The
So-Called Dangers of Initiation
Berlin, 12 December 1907
It is not the only reproach against occult
science that it is dreamy and fantastic, but also many people
believe that dangers are connected with it. Downright bizarre
views exist in certain circles about these so-called dangers of
spiritual science. At first one points in general to such
dangers even without trying to qualify the supposed dangers or
to say in what they consist. For where one speaks so much of
these dangers sometimes, a profound unawareness prevails what
the occult science entails. One has only the uncertain idea
that it entails something dangerous. One also does not dwell on
this on which one should absolutely dwell: whether occult
science itself is the dangerous or only the deeper penetration
in it while one familiarises with the methods, the exercises
that lead the human being into the invisible and indiscernible
spiritual world surrounding him. However, he who generally
wants to speak of dangers in this field must differentiate
this.
Often it does not at all
concern a tip to certain dangers only, but one says: oh, this
occult science or this theosophy makes the human beings
unworldly, it removes them from that what they would have to
deal with, actually, in life in which they should be
interested. — Some circles regard it as tremendously deplorable
that this or that member is apparently wrested from it because
he/she starts being interested in theosophy or in occult
science underlying it. For that reason the often enough
pronounced judgement probably originated that theosophy makes
the human being impractical, allures him from the immediate
duties of life, betrays him into asceticism and
unworldliness.
Although it has already
been mentioned here from the one or the other side, I would
like to draw your attention again to the fact that it is the
most unfair and at the same time the most impossible reproach
against occult science and its working that it makes the human
being anyhow unworldly or entices him into asceticism. I have
emphasised repeatedly that a spiritual world underlies our
world of the senses, our world of the physical life. Therefore,
someone must be called unworldly who does not mind the true and
real forces of existence and confines himself to the outer
world only, on that what the senses say and what they can
enjoy. There can be no talk that theosophy urges its supporters
to an ascetic life, to privations or to unworldliness.
However, it is true that someone who becomes interested
in occult science has other sympathies and antipathies than
many people have.
Nevertheless, in
many cases it is not in such a way that those who approach
occult science attain this interest only within a
spiritual-scientific or theosophical circle. People bring these
emotions with them as a rule; the interests carry them into the
theosophical circles, and theosophy wants to offer nothing but
what they demand. Not because they are expelled from the
circles which say: they become strange to us, because theosophy
takes them away, but these circles themselves alienate them
more and more because they are lifeward and have selfish
interests. If such a circle complains that this or that member
is taken away from it, it should ask itself:
has theosophy taken this member from us or have we
expelled it by boredom? If one compares the life, as it should
be in the theosophical circle with the life of a worldly
circle, which says one must not dedicate himself to asceticism,
then I answer that the theosophist does not withdraw because he
wants to escape from life, but because he wants to get to the
true, real life.
Those who are interested
in spiritual science experience no bigger asceticism, no bigger
privation than dedicating themselves to the activities that one
calls “life” in many circles. If one calls this
“life:” getting up in the morning, reading his
newspaper, doing this or that which has a practical use, taking
part in this or that banal activity in the evening — if one
calls this “life,” indeed, it is
“asceticism” for the theosophist, an awful
privation, namely if one makes him participate this life. If
then in spite of all resisting forces, the interest in
theosophy becomes bigger and bigger, it is only an evidence
that more and more people want to escape from the
“ascetic” life of the usual pleasures and give
themselves up to the real life. The human beings would have to
realise this if they communed with their hearts once, since the
life in spiritual science does not mean wailing and whimpering
because of sufferings and privations. Life praxis is a chapter
that we have also already discussed in the various
talks.
Those who are so often
vain of their life praxis say, theosophy with its quixotic
ideas puts a bug into the ears of the people, and the people
who dedicate themselves to such a thing never accomplish a real
work in life. However, if they looked only at the world and at
the practice on the one hand, at impractical idealism on the
other hand, perhaps they would speak different.
