The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Last time we spoke about how the soul should spread out ever more and pour out into space, and then contract into itself to see what is weaving within it. For these formulas were given to you, dear sisters and brothers, which can be used at will and also be passed on to other people who didn't attend all classes. Today another thought will be placed before your souls, something concrete, a mood that can help you to get into the spiritual world. Let's recall what happens in sleep. The etheric and physical bodies remain in bed while the astral body and ego are outside in the spiritual world. Why is it that a man doesn't experience the world he's in during sleep consciously like he experiences the physical world in day consciousness? Because during the time a man is asleep he has a strong urge to return to his physical body. This longing is like a darkening of the brightness of the spiritual world, so that he doesn't perceive the latter at all. The astral forces that are active in him there work so strongly that he wouldn't leave the physical body at all, if it wasn't so tired and used up and didn't so urgently need strengthening and refreshment through sleep. This drive or longing for his physical body is what prevents a man from consciously experiencing spiritual worlds during sleep. If he were clairvoyant he would see bright rays going from his astral body and ego to his physical and etheric bodies the longing for reunion is expressed in them. Let's suppose someone suddenly became clairvoyant during sleep; how would he see himself? When we meet someone on the physical plane we encounter his physical form in which an ego lives. Things are different in the spiritual world; we shouldn't think that we see someone there in the same form as on the physical plane. Here in the physical world we see single things separate from each other with sharp contours; but what weaves in the spiritual world are mobile pictures which we recognize to be spirits of higher hierarchies who send out their helpers to give the right expression to the human form. These messengers of the Spirits of Form are as it were still at the childhood stage, but they'll work themselves higher to the degree that they cultivate the human ego. Another host of elemental beings float around man's head and guard the ego-being. They work on his thinking and were sent out by Spirits of Movement and Spirits of Form. Other elemental beings, emissaries of Spirits of Wisdom, work on man's heart and bring about the circulation. Then there are elemental beings who work on man's warmth sense. In the spiritual world warmth arises from the relation between two beings, rather than from a particular source.

Other elemental beings work at the word sense, that is, not on the spoken words that one can hear from others, but these beings stand behind the single consonants and vowels that make up a word; they work on the composition of letters and syllables. One who is outside of his body can't understand words that are spoken; he lacks the physical organ for this; but he watches elemental beings as they bring single letters together to form a word. Man has 12 senses and not just 5, as conventional science would have you believe: sight, thinking, warmth, equilibrium, word, life, smell, taste, hearing, touch, movement and ego senses. Standing behind these 12 senses are elemental beings who are the servants and helpers of Spirits of Form, Movement and Wisdom. These elemental beings are still children, as it were, but to the extent that a man advances and develops himself up to Jupiter these elemental messengers of the higher hierarchies will also develop; some day they'll be Jupiter's zodiac after the earth has gone through its seven rounds and everything emerges again in a new configuration. Just as what previously worked on us on the Moon and now stands behind our senses has become the earth's zodiac. Jupiter will also have a sun and beings who now work into our blood system will stand behind it. It's only with the greatest awe and admiration that we can see how hosts of elemental beings are working on the wonderful temple of the human body.

My dear brothers and sisters, put yourself in this mood in earnest meditation on how countless elemental beings build up the wonderful temple that is to be the dwelling of the human I.

Why is it that we don't see these elemental beings at work? Because the moment we wake up the Guardian of the Threshold conceals the spiritual worlds from us. Waking up means that we shoo away these elemental beings from their working place. And as soon as we're in day consciousness Ahriman sees to it that the spiritual world is covered for us. He paints the picture of the sense world, and as we devote ourselves to maya—the great deceiver—the beings or souls that work on man's spiritual organization disappear for us. The physical body that we know is all a product of Ahriman, whereas we must know that the soul life that we merely experience in the physical body is Lucifer's work. He fills our soul with so much pride and blindness that it gets wrong ideas and feelings about the spiritual world.

Ex Deo nascimur
In ... morimur
Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.

Our exercises are suited to bring us into the spiritual world. We're also in the spiritual world at night, but not consciously. Why not? Because we are in the habit of perceiving through physical senses, and we're too weak to develop consciousness without this. What are these sense perceptions really? They also contain what we can attain with a higher consciousness: imaginations or pictures of higher reality, inspirations through which spiritual beings disclose themselves to us and the intuitions through which we become united with divine beings. All of this is contained in the percept, but it doesn't go into us, and when we investigate why this is so we find that it's Lucifer who burns it with the fire of our passions, drives and desires. Lucifer has made his home in the heart, and that's where the burning of the imaginations, inspirations and intuitions that underlie sensory things takes place, for pictures of spiritual beings press into us with every breath, with every perception. At the beginning of the Lemurian epoch when what the Bible describes as the battle between the Elohim and Lucifer took place, the latter mixed himself and his fire into man's heart.

But the heart had been created by the Elohim to be their dwelling. Something can be small in the physical world and be big in the spiritual world and vice versa. Thus the heart is only a small thing physically, and anatomists think that it's still the same thing when it's taken out of the body, but in reality the heart is something that's very big in the spiritual world, and it was supposed to be the Elohim's dwelling. But when Lucifer moved into the human heart the Elohim kept a place for themselves in it, they can still live in it and this becomes manifest in human life as the voice of conscience. Where this speaks something is speaking that doesn't belong to Lucifer with his consuming fire; a direct inspiration of the Gods still gets to men in it. And we see that this voice of conscience became objective for men at important points in human history and stood before them. That is how it was with Moses, on whose soul the destiny of his whole tribe pressed. He climbed up Mt. Sinai; he heard the voice of his God in the burning thorn bush (in the fire that Lucifer kindled), who later gave him the commandments on Mt. Sinai that became the foundation of all later human laws.

After Lucifer had taken over the human heart in this way the Elohim had to place a counterweight on the other scale pan of the cosmic world order. This happened in the Atlantean epoch when Ahriman with all munitions was entrenched in man's brain by the Elohim to bring his cooling effect against luciferic fire to bear there. And the part of the fire that burns the imaginations, inspirations and intuitions of percepts that Ahriman cools down becomes thoughts and ideas in men.

Lovelessness is a particularly good fuel for Lucifer. Ancient initiates always knew that Lucifer with his fire thrones in our heart and that Ahriman in the head cools this fire, and a last remnant of this is in Aristotle's statement that warmth goes from the heart to the head and is cooled there.

Now one could object that it's rather strange that both Lucifer and Gods live in our heart. It sounds as if there was only one heart in the world, and yet there are just as many hearts as there are men. We run into a riddle here that's one of the smallest ones an occultist encounters, and that is: How have many arisen out of one? We don't intend to give the solution to this riddle here, but one can try to press ever further into it through meditative reflection.

(The verse in the lesson from March 5th 1914 in Stuttgart, is included here for reference.)

To things I turn myself
I turn myself with ray senses;—
Sense existence, you deceive me!—
What flees existence as nothing:
For you it's existence and reality;
May what must seem like nothing to you
Be disclosed to my inner life.—

(I must attain this: it's the taking of a position towards the new, outer world.)

Spirit light warm me
Let me feel myself volitionally in you.
Well thought, truly known things
How does shining I experience you
May weaving of error, badly thought things
Show itself to shining soul
That I may be weaving in myself.

(That's a questioning and experiencing in the new existence within.)

Shining I and luminous soul (- oneself -)
Floats over real developing being
What was thought, what was known
Now becomes dense spirit existence
And what seems like existence to the senses
Lives in the ocean of divine reality
Like aery existential bubbles.

(In anticipation of truth. It's a guessing, a feeling of the new self.)

When elaborated each of these strophes contains the same thing that's successively compressed in our rosicrucian verse in the ten words:

Ex Deo nascimur,
In Christo morimur,
Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus

My dear sisters and brothers, it would be good if everyone who participates in an esoteric class were completely aware of the importance of the same. We're supposed to step out of everyday life consciously; it must seem to us as if the veil that separates us from the spiritual world is completely pulled away so that we can place ourselves in it. In a proper meditation we should become body-free, leave everything that's connected with corporeal things, extinguish all interests in corporeal life and only be devoted to the object of our meditation. We should step out of our body and leave it behind completely, as in sleep, except that in meditation it happens consciously. One thing we do take with us, and that's the effect of lungs and heart, the breath of life that Jahve Elohim once blew into earth man. While we're entirely devoted to our meditation we'll have the feeling that our brain is only an etheric brain. When a man thinks it has nothing to do with his brain. When he feels it has nothing to do with the heart organ. Just as when a carriage leaves deep ruts in a dirt road this has nothing to do with the wheels as such but is dependent on the road's consistency, so one can't judge organs by what one sees, as physiologists and anatomists do. It's not the organs that think and feel, it's the spiritual beings and forces that work into them. Just as letters are only characters for a word's content, so organs are only signs through which higher beings express themselves in men.

