I.
First Steps in Supersensible Perception
London,
17th November 1922
There is no doubt that at the
present time numbers of people are longing to know something of the spiritual
worlds and even modern scientists have been at pains to discover paths
leading to knowledge of the Supersensible. But in all these attempts to
penetrate to the supersensible world, modern man finds stumbling-blocks
created by the judgments issuing from modern scientific thinking with all the
authority it commands; and in regard to the many sources from which people
imagine that knowledge of the supersensible world can be derived, the
prevailing opinion is that concerning the supersensible worlds there can be
no exact knowledge in the sense of modern science, for none of the
evidence put forward stands up to any valid test.
Now the
anthroposophical Spiritual Science of which I am venturing to speak to you in
these lectures, strives to reach exact, genuinely exact, knowledge of the
supersensible world: “exact,” not in the sense that experiments
are made as in domains of science concerned with the external world, but in
the sense that inner faculties of soul otherwise slumbering in man during his
everyday life and ordinary scientific pursuits are unfolded in such a way
that the full clarity of consciousness implicit in really exact science is
maintained throughout. Whereas, therefore, in exact scientific thinking,
consciousness is maintained as it is in ordinary life and exactitude of
method is strictly adhered to during investigation of the external world, in
anthroposophical Spiritual Science we proceed by adopting an initial attitude
of what I will call intellectual humility, saying to ourselves: “I was
once a child and my faculties then fell far, far short of those I have
acquired through education and through life and now possess as an adult human
being.” It is quite evident that certain faculties which did not
previously function have unfolded since childhood, and the question arises
naturally: Is it not possible, then, that faculties are slumbering in the
adult human being just as his present faculties were slumbering in his soul
during childhood? Provided that certain methods are put into practice, these
faculties can indeed be drawn forth from the soul.
In
anthroposophical Spiritual Science these inner faculties must be drawn out in
such a way that the methods whereby the actual approach to supersensible
knowledge is made, are in line with our own development. The preparation for
looking into the higher world presupposes exactitude of method. As I said in
my last lectures here, [Knowledge and Initiation,
Knowledge and Initiation
14th April 1922;
Knowledge of Christ Through Anthroposophy,
15th April 1922.] it is possible for “exact
clairvoyance” to be acquired by methods as precise and systematic as
those employed when the facts of ordinary knowledge are being used in the
investigation of nature.
I shall speak
less to-day of how this exact clairvoyance can actually be attained — I
shall mention this merely in passing, for the two previous lectures dealt
with the methods for the attainment of exact clairvoyance, and information
about these methods is available from the book that has been translated into
English under the title,
Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment.
I want to-day
to indicate why it is that in his ordinary life the human being is unable to
penetrate into the higher worlds. This is denied to him, primarily because
he is only capable of perceiving the world in the actual present. Our eyes
can perceive the world and its phenomena, our ears can hear sounds in the
immediate present only. So it is with all our senses. We can only know the
past of our earthly life in recollection or remembrance, that is to say, in
pale, shadowy thoughts. Just think how living and concretely real were
experiences undergone ten years ago and how pale and shadowy are our thoughts
and recollections of them to-day.
Everything
that lies outside the present moment can only live in man's ordinary
consciousness in the form of shadowy remembrance. But this shadowy
remembrance can be kindled and fired into higher reality through the methods
which, as I have said, I do not propose to discuss in detail to-day — through methods of mediation in
thought, concentration upon thoughts, self-training and the like.
A man who
applies such methods to himself, learning thereby to live in his thoughts
with all the intensity
with which he otherwise lives in his external sense-impressions only,
acquires a certain faculty of observing the world not only in the immediate
present. Depending upon the aptitude of the individual concerned, exercises
leading to this result must of course be practiced for a long time, in
conscientious, systematic meditation and concentration. Many a human being, especially
in the present age, already brings with him at birth the faculty which can be
developed by these methods. This does not mean that the faculty is
immediately evident at birth, but at a certain moment in life it emerges from
within the human being and he knows that had it not come with him at birth it
would have been impossible for him to acquire it in the ordinary course of
his existence. This faculty consists in being able to live within the
thoughts themselves, just as through his body, man lives in the physical
world.
