The Rudolf Steiner Archive

[ 1 ] The formations in the Soul-World and Spiritland cannot be the objects of external sense perception. The objects of sense perception are to be added to the two worlds already described, as a third world. Moreover, man lives during his bodily existence simultaneously in the three worlds. He perceives the things of the sensible world and works upon them. The formations of the soul-world work upon him through their forces of sympathy and antipathy; and his own soul causes waves in the soul-world by its inclinations and disinclinations, its desires and wishes. The spiritual essence of the things, on the other hand, mirrors itself in his thought-world: and he himself is, as thinking spirit-being, citizen of the “Spiritland” and companion of everything that lives in this region of the world. This makes it evident that the sensible world is only a part of what surrounds man. This part stands out from the general environment of man with a certain independence, because it can be perceived by senses which leave unregarded the soul and the spiritual, although these belong equally to this surrounding world. Just as a piece of floating ice consists of the same substance as the surrounding water, but stands out from it through particular qualities, so are the things of the senses the substance of the surrounding soul- and spirit-worlds from which they stand out through particular qualities which make them perceptible to the senses. They are, to speak half metaphorically, condensed spirit- and soul-formations; and the condensation makes it possible for the senses to acquire knowledge of them. In fact, as ice is only a form in which the water exists, so are the objects of the senses only a form in which soul- and spirit-beings exist. If we have grasped this, we can also understand that as the water can pass over into ice, so the spirit-world can pass over into the soul-world and the latter into that of the senses.

[ 2 ] Looked at from this point of view we see why man can form thoughts about the things of the senses. For there is a question which everyone who thinks must needs ask himself, namely, in what relation does the thought which a man has about a stone stand to that stone itself? This question rises in full clarity in the minds of those who look especially deeply into external nature. They feel the consonance of the human thought-world with the structure and order of Nature. The great astronomer Kepler, for example, speaks in a beautiful way about this harmony: “True it is that the divine call which bids man study astronomy is written in the world, not indeed in words and syllables, but in substance, in the very fact that human conceptions and senses are fitted to relationships of the heavenly bodies and their conditions.” Only because the things of the sensible world are nothing else than densified spirit-beings, is the man who raises himself through his thought to these spirit-beings able by thinking to understand the things. Sense-objects originate in the spirit-world, they are only another form of the spirit-beings; and when man forms thoughts about things his inner nature is merely directed away from the sensible form and out towards the spiritual archetypes of these things. To understand an object by means of thought is a process which can be likened to that by which a solid body is first liquefied by fire in order that the chemist may be able to examine it in its liquid form.

[ 3 ] The spiritual archetypes of the sensible world are to be found in the different regions of the “Spiritland.” In the fifth, sixth, and seventh regions these archetypes are still found as living germ-points; in the four lower regions they shape themselves into spiritual formations. The human spirit perceives a shadowy reflection of these spiritual formations when, by thinking, man tries to gain understanding of the things of the senses. How these formations have condensed until they form the sensible world, is a question for one who endeavours to acquire a spiritual understanding of the world around him.

For human sense perception this surrounding world is divided primarily into four distinctly separated stages: the mineral, the plant, the animal and the human. The mineral kingdom is perceived by the senses and comprehended by thought. Thus when we form a thought about a mineral body we have to do with two things: the sense object and the thought. Accordingly we must imagine that this sense object is a condensed thought-being. Now one mineral being works upon another in an external way. It impinges on it and moves it; it warms it, lights it up, dissolves it, etc. This external kind of action can be expressed through thoughts. Man forms thoughts as to the way in which mineral things work upon each other externally in accordance with law. By this means his separate thoughts expand to a thought-picture of the whole mineral world. And this thought-picture is a reflection of the archetype of the whole mineral world of the senses. It is to be found as a complete whole in the spirit-world.

In the plant kingdom there is added to the external action of one thing on another, the phenomena of growth and propagation. The plant grows and brings forth from itself beings like itself. Life is here added to what confronts man in the mineral kingdom. Simple reflection on this fact leads to a view that is enlightening in this connection. The plant has the power to create its living form, and to reproduce it in a being of its own kind. And between the formless nature of mineral matter, as we encounter it in gases, liquids, etc., and the living form of the plant world, stand the forms of the crystals. In the crystals we have to seek the transition from the formless mineral world to the plant kingdom which has the capacity for creating living forms. In this externally sensible formative process in the kingdoms both of the mineral and the plant, we see condensed to its sensible expression the purely spiritual process which takes place when the spiritual germs of the three higher regions of the “Spiritland” form themselves into the spirit-shapes of the lower regions. The transition from the formless spirit-germ to the shaped formation corresponds to the process of crystallisation as its archetype in the spiritual world. If this transition condenses so that the senses can perceive it in its outcome, it then shows itself in the world of the senses as the process of mineral crystallisation.

Now there is also in the plant life a formed spirit-germ. But here the living, formative capacity is still retained in the formed being. In the crystal the spirit-germ has lost its constructive power during the process of formation. It has exhausted its life in the form produced. The plant has form and in addition to that it has the capacity of producing form. The characteristic of the spirit-germ in the higher regions of the “Spiritland” has been preserved in the plant life. The plant is therefore form as is the crystal, and added to that, formative force. Besides the form which the Primal Beings have taken in the plant-form there works at the latter yet another form which bears the impress of the spirit-being of the higher regions. But only that which expends itself in the produced form of the plant is sensibly perceptible; the formative beings who give life to this form are present in the plant kingdom in a way not perceptible to the senses. The physical eye sees the lily small to-day, and after some time grown larger. The formative force which elaborates the latter out of the former is not seen by this eye. This formative force is that part of the plant world which is imperceptible to the senses. The spirit-germs have descended a stage in order to work in the kingdom of formative forces. In spiritual science, Elemental Kingdoms are spoken of. If one designates the Primal Forms which as yet have no form as the First Elemental Kingdom, then the sensibly invisible force-beings, who work as the craftsmen of plant growth, belong to the Second Elemental Kingdom.

In the animal world sensation and impulse are added to the capacities for growth and propagation. These are manifestations of the soul-world. A being endowed with these belongs to the soul-world, receives impressions from it and reacts on it. Now every sensation, every impulse which arises in the animal is brought forth from the foundations of the animal soul. The form is more enduring than the feeling or impulse. One may say that the life of sensation bears the same relation to the more enduring living form as the self-changing plant-form bears to the rigid crystal. The plant to a certain extent exhausts itself in the shape-forming force; during its life it goes on constantly adding new forms to itself. First it sends out the root, then the leaf-structure, then the flowers, and so on. The animal is enclosed in a shape complete in itself and develops within this the changeful life of feeling and impulse. And this life has its existence in the soul-world. Just as the plant is that which grows and propagates itself, the animal is that which feels, and unfolds its impulses. They constitute for the animal the formless which is always developing into new forms. They have their archetypal processes ultimately in the highest regions of “Spiritland.” But they carry out their activities in the soul-world. There are thus in the animal world, in addition to the force-beings who, invisible to the senses, direct growth and propagation, others who have descended a stage still deeper into the soul-world. In the animal kingdom, formless beings who clothe themselves in soul-sheaths, are present as the master-builders bringing about sensations and impulses. They are the real architects of the animal forms. In spiritual science, the region to which they belong may be called the Third Elemental Kingdom.

Man, in addition to having the capacities named as those of plants and animals, is equipped also with the power to work up his sensations into ideas and thoughts and to control his impulses by thinking. The archetypal thought, which appears in the plant as shape and in the animal as soul-force, makes its appearance in him in its own form as thought itself. The animal is soul; man is spirit. The spirit-being which in the animal is engaged in soul-development has now descended a stage deeper still. In the animal it is soul-forming. In man it has entered into the world of material substance itself. The spirit is present within the human sensible body. And because it appears in a sensible garment, it can appear only as that shadowy reflection which represents the thought of the spirit-being. The spirit manifests in man conditioned by the physical brain organism. But, at the same time, it has become the inner being of man. Thought is the form which the formless spirit-being assumes in man, just as it takes on shape in the plant and soul in the animal. Consequently man, in so far as he is a thinking being, has no Elemental Kingdom building him from without. His Elemental Kingdom works in his physical body. Only in so far as man is form and sentient-being do Elemental Beings of the same kind work upon him as work upon plants and animals. The thought-organism in man is worked out entirely from within his physical body. In the spirit-organism of man, in his nervous system which has developed into the perfected brain, we have sensibly visible before us that which works on plants and animals as supersensible force. This brings it about that the animal manifests feeling of self, but man consciousness of self. In the animal, spirit feels itself as soul, it does not yet grasp itself as spirit. In man the spirit recognises itself as spirit, although—owing to the physical conditions—merely as a shadowy reflection of the spirit, as thought.

Accordingly, the threefold world falls into the following divisions:

1. The kingdom of the archetypal formless beings (First Elemental Kingdom)
2. The kingdom of the form-creating beings (Second Elemental Kingdom)
3. The kingdom of the soul-beings (Third Elemental Kingdom)
4. The kingdom of the created forms (crystal forms)
5. The kingdom that is perceptible to the senses in forms, but in which the form-creating beings are also working (Plant Kingdom)
6. The kingdom which is sensibly perceptible in forms, upon which, however, there work in addition the form-creating beings, and also the beings that are active in soul (Animal Kingdom)
7. The kingdom in which the forms become sensibly perceptible, but upon which work not only the form-creating beings and the beings that expend their activities in soul-life, and in which the spirit itself takes shape in the form of thought within the world of the senses (Human Kingdom.)

[ 4 ] From this it can be seen how the basic constituents of the human being living in the body are connected with the spiritual world. The physical body, the ether-body, the sentient-soul-body, and the intellectual-soul, are to be regarded as archetypes of the “Spiritland” condensed in the sensible world. The physical body comes into existence through the fact that the archetype of man becomes densified to the point of sensible appearance. For this reason one can call this physical body also a being of the First Elemental Kingdom, densified to sensible perceptibility. The ether-body comes into existence by the form that has arisen in this way, having its mobility maintained by a being that extends its activity into the kingdom of the senses, but is not itself visible to the senses. If one wishes to characterise this being fully, one must say it has its primal origin as a spirit-germ in the highest regions of the “Spiritland” and then shapes itself in the second region into an archetype of life. It works in the sensible world as such an archetype of life. In a similar way, the being that builds up the sentient-soul-body has its origin in the highest regions of the “Spiritland,” forms itself in the third region of the same into the archetype of the soul-world and works as such in the sensible world. But the intellectual soul is formed by the spirit-being of man, who in the fourth region of the “Spiritland” shaped itself into the archetype of thought and, as such, acts directly as thinking human being in the world of the senses. Thus man stands within the world of the senses; in this way his spirit works on his physical body, on his ether-body and on his sentient-soul-body. Thus this spirit comes into manifestation in the intellectual soul. Archetypes, in the form of beings who in a certain sense are external to man, work upon the three lower members of his being; in his intellectual soul he himself becomes a conscious worker on himself. And the beings that work on his physical body are the same as those that form mineral nature. On his ether body work beings of the kind that live in the plant kingdom, on his sentient-soul-body work beings such as live in the animal kingdom; both are imperceptible to the senses but extend their activity into these kingdoms.

[ 5 ] Thus do the different worlds work together. The world in which man lives is the expression of this collaboration.

[ 6 ] When we have grasped the sensible world in this way, understanding arises for Beings of another kind than those that have their existence in the above-mentioned four kingdoms of Nature. One example of such Beings is what is called the Folk Spirit, or Nation Spirit. This Being does not manifest directly in a material form. He lives his life entirely in the sensations, feelings, tendencies, etc., which are to be observed as those common to a whole people. He is a Being who does not incarnate physically, but, as man so forms his body that it is physically visible, so does that Being form his body out of the substance of the soul-world. This soul-body of the Nation Spirit is like a cloud in which the members of a nation live, the effects of whose activity come into evidence in the souls of the human beings concerned, but they do not originate in these souls themselves. The Nation Spirit remains a shadowy conception of the mind without being or life, an empty abstraction, to those who do not picture it in this way. And the same may be said in reference to the Being known as the Spirit of the Age (Zeitgeist.) The spiritual gaze extends in this way over many other beings, both of a lower and higher order, who live in the environment of man without his being able to perceive them with his bodily senses. But those who have the faculty of spiritual sight perceive such beings and can describe them. To the lower kinds of such beings belong those that are described by observers of the spiritual world as salamanders, sylphs, undines, gnomes. It should not be necessary to say that such descriptions cannot be faithful reproductions of the reality that underlies them. If they were such, the world in question would be not a spiritual, but a grossly material one. They attempt to make clear a spiritual reality which can only be represented in this way: that is, by similes. It is quite comprehensible that anyone who admits the validity of physical vision alone will regard such beings as the offspring of wild hallucination and superstition. They can of course never become visible to the eye of sense, for they have no material bodies. The superstition does not consist in regarding such beings as real, but in believing that they appear in forms perceptible to the physical senses. Such Beings co-operate in the building of the world and we encounter them as soon as we enter the higher realms that are hidden from the bodily senses. It is not those who see in such descriptions pictures of spiritual realities who are superstitious but rather those who believe in the material existence of the pictures, as well as those who deny the spirit because they think they must deny the material picture.

Mention must also be made of those beings who do not descend to the soul-world, but whose sheath is composed of the formations of the “Spiritland” alone. Man perceives them and becomes their companion when he opens his spiritual eye and spiritual ear to them. Thereby much becomes intelligible to man, at which otherwise he could only gaze uncomprehendingly. Everything becomes light around him; he sees the Primal Causes of effects in the world of the senses. He comprehends what he either denies entirely when he has no spiritual eyes, or in reference to which he has to content himself by saying: “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy.” People with delicate spiritual feelings become uneasy when they begin to have a glimmering, when they become vaguely aware of a world other than the material one around them, one in which they have to grope around as the blind grope among visible objects. Nothing but the clear vision of these higher regions of existence and a thorough understanding and penetration of what takes place in them can really fortify a man and lead him to his true goal. Through insight into what is hidden from the senses the human being expands his nature in such a way that he feels his life prior to this expansion to be no more than “a dream about the world.”

[ 1 ] It has been said that the formations of any one of the three worlds can have reality for a man only when he has the faculties or the organs for perceiving them. Man perceives certain processes in space as light-phenomena only because he has a properly formed eye. It depends on the receptivity of a being how much of reality reveals itself to that being. Therefore a man may never say that only what he can perceive is real. There can be much that is real, for the perception of which he has no organs. Now the soul-world and the spirit-world are just as real as the sensible world, indeed they are real in a much higher sense. No physical eye can see feelings and ideas; but they are real. And as by means of his outer senses man has the corporeal world before him as an object of perception, so do feelings, instincts, thoughts, and so forth, become objects of perception for his spiritual organs. Exactly as processes in space can be seen with the sensible eye as colour-phenomena, so can the above-named soul and spiritual processes become, by means of the inner senses, perceptions which are analogous to the sensible colour-phenomena. To understand fully in what sense this is meant is only possible for one who has trodden the path of knowledge to be described in the following chapter and has thereby developed his inner senses. For such a one the soul-phenomena in the soul-region around him and the spiritual phenomena in the spiritual region become supersensibly visible. Feelings which he experiences in other beings ray out from them as light-phenomena for him; thoughts to which he directs his attention flow through spiritual space. For him, the thought of one man about another is not an imperceptible but a perceptible process. The content of a thought lives as such only in the soul of the thinker; but this content activates effects in the spirit-world. These are the perceptible processes for the eyes of spirit. The thought streams out as an actual reality from one human being and flows to the other. And the way in which this thought works on the other person is experienced as a perceptible process in the spiritual world. Thus the physically perceptible human being is only part of the whole man for one whose spiritual senses have unfolded. This physical man becomes the centre of soul and spiritual outpourings. It is impossible to do more than faintly indicate the richly varied world which reveals itself here to the seer. A human though*, which otherwise lives only in the understanding mind of the listener, appears, for example, as a spiritually perceptible colour-phenomenon. Its colour tallies with the character of the thought. A thought which springs from a sensual impulse in a man has a different colour from a thought conceived in the service of pure knowledge, noble beauty, or the eternal good. Thoughts which spring from the sensual life course through the soul-world in shades of red colour.⁶ A thought which springs from devoted and unselfish love rays out in glorious rose-red. And just as the content of a thought comes into expression in its supersensibly visible form, so also does its greater or lesser definition. The precise thought of a thinker appears itself as a formation with definite outlines; a confused idea appears as a wavering, cloudy formation.

[ 2 ] In this way the soul and spirit of man appear as the supersensible part of the whole human being.

[ 3 ] The colour effects perceptible to the eyes of spirit which ray out round the physical man when observed in his activity, and which envelop him like a cloud (somewhat in the form of an egg) are a human aura. The size of this aura differs in different people. But an idea can be formed of it by picturing that the whole man appears on an average twice as tall and four times as broad as the physical man.

[ 4 ] The most varied tones of colour ebb and flow in the aura. And this ebb and flow is a true picture of the inner life of the man. As this changes, so do the colour-tones change. But certain permanent qualities such as talents, habits, traits of character, express themselves also in permanent and basic colour-tones.

[ 5] In people who for the time being are remote from the experiences of the “Path of Knowledge” described in a later chapter of this book, misunderstandings may arise with regard to the nature of what is here described as “Aura.” It would be possible to arrive at the idea that the “colours” here described came before the soul just as a physical colour comes before the eye. But such a “soul colour” would be nothing but an hallucination. With impressions that are “hallucinatory,” spiritual science has nothing whatever to do. And in any case they are not what is meant in the description now before us. We reach a right conception if we keep the following in mind. The soul experiences in a physical colour not only the sense impression; it has an actual experience. This experience is different when the soul—through the eye—perceives a yellow surface from what it is when it perceives a blue one. This experience may be called “living in yellow” or “living in blue.” Now the soul that has trodden the path of knowledge has a similar “experience in yellow” when observing the active soul-experiences of other beings; an “experience in blue” when observing devotional moods of soul. The essential point is, not that in the thought of another soul the seer sees “blue,” just as he sees blue in the physical world, but that he has an experience which justifies him in calling the thought “blue,” just as the physical man calls, for instance, a curtain “blue.” And further, it is essential that the “seer” should be conscious that this is an experience free from the body, so that it is possible for him to speak about the value and the meaning of soul-life in a world the perception of which is not mediated through the human body. Although this meaning of the description must in all cases be taken into account, it is entirely a matter of course that the seer should speak of “blue,” “yellow,” “green,” etc., in the “aura.”

[ 6 ] The aura varies greatly according to the different temperaments and dispositions of human beings; it varies also according to the stages of spiritual development. A man who yields altogether to his animal impulses has a completely different aura from one who lives much in the world of thought. The aura of a religiously disposed nature differs essentially from one that is immersed in the trivial experiences of the day. In addition, all changing moods, all inclinations, joys and sufferings find their expression in the aura.

[ 7 ] The auras of different soul-experiences must be compared with each other in order to learn to understand the meaning of the colour tones. Take, to begin with, soul-experiences permeated with strongly marked emotions. They may be divided into two kinds: those when the soul is chiefly impelled to such feelings by the animal nature, and those when these emotions take a more delicate form, when they are strongly influenced by reflection. In the first kind of experiences mainly brown and reddish-yellow streams of colour stream through the aura in definite places. In persons with more delicate emotions there appear in the same places tones of brighter reddish-yellow and green. It is noticeable that as intelligence increases the green tones become more and more frequent. People who are very intelligent, but who give themselves up to the satisfying of their animal impulses, show much green in their aura. But this green will always have a stronger or weaker admixture of brown or brownish-red. In unintelligent people a great part of the aura is permeated by brownish-red or even by dark blood-red streams.

[ 8 ] The auras of quiet, deliberate, thoughtful moods of soul are essentially different from those of other conditions. The brownish and reddish tones recede, and different shades of green become prominent. In strenuous thinking the aura shows a pleasing green undertone. These natures know how to find their bearings in every condition of life.