Our cerebellum is a remnant of the Moon stage of evolution; it sits there as a sign of the battles that the Gods fought for us. The cerebellum arose from what was thought on old Moon. There were no errors in our thoughts then, for divine powers thought for us and guided our thoughts. Man had no freedom yet; divine beings directed him. Now that he's become independent he must be responsible for what he thinks. There are also remnants of old Moon in the cerebrum's pineal and pituitary glands; on old Moon they were what the lung and heart are in man today. And what a man does now will form his cerebrum on Jupiter. What he thinks in connection with his cerebrum now will form his cerebellum on Jupiter. A man must bear the consequences of his thinking now that he's become free, and the cerebellum sits in the back of his head like a judge, for it will take the effects of everything that he thought on earth over to Jupiter. And so I ask you: Do we still need a Judgement? Isn't this judgement much more gripping and powerful than the one Michelangelo could portray in his Last Judgement? Just estimate the tragedy that lies in the fact that a man now has to bear the consequences of his deeds, feeling and thinking himself.

But we have a consolation, a support in the fact that Christ has entered earth evolution: if we entrust ourselves to him he will bear our deeds, feelings and thoughts over to Jupiter. That's why it's so important that spiritual science should enter our age, so that an understanding for the true Christ can become alive again.

In her Secret Doctrine Blavatsky speaks of Jahve as a moon God, but because she mixed in her own feelings there are errors in there, and much of the bad karma that burdens the Theosophical Society arose from this. And since Jahve was understood so little it's not surprising that one understands the Christ being so little now. To correct this Lucifer and Ahriman had to be spoken of right at the beginning of our Movement, for one can only get a right estimation of Jahve through a knowledge of their nature and activities. One only leads men into spiritual worlds properly if one leads them past Lucifer and Ahriman so that they get to the Christ there. If one doesn't place Christ at the centre of esoteric life one leads them to Lucifer. But one doesn't like to call these things by the right name, one deceives oneself about their true nature. What one calls scientific in certain circles is really ahrimanic. For instance, a Theosophist said that Occult Science is psychic-mystical, whereas the writings of Besant and Leadbeater are occult and scientific. But they're ahrimanic, and what he calls psychic and mystical should be called Christian. For Occult Science and our whole work was inspired by the Christ being himself. We should always keep this in mind, my dear sisters and brothers.

We came over from the Moon where we were still in the lap of the Gods: Ex Deo nascimur. We unite ourselves with Christ on earth and die into him: In ... morimur. Then the Holy Spirit will lead us over to the reincarnation of the earth—Jupiter: Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.

Many of those who have heard me speak and who read about the means stated in the theosophical books as a means to lead to seeing, recognizing, and beholding that which Theosophy reports, will say that these means - mind control, tolerance and what I have called the longing for freedom - do not look like they can really lead to such insights.

Most people have completely false ideas about this. They think that one must ascend to the knowledge of the higher worlds through special feats, through special spiritual training. Many will say: How often have I tried to control my thoughts; how often have I tried to apply the means that are given: I have achieved nothing at all. I am quite willing to believe all that. After all, I did not intend to create the conviction through my remarks that it is particularly difficult to enter the path on which we acquire higher knowledge, nor did I want to create the conviction that it is particularly easy in the sense that many people think. Because neither is fundamentally correct. I would therefore like to explain myself a little more precisely, especially to those who keep objecting: how can I believe that I will attain, through mind control, tolerance, and so on, what is called being a seer in the astral realm, a seer in Devachan?

Those who hold this view seem to me like those who wanted to claim: It is incomprehensible how the trains move forward, since we see nothing but a man throwing coal into the engine.

Now, the man is indeed doing something that bears no resemblance to the movement of a train; and yet, by stoking the fire, he generates the heat that causes the steam to rise, which in turn causes the movement. This image clearly shows what also happens in the spiritual realm. If we really strive to control our thoughts, then the activity of thought control increases in relation to what is achieved at the end, in a similar proportion to the stoker to the locomotive of an express train traveling, say, from St. Petersburg to Paris.

We can expand on this image even further. Imagine that the man is always heating and heating, but always lets the heat escape into the environment, so that nothing is done to convert the heat into a forward-moving force: how much power is wasted. In fact, people in our culture squander an infinite amount of energy, just as heat is wasted when it is released into the environment. This energy develops in our thoughts and feelings. What is lost daily and flows into the void could be used to gain direct supersensible knowledge. Then we would make rapid progress in development, which is the aim of the theosophical movement.

Allow me to describe in a few words how this wasting of forces takes place. Our Western culture is designed to allow people to waste a vast amount of energy simply because we develop more thoughts in the West than anywhere else. But almost all of these thoughts are uncontrolled: uncontrolled in how they arise, uncontrolled in how they are carried forward, and uncontrolled in how they are taken up again. So they are lost without leading us to a goal of knowledge. The difficulty in achieving what is called thought control, although it is child's play when seriously attempted, lies in the fact that you are opposed by an infinite number of prejudices. I would like to illustrate this with a concrete example.

You will admit that an infinite amount of thought is being expended today to improve social conditions. An infinite amount is being thought about it. But for someone who really knows, because it is part of his flesh and blood, what thought control is, all this thought power is largely wasted.¹

Anyone who does not think his thoughts through to the end, who does not endeavor to also realize the controlling thought, who does not consider that at the moment something is being thought in the world, another thought must also be thought, which complements and controls the first thought, cannot control his thoughts. For what use is it when the benefactor does good deeds and does not think about where the money came from?

This is not meant as a reproach, because it depends on our circumstances. It is made tremendously difficult for people to control their thoughts because we cannot, so to speak, help but live under millions and millions of prejudices. Is not almost every concept we have simply a prejudice? If we do not make an effort to clearly visualize these prejudices in order to at least inwardly free ourselves from the world of prejudices that flow into us daily, then thought control is not possible; it is not possible to truly see.

Those who really practice mind control and acquire the gift of vision know that through mind control, what we call astral and devachanic vision is acquired. This is simply an experience. But the whole of modern life is designed to be a drain on the power of thought. It is as if it were drawing the power of thought away from the outside with magnetic force. It is the destroyer of the truly seeing power. I would like to give a significant example.

Some time ago I spoke with a writer who is highly esteemed here in Berlin. I spoke of the vast amount of energy that could be used for humanity, but is lost through vanity. He understood so little the significance of what was said that he replied: “We are all vain anyway, and that is also the drive for success!” These people know that they are vain to the point of excess, they know that what makes our present art great and significant can also be achieved under the influence of stormy vanities. But great vanity cannot make a person inwardly whole. Overcoming vanity is as easy as pie for anyone who aspires to it, just as it is as easy as pie to exercise control over one's thoughts for anyone who does not want to get stuck in the prejudices of the world.

Curiosity, like ambition, has a devastating effect on the gift of foresight. How curiously people read the newspapers, even in the early hours of the morning. The curious desire to know what has happened must be overcome. People do not believe that curiosity is so detrimental to the gift of sight; perhaps they cannot distinguish how one and how the other perceives things. One does not perceive them because he is curious, but because he uses them like an effective instrument. He does not do it for its own sake, but perhaps just the opposite, in order to be able to intervene when it is necessary to help people.

To give another example by way of illustration, take the first sentences in “Light on the Path”. They are intended to train the power of vision and are so incredibly easy to follow:

1. Kill ambition.

2. Kill love of life.

3. Kill desire for comfort.

These three are deeply ingrained in our lives; but they, too, do not give rise to the gift. And then:

4. Work like those who are ambitious. Cherish life like those who love it. Be happy like those who live only for happiness.

The seer does not become useless for life. He just does not waste his strength; he puts even the smallest things at the service of his higher work. This becomes a matter of course for him.

These four sentences in “Light on the Path” are preceded by a series of conditions:

Before the eye can see, it must wean itself from tears. Before the ear can hear, its sensitivity must fade. Before the voice can speak to the masters, it must unlearn woundedness. And before the soul can stand before them, the blood of its heart must moisten its feet.

We must make our deeds, our actions fruitful, so that they help everyone, that they inspire to strive, since they are deeds of living power.

All this is almost impossible in our culture, where everyone believes they can pass judgment on everything, believes they are entitled to find one thing good and great and another thing bad. As a result, our culture does not even reach the first step on the path to higher knowledge, the step of the “raven”. “Raven” means in the language of the initiated one who strives unselfishly not to judge. It does not mean that he blunts his own judgment, but only that he refrains from judging. By “raven” we mean someone who does not say to himself, “It is the most important thing you think about people and things,” but who says to himself, “You must find out what others think about it, you must delve into the soul of others and fathom what lives in them.” If you are capable of doing that, you have reached the first step. This is again child's play for anyone who does not live in prejudices, but difficult for anyone who lives in modern culture, and who is supposed to refrain from criticizing.

