able actually to carry out what is required in these exercises. He will maintain in regard to them that they are difficult only so long as he has not yet acquired a quite definite soul condition, quite definite feelings and sensations. He will soon gain understanding and also ability for the exercises, if in patience and perseverance he fosters in his soul such inner faculties as favor the unfolding of supersensible knowledge. If he grows accustomed to withdrawing into himself frequently in such a way that he is less concerned with brooding on himself than with quietly arranging and working over his life-experiences, he will gain much. He will see that his thoughts and feelings are enriched if he brings one life-experience into relationship with another. He will become aware to what a high degree he experiences something new not only by having new impressions and new experiences, but also by permitting the old to work in him. If he sets to work in such a way that he lets his experiences, indeed, even his acquired opinions, play back and forth as though he were not at all involved in them with his sympathies and antipathies, with his personal interests and feelings, he will prepare an especially good soil for the forces of supersensible cognition. He will develop, in truth, what may be called a rich inner life. The question of chief importance here, however, is equanimity and equilibrium of the soul qualities. Man is only too easily inclined, if he surrenders himself to a certain soul activity, to fall into one-sidedness. For example, if he becomes aware of the advantage of inner meditation and of dwelling in his own thought world, he may develop such an inclination toward it that he begins to shut himself off from the impressions of the outer world. This, however, leads to the withering and devastation of the inner life. Those go the farthest who preserve, alongside the ability to withdraw inwardly, an open receptivity to all impressions of the outer world. One need not think here merely of the so-called important impressions of life, but every man in every situation — even in the poorest surroundings — may have sufficient experiences if he only keeps his mind sufficiently receptive. One need not seek the experiences; they are present everywhere. — Of special importance also is the way experiences are transformed in the human soul. For example, somebody may discover that a person revered by him or others has this or that quality that may be viewed as a fault of character. Such an experience may cause the human being to meditate in a twofold manner. He may simply say to himself, “Now, that I have recognized this fault, I can no longer revere this person in the same way as formerly.” Or he may pose the following question to himself, “How does it happen that this revered person is afflicted with this fault? Should I not consider that this fault is not merely a fault, but something due to the circumstances of this person's life, perhaps even to his great capacities?” A human being posing this question to himself will perhaps arrive at the result that his reverence is not in the least to be decreased by the discovery of such a fault. He will have learned something every time he goes through such an experience; he will have added something to his understanding of life. It would, however, certainly be disastrous to the human being were he to let himself be misled by the merit of such a view of life to excuse everything he possibly can in people and things for whom he has a preference, or even to form the habit of disregarding all faults because it brings him advantage for his inner development. This will not be the case if he has the subjective impulse not merely to censure faults but to understand them; it will occur when this attitude is demanded by the case in question, regardless of the gain or loss to him who judges. It is entirely correct that one cannot learn through condemning faults, but only through understanding them. If, however, because of understanding, one should entirely exclude disapproval, one would not get very far either. Here also it is not a question of one-sidedness in either direction, but of equanimity and equilibrium of the soul powers. — It is especially so with a soul quality that is of great significance for the development of the human being; this is what is called the feeling of reverence or devotion. Those who have developed this feeling in themselves or possess it from the outset through a fortunate gift of nature have an excellent basis for the forces of supersensible knowledge. The person who in childhood or youth has been able to look up with self-surrendering admiration to personalities as though to high ideals, possesses something at the foundation of his soul in which supersensible cognition thrives especially well. And whoever with mature judgment in later life looks upon the starry heavens and feels with wonder in complete surrender the revelation of exalted powers makes himself thus mature for knowledge of supersensible worlds. Something similar is the case with those who are able to admire the forces ruling in human life, and it is not of little importance if we, even as mature human beings, can have reverence to the highest degree for other men whose worth we divine or believe we know. Only where such reverence is present can the view into the higher world open up. The person who is unable to revere will in no way advance very far in his knowledge. Whoever does not wish to acknowledge anything in the world will find that the essential nature of things is closed to him. — The person, however, who permits himself to be misled, through an unrestrained feeling of reverence and surrender, to deaden in himself a healthy consciousness of self and self-confidence sins against the law of equanimity and equilibrium. The student will continually work on himself in order to make himself more and more mature; he is then justified in having confidence in his own personality and in having faith that its powers will continually increase. If he achieves correct feelings in this direction he may say to himself, “In me there lie hidden forces and I can draw them forth from my inner being. Therefore, when I see something that I must revere because it stands above me, I need not only revere it, but I may hope to develop myself to such a degree that I become similar to what I revere.”

The greater the capacity of a human being to direct his attention to certain processes of life with which his personal judgment is not, at the outset, familiar, the greater the possibility for him to lay the foundation for a development into the spiritual worlds. An example may make this clear. A man is in a certain situation in life where he may perform a certain deed or leave it undone. His judgment suggests to him: Do this! But there may be a certain inexplicable something in his feelings that holds him back from the deed. Now it may be that he does not pay any attention to this inexplicable something that seeks to restrain him, but simply performs the deed, according to his capacity to judge. Or he may surrender to the urge of this inexplicable something and leave the deed undone. If he then follows up the matter further it may become evident that evil would have been the result had he followed his judgment, but that by non-performance of the deed, a blessing has ensued. Such an experience may lead man's thoughts into a quite definite direction. He may say to himself, “Something lives in me that is a better guide than my present capacity of judgment. I must hold my mind open to this ,something in me that cannot at all be reached by the present degree of my capacity of judgment.” The soul is benefited to the highest degree when it directs its attention toward such occurrences in life. It then becomes aware, as though in a state of healthy premonition, that something exists in man that transcends his present ability to judge. Through such attention the human being directs his efforts toward an extension of soul-life, but here also it is possible that one-sidedness may result that is dangerous. Whoever were to form the habit of disregarding his judgment because his “premonitions” impel him to this or that, would become the plaything of all sorts of uncertain impulses, and from such a habit it is not a great distance to complete lack of judgment and superstition. — Any sort of superstition is fatal to the student of the spiritual. He acquires the possibility of penetrating in a true way into the regions of spiritual life only by guarding himself carefully against superstition, fantastic ideas, and day-dreaming. No one can enter the spirit world in the right way who is happy in experiencing something that “cannot be grasped by the human mind.” A preference for the “inexplicable” certainly makes no one a student of the spirit. He must completely abandon the notion that “a mystic is someone who presumes wherever it suits him something inexplicable and unfathomable in the world.” The student shows the proper feeling by acknowledging this existence of hidden forces and beings everywhere, but also by assuming that the uninvestigated may be investigated if the necessary powers are present.

There is a certain attitude of soul that is important for the student of the spirit at every stage of his development. This consists in not directing his desire for knowledge in a one-sided way by asking, “How may this or that question be answered?” but by asking, “How do I develop this or that ability in myself?” If then by inner patient work in himself this or that faculty is developed, the answer to certain questions is received. Students of the spirit will always foster this attitude of soul. Through this they are led to work on themselves, to make themselves more and more mature, and to renounce the desire to force answers to certain questions. They will wait until such answers come to them. — If, however, they become one-sided here also, they will not advance properly. The student may also have the feeling at a certain point of his development that he, with the degree of his ability, can himself answer the most sublime questions. Here also equanimity and equilibrium play an important role in the attitude of soul.

Many more soul faculties could be described, the fostering and development of which are beneficial when the student strives by means of exercises to attain inspiration. In all of them, we should have to emphasize that equanimity and equilibrium are the soul faculties upon which everything depends. They prepare the understanding and the ability to carry out the exercises outlined for the purpose of acquiring inspiration.

The exercises for the attainment of intuition demand that the student cause not only the images, to which he has surrendered himself in acquiring imagination, to disappear from his consciousness, but also the life within his own soul activity into which he has immersed himself for the acquirement of inspiration. He should then literally retain nothing in his soul of previously known outer or inner experiences. Were there to be, however, nothing left in his consciousness after this discarding of outer and inner experiences, that is to say, were his consciousness then entirely to disappear and he to sink down into unconsciousness, this would then make it clear to him that he had not yet made himself mature enough to undertake exercises for intuition; he would then have to continue the exercises for imagination and inspiration. A time will surely come when the consciousness is not empty after the soul has discarded all inner and outer experiences, but when, after this discarding, something remains in consciousness as an effect, to which we then may surrender in meditation just as we had previously surrendered to what owes its existence to outer or inner impressions. This something is of a quite special character. It is, in contrast to all preceding experiences, something entirely new. When one experiences it one knows, “This I have not known before. It is a perception just as the real tone, heard by the ear, is a perception, but this something can only enter my consciousness through intuition, just as the tone can only enter my consciousness through the ear.” Through intuition man's impressions are stripped of the last trace of the sensory-physical; the spiritual world now begins to open itself to cognition in a form that no longer has anything in common with the qualities of the physical world of the senses.

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(Part 7)

Imaginative consciousness is attained through the development of the lotus flowers in the astral body. Through the exercises that are undertaken for acquiring inspiration and intuition, certain definite motions, forms, and currents appear in the human ether or life body that were not present previously. They are in fact the organs through which man adds to the scope of his faculties the “reading of the occult script,” and what lies beyond it. The changes in the ether body of a human being who has attained inspiration and intuition present themselves to supersensible cognition in the following manner. Somewhere in the neighborhood of the physical heart a new center becomes conscious in the ether body, which develops into an etheric organ. From this organ, movements and currents flow to the various members of the human body in the most manifold way. The most important of these currents flow to the lotus flowers, permeating them and their various petals, then proceeding outward, pouring themselves like radiations into external space. The more the human being is developed, the greater the sphere around him within which these radiations are perceptible. The center in the region of the heart does not, however, develop immediately at the start of correct training. It is first prepared. There appears, to begin with, a temporary center in the head; this then moves down into the neighborhood of the larynx and finally settles in the region of the physical heart. Were its development irregular, then the organ of which we have been speaking might immediately be formed in the neighborhood of the heart. In that case there would be danger that the student, instead of attaining quiet and factual supersensible perception, would become a visionary and fantast. As he develops further, the student acquires the ability to free the currents and structures of his ether body from his physical body and to use them independently. In doing this, the lotus flowers serve him as organs through which he brings the ether body into motion. Before this occurs, however, special currents and radiations must have formed in the sphere of the ether body, enclosing it like a fine network and making it into a self-contained being. If that has happened, the movements and currents taking place in the ether body are able to come into unhindered contact with the outer world of soul and spirit and to unite with it, so that outer occurrences in the realm of soul and spirit and inner events in the human ether body flow into one another. If that happens, the moment has arrived when man perceives the world of inspiration consciously. This cognition occurs in a different way from cognition in the sensory-physical world. In the latter we gain perceptions through the senses and form from them mental images and concepts. This is not the case with the knowledge derived from inspiration. What one knows is immediately present in the act; there is no reflection after perception. What sensory-physical cognition gains only afterwards in concepts is, in inspiration, given simultaneously with perception. Man would therefore merge with the environment of soul and spirit and would not be able to distinguish himself from it had he not developed the above characterized network in the ether body.