[ 9 ] Blue tones of colour appear in intensely devotional moods of soul. The more a man places his Self in the service of a cause the more pronounced become the blue shades. Here too there are two quite different kinds of people. There are natures who are not in the habit of exerting their power of thought, passive souls, who as it were have nothing to throw into the stream of events in the world but their “good feeling.” Their aura glimmers with beautiful blue. This is also the appearance of many religious and devotional natures. Compassionate souls and those who find pleasure in giving themselves up to a life of benevolence have a similar aura. If such people are intelligent in addition, green and blue currents alternate, or the blue itself may assume a greenish shade. The peculiarity of the active souls in contrast to the passive is that their blue is pervaded from within with bright colour tones. Richly inventive natures, those that have fruitful thoughts, radiate bright tones of colour as if from an inner point. This is the case in the highest degree with persons whom one calls “wise,” and especially with those who are full of fruitful ideas. Generally speaking, everything that indicates spiritual activity takes more the form of rays which spread out from within; while everything that arises from the animal life has the form of irregular clouds which stream through the aura.

[ 10 ] The colourings of formations in the aura differ according to whether the ideas and conceptions which arise from the activity of the soul are placed at the service of the person's own animal impulses or of idealistic interest. An inventive person, who applies all his thoughts to the satisfaction of his sensual passions, shows dark blue-red shades; he, on the contrary, who places his thoughts selflessly at the service of an outside interest, shows light reddish-blue colour tones. A spiritual life combined with noble devotion and capacity for sacrifice shows rose-pink or light violet colours.

[ 11 ] Not only does the fundamental disposition of the soul show its colour streaming in the aura but transient emotions, passions, moods and other inner experiences do the same. Violent anger that breaks out suddenly creates red streams; feelings of injured dignity which suddenly well up appear in dark green clouds. Colour phenomena do not however appear only in irregular cloud-like forms, but also in defined, regularly shaped figures. If we observe a fit of terror in a man we see this in the aura from top to bottom as undulating stripes of blue colour, suffused with a bluish-red shimmer. In a person in whom we observe how he is expecting with anxiety some particular event, we can see red-blue stripes like rays constantly streaming through the aura from within outwards.

[ 12 ] Every sensation that is induced in a man from outside can be observed by one who has developed the faculty of exact spiritual perception. People who are greatly excited by every external impression show a continuous flickering of small reddish-blue spots and flecks in the aura. In people who do not feel intensely, these flecks have an orange-yellow or even a beautiful yellow colouring. In so-called “absentmindedness” bluish flecks more or less changing in form play over into green.

[ 13 ] A still more highly developed spiritual “vision” can distinguish three kinds of colour phenomena in the aura, radiating and surging round a man. First, there are colours which have more or less the character of opaqueness and dullness. Certainly if we compare them with those that our physical eyes see they appear, in comparison, fugitive and transparent. But in the supersensible world itself they make the space which they fill comparatively opaque; they fill it like clouds. Colours of a second kind consist of those which are as it were light itself. They light up the space which they fill so that it becomes, through them, a shining space. Colour-phenomena of the third kind are quite different from these two. They have a raying, sparkling, glittering character. They fill space not merely with light but with glistening, glittering rays. There is something active, inherently mobile, in these colours. The others are quiet, lacking in brilliance. These on the contrary continuously produce themselves out of themselves, as it were. By the first two kinds of colours the space is filled with a delicate fluidity which remains quietly in it; by the third it is filled with a life constantly kindling itself anew in never resting activity.

[ 14 ] These three kinds of colours are not ranged as it were alongside each other in the human aura; they are not each enclosed in a separate section of space, but they interpenetrate each other in the most varied ways. All three kinds can be seen playing through each other in one region of the aura, just as a physical body such as a bell can be heard and seen simultaneously. The aura thereby becomes an exceedingly complicated phenomenon: for we have as it were to do with three auras within each other and interpenetrating each other. The difficulty can be overcome however by directing attention to the three kinds alternately. We then do in the super-sensible world something similar to what we do in the sensible, for example, when we close our eyes in order to give ourselves up fully to the impression of a piece of music. The “seer” has as it were three different organs for the three kinds of colours. And in order to observe undisturbed, he can open or close any one of the organs to impressions. As a rule only the one kind of organ can at first be developed by a “seer,” namely, that for the first kind of colours. A person at this stage can see only the one aura; the other two remain invisible to him. In the same way a person may be accessible to impressions from the first two but not from the third. The higher stage of the “gift of seeing” consists in a person's being able to see all three auras and for the purpose of study to direct his attention to the one or the other.

[ 15 ] The threefold aura is the supersensibly visible expression of the being of man. The three members: body, soul and spirit, come to expression in it.

[ 16 ] The first aura is a mirror of the influence which the body exercises on the soul of man; the second characterises the life of the soul itself, the soul that has raised itself above what affects the senses directly, but is not yet dedicated to the service of the eternal; the third mirrors the dominion which the eternal spirit has won over the transitory man.

When descriptions of the aura are given, as here, it must be emphasised that these things are not only difficult to observe but above all difficult to describe. No one therefore should see in a description like this anything more than a stimulus to thought.

[ 17 ] Thus for the seer the particular character of the life of soul expresses itself in the nature of the aura. When he encounters a soul-life that is given up entirely to passing impulses, passions and momentary external incitements, he sees the first aura in the loudest tones of colour; the second, on the contrary, is only slightly developed. He sees in it only scanty colour formations; while the third is barely indicated. Only here and there, a small, glittering spark of colour shows itself, indicating that even in such a soul-mood the Eternal lives as a seed, but that it is driven into the background by the effect of the sensuous as has been indicated. The more the man casts away his lower impulses, the less obtrusive becomes the first part of the aura. The second part then grows larger and larger, filling the colour-body within which the physical man lives, more and more completely with its illuminating force. And the more a man proves himself to be a “Servant of the Eternal,” the more does the wonderful third aura reveal itself, that part which bears witness to how far the human being has become a citizen of the spiritual world. For the divine Self radiates out through this part of the human aura into the earthly world. In so far as human beings reveal this aura, they are the flames through whom the Divine illumines this world. They show through this part of the aura how far they know how to live not for themselves but for the eternally True, the nobly Beautiful and Good; how far they have wrung from their narrower self the power to offer themselves upon the altar of the great World Process.

[ 18 ] Thus what the man has made of himself in the course of his incarnations comes to expression in the aura.

[ 19 ] All three parts of the aura contain colours of the most varied shades. But the character of these shades changes with the stage of development reached by the man. In the first part of the aura can be seen undeveloped life of impulse in all shades from red to blue. These shades have a dull, muddy character. The obtrusive red shades point to the sensual desires, the fleshly lusts, the passion for the enjoyments of the palate and the stomach. Green shades appear to be found especially in inferior natures tending to obtuseness and indifference, greedily giving themselves up to every enjoyment, but nevertheless shunning the exertions necessary to bring them to satisfaction. Where the desires are passionately bent on any goal beyond the reach of the capacities already acquired, brownish-green and yellowish-green auric colours appear. Certain modern modes of life breed this kind of aura.

[ 20 ] A personal conceit which is entirely rooted in unworthy inclinations, thus representing the lowest stage of egotism, shows itself in muddy yellow to brown shades. Now it is clear that even the animal life of impulse can take on a pleasing character. There is a purely natural capacity for self-sacrifice, a striking degree of which is to be found in the animal kingdom. This development of an animal impulse finds its most beautiful consummation in natural mother love. These selfless natural impulses come to expression in the first aura in fight reddish to rose-red shades of colour. Cowardly fear and terror of external provocations show themselves in the aura in brown-blue and grey-blue colours.

[ 21 ] The second aura again shows the most varied grades of colours. Brown and orange coloured formations point to strongly developed conceit, pride and ambition. Inquisitiveness also betrays itself through red-yellow flecks. Bright yellow mirrors clear thinking and intelligence; green is the expression of understanding of fife and the world. Children who learn easily have a great deal of green in this part of the aura. A green-yellow in the second aura betokens a good memory. Rose-red indicates a benevolent affectionate nature; blue is the sign of piety. The nearer piety comes to being religious fervour, the more does blue pass over into violet. Idealism and an earnest view of life in a higher sense, are seen as indigo blue.

[ 22 ] The basic colours of the third aura are yellow, green and blue. Bright yellow appears here if the thinking is filled with lofty, far-reaching ideas that comprehend the details as part of the whole of the divine World Order. If the thinking is intuitive and also completely purified from all sensory conceptions, the yellow has a golden brilliance. Green expresses love for all beings; blue is the sign of a capacity for selfless sacrifice for all beings. If this capacity for sacrifice rises to the height of strong willing which devotes itself actively to the service of the world, the blue brightens to light violet. If pride and desire for honour as last remnants of personal egotism are still present, despite a more highly developed soul-nature, there appear beside the yellow shades others verging on orange. It must however be remarked that in this part of the aura the colours are very different from the shades one is accustomed to see in the world of the senses. It displays to the seer a beauty and a sublimity with which nothing in the ordinary world can be compared.

This description of the aura cannot be rightly judged by anyone who does not attach the chief weight to the fact that “seeing the aura” implies an extension and enrichment of what is perceived in the physical world: an extension indeed that aims at knowing that form of soul-life which has spiritual reality apart from the world of the senses. This presentation has nothing whatever to do with a reading of character or of a man's thoughts from an aura perceived in an hallucinatory manner. It seeks to expand knowledge in the direction of the spiritual world and will have nothing to do with the questionable art of reading human souls from their auras.

• 6. The explanations given here are from their very nature exposed to great misunderstandings. For this reason it is proposed in this new edition to return quite briefly to these points in a note at the end of the book. See under Addenda p. 115.

[ 1 ] Knowledge of the spiritual science presented in this book can be acquired by every human being for himself. Descriptions of the kind given here present a thought-picture of the higher worlds and they are in a certain respect the first step towards personal vision. For man is a thinking being. He can find his path to knowledge only when thinking is his starting-point. A picture of the higher worlds presented to his intellect is not fruitless for him, even if for the time being it is only like a narration of higher facts into which he has as yet no insight through his own vision. For the thoughts which are given him represent in themselves a force which works on further in his world of thought. This force will be active in him; it will awaken slumbering capacities. A man who is of the opinion that it is superfluous to occupy himself with such a thought-picture is mistaken; for he regards thought as something unreal and abstract. But thought is a living force. And just as in one who has knowledge thought is present as a direct expression of what is seen in the spirit, so the communication of this expression works in him to whom it is communicated as a seed, which brings forth from itself the fruit of knowledge.

Anyone disdaining the application of strenuous intellectual exertion in the effort to attain higher knowledge, and preferring to turn to other forces for that end, fails to take into account that thinking is the highest of the faculties possessed by man in the world of the senses.

To one who asks, “How can I gain personal knowledge of the higher truths of spiritual science?” the answer must be given, “Begin by making yourself acquainted with what is communicated by others concerning such knowledge.” And should he reply, “I want to see for myself; I do not want to know anything about what others have seen,” the answer must be: “It is in the very assimilating of the communications of others that the first step towards personal knowledge consists.” And if he should retort: “Then I am compelled first of all to have blind faith,” one can only reply that in regard to some communications it is not a case of belief or disbelief, but merely of unprejudiced assimilation. The genuine spiritual investigator never speaks with the expectation of being met with blind credulity. He merely says, “I have experienced this in the spiritual regions of existence and I am narrating these experiences of mine.” But he knows too, that the assimilation of these experiences by another and the fact that the thoughts of that other person are permeated by the account are living forces making for spiritual development.

[ 2 ] What is here to be considered, will only be rightly viewed by one who takes into account the fact that all knowledge of the worlds of soul and spirit slumbers in the depths of the human soul. It can be brought to light through treading the “path of knowledge.” But there can be insight not only into what one has oneself brought to light, but also into what someone else has brought up from the depths of the soul; and that, moreover, even when no actual preparation has yet been made for the treading of that path of knowledge. Genuine spiritual insight awakens the power of understanding in anyone whose inner nature is not clouded by preconceptions and prejudices. The unconscious knowledge rises to meet the spiritual facts discovered by another. This is not blind credulity but the right working of healthy human reason. This healthy comprehension should be considered a far better starting-point even for first-hand cognition of the spiritual world, than dubious mystical “experiences” and the like, which are often imagined to be more valuable than what healthy human understanding can recognise when confronted with the findings of genuine spiritual research.

[ 3 ] It cannot be emphasised strongly enough how necessary it is for anyone who wishes to develop his faculties for higher knowledge to undertake strenuous efforts to cultivate his powers of thinking. This emphasis must be all the stronger because many people who would become “seers” place too little value on this earnest, self-denying labour of thinking. They say, “Thinking cannot help me to reach anything; what really matters is ‘feeling’ or something similar.” In reply it must be said that no one can in the higher sense (and that means in truth) become a “seer” who has not previously worked his way into the life of thought. In the case of many people a certain inner laziness plays an injurious role. They do not become conscious of this laziness because it clothes itself in contempt for “abstract thought,” “idle speculations,” and the like. But thinking is completely misunderstood, if it is confused with a spinning of idle, abstract trains of thought. This “abstract thinking” can easily kill supersensible knowledge; live and vigorous thinking can become its foundation.

It would of course be more convenient if the power of higher seership could be acquired while shunning the labour of thinking. Many would like this to be possible. But in order to achieve higher seership an inner stability is necessary, an assurance of soul to which thinking alone can lead. Otherwise there merely results a meaningless flickering of pictures hither and thither, a distracting display of phenomena which indeed gives pleasure, but has nothing to do with a true penetration into higher worlds. Further, if we consider what purely spiritual experiences take place in a man who really enters the higher world, we shall realise that the matter has also another aspect. Absolute healthiness of the life of soul is essential in a “seer.” There is no better means of developing this healthiness than genuine thinking. In fact this health of soul may suffer seriously if the exercises for higher development are not based on thinking. Although it is true that the power of spiritual sight makes a healthy and rightly thinking man still healthier and more capable in life than he is without it, it is equally true that all attempts to develop while shirking the effort of thought, all vague dreamings in this domain, lend strength to fantasy-hunting and encourage a false attitude to life. No one who wishes to acquire higher knowledge has anything to fear if he pays heed to what is said here; but the attempt should only be made under the above premise. This premise has to do only with man's soul and spirit; to speak of any kind of injurious influence upon the bodily health is absurd.

[ 4 ] Unfounded disbelief is indeed injurious. It works in the recipient as a repelling force. It hinders him from taking in the fruitful thoughts. Not blind faith, but the reception of the thought-world of spiritual science, is the pre-requisite for the development of the higher senses. The spiritual investigator approaches his pupil with the injunction: “You are not to believe what I tell you but think it out yourself, make it part of the contents of your own thought-world; then my thoughts will themselves bring it about that you recognise them in their truth.” This is the attitude of the spiritual investigator. He gives the stimulus; the power to accept it as true springs from within the recipient himself. And it is in this sense that the views of spiritual science should be studied. Anyone who steeps his thoughts in them may be sure that sooner or later they will lead him to vision of his own.

[ 5 ] What has been said here already indicates one of the first qualities which everyone wishing to attain vision of higher realities has to develop in himself. It is the unreserved, unprejudiced surrender to what is revealed by human life or by the world external to man. If from the outset a man approaches a fact in the world bringing with him judgment originating in his life hitherto, he shuts himself off through this judgment from the calm, all-round effect which the fact can have on him. The learner must be able at each moment to make himself a perfectly empty vessel into which the new world flows. Knowledge arises only in those moments when every criticism coming from ourselves is silent. For example, when we meet a person, the question is not at all whether we are wiser than he. Even the most unintelligent child has something to reveal to the greatest sage. And if he approaches the child with his prejudgment, however wise it may be, his wisdom thrusts itself like a dulled glass in front of what the child ought to reveal to him.¹

Complete inner selflessness is necessary for this surrender to the revelations of the new world. And if a man test himself to find out in what degree he has this power of surrender, he will make astonishing discoveries. Anyone who wishes to tread the path of higher knowledge must train himself to be able to obliterate himself, together with all his preconceptions at any and every moment. As long as he obliterates himself the other flows into him. Only a high degree of such selfless surrender enables a man to imbibe the higher spiritual realities which surround him on all sides. This faculty can be consciously developed. A man can try for example to refrain from any judgment on people around him. He should obliterate within himself the gauge of attraction and repulsion, of stupidity or cleverness, which he is accustomed to apply, and try without this gauge to understand people purely through themselves. The most effective exercises can be made in connection with people for whom he has an aversion. He should suppress this aversion with all his might and allow everything that they do to affect him without bias. Or, if he is in an environment that calls for this or that judgment, he should suppress the judgment and lay himself open to the impressions.²

He should allow things and events to speak to him rather than speak about them. And this should also extend to his thought-world. He should suppress in himself whatever prompts this or that thought and allow only what is outside to give rise to the thoughts. Only when such exercises are carried out with the most solemn earnestness and perseverance do they lead to the goal of higher knowledge. He who undervalues such exercises knows nothing of their worth. And he who has experience in such things knows that selfless surrender and freedom from prejudice are true generators of power. Just as heat conducted to the steam boiler is transformed into the motive power of the locomotive, so do these exercises in selfless spiritual self-surrender transform themselves in man into the power of vision in the spiritual worlds.

[ 6 ] By this exercise a man makes himself receptive to everything that surrounds him. But to this receptivity must be added the faculty of correct estimation. As long as a man is still inclined to value himself too highly at the expense of the world around him, he bars all access to higher knowledge. One who in face of each thing or event in the world yields himself up to the pleasure or pain which they cause him, is enmeshed in this over-valuation of himself. For through his pleasure and his pain he learns nothing about the things, but merely something about himself. If I feel sympathy with a human being, I feel, to begin with, nothing but my relation to him. If I make myself dependent on this feeling of pleasure, of sympathy, in my judgment and my conduct, I am placing my personality in the foreground: I am obtruding it upon the world. I want to thrust myself into the world just as I am, instead of accepting the world in an unbiased way and allowing it to play itself out in accordance with the forces working in it. In other words, I am tolerant only of what harmonises with my personality. Towards everything else I exert a repelling force. As long as a man is enmeshed by the sense-world, he works in a particularly repelling way on all non-material influences. The learner must develop in himself the capacity to conduct himself towards things and people in accordance with their peculiar natures and to recognise the due worth and significance of each one. Sympathy and antipathy, liking and disliking, must be made to play quite new roles. There is no question of man's eradicating these, of blunting himself to sympathy and antipathy. On the contrary, the more a man develops in himself the capacity to refrain from allowing every feeling of sympathy and antipathy to be followed immediately by a judgment, an action, the more delicate will be the sensitiveness he develops. He will find that sympathies and antipathies assume higher forms in him, if he curbs those already in him. Even something that is at first utterly unattractive has hidden qualities; it reveals them if a man does not in his conduct obey his selfish feelings. He who has developed in this respect has more delicate feelings, in every direction, than one who is undeveloped, because he does not allow his own personality to cause lack of receptivity. Each inclination that a man follows blindly blunts his power to see things in the environment in their true light. By obeying inclination we thrust ourselves through the environment, as it were, instead of laying ourselves open to it and feeling its true value.