The German philosopher
Johann Gottlieb Fichte said: the idealists know as well as the
so-called practical people, maybe better, that ideals are not
to be applied immediately in life. However, the fact that
certain people cannot realise that all life flows out of the
life ideal, from that which is not yet there what should become
first shows only that one does not count on them in the plan of
the improvement of humanity. Hence, God may give them rain and
sunshine, food, and clever thoughts at the right time! — The
theosophist may console himself out of an objective
consideration of life if one points to the danger of the
so-called impractical. There one can cite an example of a
clever board of practitioners in a southern German country.
When one wanted to build the first railway in Germany, one
requested whether it is good if this railway were built. The
board said — everybody can convince himself that the document
exists —, one should build no railway, because the human beings
would suffer serious damage of their nervous systems. However,
if people wanted to drive with a railway, and it were built,
one would have to erect high wooden walls on both sides, so
that those whom it goes past do not get concussions. — This is
not long ago! It is not still long ago that a man who was no
practical person, but an “impractical teacher”
advised to introduce the cheaper postcards (?) instead of the
expensive postage. The impractical person was Rowland Hill
(1795–1879). There was a postmaster who said, I cannot realise
that one has an advantage introducing this way of paying postage
(pre-payment by the sender with stamps instead of
direct payment by the receiver).
If the traffic
developed in such a way, the post-office buildings would no
longer be sufficient to take up and convey all letters and
postal items. — Judgements of this sort appear from circles of
those people who are hostile to theosophy.
The dangers that are
described there resemble those, which the people experience
from the railway, after they drive with it now since decades.
The future will produce the evidence. As little as the Bavarian
Medical Board could prevent the construction of the railway,
the postmaster in London could prevent the increase of the post
traffic, just as little the necessary expansion of theosophy
can be stopped by similar objections in our time.
However, many concerns do
not oppose the general; one senses something particular. Hence,
one may also speak of that once publicly which gives cause,
perhaps, for such concerns and such talking of dangers. At
first, we must not forget: something that should work that
should have significance and power in the world works different
on the different human beings. It works in the way as it can
influence and impress human beings. Now theosophy is something
like a sort of a purifying thunderstorm in our spiritual
atmosphere and will be it more and more. What fulfills this
spiritual atmosphere? It is fulfilled with all possible
confident and sure of victory judgements, which appear the
surer of victory, the less deeply they introduce in the being
of the things. In particular, it is the materialistic thinking
and feeling, the materialistic disposition that regards itself
as infallible with immense arrogance as the only true doctrine
and douses everything with scorn that wants to point to the
spiritual world, as if it only concerns fantasies.
True, someone who trains
his thinking in that logic necessary to control the areas that
are beyond the sensuous world is always in danger that the
logic of the materialists could sicken him. However, the
superficial judgements that are quite usual ones today and
appear with an unequalled certainty and an arrogance of
infallibility are sometimes very short-winded. Their flimsiness
becomes obvious very soon if that logic faces them which goes
with inner thinker's patience from concept to concept as it is
necessary if one cannot advance on the bridge of the outer
sensuous experiences but wants to have a sure support in
himself and inner certainty. Already in this respect, the
thinking flowing from occult science for the present must often
appear to us as a purifying thunderstorm. It appears for the
human masses in such a way and for the single human being.
There we cannot help stressing that this is, nevertheless, no
risk. There is the risk for the great majority at most that it
brings uncertainty into the judgements that are worth to be
presented that way.