The “Raven” is the first stage of the Persian Mithras initiation. The higher initiates have all passed through this stage. They first had to be able to immerse themselves in every soul. They had to understand why a person does this and why he does that. Look around you in your world: one person does this, another that. People are so quick to say: he did that, he shouldn't have done that. But what matters is not to judge why a person did this or that. So the one who wants to grasp the inner life must have gone through the life of the “raven”. He must have searched every soul without prejudice to discover the motives. Of such a one it is said: “He sends out the ravens”. Something of this still echoes in the Kyffhäuser saga when it says: “Emperor Rotbart sends out the ravens”. But this does not mean to send out scouts from the surrounding area, but to explore the souls of men in order to see if he can intervene himself.

One must learn to “understand”, and in the higher sense this is what tolerance is. He who starts out pointedly and boldly from his own point of view will come to seership just as little as he who strives for success in impatient expectation. Think of all the striving out of vanity, all the curiosity - all that flows out into space like the heat of a steam boiler. Innumerable forces are lost as a result. You must regard that as a basic rule. The moment you strive to satisfy your curiosity, you waste your forces. If you kept them to yourself, you would be able to transform them into higher knowledge. If you could just once manage not to see something you would like to see, you would save energy, energy that remains for you, that does not get lost. Likewise, if you could curb your urge to communicate. Usually, when something is said somewhere, it must be said further so that those around you can also benefit from it. But one should not communicate things for the sake of talking, but for each word only express what should be said. If this becomes a principle, then the gift of higher vision gradually develops. This is an experience of those who see. Those who always want to communicate everything, although it is quite insubstantial, will not get very far. Only by overcoming the meaningless and insubstantial urge to communicate can we store up forces within us.

These are paths that are easy to follow in and of themselves if one wants to follow them, but which are nevertheless followed very little because they are considered meaningless. But it does not depend on special training, but on our inner life being further developed in everyday life. In this way, one advanced to the second degree in the schools for the initiated, to the degree of the Occult.

Those who examine every word to see whether it should be said thus or otherwise, who through constant testing have forgotten how to wind, who spread a veil around themselves and speak, as it were, through the veil, were the veiled ones. They had progressed so far that they made themselves the creators of their own personality, testing themselves with every hand movement, with every word. Without another being aware of it, such a one could pass through the first and second degrees. But he must not think: now I have reached the stage where I can penetrate the souls of others, now I can also say something. For anyone who wants to say something, who wants to be a teacher, who wants to have an authoritative significance, must wait until he has reached the third degree of initiation: the degree of the “warriors”. What is written in the second chapter of “Light on the Path” about the “Warriors” applies to them. The first chapter is written for every human being; the second chapter is written for those who want to teach their fellow human beings. But in a sense it is also written for all people, because every person should teach their fellow human beings. Only he who observes these rules can hope that his words will find the right response. No theosophical teacher should ever utter a word without observing the principle:

1. Stand aside in the coming battle, and even if you also fight, do not be the fighter.

2. Look for the fighter; let him fight in you.

3. Await his instruction for battle; follow it.

These three are deeply rooted in our lives; but they also make it impossible for the gift of prophecy to arise. And then:

The greatest enemies of a higher inner development are thus curiosity, vanity, insubstantial talkativeness - where one speaks in order to speak, instead of waiting to see if the word is necessary and one wants to hear it - and finally the falling prey to temptation.

The true theosophist and mystic does not avoid temptation from approaching him. He lets it approach him as much as anyone, and then follows the voice within despite the temptation. As soon as he becomes a teacher, he has to step aside. If he yields to even the slightest temptation, his powers will be wasted, flowing out like heat from a steam boiler. But if he succeeds in resisting the smallest, most insignificant temptation, he retains his strength and it will bear fruit.

Thus, by storing up what would otherwise be lost, by accumulating it through the means indicated, we can gradually and quite imperceptibly acquire the gift of inner vision.

• 1. The following remarks are so poorly recorded that the original wording can no longer be reconstructed. The gist of the problem of exploitation was that those who suffer from exploitation also exploit. For example: a seamstress who works for a pittance wears clothes that have been made for a pittance. On this point, see the sections on the problem of exploitation in Rudolf Steiner's essay “Geisteswissenschaft und soziale Frage in GA 34 ‘Lucifer - Gnosis’. Fundamental essays on anthroposophy and reports from the magazines ‘Lucifer’ and ‘Lucifer - Gnosis’ 1903 to 1908.

Within Western culture, the development must start primarily from so-called thought control. Although all of the disorderly, highly arbitrary Western thinking is not at all suited to develop controlled thoughts, thoughts of strict sequence, this is nevertheless necessary first. And with this I would like to come back to what I have already mentioned: that we must develop sensitivity for the perception of illogical, poorly controlled sequences of thoughts. The ordinary person will feel a kind of pain at every opportunity when his senses are strongly stimulated; but people who are receptive to the pain of uncontrolled, illogical thoughts are very rare. And yet this is a stage that everyone has to go through at some point, and not only in terms of thinking, but also in terms of reading in our Western literature. I am not excluding a large number of books of Theosophical literature. There, too, you come across many uncontrolled thoughts.

Most people today think in an uncontrolled way. And every uncontrolled thought means an unfulfilled balancing, an inability to relate to the phenomenon. It is like slipping, and slipping in the physical world is also an inability to relate to the physical world. We have to develop such a strong sense of right, complete thoughts within us that we feel a kind of physical pain when an incorrect thought occurs to us or to someone else.

In ordinary life, it is not possible to control one's thoughts in this way. Consider that if you are in the professional world, you are forced to think illogically all the time. Because illogical thinking is everywhere. In daily life, in business, in the higher professions, in natural science, in history, everywhere you encounter illogical thoughts; and you find the most illogical thoughts in jurisprudence, where you would expect the most logical thinking.

So anyone who wants to come to higher realizations themselves and not just hear about them from others who have them must begin to live from within. To do this, one must, at least for a very short time during the day, shut oneself off from all the rest of life. Even if it is only for five or ten minutes, or just three or four, you must devote yourself entirely to your own inner life and to thoughts that do not come from our immediate culture, from our daily lives, but that you know have a higher origin and are thoughts in which you can trust.

This retreat, this living and weaving in a world of thoughts that is strictly ordered, this devotion to such a world of thoughts, even if only for a short time, is what compensates us for all the distractions and disruptions in the external culture. Then we go strengthened through the everyday world with an inner center and lead ourselves through the everyday world by bringing a thought, if it does not belong to our ordered life, out of our field of vision again. Do not think that you are always capable of doing this! Just remember that when you cross the street, you are not the master of your thoughts; that from all sides, without you doing anything about it, thoughts from the environment rush in on you, affect your consciousness and play through it, so that you are a plaything of your consciousness. As long as you do not have the power to roll up your thoughts as if on a string, you cannot expect the inner self to reveal itself. We can only expect to gain control over our world of thoughts if we succeed in detaching ourselves from everyday life for a short time and rising to our ideals. When we become attached to an ideal thought, we achieve inner strength. It is not important to have grasped a thought with the mind.

Take the first thought in “Light on the Path”: “Before the eye can see, it must wean itself from tears.” Take it today, tomorrow, and again and again — then it will begin to come to life. And if you dismiss everything else that tries to intrude, it will become the center of your being. It lives and moves within you. It will show you that it gives rise to other thoughts, that it is infinitely fruitful. And you will overcome whatever you have to overcome from within. You must develop a sensitivity to wrong thoughts. It must be as if you are pricked with needles by wrong thoughts. You must also feel this when you read books. If you cannot feel pain when you encounter illogical thinking, then you cannot develop right thinking.

You must not only understand right thinking, but also love it. You must love a thought as you love a child. You have seen your child today, yesterday and the day before yesterday, and you still love it. That is how you must treat the world of thought. When you think you have understood a thought, you must not push it out of your consciousness, but keep dealing with it. When you can do that, then you are provided with a kind of thought armor, then what was there as a transitional stage stops: the fight against what was illogical; it stops when a thought is as much a fact to you as a chair, a table and so on. You become positive. He who lives in the spiritual world knows that. He also knows that he is always surrounded by thoughts as by powers and forces that affect us. Those who are receptive to it see what thoughts of hatred or goodwill people send to each other. He sees how they draw into them, and he sees how they rebound. There are people who stand strangely before us; they stand as if surrounded by a crystal body, in the center of which they live. And all unsuitable thoughts rebound from this crystal shell. These are people who know how to live in such a meditative way, who know how to regulate their lives from within.

You can test whether your thought control is successful. But not by saying to yourself: I am now thinking correctly – but by acquiring a barometer that can show you how your thoughts are controlled from within. And for those who are on the path of knowledge, that is the life of dreams. For the one who recognizes things in reality, it is not valued in the same way as it is by other superstitious people. For him, it has a completely different significance than for the one who has not yet mastered the control of his thought life.