Such a
statement must not be taken lightly. Let it be remembered that man owes to
his living participation in the physical world everything that enables him to
claim an existence of his own. When he reaches the stage where without depending
upon impressions received through the eyes, ears and other senses he can
unfold an inner life as active and intense as the life of these outer senses,
an inner life consisting not merely of shadowy thoughts but of inwardly
living thoughts experienced with all the intensity otherwise implicit only
in sense-impressions ... then he knows the reality of a second kind of
existence, a different form of self-consciousness. I will call it an awakening
— an awakening to a life not outside the body
but within the innermost core of being, while the physical body is as
quiescent and as insensible to impressions from outside as is otherwise the
case only during sleep.
If we think
about our own inner life and being, we find that in ordinary existence we
really only know what has been conveyed to us via the senses. But
sense-perceptions tell us nothing whatever about our inner life and being.
With ordinary consciousness we cannot look inwards in the real sense. But
when the new kind of self-consciousness in the realm of pure thinking is
unfolded, we learn to look inwards just as in ordinary existence we can look
outwards, into the external world.
The experience
then arising can be described somewhat as follows: — As we look into
the external world, the sun or some source of light must be there to illumine
the objects around us. Through the light that is outside us, we perceive
these objects. When, in the process of pure thinking, consciousness of this
second existence awakens — it is however a process of actual “beholding”
as colourful and rich in content as sense-perception — then we
can become aware of an inner light ... not in a figurative sense but
as a spiritual reality ... a light which illumines our own inner life and
being just as in the ordinary way objects are illumined for us by some
external source of light.
This condition
of human experience, therefore, may be called “clairvoyance,” “clear
seeing.” And this clairvoyance in the spiritual self-consciousness that
has now been awakened, engenders,
in the first place, the faculty whereby a man is
able once again to be consciously present in every moment he has lived
through during his earthly existence.
The following,
for example, is possible — I say to myself: When I was 18 years old, I
had certain experiences. But now, when the new consciousness has awakened, I
no longer merely remember these experiences; I can actually live through them
again with greater or less intensity. Once again I am the human being I was
at the age of 18 or 15 or 10 ... A man can transfer himself in consciousness
into every moment of his life and he thereby unfolds an inner, illumined
perception of what, in contrast to the spatial body in which the senses are
contained, may be called a “Time-body.”
But this
Time-body is ever-present, ever in operation; it is not experienced in a
succession of separate moments, but as one complete whole. It is present in
all its inner mobility. A vista arises before the human being of the whole of
his previous earthly life, whereas in ordinary circumstances he merely
recollects this earthly life in shadowy thoughts. The whole course of his
earthly existence lights up for him, but in such a way that he lives
consciously in each single moment.
When this
inner illumination arises, a man knows that he is the bearer not only of a
physical, spatial body. He knows that he is the bearer of a second: ethereal
body, a body actually woven from the pictures of his past earthly life, but
pictures which, with creative power, shape this earthly life itself, shape and
mould the very organism and its
activities. He thus learns to know the reality of a second man within
himself. This second man is conscious of living within a delicate, ethereal
world of light — just as the spatial body lives in a physical world.
The world is revealed in its finer, more delicate formations; the delicate,
ethereal formations perceived in this way underlie everything physical.
Strange to
say, it is only possible to keep very brief hold of what is experienced in
this finer body. A man who by the development of exact clairvoyance has
filled his ether-body, or “body of formative forces,” with light,
is able to perceive the etheric reality of the world and of his own being;
but in most cases he will find that the impressions pass away very quickly;
they cannot be retained. And he is aware of a kind of anxiety to return as
quickly as may be to the perceptions of the physical body in order to be
assured of an inner sense of consolidation as a human being, as a
personality. He experiences his own self in his ether-body. In this
ether-body he also perceives etheric realities of the higher world. But at
the same time, he finds how fleeting all these impressions are; he cannot
keep hold of them for any length of time, indeed he must always resort to some
means of help.