With the single human
being, the matter is worse. Something comes into question that
works in the innermost soul, a disharmony between feeling and
judging. This disharmony is the biggest with those persons who
believe to be most certain in any materialistic creed. A
materialistic creed namely has the peculiarity that it can
satisfy, after all, the reason only, the abstract judgement
only. The deeper interests of the soul, all wishes, all
feelings, and all sensations are much truer and deeper with all
human being than their judgements often are. While everybody
sticks with his judgment, with his materialistic concepts and
his materialistic disposition to the surface, in the depth of
his soul — often quite unconsciously to him — the urging and
the longing for something spiritual lives. To someone who
observes this more precisely it appears rather clear sometimes
if one sees how many disharmonies are in the speeches and
remarks of the human beings. There one can realise that they,
actually, do not at all feel corresponding to that what they
say. To a minor degree that applies to a big percentage of the
human beings what a poet expressed absurdly with the words,
which he lets one of his figures say: as true a God is in
heaven, I am an atheist. — This is the emotional adherence —
only radically, absurdly pronounced — to something
traditional-conventional and the adherence of the superficial
judgement to a radical denial. That appears with few persons in
this radical form. However, for someone who can observe more
precisely almost every conversation offers examples that the
human beings live in their souls in such a way.
In which condition can
one live this way? One can live in the condition that one
remains superficial in his soul life. For nobody who descends
into the depth of his soul can tolerate such a disharmony as it
often exists today. That becomes apparent to someone who is
used to logic in the entire materialistic or — as one calls it
more sophisticatedly — monistic literature. Imagine a person
who is embedded in the atmosphere of our time and wants to get
out it not with inner freedom, not with inner strong urge: he
remains embedded; he lives on dully but contently in general.
However, it does no longer depend on the things with which many
people want to stop, whether the human being can live so dully.
Numerous people can no longer live this way. What the popular
literature — magazines, books, even newspapers — offers is not
at all something for sophisticated heads and deeper minds that
answers the big questions of existence, but it only causes new
questions.
Yes, also the modern
science itself, as it appears with it adherence to the facts
gives answers only to the superficial mind. For the deep-minded
human being, for the sophisticated one this science is
something quite different. It is a sum of question marks. Where
many people believe that they can be ready if they frame a
worldview from the scientific facts, the questions only just
start for many people. However, people who believe to be ready
notice nothing of it. Thus, you see numerous human beings
reaching for a book like Haeckel's
World Riddles
to get the world riddles solved. When they have read this book, they
only start putting the big questions. Because no solutions are
in it but questions, which are put there. Then such minds and
such heads can be once brought to theosophy, on this or that
way.
They face theosophy with
its strict, in itself logical thinking which has the origin of
certainty, like mathematics, in itself, and an immense
disharmony between that which they were used up to now from the
outside world, and the requirements which are suddenly put to
them. They stuck to the surface of the things up to now; they
look into abysses now. They have often lost half a life and
more. They are anxious whether the rest of life would be still
sufficient to pour everything that faces them in the holes of
their souls, which the world has cut. On the other hand,
however, they come from these or those circles and cannot break
away from them; then the most dreadful obstacles originate. The
most practical and most certain way would be if they got
involved in the spiritual-scientific research, however,
thousand threads pull back them. There the disharmonies face
them that must appear if the soul longs for deepness compared
to the superficial, the exterior. There a peculiar phenomenon
appears with some persons that we make clear to ourselves best
of all by a comparison. Imagine, in any corner of a room one
would not have cleaned for weeks, a lot of dirt is there — you
forgive for the comparison. If now in this room no proper
lighting exists, those who look into it can believe that
everything is clean. However, if one once illuminates it
properly, the mess strikes. It depends only on the fact that
one illuminates properly.
Something similar applies
to the soul. It is used to casualness. It is maybe forced to be
superficial among superficial ones. Now, however, it comes to
the light which lights up this superficiality that allows this
superficiality to appear in its entire inferiority. If this
soul is feeling, what happens then? If it is accustomed to
superficial judgements, the light that shines on it has to
distract it above all. Hence, we see that numerous souls are
maybe somewhat distracted by the contact with the
spiritual-scientific truth. Does occult science bear the blame
for it? Indeed, he who thinks here logically does not put the
blame on occult science that is the light, but on the fact that
the soul has so much addicted itself to the superficiality of
judgement.