[ 7 ] A man becomes independent of the changing impressions of the outer world when every pleasure, every pain, every sympathy and antipathy, no longer evoke in him an egotistical response and egotistical conduct. The pleasure he feels in a thing makes him at once dependent on it. He loses himself in the thing. A man who loses himself in the pleasure or pain caused by constantly changing impressions cannot tread the path of higher knowledge. He must accept pleasure and pain with equanimity. Then he ceases to lose himself in them; he begins instead to understand them. A pleasure to which I surrender myself devours my being at the moment of surrender. I ought to use the pleasure only in order through it to reach an understanding of the thing that arouses pleasure in men. The important point ought not to be that the thing has aroused the pleasure in me; I ought to experience the pleasure and through it the essential nature of the thing in question. The pleasure should only be an intimation to me that there is in the thing a quality calculated to give pleasure. This quality I must learn to understand. If I go no further than the pleasure, if I allow myself to be entirely absorbed in it, then it only feeds my own pleasures; if the pleasure is to me only an opportunity to experience a quality or property of a thing, I enrich my inner being through this experience. To the seeker, pleasure and displeasure, joy and pain, must be opportunities for learning about things. The seeker does not thereby become blunted to pleasure or pain, but he raises himself above them in order that they may reveal to him the nature of things. He who develops in this respect will learn to realise what good instructors pleasure and pain are. He will feel with every being and thereby receive the revelation of its inner nature. The seeker never says to himself merely, “Oh, how I suffer!” or “Oh, how glad I am!” but always “How suffering speaks!” “How joy speaks!” He eliminates the element of self in order that pleasure and joy from the outer world may work upon him. By this means he develops a completely new way of relating himself to things. Formerly he responded to this or that impression by this or that action, only because the impressions caused him joy or dislike. But now he lets pleasure and displeasure also become the organs by which things tell him what they themselves truly are in their own nature. In him, pleasure and pain change from being mere feelings to organs of sense by which the external world is perceived. Just as the eye does not itself act when it sees something, but causes the hand to act, so do pleasure and pain bring about nothing in the spiritual seeker, in so far as he employs them as means of knowledge, but they receive impressions, and what is experienced through pleasure and displeasure is that which brings about the action. When a man uses pleasure and displeasure in such a way that they become organs of transmission, they build up within his soul the actual organs through which the soul-world reveals itself to him. The eye can serve the body only by being an organ for the transmission of sense-impressions; pleasure and pain become eyes of the soul when they cease merely to have value for themselves and begin to reveal to a man's own soul the soul outside it.

[ 8 ] Through the qualities named, the student induces in himself the condition which allows the realities present in the world around him to work upon him without disturbing influences emanating from his own personality. But he has also to fit himself into the surrounding spiritual world in the right way. As a thinking being he is a citizen of the spiritual world. He can be this in a right way only if during mental activity he makes his thoughts move in accordance with the eternal laws of truth, the laws of the “Spiritland.” For only so can that realm work upon him and reveal its facts to him. A man does not reach the truth as long as he gives himself up only to the thoughts continually coursing through his Ego. For if he does, these thoughts take a course imposed on them by the fact that they come into existence within the bodily nature. The thought-world of a man who gives himself up to a mental activity determined primarily by his physical brain appears disorderly and confused. A thought enters it, breaks off, is driven out of the field by another. Anyone who tests this by listening to a conversation between two people, or who observes himself frankly, will gain an idea of this mass of will-o'-the-wisp thoughts. As long as a man devotes himself only to the calls of the life of the senses, the confused course of his thoughts will always be set right again by the facts of reality. I may think ever so confusedly: but in my actions everyday facts force upon me the laws corresponding to the reality. My mental picture of a town may be utterly confused; but if I wish to walk along a certain street in the town I must accommodate myself to existing facts. A mechanic may enter his workshop with a chaotic medley of ideas; but the laws of his machines compel him to adopt the correct procedure in his work. Within the world of the senses facts exercise their continuous corrective on thought. If I think out a false opinion about a physical phenomenon or the shape of a plant, the reality confronts me and sets my thinking right.

It is quite different when I consider my relations to the higher regions of existence. They reveal themselves to me only if I enter them with strictly controlled thinking. There my thinking must give me the right, the sure impulse, otherwise I cannot find the proper paths. For the spiritual laws prevailing in these worlds are not sensibly perceptible, and therefore they do not exert on me the compulsion described above. I am able to obey these laws only when they are allied to my own as those of a thinking being. Here I must be my own sure guide. The student's thinking must therefore be strictly regulated in itself. His thoughts must by degrees disaccustom themselves entirely from taking the ordinary daily course. They must in their whole sequence take on the inner character of the spiritual world. He must be able constantly to keep watch over himself in this respect and have himself in hand. With him one thought must not link itself arbitrarily with another, but only in the way that corresponds with the actual contents of the thought-world. The transition from one idea to another must correspond with the strict laws of thought. As thinker, the man must be to a certain extent a constant copy of these thought-laws. He must shut out from his train of thought everything that does not flow out of these laws. Should a favourite thought present itself to him, he must put it aside if the right sequence will be disturbed by it. If a personal feeling tries to force upon his thoughts a direction not proper to them, he must suppress it.

Plato required of those who wished to be admitted to his school that they should first have a mathematical training. And mathematics, with its strict laws which are independent of the course taken by sense-phenomena, form a good preparation for the seeker. If he wishes to make progress in the study of mathematics he must get rid of all personal arbitrariness, all elements of disturbance. The student prepares himself for his task by overcoming through his own will all arbitrary thinking. He learns to follow purely the demands of thought. And so too he must learn to do this in all thinking intended to serve spiritual knowledge. This thought-life itself must be a reflection of undisturbed mathematical judgment and inference. He must strive, wherever he goes and wherever he is, to be able to think in this way. Then the laws of the spirit-world flow into him, laws which pass over and through him, without a trace as long as his thinking has the usual, confused character. Regulated thinking leads him from reliable starting-points to the most hidden truths. What has been said, however, must not be understood in a one-sided way. Although mathematics acts as a good discipline, pure, healthy and vital thinking can be achieved without mathematics.

[ 9 ] The goal towards which the student must strive for his thinking must also be the same for his actions. He must be able to obey the laws of the nobly beautiful and the eternally true without any disturbing influences from his personality. These laws must be able to guide and direct him. If he begins to do something he has recognised as right and his personal feelings are not satisfied by the action, he must not for that reason abandon the path on which he has entered. But on the other hand he must not persist with it because it gives him joy, if he finds that it is not in harmony with the laws of the eternally Beautiful and True. In everyday life people allow their actions to be determined by what satisfies them personally, by what bears fruit for themselves. In so doing they force their personality upon the world's events. They do not bring to realisation the true that is already traced in the laws of the spirit-world, but simply the demands of their self-will. We act in harmony with the spiritual world only when we follow its laws alone. From what is done merely out of the personality, there result no forces which can form a basis for spiritual knowledge. The seeker must not ask only, “What brings me advantages, what will bring me success?” He must also be able to ask: “What have I recognised as the Good?” Renunciation of the fruits of action for his personality, renunciation of all self-will: these are the stern laws that he must prescribe for himself. Then he treads the paths of the spiritual world, his whole being is penetrated by these laws. He becomes free from all compulsion from the world of the senses; his spirit-nature raises itself out of the material sheath. Thus he makes actual progress on the path towards the spiritual and spiritualises his own nature. One cannot say, “Of what use to me are the precepts to follow purely the laws of the True when I am perhaps mistaken as to what is the True?” What matters is the striving and the attitude to it. Even a man who is mistaken has in his very striving after the

True a force which diverts him from the wrong path. If he is mistaken, this force guides him to the right paths. Even the objection, “But I may be mistaken,” is harmful misgiving. It shows that the man has no confidence in the power of the True. For the important point is that he should not presume to decide on his aims and objects in life in accordance with his own egotistical views, but that he should selflessly yield himself up to the guidance of the spirit itself. It is not the self-seeking human will that can prescribe for the True; on the contrary, the True itself must become lord in the man, must penetrate his whole being, make him a mirror-image of the eternal laws of the Spiritland. He must fill himself with these eternal laws in order to let them stream out into life.

The seeker must be able to hold strict guard over both his thinking and his will. Thereby he becomes in all humility—without presumption—a messenger of the world of the True and the Beautiful, and rises to be a participant in the Spirit-World. He rises from stage to stage of development. For one cannot reach the spiritual life by merely beholding it; it has to be attained through actual experience.

[ 10 ] If the seeker observes the laws here described, those of his soul-experiences that relate to the spiritual world will take on an entirely new form. He will no longer live merely in them. They will no longer have a significance merely for his personal life. They will develop into inner perceptions of the higher world. In his soul the feelings of pleasure and displeasure, of joy and pain, grow into organs of soul, just as in his body eyes and ears do not lead a life for themselves but selflessly allow external impressions to pass through them. And thereby the seeker gains the inner calmness and assurance that are necessary for investigation in the spirit-world. A great joy will no longer make him merely jubilant, but may be the messenger of qualities in the world which have hitherto escaped him. It will leave him calm: and through the calm, the characteristics of the joy-bringing beings will reveal themselves to him. Suffering will no longer merely oppress him, but will also be able to tell him about the qualities and attributes of the being which causes the suffering. Just as the eye does not desire anything for itself, but shows to man the direction of the path he has to take, so will joy and suffering guide the soul safely along its path. This is the state of balance of soul which the seeker must attain. The less joy and suffering exhaust themselves in the waves which they throw up in his inner life, the more will they form eyes for the supersensible world. As long as a man lives wholly in joy and pain he cannot gain knowledge through them. When he learns how to live through them, when he draws out of them his feeling of self, then they become his organs of perception; then he sees by means of them, cognises by means of them. It is incorrect to think that the seeker becomes a dry, colourless being, incapable of joy or suffering. Joy and suffering are present in him, but—when he investigates in the spiritual world—in a different form; they have become “eyes and ears.”

[ 11 ] As long as we live in a personal relationship with the world things reveal only what links them with our personality. But that is the transitory part of them. If we withdraw ourselves from the transitory nature and live with our feeling of self, with our “I,” in our permanent nature, then the transitory parts of our nature become intermediaries; and what reveals itself through them is an Imperishable reality, an Eternal reality in the things. This relationship between his own Eternal nature and the Eternal in the things must be established by the seeker. Even before he begins other exercises of the kind described, and also during them, he should direct his thought to this Imperishable aspect. When I observe a stone, a plant, an animal, a man, I should be able to remember that in each of them an Eternal Reality expresses itself. I should be able to ask myself what is the permanent reality that lives in the transitory stone, in the transitory human being? What will outlast the transitory, physical appearance? It must not be thought that such a directing of the spirit to the Eternal destroys the power of devoted observation and our feeling for the qualities of everyday affairs, and estranges us from the immediate realities. On the contrary. Every leaf, every little insect, will unveil to us innumerable mysteries when not our eyes only, but through the eyes the spirit is directed upon them. Every sparkle, every shade of colour, every cadence, will remain vividly perceptible to the senses; nothing will be lost; an infinitude of new life is gained in addition. Indeed a person who does not understand how to observe with the eye even the tiniest thing will achieve only pale, bloodless thoughts, not spiritual sight.

Everything depends upon our attitude of mind. How far we shall succeed will depend upon our capacities. We have only to do what is right and leave everything else to evolution. It must be enough for us at first to direct our minds to the permanent. If we do this, the knowledge of the permanent will thereby awaken in us. We must wait until it is given. And it is given at the right time to each one who waits with patience—and works. A man soon notices during such exercises what a mighty transformation takes place in him. He learns to consider each thing as important or unimportant only in so far as he recognises it to be related to the Permanent, to the Eternal. His valuation and estimate of the world are different from those he has hitherto held. His feeling takes on a new relationship towards the whole surrounding world. The transitory no longer attracts him merely for its own sake, as formerly; it becomes for him a member, an image of the Eternal. And this Eternal reality that lives in all things, he learns to love. It becomes familiar to him, just as the transitory was formerly familiar to him. Again this does not cause him to be estranged from life; he merely learns to value each thing according to its true significance. Even the trifles of life will not pass him by without trace; but, inasmuch as he is seeking the spiritual, he no longer loses himself in them but recognises them at their worth. He sees them in their true light. Only an inferior seeker would go wandering in the clouds and lose sight of actual fife; a genuine seeker will, from his high summit, with his power of clear survey and his just and healthy feeling for everything, know how to assign to each thing its proper place.

[ 12 ] Thus there opens out to the seeker the possibility of ceasing to obey only the incalculable influences of the external world of the senses, which turn his will now here, now there. Through knowledge he has seen the eternal nature in things. Through the transformation of his inner world he has gained the capacity to perceive this eternal nature. For the seeker, the following thoughts have special importance. When he acts from out of himself, he is conscious that he is also acting out of the eternal nature of the things. For the things give utterance in him to this nature of theirs. He is therefore acting in harmony with the eternal World Order when he directs his action from out of the Eternal within him. He knows himself to be no longer merely impelled by the things; he knows that he impels them according to the laws implanted in them which have become the laws of his own being.

This ability to act out of his own inner being can only be an ideal towards which the seeker strives. The attainment of the goal lies in the far distance. But the seeker must have the will clearly to recognise this path. This is his will for freedom. For freedom is action out of one's own inner being. And only a man who draws his motives from the Eternal may act from out of his inner being. One who does not do this, acts according to motives other than those inherent in the things. Such a man opposes the World Order. And this must then prevail against him. That is to say, what he plans to carry through by his will can, in the last resort, not take place. He cannot become free. The arbitrary will of the individual annihilates itself through the effects of its deeds.

[ 13 ] He who is able to work upon his inner life in such a way advances from stage to stage in spiritual knowledge. The fruit of his exercises will be that certain vistas of the supersensible world will unfold to his spiritual perception. He learns the meaning of the truths that are communicated about this world; and he will receive confirmation of them through his own experience. If this stage is attained something approaches him which can become experience only through treading this path. In a manner whose significance now for the first time can become clear to him through the “great spiritual guiding Powers of the Human race” there is bestowed on him what is called consecration—Initiation. He becomes a “pupil of Wisdom.” The less such an Initiation is thought to consist in any outer human relationship, the more correct will be the conception formed about it. What the seeker now experiences can only be indicated here. He receives a new home. He becomes thereby a conscious dweller in the supersensible world. The source of spiritual insight now flows to him from a higher sphere. The light of knowledge does not henceforward shine upon him from without but he is himself placed in the fountain-head of this light. The problems which the world presents receive new illumination. Henceforth he no longer holds converse with the things which are fashioned through the spirit, but with the forming Spirit itself. The separate life of the personality only exists now, in the moments of spiritual knowledge, in order to be a conscious image of the Eternal. Doubts concerning the spirit which could formerly have arisen in him vanish away: for only he can doubt who is deluded by things regarding the spirit that rules in them. And since the “pupil of Wisdom” is able to hold intercourse with the spirit itself, every false form in which he had previously imagined the spirit, vanishes. The false form under which the spirit is conceived is superstition. The initiate has passed beyond all superstition, for he knows what the true form of the spirit is. Freedom from the preconceptions of the personality, of doubt and of superstition—these are the hallmarks of one who has attained to discipleship on the path of higher knowledge. This state in which the personality becomes one with the all-embracing spirit of life, must not be confused with an absorption in the “All-Spirit” that annihilates the personality. No such annihilation takes place in a true development of the personality. Personality remains preserved as such in the relationship into which it enters with the spirit-world. It is not the subjection of the personality but its higher development that takes place. If we wish to have a simile for this coincidence or union of the individual spirit with the “All-Spirit,” we cannot choose that of different circles which, coinciding, are lost in the one, but we must choose the picture of many circles of which each has a distinct shade of colour. These differently coloured circles coincide, but each separate shade preserves its existence within the whole. Not one loses the fullness of its individual power.

[ 14 ] No further description of the path will be given here. It is contained, as far as is possible, in my Occult Science—an Outline which forms a continuation of this book.

[ 15 ] What has been said here about the path of spiritual knowledge can only too easily, if it is not properly understood, mislead the reader into regarding it as a recommendation of moods of soul that bring with them the tendency to turn away from the immediate, joyous, active experience of life. As against this it must be emphasised that the particular mood of the soul which renders it fit for direct experience of the reality of the spirit, cannot be extended over the whole of life. It is possible for the investigator of spiritual existence to bring his soul, for the purpose of that investigation, into the necessary condition of withdrawal from the realities of the senses, without being made in ordinary life into a man estranged from the world. On the other hand it must be recognised too that a knowledge of the spiritual world, not merely a knowledge gained by treading the path, but also a knowledge acquired through grasping the truths of spiritual science with ordinary, open-minded, healthy human understanding, leads to a higher moral status in life, to a knowledge of sensory existence that is in accord with the truth, to assurance in life and to inner health of the soul.

• 1. One can see very well, precisely from this indication, that in the requirement of “unreserved surrender” there is no question of shutting out one's own judgment or giving oneself up to blind faith. Anything of the sort would quite obviously have no sense or meaning in regard to a child.
• 2. This open-minded and uncritical attitude has nothing whatever in common with “blind faith.” The important thing is not that one should believe blindly in anything, but that a “blind judgment” should not be put into the place of the living impression.

[ 1 ] When Johann Gottlieb Fichte, in the autumn of 1813, gave to the world his Introduction to the Science of Knowledge, as the ripe fruit of a life wholly devoted to the service of truth, he spoke at the very outset as follows: “This doctrine presupposes an entirely new inner sense-organ or instrument, through which is revealed a new world which has no existence for the ordinary man.” And he showed by a simile how incomprehensible this doctrine of his must be when judged by conceptions of the ordinary senses: “Think of a world of people born blind, who therefore know only those objects and their relations which exist through the sense of touch. Go among them, and speak to them of colours and the other relations which exist only through light and for the sense of sight. You will convey nothing to their minds, and it is luckiest if they tell you so, for you will then quickly notice your mistake and, if unable to open their eyes, will cease talking to them in vain. ...” Anyone who speaks to people about such things as those Fichte is pointing to in this instance finds himself only too often in the position of a seeing man among those born blind. Yet these are things that relate to a man's true being and his highest aims, and to believe it necessary “to cease the useless speaking” would amount to despairing of humanity. Far rather, one should never despair of opening the eyes of everyone to these things, provided he has good will. It is on this supposition that all those have written and spoken who have felt that within them the growth of the “inner sense-instrument” by which they have become able to know the true nature and being of man, which is hidden from the outer senses. This is why from the most ancient times such a “Hidden Wisdom” has been spoken of again and again. Those who have grasped something of it feel just as sure of their possession as people with normal eyes feel sure that they possess the conception of colour. For them, therefore, this “Hidden Wisdom” requires no “proof.” They know also that this “Hidden Wisdom” requires no proof for any other person like themselves, in whom the “higher sense” has unfolded. To such a one they can speak as a traveller can speak about America to people who have not themselves seen that country, but who can form an idea of it, because they would see all that he has seen, if the opportunity presented itself to them.

[ 2 ] But it is not only to investigators into the spiritual world that the observer of the supersensible has to speak. He must address his words to all men. For he has to give an account of things that concern all men. Indeed he knows that without a knowledge of these things no one can, in the true sense of the word, be “man.” And he speaks to all men, because he knows that there are different grades of understanding for what he has to say. He knows that even those who are still far from the moment when first-hand spiritual investigation will be possible for them, can bring to meet him a measure of understanding. For the feeling for truth and the power of understanding it are inherent in every human being. And to this understanding, which can light up in every healthy soul, he addresses himself in the first place. He knows too that in this understanding there is a force which, little by little, must lead to the higher grades of knowledge. This feeling which, perhaps, at first sees nothing at all of what is related, is itself the magician which opens the “eye of the spirit.” In darkness this feeling stirs; the soul sees nothing, but through this feeling is seized by the power of the truth; and then the truth will gradually draw nearer to the soul and open in it the “higher sense.” In one person it may take a longer, in another a shorter time, but everyone who has patience and endurance reaches this goal.

For although not everyone born blind can be operated on, every spiritual eye can be opened, and when it will be opened is only a question of time.

[ 3 ] Erudition and scientific training are not pre-conditions for the unfolding of this “higher sense.” It can develop in the simple-minded person just as in the scientist of high standing. Indeed, what is often called at the present time “the only true science,” can, for the attainment of this goal, be frequently a hindrance rather than a help. For this science naturally allows only that to be considered “real,” which is accessible to the ordinary senses. And however great its merits are in regard to the knowledge of that reality, yet when it decrees that what is necessary and healthful for itself shall also apply to all human knowledge, then it creates at the same time a host of prejudices which close the approach to higher realities.