By way of
example, let me tell you what procedure I myself adopt in order to prevent
the impressions of this etheric vision from vanishing too rapidly. Whenever
such impressions come, I try not only to perceive them but to write
them down; in this way, the inner activity is carried out not only by
abstract faculties of soul but is strengthened by the act of writing down the
impressions. The point of importance is not the subsequent reading of what
has been written but the strengthening of the activity which, to begin with,
is purely etheric.
In this way a
quality so fluid and evanescent that it quickly passes away pours as it were
into the ordinary human faculties. This condition is not induced
unconsciously as in the. case of a medium, but in full consciousness. An
ethereal quality is poured into the ordinary human faculties. This enables
us, too, to understand something of great importance, namely, how we can “keep
hold” of a supersensible, etheric world (later on we shall be speaking
of other supersensible worlds) ... a world which embraces the course of our
life hitherto and also the etheric realities of outer nature extending to the
sphere of the stars. This ether-world becomes a reality and consciousness of
the self within this ether-world arises; moreover, we know that it is
impossible, without returning again to the physical body, to keep a hold on
this world for longer than at most two to three days — even when the
faculties have been developed to a high degree. Certain powers of which I will
speak presently enable one who is an Initiate in the modern sense to perceive
all this with clear vision; such a man knows, too, what it is that he is able
in this way to hold within his ether-body, or body of formative forces,
without the support of the bodily faculties. It is the same as the vision
that arises before the higher self-consciousness when, as the human being
passes through the gate of death, the physical body is laid aside and begins to decay. This vision, too, for
the reasons given above, can remain only for some two or three days after
death.
Through the
development of exact clairvoyance, therefore, the first conditions of
existence into which man passes after death, can be experienced; they are
experienced in advance, with conscious knowledge. The conditions which the
Initiate is able to experience consciously in advance, set in for every human
being when the physical body is laid aside at death. But in the ordinary way
a man can retain consciousness of these conditions for no longer than two or
three days — that is to say, for as long as he is able, having
developed higher knowledge, to hold fast his ether-body, or body of formative
forces. (I shall explain presently why it is that the human being is,
nevertheless, conscious during the existence after death.)
For two or
three days after death the human being has, in his ether-body, consciousness
of the etheric world. Then this consciousness fades away; he becomes aware
that the ether-body is falling away from him just as the physical body fell
away and that he must pass into a different state of consciousness in order
to live on after death as a conscious individuality.
The reality of
what I am now describing to you as the first moments after death (they are
the first moments of the cosmic existence to follow) can be affirmed by one
who has acquired the faculty of seeing into the higher world, because he
experiences in advance the conditions which in the normal life of man set in
only after death. Because he has developed the intensified consciousness of
self that is no longer dependent upon the body, he experiences in advance, in
his present consciousness, these moments which immediately follow death. He
is able to shed light upon his own higher existence and to realise that he has
within himself the light which during the first two or three days after death will reveal
to him a world quite different from the world revealed to him by his senses
during earthly life between birth and death. [The lectures were delivered by Dr.
Steiner in three sections as indicated in the text, translations being given
after each.]
* * *
This inner
illumination is necessary before it is possible to survey that supersensible
picture of the course of earthly life which, as I have said, lasts for a few
days after death. A man must kindle within himself a spiritual light which
shines inwards. Instead of being aware only of the present moment in
the way made possible by the senses, he will then reach a higher stage.
The attainment
of further knowledge of the Supersensible depends not only upon a change in
perceptive consciousness but also upon a change in the state of ordinary
existence. Our ordinary existence as human beings is enclosed within the
spatial, physical body; the boundaries of our skin also constitute the
boundaries of our actual life. Our life extends as far as our body. Within
this field of experience, we cannot reach what I have so far been describing
as knowledge of the higher worlds. Knowledge of the higher worlds can only be attained when ordinary experience
is transcended by consciousness that is not confined within the boundaries
of the spatial body but participates in the life of the whole world around.