The matter still goes
further. We see human beings who are not up to our complex
civilisation suffering from our complex civilisation. Why? They
do no longer find their way with their judgement! Theosophy or
occult science is the means to find the way in our
civilisation, and it can work recovering for someone whom our
civilisation has sickened. However, cannot anything else still
happen? We can also realise this using a comparison. A dish can
be externally healthy; however, it can bring an upset stomach.
Even if the dish is rather healthy for the healthy, the upset
stomach cannot stand just this healthy dish. This applies to
many cases if the human beings with ill souls come out of our
civilisation into the cheerful and beatific air of occult
science. Then it may happen that they cannot stand the healthy
dish with their ill souls. Nevertheless, these are exceptional
cases.
However, about them is
mostly written in the world. One says, theosophy is something
that makes the people crazy. — I do not deny that it can also
annoy this or that soul, as the healthy dish the upset stomach.
However, has the healthy dish caused the upset stomach? Many
so-called ditched souls approach theosophy; it is virtually
remarkable how many ditched souls approach it. Someone who is
obliged to work in this movement could tell some sad chapter,
could tell that the cry for help comes from here and there: I
do no longer find my way rightly in the world; I do no longer
know how to satisfy the longing of my heart. — The most wailful
cries for help come in numbers every day. Our materialistic
civilisation has caused this passing stones instead of bread to
the human beings — you forgive the trivial turn of expression.
The superficiality of judgment could be sometimes satisfied.
The wishes and interests resting in the soul could not be
satisfied. For a while, they can be forced back and deadened,
then, however, they forge ahead, and the human being come with
their cries for help. One cannot deny that some people come
then too late.
However, spiritual
science cannot be pursued in such a way that it turns to choice
ones. One has to bring the things to the public. The elementary
basic concepts cannot be denied to anybody, and today the ABC
of initiation, as it was indicated in the last talk, cannot be
refused to anybody. If today single human beings, ruined by the
contemporary civilisation, approach theosophy and when these
ditched souls are even more disarranged by the purifying
thunderstorm at first, should the remedy be kept, therefore,
from all souls, only because single ones were ruined mentally
by their wrong way of thinking? Any fanaticism does not talk
this way, the experience in the field of the spiritual life of
our time talks this way.
Admittedly, on the other
side, there is a serious danger for the relationship between
our contemporaries and the spiritual-scientific worldview. This
danger is caused by the fact that our contemporaries approach
the spiritual scientific worldview with their worldview and
such characters, which our time has bred. Which prejudices,
which superficial judgements they introduce in this
spiritual-scientific worldview! How much danger exists that the
theosophical worldview is spoilt by the trend of our time here
and there! Here a danger does exist. One has there to point to
some matters, so that we are able to look deeper and deeper
into the so-called and into the real dangers of the
spiritual-scientific striving.
Spiritual worlds are
round the human being — we have shown this in the preceding
talks, and we penetrate deeper and deeper into these
profundities. These worlds relate to the usual sensory world
like the world of colours and light to the world of touching
with the blind human being; and there is a world that is much
higher than what the blind person experiences if one operates
him and light and colours shine to him from the darkness. These
worlds are round us. However, these worlds are not only worlds
of paradise and bliss, although paradise and bliss are in them,
but they are also worlds that can be dreadful for the human
being, dangerous because of their facts and beings. If the
human being wants to get knowledge of the great and beatific of
these worlds, he cannot help making acquaintance of the
dangerous, of the dreadful that they contain. The one is not
possible without the other. Now we must realise once to what
extent a danger exists. Imagine a human being who is near a
powder magazine without knowing it. He knows nothing about it.