For most people, the dream life is a wild, chaotic surge. But this completely stops when we have devoted ourselves to meditative life for a while. Then dreams take on a deep, symbolic meaning. The regularity and beauty of dreams is a barometer of our control over our thoughts.

As long as we stagger about in the external world, our dreams are a wild reflection of our outer life. But in the moment when we withdraw for at least a short time to become strong and powerful against everything that rushes upon us, our dreams take on a symbolic meaning. Then we must make a conscious effort to ask ourselves: What might this dream, which presents itself in this way, represent to me?

This is also the difference between the higher dreams and the lower ones. It is not true that dreams and dreams can be written on the same sheet. The life that a person unfolds in a state of sleep is completely different for someone who develops his spiritual body and for someone who does not. This is known by anyone who has had spiritual experiences. Anyone who knows nothing but what the eyes, the ears, the tongue say to him, anyone who is completely absorbed in this world of the senses, can experience nothing during sleep but a wild reminiscence of sensory impressions. But what you work on spiritually in those five minutes is something that arouses the spirit and sets it in motion; something that you take with you everywhere, whether your body is there or not. When our dreams begin to become regular, to become little dramas with a development and regular actions, then what we call our true inner spiritual life is active.

But this is only the lowest level. What must follow from this is this: If you use the moments that you set aside – but which you must not withdraw from your professional life, because a theosophist must not withdraw anything from their professional life – and use them for your inner progress, then you will notice something that occurs very soon in those who spend some time meditating, in their inner spiritual life. You will notice that you remember your dreams in a completely different way than was previously the case. This is the continuity of consciousness that occurs more and more the further a person develops, and it occurs in such a way that you become aware of yourself in a concrete way. As long as you identify yourself completely with the body, as long as it is not the spirit with which you have become one, you cannot develop consciousness when you are disembodied, that is, in a state of sleep. Hence the unconscious state of the majority of humanity during sleep. Only very slowly does such continuity of consciousness occur that you are just awake in your sleep, as you are awake in your physical body, and that you bring this waking consciousness back into your everyday waking consciousness.

This gives you a yardstick, something by which you can gain a barometer against the physical life. The resistance to ordinary life is increased. The body must become like a tool. You can then look at the body lying beside you, outside yourself. But you live in the spirit when you begin to withdraw from what is connected with the body. This does not make you less capable, but more capable for life, because he who knows the spirit is always more capable.

It is therefore important that you set aside part of the day to devote yourself to lofty thoughts that have nothing to do with everyday selfishness, with ambition, with ordinary sensual comfort, and that you let the light of such thoughts shine into everyday life.

This is how we understand the very first teachings in “Light on the Path”. They do not want to lead people to asceticism, to make them strangers in this world. It is not the one who comes to asceticism who corresponds to the theosophical ideal, but the one who comes to the spirit from ordinary life.

So when “Light on the Path” says:

1. Kill ambition.

2. Kill the love of life.

3. Kill the desire for comfort.

it says immediately afterwards:

4. Act like those who are ambitious. Value life like those who love it. Be happy like those who live only for happiness.

And further:

Seek out the root of evil in the heart and tear it out.

The theosophist must feel that we are a part of the whole, that we are jointly responsible for everything that exists. He who is not capable of feeling that he is partly to blame when someone steals tomorrow is also incapable of knowing how he is connected to the whole; he is incapable of seeking the root of evil. Because we do not have the possibility and ability to start with other people, it is said:

Seek in your heart the root of evil and tear it out. For it thrives and proliferates in the heart of the zealous disciple as it does in the hearts of the children of the world.

No one should imagine that they are good – as if we could do that, as if we could do that for even a moment – or much better than others. The thought that we cannot be much better than anyone else must fill us completely. What have we done, for example, if we make people happy while, because of the way we live, we make many people unhappy? Ignorance is the root of suffering in life. Ignorant, as we often are, it is we who have sharpened the knife for the one who uses it for evil.

Only the strong can kill it. The weak, however, must expect its growth, its ripening, its dying.

Through the ages this herb grows in man. It proliferates, but it only comes into flower when it has gone through the myriad lives of many.

There are things that only appear in very late incarnations: that someone who had already risen high later fell low. It has not been uncommon for those who recognized the depths to become the lowest of the fallen. Those adventurer natures could not be distinguished from the great.

Whoever wants to enter the path of mastery must tear this herb from his heart. Then the heart's blood will flow abundantly, and the whole life will seem destroyed.

Take this saying almost literally, but in a spiritual sense. Take what is worth in the highest sense and style of life. Say to yourself: How infinitely much of value have I contemplated, and how infinitely much, for the sake of which I have lived, is perhaps completely worthless. I must begin a new life if I do not want to live as I am accustomed to living; if I do not want to shape it from foreign influence, but through my own inner life. We will then seemingly be no different on the outside, but we will lead life under different impulses. We will not live out of vanity, not out of ambition, not for the sake of sensual pleasure, for we will no longer be able to do so, but out of duty, because it must be done out of the highest insight.

But the test must be passed. Perhaps it will approach you at the very first step of the daring climb up the path of life, perhaps at the last. Remember well: it must be passed, and put all your strength into accomplishing it. Not in the moment may you live, not in the future, only in the eternal.

The seer can perceive that the thoughts of the outside world pierce the one who lives in the moment like spears. Thoughts that may be unfavorable to him rebound from the one who lives in the eternal. It is not external success, not what we can achieve, that brings us forward, but that we live in the eternal in every moment. We will achieve nothing if we strive for it with greed. We should not live in the future, only in the eternal.

There this giant weed cannot flourish: the breath of even one thought of eternity wipes this stain out of your existence.

Then comes the training of the astral body. Just as we work on the mental body through mind control, so we must work on the astral body by ordering the memory. It must also be controlled, must be made the subject of examination. This has a great and significant influence on your whole life. You must get out of the habit of feeling selfish remorse when you look back on your actions. The things you remember must be there for you to learn from and do better. We must learn from the past and use our memory to make our soul more capable. If we regulate our memory in such a way that we do not look back in an arbitrary way, but look back even at the seemingly most insignificant thing so that it becomes a school of learning for us, then we strengthen our soul's backbone.

When we control our memory in this way, we develop astral vision. This turns the astral body into an organ of will that we can use. We have to get over tears, overcome antipathy and sympathy, so that we can have the right attitude towards our memories.

If we are the master of our memory and imagination, then we have achieved our preliminary goal. We recognize that the one who does not practice this must continually feel within himself that he is dependent on every spiritual breath in his environment, like a swaying reed that is blown this way and that by every thought. There is no other way to enter the astral and mental worlds than to train oneself from within. In the one who organizes his memory, who in the evenings forms the cloud-like structures into regular ray formations, especially in the upper sections that emanate from the heart and head, it will be seen that this person lives from the inside out. When a person has reached this stage, nothing can harm him anymore. In his presence, we can send him thoughts of the worst kind, but they recede as if they had not touched him. Through his meditation work, he has formed a spiritual shell around himself.

At the end of the last lecture, I mentioned that humans have the ability to influence their so-called astral body through such an intimate means as memory control. I will add a few more things today.

This astral body, which envelops us like a cloud and in which our desires, instincts and passions express themselves, is also the carrier of something that lives and works continuously in our mind: it is the carrier of our memory. Everything we call memory or recollection adheres to the astral body. The thought you had yesterday is still in you today. But it has no possibility of remaining in you if it is not embedded in the astral body, if it does not stimulate vibrations that remain and recall what you experienced yesterday to your existence today. Now it is impossible for a person to take even one step forward in the development of the astral body if he does not work on his memory, on his recall of experiences.

I have said how man should work on the strict control of thinking, on the control of the whole thought life; how he must be clear that his thoughts are real processes, that it is the greatest untruth when it is said that thoughts are “duty free” and that we have no spectators for thoughts. If you want to develop real insight within yourself, you must work on your memory. We can only do this by not allowing our memories to arise in a confused way above the horizon of our consciousness and then disappear again.

So how do our memories pass through our consciousness? They come and go. Man abandons himself to them. Man is haunted by memories that ebb and flow. As long as he is, he is also at the mercy of all the influences and coincidences that are constantly exerted on the astral body from the outside. This can only be remedied by devoting a short time each day, even if only a very short time, to taking care of our memory. However, this should not prevent us from faithfully attending to all our other life obligations. The first principle of Theosophy is that no one should be deterred from the occupation they have in life.

So just a few minutes a day spent cultivating our memory can truly work wonders in our astral body.

What we are supposed to achieve can be said in a few words: we must make our lives a school of learning. For very few people, life is a school of learning. Most people indulge in pleasure and pain. And as life passes them by, pain, joy and pleasure pass by; they learn nothing from their lives. The theosophist, on the other hand, says to himself: Every day must advance me; every day must be a step in my development.

