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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 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.
Last Modified: 07-Oct-2024
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