This extended consciousness leads to knowledge of the higher worlds. As I
have said, on this occasion I propose merely to speak about the methods
through which a modern Initiate acquires exact knowledge of the higher
worlds. The rest is to be found in the book mentioned above.
When we have
acquired the faculty not only of experiencing a second existence in the life
of thought — an existence that still remains within the confines of the
spatial body — but also the faculty of living outside the body, a
further stage is reached. It is attained when we are capable not only of
letting thoughts live with full intensity in our consciousness but of
eliminating them at will as the result of systematic exercises and practice.
By this means, consciousness arises of experiences outside the body. Let me
give a simple example.
Suppose we are
looking at a quartz crystal. It is there before our eyes. A person who is
trying to make himself into a medium or to induce some kind of self-hypnosis
stares fixedly at the crystal and the impression it makes puts him into a
state of confused consciousness. Such procedure is altogether alien to
anthroposophical Spiritual Science. The exercises it adopts are of an
entirely different character and can be described as follows: — We look
steadily at, say, a crystal, until we can entirely ignore it as an object
physically perceived, and re-orientate our attention. A crystal is there before us and we
learn gradually to see it not
with physical eyes
but with eyes of soul; the physical eyes are open but are not used for the
purpose of looking at the physical crystal and in this act of inner cognition
the crystal in front of us is eliminated, as a physical object, from our
vision. — The same procedure may also be adopted with a colour; it is
there before us but we no longer look at it as colour, we eliminate it from
our physical vision.
Such an
exercise can also be applied to thoughts engendered in the immediate present
by circumstances of external life, or to those which arise in the form of
remembrances or recollections of earlier moments of earthly life. — Such
thoughts are eliminated, emptied from the consciousness, so that we are
simply awake and in a state of consciousness from which the external world is
altogether excluded.
If such
exercises are conscientiously carried out, we discover that it is possible
for our life to extend beyond the boundaries of our spatial body. Then, in
the real sense, we share in the life of the whole surrounding world instead
of perceiving its physical phenomena only.
Thereby, in
complete clarity of consciousness, an experience arises which may be compared
with recollection of the life passed through during sleep. Just as acts of
ordinary perception are limited to the immediately present
moment, so is our ordinary life
limited to the
experiences that have arisen in the hours of our waking consciousness.
Just think of
it — When you think back over your life, the periods of sleep are
always blanks so
far as ordinary
consciousness is concerned. Nothing that has been experienced by the soul
during these periods of sleep is remembered; remembrance, therefore, is a
stream in which there are constant interruptions, but this fact is usually
ignored.
The
experiences of the soul during sleep arise like intensified remembrances in
consciousness which has awakened to such a degree that with it the human
being is able to live outside his body. This condition leads to the second
stage of knowledge in the supersensible world and we become aware, to begin
with, of what we experience as beings of soul when the physical body is
asleep and quiescent, when it has no perceptions, when the will is not
functioning and when the soul has, so to speak, temporarily departed from the
body. In ordinary waking life we can in this way recollect the experiences
through which we have passed while outside the body during every period of sleep.
But it is very important to understand what these experiences really are. The
experiences of the soul from the moment of falling asleep to that of waking
are, of course, experiences in a realm outside the body, and actual awareness
of them is possible only when consciousness of life outside the body has
awakened. At this stage, knowledge comes to us not only of something which,
like the “time-body,” is illumined by an inner light, but with
the faculty of waking remembrance that is now illumined by exact
clairvoyance, we learn to know what really comes to pass in us during sleep.
This experience will, at first, cause astonishment. Living in the physical body with our ordinary
consciousness, we have within us, lungs, heart, and so forth; from the moment
of falling asleep to the moment of waking we have, in very truth, not a personal,
human consciousness but a cosmic consciousness. In this higher state
of consciousness, it is as though the after-images of the planetary and
starry worlds were within us. This may sound strange, but it is perceptible
reality at this stage of higher knowledge. We feel ourselves within the
all-pervading cosmic life and contemplate the world from this cosmic
vantage-point.