However, suddenly he comes to know it and he gets immense fear
thinking that he could be busted in the air if the powder
magazine explodes. Outdoors nothing has changed; nevertheless,
his life has changed. The only thing that is different from
before is that he knows about the danger now. This knowledge
distinguishes him from that who knows nothing. That applies
also to the higher worlds. The danger, the dreadful that is
included in them is always round the human being. Yes, immense
dangers lie in wait for the human soul in the worlds of which
the human beings have no idea. The only difference concerning
these dangers and dreadful things and beings is for that who
has never moved up to spiritual science, and that who has moved
up to it that the latter does know about this danger and the
former not. Nevertheless, it is not completely in such a way,
namely for the following reasons: we enter the spiritual world
in which the spiritual is effective. The powder magazine does
not become dangerous because you have fear that the powder
explodes; but your fear signifies something in the spiritual
world!
It is a difference
whether you have it or not. Your thoughts are inserted as
something real in the spiritual world. A feeling of hatred that
you have for a person is more real in the spiritual world and
much more efficient than a blow that you give the person
concerned, with a stick. Even if the dreadful does not happen
immediately before your eyes, it is this way. Indeed, fear
and anxiety, such negative feelings are something that puts the
human being in a fateful relation to the spiritual world.
For in the spiritual world there are beings to whom fear and anxiety
emitted by the human beings, are welcome nourishment. If the
human being is not afraid and does not fear, these beings are
starving! They who have not yet penetrated deeper into the
soiritual world, may take this as comparison. However, those
who know this matter, know that it concerns something real. If
the human being emits fear, anxiety, and panic, these beings indeed
find welcome nourishment, and they become mightier and mightier.
These beings are hostile to the human beings. Everything that feeds
itself from negative feelings, from fear, anxiety and superstition,
from hopelessness, from doubt, are powers in the spiritual world
that are hostile to the human being, and that make cruel attacks
on him if and when they are fed by him. Hence, it is necessary,
above all, that the human being who enters the spiritual world,
makes himself strong against fear, anxiety, hopelessness, and
doubting.
However, these are just
rather modern cultural feelings, and materialism is suitable
because it cuts off the human beings from the spiritual world
to call these hostile powers against him by hopelessness and
fear of the unknown. To express myself quite clearly, I have
to say, when the human being sees that gate of death, he also
sees numerous pernicious forces hampering him. Most
human beings attract forces by fear of death. The bigger the
fear of death, the stronger is their power. The fear of death
is generally a part of the feelings of fear. These powers
appear like dried up bags if the human being makes himself
strong and knows that he cannot change the event of death by
the fear of death.
The human being is only
able to overcome the fear of death and to face death
courageously if he knows that an immortal everlasting core is
in his inside for which death is only a change of the way of
life. As soon as the human being finds the immortal core in
himself with the help of occult science, he educates himself
more and more for overcoming all such feelings, last also the
fear of death. However, the more materialistic the human being
becomes, the more he is frightened at death. No occult science
can protect the human being to see the truthful behind the
scenery. It has to show how the everlasting life, how karma
entails the big balance in the spiritual life. This spiritual
science has to show various things. It cannot show the
beatitudes behind the scenery of life without showing the
dreadful powers at the same time, the enemies who lie in wait
for him. This is true. However, it also shows how he can
overcome any fear of these enemies. It shows how he can face
all that with free, courageous eye. It teaches him to become
objective and impartial if he leaves himself patiently to its
education.
However, many
human beings come to theosophy with the usual feelings of our
time. What they hear here works on them sometimes deeply
depressing, as something that attacks their souls frightfully
because they have fear of life because of their materialistic
thinking. Many people bring this immaturity into theosophy and
they overcome it only gradually. Again, theosophy or occult
science does not bear the blame for it. It does its bit not to
shock the human being too strongly. If it revealed the complete
truth of something obvious to the human being, it would say how
the cowards separate from the intrepid ones, and some of you
would be shocked how big the number is on the one and the other
side.
However, the immature
human beings bring some immature matters into the theosophical
movement, while they translate certain concepts that theosophy
and occult science give simply into the usual trivial language.