If the exercises leading to intuition are carried out, their effect extends not only to the ether body, but right down into the supersensible forces of the physical body. One should not, however, think that in this way effects take place in the physical body that are accessible to everyday sensory observation. These are effects that only supersensory cognition can judge. They have nothing whatever to do with external cognition. They are the results of the maturity of consciousness, when the latter is able to have experiences in intuition, in spite of the fact that it has excluded all previously known outer and inner experiences. — The experiences of intuition are delicate, intimate, and subtle, and the human physical body is, at the present stage of its evolution, coarse in comparison. It offers therefore a strong hindrance to the success of intuition exercises. If these are continued with energy and persistence and with the requisite inner tranquility, the powerful hindrances of the physical body are finally overcome. The student notices this by the fact that gradually certain expressions of the physical body that formerly took place unconsciously now come under his control. He notices it also by the fact that for a short time he feels the need, for example, so to control the breath that it comes into a sort of concord or harmony with what the soul performs in the exercises or otherwise in inner meditation. The ideal of the development is that no exercises be made at all by means of the physical body itself, also no breathing exercises, but that everything that occurs in the physical body in this way should only come about as a consequence of pure intuition exercises.

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(Part 8)

If the student of the spirit ascends upon the path into the higher worlds of knowledge, he notices at a certain stage that the cohesion of the forces of his personality assumes a different form from the one in the physical-sensory world, where the ego effects a uniform co-operation of the soul forces, of thinking, feeling, and willing. These three soul forces stand always in a certain relationship to each other in the conditions of ordinary human life. One sees, for example, a certain object in the outer world. It pleases or displeases the soul. That is to say, of necessity the visualizing of a thing will be followed by a feeling of pleasure or displeasure. One may, perhaps, desire the object or have the impulse to alter it in one way or another. That is, the power of desire and will associate with visualizing and feeling. That this co-ordination takes place is caused by the ego uniting visualizing (thinking), feeling, and willing and in this way bringing order into the forces of the personality. This healthy order would be interrupted if the ego were to prove powerless in this regard; if, for example, desire should elect to go a different way from feeling or thinking. A human being would not be in a healthy soul condition who might think that this or that is right, but who might want something of which he is convinced that it is not right. The case would be similar if someone did not want what pleases him, but rather what displeases him. The human being now notices that on the path to higher knowledge thinking, feeling, and willing do indeed separate and each assumes a certain independence. For example, a certain thought has no longer an inward urge toward a certain feeling and willing. The matter is as follows. In thinking something may be perceived correctly, but in order to have any feeling or to come to a resolution of the will, we need again an independent impulse from ourselves. During supersensible perception thinking, feeling, and willing do not remain three forces that radiate from the common egocenter of the personality, but they become three independent entities, three personalities, as it were; one must now make one's own ego all the stronger, for it is not merely a matter of its bringing three forces into order, but of leading and directing three entities. This separation, however, must only exist during supersensible perception. Here again it becomes clear how important it is that the exercises for higher training be accompanied by those that give certainty and firmness to the power of judgment, and to the life of feeling and willing. For the person who does not bring these qualities with him into the higher world will soon see how the ego proves weak and unable to act as an orderly guide for thinking, feeling, and willing. If this weakness were present, the soul would be as though torn by three personalities in as many directions and its inner unity would cease. If, however, the development of the student proceeds in the right way the described transformation of forces signifies true progress; the ego remains master of the independent entities that now form its soul. — In the further course of this evolution the development continues. Thinking that has become independent stimulates the emergence of a special fourth soul-spirit being that may be described as a direct influx of currents into man, similar to thoughts. The entire cosmos then appears as a thought-structure confronting man as does the plant or animal world in the realm of the physical senses. Likewise, feeling and willing that have become independent stimulate two forces in the soul that act in it like independent beings. Still another seventh power and being appears that is similar to one's own ego itself.

This entire experience is connected with yet another. Before his entrance into the supersensible world, man knew thinking, feeling, and willing only as inner soul experiences. As soon as he enters the supersensible world he perceives objects that do not express the physical-sensory, but the psycho-spiritual. Behind the characteristics of the new world now perceived by him stand soul-spirit beings. These now stand before him as an outer world, just as in the physical realm stones, plants, and animals stood before his senses. The student of the spiritual can now perceive an important difference between the world of soul and spirit that reveals itself to him, and the world that he was accustomed to perceiving through his physical senses. A plant in the world of the senses remains just as it is, whatever the human soul may feel or think about it. With the images of the world of soul and spirit this is, at the outset, not the case. They alter according to what the human being feels or thinks. In this way he gives them form that depends upon his own nature. Let us imagine that a certain picture appears before man in the world of imagination. If, at first, he remains indifferent to it in his soul, it then shows itself in a certain form. At the moment, however, when pleasure or displeasure is felt in regard to the picture, it changes its form. The pictures therefore, in the first instance, express not only what they are, independent of man, but they reflect what man is himself. They are permeated through and through by his own nature. The latter spreads like a veil over the supersensible beings. Although real beings confront him, he does not see them, but instead, his own creation. Thus he may have something true before him and, nevertheless, see something false. Indeed, this is not only the case in regard to what man notices in himself as his own essential nature, but everything that is in him affects this world. He may have, for example, hidden inclinations that do not come into evidence in life because of his education and character; they affect the world of the soul and spirit, which takes on a peculiar coloring through the whole being of man, no matter whether he himself knows much about this being or not. — In order to be able to advance further from this stage of development it is necessary that man learn to distinguish between himself and the outer spiritual world. It is necessary that he learn to eliminate all the effects of himself upon his soul-spirit environment. This cannot be done otherwise than by acquiring a knowledge of what he himself carries into the new world. It is therefore important that he first possess true, thoroughly developed self-knowledge, in order to be able to have a clear perception of the surrounding world of soul and spirit. Now, certain facts of human development demand that such self-knowledge must take place quite naturally at the time of the entrance into the higher world. Man develops his ego, his self-consciousness in the everyday physical-sensory world. This ego now acts as a center of attraction for everything belonging to man. All his inclinations, sympathies, antipathies, passions, and opinions group themselves, as it were, around his ego, and this ego is also the point of attraction for what may be designated as the karma of man. If this ego were to be seen unconcealed it would show that certain forms of destiny must still be encountered by it in this and in subsequent incarnations, according to the way it has lived in the preceding incarnations and has made this or that its own. Invested with all this, the ego must appear as the first image before the human soul when the latter ascends into the world of soul and spirit. This Doppelganger (double or twin likeness) of man must, according to a law of the spiritual world, emerge prior to everything else as his first impression in that world. One may easily make the law underlying this fact understandable if one considers the following. In the life of the physical senses man only perceives himself in so far as he experiences himself inwardly in his thinking, feeling, and willing. This, however, is an inner perception; it does not present itself to the human being like stones, plants, and animals. Also, man learns to know himself only partially through inner perception. He has something in himself that prevents his having more profound self-knowledge. This is an impulse to transform immediately a trait of character if he, as a result of self-knowledge, must admit to it and does not wish to deceive himself about himself.

If he does not follow this impulse, if he simply turns his attention away from himself, remaining what he is, then he, naturally, also deprives himself of the possibility of self-knowledge in the point in question. If man, however, penetrates into himself and confronts himself without deception with this or that trait, then he will either be in the position to improve the trait, or he will be incapable of doing so under the present circumstances of his life. In the latter case a feeling will creep over his soul that must be described as a feeling of shame. This is indeed the reaction of healthy human nature: it feels through self-knowledge various kinds of shame. This feeling has even in ordinary life a quite definite effect. The normally thinking human being will take care that what fills him, through himself, with this feeling does not become evident outwardly in effects, does not manifest in outer deeds. Shame is thus a force that impels man to conceal something in his inner being and not allow it to become outwardly perceptible. If we give this due consideration, we shall find it comprehensible that spiritual research ascribes much farther reaching effects to an inner soul experience that is closely related to the feeling of shame. This research finds that there is, concealed in the depths of the soul, a sort of hidden shame of which the human being is not conscious in physical-sensory life. This concealed feeling, however, acts in a similar manner to the feeling of shame in everyday life; it prevents the innermost nature of the human being from appearing before him in a perceptible picture. If this feeling were not present, the human being would perceive before him what he is in truth; his thoughts, feelings, and will would not only be experienced inwardly, but would be perceived outwardly just as stones, animals, and plants are perceived. This feeling is thus the concealer of man from himself, and at the same time it is the concealer of the entire world of soul and spirit. Owing to the fact that his inner nature is concealed from him, he is also not able to perceive that by means of which he should develop inner organs in order to cognize the world of soul and spirit; he is unable so to transform his nature that it may unfold spiritual organs of perception. — If, however, through correct training man strives to acquire these organs of perception, what he himself is appears to him as first impression. He perceives his Doppelganger, his double. This self-perception is not at all to be separated from the perception of the rest of the world of soul and spirit. In everyday life of the physical-sensory world, the feeling characterized acts so as constantly to close the door of the world of soul and spirit to the human being. Even the mere attempt to penetrate into this world causes the feeling of shame — which arises immediately, but of which we do not become conscious — to conceal the part of the world of soul and spirit that strives to appear. The exercises characterized open the door to this world. It is a fact, however, that this concealed feeling acts like a great benefactor of man. For all that man acquires of power of judgment, feeling-life, and character without spiritual-scientific training does not enable him to bear without further preparation the perception of his own being in its true form. He would lose through this perception all self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-consciousness. That this may not happen, we must take the necessary precautions which we do undertake, alongside the exercises for higher knowledge, in the fostering of a healthy power of judgment, feeling-life, and character. Through this regular training man learns to know so much of spiritual science — as though without intention — and, moreover, so many means for the attainment of self-knowledge and self-observation become clear to him as are necessary in order to encounter his Doppelganger bravely. The student then only sees in another form, as a picture of the imaginative world, what he has already learned in the physical world. If he has first comprehended the law of karma properly in the physical world through his intellect, he will not be especially shaken when he now sees the beginnings of his destiny engraved in the image of his Doppelganger. If man has made himself acquainted through his power of judgment with the evolution of the cosmos and mankind and knows how, at a certain point of time of this evolution, the forces of Lucifer have penetrated into the human soul, he will bear it without difficulty when he becomes aware that the Luciferic beings with all their effects are contained within the image of his own nature. — We see from this how necessary it is that man does not demand entrance into the spiritual world before he has understood, through his ordinary power of judgment developed in the physical-sensory world, certain truths about the spiritual world. The knowledge given in this book prior to the discussion about “Cognition of the Higher Worlds” should have been acquired by the student of spiritual science by means of his ordinary power of thought in the regular course of development, before he has the desire himself to enter into supersensible worlds.