Experiencing
as inner reality what was round about us in ordinary life, during
every period of sleep we live through in backward sequence, all the
experiences that came to us here, in the physical world, from the previous
moment of waking to that of falling asleep. If, for example, after a normal
day we go to sleep, we live backwards over the experiences of the day —
first the experiences of the evening, then those of the afternoon, then those
of the morning. Thus during sleep at night, we live backwards through all the
experiences of the day.
The development
of the exact clairvoyance of which I am speaking here, is connected with this
power of conscious recollection of the experiences of sleep. Just as in the
ordinary way we can remember things experienced years ago in full waking
consciousness, by means of this exact clairvoyance we can call up remembrance
of this backward sequence of the day's experiences. And so in actual fact,
this exact clairvoyance is an extension of the ordinary faculty of
recollection or remembrance.
We look back upon our experiences during sleep, knowing that in sleep we have
been living outside the boundaries of the physical body in a cosmic existence
which is a reflection of the whole life of the universe; during this cosmic
existence we live backwards through the happenings of the day. We find then,
that the time taken by this backward review is shorter than that taken by the
experiences themselves in physical life. When we are able in the real sense
to investigate this realm of existence through systematic practice and
increasingly exact knowledge, we discover that this backward review takes
place three times more quickly than the physical experiences in our ordinary
consciousness. Let us say that a man is awake for two thirds of his whole
life and asleep for one third — During the one third spent in sleep,
therefore, he lives through the experiences which, in the physical world,
have occupied two thirds of his existence.
When exact
clairvoyance enables us in waking consciousness to remember the life of
sleep, we also realise that this backward review is significant, not so much
in itself, but as a foreshadowing. Ask yourselves what you think about a
recollection of something that happened to you 20 years ago — You say: “I
experience it now in shadowy thoughts of remembrance; but the remembrance
itself is the guarantee that it is not phantasy but a picture of an actual
experience in my past earthly fife.” — Just as remembrance itself
is the guarantee that it is related to a real experience in the past so the
conscious recollection of the experiences of sleep is the guarantee that in
itself it is only the foreshadowing of something belonging to the future.
Proof that a
remembrance relates to something in the past is not needed. When exact clairvoyance
has been acquired, it is equally unnecessary to prove that the recollection
of these night-experiences is not a phantastic picture of the present. It
reveals in itself that it has to do with the future — indeed with that
moment in the future when the physical body of a man will be actually laid
aside at death, whereas now, in exact clairvoyance, it is only figuratively
laid aside.
By this means,
knowledge arises of what the human being experiences after death, when the three
days of which I have spoken, have elapsed. This process also enables us to
understand the significance of those two or three days after death when the
human being is aware of living in a cosmic consciousness, when from the
vantage-point, of the Cosmos he once again surveys the etheric picture of his
life, looking back over the course of his earthly existence. We learn to know
that these first days after death are followed by a life which runs its
course three times more quickly than earthly existence. This same knowledge,
after all, resulted from conscious recollection of the experiences passed
through during sleep. The etheric vision which persists for only a short time
after death is followed by a life lasting some 20 or 30 years, or maybe less
— according to the age reached in earthly existence. Approximately
— for everything here is approximate — this life runs its course
three times more quickly than earthly existence. If therefore a man dies at the
age of 30, the life of which I am speaking now will last for about 10 years;
if someone has reached the age of 60 and then dies, he lives through his life
in the backward sequence of events, in 20 years ... but all these periods are
approximate.
With exact
clairvoyance these things become known, just as a past experience is known
through an act of recollection or remembrance. Thus, we learn to know that
death is followed by a life in the supersensible world during which we live
through the whole of our past earthly life in backward sequence. Every night
we live backwards through the events of the preceding day; after death we live
back over the whole of our earthly life. We experience it all once again in
its spiritual aspect and thereby unfold a true judgment of our own moral
worth. During the period after death we unfold consciousness of our personal,
moral qualities, of our moral worth, just as here on Earth we are conscious
of life in a body of flesh and blood. After death we live in a world that is
conditioned by our own moral qualities and our deeds on Earth. By living
through earthly life again in backward sequence and because we are not
diverted from true moral judgment by instincts, natural urges and passions
but survey our life from a purely spiritual standpoint, it is possible for
us to form a true judgment of our own moral worth.
