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Rudolf Steiner e.Lib
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An Outline of Occult Science
Rudolf Steiner e.Lib Document
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An Outline of Occult Science
COGNITION OF THE HIGHER WORLDS. INITIATION.
THE inner excellence of the stage of imaginative cognition is attained
through the fact that the soul meditations described are supported by
what we may call familiarizing oneself with sense-free thinking. If
one forms a thought based upon observation in the physical sense
world, this thought is not sense-free. It is, however, not a fact that
man is able to form only such thoughts. Human thought does not need to
become empty and without content when it refuses to be filled with the
results of sense-observations. The safest and most evident way for the
student of the spiritual to acquire such sense-free thinking is to
make his own, in thinking, the facts of the higher world that are
communicated to him by spiritual science. It is not possible to
observe these facts by means of the physical senses. Nevertheless, the
student will notice that they can be grasped mentally if he has
sufficient patience and persistence. We are not able to carry on
research in the higher worlds without training, nor can we make
observations in that world; yet without higher training we are able to
understand the descriptions of spiritual researchers, and if someone
asks, How can I accept in good faith what these researchers say
since I am unable to perceive the spiritual world myself?
then this is completely unfounded. For it is entirely possible merely
by reflecting on what is given, to attain the certain conviction that
what is communicated is true, and if anyone is unable to form this
conviction through reflection, it is not because it is impossible to
believe something one cannot see, but solely because his reflection
has not been sufficiently thorough, comprehensive and unprejudiced. In
order to gain clarity in regard to this point we must realize that
human thinking, when it arouses itself with inner energy, is able to
comprehend more than is usually presumed. For in thought itself an
inner entity is already present that is connected with the
supersensible world. The soul is usually not conscious of this
connection because it is accustomed to developing the thought faculty
only by employing it in the sense world. It therefore regards
communications from the super-sensible world as something
incomprehensible. These communications, however, are not only
comprehensible to a mode of thinking taught through spiritual
training, but for every sort of thinking that is fully conscious of
its own power and that wishes to employ it. By making what spiritual
research offers increasingly one's own, one accustoms oneself to a
mode of thinking that does not derive its content from
sense-observations. We learn to recognize how, in the inner reaches of
the soul, thought weaves into thought, how thought seeks thought,
although the thought associations are not effected by the power of
sense-observation. The essential in this is the fact that one becomes
aware of how the thought world has an inner life, of how one, by
really thinking, finds oneself already in the region of a living
supersensible world. One says to oneself, There is something in
me that fashions a thought organism; I am, nevertheless, at one with
this something. By surrendering oneself to sense-free thinking
one becomes conscious of the existence of something essential flowing
into our inner life, just as the characteristics of sense objects flow
into us through the medium of our physical organs when we observe by
means of our senses. The observer of the sense world says to himself,
Outside in space there is a rose; it is not strange to me, for
it makes itself known to me through its color and fragrance. One
needs now only to be sufficiently unprejudiced in order to say to
oneself when sense-free thinking acts in one, Something real
proclaims its presence in me that binds thought to thought, fashioning
a thought organism. But the sensations experienced by observing
the objects of the outer sense world are different from the sensations
experienced when spiritual reality manifests itself in sense-free
thinking. The observer of sense objects experiences the rose as
something external to himself. The observer who has surrendered
himself to sense-free thought feels the spiritual reality announcing
itself as though it existed within him, he feels himself one with it.
Whoever, more or less consciously, only admits as real what confronts
him like an external object, will naturally not be able to have the
feeling, Whatever has the nature of being in itself may also
announce itself to me by my being united with it as though I were one
with it. In order in this regard to see correctly, one must be
able to have the following inner experience. One must learn to
distinguish between the thought associations one creates arbitrarily
and those one experiences in oneself when one silences this arbitrary
volition. In the latter case one may then say, I remain quite
silent within myself; I produce no thought associations; I surrender
myself to what thinks in me. Then one is fully justified in
saying, Something possessing the nature of being acts within
me, just as one is justified in saying, A rose acts upon
me when I see its red color, when I smell its fragrance. In this
connection, there lies no contradiction in the fact that the content
of one's thoughts is derived from the communications of the spiritual
researcher. The thoughts are, indeed, already present when one
surrenders to them; but one cannot think them if one does not, in
every case, re-create them anew within the soul. What is important is
the fact that the spiritual researcher calls up thoughts in his
listeners and readers that they must first draw forth out of
themselves, while the one who describes sense reality points to
something that may be observed by listeners and readers in the sense
world.
(The path is absolutely safe upon which the communications of
spiritual science lead us to sense-free thinking. There is, however,
still another path that is safer and above all more exact, but it is
also more difficult for many human beings. This path is presented in
my books, A Theory of Knowledge Based on Goethe's World Conception,
and Philosophy of Freedom. These writings offer what human thought can
acquire if thinking does not give itself up to the impressions of the
physical-sensory world, but only to itself. It is then pure thought,
which acts in the human being like a living entity, and not thought
that merely indulges in memories of the sensory. In the writings
mentioned above nothing is inserted from the communications of
spiritual science itself. Yet it is shown that pure thinking, merely
active within itself, may throw light on the problems of world, life,
and man. These writings stand at an important point intermediate
between cognition of the sense world and that of the spiritual world.
They offer what thinking can gain when it elevates itself above
sense-observation, while still avoiding entering upon spiritual
research. Whoever permits these writings to act upon his entire soul
nature, stands already within the spiritual world; it presents itself
to him, however, as a world of thought. He who feels himself in the
position to permit such an intermediate stage to act upon him, travels
a safe path, and through it he is able to gain a feeling toward the
higher world that will bear for him the most beautiful fruit
throughout all future time.)
Last Modified: 07-Oct-2024
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