In a training in which no attention is paid to the certainty and firmness of the power of judgment, of the life of feeling and character, it may happen that the student encounters the higher world before he possesses the necessary inner faculties. In that case the encounter with his Doppelganger would depress him and lead to error. If, however, the encounter were entirely avoided — something that might indeed be possible — and man nevertheless were led into the supersensible world, he would then be just as little in the position to recognize that world in its true shape. For it would be quite impossible for him to distinguish between what he carries over as projections of himself into things and what they are in reality. This distinction is only possible if one perceives one's own being as an image in itself, and if, as a result of this distinction, everything that flows from one's own inner nature becomes detached from the environment. — For man's life in the physical-sensory world, the Doppelganger's effect is such that he becomes immediately invisible through the feeling of shame characterized when man approaches the world of soul and spirit. As a result of this, he conceals the entire latter world also. Like a “guardian” he stands there before that world, in order to deny entrance to those who are not truly capable of entering. He may therefore be called the “guardian of the threshold that lies before the world of soul and spirit.” — Besides the described encounter with the guardian at the entrance into the supersensible world, man also encounters him when passing through physical death, and in the course of life between death and a new birth the guardian discloses himself by degrees in the evolution of soul and spirit. There, however, the encounter cannot depress the human being, because he then has knowledge of worlds quite different from those he knows in the life between birth and death. If, without encountering the “guardian of the threshold,” man were to enter the world of soul and spirit, he might fall prey to deception after deception. For he would never be able to distinguish between what he himself has carried over into that world and what in reality belongs to it. A proper training must lead the student of spiritual science into the realm of truth only, not into the realm of illusion. This training will of itself be of such a nature that the encounter must of necessity take place sometime. For it is one of the precautionary measures, indispensable for the observation of supersensible worlds, against the possibility of falling prey to deception and the fantastic. — It belongs to the most indispensable measures that every student of spiritual science must take, to work carefully on himself in order not to become a fantast, a human being who might succumb to possible deception and self-delusion. Where the advice for spiritual training is correctly followed, the sources that may bring deception are at the same time destroyed. Naturally, we cannot speak at length here of all the numerous details that have to be considered in regard to such precautionary measures. The important points can only be indicated. Deceptions that have to be considered here are derived from two sources. They originate in part from the coloring of reality through one's own soul nature. In ordinary life of the physical-sensory world there is comparatively little danger from this source of deception; for here the outer world continually impresses its own form sharply upon our observation, no matter how the observer wants to color it according to his own wishes and interests. As soon, however, as man enters the imaginative world, its pictures are transformed through such wishes and interests, and he has before him, like a reality, what he himself has formed, or at least has helped in forming. This source of deception is removed by the student's having learned to recognize, through his encounter with the “guardian of the threshold,” his own inner nature, which he might thus carry into the world of soul and spirit. The preparation that the student of spiritual science undergoes before his entrance into the world of soul and spirit acts in such a way that he becomes accustomed to disregarding himself even when observing the physical-sensory world and to permitting the objects and processes to speak to him purely out of their own nature. If the student has thus prepared himself sufficiently, he can calmly await the encounter with the “guardian of the threshold.” This encounter will be the final test to determine whether he feels himself really in a position to disregard his own nature also when he confronts the world of soul and spirit.

Besides this source of delusion, there is still another. This comes into evidence when one misinterprets an impression made on one. A simple example of this sort of delusion in the physical sense-life is the delusion that arises when a man sits in a railway coach moving in a certain direction and believes the trees and other objects of perception are moving in the opposite direction, while actually it is he himself who is moving with the train. Although there are numerous cases where such delusions In the physical sense-world are more difficult to correct than the simple one quoted, still, it is easy to see that within this world one also finds the means of disposing of such delusions when, with sound judgment, one takes into consideration all that may possibly contribute to an adequate factual explanation. The matter is different, however, as soon as one penetrates into the realms of the supersensible. In the world of the senses facts are not altered as a result of human delusion; therefore it is possible, by means of unprejudiced observation, to rectify the delusion by means of the facts. In the supersensible world this is not immediately possible. If one wants to observe a supersensible process and approaches it with false judgment, one carries this judgment over into the process and it becomes so interwoven with the fact that it is impossible to distinguish the judgment from the fact. The error is then not within the human being and the correct fact outside him, but the error itself is made a component of the outer fact. It cannot, therefore, be rectified simply by an unbiased observation of the fact. We are here pointing to what may be a superabundant source of delusion and the fantastic for those who approach the supersensible world without proper preparation. — The student of the spiritual, besides acquiring the ability to exclude the delusions that arise through the coloring of supersensible world-phenomena with his own nature, must also acquire the ability to make the second indicated source of delusion ineffective. He can exclude what comes from himself if he has first recognized the image of his own Doppelganger. He will be able to exclude the second source of delusion if he acquires the ability to recognize, from the inner quality of a supersensible fact, whether it is reality or delusion. If the delusion were to appear exactly like the actual facts, then a distinction would not be possible. This, however, is not the case. Delusions of the supersensible world have qualities in themselves by which they are to be distinguished from realities, and it is important that the student of the spiritual know by which qualities he can recognize realities. Nothing is more self-evident than the fact that anyone ignorant of spiritual training may ask, “How is it at all possible to protect myself against delusion, when its sources are so numerous?” And he may continue to ask, “Is there any proof for the student of the spiritual against the fact that all his professed higher knowledge is not something based on mere delusion and autosuggestion?” Anyone who asks such questions does not realize that in true spiritual training, through the very manner of its occurrence, the sources of delusion are stopped up. In the first place, in preparing himself the true spiritual science student will acquire sufficient knowledge about what may cause delusion and autosuggestion, and thus be in a position to protect himself from them. He has, in this regard, more opportunity than any other human being to make himself prudent and capable in judgment on the path of life. Everything that he experiences causes him to disregard indefinite premonitions and suggestions. This training makes him as careful as possible.

Besides this, all correct training leads first to concepts about great cosmic events, and thus to things that make necessary the exertion of sound judgment, which becomes, at the same time, more refined and acute. Only someone who might refuse to go into such distant realms and preferred to abide with “revelations” of a world near at hand might lose the strengthening of that sound judgment that gives him certainty in distinguishing between delusion and reality. All of this, however, is not yet the most important. That lies in the exercises themselves that are used in a correct spiritual training. These must be so arranged that the student is always consciously aware of what takes place in the soul during inner meditation. In order to bring about imagination, a symbol is first formed. In this symbol are still contained mental images of outer perceptions. The human being is not alone responsible for the content of these mental images; he does not make it himself. Thus he may delude himself in regard to its origin; he may interpret its origin incorrectly. But the student of spiritual science removes this content from his consciousness when he advances to the exercises of inspiration. Here he contemplates his own soul activity only, which has formed the symbol. Here also error is still possible. Through education, learning, and through other means man has acquired the character of his soul activity. He cannot know everything about its origin. The student of spiritual science now removes even his own soul activity from his consciousness. If now anything remains in his consciousness, nothing is attached to it that cannot be surveyed. Nothing can intermingle with it that is not to be judged in regard to its whole content. In intuition, the student of spiritual science has thus a criterion enabling him to recognize how a clear reality of the world of soul and spirit is constituted. If he now applies the signs of soul and spirit-reality thus recognized to everything that comes under his observation, he is able to distinguish between illusion and reality. He may be certain that by employing this law he will remain protected from illusion in the supersensible world just as it cannot happen to him in the physical-sensory world to mistake an imaginary piece of hot iron for one that really burns. It is taken for granted that one only takes this attitude toward the knowledge one regards as one's own experiences in the supersensible worlds, and not toward what one receives as communications from other persons and that one comprehends with one's physical intellect and sound feeling for truth. The student of the spiritual will take pains to draw an exact line between what he has acquired in the one way and what he has acquired in the other. He will receive willingly, on the one hand, the communications about the higher worlds and seek to understand them by means of his capacity to judge. If on the other hand he states something as his own experience, his own observation, he will have tested whether this has confronted him with precisely the qualities he has learned to perceive by means of unerring intuition.

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(Part 9)

After the student of the spiritual has encountered the “guardian of the threshold,” further experiences await him as he ascends into supersensible worlds. First he will notice that an inner relationship exists between this “guardian of the threshold” and the soul-power that, in the above description, has resulted as the seventh, and has shaped itself into an independent principle. Indeed, this seventh principle is in a certain regard nothing else but the Doppelganger, the “guardian of the threshold” himself, and this principle sets the student of the spiritual a special task. He has to direct and lead with his newborn self what he is in his ordinary self and which appears to him in an image. A sort of battle against the Doppelganger will result. The latter will constantly strive for supremacy. To establish the right relationship to this Doppelganger and not permit him to do anything that is not under the influence of the newborn ego strengthens and fortifies man's powers. — In the higher world, self-knowledge is different, in a certain respect, from self-knowledge in the physical-sensory world. Whereas in the physical-sensory world self-knowledge appears only as an inner experience, the newborn self presents itself at once as an outer soul phenomenon. Man beholds his newborn self as another being standing before him, but he cannot perceive it completely. For whatever stage he may have reached upon the way into the supersensible worlds, there are always still higher stages. At these stages he will perceive ever more and more of his “higher self.” This “higher self” can thus only partially reveal itself to the student of the spiritual at any of these stages. The temptation is extremely great which overtakes the human being when he first becomes aware of some aspect of his “higher self,” to observe this “higher self,” so to speak, from the standpoint he has gained in the physical-sensory world. This temptation is even good and it must appear, if development is to proceed in the right way. We must observe what appears in the Doppelganger, the “guardian of the threshold,” and place it before the “higher self” in order to note the contrast between what we are and what we are to become. Through this observation the “guardian of the threshold” begins to take on quite a different form. He presents himself as an image of all the hindrances that the development of the higher self must encounter. The student will perceive what a load he must drag in the form of his ordinary self, and if he is not strong enough through his preparations to say, “I will not remain stationary here, but unceasingly strive to reach my higher self,” he will slacken his efforts and shrink back before what is in store for him. He has plunged into the world of soul and spirit, but now gives up his efforts. He becomes a prisoner of the form that, through the “guardian of the threshold,” now stands before the soul. What is important here is the fact that in this experience he does not have the feeling of being a prisoner. On the contrary, he believes he experiences something quite different. The form that the “guardian of the threshold” calls forth can be of such a nature that it causes the impression in the soul of the observer of having before him, in the pictures that appear at this evolutionary stage, the entire compass of all imaginable worlds, of having attained the pinnacle of knowledge, with no need of striving further. Instead of feeling to be a prisoner he may feel himself as the immeasurably rich possessor of all the world mysteries. The fact that one can have such an experience that depicts the very opposite of the actual facts will, however, not astonish a person who keeps in mind the fact that, when he experiences this, he stands already in the world of soul and spirit and that it is a peculiarity of this world that events may present themselves in reverse order. This fact was pointed out earlier in this book when life after death was discussed.