The forming of
such a judgment requires the length of time of which I have just been
speaking. When this period after death has come to an end, the
backward-flowing remembrance of our moral life on Earth fades away and we must now pass onwards
through the spiritual worlds with a different kind of consciousness.
Knowledge of this different kind of consciousness can also be attained by
exact clairvoyance.
The attainment
of such knowledge depends upon the capacity not only to live outside the
confines of the spatial body but to unfold a kind of consciousness entirely
different from that belonging to the physical world. At this stage the human
being discovers that a supersensible, purely spiritual state of existence
follows the period during which judgment of the moral qualities is formed
— this period lasts, as we have heard, for a third of the time spent in
earthly life. This is followed by a different kind of existence, by a life
that is purely spiritual. But before knowledge of it can be acquired, exact
clairvoyance must have developed to a still higher stage.
* * *
If you think
about the experiences undergone during sleep, you will realise that the human
being does indeed lead a life outside his physical, spatial body. But he has
no real freedom of movement in this life. He has to make his way through the
experiences that have come to him during the hours of waking consciousness
— only in reversed order. And a man who through exact clairvoyance has
attained supersensible insight into these experiences — he too feels as
though he is confined in a world which he is able to call up into his
clairvoyant vision but in which he cannot move, in which he is fettered. Freedom
of movement in the spiritual world — this is
what must be acquired as the third stage of supersensible knowledge. Without
such freedom of movement, it is not possible for spiritual consciousness in
the real sense to arise.
In addition to
exact clairvoyance, a power which I will call that of “ideal magic”
must be acquired. I use this term in order to distinguish it from the unlawful
form of magic which resorts to external means and is fraught with a great
deal of charlatanism. A firm distinction must be made between such practices
and what I now mean when I speak of “ideal magic.” I mean the
following: —
When a man
surveys his life with ordinary consciousness, he can perceive how in certain
respects he changed with the passing of every year or decade. His habits have
changed — slowly maybe, but definitely nevertheless. Certain faculties
have developed, others seem to have disappeared. Anyone who honestly observes
certain faculties of his earthly life can say to himself that more than once
he became a changed being. But this change has been wrought by life; he has
surrendered himself to life and life educates him, trains him, moulds and
shapes his soul.
A man who is
intent upon finding his way into the supersensible world as a real knower, in
other words one who strives to acquire the power of ideal magic, must not
only be able to make his thoughts so inwardly forceful and intense that he
becomes aware of a second existence as described above, but he must be
capable of freeing his will,
too, from bondage to
the physical body. In ordinary life the will can only be brought into
operation by making use of the physical body — be it through the legs,
arms, or organs of speech. The physical body provides the basis for the life
of will. But the following is possible and must, furthermore, be
systematically carried out by anyone who as a spiritual investigator wishes
to add to the power of exact clairvoyance that of ideal magic. He must
develop such strength, of will that at a certain point in his life he can, at
his own bidding, get rid of some habit and acquire an altogether different
one. Even with the most resolute will, it may take a man several years to
change certain forms of experience, but it is possible, nevertheless. Instead
of allowing life in the physical body to be his educator, he can take this
education and self-training into his own hands.
Exercises of
will such as I have described in the book mentioned above, will lead one who
is striving to be an Initiate in the modern sense to the stage where he is
able not only to be conscious during sleep of what he has experienced by day.