Therefore, the theosophist lets no day pass without letting the important events of the day pass before his mind, before his spiritual gaze. The best moment is the last moment we spend in a waking state: that is, the moment immediately before falling asleep. If we are able to still fill two, three, four, five minutes with the experiences of the day, to let them pass by in an objective way, then we achieve a lot for the astral body.

During the day we feel pleasure and pain, joy and discomfort. The theosophist should not dull his senses, but should feel vivid compassion and vivid disgust throughout the whole of his ordinary daily life. No one should be able to distinguish him from other people. He should only differ from others during the selected four, five to twenty minutes. Then he does not let the sensations - pleasure and pain, joy and discomfort - pass by in the usual way, but he reflects on them: What has caused me pleasure and pain? What has caused me comfort and discomfort? Was this pleasure, was this pain justified? Could it not be different if I had approached the thought somewhat differently? Could I not arouse the pleasure and discomfort in a different way? Could I not influence the course of events? Have I acted as I would always like to act? Have I acted in such a way that I can bring it into harmony with the whole harmony of the world order? – In short, it is the elevation of everyday life to a higher point of view.

If we observe our feelings in these four or five to twenty minutes, reliving them, but not in such a way that we have the same impression, but rather confronting them objectively, so that we see our seeing, hear our hearing and become clear about our pain and our desire , and whether we have perhaps caused our pleasure or pain through our triviality. In short, we become clear about our entire position in the world. Then we have learned something from our experiences, then we are working on the development of our astral organs.

The one who can see on the astral plane, who can see, can see how a person's astral body changes when that person is alert and does these exercises for years. Then his astral body begins to be organized. Where it used to be chaotic, a real mess – you can see snaking lines in grotesque coils in people's astral bodies – certain forms now appear in it, regular forms, it begins to structure itself.

Today, people cannot yet see this, but cultivating the memory is precisely the way by which we are enabled to see this transformation in ourselves and in our fellow human beings. What we have experienced today becomes our experience tomorrow, and experience is the touchstone for our future experiences. This enhances our development and organizes our astral body. However insignificant this may appear, it works surely. It contributes to the opening of the spiritual eye, to looking into the feelings of others, to becoming truly enlightened in the spiritual world. And then you must help it by casting off everything from yourself that clings to your self, to your peculiarity, to your special nature. If you are able to suppress anything that belongs to your special nature, then you develop your astral body.

Those who have experience know that it has an enormous effect when you succeed in achieving the following. A person has hundreds and hundreds of opinions. But it is very unimportant whether A or B thinks something about a matter. The wise man has an opinion and so does the fool. Everyone considers his opinion to be of the utmost importance, and he wants to assert this opinion first. That is why you so often hear people say, “I believe this, I believe that.” Try to realize how unimportant it is to put forward your own opinion at every opportunity; it may be the most unimportant, the most incorrect, because what we believe usually depends on pleasure and pain. If we manage not to express our opinion, then we practice something important and store up a tremendous power.

Every such suppressed revelation of the special being, every silence is a new accumulation of power for our knowledge. The more we are able to listen and not express our opinion, the more quickly we ascend to direct knowledge and direct vision. To one who has no insight into the organization of the human soul, this is incredible. But just as surely as the forces accumulate in the accumulator, so can the soul forces accumulate if we suppress our opinions. This gives us power and strength. He who has opinions to express at every turn will advance slowly; he who can remain silent much, who can let things speak to him, will advance rapidly. This is a golden rule in relation to direct knowledge: if we do not thrust our opinions upon things, then things will speak to us.

A very significant saying in The Secret Doctrine is: “I have learned much from those above me; I have learned much from those around me; and I have learned most from those below me!” It is learning from those below us, learning by listening and by withholding our opinions, that lifts us up. And we learn most when we let nature speak to us and listen to it. Then we achieve what needs to be achieved, namely the strength to really expose our opinions. If we have allowed ourselves the four to five minutes to develop the astral body, then something else comes.

What do people do when they are faced with a question? It may mean something big or something small. What do people do then? They think about it, rack their brains and believe that they have to be the ones to extract the solution to the question from the depths of their thoughts. Those who follow the path of knowledge do not do it that way. Goethe characterized it, as he also hinted at many other things as an initiate. He once said: We are not called upon to solve the question, but first to pose it and then to wait for the question to solve itself.

Do not underestimate this way of solving questions! It is quite powerful. We try to ask ourselves the question very clearly, but we do not think about the answer, but about the means that are suitable for solving the question. Let us say, for example, that I am faced with the question of whether a person is guilty or innocent, whether he has acted out of evil will or out of an innocent heart. If I think about it, I will not come to a correct judgment. But I will come to an answer if I look at his life as far as it is accessible to me; if I ask myself: What has happened to me with him? How did he face me? What did he say to me? What did he say to other people? — These are not answers, but questions that I have created for myself. They need to be considered. If I do this actively and suppress the answer, the image that I create for myself provides the answer. I switch myself off, as it were.

If you do this with all your willpower, switching off so that your self is not present, that your thinking is suppressed, if you overcome yourself not to give yourself an answer, but to fall asleep with the prepared question, then you will experience that you will wake up in the morning with an answer that is much more correct and certain than the one that could have come to you in the evening. While your physical body was resting, your spirit was disembodied and obtained the means to answer the question from the higher worlds. It is advisable to have a pencil ready, because you have to write down the answer as soon as you wake up in the morning. If you fail to do so, you will forget it again because you will be under completely different influences.

The deafening noise of everyday life does not allow people to develop their higher mental abilities. Therefore, we must learn to let our daily lives disappear for a short time through these exercises, which are familiar to anyone who becomes acquainted with the more intimate life of the mind and soul. If we are able to do this, we can develop in these isolated moments what theosophists call “spirituality” or “spiritual vision”. A whole new world then unfolds around us.

Berlin, March 14, 1904

I would like to begin by saying that you should not underestimate the mood in which one has to place oneself in order to have the right relationship with the universe. For those who are not yet on the path of knowledge, this mood is perhaps something that seems to have no real significance. But it does. For this reason, all religions have tried to educate people to this mood through prayer, and the prayer that originated from esotericists also has no other meaning.

In order for you to fully appreciate the significance of such an attitude towards the universe, I would first like to show how not only those who want to progress in terms of their inner life, but also those who want to progress in their knowledge of the outside world, can pave their way by doing so.

In our materialistic age, many erroneous opinions are held about great explorers and pathfinders. In particular, many of those who are involved in the sciences believe from the outset that the sciences lead to disbelief, to the denial of the spiritual world. That is why I would like to tell you today about the spirit of a great mind, whose name I will not give you until I have read a few of his sayings to you. For these sayings show how he came to the great discoveries that have been a blessing for modern times, through his having a more intimate connection with the spirit that permeates the whole universe. He says:

Another sentence from the same man:

”What I sensed 25 years ago [...] I have finally [...] brought to light. To a higher degree than I could ever have hoped for, I have recognized as absolutely true and correct that the whole world of harmonics, however great it is, with all its parts discussed in the third book, is found in the heavenly motions, although not in the way I had imagined (and that is not the last part of my joy), but in a completely different, and at the same time highly distinguished and perfect way. In the meantime, while I was kept busy with the extremely laborious task of improving the theory of the movements of the heavenly bodies, my passionate desire for knowledge was greatly increased and my determination was spurred on by reading Ptolemy's Harmonical Writing [...] In it I found, contrary to my expectations and to my greatest astonishment, that almost the entire third book was already dealing with a similar study of celestial harmony 1500 years ago. But at that time much was still lacking in astronomy [...] However, in the emphatic pursuit of my plan, I was not only greatly encouraged by the low level of ancient astronomy, but also by the strikingly precise agreement between our observations, which were made fifteen centuries apart. For why are many words needed? Nature itself wanted to reveal itself to people through the mouths of men who set about interpreting it in very different centuries. There is a divine hint in it, to speak with the Hebrews, that in the minds of two men who had devoted themselves entirely to the contemplation of nature, the same thought about the harmonious design of the world emerged; for neither was the guide of the other in walking this path. Now, after eighteen months of gathering light, three months of bright days, and just a few days ago the full sun of a most marvelous vision, nothing holds me back..."

These words were written by the great astronomer Johannes Kepler, who first taught people how the planets move and which orbits they follow. From this you will see that, in the face of true science, it cannot be a matter of unbelief in the spirit and that anyone who today, on the basis of discoveries such as those made by Kepler, Copernicus, Galilei and so on, wanted to claim that the world is not permeated by the spirit, that a spiritual view of the world has been overcome, would find himself in a very strange position. For those who, out of this devotional mood, have made the discoveries of natural science, as Kepler did, have grasped the harmony of the world system.

What we must strive for first of all is to recognize that man's personality is not yet his true self, but that this true self is something to which we must aspire, something that must develop more and more in us through the incarnations. This is also what Goethe means when he says: “Whoever strives, we can redeem him. And if he has received love from above, the blessed host will give him a warm welcome!” And Christ meant nothing other by the term ‘grace’ than the ‘buddhi’ that bends down and draws our self up to itself.