As strange as it sounds, here a big danger exists sometimes in
the relations between theosophy and our contemporaries. Thus,
immature theosophists and such people who approach theosophy
externally say repeatedly that the first demand is to become
unselfish, to overcome any egoism. Some people can never assert
often enough if they want to say anything rather theosophical
to anybody: all that I do and want is quite unselfish. I want
to work only for the other human beings. — They mostly do not
sense how selfish this belief is. It is true that by the
acquaintance with the truth of occult science the human being
comes gradually to that which is indicated so nicely in
Goethe's words:
From the force that binds all creatures
That man is delivered who masters himself.
It is true, but almost everything is
necessary that occult science can offer, its highest and its
deepest, to reach this ideal. One reaches it best of all if one
speaks of it as little as possible and strives for it very
directly.
Those are unselfish least
of all who boast mostly of their unselfishness, as those are
normally the most false who use the word “truly”
after every third sentence. A deep law underlies that in
occultism. First, it concerns penetrating deeper and deeper
into the truth and knowledge of occult science, and not taking
such ideals as, for example: you shall overcome your ego. —
With such a phrase nothing at all is done. Nothing is done if,
for example, a stove stands here and I say to it: you should be
a good stove; you must make the room warm. — You can stroke it
and treat it affectionately, but with it, nothing is done. Not
before you give wood to the stove, it heats. Thus, it is also
useless at all to preach virtue, unselfishness, and freedom to
the world. The right thing is to heat, to give the human being
heating material; and the heating material is the
spiritual-scientific truth. As the wood and the coal make the
stove warm, the real spiritual-scientific truth makes the human
being unselfish gradually. Why? Because it detracts the
interest in many respects from the small point, which one calls
the ego. The theosophical or spiritual-scientific truth is so
great, so mighty, and significant, and claims us so strongly
that we feel very uninteresting as a single personality. One
learns only how uninteresting the single personality is. This
learning, how uninteresting the single human personality is, if
it is caused by the heating material of the
spiritual-scientific truth, only frees the human being from
egoism.
If you look at the things
basically, then egoism is not at all anything that is not
included in the divine world order from a higher viewpoint. It
is something very healthy from a higher viewpoint. Imagine once
if many human beings of our time did not refrain from this or
from that if they did not do that or this out of selfishness
because they know for selfish reasons what may result. Imagine
which pests they would be in the human development! Really, the
world wisdom planted egoism into the human being to lead him to
a developmental stage to seize his self, so that he makes it as
important and valuable as he can only do it.
It is a high truth on the
one side and a shocking phrase on the other side if one says to
the human being, you have to sacrifice your personality. —
At an example I want to make clear to you how it can be that
something is elated once and rhetorical another time. Imagine,
you ask a person who has a ten-pfennig coin in his pocket to
sacrifice it for anything. He makes this sacrifice easily.
However, if you ask a person, who has 20,000 mark by chance
with him — perhaps his whole property — to sacrifice them, this
is another thing. The imposition to somebody who has not yet
worked on himself who has not yet raised his personality to
renounce his personality is something different from that who
has worked on it for a long time to make it as competent as
only possible. The one sacrifices a genius on the altar of
human development, the other a fool.
It does not depend on the
fact that one sacrifices, but what one sacrifices. To be able
to present a personality for humanity, one has to develop this
personality at first. Thus, it is once a phrase to speak of the
sacrifice of personality; on the other side, it is a great
significant truth. Hence, it is useless at all; if in
theosophical books, the demand of the sacrifice of personality
is pronounced and is not demanded at the same time: make your
personality as strong as only possible.
We learn this by a real
thinking that has its roots in the spiritual world. True
theosophy is that logic which does not put one-sided principles
but knows that every sentence as every coin has two sides,
maybe even more sides, that teaches to look from the appearance
at the inside. It does often not at all teach what one calls
theosophy superficially today. One calls danger only that which
is not a superficial, but a real danger.
I was still very young,
when I sat with somebody together who had celebrated his
fiftieth birthday recently in another country, who had
interests in common with me concerning my studies of Goethe.