[ 4 ] Against what is said here, it is often objected that “insurmountable limits” have been once and forever set to man's knowledge, and that since he cannot overstep these limits, all knowledge must be rejected which does not observe them. And anyone who makes assertions about things that most people accept as lying beyond the limits of man's capacity for knowledge is looked upon as highly presumptuous. Such objections entirely disregard the fact that a development of the human powers of knowledge has to precede the higher knowledge. What lies beyond the limits of knowledge before such a development stands, after the awakening of faculties slumbering in each human being, entirely within the realm of knowledge. One point in this connection must, indeed, not be neglected. It might be said: “Of what use is it to speak to people about things for which their powers of knowledge are not yet awakened, and which are therefore still closed to them?” Yet that is the wrong way to look at it. Certain powers are required to find out the things referred to; but if, after having been discovered, they are made known, every man can understand them who is willing to bring to bear upon them unprejudiced logic and a healthy feeling for truth. In this book only those things will be made known which can fully produce the impression that through them the riddles of human life and the phenomena of the world can be satisfactorily approached. This impression will be produced upon everyone who permits thought, unclouded by prejudice, and feeling for truth, free and without reservation, to work within him. Put yourself for a moment in the position of asking, “If the things asserted here are true, do they afford a satisfying explanation of life?” and it will be found that the life of every human being supplies the confirmation.

[ 5 ] In order to be a “teacher” in these higher regions of existence, it is by no means sufficient that simply the sense for them has developed. For that purpose “science” is just as necessary, as it is necessary for the teacher's calling in the world of ordinary reality. “Higher seeing” makes a “knower” in the spiritual as little as healthy sense-organs make a “scholar” in regard to the realities of the senses. And because in truth all reality, the lower and the higher spiritual, are only two sides of one and the same fundamental being, anyone who is unlearned in the lower branches of knowledge will as a rule remain so in regard to the higher. This fact creates a feeling of immeasurable responsibility in one who, through a spiritual call, feels himself summoned to speak about the spiritual regions of existence. It imposes upon him humility and reserve. But it should deter no one from occupying himself with the higher truths—not even one whose other circumstances of life afford no opportunity for the study of ordinary science. For one can, indeed, fulfil one's task as man without understanding anything of botany, zoology, mathematics and other sciences; but one cannot, in the full sense of the word, be “man” without having, in some way or other, come nearer to an understanding of the nature and destination of man as revealed through the knowledge of the supersensible.

[ 6 ] The Highest a man is able to look up to he calls the “Divine.” And in some way or other he must think of his highest destination as being in connection with this Divinity. Therefore that wisdom which reaches out beyond the sensible and reveals to him his own being, and with it his final goal, may very well be called “divine wisdom” or theosophy. To the study of the spiritual processes in human life and in the cosmos, the term spiritual science may be given. When, as is the case in this book, one extracts from this spiritual science the particular results which have reference to the spiritual core of man's being, then the expression theosophy may be used for this domain, because it has been employed for centuries in this direction.

[ 7 ] From the point of view here indicated, there will be sketched in this book an outline of the theosophical conception of the universe. The writer of it will bring forward nothing that is not, for him, a fact in the same sense as an experience of the outer world is a fact for eyes and ears and the ordinary intelligence. For one is concerned with experiences which become accessible to every person who is determined to tread the “path of knowledge” described in a special section of this work. The right attitude towards the things of the supersensible world is to assume that sound thinking and feeling are capable of understanding everything in the way of true knowledge which can emerge from the higher worlds, and further that, when one starts from this understanding, and therewith lays a firm foundation, a great step onwards has been made towards seeing for oneself; even though, to attain to this, other things must be added also. But one locks and bolts the door to the true higher knowledge, when one despises this path and resolves to penetrate into the higher worlds only in some other way. The principle: only to recognise higher worlds when one has seen them, is a hindrance in the way of this very seeing. The will, first of all to understand through sound thinking what can later be seen, furthers that seeing. It conjures forth important powers of the soul which lead to this “seership.”

By Edouard Schuré

Many of even the most cultivated men of our time have a very mistaken idea of what is a true mystic and only true occultist. They know these two forms of human mentality only by their imperfect or degenerate types, of which recent times have afforded but too many examples. To the intellectual man of the day, the mystic is a, kind of fool and visionary who takes his fancies for facts; the occultist is a dreamer or a charlatan who abuses public credulity in order to boast of an imaginary science and of pretended powers. Be it remarked, to begin with, that this definition of mysticism, though deserved by, some, would be as unjust as erroneous if one sought to apply it to such personalities as Joachim del Fiore of the thirteenth century, Jacob Boehme of the sixteenth, or St. Martin, who is called “the unknown philosopher,” of the eighteenth century. No less unjust and false would be the current definition of the occultist if one saw in it the slightest connection with such earnest seekers as Paracelsus, Mesmer, or Fabre d'Olivet in the past, as William Crookes, de Rochat, or Camille Flammarion in the present. Think what we may of these bold investigators, it is undeniable that they have opened out regions unknown to science, and furnished the mind with new ideas.

No, these fanciful definitions can at most satisfy that scientific dilettantism which hides its feebleness under a supercilious mask to screen its indolence, or the worldly scepticism which ridicules all that threatens to upset its indifference. But enough of these superficial opinions. Let us study history, the sacred and profane books of all nations, and the last results of experimental science; let us subject all these facts to impartial criticism, inferring similar effects from identical causes, and we shall be forced to give quite another definition of the mystic and the occultist.

The true mystic is a man who enters into full possession of his inner life, and who, having become cognisant of his sub-consciousness, finds in it, through concentrated meditation and steady discipline, new faculties and enlightenment. These new faculties and this enlightenment instruct him as to the innermost nature of his soul and his relations with that impalpable element which underlies all, with that eternal and supreme reality which religion calls God, and poetry the Divine. The occultist, akin to the mystic, but differing from him as a younger from an elder brother, is a man endowed with intuition and with synthesis, who seeks-to penetrate the hidden depths and foundations of Nature by the methods of science and philosophy: that is to say, by observation and reason, methods invariable in principle., but modified in application by being adapted to the descending kingdoms of Spirit or the ascending kingdoms of Nature, according to the vast hierarchy of beings and the alchemy of the creative Word.

The mystic, then, is one who seeks for truth, and the divine directly within himself, by a gradual detachment and a veritable birth of his higher soul. If he attains it after prolonged effort, he plunges into his own glowing centre. Then he immerses himself, and identifies himself with that ocean of life which is the primordial Force.

The occultist, on the other hand, discovers, studies, and contemplates this same Divine outpouring given forth in diverse portions, endowed with force, and multiplied to infinity in Nature and in Humanity. According to the profound saying of Paracelsus: he sees in all beings the letters of an alphabet, which, united in man, form the complete and conscious Word of life. The detailed analyses that he makes of them, the syntheses that he constructs with them; are to him as so many images and forecastings of this central Divine, of this Sun of Beauty, of Truth and of Life, which he sees not, but which is reflected and bursts upon his vision in countless mirrors.

The weapons of the mystic are concentration and inner vision; the weapons of the occultist are intuition and synthesis. Each corresponds to the other; they complete and presuppose each other.

These two human types are blended in the Adept, in the higher Initiate. No doubt one or the other, and often both, are met with in the sounders of great religions and the loftiest philosophies. No doubt also they are to be found again, in a less, but still very remarkable degree, among a certain number of personages who have played a great part in history as reformers, thinkers, poets, artists, statesmen.

Why, then, should these two types of mind, which represent the highest human faculties, and ere formerly the object of universal veneration, usually appear to us now as merely deformed and travestied? Why have they become obliterated? Why should they have fallen into such discredit?

That is the result of a profound cause existing in an inevitable necessity of human evolution.

During the last two thousand years, but especially since the sixteenth century, humanity has achieved a tremendous work, namely, the conquest of the globe and the constitution of experimental science, in what concerns the material and visible world.

That this gigantic and Herculean task should be successfully accomplished, it was necessary that there should be a temporary eclipse of man's transcendental faculties, so that his whole power of observation might be concentrated on the outer world. These faculties, however, have never been extinct or even inactive. They lay dormant in the mass of men; they remained active in the elect, far from the gaze of the vulgar.

Now, they are showing themselves openly under new forms. Before long they will assume a leading and directing importance in human destinies. I would add that at no period of history, whether among the nations of the ancient Aryan cycle, or in the Semitic civilizations of Asia and Africa—whether in the Graeco-Latin world, or in the middle ages and in modern times, have these royal faculties, for which positivism would substitute its dreary nomenclature, ever ceased to operate at the beginning and in the background of all great human creations and of all fruitful work. For how can we imagine a thinker, a poet, an inventor, a hero, a master of science or of art, a genius of any kind, without a mighty ray of those two master-faculties, which make the mystic and the occultist—the inner vision and the sovereign intuition?

Rudolf Steiner is both a mystic and an occultist. These two natures appear in him in perfect harmony. One could not say which of the two predominates over the other. In intermingling and blending, they have become one homogeneous force. Hence a special development in which outward events play but a secondary part.

Dr. Steiner was born in Upper Austria in 1861. His earliest years were passed in a little town situated on the Leytha, on the borders of Styria, the Carpathians, and Hungary. From childhood his character was serious and concentrated. This was followed by a youth inwardly illuminated by the most marvellous intuitions, a young manhood encountering terrible trials, and a ripe age crowned by a mission which he had dimly foreseen from his earliest years, but which was only gradually formulated in the struggle for truth and life. This youth, passed in a mountainous and secluded region, was happy in its way, thanks to the exceptional faculties that he discovered in himself. He was employed in a Catholic church as a choir boy. The poetry of the worship, the profundity of the symbolism, had a mysterious attraction for him; but, as he possessed the innate gift of seeing souls, one thing terrified him. This was the secret unbelief of the priests, entirely engrossed in the ritual and the material part of the service. There was another peculiarity: no one, either then or later, allowed himself to talk of any gross superstition in his presence, or to utter any blasphemy, as if those calm and penetrating eyes compelled the speaker to serious thought. In this child, almost always silent, there grew up a quiet and inflexible will, to master things through understanding. That was easier for him than for others, for he possessed from the first that self-mastery, so rare even in the adult, which gives the mastery over others. To this firm will was added a warm, deep, and almost painful sympathy; a kind of pitiful tenderness to all beings and even to inanimate nature. It seemed to him that all souls had in them something divine. But in what a stony crust is hidden the shining gold! In what hard rock, in what dark gloom lay dormant the precious essence? Vaguely as yet did this idea stir within him—he was to develop it later—that the divine soul is present in all men, but in a latent, state. It is a sleeping captive that has to be awakened from enchantment.

To the sight of this young thinker, human souls became transparent, with their troubles, their desires, their paroxysms of hatred or of love. And it t was probably owing to the terrible things he saw, that he spoke so little. And yet, what delights, unknown to the world, sprang from this involuntary clairvoyance! Among the remarkable inner revelations of this youth, I will instance only one which was extremely characteristic.

The vast plains of Hungary, the wild Carpathian forests, the old churches of those mountains in which the monstrance glows brightly as a sun in the darkness of the sanctuary, were not there for nothing, but they were helpful to meditation and contemplation.

At fifteen years of age, Steiner became acquainted with an herbalist at that time staying in his country. The remarkable thins about this man was that he knew not only the species, families, and life of plants in their minutest details, but also their secret virtues. One would have said that he had spent his life in conversing with the unconscious and fluid soul of herbs and flowers. He had the gift of seeing the vital principle of plants, their etheric body, and what occultism calls the elementals of the vegetable world. He talked of it as of a quite ordinary and natural thing. The calm and coolly scientific tone of his conversation did but still further excites the curiosity and admiration of the youth. Later on, Steiner knew that this strange man was a messenger from the Master, whom as yet he knew not, but who was to be his real initiator, and who was already watching over him from afar.

What the curious, double-sighted botanist told him, young Steiner found to be in accordance: with the logic of things. That did but confirm an inner feeling of long standing, and which more and more forced itself on his mind as the fundamental Law, and as the basis of the Great All. That is to say: the two-fold current which constitutes the very movement of the world, and which might be called the flux and reflex of the universal life.

We are all witnesses and are conscious of the outward current of evolution, which urges onward all beings of heaven and of earth—stars, plants, animals, and humanity—and causes them to move forward towards an infinite future, without our perceiving the initial force which impels them and makes them go on without pause or rest. But there is in the universe an inverse current, which interposes itself and perpetually breaks in on the other. It is that of involution, by which the principles, forces, entities, and souls which come from the invisible world and the kingdom of the Eternal infiltrate and ceaselessly intermingle with the visible reality. No evolution of matter would be comprehensible without this occult and astral current, which is the great propeller of life, with its hierarchy of powers. Thus the Spirit, which contains the future in germ, involves itself in matter; thus matter, which receives the Spirit, evolves towards the future. While, then, we are moving on blindly towards the unknown future, this future is approaching us consciously, infusing itself in the current of the world and man who elaborate it. Such is the two-fold movement of time, the out-breathing and the in-breathing of the soul of the world, which comes from the Eternal and returns thither.

From the age of eighteen, young Steiner possessed the spontaneous consciousness of this two-fold current—a consciousness which is the condition of all spiritual vision. This vital axiom was forced upon him by a direct and involuntary seeing of things. Thenceforth he had the unmistakable sensation of occult powers which were working behind and through him for his guidance. He gave heed to this force and obeyed its admonitions, for he felt in profound accordance with it.

This kind of perception, however, formed a separate category in his intellectual life. This class of truths seemed to him something so profound, so mysterious, and so sacred, that he never imagined it possible to express it in words. He fed his soul, thereon, as from a divine fountain, but to have scattered a drop of it beyond would have seemed to him a profanation.

Beside this inner and contemplative life, his rational and philosophic mind was powerfully developing. From sixteen to seventeen years of age, Rudolf Steiner plunged deeply into the study of Kant, Fichte, and Schelling. When he came to Vienna some years after, he became an ardent admirer of Hegel, whose transcendental idealism borders on occultism; but speculative philosophy did not satisfy him. His positive mind demanded the solid basis of the sciences of observation. So he deeply studied mathematics, chemistry, mineralogy, botany, and zoology. “These studies,” he said, “afford a surer basis for the construction of a spiritual system of the universe than history and literature. The latter, wanting inexact methods, would then throw no side-lights on the vast domain of German science.” Inquiring into everything, enamoured of high art, and an enthusiast for poetry, Steiner nevertheless did not neglect literary studies. As a guide therein he found an excellent professor in the person of Julius Schröer, a distinguished scholar of the school of the brothers Grimm, who strove to develop in his pupils the art of oratory and of composition. To this distinguished man the young student owed his great and refined literary culture. “In the desert of prevailing materialism,” says Steiner, “his house was to me an oasis of idealism.”

But this was not yet the Master whom he sought. Amidst these varied studies and deep meditations, he could as yet discern the building of the universe but in a fragmentary way; his inborn intuition prevented any doubt of the divine origin of things and of a spiritual Beyond. A distinctive mark of this extraordinary man was that he never knew any of those crises of doubt and despair which usually accompany the transition to a definite conviction the life of mystics and of thinkers. Nevertheless, he felt that the central light which illumines and penetrates the whole was still lacking in him. He had reached young manhood, with its terrible problems. What was he going to do with his life? The sphinx of: destiny was facing him. How should he solve its problem?

It was at the age of nineteen that the aspirant to the mysteries met with his aide—the Master—so long anticipated.

It is an undoubted fact, admitted by occult tradition and confirmed by experience, that those who seek the higher truth from an impersonal motive find a master to initiate them at the right moment: that is to say, when they are ripe for its reception. “Knock, and it shall be opened to you,” said Jesus. That is true with regard to everything, but above all with regard to truth. Only, the desire must be ardent as a flame, in a soul pure as crystal.

The Master of Rudolf Steiner was one of those men of power who live, unknown to the world, under cover of some civil state, to carry out a mission unsuspected by any but their fellows in the Brotherhood of self-sacrificing Masters. They take no ostensible part in human events. To remain unknown is the condition of their power, but their action is only the more efficacious. For they inspire, prepare, and direct those who will act in the sight of all. In the present instance the Master had no difficulty in completing the first and spontaneous initiation of his disciple. He had only, so to speak, to point out to him, his own nature, to arm him with his needful weapons. Clearly did he show him the connection between the official and the secret sciences; between the religious and the spiritual forces which are now contending for the guidance of humanity; the antiquity of the occult tradition which holds the hidden threads of history, which mingles them, separates, and re-unites them in the course of ages.

Swiftly he made him clear the successive stages of inner discipline, in order to attain conscious and intelligent clairvoyance. In a few months the disciple learned from oral teaching the depth and incomparable splendour of the esoteric synthesis. Rudolf Steiner had already sketched for himself his intellectual mission: “To re-unite Science and Religion. To bring back God into Science, and Nature into Religion. Thus to re-fertilize both Art and Life.” But how to set about this vast and daring undertaking? How conquer, or rather, how tame and transform the great enemy, the materialistic science of the day, which is like a terrible dragon covered with its carapace and couched on its huge treasure? How master this dragon of modern science and yoke it to the car of spiritual truth? And, above all, how conquer the bull of public opinion?

Rudolf Steiner's Master was not in the least like himself. He had not that extreme and feminine sensibility which, though not excluding energy, makes every contact an emotion and instantly turns the suffering of others into a personal pain. He was masculine in spirit, a born ruler of men, looking only at the species, and for whom individuals hardly existed. He spared not himself, and he did not spare others. His will was like a ball which, once shot from the cannon's mouth, goes straight to its mark, sweeping off everything in its way. To the anxious questioning of his disciple he replied in substance:

“If thou wouldst fight the enemy, begin by understanding him. Thou wilt conquer the dragon only by penetrating his skin. As to the bull, thou must seize him by the horns. It is in the extremity of distress that thou wilt find thy weapons and thy brothers in the fight. I have shown thee who thou art, now go—and be thyself!”

Rudolf Steiner knew the language of the Masters well enough to understand the rough path that he was thus commanded to tread; but he also understood that this was the only way to attain the end. He obeyed, and set forth.

* * *

From 1880 the life of Rudolf Steiner becomes divided into three quite distinct periods: from twenty to thirty years of age (1881–1891), the Viennese period, a time of study and of preparation; from thirty to forty (1891–1901), the Weimar period, a time of struggle and combat; from forty to forty-six (1901–1907), the Berlin period, a time of action and of organization, in which his thought crystallised into a living work.

I pass rapidly over the Vienna period, in which Steiner took the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. He afterwards wrote a series of scientific articles on zoology, geology, and the theory of colours, in which theosophical ideas appear in an idealist clothing. While acting as tutor in several families, with the same conscientious devotion that he gave to everything, he conducted as chief editor a weekly Viennese paper, the Deutsche Wochenschrift. His friendship with the Austrian poetess, Marie Eugénie delle Grazie, cast, as it were, into this period of heavy work a warm ray of sunshine, with a smile of grace and poetry.

In 1890 Steiner was summoned to collaborate in the archives of Goethe and Schiller at Weimar, to superintend the re-editing of Goethe's scientific works. Shortly after, he published two important works, Truth and Science and The Philosophy of Liberty. “The occult powers that guided me,” he says, “forced me to introduce spiritualistic ideas imperceptibly into the current literature of the time.” But in these various tasks he was but studying his ground while trying his strength. So distant was the goal that he did not dream of being able to reach it as yet. To travel round the world in a sailing vessel, to cross the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Indian Ocean, in order to return to a European port, would have seemed easier to him. While awaiting the, events that would allow him to equip his ship and to launch it on the open sea, he came into touch with two illustrious personalities who helped to determine his intellectual position in the contemporary world.

These two persons were the celebrated philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, and the no less famous naturalist, Ernst Haeckel.

Rudolf Steiner had just written an impartial treatise on the author of Zarathustra. In consequence of this, Nietzsche’s sister begged the sympathetic critic to come and see her at Naumburg, where her unhappy brother was slowly dying. Madame Foerster took the visitor to the door of the apartment where Nietzsche was lying on a couch in a comatose condition, inert, stupefied. To Steiner there was something very significant in this melancholy sight. In it he saw the final act in the tragedy of the would be superman.

Nietzsche, the author of Beyond Good and Evil, had not, like the realists of Bismarckian imperialism, renounced idealism, for he was naturally intuitive; but in his individualistic pride he sought to cut off the spiritual world from the universe, and the divine from human consciousness. Instead of placing the superman, of whom he had a poetic vision, in the spiritual kingdom, which is his true sphere, he strove to force him into the material world, which alone was real in his eyes. Hence, in that splendid intellect arose a chaos of ideas and a wild struggle which finally brought on softening of the brain. To explain this particular case, it is needless to bring in atavism or the theory of degeneracy. The frenzied combat of ideas and of contradictory sentiments, of which this brain was the battlefield, was enough. Steiner had done justice to all the genius that marked the innovating ideas of Nietzsche, but this victim of pride, self-destroyed by negation, was to him none the less a tragic instance of the ruin of a mighty intellect which madly destroys itself in breaking away from spiritual intelligence.