The figure that one perceives at this stage of development shows the student of the spiritual something in addition to what appeared to him in the first instance as the “guardian of the threshold.” In this Doppelganger all the peculiarities were perceived that the ordinary self of man has in consequence of the influence of the forces of Lucifer. Now, however, in the course of human evolution another power has entered the human soul through the influence of Lucifer. This is the power that was designated in an earlier section of this book as the power of Ahriman. It is the power that prevents the human being during physical sense-existence from perceiving the soul-spirit beings of the outer world lying behind the veil of the sensory. The form the human soul has assumed under the influence of this power is shown in a picture by the shape that emerges in the experience described. — The person who is adequately prepared for this experience will be able to interpret it correctly; very soon thereafter another form will appear that we may call the “greater guardian of the threshold” in contrast to the already described “lesser guardian.” This greater guardian tells the student of the spiritual that he must not remain stationary at this stage but must energetically work on. He calls forth in the observer the consciousness that the world that is conquered becomes truth, and is not transformed into illusion, only if the work is continued in an adequate manner. — If, because of incorrect spiritual training, a person were to enter upon this experience unprepared, then, in the encounter with the “greater guardian of the threshold,” something would pour into his soul that only can be compared to the “feeling of immeasurable horror,” of “boundless fear.”

Just as the student of the spiritual in his encounter with the “lesser guardian of the threshold” is afforded the possibility of testing whether or not he is protected against delusions arising from the intermingling of his own being with the supersensible world, so can he also test himself by the experiences that finally lead to the “greater guardian of the threshold” whether he is capable of mastering the delusions described above as coming from the second source. If he is able to withstand the gigantic illusion that has been conjured up before him — that the picture world he has gained is a rich possession, while in reality he is only a prisoner — if he is able to resist this delusion, he is then, during the progressing course of his development, guarded from mistaking illusion for reality.

The “guardian of the threshold” will assume, to a certain degree, an individual shape for each human being. The encounter with him corresponds indeed to the experience by which the personal character of the supersensible observations is overcome and through which the possibility is given of entering a region of experience that is free from personal coloring and applies to every human being.

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(Part 10)

If the student of the spiritual has had the above described experiences he is capable of distinguishing, within the surrounding world of soul and spirit, between himself and what lies outside him. He will then recognize that it is necessary to comprehend the cosmic process described in this book, in order to understand man and his life. Indeed, we understand the physical body only when we recognize how it has been fashioned during the Saturn, Sun, Moon, and Earth evolutions. We understand the ether body when we follow its formations through the Sun, Moon, and Earth evolutions. Moreover, we understand what at present is connected with the Earth evolution when we know how everything has unfolded itself step by step. Through spiritual training the student is placed in the position to recognize the relationship of everything that exists in the human being to corresponding facts and beings of the world outside him. For it is a fact that every member of the human organism stands in a relationship to the whole world surrounding it. In this book it has only been possible to indicate the facts in a sketchy outline. We must, however, consider that the human physical body, for example, was present during the Saturn evolution only in its rudimentary beginnings. Its organs — the heart, the lungs, the brain — developed later out of these beginnings during the Sun, Moon, and Earth evolutions. The heart, lungs, and the other organs are thus related to the Sun, Moon, and Earth evolutions. It is quite the same with the members of the ether and soul body, the sentient soul, and the other principles. Man is fashioned from the entire surrounding world, and every part of him corresponds to a process or being of the outer world. At the corresponding stage of his development the student becomes acquainted with this relationship between his own being and the great world. We may designate this stage of cognition as the becoming aware of the correspondence between the lesser world, the microcosm, which is the human being himself, and the greater world, the macrocosm. If the student has struggled through to such a stage of knowledge, a new experience may occur for him. He begins to feel as though he were intergrown with the entire cosmic structure, in spite of the fact that he feels himself in his complete independence. This feeling is a merging with the entire cosmos, a becoming one with it, but without losing one's own essential being. This stage of development may be designated as the “becoming one with the macrocosm.” It is significant that this becoming one, this union, is not to be thought of as though through it the individual consciousness were to cease and the human being were to flow out into the universe, merging with it. Such a thought would be merely the expression of an opinion springing from the untrained power of judgment. — The stages of higher knowledge, in the sense of the process of initiation that has been described in this book, may now be enumerated as follows:

I. Study of spiritual science, in which one employs one's power of judgment gained in the physical-sensory world.

II. Acquiring imaginative knowledge.

III. Reading the occult script-corresponding to inspiration.

IV. Living into the spiritual environment — corresponding to intuition.

V. Knowledge of the relationships between microcosm and macrocosm.

VI. Union with the macrocosm.

VII. Total experience of all previous experiences as a fundamental mood of the soul.

These stages need not be thought of as successive experiences. On the contrary, the training may proceed in such a way that, in accordance with the individuality of the student of the spiritual, he may have reached only a certain degree of perfection in a preceding stage when he begins exercises that correspond to a subsequent stage. It may well happen, for example, that the student has only gained a few imaginations with certainty, yet he already performs exercises leading to inspiration, intuition, or the cognition of the relationship between microcosm and macrocosm.

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If the student of the spiritual has experienced intuition, he not only knows the images of the psycho-spiritual world, he cannot merely read their connections in the “occult script,” but he attains to knowledge of the spiritual beings themselves through whose co-operation the world, to which the human being belongs, comes into existence. In this way he learns to know himself in the form he possesses as a spiritual being in the world of soul and spirit. He has struggled through to a perception of his higher ego, and he has become aware of how he has to continue his efforts in order to control his Doppelganger, the “guardian of the threshold.” He has, however, also encountered the “greater guardian of the threshold,” who stands before him as an ever present exhorter to further effort. This “greater guardian” becomes the ideal toward which he strives. If this feeling emerges in the student of the spiritual, he has then acquired the possibility of recognizing who it is that stands there before him as the “greater guardian of the threshold.” To the perception of the student of the spiritual this guardian now transforms himself into the form of the Christ, whose Being and participation in Earth evolution has been made clear in the previous chapters of this book. The student is now initiated into the exalted mystery that is linked with the name of the Christ. The Christ shows Himself to the student as the “great ideal of man on earth.” — If thus through intuition the Christ is recognized in the spiritual world, what occurred historically on earth in the fourth post-Atlantean evolutionary epoch — the Greco-Latin epoch — also becomes comprehensible. The way in which, at that time, the exalted Sun Being, the Christ, has intervened in the Earth evolution and how he continues to work within this evolution becomes the personally experienced knowledge of the student of the spiritual. It is thus a revelation of the meaning and significance of Earth evolution that the student receives through intuition. The way to knowledge of the supersensible worlds, which is described here, is one that every human being can follow, no matter what the situation in which he may find himself within the present-day conditions of life. When describing such a path we must consider that the goal of knowledge and truth is the same in all ages of Earth evolution, but that the starting points of man have been different in different ages. If the human being wishes to tread the path to the spiritual world he cannot at present begin at the same starting point as, for example, the would-be initiate of ancient Egypt. Therefore, the exercises that were imposed upon the student of the spiritual of ancient Egypt cannot be carried out by the modern man without modification. Since that time, human souls have passed through various incarnations, and this advance from incarnation to incarnation is not without meaning and significance. The faculties and qualities of souls alter from incarnation to incarnation. Whoever considers human historical life, be it only superficially, is able to notice that since the twelfth and thirteenth centuries A.D. all life-conditions have changed when compared with previous centuries; that opinions, feelings, and also abilities of human beings have become different from what they were previously. The path to higher knowledge described here is eminently fit for souls who incarnate in the immediate present. It is one that places the point of departure for spiritual development just where the human being now stands in any situation presented by modern life. — Progressive evolution leads mankind in regard to the path to higher knowledge from period to period to ever changing forms, just as outer life changes its forms, and at all times a perfect harmony must prevail between outer life and initiation.

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VI. THE PRESENT AND FUTURE OF COSMIC AND HUMAN EVOLUTION

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to know anything of the present and future of human and cosmic evolution in the sense of spiritual science without a knowledge of this evolution in the past. For what presents itself to the perception of the spiritual researcher when he observes the hidden facts of the past contains simultaneously all he can know of the present and future. This book has dealt with the evolution of Saturn, Sun, Moon, and Earth. It is impossible to understand the Earth evolution, in the sense of spiritual science, if one does not observe the facts of the preceding evolutionary cycles. For the facts of the Moon, Sun, and Saturn evolutions are contained in a certain sense within the conditions that confront the human being at present within the sphere of the earth. The beings and things that participated in the Moon evolution have evolved further. Everything that belongs to the present earth came out of them. For physical-sensory consciousness, however, not everything is perceptible that, having come from the Moon, has become the Earth. A part of what has evolved over from the Moon becomes evident only at a certain stage of supersensible consciousness. When this knowledge is attained, then we perceive that our earth is bound to a supersensible world, containing the part of the Moon existence that has not condensed to the condition of physical sense-perception. This supersensible world contains the uncondensed part of the Moon as it is at present, not as it was at the time of the ancient Moon evolution. Supersensible consciousness, however, is able to obtain a picture of the previous condition. If this supersensible consciousness concentrates upon the perception it can have at the present time, it becomes evident that, quite by itself, it gradually resolves itself into two pictures. One of these presents the shape the Earth had during its Moon evolution; the manner in which the other picture shows itself, however, reveals that it contains a form that is still in its germinal stage and that will only become real in the future in the sense that the earth is now real. Further observation shows that, in a certain sense, the effect of what happens upon the earth streams continually into this future form. In this form we have, therefore, before us what is to be our earth in the future. The effects of earth existence will unite with what happens in the characterized world and out of this will arise the new cosmic being into which the Earth will be transformed, just as the Moon has transformed itself into the Earth. We may call this future form the Jupiter evolution. If we observe this Jupiter stage with supersensible perception, we can see that in the future certain processes must take place, because in the supersensible part of the Earth that originated on the Moon certain beings and things are present that will assume certain forms when, within the earth of the physical senses, this or that will have taken place. In the Jupiter evolution something will, therefore, exist that has already been determined by the Moon evolution, and it will contain new factors that enter into the entire evolution only through terrestrial processes. Because of this, supersensible consciousness may learn something of what will happen during the Jupiter state. The beings and facts perceived within this field of consciousness do not possess the nature of sense images; they do not even appear as delicate, airy structures from which effects might proceed which remind us of sense-impressions. They give us pure spiritual impressions of tone, light, and warmth. The latter do not express themselves through any sort of material embodiment. They can be comprehended only through supersensible consciousness. We may, nevertheless, say that these beings possess a “body.” Yet this body shows itself within their soul nature, which reveals itself as their present being, like a sum of condensed memories which they bear within their soul. We are able to distinguish in their being between what they now experience, and what they have experienced and remember. The latter is contained within them like a bodily nature. They experience it just as the earth man experiences his body. At a stage of supersensible perception higher than the one just described as necessary for the cognition of Moon and Jupiter, supersensible beings and things become visible that are the further developed forms of what was already present during the Sun evolution, but which has attained at present such a high stage of evolution that it does not at all exist for a consciousness that has only attained to the perception of Moon forms. The picture of this world also resolves itself into two pictures during inner meditation. One of these leads to the cognition of the past Sun evolution, the other presents a future form of the Earth; that is to say, the form into which the Earth will have transformed itself when the effects of the Earth and Jupiter processes have streamed into the forms of that world. What we thus observe of this future world may be designated, in the sense of spiritual science, as the Venus evolution. In a similar manner there is, for a still more highly developed supersensible consciousness, a future stage of evolution that may be designated Vulcan evolution. It has a relationship to the Saturn evolution similar to the one the Venus evolution has to the Sun evolution, and the Jupiter evolution has to the Moon evolution. We may, therefore, if we consider the past, present and future of Earth evolution, speak of Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan evolutions. — Just as these all-encompassing relationships of the Earth evolution result for our consciousness, so also there result observations of a nearer future. Every picture of the past corresponds also to one of the future. Yet in speaking of such things something must be emphasized which, of necessity, must be given due consideration. If we wish to recognize such matters we must discard completely the opinion that philosophical reflection, trained merely by external reality, is able to discover anything about them. These things cannot and never should be investigated by such a mode of thinking. If a person were to believe, when he has received communications through spiritual science about the Moon evolution, that through such reflection he might discover how things will appear on Jupiter by combining the relationships of Earth and Moon, he will fall prey to enormous deceptions. Research into these relationships is only to be made when supersensible consciousness has lifted itself to higher observation. Only when what has thus been discovered is communicated can it be understood without supersensible consciousness.