The man said in those days, he did not want to go among the
authors. He was in those days, although still relatively young,
already older than many who write today. He bethought, I will
not write reviews. I want to write something else, because only
someone should write reviews who has big experience of life;
actually, only old people should write reviews. — This was, in
any case, a very good idea of the man. Most people do not
believe that maturity is necessary to work in the cultural
field. The further we grow into the times, the younger become
in particular the people who write under the line, and because
the reader usually does not think and has, actually, no means
to investigate how young the writer is, he has no notion by
whom he is taken in.
Everybody knows that
today it is not difficult to write wittily. Indeed, still some
people are surprised that the one or the other writes wittily.
A person who has maybe dealt since his fifteenth, sixteenth
year with nothing else than reading such stuff who has learnt
the craft substantially needs to publish only something, and he
can impress by his radical or blurred judgments enormously. It
is possible there that a person seriously suffers from
dementia. As strange as it sounds: somebody can be crazy today
and he can write wittily for the world, so that he is admired
as a witty author. This case is possible. Decades ago, it was
already a correct judgement if anybody said, it is not
difficult in our time to make a good poem; culture and language
versify. — Today, this applies even more, so that some pupils
can write newspaper articles. Quite different powers judge
there, which use the human beings for their purposes. More and
more humanity must demand maturity from that who should have
true judgements. Real maturity just also belongs to the work in
spiritual-scientific field. Hence, it is also necessary, that
those who are leaders of secret schools work only in their
circles and do not appear before an age of 35 years to the
world and proclaim spiritual-scientific truth. Before, they can
bring judgements about philosophy in the world. However, one
only becomes mature to scoop from the spirit when one does no
longer have to use the spiritual power to the construction of
the body. As long as the body is growing, the forces from which
a logical judgement builds itself up must go into the body.
Hence, it can be possible that a poet got real poems before the
middle years.
However, the human
being misjudges so easily that the biggest maturity of life is
necessary to penetrate really into the depth, so that one
understands not only anything for his satisfaction and for his
advance, but gets around to stepping before humanity and
representing spiritual-scientific work with full
responsibility. This biggest maturity can only be reached at an
advanced age. However, you do not need any maturity to talk in
theosophical platitudes.
This is something
peculiar that maturity belongs to the highest matters if one
shall work on them thoroughly. However, they can be treated
also as phrases because many people are unable to realise the
deepness but they adhere to the phrase. Everything that can be
spread in theosophy can be serious and deep to the highest
degree, can be a force of life. If one reverses it into its
opposite, it can be the most terrible phrase. Therefore, we
experience just on this field so often that phrase by phrase
blossoms, and that just immaturity works permanently. Besides,
that who represents the immature damages himself more than the
world. The world rejects what comes from this side. If you are
involved in this direction, you do not make progress. For
someone who works outward in the spiritual-scientific field has
to make sacrifices. There is a great difference if spiritual
science is protected like a secret in the chaste soul or if it
is cast out in the world. The word applies there that one says
about the treasure seeker: he must be taciturn. If he speaks a
word, the treasure cannot be attained. Thus, the depths of the
higher world are also attained the better, the more one can be
quiet. For that who has understood these matters there is no
talking generally if he is not forced to it if the world does
not demand it from him. Nobody shall talk without being asked.
The demand does not need to come from here or there, this
demand can come from invisible, from supersensible
powers.