Madame Foerster did her utmost to enrol Dr. Steiner under her brother's flag. For this she used all her skill, making repeated offers to the young publicist to become editor and commentator of Nietzsche's works. Steiner withstood her insistence as best he could, and ended by taking himself off altogether, for which Madame Foerster never forgave him. She did not know that Rudolf Steiner bore within him the consciousness of a work no less great and more valuable than that of her brother.

Nietzsche had been merely an interesting episode in the life of the esoteric thinker on the threshold of his battlefield. His meeting with the celebrated naturalist, Ernst Haeckel, on the contrary, marks a most important phase in the development of his thought. Was not the successor of Darwin apparently the most formidable adversary of the spiritualism of this young initiate, of that philosophy which to him was the very essence of his being and the breath of his thought? Indeed, since the broken link between man and animal has been re-joined, since man can no longer believe in a special and supernatural origin, he has begun altogether to doubt his divine origin and destiny. He no longer sees himself as anything but one phenomenon among so many phenomena, a passing form amidst so many forms, a frail and chance link in a blind evolution. Steiner, then, is right in saying: “The mentality deduced from natural sciences is the greatest power of modern tines.” On the other hand, he knew that this system merely reproduces a succession of external forms among living beings, and not the inner and acting forces of life. He knew it from personal initiation, and a deeper and vaster view of the universe. So also he could exclaim with more assurance than most of our timid spiritualists and startled theologians: “Is the human soul then to rise on the wings of enthusiasm to the summits of the True, the Beautiful, and the Good, only to be swept away into nothingness, like a bubble of the brain?” Yes, Haeckel was the Adversary. It was materialism in arms, the dragon with all his scales, his claws, and his teeth.

Steiner's desire to understand this man and to do him justice as to all that was great in him, to fathom his theory so far as it was logical and plausible, was only the more intense. In this fact one sees all the loyalty and all the greatness of his comprehensive mind.

Tie materialistic conclusions of Haeckel could have no influence on his own ideas which came to him from a different science; but he had a presentiment that in the indisputable discoveries of the naturalist he should find the surest basis of an evolutionary spiritualism and a rational theosophy.

He began, then, to study eagerly the History of Natural Creation. In it Haeckel gives a fascinating picture of the evolution of species, from the amoeba to man. In it he shows the successive growth of organs, and the physiological process by which living beings have raised themselves to organisms more and more complex and more and more perfect. But in this stupendous transformation, which implies millions and millions of years, he never explains the initial force of this universal ascent, nor the series of special impulses which cause beings to rise step by step. To these primordial questions, Haeckel has never been able to reply except by admitting spontaneous regeneration, [A speech delivered in Paris, 28th August 1878. See also Haeckel's History of Natural Creation, 13th lecture.] which is tantamount to a miracle as great as the creation of man by God from a, clod of earth. To a theosophist like Steiner, on the other hand, the cosmic force which elaborates the world comprises in its spheres, fitted one into another, the myriads of souls which crystallise and incarnate ceaselessly in all beings. He, who saw the underside of creation, could but recognise and admire the extent of the all-round gaze with which Haeckel surveyed his above. It was in vain that the naturalist would deny the divine Author of the universal scheme: he proved it in spite of himself, in so well describing His work. As to the theosophist, he greeted, in the surging of species and in the breath which urges them onward—Man in the making, the very thought of God, the visible expression of the planetary Word. [This is how Dr. Steiner himself describes the famous German naturalist: “Haeckel's personality is captivating. It is the most complete contrast to the tone of his writings. If Haeckel had but made a slight study of the philosophy of which he speaks, not even as a dilettante, but like a child, he would have drawn the most lofty spiritual conclusions from his phylogenetic studies. Haeckel's doctrine is grand, but Haeckel himself is the worst of commentators on his doctrine. It is not by showing our contemporaries the weak points in Haeckel's doctrine that we can promote intellectual progress, but by pointing out to them the grandeur of is phylogenetic thought.” Steiner has developed these ideas in two works: Welt und Lebensanschauungen im 19ten Jahrhundert (Theories of the Universe, and of Life in the Nineteenth Century), and Haeckel und seine Gegner (Haeckel and his Opponents).]

While thus pursuing his studies, Rudolf Steiner recalled the saying of his Master: “To conquer the dragon, his skin must be penetrated.” While stealing within the carapace of present-day materialism, he had seized his weapons. Henceforth he was ready for the combat. He needed but a field of action to give battle, and a powerful aid to uphold him therein. He was to find his field in the Theosophical Society and his aid in a remarkable woman.

In 1897 Rudolf Steiner went to Berlin to conduct a literary magazine and to give lectures there.

On his arrival, he found there a branch of the Theosophical Society. The German branch of this Society was always noted for its great independence, which is natural in a country of transcendental philosophy and of fastidious criticism. It had already made a considerable contribution to occult literature through the interesting periodical, The Sphinx, conducted by Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden, and Dr. Carl du Prel's book—Philosophie der Mystik. But, the leaders having retired, it was almost over with the group. Great discussions and petty wranglings divided the theosophists beyond the Rhine. Should Rudolf Steiner enter the Theosophical Society? This question forced itself urgently upon him, and it was of the utmost gravity, both for himself and for his cause.

Through his first Master; through the brotherhood with which he was associated, and by his own innermost nature, Steiner belongs to another school of occultism, I mean to the esoteric Christianity of the West, and most especially to the Rosicrucian initiation.

After mature consideration he resolved to join the Theosophical Society of which he became a member in 1902. He did not, however, enter it as a pupil of the Eastern tradition, but as an initiate of Rosicrucian esotericism who gladly recognised the profound depth of the Hindu Wisdom and offered it a brotherly hand to make a magnetic link between the two. He understood that the two traditions were not meant to contend with each other, but to act in concert, with complete independence, and thus to work for the common good of civilisation. The Hindu tradition, in fact, contains the greatest treasure of occult science as regards cosmogony and the prehistoric periods of humanity, while the tradition of Christian and Western esotericism looks from its immeasurable height upon the far-off future and the final destinies of our race. For the past contains and prepares the future, as the future issues from the past and completes it.

Rudolf Steiner was assisted in his work by a powerful recruit and one of inestimable value in the propagandist work that he was about to undertake.

Mlle. Marie von Sivers, a Russian by birth, and of an unusually varied cosmopolitan education (she writes and speaks Russian, French, German, and English equally well), had herself also reached Theosophy by other roads, after long seeking for the truth which illumines all because it illumines the very depths of our own being. The extreme refinement of her aristocratic nature, at once modest and proud, her great and delicate sensitiveness, the extent and balance of her intelligence, her artistic and mental endowments, all made her wonderfully fitted for the part of an agent and an apostle. The Oriental-theosophy had attracted and delighted her without altogether convincing her. The lectures of Dr. Steiner gave her the light which convinces by casting its beams on all sides, as from a transplendent centre. Independent and free, she, like many Russians in good society, sought for some ideal work to which she could devote all her energies. She had found it. Dr. Steiner having been appointed General Secretary of the German Section of the Theosophical Society, Mlle. Marie von Sivers became his assistant. From that time, in spreading the work throughout Germany and the adjacent countries, she displayed a real genius for organisation, maintained with unwearied activity.

As for Rudolf Steiner, he had already given ample proof of his profound thought and his eloquence. He knew himself, and he was master of himself. But such faith, such devotion must have increased his energy a hundredfold, and given wings to his words. His writings on esoteric questions followed one another in rapid succession. [Die Mystik, im Aufgange des neuzeitlichen Geisteslebens (1901); Das Christentum als mystische Tatsache (1902); Theosophie (1904). He is now preparing an important book, which will no doubt be his chief work, and which is to be called Geheimwissenschaft (Occult Science).]

He delivered lectures in Berlin, Leipzig, Cassel, Munich, Stuttgart, Vienna, Budapest, etc. All his books are of a high standard. He is equally skilled in the deduction of ideas in philosophical order, and in rigorous analysis of scientific facts. And when he so chooses, he can give a poetical form to his thought, in original and striking imagery. But his whole self is shown only by his presence and his speech, private or public. The characteristic of his eloquence is a singular force, always gentle in expression, resulting undoubtedly from perfect serenity of soul combined with wonderful clearness of mind. Added to this at times is an inner and mysterious vibration which makes itself felt by the listener from the very first words. Never a word that could shock or jar. From argument to argument, from analogy to analogy, he leads you on from the known to the unknown. Whether following up the comparative development of the earth and of man, according to occult tradition, through the Lemurian, Atlantean, Asiatic, and European periods; whether explaining the physiological and psychic constitution of man as he now is; whether enumerating the stages of Rosicrucian initiation, or commenting on the Gospel of St. John and the Apocalypse, or applying his root-ideas to mythology, history, and literature, that which dominates and guides his discourse is ever this power of synthesis, which co-ordinates facts under one ruling idea and gathers them together in one harmonious vision. And it is ever this inward and contagious fervour, this secret music of the soul, which is, as it were, a subtle melody in harmony with the Universal Soul.

Such, at least, is what I felt on first meeting him and listening to him two years ago. I could not better describe this indefinable feeling than by recalling the saying of a poet-friend to whom I was showing the portrait of the German theosophist. Standing before those deep, and clear-seeing eyes, before that countenance, hollowed by inward struggles, moulded by a lofty spirit which has proved its balance on the heights and its calm in the depths, my friend exclaimed: “Behold a master of himself and of life!”

[ 1 ] It is natural that most people, who hear of transcendental truths in our time, should at once put the question: “How may we attain to such knowledge for ourselves?” Indeed, it is often remarked as a characteristic of people today, that they will accept nothing on faith, on mere “authority,” but wish rather to rely entirely upon their own judgment. And therefore it is that when mystics and theosophists profess to know something of the superphysical nature of man, and of the destiny of the human soul and spirit before birth and after death, they are at once confronted with this fundamental demand of our day. Such dogmas, they seem to say, have only an importance for anyone when you have shown him the way by which he may convince himself of their truth.

[ 2 ] This demand is quite justified; and never could any true mystic or theosophist fail to recognise it. But it is equally certain that with many who make it, there exists a feeling of scepticism or antagonism toward the assertions of the mystic. This feeling becomes especially marled when the mystic sets out by intimating how the truths which he has described may be attained. For then people often say to him: “What is true may be demonstrated; therefore, prove to us what you assert.” Furthermore, they imply that the truth must be something clear and simple, something which a. “modest” intellect may comprehend; surely, they seem to say, it cannot be the possession: of a chosen few, to whoa it is given by a “special revelation!” And in this way the messenger of transcendental truths is frequently confronted with people who reject him, because—unlike the scientist, for example—he can produce no proofs for his assertions, of such a nature as they can themselves understand. Again, there are some who more cautiously reject these matters, but who nevertheless, refuse any close connection with them because, they think, they do not seem reasonable. Thereupon they soothe themselves, though not entirely, by saying that we cannot know anything of what lies beyond birth or death, of what we cannot perceive with our senses.

[ 3 ] These are but a few of the conceptions and criticisms with which today the messenger of a spiritual philosophy has to deal. But they are similar to all those that compose the key-note of our time. And he who puts himself at the service of a spiritual movement must recognise this key-note quite clearly.

[ 4 ] For his own part, the mystic is aware that his knowledge rests upon superphysical facts; just as facts, for example, form the foundation of the experiences and observations described by a traveller in Africa. To the mystic applies what Annie Besant has said in her manual, “Death—and After?”

“A seasoned African explorer would care but little for the criticisms passed on his report by persons who had never been thither; he might tell what he saw, describe the animals whose habits he had studied, sketched the country he had traversed, sum up its products and its characteristics. If he was contradicted, laughed at, set right, by untravelled critics, he would be neither ruffled nor distressed, but would merely leave them alone. Ignorance cannot convince knowledge by repeated asseveration of its nescience. The opinion of a hundred persons on a subject of which they are wholly ignorant is of no more weight than the opinion of one such person. Evidence is strengthened by many consenting witnesses, testifying each to his knowledge of a fact, but nothing multiplied a thousand times remains nothing.”

Here is expressed the mystic's view of himself. He hears the objections which are raised on every side, yet he knows that he has no need to dispute them. He realises that his certain knowledge is being criticised by those who have not experienced or felt as he himself has done. He is in the position of a mathematician who has discovered a truth which loses no value though a thousand voices are raised in opposition.

[ 5 ] Here at once will arise the objection of the sceptic: “Mathematical truths may be proved to anyone,” he will say, “and though perhaps you have really found something, I shall only accept it when I have learnt of its truth by my, own observation.” Then he considers himself to be in the right, because, as he thinks, it is clear that anyone who acquires the necessary knowledge can prove a mathematical truth, while the experiences professed by the mystic depend upon the special faculties of a few elect people, whom he is expected to believe blindly.

[ 6 ] But for him who rightly considers this objection, any justification for the doubt immediately vanishes. For every true mystic will here speak just like the very sceptics themselves. He will always emphasise the truth that the way to the Higher Knowledge is open for anyone who has acquired for himself the faculties by which he may win entrance. The mystic asserts nothing which his opponents would not also be compelled to assert, if they did but fully understand what they are saying. They, however, in making an assertion, at once formulate a claim which constitutes a direct contradiction of their own assertion.

Sceptics are not content to test the assertions of the mystic only when they have acquired the necessary faculties, but rather judge him according to their present faculties, and not with those which he is bound to demand. He says to them; “I do not claim to be ‘chosen’ in the sense that you mean. I have merely worked within myself, in order to acquire these powers through which it is possible to speak of glimpses into superphysical regions. But these faculties are dormant within everyone, only they must be developed.” But his opponents then answer: “You must prove your truths to us as we are now.” They will not meet his demand that they should develop, first, the dormant powers within them, but rather, without being willing to do so, insist that he shall give there proofs. Nor do they see that this is exactly as if a peasant at his plough should demand of the mathematician the proof of a complicated problem without first undergoing the trouble of learning mathematics.

[ 7 ] All this appears to be so simple that one almost hesitates to speak of it. And yet it indicates a delusion under which millions of people at the present time are living. If one explains it to them they always agree with it in theory, since it is quite as obvious as that two and two make four. Yet in practice they continually contradict it. One can very soon convince oneself of that. Tue mistake has become second nature with many; they practise it without any longer realising that they do so, without desiring to be convinced of it, just as they offend against everything which they would at all times allow to pass for a principle of the simplest nature, could they only consider it quietly. It matters not whether the mystic of today moves in a circle of thinking artisans, or in a more educated circle, for wherever he goes he meets with the same prejudice, the same self-contradiction. One finds it in popular lectures, in all the newspapers and magazines, and even in more learned works or treatises.

[ 8 ] And here we must recognise quite clearly that we are dealing with a sign of the time which we cannot simply consider as mere incompetence, nor expose as criticism, correct perhaps, but nevertheless not just. We must understand that this symptom, this prejudice against the higher truths, lies deep in the very being of our age. We must understand clearly that the great successes, the immense advance, which distinguish it, necessarily tend toward this mistake. The nineteenth century especially had in this respect a dark side to its wonderful excellences. Its greatness rests upon its discoveries in the external world, and its conquest of natural forces for technical and industrial purposes. These successes could only have been attained by the observation of the senses, and afterwards by the employment of the mind noon what the senses had thus perceived. The civilisation of the present day is the result of the training of our senses, and of that part of our mind which is occupied with the world of sense. Almost every step we take in the street today shows us how much we owe to this kind of training. And it is under the influence of these blessings of civilisation that the habits of thought prevalent among our fellowmen of today have been developed. They continue to abide by the senses and the mind, because it is by means of these that they have grown great. People were taught to train themselves to admit nothing as true except those things that were presented to them by the senses or the mind. And nothing is more apt to claim for itself the only valid testimony, the only absolute authority, than the mind or the senses. If a man has acquired by means of them a certain degree of culture, he thenceforth accustoms himself to submit everything to their consideration, everything to their criticism. And again in another sphere, in the domain of Social Life, we find a similar trait. The man of the nineteenth century insisted, in the fullest sense of the word, upon the absolute freedom of personality, and repudiated any authority in the Social Commonwealth. He endeavoured to construct the community in such a way that the full independence, the self-chosen vocation of each individual, should, without interference, be assured. In this way it became habitual for him to consider everything from the standpoint of the average individual. The higher powers which lie dormant in the soul may be developed by one person in this direction, by another in that. One will make more progress, another less. When they develop such powers, or when they attach any value to them, men begin to differentiate themselves. One must also, if one admits their existence, allow to the man who has progressed further, more right to speak on a subject, or to act in a certain way, than to another who is less advanced. But with regard to the senses and the mind, one may employ an average standard. All have there the same rights, the same liberty.

It is also noticeable that the present formation of the Social Commonwealth has helped to bring about a revolt against the higher powers of man. According to the mystic, civilisation during the nineteenth century has altogether moved along physical lines; and people have accustomed themselves to move on the physical plane alone, and to feel at home there. The higher powers are only developed on planes other than the physical, and the knowledge which these faculties bring has, therefore, become alien to man. [ 9 ] It is only necessary to attend mass-meetings, if one wishes to be convinced of the fact that the speakers there are totally unable to think any thoughts but those which refer to the physical plane, the world of sense. This can also be seen among the leading journalists of our papers and magazines; and, indeed, on all sides one can observe the haughtiest and most complete denial of everything that cannot be seen with the eyes, or felt with the hands, or comprehended by the average mind. Once more let it be said that we do not condemn this attitude. It denotes a necessary stage in the development of humanity. Without the pride and prejudices of mind and sense, we should never have achieved our great conquests over material life, nor have been able to impart to the personality a certain measure of elasticity: neither could we hope that many ideals, which must be founded on man's desire for freedom and the assertion of personality, might yet be realised.

[ 10 ] But this dark side of a purely materialistic civilisation has deeply affected the whole being of the modern man. For proof it is not necessary to refer to the obvious facts already named; it would be easy to demonstrate by certain examples which are lightly underrated, especially today, how deeply rooted in the mind of the modern man is this adhesion to the testimony of the senses, or the average intelligence. And it is just these things that indicate the need for the renewal of spiritual life.

[ 11 ] The strong response evoked by Professor Friedrich Delitzsch's Babel and Bible Theory fully justifies a reference to its author's method of thinking, as a sign of the time. Professor Delitzsch has demonstrated the relationship of certain traditions in the Old Testament to the Babylonian accounts of the Creation, and this fact, coming from such a source and in such a form, has been realised by many who would otherwise have ignored such questions. It has led many to reconsider the so-called idea of Revelation. They ask themselves: How is it possible to accept the idea that the contents of the Old Testament were revealed by God, when we find very similar conceptions among decidedly heathen nations? This problem cannot here be further discussed. Delitzsch found many opponents who feared lest, through iris exposition, the very foundations of Religion had been shaken. He has defended himself in a pamphlet, Babel and Bible, a Retrospect and a Forecast. Here we shall only refer to a single sentence in the pamphlet. It is an important sentence, because it reveals the view of an eminent man of science regarding the position of man with respect to transcendental truths. And today innumerable other people think and feel just like Delitzsch. The sentence affords an excellent opportunity for us to find out what is the innermost conviction of our contemporaries, expressed here quite freely and therefore in its truest form.

Delitzsch turns to those who reproach him with a somewhat liberal use of the term “Revelation,” who would fain regard it as “a kind of old priestly wisdom” which “has nothing at all to do with the layman.” In opposition to this he says:

“For my part, I am of opinion that while our children or ourselves are instructed in school or at church as regards Revelation, not only are we within our right, but it is our duty, to think independently concerning these deep questions, possessing also, as they do, an eminently practical side, were it only that we might avoid giving our children ‘evasive’ answers. For this very reason it will be gratifying to many searchers after Truth when the dogma of a special ‘choosing’ of Israel shall have been brought forward into the light of a wider historical outlook, though the union of Babylonian, Assyrian, and Old Testament research. ... (A few pages earlier we are shown the direction of such thoughts.) For the rest, it would seem to me that the only logical thing is for Church and School to be satisfied as regards the whole past history of the world and of humanity, with the belief in One Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth, and that these tales of the Old Testament should be classified by themselves under some such title as ‘Old Hebraic Myths.’”