Concerning the communications about the future, the researcher of the spiritual is in a position different from the position concerning those about the past. The human being cannot, at the outset, confront future events as impartially as he can confront the past. What will occur in the future stirs human feelings and will; the past is endured in quite a different manner. Whoever observes life knows how true this already is for ordinary existence. To what an enormous degree this increases, what forms it assumes in regard to the hidden facts of life only he can know who is cognizant of certain things of the supersensible worlds. This is the reason why the knowledge of these things is fixed within quite definite limits.

Just as the great cosmic evolution can be presented in the succession of its states from the Saturn to the Vulcan evolution, it is also possible to present smaller time-divisions; those of the Earth evolution, for example. Since that enormous catastrophe that brought the ancient Atlantean civilization to an end there have been successive stages within human evolution that in this book have been designated as the ancient Indian, the ancient Persian, the Egypto-Chaldean, and the Greco-Latin epochs of culture. The fifth period is the one in which mankind now stands, the present. This period gradually began during the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries A.D., after it had prepared itself since the fourth and fifth centuries. From the fifteenth century onward it emerged quite clearly. The preceding Greco-Latin culture began about the eighth century B.C. At the end of its first third, the Christ event occurred. The condition of the human soul and all the human faculties changed with the transition from the Egypto-Chaldean to the Greco-Latin cultural period. In the former there was not yet present what we now know as logical cogitation, as intellectual comprehension of the world. What the human being now acquires as knowledge through his intellect he received in the form that was fitting for that time: directly through an inner, in a certain respect, supersensible knowledge. He perceived objects, and while perceiving them their concept, their image, needed by the soul, arose in its inner being. With the power of cognition described, not only images of the physical sense world emerge, but from the depths of the soul there arises a certain knowledge of non-sensory facts and beings. This was the remnant of ancient dim clairvoyant consciousness, once the common possession of all mankind. During the Greco-Latin period there arose more and more human beings who lacked such faculties. Instead of these faculties, intellectual reflection upon objects began to appear. Human beings were by degrees removed from a direct, dreamlike perception of the world of soul and spirit and were ever more dependent upon a picture of that world, formed by their intellect and feeling. This state continued in a certain respect throughout the entire fourth post-Atlantean period. Only those individuals who had preserved the ancient soul condition like a heritage could still receive the spiritual world directly into their consciousness. These individuals, however, are stragglers of a more ancient epoch. The kind of knowledge they possessed no longer fitted the new age. For it is a consequence of the laws of evolution that an ancient soul faculty loses its full significance when new faculties appear. Human life then adapts itself to these new faculties, and it is no longer able to exercise the old faculties. There were, however, also individuals who in a quite conscious manner began to develop, besides the acquired powers of intellect and feeling, other higher faculties that again made it possible for them to penetrate into the world of soul and spirit. They had to begin to do this in a manner quite different from what was customary for the pupils of the ancient initiates. The latter did not yet have to consider the soul faculties first developed in the fourth cultural period. In that period the method of spiritual training began that has been described in this book as the present-day method. But it was at that time only in its infancy; it could be properly developed only in the fifth cultural period, actually since the twelfth and thirteenth — chiefly the fifteenth — centuries of our era. Human beings who in this way sought to ascend into the supersensible world were able to experience through their own imagination, inspiration, and intuition something of higher realms of existence. Those who remained satisfied with the developed faculties of intellect and feeling could learn only from tradition, what ancient clairvoyance knew, and which was transmitted from generation to generation by word of mouth, or in writing.

Something of the real nature of the Christ event could also be known only from tradition by those born after the event, if they had not attained a perception of the supersensible worlds. There were, however, certain initiates who still possessed the natural clairvoyant perception of the supersensible world and who through their development could elevate themselves to a higher world in spite of the fact that they paid no attention to the new powers of intellect and soul. Through such initiates a transition was created from the old method of initiation to the new. Such personalities existed also in subsequent periods. It was the chief characteristic of the fourth cultural epoch that the soul's exclusion from direct intercourse with the world of soul and spirit strengthened the human being in his powers of intellect and feeling. The souls who were incarnated at that time with highly developed powers of intellect and feeling carried over the result of this development into their incarnations in the fifth cultural period. As a compensation for this exclusion from intercourse with the world of soul and spirit the mighty traditions of primeval wisdom were then available to man — and especially those concerning the Christ event — traditions that by the very power of their content gave the souls a confident knowledge of the higher worlds. — But human beings always existed who developed the higher powers of knowledge in addition to the faculties of intellect and feeling. It was their task to experience the facts of the higher world and chiefly the mystery of the Christ event through direct supersensible cognition. From them there flowed into the souls of other men as much as was comprehensible and good for them. — In harmony with the meaning of Earth evolution, the first spreading of Christianity had of necessity to occur just at a time when the powers of supersensible cognition had not been developed in a large portion of mankind. It was because of this that the force of tradition was so powerful at that time. The strongest possible force was needed to lead men, who were themselves unable to behold this world, to a trust in the supersensible world. There were almost always — if we disregard a brief period of exception in the thirteenth century — individuals who were able to elevate themselves to higher worlds through imagination, inspiration, and intuition. These men are the post-Christian successors of the ancient initiates, of the leaders and members of the institutions of mystery wisdom. They had the task of recognizing, by means of their own faculties, what had been comprehensible through ancient mystery wisdom, to which they had to add the knowledge of the essential nature of the Christ event.

A knowledge thus arose among these new initiates that included everything that was the subject of ancient initiation, but in the center of this knowledge there radiated the higher wisdom of the mysteries of the Christ event. Only in a small degree could such knowledge flow into general life, while the human souls of the fourth period of culture had to consolidate the faculties of intellect and feeling. Thus it was at that time a very “hidden knowledge.” Then the dawn of the new age broke, which is to be designated as the fifth cultural period. Its nature consists in the advance of the evolution of the intellectual faculties, which have unfolded to an exuberant blossoming and will unfold still further in the present and into the future. This prepared itself slowly, beginning with the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, in order to accelerate its advance from the sixteenth century onward into the present time. Under these influences, the chief objective of the evolution of the fifth cultural epoch was the fostering of the powers of the intellect, whereas the confident knowledge of former ages, traditional knowledge, lost more and more of its power over the human soul. But in its place there developed what may be called an increasingly stronger influx into human souls of the knowledge gained through modern supersensible consciousness. The “hidden knowledge” flows, although quite unnoticed at the beginning, into the mode of thinking of the men of this period. It is only self-evident that, up to the present, intellectual forces reject this knowledge. But what must happen will happen, in spite of all temporary rejection. The “hidden knowledge,” which from this side takes hold of mankind now and will take hold of it more and more in the future, may be called symbolically “the wisdom of the Grail.” If this symbol, as it is given in legend and myth, is understood in its deeper meaning, we shall find that it is a significant image of the nature of what has been spoken of above as the knowledge of the new initiation, with the Christ mystery at its center. The modern initiates may, therefore, also be called “initiates of the Grail.” The way into the supersensible worlds, the first stages of which have been described in this book, leads to the “science of the Grail.” This knowledge has the peculiarity that research into its facts can be made only if one has acquired the necessary means that have been described in this book. If, however, such research has been made, these facts can then be understood through the soul forces developed in the fifth cultural period. Indeed, it will become more and more evident that these forces, in an ever higher degree, will find satisfaction through this knowledge. We move now in an age in which this knowledge ought to be received more abundantly into general consciousness than was previously the case, and it is from this point of view that this book desires to impart its information. To the degree to which the development of mankind will absorb the knowledge of the Grail, the impulse given through the Christ event can become ever more significant. To the external aspect of Christian development the inner aspect will be joined more and more. What may be known through imagination, inspiration, and intuition about the higher worlds in connection with the Christ mystery will increasingly permeate the thought, feeling, and will-life of humanity. The “concealed knowledge of the Grail” will be revealed; as an inner force it will permeate more and more the manifestations of human life.

Throughout the fifth cultural period the knowledge of supersensible worlds will flow into human consciousness, and when the sixth period begins, mankind will have been able to re-attain at a higher stage what it has possessed of non-sensory perception at an earlier period in a still dim way. The new possession will, however, have a form quite different from the old. What the soul knew in ancient times of higher worlds was not permeated by its own power of intellect and feeling; that knowledge came as an inspiration. In the future the soul will not merely have inspirations, but it will comprehend them and feel them as being of its own being. If knowledge about this or that being or thing dawns upon the soul, the intellect will then find it justified through its own nature; if a knowledge of a different kind asserts itself — knowledge of a moral law, or a human relationship — the soul will then say to itself: My feeling can only justify itself when I act in accordance with this knowledge. Such a soul state is to be developed by a sufficiently large number of human beings of the sixth cultural period. — What the third, the Egypto-Chaldean cultural period, has bestowed upon human evolution repeats itself, in a certain way, in the fifth period. In the third period the soul still perceived certain facts of the supersensible world, but the perception of this world was disappearing. The intellectual powers were preparing themselves for their evolution, and they were, for the time being, to exclude the human being from the higher world. In the fifth cultural period the supersensible facts, which in the third period were perceived by a hazy clairvoyance, again become manifest. Now they are permeated with the forces of human intellect and personal feeling. They become permeated also with what can be imparted to the soul through the knowledge of the Christ mystery. Hence they assume quite a different form from the one possessed previously. Whereas the impressions received from the supersensible worlds were felt in ancient times as forces giving impulses to the human being from an external spiritual world in which he did not dwell, these impressions will be felt, through the development of the modern age, as proceeding from a world into which the human being grows and in which he participates progressively more and more. No one should believe that the Egypto-Chaldean culture will repeat itself in such a way that the soul will simply receive what existed at that time and has been handed down by tradition. The Christ impulse, rightly understood, works in such a way that the human soul who has received it feels, recognizes, and conducts itself as a member of a spiritual world, outside of which it had previously dwelt. — Whereas in this way the third epoch reappears in the fifth, in order to permeate human souls with what the fourth epoch has brought as something completely new, something similar will be the case with the sixth epoch in regard to the second and the seventh in regard to the first, the ancient Indian epoch. All the marvels of wisdom of ancient India that the great teachers of that time could proclaim will be able to reappear as truth of life of human souls in the seventh cultural epoch.

