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Rudolf Steiner e.Lib
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Occult Science - An Outline
Rudolf Steiner e.Lib Document
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Occult Science - An Outline
Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
At the present stage of evolution there are three possible conditions
of soul in which man ordinarily lives his life between birth and
death: waking, sleeping and, between the two, dreaming. The
last-mentioned will be briefly dealt with in a later part of this
book; for the moment we shall consider life simply as it alternates
between its two main conditions waking and sleeping. Before he
can know for himself in higher worlds, man has to add to
these two a third condition of soul.
During waking life he is given up to the impressions of the senses,
and to the thoughts and pictures that these evoke in him. During sleep
the senses cease to make any impression, and the soul loses
consciousness. The whole of the day's experience sinks down into the
sea of unconsciousness. Let us now consider how it would be if man
were able to become conscious during sleep, notwithstanding that all
impressions of the senses were completely obliterated, as they are in
deep sleep. Now would any memory remain to him of what had
happened while he was awake. Would he find himself in an empty
nothingness? Would he now be unable to have any experience at all? An
answer to this question is only possible if a condition resembling the
description can actually be brought about in man, where his senses
remain completely inactive and he has no memory of their activity in
his waking hours, and is yet not asleep but awake to another world, a
world of reality, even while in relation to the external world around
him he is just as he is in sleep.
As a matter of fact, such a state of consciousness can be induced in
man if he is prepared to evoke within him the kind of inner experience
that spiritual science enables him to develop. And all that is here
related about the worlds that lie beyond the world of the senses has
been investigated in such a condition of consciousness. In the
preceding chapters some information has been given concerning these
higher worlds. The present chapter will tell in so far as lies
within the scope of this book of the means whereby man may
achieve the state of consciousness required for such research.
It is in this one aspect alone that the higher state of consciousness
resembles sleep: the sense receive no impressions from without, and
the thoughts too which have been evoked by sense-impressions are
obliterated. Whereas however in sleep man if bereft of the power to
have conscious experience, in this new state of consciousness he
retains the power. A capacity for conscious experience is aroused in
him, which in ordinary life requires to be stimulated by
sense-impressions. The awakening of the soul to this higher state of
consciousness may be termed Initiation.
The path that leads to Initiation takes man out of ordinary day-time
consciousness and brings him into a new activity of soul whereas he
makes use of spiritual organs of perception. These organs are present
in man all the time, in a germinal condition; they require only to be
developed.
Now it can happen that at some particular time in his life, without
making any special preparation for it, a person discovers that higher
organs of this nature have been developing within him. This will mean
that a kind of involuntary self-awakening has taken place. He will
find that he has through this become a completely changed man. His
whole inner experience is no vastly enriched. And he will be fully
persuaded that no knowledge of the physical world could ever afford
him such bliss, such serene satisfaction, such inner warmth, as can
the knowledge that opens up before him now that he has a faculty of
cognition that is independent of physical impressions. Strength and
confidence will stream into his will from a spiritual world.
Such instances of self-initiation do occur. They should however not
lead one to imagine that the right thing to do is simply to wait for
it and make no effort towards obtaining Initiation by means of a
properly ordered training. We have no need to speak here any further
of self-initiation, since it can come about without the person's
following any rules or precepts. What we are concerned with is how the
organs of perception that are latent in man's soul may be developed by
spiritual training. If people do not feel any particular urge to take
steps for their own inner development, it is easy for them to think
that since the life of man goes forward under the guidance of
spiritual Powers, he ought not to interfere in their leadership but
should wait quietly for the moment when these Powers shall deem it
right to open to him another world. They will feel that any desire to
intermeddle in this way with the wisdom of spiritual guidance is quite
unjustified, and bespeaks a kind of presumption. One who takes this
view will only be persuaded to modify it when a certain line of
thought begins to make a strong impression on him namely when
he is ready to say: The wise guidance of spiritual Powers has
given me certain faculties. It has not bestowed these faculties on me
for me to leave them unemployed, but rather that I may put them to
use. The wisdom of the guidance is to be seen in the fact that seeds
have been planted in me of a higher state of consciousness; and I fail
to understand the guidance aright if I do not regard it as a duty to
set before me the high ideal: that whatever can become manifest to man
through the development of his spiritual powers shall become so
manifest. When such a thought has taken strong enough hold, then
the mistrust that was felt of any training for the attainment of a
higher state of consciousness shall disappear.
Misgiving can however arise on another account. The development of
inner faculties of the soul, someone might feel, implies an intrusion
into man's most hidden holy of holies. It involves a change in his
whole nature and character, and the method by which the change is to
be wrought can obviously not be thought out by the person concerned.
Only one who knows the path from actual experience can tell him how he
is to reach a higher world; and in applying to such a person for help,
he is permitting that person to exercise an influence over the
innermost holy of holies of his soul. Nor will this scruple be met if
the means whereby the higher state of consciousness is to be attained
are set forth in a book. For it makes little difference whether one
receives instruction by word of mouth or whether someone who has
knowledge of these means has written them in a book and one reads them
there. There are moreover among those who possess the requisite
knowledge some who think it inadmissible ever to entrust the knowledge
to a book. These persons will generally also regard with disapproval
all communications to others of truths concerning the spiritual world.
To hold such a view in the present epoch of mankind's evolution must,
however, be described as out of date. Only up to a point, it is true,
can the means to be employed for higher development be communicated.
But if the pupil will apply himself diligently to what is given, he
will be able to reach a stage in development whence he can find the
way for himself. From all that he has gone through so far, he will
obtain a right idea of his further path and indeed he can do so
in no other way.