(It may be taken as a matter of course, we suppose, that no one will see in the following remarks an attack on the investigator Delitzsch.) What, then, is here said in naive simplicity? Nothing less than that the mind which is engaged upon physical investigation may assert the right of judging: experiences of superphysical nature. There is no thought that this mind, without further preparing itself, may perhaps be unfit to reflect upon the teachings of these “Revelations.” When one wishes to understand what appears as a “Revelation,” one cannot do so unless one brings to bear upon it those forces out of which the “Revelation” itself has come.

He who develops within himself the mystical power of perception soon observes that in certain stories of the Old Testament which were called by Delitzsch “Old Hebraic Myths,” there are revealed to him truths of a higher nature than those which may be comprehended by the intellect, which is only concerned with the things of sense. His own mystical experiences will lead him to see that these “Myths” have proceeded out of a mystical perception of transcendental truths. And then, in one moment, his whole point of view is changed.

As little as one can demonstrate the fallacy of a mathematical problem by discovering who solved it first, or even that several people have solved it—which would certainly be a valuable historical discovery—just so little can one impugn the truth of a biblical narrative by the discovery of a similar story elsewhere. Instead of demanding that everyone should insist upon his right, or even his duty, to think independently on the so-called “Revelations,” we ought rather to consider that only he has a. right to decide anything about the matter who has developed in himself those latent powers which make it possible for him to relive what was once realised by those very mystics who proclaimed the “super-sensuous revelations.”

Here we have an excellent example of how the average intellect, qualified for the highest triumphs in practical sense-knowledge, sets itself up, in naive pride, as a judge in domains, the existence of which it does not even care to learn. For purely historical investigation is also carried on by nothing but the experience of the senses.

[ 12 ] In just the same way has the investigation of the New Testament led us into a blind alley. At all costs the method of the “Newer Historical Investigation” had to be directed upon the Gospels. These documents have been compared with each other, and brought into relation with all sorts of things, in order that we might find out what really happened in Palestine from the year 1 to the year 33; how the “historical personality” of whom they tell really lived, and what He can really have said.

Now a man of the seventeenth century, Angelus Silesius, has already expressed the whole of the critical attitude toward this kind of investigation:

[ 13 ] “Though Christ were yearly born in Bethlehem, and never Had birth in you yourself, teen were you lost for ever; And if within yourself it is not reared again, The Cross at Golgotha can save you not from pain.”

[ 14 ] Nor are these the words of one who doubted, but of a Christian, strong in his belief. And his equally fervent predecessor, Meister Eckhart, said in the thirteenth century:

“There are some who desire to see God with their eyes, as they look at a cow; and just as they love a cow, so they desire to love God. ... Simple-minded people imagine that God may be seen as if He stood there and they stood here. But this is not so: in that perception, God and I are one,”

These words must emphatically not be directed against investigation of “historical truth.” Yet no one can rightly understand the historic truth of such documents as the Gospels, unless he has first experienced within himself the mystical meaning which they contain. All such comparisons and analyses are quite worthless, for no one can discover who was “born in Bethlehem” but he who has mystically experienced the Christ within himself; neither can anyone in whom it has not already been erected, decide how it is that “the Cross at Golgotha” can deliver us from pain. Purely historical investigation “can discover no more concerning the mystic reality than the dismembering anatomist, perhaps, can discover the secret of a great poetical genius.” (See my book, Das Christentum als mystische Tatsache, Berlin, C. A. Schwetschke and Sohn, 1902, or its French translation, mentioned on page 1.)

[ 15 ] He who can see clearly in these matters is aware how deeply rooted, at the present time, is the “pride” of the intellect, which only concerns itself with the facts of sense. It says: “I do not wish to develop faculties in order that I may reach the higher truths; I wish to form my decisions concerning them with the powers that I now possess.”

In a well-meant pamphlet, which is written, however, entirely in that spirit of the age which we have already indicated (What do we know about Jesus? by A. Kalthoff, Berlin, 1904), we read as follows:

“Christ, who symbolises the life of the Community, may be discerned within himself by the man of today: out of his own soul the man of today can create Christ just as well as the author of a gospel created him; as a man he may put himself in the same position as the gospel-writers, because he can reinstate himself into the same soul-processes, can himself speak or write Gospel.”

These words may be true, but they may also be entirely erroneous. They are true when understood in the sense of Angelus Silesius, or of Meister Eckhart, when they are referred to the development of powers dormant in every human soul, which, from some such idea, endeavours to experience within itself the Christ of the Gospels. They are altogether wrong, if a more or less shallow ideal of the Christ is thus created out of the spirit of an age that acknowledges the truth of no perceptions but those of the senses.

The life of the Spirit can only be understood when we do not wish to criticise it with the lower mind, but rather to develop ourselves for it internally. No one can hope to learn anything of the highest truths accessible to man, if he demands that they shall be lowered to the “average understanding.” To this it might be objected: Why, then, do you, mystics and theosophists, proclaim these truths to people who, as you declare, cannot as yet understand them? Why should there be a Theosophical Movement which proclaims certain teachings, when the powers which bring men to the perception of them ought first to be developed?

It is the task of this book to solve this apparent contradiction. It will show that the spiritual currents of our day speak from a different basis, in a different manner, from the science which relies entirely on the lower intellect. Yet, in spite of this, the spiritual currents are not less scientific than the science which is based upon physical facts alone. Rather do they extend the field of scientific investigation into the superphysical. We must close this chapter with one more question, which will perhaps be asked: How can one attain to superphysical truths, and, towards this attainment, of what help are spiritual movements?

[ 1 ] In every man there are latent faculties by means of which he can acquire for himself knowledge of the higher worlds. The mystic, theosophist, or gnostic speaks of a soul-world and a spirit-world, which are, for him, just as real as the world which we see with our physical eyes, or touch with our physical hands. At every moment his listener may say to himself: What he speaks about I too can learn, when I have developed within myself certain powers which today lie slumbering within me. There remains only the question as to how one has to commence in order to develop within oneself such faculties. For this only those can give advice who have already developed such powers within themselves. As: long as the human race has existed, there have always been schools in which those who possessed these higher faculties gave instruction to those who were in search of them. Such are called the occult schools, and the instruction which is imparted therein is called esoteric science, or occult teaching. Such a designation naturally awakens misunderstanding. He who hears it may be very easily misled into the belief that those who work in these, schools desire to represent a special, privileged class, which arbitrarily withholds its knowledge from its fellow-creatures. Indeed, he may even think that perhaps there is nothing really important behind such knowledge. For he is tempted to think that, if it were a true knowledge, there would then be no need to make a secret about it: one might then communicate it publicly and open up its advantages to all men.

[ 2 ] Those who have been initiated into the nature of the occult knowledge are not in the least surprised that the uninitiated should so think. Only he who has to a certain degree experienced this initiation into the higher secrets of being can understand the secret of that initiation. But it may be asked: How, then, shall the uninitiated, considering the circumstances, develop any interest at all in this so-called occult knowledge? How and why ought they to search for something of whose nature they can form no idea? But such a question is based upon an entirely erroneous conception of the real nature of occult knowledge. There is, in truth, no difference between occult knowledge and all the rest of man's knowledge and capacity. This occult knowledge is no more of a secret for the average man than writing is a secret to him who has never learned to read. And just as everyone who chooses the correct method may learn to write, so too can everyone who searches after the right way become a disciple, and even a teacher. In only one respect are the conditions here different from those that apply to external thought activities. The possibility of acquiring the art of writing may be withheld from someone through poverty, or through the state of civilisation into which he has been born; but for the attainment of knowledge in the higher worlds there is no obstacle for him who sincerely reaches for it.

[ 3 ] Many believe that one has to find, here or there, the Masters of the higher knowledge, in order to receive enlightenment from them. In the first place, he who strives earnestly after the higher knowledge need not be afraid of any difficulty or obstacle in his search for an Initiate who shall be able to lead him into the profounder secrets of the world. Everyone, on the contrary, may be certain that an Initiate will find him out, under any circumstances, if there is in him an earnest and worthy endeavour to attain this knowledge. For it is a strict law amongst all Initiates to withhold from no man the knowledge that is due to him. But there is an equally strict law which insists that no one shall receive any occult knowledge until he is worthy. And the more strictly he observes these two laws, the more perfect is an Initiate. The order which embraces all Initiates is surrounded, as it were, by a wall, and the two laws here mentioned form two strong principles by which the constituents of this wall are held together. You may live in close friendship with an Initiate, yet this wall will separate him from you just as long as you have not become an Initiate yourself. You may enjoy in the fullest sense the heart, the love of an Initiate, yet he will only impart to you his secret when you yourself are ready for it. You may flatter him; you may torture him; nothing will induce him to divulge to you anything which he knows ought not to be disclosed, inasmuch as you, at the present stage of your evolution, do not understand how rightly to receive the secret into your soul.

[ 4 ] The ways which prepare a man for the reception of a secret are clearly prescribed. They are indicated by the unfading, everlasting letters within the temples where the Initiates guard the hi4her secrets. In ancient times, anterior to “history,” these temples were outwardly visible; today, because our lives have become so unspiritual, they are mostly quite invisible to external sight. Yet they are present everywhere, and all who seek may find them.

[ 5 ] Only within his soul may a man discover the means which will open for him the lips of the Initiate. To a certain high degree he must develop within himself special faculties, and then the greatest treasures of the Spirit become his own.

[ 6 ] He must begin with a certain fundamental attitude of the soul: the student of Occultism calls it the Path of Devotion, of Veneration. Only he who maintains this attitude can, in Occultism, become a disciple. And he who has experience in these things is able to perceive even in the child the signs of approaching discipleship. There are children who look up with religious awe to those they venerate. For such people they have a respect which forbids them to admit even in the innermost sanctuary of the heart any thought of criticism or opposition. Such children grow up into young men and maidens who feel happy when they are able to look up to anything venerable. From the ranks of such children are recruited many disciples.

Have you ever paused outside the door of some venerated man, and have you, on this your first visit, felt a religious awe as you pressed the handle, in order to enter the room which for you is a holy place? Then there has been manifested in you an emotion which may be the germ of your future discipleship. It is a blessing for every developing person to have such emotions upon which to build. Only it must not be thought that such qualities are the germ of submissiveness and slavery. Experience teaches us that those can best hold their heads erect who have learnt to venerate where veneration is due. And veneration is always in its place when it rises from the depths of the heart.

[ 7 ] If we do not develop within ourselves this deeply-rooted feeling that there is something higher than ourselves, we shall never find enough strength to evolve to something higher. The Initiate has only acquired the power of lifting his intellect to the heights of knowledge by guiding his heart into the depths of veneration and devotion. The heights of the Spirit can only be reached by passing through the portals of humility. You can only acquire right knowledge when you have learnt to esteem it. Man has certainly the right to gaze upon the Reality, but he must first acquire this right. There are laws in the spiritual life, as in the physical life. Rub a glass rod with an appropriate material and it will become electric, that is to say, it will receive the power of attracting small bodies. This exemplifies natural law. And if one has learnt even a little of physics, one knows this. Similarly, if one is acquainted with the first principles of Occultism, one knows that every feeling of true devotion which opens out in the soul, develops a power which may, sooner or later, lead to the Path of Knowledge.

[ 8 ] He who possesses within himself this feeling of devotion, or who is fortunate enough to receive it from his education, brings a great deal along with him, when, later in life, he seeks an entrance to the higher knowledge. But he who brings no such preparation will find himself confronted with difficulties even upon the first step of the Path of Knowledge, unless he undertakes, by rigorous self-education, to create the devotional mood within himself. In our time it is especially important that full attention be given to this point. Our civilisation tends much more towards criticism, the giving of judgments, and so forth, than toward devotion, and a selfless veneration. Our children already criticise far more than they worship. But every judgment, every carping criticism, frustrates the powers of the soul for the attainment of the higher knowledge, in the same measure that all heartfelt devotion develops them. In this we do not wish to say anything against our civilisation. It is in no way a question of passing a criticism upon it. It is just to this critical faculty, this self-conscious human judgment, this “prove all things and hold fast the good,” that we owe the greatness of our civilisation. We could never have attained to the science, the commerce, the industry, the law of our time, had we not exercised our critical faculty everywhere, had we not everywhere applied the standard of our judgment. But what we have thereby gained in external culture we have had to pay for with a corresponding loss of the higher knowledge, of the spiritual life.

[ 9 ] Now the one thing that everyone must clearly understand is that for him who is right in the centre of the objective civilisation of our time, it is very difficult to advance to the knowledge of the higher worlds. He can only do so if he works energetically within himself. At a time when the conditions of outward life were simpler, spiritual exaltation was easier of attainment. That which ought to be venerated, that which ought to be kept holy, stood out in better relief from the ordinary things of the world. In a period of criticism these ideals are lowered; other emotions take the place of veneration, respect, prayer, and wonder. Our own age continually pushes these emotions further and further back, so that in the daily life of the people they play but a very small part. He who seeks for, higher knowledge must create it within himself; he must himself instil it into his soul. It cannot be done by study: it can only be done through life. He who wishes to become a disciple must therefore assiduously cultivate the devotional mood. Everywhere in his environment he must look for that which demands of him admiration and homage. Whenever his duties or circumstances permit, he should try to renounce entirely all criticism or judgment. If I meet a man and blame him for his weakness, I rob myself of power to win the higher knowledge; but if I try to enter lovingly into his merits, I then gather such power. The disciple must continually try to follow out this advice. Experienced occultists are aware how much they owe to the continual searching for the good in all things, and the withholding of all carping criticism. This must not remain only as an external rule of life; rather must it take possession of the innermost part of our souls. We have it in our power to perfect ourselves, and by and by to transform ourselves completely. But this transformation must take place in the innermost self, in the mental life. It is not enough that I show respect only in my outward bearing toward a person; I must have this respect in my thought. The disciple must begin by drawing this devotion into his thought-life, He must altogether banish from his consciousness all thoughts of disrespect, of criticism, and he must endeavour straightway to cultivate thoughts of devotion.

[ 10 ] Every moment in which we set ourselves to banish from our consciousness whatever remains in it of disparaging, suspicious judgment of our fellow-men, every such moment brings us nearer to the knowledge of higher things. And we rise rapidly when, in such moments, we fill our consciousness only with thoughts that evoke in us admiration, respect, and veneration for men and things. He who has experience in these matters will know that in every such moment powers are awakened in man which otherwise remain dormant. In this way the spiritual eyes of a man are opened. He begins to see things around him which hitherto he was unable to see. He begins to understand that hitherto he had only seen a part of the world around him. The man with whom he comes in contact now shows him quite a different aspect from what he showed before. Of course, he will not yet, through this rule of life alone, be able to see what has elsewhere been described as the human aura, because, for that, a still higher training is necessary. But he can rise to this higher training if he has previously gone through a thorough training in devotion. [In the last chapter of the book entitled Theosophie (Berlin, C. A. Schwetschke und Sohn), Dr. Rudolf Steiner fully describes this “Path of Knowledge;” here it is only intended to give some practical details.]

[ 11 ] Noiseless and unnoticed by the outer world is the treading of the “Path of Discipleship.” It is not necessary that anyone should notice a change in the disciple. He does his duties as hitherto; he attends to his business as before. The transformation goes on only in the inner part of the soul, hidden from outward sight. At first the entire soul-life of a man is flooded by this fundamental mood of devotion for everything which is truly venerable. His entire soul-life finds in this fundamental mood its pivot. Just as the sun, through its rays, will vivify everything living, so in the life of the disciple this reverence vivifies all the perceptions of the soul.

[ 12 ] At first it is not easy for people to believe that feelings like reverence, respect, and so forth, have anything to do with their perceptions. This comes from the fact that one is inclined to think of perception as a faculty quite by itself, one that stands in no relation to what otherwise happens in the soul. In so thinking, we do not remember that it is the soul which perceives. And feelings are for the soul what food is for the body. If we give the body stones in place of bread its activity will cease. It is the same with the soul. Veneration, homage, devotion, are as nutriment which makes it healthy and strong, and especially strong for the activity of perception. Disrespect, antipathy, and under-estimation, bring about the starvation and withering of this activity. For the occultist this fact is visible in the aura. A soul which harbours the feelings of devotion and reverence, brings about a change in its aura. Certain yellowish-red or brown-red tints will vanish, and tints of bluish-red will replace them. And then the organ of perception opens. It receives information of facts in its neighbourhood of which hitherto it had no knowledge. Reverence awakens a sympathetic power in the soul, and through this we attract similar qualities in the beings which surround us, which would otherwise remain hidden. [ 13 ] More effective still is that power which can be obtained by devotion when another feeling is added. One learns to give oneself up less and less to the impressions of the outer world, and to develop in its place a vivid inward life. He who darts from one impression of the outer world to another, constantly seeks dissipations, cannot find the way to Occultism. The disciple must not blunt himself to the outer world; but rich inner life will point out the direction in which he ought to lend himself to its impressions. When passing through a beautiful mountain district, the man with depth of soul and richness of emotion has different experiences from the man with few emotions. Only what we experience within ourselves opens up the beauties of the outer world. One man sails across the ocean, and only a few inward experiences pass through his soul: but another will then hear the eternal language of the World-Spirit, and for him are unveiled the mysteries of creation.

One must have learnt to control one's own feelings and ideas if one wishes to develop any intimate relationship with the outer world. Every phenomenon in that outer World is full of divine splendour, but one must have felt the Divine within oneself before one can hope to discover it without. The disciple is told to set apart certain moments of his daily life during which to withdraw into himself, quietly and alone. But at such time he ought not to occupy himself with his own personal affairs, for this would bring about the contrary of that which he is aiming at. During these moments he ought rather to listen in complete silence to the echoes of what he has experienced, of what the outward world has told him. Then, in these periods of quiet, every flower, every animal, every action will unveil to him secrets undreamed of, and thus he will prepare himself to receive new impressions of the external world, as if he viewed it with different eyes. For he who merely desires to enjoy impression after impression, only stultifies the perceptive faculty, while he who lets the enjoyment afterwards reveal something to him, thus enlarges and educates it. But he must be careful not merely to let the enjoyment reverberate, as it were; but, renouncing any further enjoyment, rather to work upon his pleasurable experiences with an inward activity. The danger at this point is very great. Instead of working within one self, it is easy to fall into the opposite habit of afterwards trying to completely exhaust the enjoyment. Let us not undervalue the unforeseen sources of error which here confront the disciple. He must of necessity pass through a host of temptations, each of which tends only to harden his Ego and to imprison it within itself. He ought to open it wide for the whole world. It is necessary that he should seek enjoyment, for in this way only can the outward world get at him; and if he blunts himself to enjoyment he becomes as a plant which cannot any longer draw nourishment from its environment. Yet, if he stops at the enjoyment, he is then shut up within himself, and will only be something to himself and nothing to the world. However much he may live within himself, however intensely he may cultivate his Ego, the world will exclude him. He is dead to the world. But the disciple considers enjoyment only as a means of ennobling himself for the world. Pleasure is to him as a scout who informs him concerning the world, and after having been taught by pleasure he passes on to work. He does not learn in order that he may accumulate learning as his own treasure, but in order that he may put his learning at the service of the world.

[ 14 ] In all forms of Occultism there is a fundamental principle which cannot be transgressed, if any goal at all is to be reached. Every occult teacher must impress it upon his pupils, and it runs as follows: Every branch of knowledge which you seek only to enrich your own learning, only to accumulate treasure for yourself, leads you away from the Path: but all knowledge which you seek for working in the service of humanity and for the uplifting of the world, brings you a step forward. This law must be rigidly observed; nor is one a genuine disciple until he has adopted it as the guide for his whole life. In many occult schools this truth is expressed in the following short sentences. Every idea which does not become an ideal for you, slays a power in your soul: every idea which becomes an ideal creates within you living powers.