He will be able to induce a condition which is not that of sleep but is lived
through in full, clear consciousness. At this stage he is capable of movement
and action even during sleep; he is not, as in ordinary consciousness, a
merely passive being while outside his body, but he can act and be active in the
spiritual world. If he is incapable of this, he will make no progress during
his sleep-life. One who becomes in the true sense a modern Initiate has
acquired the faculties whereby he can also be active as a self-conscious
human being in the life which runs its course between the onset of sleep and
the moment of waking. And when the will becomes operative while he is
actually living outside the body, he will be able gradually to unfold an
altogether different kind of consciousness, namely, the consciousness that
can actually perceive what the human being experiences during the period
after death following the one described. With this more highly developed
consciousness, vistas open out of the existence which follows earthly life
and of the existence which precedes it. We behold a life which runs its
course through a spiritual world just as physical life on Earth runs its
course through a physical world. We learn to know ourselves as beings of pure
Spirit in a spiritual world just as here, on Earth, we know ourselves as
physical beings in the physical world. And it is now possible to ascertain
the duration of this life — the period during which we assess our own
moral worth.
By integrating
will into the life of soul in this way through ideal magic, we learn
to understand the nature of the consciousness that awakens in us as adult
human beings, and to compare it with the dim consciousness of earliest
childhood.
As you well know,
ordinary consciousness has no remembrance of these first years of childhood.
The consciousness of the human being in this period of his life is dull and dim;
his entry into the world is wrapped in sleep. The ordinary consciousness of
an adult human being is clear and intense in comparison with the dim, dark consciousness of the first years of
earthly life. But one who has acquired the power to put ideal magic into
operation in the way described, understands the difference between his
waking consciousness as an adult and this dim consciousness of early
childhood; he knows that he rises to a higher level as he passes from the dim
consciousness of childhood into the clearer consciousness of adult years.
And with knowledge of how the dreamlike consciousness of childhood is related
to that of adult life he is able to understand how his adult consciousness is
related to that illumined consciousness which, imbued with the power not only
of exact clairvoyance but also of ideal magic, makes him capable of moving
freely in the spiritual world. He learns to move freely in the spiritual world
just as after early childhood when he had no such freedom of movement, he
learnt to move about freely in the physical body. In addition, therefore, to
knowledge of how the consciousness of childhood is related to that of
ordinary adult life, he learns to know how ordinary consciousness is related
to a higher, purely spiritual consciousness.
Thereby a man
is led to the realisation that in his life after death he is not only a
spiritual being living among spiritual beings, but he can discover how long
this life lasts. Here again I must quote as an example the recollection of an
experience of earthly life. We realise that just as this recollection bears
within it a reality belonging to the past, so this new experience bears
within it the knowledge that the higher consciousness of the Initiate anticipates as it were this spiritual existence
after death. And then we learn to
know how this purely spiritual life is related to the
earthly life that has stretched from birth to death.
When an
Initiate looks back to his earliest childhood, he knows that as the years
advance, the easier it is for him to look into the spiritual world. There
are, of course, human beings who while still comparatively young have the
power to see into the spiritual world. But this vision increases in clarity
and exactitude with every year that passes. The faculty of entering into this
other state of consciousness grows constantly stronger and with it comes
clearer and clearer knowledge of the relation between the one state and the
other. For example: a man has reached the age of forty and is only able, let
us say, to remember back as far as his third or fourth year. By studying how
the length of the period of the dreamlike consciousness of childhood is
related to these forty years, we learn to recognise that the spiritual life
after death will be longer than the span of an earthly life by as many times
as this earthly life as a whole is longer than the dreamy life of earliest
childhood; hence the life after death lasts for many centuries. The period during
which the moral life is re-experienced and assessed after death is followed by
a purely spiritual life during which man lives for many centuries as a
spiritual being among other spiritual beings. During this period of existence,
he has around him the tasks which belong to the spiritual world, just as
here, in earthly existence, he has around him those which belong to the
physical world.
When exact
clairvoyance and the power to move freely in the spiritual world have been acquired,
the nature of these tasks is revealed. — All the forces which finally
lead over to a new life on the Earth are drawn from this spiritual world in
which the human being lives after death. The future life on Earth stands
there as a goal from the very beginning of the life after death. And this
life on Earth as a human being ... it is in very truth a microcosm ... this
microcosm is the outcome of great and mighty experiences in the spiritual
world after death.