With it, one can say,
because our time is so little able to think properly about
maturity and immaturity, it forms a sort of theosophy. It can
be the highest; but in its reversal, it is a caricature and a
risk. It does not bear the blame. It will gradually replace the
absurd judgement with the correct one concerning maturity and
immaturity. Nobody may be surprised that it is that way. If he
were surprised, he should also be surprised about the fact that
where strong light is also black shades are. Where less strong
light is, even weaker shades are. Theosophy possibly throws
black shades; this is only an evidence of the fact that it
should be a strong light. Where one speaks of the so-called
dangers, one must take stock of the fact that against the big
danger simply a bulwark is there that no real teacher in this
field exposes the human beings to this serious, big danger, and
that everything that looks like a danger does not come from
theosophy but from that which opposes it. If one knows this,
one will be quiet, even if apparently bad effects appear. These
can also appear. One can experience that persons, as long as
they have no connection to theosophy, are reasonably decent
persons. If they come to theosophy, they become vain,
ambitious, and haughty. Why? For very simple reasons. As long
as a person towers only a little above the judgements of his
surroundings, he cannot be particularly bad, but also not
particularly good. However, if he comes to something original,
the possibility of the good increases but also the possibility
of the bad.
What appears here already
with the usual theosophist can appear with the pupil all the
more. With him, the mistakes that exist on the bottom of his
being if he must gain his free judgment appear with big
clearness. However, this is necessary. If anybody wants to
develop quicker, a sum of bad qualities may come out with him
overnight. These qualities would maybe have spread over sixty
years. If one dissolves a drop of colour in a big quantity of
water, one sees nothing of the colour. That also applies to the
pupil. What should come out in some days becomes noticeable.
However, if one acts out anything for sixty years, one notices
nothing of it. Yes, in secret science there appear some devils
of arrogance. Relatively soon, one had to experience that
persons who are not haughty in themselves approach one with
wishes. Then they come and say, I want to start being a pupil
and becoming an adept as quickly as possible. — One does often
hear that. It is experience that the devil of arrogance seizes
somebody. Towards the great, they often become the haughtiest,
and then they hard understand that this feeling is the biggest
obstacle for their further development, and that it is the best
for the further development to renounce arrogance. — However,
this is connected also with the fact that we are great laughers
and great blabbers.
With it, I have spoken
about the dangers of occult science. I made no secret that
there are such cases, I have also tried in the course of these
talks to point where, actually, the more dangerous cases are.
Today, I wanted to point only in general to what one finds
everywhere in theosophy and occult science. He who searches
occult science is not deterred by the dangers of it, but he
finds the welfare, the recovery of the soul just in occult
science. He knows that it does not cause damage that it does
not bring dangers, but that it uncovers damages and points to
dangers where they also exist, otherwise, and where they would
keep on working if they were not led to recovery. Hence, this
so-called danger shall deter nobody from penetrating into the
spiritual fields. As we are led by all the other considerations
and viewpoints, we are also led here to realise that the human
being shall not refrain from developing the forces and
abilities slumbering in him to penetrate into nature. For what
is material is revelation of the spirit. As around us are
dreadful beings if we look into them, they are in nature. Only
because the human being closes his eyes he avoids this fact.
Those who knew something of occult science also knew this.
Already in his youth, Goethe heard some objections against the
penetration into the inside of the things. He heard the words
of the Swiss naturalist Haller (Albrecht von H., 1708–1777)
who said:
No created mind penetrates into the being of nature.
Blissful is that to whom she shows her appearance only.
Goethe who dared to look into her knew that
the human being can penetrate into nature everywhere. Hence, he
felt repeatedly urged to say:
Considering nature you have to regard
Everything always as the same.
Nothing is inside, nothing is outdoors,
Because what is inside is outdoors ...
In his peculiar kind, Goethe still opposed
the quotation that limits the human cognitive faculties. He
protested against it with the words, which just are suitable to
point a soul to the practical-active of the theosophical
worldview, while he reminded of Haller's words in old
age:
Indeed
To the Physicist
“No created mind penetrates
into the being of nature.”
O you Philistine!
Do not remind me
And my brothers and sisters
Of such a word.
We think: everywhere we are inside.
“Blissful is that to whom she shows
Her appearance only!”
I hear that repeatedly for sixty years,
I grumble about it, but covertly,
I say to myself thousand and thousand times:
She gives everything plenty and with pleasure;
Nature has neither kernel nor shell,
She is everything at the same time.
Examine yourself above all,
Whether you are kernel or shell.
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