Buddhi is grace. And this constant striving towards the realms that the theosophist calls the plane, the plan of buddhi, the plan of bliss, is what brings us knowledge. And every true knower, everyone who has come to knowledge, who has had knowledge, has realized that he has come from nature to grace and from there to glory. And that was Kepler's prayer. When he felt the full significance of his discovery within him, he was not the proud scholar who said, “I have now found it.” Rather, Kepler's mood was the mood from which his great discovery was born, and this mood was this:

"O thou who, through the light of nature, awakens in us a desire for the light of grace, in order to lead us through it to the light of glory, I thank you, Lord and Creator, that you have delighted me with your creation and that I have rejoiced in the works thy hands; behold, I have now finished the work of my calling, utilizing the measure of strength thou hast bestowed upon me; I have revealed to men the glory of thy works, as much as my limited mind could grasp of thy infinity. If anything has been presented by me that is unworthy of thee, or if I have sought my own honor, graciously forgive me.

The human soul is often called a reflection of the divine being. If one delves into this image, it becomes clear that one does not have one's being within oneself, but outside of oneself, that the higher self is outside and we can only reflect it. But then one also realizes that the human being is part of the higher self, is part of an eternal being. That the theosophists' images are not arbitrary may be proved to you again by a saying of Kepler's, a saying about the soul that coincides so completely with the theosophical truth about the soul: “I think about the soul somewhat like mirrors that the sun shines upon. If you stop perceiving them with your senses, they do not cease to be. They contain the expression of the Divine. Whatever is materialized in this dissolves.

What Kepler spoke, he overheard from the Spirit that spoke to him. This is mentioned here to show how the devotional mood comes into play in everything. No one can gain higher knowledge than the one who believes and allows himself to ascend to knowledge. He who knows that with every thought man lets a divine stream flow into him, he who is conscious of this, receives as a consequence the gift of higher knowledge. He who knows that knowledge is communion, also knows that it is nothing other than that which is symbolized in the Lord's Supper.

As holy and great as it can be grasped, it should be presented as the union with the world spirit. Those who feel unworthy must struggle to make themselves worthy and capable of the knowledge. Devotion is something that works wonders in this area. Those who do not know the mood of judgment are on the right path.

Young people usually make the mistake of judging too soon when they say, “I stand on such and such a point of view.” A young person must receive knowledge with reverence and respect. There is a difference between the person who criticizes from an early age and the person who receives knowledge devoutly. The Talmud lists seven qualities for those who want to become wise:

1. He does not speak first when a person of importance is present.
2. He does not interrupt anyone else's speech.
3. He does not answer hastily before thinking.
4. He asks and answers questions appropriately.
5. He discusses one topic after another in order.

This fifth rule is a golden rule for the present time. Go into a hundred modern meetings and see if you can find one in which things are handled properly and in order.

6. Of what he does not know, he admits: “I do not know.”
7. He confesses his error if he believes he has made one.

These are important sentences that look like very mundane rules of life, but they are infinitely important because they inspire reverence for knowledge, and that is what works more for spiritual knowledge than anything else. One must have experienced the difference in the auras of young people who have this reverent mood and those who do not. The clairvoyant can tell exactly whether someone is sitting, let us say, in a lecture hall and listening with real reverence, for then he has the blue and violet rays and currents in his aura. And then one can also tell exactly those listeners - especially among the student body they are frequent - who, even at the age of twenty, harbor the thought and also express it: I stand on this point of view; this seems right to me, this seems wrong to me. On the other hand, there are young people who, with a holy awe, only dare to open the door of some great man. And these come to the highest and furthest realization.

And then it is important that we keep order in our train of thought. The following words in «Light on the Way» seem to contain a contradiction. But anyone who wants to go higher must live with that. They must have two opposing sentences in front of them:

9. Strive only for that which dwells within you.
10. Strive only for that which lies beyond the self.

You may ask: Do I need both sentences and what for? Yes, we need both. And we want to be clear about both sentences, because that is where thought control lies. We must practice it so that we do not make one truth clear to us one-sidedly, but look at the world from all sides.

Let us first take the sentence: “Strive only for what dwells within you”, and then the second sentence, the second thought: “Strive only for what lies beyond the self.”

Life alternates between good and evil, between beauty and ugliness, and so on. These are things that always contradict each other. But we will only get to know the life of the mind if we do not get stuck in the details. We simply do not dwell on the contradictions, but understand that contradictions are what life is all about.

In this way, we practice thought control, always being aware that when we have conceived a thought, we must immediately seek the corresponding other, which relates to the former as hunger relates to satiety. In this way, one side of the thought is complemented by the other, just as light and shadow, positive and negative, complement each other. So our thoughts must follow a strict order. Let us therefore remember the rule: add to every thought its opposite! Those who follow this rule will gradually be able to live in a living spirituality. They will live in a spiritual life that is higher than the sensual.

When we have reached one level, we must be aware that there is an even higher level above us. After all, everything we can achieve now is such low levels compared to what we still have to achieve. It is not for nothing that Christian wisdom has said: No eye has seen, no ear has heard what God will show those who approach him lovingly.

The tenth thought in “Light on the Path”: “Strive only for that which lies beyond the self” is controlled by the eleventh:

11. Strive only for that which is always unattainable.

The writer of “Light on the Path” wrote under the influence of a highly developed master. “Light on the Path” was inspired by an Occidental master who carefully dictated every single sentence to the pen, word for word. The person who wrote the book was merely the scribe, the writing medium.

In the sense of this sentence: “Strive only for what is always out of reach.” Goethe also says at the height of his knowledge: “I praise only those who desire the unattainable.”

It is not important to understand these sentences, to be able to make them clear to one's mind. It is much more important to start the day with three such sentences, no matter how you have understood them. Let us begin, for example, with the sentence: “Strive only for what is always out of reach.” For the one who lives with this sentence, it will become an inner strength; it will become his own. But then a change can also be found in the aura. In certain places in the aura, somewhat darker circles can be found. The more a person develops, the more these dark spots, which look like wheels, change. And when a person begins to assimilate such sentences in lonely mental work, then these wheels begin to turn. These are the “wheels” of which the writings of the Indians and the representatives of the old religions speak. These are the “chakrams”, and when they begin to turn, then the higher knowledge begins.

12. For in you dwells the light of the world, - the only one that illuminates your path. If you cannot recognize it within you, you will seek it in vain elsewhere. And yet it lies beyond yourself. If you penetrate to it, you have lost yourself. And it is unattainable, for it always recoils. You may enter its circle of light, but you will never touch its flame. Notes by Rudolf Steiner for the lecture Berlin, March 14, 1904, cf. p. 48

The saying:

More radiant than the sun
One than the snow
Finer than the ether
Is the self,
The spirit in my heart
This self is me,
I am this self.

every morning to our higher self. Such sayings are not invented by the arbitrariness of a personality, but they are taken from the spiritual world. Therefore, they contain much more than one usually believes. And one thinks correctly about them when one assumes that one can never fully fathom their content, but can always find more in them the more one delves into them. Therefore, the Esoteric School can only give a few hints as to how to search for the content. Some such hints are given below.

Brighter than the sun

Man sees the objects around him only when they are illuminated by the sun. What makes them visible are the sunbeams reflected from them into the eye of the beholder. If there were no light, things would not be visible. But only the objects of the physical world become visible through this external light. A light that is “brighter than the sun” must shine for the human being if he is to see the soul and spiritual beings and things. This light does not come from an external sun. It comes from the source of light that we ignite within ourselves when we seek out the higher, eternal self within us. This higher self has a different origin from the lower self. The latter perceives the everyday environment. But what lives in this everyday environment has come into being once and will pass away. What we feel about it has only a fleeting value itself. And our fleeting self is also built up from such feelings and the thoughts about them. All things that become visible through the sun have not existed once and they will no longer be once. And the sun also came into being once and will pass away one day. But the soul is there precisely to recognize the eternal in things. When the whole earth will no longer be, the souls that inhabited it will still be. And what these souls have experienced on earth, they will carry elsewhere as a memory. It is as if a person has done me a kindness. The deed passes away. But what he has thereby planted in my soul remains. And the bond of love that has connected me with him does not pass away. What we experience is always the origin of something lasting in us. We ourselves extract the lasting from things and carry it over into eternity. And when people are transplanted to a completely different scene in the future, they will bring with them what they have gathered here. And their deeds in the new world will be woven from the memory of the old. For there is no seed that does not produce fruit. If we are connected to a person in love, then this love is a seed, and we experience the fruit in all of the future, in that we belong to such a person in all of the future. So there is something in us that is interwoven with the divine power that connects all things to the eternal fabric of the world. This “something” is our higher self. And this is “brighter than the sun”. The light of the sun only illuminates a person from the outside. My soul sun illuminates him from the inside. That is why it is more radiant than the sun.