Now a seed in
the physical world is minute — nevertheless it unfolds and later on
will grow into a large plant or animal. It is also possible to speak of a
spirit-seed which the human being unfolds and develops when his physical life
on Earth is over. In communion with Spiritual Beings and out of the spiritual
forces of the universe, he elaborates a spirit-seed for his new earthly life.
This process is not a recapitulation of the past earthly life but embraces
modes of activity and realities of being far greater and mightier than can
ever exist on Earth. In his post-earthly existence, amid the experiences and
realities of the spiritual world, the human being prepares his future earthly
life.
I have spoken
of the cosmic consciousness which arises in human beings after their death.
— This cosmic consciousness is, after all, present every night during
sleep, although in such dimness that, to use a contradictory expression, it
is really an ‘unconscious consciousness.’ — Because they
have this cosmic consciousness in their post-mortem, spiritual existence,
human beings live together not only with other spiritual beings who never come down to the Earth, having
their abode in worlds of pure Spirit, but paramountly with all the souls who
are either incarnate in human physical bodies or, having themselves passed
through the gate of death, have also entered into the cosmic consciousness
that is common to all.
The relationships
woven on Earth between soul and soul, in the family, among individuals who
have found one another inasmuch as they have met in physical bodies — all
such ties in their earthly form are laid aside. What men experience as
lovers, as friends, as associates of other human beings near to them in some
way, in short, all experiences in the physical body — all are laid
aside just as the physical body itself is laid aside. … But because these ties of family, of
friendship, of love and affection have been unfolded here, on the Earth,
they are transmuted after death into those spiritual experiences which help
to build a later life.
Even during
the period when the moral worth of the past life is assessed, the human being
is working not for himself alone but for and in communion with souls who were
esteemed and loved by him on Earth.
Through exact
clairvoyance and through ideal magic these things become matters of actual knowledge,
of direct vision, not of mere belief. Indeed, it may truly be said that in
the physical world an abyss stretches between souls, however dear they may be
to one another, for their meeting takes place in the body and the
relationships between them can only be such as are determined by the
conditions of bodily existence. But when a human being himself is in the
spiritual world, the physical body belonging to one whom he loved and has now
left behind does not constitute an obstacle to living communion with the
soul. Just as the faculty for “seeing through” physical objects
must be acquired before it is possible to gaze into the spiritual world, so
the human being who has passed through the gate of death can penetrate
through the bodies of those he has left behind, and enter into communion with
their souls while they are still living on the Earth.
I wanted to
speak to you in this first lecture of how perception of the supersensible
life of man can be developed. I have tried to indicate that when we strive to
unfold exact clairvoyance and the power of ideal magic, it is possible to
speak with real knowledge of the higher worlds, just as exact natural science
is able to speak about the physical world. As we learn to penetrate more and
more deeply into these higher worlds — and undoubtedly there are human
beings who by developing their faculties will be capable of this — we
shall find that no branch of science, however highly developed, can deter us
from accepting the knowledge which can be revealed through exact clairvoyance
and ideal magic concerning man's existence not only on the Earth between
birth and death but also between death and the return to earthly life through
a new birth.
In the lecture
to-morrow I shall speak of the impulse brought into the life of man on Earth
by the Christ Event, the Event of Golgotha. It will then be my task to show
that the knowledge of which I have been speaking, inasmuch as it is a concern
of every single individual, sheds light upon the whole evolution of the human
race on Earth and can therefore also reveal what the entry of Christ into
earthly existence signified for mankind.
The aim of
these lectures is to show, on the one hand, that in speaking of supersensible
knowledge there is no need to be at variance with the exact scientific
thinking of modern times. The theme of the lecture to-morrow will be that the
Mightiest of all Events in the life of mankind on Earth — the Christ
Event — is revealed in a new and even more radiant light to souls who
are willing to receive knowledge of the supersensible world in the way set
forth.
To-morrow,
then, I shall be speaking of the relation of anthroposophical Spiritual
Science to Christianity.
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