The transformations in the things of the earth existing outside the human being occur with a certain relationship to humanity's own evolution. After the seventh cultural period has run its course, the earth will be visited by a catastrophe that may be likened to what occurred between the Atlantean and post-Atlantean ages, and the transformed earth conditions after this catastrophe will again evolve in seven time periods. Human souls who will then be incarnated will experience, at a higher stage, the union with the higher world experienced by the Atlanteans at a lower stage. Only those human beings, however, in whom are incarnated souls that have developed in a manner possible through the influences of the Greco-Latin epoch and the subsequent fifth, sixth, and seventh cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean evolution will be able to cope with the newly formed earth conditions. The inner being of such souls will correspond to what the earth has then become. Other souls will then have to remain behind, whereas previously they would have had the choice of creating the conditions for advancement. Souls who will have created the possibility for themselves, in the transition from the fifth to the sixth post-Atlantean period, of penetrating supersensible knowledge with the forces of intellect and feeling, will have the maturity for the corresponding conditions following the next great catastrophe. The fifth and sixth periods are, so to speak, decisive. In the seventh, the souls who will have reached the goal of the sixth will develop correspondingly further; the other souls, however, will, under the changed conditions of the environment, find but little opportunity of retrieving what they have neglected. Only at some future time will conditions appear again that will permit this. — Evolution thus advances from age to age. Supersensible cognition not only observes such future changes in which the earth alone takes part, but it is also aware of changes that occur in co-operation with the heavenly bodies in its environment. A time will come when the evolution of the earth and mankind will have advanced so far that the spiritual powers and beings that had to sever themselves from the earth during the Lemurian age, in order to make possible the continued progress of the earth's beings, will be able to unite themselves again with the earth. The moon will then reunite with the earth. This will occur because at that time a sufficiently large number of human souls will possess so much inner strength that they will use these moon forces for the benefit of further evolution. This will occur at a time when, alongside the high level of development that will have been reached by a certain number of human souls, another development will occur that has taken the direction toward evil. The laggard souls will have accumulated in their karma so much error, ugliness, and evil that they will form, for the time being, a special union of evil and aberrant human beings who violently oppose the community of good men.

The good humanity will through its development acquire the use of the moon forces and thereby so transform the evil part also that, as a special realm of the earth, it may participate in further evolution. Through this work of the good humanity, the earth, united with the moon, will be able, after a certain period of evolution, to reunite also with the sun and with the other planets. Then, after an intermediate stage, which presents itself as a sojourn in a higher world, the Earth will transform itself into Jupiter. Within this state, what is now called the mineral kingdom will no longer exist; the forces of this mineral kingdom will be transformed into plant forces. The plant kingdom, which in contrast to the present plant kingdom will have an entirely new form, appears during the Jupiter state as the lowest kingdom. To this a higher kingdom is added, the transformed animal kingdom; above it there is a human kingdom, which proves to be the progeny of the evil community that arose on the earth; above all these are to be found the descendants of the good community of earth men, a human kingdom of a higher order. A great part of the activity of this latter human kingdom consists in the work of ennobling the fallen souls of the evil community, so that they may still be able to find their way back into the actual human kingdom. The Venus evolution will be one in which the plant kingdom also will have disappeared; the lowest kingdom at that time will be the retransformed animal kingdom; this will be joined on an ascending scale by three human kingdoms of different degrees of perfection. During the Venus state the earth remains united with the sun; during the Jupiter state, however, evolution proceeds in such a way that at a certain point of time the sun departs once more from Jupiter and the latter receives its effects from the outside. After a time, the union of sun and Jupiter [ Jupiter minus the sun in contradistinction to Jupiter with the sun. (Tr.)] again occurs and the transformation gradually proceeds over into the Venus state. During that state a special cosmic body splits off that contains all the beings who have resisted evolution, a so to speak “irredeemable moon,” which now moves toward an evolution, for the character of which no expression can be found because it is too dissimilar to anything that man can experience on earth. The evolved mankind, however, advances in a completely spiritualized existence to the Vulcan evolution, the description of which does not lie within the scope of this book.

We see that the highest imaginable ideal of human evolution results from the “knowledge of the Grail”: the spiritualization that man acquires through his own efforts. For this spiritualization appears finally as a result of the harmony that he produces in the fifth and sixth cultural periods of present evolution between the acquired powers of intellect and feeling and the knowledge of the supersensible worlds. What he there produces in the inmost depths of his soul is finally itself to become the outer world. The human spirit elevates itself to the tremendous impressions of its outer world and first divines and afterwards recognizes spiritual beings behind these impressions; man's heart feels the boundless sublimity of the spiritual. The human being can also recognize that his inner experiences of intellect, feeling, and character are the indications of a nascent world of the spirit.

Whoever believes that human freedom is not compatible with foreknowledge and predestination of the future condition of things, should consider that free human action in the future depends just as little upon the character the predestined things will have as this freedom depends upon his resolve to live in a house a year hence, the plan of which he determines today. He will be as free as it is possible for him to be according to his inner nature, precisely in the house he has built for himself; and he will be as free upon Jupiter and Venus as his inner life permits just within the conditions that will arise there. Freedom will not depend upon what has been predestined by antecedent conditions, but upon what the soul has made of itself.

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Within the Earth evolution is contained what has evolved during the preceding Saturn, Sun, and Moon evolutions. The earth man finds “wisdom” in the processes that take place in his environment. This wisdom is present as the result of what had happened previously. The Earth is the descendant of the ancient Moon which, with all that belonged to it, formed itself into the “cosmos of wisdom.” The Earth is the beginning of an evolution through which a new force is added to this wisdom. It brings the human being to the point where he feels himself an independent member of the spirit world. This rests on the fact that his ego is fashioned by the Spirits of Form during the Earth evolution, just as upon Saturn the Spirits of Will formed his physical body, upon the Sun the Spirits of Wisdom his life-body, and upon the Moon the Spirits of Motion his astral body. The manifestation of wisdom appears through the co-operation of the Spirits of Will, Wisdom, and Motion. The Earth beings and Earth processes can harmonize in wisdom with the other beings of their world through the work of these three classes of spirits. From the Spirits of Form the human being receives his independent ego. In the future this ego will harmonize with the beings of Earth, Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan through the power that is added to wisdom by the Earth evolution. This is the power of love. In earth humanity this power of love must take its beginning, and the “cosmos of wisdom” unfolds itself into a “cosmos of love.” Everything that the ego is able to unfold within itself is to become love. The exalted Sun Being Whom we are able to characterize in the description of the Christ evolution manifests Himself as the all-encompassing “archetype of love.” Thus the seed of love is planted into the innermost core of human nature. And from there it is to flow into the whole of evolution. Just as the previously formed wisdom reveals itself in the forces of the sensory external world of the earth, in the present-day “nature forces,” so in the future love will reveal itself in all phenomena as a new nature force. It is the mystery of all evolution into the future that knowledge and all that the human being does through a true understanding of evolution is a sowing of seed that must ripen as love, and the greater the force of love coming into being, the greater will be the accomplishments of creative force in the future. In what will be created from love will lie the strong forces leading to the above described culminating result of spiritualization. The greater the amount of spiritual cognition that flows into human and earth evolution, the greater will be the number of fertile seeds for the future. Spiritual knowledge is transmuted by its very nature into love. The entire process that has been described, beginning with the Greco-Latin cultural epoch and extending through our present epoch, shows how this transformation is to take place, and also shows that the beginning of development into the future has been made. What has been prepared during the Saturn, Sun, and Moon evolutions as wisdom acts in the physical, ether, and astral body of man; there it shows itself as “cosmic wisdom”; in the “ego,” however, it becomes “inner wisdom.” From the Earth stage onward, “wisdom of the external world” becomes inner wisdom of man. Intensified in the inner life, it becomes the seed of love. Wisdom is the pre-condition of love; love is the result of wisdom reborn in the ego.

Whoever could be misled by the preceding expositions into believing that the described evolution bears a fatalistic stamp, would have misunderstood them. Whoever were to believe that in such an evolution a certain number of men would be condemned to belong to the kingdom of “evil humanity,” fails to perceive how the mutual relationship between outer world and the world of soul and spirit takes shape in this evolution. Both outer world and the world of soul and spirit form, within certain limits, separate evolutionary streams. Through the forces inherent in the sensory stream there arise the forms of the “evil human kingdom.” The necessity for a human soul to incarnate in such a form will only occur if this soul itself has created the conditions for it. The case might also arise that the forms originating from the forces of the sensory could not find human souls originating in the previous age, for these souls might be too good for that type of body. These forms would then have to be ensouled from the cosmos by something quite different from former human souls. Human souls will incarnate in the forms characterized only when they have made themselves ready for such an incarnation. Supersensible cognition is bound to state what it perceives concerning this sphere, namely, that in the future indicated there will exist two human kingdoms, one good and one evil, but it does not abstractly deduce from the present state of human souls a future state appearing as though with the force of self-evident necessity. Evolution of human forms and evolution of soul-destinies must be sought by supersensible cognition on two quite separate paths; any attempt to mix the two in the conception of the world would be a remnant of a materialistic attitude that, if present, would project itself dangerously into the science of the supersensible.

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VII. DETAILS FROM THE REALM OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE

THE ETHER BODY OF MAN

IF HIGHER members of man are observed by means of supersensible perception, this perception is never completely similar to perception with the outer senses. If the human being touches an object and has a perception of heat, he must distinguish between what comes from the object, what streams out of it, as it were, and what he himself experiences in his soul. The inner soul experience of the sensation of heat is something quite different from the heat streaming from the object. Let us now imagine this soul experience alone, without the outer object. Let us imagine the experience of a sensation of heat in the soul without an outer physical cause. If such an experience were simply present without a cause, it would be imaginary. The student of the spiritual experiences such inner perceptions without physical cause, and above all, without their being caused by his own body. These perceptions appear at a certain stage of development, however, in such a way that he is able to know (as has been shown, through the experience itself) that the inner perception is not imaginary, but that it is caused by a being of the world of soul and spirit in a supersensory outer world just as the usual sensation of heat, for example, is caused by an outer physical-sensory object. This is also the case when one speaks of a color perception. There a distinction must be made between the color of the outer object and the inner sensation of color in the soul. Let us visualize the inner sensation of the soul when it perceives a red object of the outer physical-sensory world. Let us imagine that we retain a vivid memory of the impression, but we turn the eye away from the object. Let us now visualize as an inner experience what we then retain as memory picture of the color. We shall then distinguish between the inner experience of the color, and the outer color. These inner experiences are certainly different in content from the outer sense-impressions. They bear much more the character of what is felt as pain and joy than the normal outer sensation. Now think that such an inner experience arises in the soul without an outer physical-sensory object or the memory of such an object as the cause. A person able to have supersensible perceptions may have such an experience. He is also able to know, in the case in question, that it is not imaginary, but the expression of a being of the world of soul and spirit. If this being now calls forth an impression similar to the one made by a red object of the physical-sensory world, it may then be designated red. In the case of a physical-sensory object, the outer impression will always be there first; then comes the inner color experience. In the case of true supersensible perception by the human being of our time, the process must be reversed: first the inner experience, shadowlike, like a mere color memory, and then a picture that becomes ever more vivid. The less attention one pays to the fact that the process must occur in this manner, the less one will be able to distinguish between real spiritual perception and imaginary deception, hallucination, and so forth. Whether the vividness of the picture, in the case of such a perception of the world of soul and spirit, remains entirely shadowlike, like a dim visualization, or whether it produces an intensive effect, like an outer object, will depend entirely upon the development of the student of the spiritual. — It is possible to describe the general impression that the clairvoyant has of the human ether body thus: If the person who has supersensible perception has developed such a power of will that, in spite of the presence of a physical man before him, he is capable of diverting his attention from what the physical eye beholds, then he is able by means of supersensible consciousness to look into the space occupied by the physical human being. Of course, a strong increase of will is necessary in order not only to turn the attention away from something one thinks but from something that stands before one, so that the physical impression becomes entirely extinguished. But this increase of will is possible, and it appears as a result of the exercises for the attainment of supersensible cognition. The one who is thus able to cognize may then have, in the first instance, a general impression of the ether body. In his soul the same inner sensation emerges that he has by looking at the color of the peach blossom; this then increases in intensity and enables him to say that the ether body has the color of the peach blossom. Then he perceives also the individual organs and currents of the ether body. We may, however, describe the ether body further by indicating the experiences of the soul that correspond to the sensations of heat, to the impressions of tone, and so forth. For it is not merely a phenomenon of color. In the same sense the astral body and the other members of man's being may be described. Whoever considers this will understand how descriptions are to be taken that are made in the sense of spiritual science. (See Chapter II in this book.)