[ 1 ] At the very beginning of course the student is directed to the Path of Reverence, and the development of the inner life. But the occult teaching also gives practical instructions by the observance of which he may learn to tread that Path and develop that inner life. These practical directions have no arbitrary basis. They rest on ancient experience and ancient wisdom, and wheresoever the ways to higher knowledge are marked out, they remain of the same nature. All genuine teachers of Occultism are in agreement as to the essential character of these rules, although they do not always express them in the same words. This difference, which is of a minor character and is more apparent than real, is due to circumstances which need not be touched on here.

[ 2 ] No teacher wishes by means of such rules to establish an ascendancy over other persons. He would not tamper with individual independence. Indeed, no one respects and cherishes human individuality more than the teachers of Occultism. It was said (in the first part of this book) that the order which embraces all Initiates was surrounded by a wall, and that two laws formed the principles by which it was upheld. Whenever the Initiate leaves this enclosure and steps forth into the world, he must submit to a third inviolable law. It is this: Keep watch over each of your actions and each of your words, in order that you may not hinder the free-will of any human being. [ 3 ] Those who recognise that genuine occult teachers are thoroughly permeated with this principle will understand that they need sacrifice none of their independence by the practical directions which they are advised to follow.

[ 4 ] One of the first of these rules may be thus expressed in our language: “Provide for yourself moments of inward calm, and in these moments learn to distinguish between the real and the unreal.” I say advisedly “expressed in our language,” because originally all rules and teachings of occult science were expressed in a symbolical sign-language. Those who desire to master its whole scope and meaning must first obtain permission to learn this symbolical language, and before this permission can be obtained, it is necessary to have taken the first steps in occult knowledge. This may be achieved by the careful observance of such rules as are here given. The Path stands open to all who earnestly will to enter it.

[ 5 ] Simple, in truth, is the rule concerning moments of inner calm, and easy it is to follow; but it only leads to the goal when the pursuit is as earnest and strict as the way is simple. I will, therefore, state without further preamble the method in which this rule should be observed.

[ 6 ] The student must mark off a small part of his daily life in which to occupy himself with something quite different from the avocations of his ordinary life, and the way in which he occupies himself at such a time must also differ from the way in which he performs the rest of his duties. But this does not mean that what he does in the time thus set apart has no connection with his daily work. On the contrary, the man who seeks such moments in the right way will soon find that it is just this which gives him the full power to do his daily task. Nor must it be supposed that the observance of this rule really deprives anyone of time needed for the performance of his duties. If any person really has no more time at his disposal, five minutes a day will suffice. The real point is the manner in which these five minutes are spent.

[ 7 ] At these periods a man should raise himself completely above his work-a-day life. His thoughts and feelings must take on a different colouring. His joys and sorrows, his cares, experiences, and actions, must pass in review before his soul. And he must cultivate a frame of mind which enables him to regard all his other experiences from a higher point of view. We need only bear in rind how different is the point of view from which in ordinary life we regard the experiences and actions of another, and that from which we judge our own. This is inevitable, for we are interwoven with our own actions and experiences, while we only contemplate those of another. Our aim in these moments of retirement must be to contemplate and judge our own experiences and actions as though it were not ourselves but some other person to whom they applied. Suppose, for example, that a certain misfortune has befallen someone. What a different attitude that person takes towards it as compared with an identical misfortune that has befallen his neighbour! No one can blame this attitude as unjustifiable; it is a part of human nature. And just as it is in exceptional circumstances, so it is also in the daily affairs of life. The student must endeavour to attain the power of regarding himself at certain tines as he would regard a stranger. He must contemplate himself with the inward calm of the critic. When this is attained, our own experiences present themselves in a new light. As long as we are interwoven with them and are, as it were, inside them, we are as closely connected with the unreal as with the real. When we attain to a calm survey, the real is separated from the unreal. Sorrow and joy, every thought, every resolve, appear changed when we contemplate ourselves in this way. It is as though we had spent the whole day in a place where we saw the smallest objects at the same range of vision as the largest ones, and in the evening climbed a neighbouring hill and surveyed the whole scene at once. Then the parts of the place take on proportions different from those they bore when seen from within. The value of such calm inward contemplation depends less on the actual thing we contemplate than on the power which such inward calm develops in us.

[ 8 ] For in every human being there is, besides what we call the work-a-day man, a higher being. This higher being remains concealed until it is awakened. And each of us can only awaken it for himself. But as long as this higher being is not awakened, the higher faculties which lie dormant in every man and lead to supersensual knowledge, must remain hidden. This power which leads to inward calm is a magic force that sets free certain higher faculties. [ 9 ] Until a seeker feels this magic force within him, he must continue to follow strictly and earnestly the rule here given. To every man who thus perseveres, the day will come when a spiritual light is revealed to him, and a whole new world, whose existence was hitherto unsuspected, is discerned by an eye within him.

[ 10 ] Because he begins to follow this rule, there is no need for any outward change in the life of the student. He performs his duties as before, and at first he endures the same sorrows and experiences the same joys as of old. In no way does it estrange him from life, rather is he enabled to devote himself to it the more completely, because in the moments set apart he has a Higher Life of his own. Gradually this Higher Life will make its influence felt on the ordinary life. The calm of the moments set apart will influence the ordinary existence as well. The whole man will grow calmer, will attain serenity in all his actions, and will cease to be perturbed by all manner of incidents. Gradually will a student who thus advances guide himself more and more, and be less directed by circumstances and external influences. Such a man will soon discover how great a source of strength lies for him in these periods of contemplation. He will cease to be worried by things that formerly worried him; and countless matters that used to inspire him with fear will cease to alarm him. He acquires a new outlook on life. Formerly he may have taken up this or that task with a sense of timidity. He would say: “I lack the power to do this as well as I could wish.” Now he no longer admits such a thought but, instead of it, one quite different. He now says to himself: “I will summon up all my strength so as to do my work as well as I possibly can.” And he suppresses the thought which encourages timidity; for he knows that this very timidity might spoil his undertaking, and that at any rate it can contribute nothing to the improvement of his labour. And thus one thought after another, each fraught with advantage to his whole life, begins to penetrate the student's outlook. They take the place of those that had a hampering and weakening effect. He begins to steer his own ship with a firm, secure course among the waves of life, which formerly tossed it helplessly to and fro.

[ 11 ] And this calm and serenity react, on the whole being. They assist the growth of the inner man, and of those inner faculties which lead to the higher knowledge. For it is by his progress in this direction that the student gradually attains to a state in which he himself determines the manner in which the impressions of the external world shall affect him, Thus, he may hear a word, spoken with the object of wounding or vexing him. Before he began his occult studies it would indeed have wounded or vexed him. But now that he treads the Path of Discipleship, he is able to take from it the sting which gives it the power to hurt, before ever it enters his consciousness. Take another example: we naturally grow impatient when we are kept waiting, but the student is so permeated in his moments of calm with the realisation of the uselessness of impatience, that this feeling is present with him on every such occasion. The impatience which would naturally overcome him vanishes, and an interval which would otherwise have been wasted in the expression of impatience, may be utilised by making some, profitable observation during the period of waiting.

[ 12 ] Now we must realise the significance of these facts. We must remember that the “Higher Being” in a man is in constant development, and only the state of calm and serenity here described renders an orderly development possible. The waves of outward life press in upon the inner man from all sides, if, instead of controlling this outward life, he is controlled by it. Such a man is like a plant which tries to expand in a cleft in the rock, and is stunted in its growth until new space is given it. No outward forces can supply space for the inner man; it can only be supplied by the inner calm which he may give to his soul. Outward circumstances can only alter the course of his outward life; they can never awaken the spiritual, inner man. The student must himself give birth to the new and higher man within him.

[ 13 ] The higher man becomes the “inner Ruler,” who directs the circumstances of the outer man with sure guidance. As long as the latter has the upper hand, this inner man is enslaved, and therefore cannot develop his powers. If another than myself has the power to make me angry, I am not master of myself, or, to put it better, I have not yet found “the Ruler within me.” I must develop the power within of letting the impressions of the outer world approach me only in the way in which I myself choose; then only do I really become an occult student. And only by earnestly striving after this power can a student reach the goal. It is not of so much importance to achieve a great deal in a given time, as to be earnest in the search. Many have striven for years without noticing any marked advance; but many of those who did not despair, and struggled on undaunted, have sometimes quite suddenly achieved the “inner victory.”

[ 14 ] In many situations it requires a good deal of effort to achieve these moments of inward calm. But the greater the effort needed, the more important is the achievement. In esoteric studies, everything depends on the energy, inward truthfulness, and uncompromising sincerity with which we contemplate ourselves and our actions from the standpoint of complete strangers.

[ 15 ] But only one side of the student's inner activity is characterised by this birth of his own higher being. Something else is needed in addition. Even if a man regards himself as a stranger, it is only himself that he contemplates; he looks at those experiences and actions with which he is connected through his particular mode of life, and it is necessary for him to rise above this, and attain to a purely human point of view, no longer connected with his own individual circumstances. He must pass on to the contemplation of those things which concern him as a human being, even though he himself dwell in a different condition and different circumstances. In this way something is brought to birth within him which rises beyond the personal point of view. Thus his gaze is directed to higher worlds than those he knows in every-day life. And then he begins to feel and realise that he belongs to these higher worlds about which his senses and his daily occupations can tell him nothing. In this way he shifts the central point of his being to the inner part of his nature. He listens to the voices within him which speak to him in his moments of calm; and inwardly he cultivates an intercourse with the spiritual world. He is removed from the every-day world, and no longer hears its voices. All around him there is silence. He puts away from him all his external surroundings, and everything which even reminds him of such external impressions. His entire soul is filled with calm inward contemplation and converse with the purely spiritual world. This calm contemplation must become a necessity to the student. He is plunged completely in a world of thoughts. He must develop an earnest desire for such calm thinking. He must learn to love the in-pouring of the spirit. He will soon cease to regard this thought-world as more unreal than the everyday things which surround him. He begins to deal with his thoughts as with things existing in space. He discovers that this thought-world is an expression of life. He realises that thoughts are not mere phantoms, but that through them beings speak to him who were hidden before. He begins to hear voices speak to him through the silence. Formerly his ear was the only organ of hearing; now he can listen with his soul. An inner language and an inner voice are revealed to him. It is a moment of the supremest ecstasy to the student when this experience first comes to him. An inner light floods the whole external world for him, and he is “born anew.” Through his being passes a current from a divine world, bringing with it divine bliss.

[ 16 ] This thought-life of the soul, which is gradually widened into a life of spiritual being, is designated by the Gnosis and by Theosophy as meditation (contemplative thought). This meditation is the means by which super-sensual knowledge is attained. But during such moments the student must not be content to give himself up to the luxury of sensation. He must not permit undefined feelings to take possession of his soul. That would only hinder him from attaining true spiritual knowledge. His thoughts must be clearly and sharply defined, and he will be helped in this by not allowing himself to be carried away blindly by the thoughts that spring up within him. Rather must he permeate his mind with the lofty thoughts which originated with advanced students to whom inspiration has already come. Let him first of all study those writings which themselves originated in such moments of meditation. The student will find such in the mystical, gnostic, and theosophical literature of our time, and will there gain the material for his meditation. Wise men have themselves inscribed in these books the thoughts of divine science, or have proclaimed them to the world through their agents.

[ 17 ] Such meditation produces a complete transformation in the student. He begins to form entirely new conceptions of Reality. All things acquire fresh values in his eyes. And it cannot be declared too often that this transformation does not estrange him from actuality, or remove him from his daily round of duties. For then he knows that his labour and his suffering are given and endured for the sake of a great spiritual cosmic whole. Thus, instead of weariness, his meditation gives him strength to live.

[ 18 ] With firm step the student passes through life. No matter what it may bring him, he goes forward erect. In the past he knew not why he worked and suffered, but now he knows. It is obvious that such meditation is more likely to lead to the goal, if conducted under the direction of experienced persons, who know actually how everything may best be done. We should, therefore, seek the advice and direction of such experienced guides (Gurus they are called in certain schools of thought). What would else be mere uncertain groping is transformed by such direction into work that is sure of its goal. Those who apply to the teachers possessed of such knowledge and experience will never apply in vain. Only they must be quite clear that it is the advice of a friend they desire, not the domination of a would-be ruler. Those who really know are always the most modest of men, and nothing is further from their nature than what is called the passion for power.

[ 19 ] Those who, by means of meditation, rise to that which unites man with spirit, are bringing to life within them the eternal element which is limited by neither birth nor death.. Only those who have had no experience of it themselves can doubt the existence of this eternal element. Thus meditation becomes the way by which man also attains to the recognition and contemplation of his eternal, indestructible, essential being. And only through meditation can one attain to such a view of life. Gnosis and Theosophy tell of the eternal nature of this essential being, and of its reincarnation. The question is often asked: “Why does a man know nothing of those experiences which lie beyond the borders of birth and death?” Not thus should we ask, but rather: “How may we attain to such knowledge?” The entrance to the Path is opened by right meditation.. This alone can revive the memory of events that lie beyond the borders of birth and death. Everyone can attain to this knowledge; in each of us is the faculty of recognising and contemplating for ourselves the truths of Mysticism, Theosophy, and Gnosis; but the right means must be chosen. Only a being with ears and eyes can perceive tones and colours, nor can the eye perceive, if the light by which things are visible be wanting. Occult science gives the means of developing the spiritual ears and eyes, and kindling the spiritual light. There are, according to esoteric teachers, three steps by which the goal may be attained: 1, Probation. This develops the spiritual senses. 2. Enlightenment. This kindles the spiritual light. 3. Initiation. This establishes intercourse with the higher spiritual beings.

[ 20 ] The following teachings proceed from a secret tradition, but precise information concerning its nature and its name cannot be given at present. They refer to the three steps which, in the school of this tradition, lead to a certain degree of initiation. But here we shall find only so much of this tradition as may be openly declared. These teachings are extracted from a much deeper and more secret doctrine. In the occult schools themselves a definite course of instruction is followed, and in addition to this there are certain practices which enable the souls of men to attain a conscious intercourse with the spiritual world. These practices bear about the same relation to what will be imparted in the following pages, as the teaching which is given in a well-disciplined school bears to the instruction that may be received occasionally during a walk. And yet the ardent and persevering pursuit of what is here hinted at will lead to the way by which one obtains access to a genuine occult school. But, of course, an impatient perusal, devoid of sincerity and perseverance, can lead to nothing at all. He who believes himself to be ready for more must apply to an occult teacher. The study of these things can only be successful if the student will observe what has already been written in previous chapters.

[ 21 ] The stages which the above-mentioned tradition specifies are the following three:

1. Probation
2. Enlightenment
3. Initiation

It is not altogether necessary that these three stages should be so taken that one must have quite completed the first before beginning the second, nor, this in its turn before beginning the third. With respect to certain things one can partake of Enlightenment, and even of Initiation, while as regards others one is still in the probationary stage. Yet it will-be necessary to spend a certain time in this stage of Probation before any Enlightenment at all can begin, and at least in some respects one must have been enlightened before it is even possible to enter upon the stage of Initiation. But in giving an account of them it is necessary, for the sake of clearness, that the three stages follow one another.

[ 1 ] Probation consists of a strict cultivation of the emotional and mental life. Through this cultivation the “spiritual body” becomes equipped with new instruments of perception and new organs of activity, just as out of indeterminate living matter the natural forces have fitted the physical body with organs.

[ 2 ] The beginning is made by directing the attention of the soul to certain events in the world that surrounds us. Such events are germinating, expanding, and flourishing of life on the one hand, and, on the other hand, all things which are connected with fading, decaying, and dying out. Wherever we turn our eyes we, can observe these things happening simultaneously, and everywhere they naturally evoke in men feelings and thoughts. But under ordinary circumstances a mean fails to attend sufficiently to these thoughts and feelings. He hurries on too quickly from impression to impression. What is necessary, therefore, is that he should fix his attention intently and quite consciously upon these phenomena. Wherever he observes expansion and flourishing of a certain kind, he must banish everything else from his soul, and entirely surrender himself for a short time to this one impression. He will soon convince himself that a sensation which. heretofore in a similar case would have merely flitted through his soul, is now so magnified that it becomes of a powerful and energetic nature. He must now allow this thought-form to reverberate quietly within himself, and to do so he must become inwardly quite still. He should draw himself away from the outward world, and only follow that which his soul tells him of this expansion and flourishing.

[ 3 ] Yet it must not be thought that we can make much progress if we blunt our senses to the world. First, one must contemplate these objects as keenly and precisely as possible, and it is then that one should give oneself up to the sensations that result, and the thoughts that arise within the soul. What is important is this: that one should direct the attention, with perfect inner balance, upon both of these phenomena. If one obtains the necessary quiet and surrenders oneself to that which arises in the soul, one will then, in due time, obtain the following experiences: One will notice new kinds of thoughts and feelings, unknown before, uprising in the soul. Indeed, the more one fixes the attention in such a way alternately upon something growing, expanding, and flourishing, and upon something else that is fading and decaying, the more vivid will these feelings become. And just as natural forces evolve out of living matter the eyes and ears of the physical body, so will the organs of clairvoyance evolve themselves from the feelings which are thus evoked. A definite thought-form unites itself with the germinating and expanding object, and another, equally definite, with that which is fading and decaying. But this will only take place if the cultivation of these feelings be striven for in the way described.

It is only approximately possible to describe what these feelings are like. Indeed, everyone must attain his own conception of them as he passes through these inward experiences. He who has frequently fixed his attention on the phenomena of germinating, expanding, and flourishing, will feel something remotely allied to the sensation of a sunrise; and the phenomena of fading and decaying will produce in him an experience comparable, in the same way, to the gradual uprising of the moon on the horizon. Both these feelings are forces which, when carefully cultivated, with a continually increasing improvement, will lead to the greatest occult results. To him who again and again, systematically and with design, surrenders himself to such feelings, a new world is opened. The “spiritual” world, the so-called “astral plane,” begins to dawn upon him. Blooming and fading are no longer facts which make indefinite impressions on, him, as of old, but they rather form themselves into spiritual lines and figures have for the different phenomena different forms. A blooming flower, an animal growing, a decaying tree, evoke in his soul definite lines. The astral plane slowly broadens out before him. Nor are these forms in any sense arbitrary. Two students who find themselves at the same stage of development will always see the same lines and figures under the same conditions. Just as certainly as a round table will be seen as round by two normal persons, not as round by the one and square by the other; so, too, before the perception of two souls a blooming flower will present the same spiritual form. And just as the shapes of animals and plants are described in ordinary natural history, so, too, the teacher in an occult school describes and delineates the spiritual forms of growing and decaying processes after their nature and species.

[ 4 ] If the student has progressed so far that he can see such aspects of phenomena which are also physically observable with his external eyes, he will not then be far from the stage when he shall behold things that have no physical existence, and must therefore remain entirely hidden to those who have undergone no training in the occult school.

[ 5 ] It should be emphasised that the occult explorer ought never to lose himself in speculation on the meaning of this or that. By such intellectualising he only brings himself away from the right road. He ought to look out on the sense-world freshly, with healthy senses and quickened observation, and then to give himself up to his own sensations. He ought not to wish, in a speculating manner, to make out what this or that means, but rather to allow the things themselves to inform him. [It should be remarked that the artistic perception, when coupled with a quiet introspective nature, forms the best foundation for the development of occult faculties. It pierces through the superficial aspect of things, and in so doing touches their secrets.]

[ 6 ] A further point of importance is that which is called in occult science “orientation in the higher worlds.” This point is attained when one realises with complete consciousness that feelings and thoughts are veritable realities, just as much as are tables and chairs in the world of the physical senses. Feelings and thoughts act upon each other in the astral-world and in the thought (or mental) world just as objects of sense act upon each other in the physical world. As long as anyone is not truly permeated with this realisation he will not believe that an evil thought projected from his mind may have as devastating an effect upon other thought forms as that wrought upon physical objects by a bullet shot at random. Such a one will perhaps never allow himself to perform a physically visible action which he considers to be wrong, yet he will not shrink from harbouring evil thoughts or feelings, for these do not appear to him to be dangerous to the rest of the world. Nevertheless we can only advance in occult science if we guard our thoughts and feelings in just the same way as such a man would guard the steps he takes in the physical world. If anyone sees a wall before him he does not attempt to dash right through it, but directs his course alongside. In other words, he guides himself by the laws of the physical world.