Purer than the snow

Every thing is pure in itself. It can only become polluted when it combines with something that should not be combined with it. Water is pure in itself. But the dirt contained in the water would also be pure if it were in itself, if it had not combined with the water unlawfully. Coal is pure in itself. It only becomes dirty when it combines with water improperly. When water takes on its own form in the snow crystal, it then separates out everything that has combined with it unlawfully. In the same way, the human soul becomes pure when it separates out everything that is wrongly connected to it. And the divine, the immortal, belongs to it. Every ideal, every thought of something great and beautiful belongs to the soul's inner form. And when it reflects on such ideals, on such thoughts, then it purifies itself, as water purifies itself when it becomes snow crystal. And because the spiritual is purer than all matter, the “higher self”, that is, the soul that lives in the heights, is “purer than the snow”.

Finer than ether

Ether is the finest substance. But all substance is still dense in relation to the soul. It is not the dense that remains, but the “fine”. The stone, thought of as substance, perishes as substance. But the thought of the stone that lives in the soul remains. God has thought this thought. And from this he made the dense stone. Just as ice is only condensed water, so the stone is only a condensed thought of God. All things are such condensed thoughts of God. But the higher self dissolves all things, and in it the thoughts of God then live. And when the self is woven from such thoughts of God, then it is “finer than the ether”.

The spirit in my heart

A person has only truly grasped a concept when they have grasped it with their heart. Intellect and reason are merely mediators for the perception of the heart. Through intellect and reason, one penetrates to the thoughts of God. But when one has such a thought, one must learn to love it. Little by little, one learns to love all things. This does not mean that he should uncritically attach his heart to everything he encounters. For our experience is initially deceptive. But if one endeavors to investigate a being or thing for its divine essence, then one also begins to love it. If I have a depraved person before me, I should not love his depravity. By doing so I would only be in error, and I would not help him. But when I think about how this person has come to his depravity, and when I help him to discard the depravity, then I help him, and I myself struggle through to the truth. I must look everywhere for how I can love. God is in all things, but I must first seek this divine in a thing. I should not love the outer appearance of a being or thing without further ado, for this is deceptive, and I could easily love error. But behind every illusion lies the truth, and that can always be loved. And when the heart seeks to love the truth in all beings, then the “spirit lives in the heart”. Such love is the garment that the soul should always wear. Then she herself weaves the divine into things.

The members of the school should use some free minutes of the day to attach such thoughts to the divine sayings of wisdom given to us by the Masters from an immeasurably great world experience. Never should they believe that they have already fully understood such a saying, but always assume that there is more to it than they have already found. Through such an attitude one acquires the feeling that in all true wisdom lies the key to the infinite, and through such an attitude one connects with this infinite.

It is not important to meditate on many sentences, but to let a few live again and again in the soul that has become calm.

In meditation itself, one should speculate little, but calmly let the content of the meditation sentences take effect on oneself. But apart from meditation in the free moments of the day, one should come back to the content of the meditation sentences again and again and see what reflections one can draw from them. Then they become a living force that sinks into the soul and makes it strong and powerful. For when the soul unites with eternal truth, it itself lives in the eternal. And when the soul lives in the eternal, then the higher beings have access to it and can infuse their own power into it.

Carl Unger from the lecture “Esotericism” given at the opening conference of the second Goetheanum building on Michaelmas 1928.¹ Carl Unger (1878–1929) was one of the first members of all departments of Rudolf Steiner's Esoteric School and was a member of the leadership of the Anthroposophical Society from 1908 until his death.

The nature of esotericism cannot be described in a few words. I would like to try to gain some insights into the position of esotericism in the present day.

Rudolf Steiner often said that there was always an esoteric element in the various epochs, but that something different was always referred to as esotericism. However, at all times, esotericism included an attitude of mind that lay outside the ordinary life and knowledge of the respective time, a difficult path that first had to be taken in order for people to strive and develop.

I would like to point out the transitions from the third cultural epoch to the fourth and from the fourth to the fifth epoch. The impulse of the third epoch is emerging again in our time, and so there is ample reason to occupy ourselves with it.

From Rudolf Steiner's “Occult Science” ² we know how the cosmic developmental processes of an earlier time become the path of initiation for a later one.

In this sense, we can look at the ancient Indian mysteries as a repetition of the Saturn development in the polaric time, and we can look at the Persian path of initiation, in which the ancient solar development was reflected in its repetition during the Hyperborean time. Then we stand in the third post-Atlantic culture, the Egyptian-Chaldean epoch, which also contains the history of the Hebrew people. Ancient lunar forces well up in the soul, as they had changed throughout the Lemurian period. In ancient Lemuria, man still lived in magical connection with the elements of the earth; to a large extent, he could influence and conquer the forces of nature. We find this magical potency of the ancient times transformed and living on in the mystery centers of the third culture; we must indeed describe the esotericism prevailing in them as magical. What had been preserved as a cultural symbol from that time could only have been formed under the influence of a magical esotericism. Only a select few had access to it, and they were trained for it through tremendously hard and difficult trials. Often selected as young children, they had to undergo years of psychological and spiritual training to prepare them for the organic interaction of forces in their bodies, until they were able to experience the death of the mystic. This required the unconditional submission of the disciple to the teacher, who, by manipulating spiritual forces, detached the higher limbs of the disciple from the physical body and then guided them back again. Initiation could only be achieved through the magical assistance of the hierophant. And it was from the mystery centers that the nations were led and guided to cultural progress through magical powers and powerful suggestions.

The mystery centers themselves were protected by magical means against the intrusion of unauthorized persons. Whoever entered without permission, or whoever did not prove himself, perished. We find allusions to this protection of the holy places right up to the Old Testament: no one except the high priest himself may enter the Holy of Holies; any unconsecrated person who approaches it suffers death. Of course I know that there are materialistic interpretations of this in every detail; they only show that anyone who makes or believes such interpretations understands nothing of the things they are dealing with.

Then followed the Greek period, in which the memory of Atlantis was particularly alive and permeated the mystery being. It had a “secret esotericism”. It no longer shaped directly into the physical and bodily, but it became indirectly effective through the experience of the soul in the awakening consciousness. It sparked enthusiasm, the powers of inspiration, “being filled with the god,” and through art it developed spirit-begetting powers in human life.

To the same extent that the power to protect the mysteries through magic was lost, the secrecy of the esoteric was established and sought under oaths and threats. Those who betrayed the mysteries were persecuted and punished by death.

We still have traces of secret esotericism in the present day in the various secret societies; they cultivate the remains of ancient times in forms and rituals that they endeavor to keep strictly secret. There, too, betrayal is punished.

Today, however, we are dealing with completely different impulses. We have emerged from the era of magical efficacy and secret esotericism, because the mystery has been brought into the light of the public. The Mystery of Golgotha brought the turning point, in that Christ consciously broke through the barriers of old efficacy - and then, with his death and resurrection, “fulfilled” the mystery wisdom of all time, and “before all the people”. The knowledgeable people of that time also recognized this, which is why he was accused of betraying the mysteries. In the New Testament it says of Christ: “For he has done signs before the people,” so they sought “a cause against him.”

Rudolf Steiner presents this fundamental difference between the Christ-act and all previous initiations in his book ² (1902), GA 8, and in many lectures. The Mystery of Golgotha is meant to reach the whole world; it is a cosmic event; in it we have the liberation of the mystery being. Since the Mystery of Golgotha, we must recognize esotericism as a free one; that is the essential point. Rudolf Steiner took up this fact and, during the second period of his work in the Anthroposophical Society, introduced us ever more deeply into the Mystery of Golgotha with the help of the Gospels. By sharing with us the results of his spiritual scientific research into the cosmic deed of Christ Jesus, he opened up a new understanding for us of the biblical accounts as well; genuine and true reverence for the soul arose anew from such insight into the religious documents. Placed in this context, the individual word of the Bible regained its sacred, all-encompassing truth; the individual word was experienced in its esoteric power.

Rudolf Steiner wanted to convey to the people who had come together in the Anthroposophical Society an esoteric teaching appropriate to the spiritual situation of our fifth cultural epoch. He wanted to show them the paths to a Christian esoteric development by further developing the methods of supersensible research in a way that was appropriate for the time of the consciousness soul, based on an understanding of ancient occult tradition.

I would like to illustrate this a little with words that he himself used. Rudolf Steiner once said: People do not consider that in each of my lectures, including public lectures, there is a wealth of esoteric information. The lectures must only be able to be properly received. He said this after it was no longer possible during the war years to cultivate esotericism in the usual way, and members approached him with the request to resume this esotericism. Rudolf Steiner wanted to characterize what he wanted to be understood by “esoteric” in today's world. On another occasion he said: “I would like to draw your attention to an esoteric book that, although it is right in front of everyone, is not understood as such by anyone, namely Fichte's ‘Wissenschaftslehre’ (The Theory of Knowledge). In the same sense, Rudolf Steiner described every table of logarithms as esoteric, i.e. it is part of the understanding of the same that the person acquires the scientific prerequisites through learning, musters the goodwill to work out the necessary preparations. For us, it all comes down to taking such words very seriously.

