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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.
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.
Last Modified: 07-Oct-2024
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