On all these various grounds misgivings may arise in relation to the
path of spiritual knowledge. They disappear, however, when one begins
to grasp the true nature of the path of development which is set forth
in the school of spiritual training appropriate to our age. Of this
path we will now proceed to tell, hinting only briefly, as occasion
arises, at other methods.
The training in question provides one who has the will to seek higher
development with instructions that he can follow and so bring about
the necessary changes in his soul. Anything like an unwarranted
intrusion into the individuality of the pupil could only come into
question if the teacher were himself to effect the change by methods
of which the pupil was quite unconscious. But a training for spiritual
development that is rightly adapted for our times will never employ
such methods, turning the pupil into a blind instrument for his own
development. It offers him instructions, and the pupil carries them
out. As and when there is occasion to do so, it explains to him why
this or that instruction is given. The acceptance of the instructions,
and their observance, have no need to rest on blind faith. Blind faith
should indeed be altogether excluded. If we have studied the nature of
the human soul, in so far as it shows itself to ordinary
self-observation unassisted by spiritual training, then on learning of
the measures recommended we can ask ourselves: What effect will these
have on the life of the soul? Before any training is begun, this
question, if approached with a healthy and unbiased mind, can receive
adequate answer. For it is perfectly possible, before setting out to
follow the recommendations, to form a clear and true conception of how
they work. Naturally, we cannot have actual experience of their
working until we have embarked on the training. But here too we shall
find we can accompany the experience all the time with understanding,
provided only we are free from preconceived ideas and bring healthy
good sense to bear on each step we take. And a genuine spiritual
science will in these days recommend for development only such means
as will stand that test. Whoever is prepared to enter upon such a
training and will not allow himself to be led away by any mistaken
prepossession into an attitude of mere blind credulity, will soon find
that all misgivings disappear. Objections he may hear others raise
against a systematic training for the attainment of a higher state of
consciousness will not disturb him in the least.
Even for those who are endowed with the inner ripeness of soul which
can lead them sooner or later to a self-awakening of the organs of
spiritual perception even for such, training is not
superfluous; on the contrary, they have particular need for it. For
there are few instances where such a person does not have to go down
many a dubious by-path before he arrives at self-initiation. The
training will spare him this. It will lead him straight forward on the
right path. Where self-initiation occurs, it is due to the fact that
the soul reached the necessary maturity in former lives. It may easily
happen that the person has a dim feeling of his own ripeness, and this
makes him disinclined to submit to training. The feeling may give rise
to a kind of unconscious pride which hinders him from putting his
trust even in a properly ordered school for spiritual training. Or it
may be that the more advanced stage of soul may remain hidden in him
until a certain age of life and only then begin to manifest. A
training could in such an instance be the very means of bringing the
ripeness to manifestation, and were the person to debar himself
altogether from such training, it might well be that at the time when
it should manifest, the faculty he possesses would still remain hidden
and emerge again only in one of his later incarnations.
In this matter of spiritual training, it is important not to let
certain fairly obvious misunderstandings gain ground. People may, for
instance, have the idea that the training is going to make a great
difference to a person's whole conduct and behavior. But there is no
question of giving the pupil general precepts on how to lead his life;
he will be told of things he can do, inwardly in his soul, which, if
he carries them out, will give him the possibility of beholding the
supersensible. As for his other activities in life activities
that have nothing to do with observation of the supersensible
these are not directly influenced at all by what he undertakes
in the course of training. What happens is simply that the pupil
acquires, in addition to them, the gift of supersensible perception.
This new activity is as different from the ordinary avocations of life
as waking is from sleeping. The one cannot be allowed to disturb the
other in the very least. Should anyone be inclined, for instance, to
intersperse the ordinary course of his life with impressions that
reached him from the supersensible, he would be like a sick person
whose sleep was continually being interrupted by unwholesome periods
of wakefulness. The trained observer will have it in his own control
to evoke at will the state of consciousness wherein he can behold
supersensible reality. Indirectly, the training is of course not
unrelated to the general conduct and habit of life, inasmuch as anyone
lacking in ethical stability and good feeling will either be unable to
see into the supersensible, or if he can, it will do him harm. Very
much therefore of the instruction that is given to lead the pupil to
vision of the supersensible, contributes at the same time to the
ennobling of his daily life. And besides this, through being able to
see into the supersensible world, the pupil learns to recognize higher
moral impulses that hold good also for the physical world. For there
are ethical laws that can only be learned in higher worlds.
Another misunderstanding is possible. It might be imagined that some
activity of the soul, intended to lead to supersensible cognition,
were in some way connected with changes in the physical organism. As a
matter of fact, such activities have nothing whatever to do with
anything in man that belongs to the province of physiology, or to
other aspects of natural science. They are processes purely of soul
and spirit, as far removed from the physical as are ordinary healthy
thinking and perceiving. The way in which they take place in the soul
is no different from the way in which we think our thoughts or come to
our decisions. As much or as little as healthy thinking has to do with
the body, just so much and so little have the activities of a genuine
training for supersensible knowledge. Any kind of training that
affects man in a different way is no true spiritual training, but a
caricature of it.
It may be assumed that the training now to be described fulfills the
conditions we have seen to be necessary. It is only because
supersensible knowledge is something that engages all man's faculties
of soul that it might seem to demand overwhelming changes in him. Yet
in reality it simply amounts to this: instructions are given which, if
followed, will enable the pupil to have moments in his life when he
can behold the supersensible.
Last Modified: 02-Nov-2024
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