THE ASTRAL WORLD

As long as we observe only the physical world, the earth as a dwelling place of man appears like a separate cosmic body. If, however, supersensible cognition rises to different worlds, this separation ceases. It was, therefore, possible to say that imagination perceives, together with the earth, the Moon condition developed right into the present. Not only does the supersensible realm of the earth belong to the world we enter in this way, but embedded in it are still other cosmic bodies, physically separated from the earth. The knower of supersensible worlds does then not merely observe the supersensible nature of the earth, but, at the outset, also the supersensible nature of other cosmic bodies. (That it is primarily a question of observing the supersensible nature of other cosmic bodies should be considered by those who are impelled to ask the question: Why do the clairvoyants not tell us about the conditions on Mars? Such a questioner has the physical-sensory conditions in mind.) In the presentation of this book it was, therefore, possible also to speak of certain relationships of the earth evolution with the simultaneously occurring Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars evolutions, and so forth. — When the human astral body yields to sleep, it does not then belong to the earth conditions only, but to worlds in which still other cosmic realms, stellar worlds, astral worlds, partake. Indeed, these worlds are also active in the astral body of man during the waking state. Therefore, the name “astral body” seems to be justified.

THE LIFE OF MAN AFTER DEATH

In the exposition of this book we have spoken of the time during which, after the death of the human being, the astral body still remains united with the ether body. During this time a gradually fading memory of the whole life just passed is present. (See Chapter III.) The length of this period varies with different human beings. It depends upon the degree of power with which the astral body of the individual human being holds fast to the ether body, upon the degree of force the former exercises upon the latter. Supersensible cognition may have an impression of this power when it observes a human being who, because of his state of body and soul, ought to be asleep, but who remains awake by means of inner strength. It now becomes evident that different people are able to remain awake for greatly varying lengths of time without being overpowered by sleep. For the most extreme length of time that a human being is able to remain awake does the memory of the life just passed through continue after death, that is to say, does the connection of the astral with the ether body last.

* * * * *

When the ether body is released from man after death, a portion of it still remains for the rest of man's future evolution. This may be described as an extract or an essence of this body. This extract contains the fruits of the past life, and it is the bearer of everything that, during man's spiritual development between death and a new birth, unfolds as a germinal beginning of the subsequent life. (Compare Chapter 3.)

* * * * *

The length of time between death and a new birth is determined by the fact that, as a rule, the ego returns to the physical-sensory world only after the latter has been changed sufficiently to make it possible for the ego to experience something new. While the ego remains in the spiritual realms, the earthly dwelling place undergoes a change. This change is connected in a certain respect with the great changes in the cosmos, with the changed position of earth and sun, and so forth. These are changes, however, in which certain repetitions take place in connection with new conditions. They express themselves outwardly, for instance, through the fact that the point of the celestial sphere at which the sun rises in the beginning of spring makes a complete circle in the course of 26,000 years. This vernal equinox thus resolves, in the course of that period, from one celestial region to another. In the course of one twelfth of this period, in about 2,100 years, the conditions on the earth have altered so much that the human soul can experience something new after a preceding incarnation. Since the experiences of a human being are different according to his incarnation as a woman or as a man, there occur as a rule two incarnations within the characterized period of 2,100 years, one as a man and one as a woman. These things, however, depend also upon the nature of the forces man takes with him from earth existence through the door of death. It should, therefore, be understood that all indications given here are valid in the essentials; in individual cases, however, they show themselves varied in the most manifold way. How long the human being remains in the spiritual world between death and a new birth depends in one way only upon the described conditions in the cosmos. In another regard this depends on the states of development through which man passes during that time. These states lead the ego, after a certain lapse of time, to a spiritual condition that finds no further satisfaction in its inner spiritual experiences, and which develops the longing toward the change of consciousness that finds satisfaction in the reflection through physical experience. Through the co-operation of this inner thirst for incarnation and the possibility offered by the cosmos of finding the corresponding bodily organism the entrance of the human being into earth-life occurs. Since there must be a twofold cooperation, incarnation occurs, in one instance, — although the “thirst for incarnation” has not yet attained its full intensity — because an approximately fitting embodiment can be realized; it occurs, in another instance, — although the thirst for incarnation has overstepped its normal intensity — because at the corresponding time there was no possibility yet of embodiment. The general mood of life in which a human being finds himself because of the constitution of his bodily nature is connected with these conditions.

THE COURSE OF HUMAN LIFE

The life of the human being as it expresses itself in the succession of conditions between birth and death can only be grasped completely by taking into account not only the sensory-physical body, but also those changes that occur in the supersensory principles of human nature. — We may regard these changes in the following manner. Physical birth represents the breaking loose of the human being from the physical maternal sheath. Forces, which the embryonic human being had in common with the maternal body before birth, are present in him after birth only as independent forces. Later in life, however, supersensible events occur for supersensible perception, resembling the sensory events occurring at physical birth. Up to the time of his change of teeth (at the sixth or seventh year), the human being, in regard to his ether body, is surrounded by an etheric sheath. This falls away at this period of life. A “birth” of the ether body takes place. The human being, however, still continues to be enclosed by an astral sheath; this falls away between the twelfth and sixteenth years, (at the time of puberty). The “birth” of the astral body then takes place. And still later the actual ego is born. (The fruitful points of view for education, which result from these supersensible facts, are to be found in my brochure, The Education of the Child from the Standpoint of Spiritual Science. In this booklet also may be found a further exposition of what here can only be indicated.) Man, after the birth of the ego, lives so as to fit himself into the conditions of the world and life and is active within them according to the principles working through the ego: sentient soul, intellectual soul, and consciousness soul. Then a time arrives when the ether body retraces the processes of his development from the seventh year onward. Whereas the astral body has previously developed in such a way that it has first unfolded in itself what was already present in him as a possibility at birth, and then, after the birth of the ego, has enriched itself through the experiences of the outer world, it begins from a certain point of time to nourish itself spiritually by its own ether body. It feeds on the ether body. In the further course of life the ether body also begins to feed on the physical body. With this is connected the decline of the physical body in old age. — As a result the course of human life falls into three periods: one in which the physical and ether bodies unfold; another in which the astral body and the ego are developed; finally the third period in which the ether and physical bodies reverse their development. The astral body, however, participates in all processes between birth and death. Through the fact of its being actually born spiritually only between the twelfth and sixteenth years and of its being compelled, during the last period of life, to feed on the forces of the ether and physical bodies, what it is able to do through its own forces develops more slowly than it would were it not in a physical and ether body. After death, when the physical and ether bodies have fallen away, the development during the period of purification (compare Chapter 3), therefore, takes place in such a way that it lasts about one third of the duration of life between birth and death.

THE HIGHER REGIONS OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLD

By means of imagination, inspiration, and intuition supersensible cognition gradually reaches the regions of the spiritual world in which there are accessible to it the beings that participate in the evolution of the cosmos and man. Through this fact it is also possible for this cognition to follow up human evolution between death and a new birth so that this becomes comprehensible. There are, however, still higher regions of existence that can only be briefly alluded to here. If supersensible cognition has raised itself up to the stage of intuition, it then lives in a world of spiritual beings. These beings also undergo development. The concerns of modern mankind extend, so to speak, into the world of intuition. To be sure, the human being also receives influences from still higher worlds in the course of his development between death and a new birth, but he does not experience these influences directly; the beings of the spiritual world convey them to him, and if these are taken into consideration, we then have everything that happens to man. The affairs of these beings, however, what they need for themselves in order to lead human development, can be observed only through cognition that reaches beyond intuition. In this we have a hint concerning higher spiritual worlds that are to be thought of as being of such a character that spiritual matters, which on earth are the most exalted, belong there to those on a lower level. For example, within the earth region, reasoned conclusions are among the highest achievements, while the effects of the mineral kingdom are among the lowest. In those higher regions, reasoned conclusions approximate what are on earth mineral effects. Beyond the region of intuition lies the realm in which, out of spiritual causes, the cosmic plan is spun.

THE MEMBERS OF MAN'S BEING

When it has been said (compare beginning of Chapter IV) that the ego works on the members of man's being — on the physical, ether, and astral bodies — and fashions these, in reverse order, into spirit self, life spirit, and spirit man, this refers to the work of the ego on the being of man by means of the highest faculties, which began their development only in the course of the earth periods. This transformation, however, is preceded by another on a lower stage, and through this the sentient soul, intellectual soul, and consciousness soul are developed. For, while during the course of human evolution the sentient soul is formed, transformations in the astral body take place; the formation of the intellectual soul expresses itself in transformations in the ether body, the formation of the consciousness soul in transformations in the physical body. In the course of the description of the Earth evolution given in this book, the details of these processes were indicated. We may thus say, in a certain sense, that the sentient soul is already based upon a transformed astral body, the intellectual soul upon a transformed ether body, and the consciousness soul upon a transformed physical body. We may, however, also say that these three soul principles are parts of the astral body, for the consciousness soul, for example, is only possible through its being an astral entity in a physical body adapted to it. It lives an astral life in a physical body that has been fashioned into its dwelling place.