But how did Rudolf Steiner cultivate esotericism in our society?

Anyone who has followed Rudolf Steiner's path since the turn of the century could have experienced the following: Rudolf Steiner often sought the ground for certain presentations, and it could happen that he shared something from his spiritual research with a very small group, sometimes even only with three, two or even just one person - on a trial basis. He conducted a kind of primeval experiment to see how far the present consciousness could 'bear' these things. He would present some new research result to a few people in this way. One could ask questions and discuss the matters. After some time, however, one could experience him putting the same question to a larger circle, for example to the circle of people who formed an esoteric group. But then it happened that Rudolf Steiner presented the context to all members of the Anthroposophical Society; and if one waited a little longer, he began to speak about the same fact in lectures to the public.

You see how the esoteric, i.e. the spiritual, which is still inaccessible to ordinary experience, had to be introduced step by step into contemporary consciousness. The soil had to be plowed step by step so that the seed could be sown. But these things were certainly meant for all people from the very beginning. Rudolf Steiner broke through the wall that had enclosed the spiritual life of the new era until the end of the Kaliyuga [1899]. Even today there are initiates of different directions, progressive and conservative. Rudolf Steiner, however, wanted to give people everything they would prove themselves ready for. Just as Jesus Christ went through the Mystery of Golgotha for all people, so here too no one should be excluded.

However, it should be noted that the spiritual world also has its laws, and does not allow those who do not have the will to prepare themselves to approach it. The effort that the individual has to expend, the circumstances and the state of consciousness ensure that no unauthorized person can approach the things. The mystery protects itself through itself; today it needs no means, neither of magic nor of secrecy.

In the methodology of the paths to the esoteric, Rudolf Steiner provided protection for the mystery. These paths are such that in the preparation, in what Rudolf Steiner called the “study” of anthroposophy, lies the awakening power for true self-knowledge of the human being. The call, “O man, know thyself,” which resounds from the mysteries, penetrates the soul that is seriously striving for spiritual knowledge of anthroposophy. In the practice of the soul, it transforms the ordinary experience of the self into true self-awareness, out of which a new sense of human responsibility arises: responsibility to the spirit. In the awakening of the spiritual self, the soul feels at home among spiritual beings; under their gaze, a new moral soul attitude arises in it. Just as the 'old knowledge' required protection through magic or secrecy, so the new knowledge is based on the true self-knowledge of the human being and the spiritual responsibility that blossoms from it. This is why Rudolf Steiner brought everything into the public sphere with the Christmas Conference ³. He wanted a new mystery movement whose impulses could lead directly to the Christ event; free esotericism is the only thing possible today. Just as magical esotericism shaped physical events, and secret esotericism awakened new powers of experience through the art of the soul, so free esotericism addresses the human spirit.

• 1. Carl Unger, “Schriften” II, Stuttgart 1966, Verlag Freies Geistesleben. Esotericism (1928), lecture “Esotericism”, p. 224ff
• 2. “Occult Science: An Outline of Occult Science” (1910), GA 13
• 2. “Christianity as Mystical Fact and the Mysteries of Antiquity”
• 3. See “The Christmas Conference for the Founding of the General Anthroposophical Society 1923/24”, GA 260.

The saying:

More radiant than the sun
One than the snow
Finer than the ether
Is the self,
The spirit in my heart
This self is me,
I am this self.

every morning to our higher self. Such sayings are not invented by the arbitrariness of a personality, but they are taken from the spiritual world. Therefore, they contain much more than one usually believes. And one thinks correctly about them when one assumes that one can never fully fathom their content, but can always find more in them the more one delves into them. Therefore, the Esoteric School can only give a few hints as to how to search for the content. Some such hints are given below.

Brighter than the sun

Man sees the objects around him only when they are illuminated by the sun. What makes them visible are the sunbeams reflected from them into the eye of the beholder. If there were no light, things would not be visible. But only the objects of the physical world become visible through this external light. A light that is “brighter than the sun” must shine for the human being if he is to see the soul and spiritual beings and things. This light does not come from an external sun. It comes from the source of light that we ignite within ourselves when we seek out the higher, eternal self within us. This higher self has a different origin from the lower self. The latter perceives the everyday environment. But what lives in this everyday environment has come into being once and will pass away. What we feel about it has only a fleeting value itself. And our fleeting self is also built up from such feelings and the thoughts about them. All things that become visible through the sun have not existed once and they will no longer be once. And the sun also came into being once and will pass away one day. But the soul is there precisely to recognize the eternal in things. When the whole earth will no longer be, the souls that inhabited it will still be. And what these souls have experienced on earth, they will carry elsewhere as a memory. It is as if a person has done me a kindness. The deed passes away. But what he has thereby planted in my soul remains. And the bond of love that has connected me with him does not pass away. What we experience is always the origin of something lasting in us. We ourselves extract the lasting from things and carry it over into eternity. And when people are transplanted to a completely different scene in the future, they will bring with them what they have gathered here. And their deeds in the new world will be woven from the memory of the old. For there is no seed that does not produce fruit. If we are connected to a person in love, then this love is a seed, and we experience the fruit in all of the future, in that we belong to such a person in all of the future. So there is something in us that is interwoven with the divine power that connects all things to the eternal fabric of the world. This “something” is our higher self. And this is “brighter than the sun”. The light of the sun only illuminates a person from the outside. My soul sun illuminates him from the inside. That is why it is more radiant than the sun.

Purer than the snow

Every thing is pure in itself. It can only become polluted when it combines with something that should not be combined with it. Water is pure in itself. But the dirt contained in the water would also be pure if it were in itself, if it had not combined with the water unlawfully. Coal is pure in itself. It only becomes dirty when it combines with water improperly. When water takes on its own form in the snow crystal, it then separates out everything that has combined with it unlawfully. In the same way, the human soul becomes pure when it separates out everything that is wrongly connected to it. And the divine, the immortal, belongs to it. Every ideal, every thought of something great and beautiful belongs to the soul's inner form. And when it reflects on such ideals, on such thoughts, then it purifies itself, as water purifies itself when it becomes snow crystal. And because the spiritual is purer than all matter, the “higher self”, that is, the soul that lives in the heights, is “purer than the snow”.

Finer than ether

Ether is the finest substance. But all substance is still dense in relation to the soul. It is not the dense that remains, but the “fine”. The stone, thought of as substance, perishes as substance. But the thought of the stone that lives in the soul remains. God has thought this thought. And from this he made the dense stone. Just as ice is only condensed water, so the stone is only a condensed thought of God. All things are such condensed thoughts of God. But the higher self dissolves all things, and in it the thoughts of God then live. And when the self is woven from such thoughts of God, then it is “finer than the ether”.

The spirit in my heart

A person has only truly grasped a concept when they have grasped it with their heart. Intellect and reason are merely mediators for the perception of the heart. Through intellect and reason, one penetrates to the thoughts of God. But when one has such a thought, one must learn to love it. Little by little, one learns to love all things. This does not mean that he should uncritically attach his heart to everything he encounters. For our experience is initially deceptive. But if one endeavors to investigate a being or thing for its divine essence, then one also begins to love it. If I have a depraved person before me, I should not love his depravity. By doing so I would only be in error, and I would not help him. But when I think about how this person has come to his depravity, and when I help him to discard the depravity, then I help him, and I myself struggle through to the truth. I must look everywhere for how I can love. God is in all things, but I must first seek this divine in a thing. I should not love the outer appearance of a being or thing without further ado, for this is deceptive, and I could easily love error. But behind every illusion lies the truth, and that can always be loved. And when the heart seeks to love the truth in all beings, then the “spirit lives in the heart”. Such love is the garment that the soul should always wear. Then she herself weaves the divine into things.

The members of the school should use some free minutes of the day to attach such thoughts to the divine sayings of wisdom given to us by the Masters from an immeasurably great world experience. Never should they believe that they have already fully understood such a saying, but always assume that there is more to it than they have already found. Through such an attitude one acquires the feeling that in all true wisdom lies the key to the infinite, and through such an attitude one connects with this infinite.

It is not important to meditate on many sentences, but to let a few live again and again in the soul that has become calm.

In meditation itself, one should speculate little, but calmly let the content of the meditation sentences take effect on oneself. But apart from meditation in the free moments of the day, one should come back to the content of the meditation sentences again and again and see what reflections one can draw from them. Then they become a living force that sinks into the soul and makes it strong and powerful. For when the soul unites with eternal truth, it itself lives in the eternal. And when the soul lives in the eternal, then the higher beings have access to it and can infuse their own power into it.