THE DREAM STATE

The dream state has been characterized, in a certain respect, in the earlier chapter, Sleep and Death. It is to be conceived of, on the one hand, as being a remnant of the ancient picture consciousness that man possessed during the Moon evolution and also during a large part of Earth evolution. For evolution advances in such a fashion that the earlier states play over into the later. Thus, a remnant now appears in the human being during the dream state of what was previously a normal state. On the other hand, however, this state is different from ancient picture consciousness, for the ego, since its development, plays also into the processes of the astral body taking place in sleep while man is dreaming. Thus, in dreams we have a picture consciousness transformed through the presence of the ego. Since the ego, however, does not consciously carry on its activity upon the astral body during the state of dreaming, nothing that belongs to the realm of dream life must be considered as belonging to what in truth can lead to a spiritual-scientific knowledge of supersensible worlds. The same is true for what is often designated as vision, premonition, or second-sight (deuteroscopy). These come into existence through the ego's eliminating itself with the result that remnants of ancient states of consciousness arise. These have no direct use in spiritual science. What is observed by them cannot be considered in the true sense a result of the latter.

THE ACQUIREMENT OF SUPERSENSIBLE KNOWLEDGE

The path leading to a knowledge of supersensible worlds that has been described more explicitly in this book may also be called the “direct path of knowledge.” Another exists beside it that we may designate as the “path of feeling.” It would, however, be quite incorrect to believe that the first path has nothing to do with the development of feeling. On the contrary, it leads to the greatest possible deepening of the life of feeling. The path of feeling, however, turns directly to feeling only and seeks to ascend from this to knowledge. It is based upon the fact that when the soul surrenders itself completely to a feeling for a certain length of time, this feeling transforms itself into knowledge, into a picture-like perception. If, for example, the soul fills itself completely during weeks, months, or even a longer period, with the feeling of humility, then the content of feeling transforms itself into a perception. One may, by passing step by step through such feelings, also find a path into supersensible regions. This, however, is not easily carried out by modern man under ordinary life-conditions. Seclusion, retirement from present-day life is an almost unavoidable necessity for this path. For the impressions experienced in daily life disturb, especially at the beginning, what the soul reaches through its immersion in certain feelings. In contrast to this, the path of knowledge described in this book can be carried out in every situation of modern life.

OBSERVATION OF SPECIAL EVENTS AND BEINGS OF THE WORLD OF SPIRIT

The question may be asked whether inner meditation and the other means described of attaining supersensible cognition permit only a general observation of man between death and a new birth or of other spiritual processes, or whether they permit the observation of quite definite processes and beings, for example, of some particular deceased person. The answer to this must be: Whoever acquires by the described means the faculty of observing the spiritual world, may also reach the point of observing detailed occurrences within it. He makes himself capable of coming in contact with human beings dwelling in the world of spirit between death and a new birth. One must, however, pay heed to the fact that this must happen, in the sense of spiritual science, only after one has gone through the regular training in supersensible cognition. Only then is one able, in regard to special events and beings, to distinguish between delusion and reality. Whoever wishes to observe details without the proper training may fall a victim to many deceptions. Even the most elementary achievement, namely, the understanding of the way in which such impressions of special supersensible facts are to be interpreted is not possible without an advanced spiritual training. The training that leads into the higher worlds for the observation of what is described in this book leads also to the ability to follow the life of an individual human being after death. It also leads to the observation and understanding of all special beings of the world of soul and spirit who influence from hidden worlds the outer manifested world. Nevertheless, correct observation of details is only possible upon the basis of cognition of the general, great cosmic and human facts of the spiritual world that concern every human being. Whoever desires the one without desiring the other goes astray. It belongs to the experiences that must be undergone in regard to the observation of the spiritual world that the admission into the realms of supersensible existence for which one longs at the very first is granted only when the student has striven on solemn and difficult paths, leading to problems of general knowledge, for that which gives information about the meaning of life. If he has trodden these paths with a pure and unegotistical urge for knowledge, then only is he mature enough to observe details, the observation of which would have been previously only a satisfying of egotistical longings, even though he had persuaded himself that it was only his love of someone who is dead, for example, that had made him strive for an insight into the spiritual world. The insight into the special is only possible for him who, from sincere interest for general spiritual-scientific knowledge, has gained the possibility of accepting also the special without any egotistical desire like an objective scientific truth.

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VIII. SPECIAL COMMENTS

(a) page 30 and fol. pp.

Expositions of the kind in this book about the faculty of memory can easily be misunderstood. For those who only observe external processes will not readily detect the difference between what happens in the animal or even in the plant when something appears that resembles memory, and what is here described as actual memory in man. Certainly, if an animal carries out an action a third or fourth time, it may then so perform it that the outer process appears as though the action were the result of memory and what is learned through it. Like some natural scientists and their adherents, one may, indeed, extend the concept of memory or recollection to such a point that one says that when the little chick pops from the shell and immediately pecks at the grain, knowing even how to make the movements of its head and body in order to reach its object, it could not have learned this in the shell, but that it was learned through the thousands and thousands of creatures from which it has descended. (Ewald Hering, for example, states this.) We may declare that the phenomenon under discussion has the appearance of memory. We shall, however, never gain a real comprehension of man's being if we do not hold in mind what appears quite especially unique in the human being as the process of real perception of previous experiences at subsequent times, not merely as an influence of past states into later ones. Here in this book this perception of the past, not merely the reappearance — even though changed — of the previous in the subsequent, is called memory. If one were to use the word memory for the corresponding processes in the plant and animal kingdoms, then one ought to have a different word for the processes of memory in man. It is not the word, however, that is important in the above presentation, but, for the sake of understanding the human being, the significant thing is the recognition of the difference between what occurs in man on the one hand, and in animal and plant on the other. What may appear as highly intelligent actions in animals has also no connection whatever with what is here called memory.

(b) page 39 and fol. pp.

No fixed boundary can be drawn between the changes resulting from the activity of the ego in the astral body and those taking place in the ether body. They pass over into each other. If man learns something and through it gains a certain power of discrimination, then a change has occurred in the astral body; if however, this judgment or discrimination so alters his soul condition that he becomes accustomed, after he has learned something about a matter, to feel differently about it from previously, a change has then taken place in the ether body. Everything that becomes a possession of the human soul that can be recalled in memory is based upon a change in the ether body. What becomes, by degrees, an immutable treasure of memory, rests on the fact that the work performed on the astral body has been transferred to the ether body.

(c) page 51 and fol. pp.

The connection between sleep and fatigue is, in most cases, not viewed in a manner demanded by the facts. Sleep is supposed to be a result of fatigue. That this thought is much too simple is shown by the fact that a man, not at all tired, may fall asleep while listening to an uninteresting lecture, or on some similar occasion. Whoever maintains that such an occasion tires the listener, tries to explain by a method that lacks a serious scientific attitude. Unprejudiced observation must lead to the conclusion that waking and sleeping present different relationships of the soul to the body, which must appear in the regular course of life in rhythmical sequence like the right and left swing of a pendulum. The result of such unprejudiced observation is that the filling of the soul with the impressions of the outer world awakes in it the desire, after experiencing this state, to enter another in which it is absorbed in the enjoyment of its own bodily nature. Two soul states alternate: the state of surrender to outer impressions and the state of surrender to one's own bodily nature. In the first state the desire for the second is unconsciously produced; the second state then takes its course in unconsciousness. The expression of the desire for the enjoyment of one's own bodily nature is fatigue. We must then actually say that we feel tired, because we wish to go to sleep, not that we wish to go to sleep because we feel tired. Since the human soul can, through habit, arbitrarily call forth in itself the states that of necessity appear in normal human life, it is possible that, when the soul makes itself insensitive to a given outer impression, it calls forth in itself the desire for enjoyment of its own bodily nature; that is to say, the soul goes to sleep, even though this state is not induced by the inner condition of the human being.

(d) p. 89

The statement that, if the personal talents of a human being were subject only to the law of heredity, they would have to show themselves not at the end but at the beginning of a blood relationship, might easily be misunderstood. It might be said that talents cannot show themselves at the beginning, for they must first be developed. But this is not a valid objection. For, if we wish to prove that something is inherited from a forebear, we must show how there is to be found again in the descendant what existed already previously. If it were shown that something was present at the beginning of a blood relationship that would be found again in the further course of its evolution, we might then speak of heredity. We cannot do this, however, if at the end something appears that previously did not exist. The reversal of the above sentence was only to show that in this case the idea of heredity is an impossible one.

(e) p. 110

In certain chapters of this book it has been indicated how the world of man and the human being himself pass through the states that have been designated by the names Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus, Vulcan. Indications have also been given concerning the relationship between human evolution and celestial bodies co-existing with the earth, such as Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and so forth. These latter celestial bodies naturally go through their evolution also. In the present age they have reached a stage in which their physical parts are shown to perception as what is called in physical astronomy Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and so forth. If now, in the sense of spiritual science, the present Saturn is studied, it shows itself, so to speak, as a reincarnation of ancient Saturn. It has come into existence because, before the separation of the sun from the earth, certain beings were present who were unable to participate in this separation, since they had absorbed into themselves so many of the characteristics belonging to the Saturn state that they could not abide in an environment where especially the sun characteristics were unfolded. The present Jupiter has arisen, however, through the presence of beings who possessed characteristics that can only unfold on the future Jupiter of general cosmic evolution. An abode came into existence for them in which they are able to anticipate this future evolution. Similarly, Mars is a celestial body on which beings dwell who have passed through the Moon evolution in such a way that the earth could offer them no further advancement. Mars is a reincarnation of the ancient Moon at a higher stage. The present Mercury is the dwelling place of beings who, by having developed certain earth characteristics in a form higher than it can occur on this earth planet, are in advance of the evolution of the Earth. In a similar way the present Venus is a prophetic anticipation of the future Venus state. From all this we are justified in choosing the designations for the states that have preceded the Earth and that will follow it from their present representatives in the cosmos. It is self-evident that there will be many objections to what has been brought forth here by those who wish to subject the paralleling of the supersensibly perceived Saturn, Sun and other cosmic states of evolution with the similarly named physical celestial bodies to the judgment of an intellect trained in outer observation of nature. But just as it is possible, by means of mathematical concepts, to place the solar system before the soul as an image of time-space occurrences, so is it possible for supersensible cognition to permeate the mathematical picture with a soul content. Then it takes on a form that justifies the above indicated parallels. This permeation with a soul content is a natural consequence of the further application of a strictly natural scientific mode of observation. This latter mode of observation limits itself at present to seeking a reciprocal relationship between the solar system and the earth according to purely mathematical-mechanical concepts. By doing so, the natural science of the future will of itself be driven to concepts that will extend the idea of a mechanical cosmos to one endowed with soul. To show — which could very well be done — that such an extension ought already to occur on the basis of modern natural scientific concepts would require the writing of another book. Here the matter in question can only be indicated; as a consequence, this indication is exposed to misunderstandings of one sort or another. The disagreement of spiritual science with natural science is often only apparent, because the latter science still refuses at present to form thoughts that are not only demanded by supersensible cognition but also, in truth, by a cognition that adheres strictly to the physical-sensory. An unprejudiced observer is able to see everywhere in the results of modern natural scientific observation allusions to other fields of purely physical-sensory observation, which will have to be investigated in the future in a purely natural scientific manner and which will show that what supersensible perception reveals is completely verified by a physical observation of nature insofar as supersensible cognition is concerned with those supersensible cosmic occurrences to which physical-sensory manifestation corresponds.