There are such laws also in the world of thought and feeling but there they cannot impose themselves upon us from without. They must flow out of the life of the soul itself. One arrives at such a condition when one forbids oneself, at all times, to foster wrong thoughts, or feelings. All arbitrary goings to-and-fro, all idle fancies, all accidental ups-and-downs of emotion must be forbidden in the same way. But, in so doing, let it not be thought that one brings about a deficiency of emotion. On the contrary, if we regulate our interior life in this manner, we shall speedily find ourselves rich in feelings and in genuine creative imagination. In place of a mere chaos of petty feelings and fantastic trains of thought, there appear significant emotions, and thoughts that are fruitful, and it is emotions and thoughts of this kind that lead a man to “orientation in the higher world.” He has entered into the right condition for the things of that world, and they entail for him definite consequences. Just as a physical man finds his way between physical things, so, too, his path now leads him straight between the growing and the fading which he has already come to know in the way described above. For he follows all processes of growing and flourishing, and, on the other hand, of withering and decaying—it is necessary for his own and the world's prosperity.

[ 7 ] The occult student has also to bestow a further care on the world of sound. He must discriminate between the tones which are produced from the so-called inert (lifeless) bodies (for example, a bell, a musical instrument, or a falling mass), and those which proceed from a living creature (an animal or a person). He who hears the striking of a bell will receive the sound and attach to it a certain sensation, but he who hears the cry of an animal will, in addition to this sensation, become aware that the sound reveals also an inward experience of the animal, either of pain or of pleasure. The student is concerned with the latter aspect of the sound. He must concentrate his whole attention upon it, so that the sound reveals to him something that lies outside of his own soul, and, more than this, must merge himself in this exterior thing. He must closely connect his own emotion with the pleasure or pain communicated to him by means of the sound. He must care nothing whether for him the sound be pleasant or unpleasant, welcome or not, and his soul must be filled only with that which proceeds from the creature out of whom the sound has come. He who systematically and deliberately performs such exercises will develop within himself the faculty of intermingling, as it were, with the creature from which the sound proceeded. A person sensitive to music will find it easier to cultivate his spiritual life in this respect than one who is unmusical, but no one should think that a mere sense of music will take the place of this culture.

As an occult student, one must learn to contemplate the whole of nature in this way. By so doing a new faculty is sown in the world of thought and feeling. Through her manifold sounds the whole of Nature begins to whisper secrets to the student. What was hitherto merely incomprehensible noise to his soul will become by this means a coherent language of Nature. And whereas, hitherto, he only heard sound from the resonance of so-called inanimate objects, he now understands a new speech of the soul. Should he advance in this culture of the soul, he will soon learn that he can hear what hitherto he did not even surmise. He begins to hear with the soul.

[ 8 ] One thing more must be added before we can reach the topmost point of this region. What is of very special importance in the development of the student is the way in which he hears the speech of other men. He must accustom himself to do this in such a way that while doing so his inner self is absolutely still. If someone expresses an opinion and another hears it, the inner self of the latter will be stirring in general assent or contradiction. Many people in such a case feel themselves urged to an expression of their assent, or, more especially, of their contradiction. All such assent or contradiction must, in the occult student, be silenced. It is not imperative that he should therefore quite suddenly begin to make his life entirely different, in order that he may attain to this inward and fundamental calm. He might, therefore, begin by doing so in special cases, deliberately selected by himself. Thus quite slowly and by degrees will this new way of listening creep into his habits, as of itself. In the occult schools these things are systematically practised. For the sake of practice the student is obliged to listen for a certain period to the most contradictory thoughts, and at the same time to suppress all assent, and more especially all adverse criticism.. The point is that in such a way not only all intellectual judgment is silenced, but also all sense of displeasure, denial, or even acceptance. And the student must be particularly watchful that such feelings, even if they are not upon the surface, do not still remain in the innermost recesses of the soul. He must listen, for example, to the statements of people who in some respects are far beneath him, and yet, while so doing, suppress every feeling of greater knowledge or of superiority. It is useful for everyone to listen in this way to children, for even the wisest may learn very, very much from children. So does it come about that we hear the words of others impersonally, completely divested of our own personality with its opinions and feelings. He who thus makes a practice of listening uncritically, even when a completely contradictory opinion is advanced, learns again and again to blend himself, to become identified, with the being of another. He then hears, as it were, through the words and into, the souls of others. Through continual exercise of this kind only, sound becomes the right medium for the revelation of the spirit and the soul. Of course, it implies the strictest self-discipline, but it leads to a high goal. When these practices are undertaken in connection with those that deal with the sounds of Nature, the soul develops a new sense of hearing. It is now able to receive demonstrations from the spiritual world which do not find their expression in outward sounds apprehensible by the physical ear. The perception of the “inner word” awakens. Gradually truths from the spiritual world reveal themselves to the student, and he hears them expressed in a spiritual way. [Only to him who by listening disinterestedly becomes able to perceive really from within, silently, without emotion arising from personal opinion or personal taste,—only to such can speak the Great Souls who are known in Occultism as the Masters. As long as our opinions and feelings are in a state of vehement opposition to the communications from the Masters, They remain silent.]

All high truths are attained through such “inner encouragement,” and what we may hear from the lips of a genuine occult teacher has been experienced in this manner. And in so saying it must not be supposed that it is unimportant to acquaint oneself with the writings on occult science, before one can actually gain this inner encouragement. On the contrary, the reading of such writings, and the listening to eminent teachers of occult lore, are themselves the means of attaining a personal knowledge. Every sentence of the esoteric wisdom which one hears is adapted to direct the sense to that point which must be attained before the soul can experience a real advance. To the practice of all which has here been indicated, must be added an ardent study of what the occult teacher gives out to all the world. In all occult schools such a study belongs to the probationary period, and he who would employ all other methods will attain no goal if he omits the instructions of the occult teacher, for inasmuch as these instructions proceed from an actual “inner word,” an actual “encouragement,” they possess in themselves a spiritual vitality. They are not mere words: they are living powers; and while you follow the words of an occultist, while you read a book which comes from a genuine inner experience, powers are at work in your soul which make you clairvoyant, just as natural forces have created out of living matter your eyes and ears.

[ 1 ] Enlightenment is the result of very simple processes. Here, too, it is a matter of developing certain feelings and thoughts which are dormant within all men, but must be awakened. Only he who carries out these simple processes with complete patience, continuously and strenuously, can be led by them to the reception of inner illumination. The primary step is taken by observing different natural objects in a particular way; and these are as follows: a transparent stone of beautiful form (a crystal), a plant, and an animal. One should endeavour at first to direct one's whole attention to a comparison of the stone with the animal, in the following way: The thoughts which, accompanied by strong emotions, are thus induced, must pass through the soul, and no other emotions or thoughts must be mixed with them, or disturb the intense contemplation. One then says to oneself= “The stone has a form and the animal changes his. It is impulse (desire) which causes the animal to change its place, and it is these impulses which are served by the form of the animal. Its organs and instruments are the expression of these impulses. The form of the stone, on the contrary, is fashioned, not in accordance with impulses, but in accordance with an impulseless force.” [The fact here mentioned, in its bearing on the contemplation of crystals, is in many ways distorted by those who have only heard of it in an outward (exoteric) manner, and in this way such practices as crystal-gazing have their origin. Misrepresentations of such a kind are the outcome of misunderstanding. They have been described in many books, but they never form the subject of genuine (esoteric) teaching.]

If one sinks deeply into such thoughts, and while doing so observes the stone and the animal with fixed attention, then there arise in the soul two separate kinds of emotion. From the stone into the soul there flows one hind of emotion, and from the animal another. Probably in the beginning the experiment will not succeed, but little by little, with genuine and patient practice, these emotions become manifest. Again and again one should practise. At first the emotions only last as long as the contemplation. Later on, they work afterwards, and then they grow to some thing which remains alive in the soul. One then needs only to reflect, and both emotions invariably arise, apart from all contemplation of an external object.

Out of these, emotions, and the thoughts which are bound up with them, clairvoyant organs are formed. For should the plant be added to the contemplation, one will notice that the feeling out-flowing from it, both in its quality and in its degree, lies between that which emanates from the stone and that from the animal. The organs which are so formed are spiritual eyes. We learn by degrees and through their means to see both astral and mental colours. As long as one has only attained, the condition described as Probation, the spiritual world with its lines and figures remains dark, but through Enlightenment it will become clear. It must be noted here that the words “dark” and “light,” as well as the other common expressions, do but approximately describe what is really meant. But if ordinary language is not used, there is none possible and yet this language was only constructed to suit physical conditions.

Occult science describes what emanates from the stone and is seen by clairvoyant eyes, as “blue” or “bluish-red:” that which is observed as coming from the animal is described as “red” or “reddish-yellow.” In reality they are colours of a spiritual kind which are discerned. The colour proceeding from the plant is “green.” Plants are just those natural phenomena whose qualities in the higher worlds are similar to their qualities in the physical world. But it is not so with stones and animals. It must now be clearly understood that the above-mentioned colours do but suggest the prevailing shades of the stone, the plant, or the animal. In reality, all possible overtones exist. Every animal, every stone, every plant has its own peculiar shade of colour. In addition to these there are also the creatures of the higher worlds, who never incorporate themselves with their on colours, often marvellous, often horrible. In fact, the variety of colours in the higher worlds is immeasurably greater than in the physical world.

[ 2 ] If a man has once acquired the faculty of seeing with spiritual eyes, he then, sooner or later, meets with the beings here mentioned, some of them higher, some lower than man himself, beings who never entered into physical existence.

If he has come so far, the way to a great deal lies open before him; but it is inadvisable to proceed any further without an experienced guide. Indeed, for all that has been here described, such experienced guidance is desirable. For the rest, if anyone has the power and endurance to travel so far that he fulfils the elementary conditions of enlightenment here described, he will assuredly seek and discover his guide.

[ 3 ] But under all circumstances it is important to give one warning, and he who will not apply it had better leave untrodden all the steps of occult science. It is necessary that he who would become an occult student should lose none of his attributes as a good and noble man, and one susceptible to all physical truths. Indeed, throughout his apprenticeship he must continually increase his moral strength, his inner purity, and his powers of observation. let us give an example: During the preliminary practices of Enlightenment, the student must be careful to be always enlarging his sympathy with the animal and human worlds, and his sense of Nature's beauty. If he is not careful to do this, he persistently blunts that sense and that feeling by the use of these practices. The heart would grow cold and the senses become blunted, and that could only lead to perilous results.

[ 4 ] How enlightenment proceeds, if one rises, in the sense of the foregoing practices, from the stone, the plant, and the animal, up to man, and how, after enlightenment, under all circumstances, the gentle hand of the Pilot comes on a certain day, and leads to Initiation—of these things the next chapter will deal in so far as it can and may do so.

[ 5 ] In our time, the path to occult science is sought after by many. It is sought in various ways, and many dangerous and even objectionable practices are tried. Therefore it is that those who know something of the truth concerning these things have allowed part of the occult training to be communicated. Only so much is here imparted as this permission allows, and it is necessary that something of the truth should be known in order that it may counteract the great danger of these errors. If nothing be forced, there is no danger for him who follows the way already described; only one thing should be noted: nobody ought to spend more time or power upon such practices than what is at his disposal with due regard to his circumstances and his duties. No one, for the sake of the occult path, ought suddenly to change anything in the external conditions of his life. If one desires genuine results, one must have patience; one should be able to cease the practice after a few minutes, and then peacefully to continue one's daily work, and no thought of these practices ought to be mingled with the work of the day. He who has not learned to wait, in the best and highest sense of the word, is of no use as an occult student, nor will he ever attain results of much real value.

[ 6 ] He who is in search of the paths to occult knowledge, by the means which have been indicated in the foregoing pages, must fortify himself throughout the whole course of his efforts by a certain thought. He must ever bear in mind that after persevering for some time he may have made very real progress without becoming conscious of it in the precise way which he had expected. He who does not remember this is likely to lose heart, and in a little while to abandon his efforts altogether. The mental powers and faculties about to be developed are at first of the most subtle kind, and their nature differs entirely from the conceptions of them which are formed in the student's mind. He was accustomed to occupy himself with the physical world alone. The mental and astral worlds eluded his gaze, and baffled his conceptions. It is, therefore, not remarkable if, at first, he fails to realise the new forces, mental and astral, which are developing in his own being. This is why it is dangerous to enter the path leading to occult knowledge without experienced guidance. The teacher sees the progress made by the pupil, long before the latter becomes conscious of it himself. He sees the delicate organs of spiritual vision beginning to form themselves, before the pupil is aware of their existence, and a great part of the duties of the teacher consists in perpetual watchfulness, lest the disciple lose confidence, patience, and perseverance, before he becomes conscious of his own progress. The teacher, as we know, can confer upon the student no powers which are not already latent within him, and his sole function is to assist in the awakening of slumbering faculties. But he may be a pillar of strength to him who strives to penetrate through darkness into the light.

[ 7 ] There are many who leave the occult path soon after setting foot upon it, because they are not immediately conscious of their own progress. And even when higher experiences first begin to dawn upon the seeker, he is apt to regard them as illusions, because he had anticipated them quite differently. He loses courage, either because he regards these first experiences as of no value, or because they appear so insignificant that he has no hope of their leading to any appreciable results within a measurable time. Courage and self-confidence are the two lamps which must never be allowed to burn themselves out on the pathway to the occult. He who cannot patiently repeat an exercise which has failed for an apparently unlimited number of times, will never travel far.

[ 8 ] Long before any distinct perception of progress, comes an inarticulate mental impression that the right road has been found. This is a feeling to be welcomed, and to be encouraged, since it may develop into a trustworthy guide. Above all, it is imperative to extirpate the idea that any fantastic, mysterious practices are required for the attainment of higher experiences. It must be clearly realised that ordinary every-day human feelings and thoughts must form the basis from which the start is to be made, and that it is only needful to give these thoughts and feelings a new direction. Everyone must say to himself: “In my own sphere of thoughts and sensations lie enfolded the deepest mysteries, but hitherto, I have not been able to perceive them.” In the end it all resolves itself into the fact that man, ordinarily, carries body, soul, and spirit about with him, yet is conscious only of the body, not of the soul and spirit, and that the student attains to a similar consciousness of soul and spirit also.

[ 9 ] Hence it is highly important to give the proper direction to thoughts and feelings, in order that one may develop the perception of that which is invisible in ordinary life. One of the ways by which this development may be carried out will now be indicated. Again, like almost everything else we have explained so far, it is quite a simple matter. Yet the results are of the greatest consequence, if the experiment is carried out with perseverance, and in the right frame of mind.

[ 10 ] Place before you the small seed of a plant. It is then necessary, while contemplating this insignificant object, to create with intensity the right kind of thoughts, and through these thoughts to develop certain feelings. In the first place, let the student clearly grasp what is really presented to his vision. Let him describe to himself the shape, colour, and all other qualities of the grain of seed. Then let his mind dwell upon the following train of thought: “This grain of seed, if planted in the soil, Will grow into a plant of complex structure.” Let him clearly picture this plant to himself. Let him build it up in his imagination. And then let him reflect that the object now existing only in his imagination will presently be brought into actual physical existence by the forces of the earth and of light. If the thing contemplated by him were an artificially-made object, though such a close imitation of nature that no external difference could be detected by human eyesight, no forces inherent in the earth or light could avail to produce from it a plant. He who thoroughly grasps this thought and inwardly assimilates it will also be able to form the following idea with the right feeling. He will say to himself: “That which is ultimately to grow out of this seed is already as a force now secretly enfolded within it. The artificial duplicate of the seed contains no such force. And yet both appear to be alike to my eyes. The real seed, therefore, contains something invisible which is not present in the imitation.” It is this invisible something on which thought and feeling are now to be concentrated. [Anyone who might object that a microscopic examination would reveal the difference between the two would only show that he has failed to grasp the intention of the experiment. The intention is not to investigate the physical structure of the object, but to use it as a means for the development of psychic force.] Let the student fully realise that this invisible something will later on translate itself into a visible plant, perceptible by him in shape and colour. Let him dwell upon the thought: “The invisible will become visible. If I could not think, then I could not realise, already, that which will only become visible later on.”

[ 11 ] Particular stress must be laid on the importance of feeling with intensity that which one thinks. In calmness of mind a single thought must be vitally experienced within oneself to the exclusion of all disturbing influences. Sufficient time must be taken to allow the thought, and the state of feeling connected therewith, to become, as it were, imbedded in the soul. If that is accomplished in the right way—possibly not until after numerous attempts—an inward force will make itself felt. And this force will create new powers of perception. The grain of seed will appear as if enclosed in a small luminous cloud. The spiritualised vision of the student perceives it as a kind of flame. This flame is of a lilac colour in the centre, blue at the edges. Then appears that which one could not see before, and which was created by the power of thought and feeling brought into life within oneself. That which was physically invisible (the plant which will not become visible until later on) has there revealed itself to the spiritual eye.

[ 12 ] It is pardonable if, to many men, all this appears to be mere illusion. Many will say: “What is the value of such visions or such hallucinations?” And many will thus fall away, and no longer continue to tread the path. But this is precisely the important point—not to confuse, at this difficult stage of human evolution, spiritual reality with the mere creations of phantasy, and to have the courage to press manfully onward, instead of growing timorous and faint-hearted. On the other hand, however, it is necessary to insist on the necessity of maintaining unimpaired, and of perpetually cultivating, the healthy attitude of mind which is required for the distinguishing of truth from illusion. Never during all these exercises must the student surrender the fully conscious control of himself. He must continue to think as soundly and sanely in these conditions as he does with regard to the things and occurrences of ordinary life. It would be a bad thing if he lapsed into reveries. He must at every moment be clear-headed and sober-minded, and it would be the greatest mistake if the student, through such practices, lost his mental equilibrium, or if he were prevented from judging as sanely and clearly as before the matters of work-a-day life. The disciple should, therefore, examine himself again and again to find out whether he has remained unaltered in relation to the circumstances among which he lives, or whether perchance he has lost his mental balance. He must ever maintain a calm repose within his own individuality, and an open mind for everything, being careful at the same time not to drift into vague reveries or to experiment with all sorts of exercises.

The lines for development here indicated belong to those which have been followed, and whose efficacy has been demonstrated in the schools of occultism from the earliest ages, and none but such will here be given. Anyone attempting to employ methods of meditation devised by himself, or which he may have come across in the course of promiscuous reading, will inevitably be led astray, and will lose himself in a boundless morass of incoherent fantasies.

[ 13 ] A further exercise which may succeed the one described above, is the following: Let the disciple place himself in front of a plant which has attained the stage of full development. Now let his mind be absorbed by the reflection that a time is at hand when this plant will wither and die. “Nothing,” he should say to himself, “nothing of what I now see before me will endure. But this plant will have evolved seeds which in their turn will grow into new plants. I become again aware that in what I see something lies concealed which I cannot see. I will fill my mind wholly with the thought that this plant-form with its colours will cease to be. But the reflection that the plant has produced seeds teaches me that it will not disappear into nothing. That which will prevent this disappearance, I can at present no more see with my eyes than I could originally discern the plant in the grain of seed. The plant, therefore, contains something which my eyes are unable to see. If this thought fully lives in me, and combines with the corresponding state of feeling, then, in due time, there will again develop a force in my soul which will ripen into a new kind of perception.” Out of the plant there grows once more a flame-like appearance, which is, of course, correspondingly larger than that which was previously described. This flame is greenish at the centre, and is tinged: with yellow at the outer edge.

[ 15 ] He who has won this vision has gained greatly, inasmuch as he sees things not only in their present state of being, but also in their development and decay. He begins to see in all things the spirit, of which the bodily organs of sight have no perception. And he has thus taken the initial steps on that road, which will gradually enable him to solve, by direct vision, the secret of birth and death. To the outer senses, a being begins to exist at its birth, and ceases to exist at its death. This, however, only appears to be so, because these senses are unable to apprehend the concealed spirit. Birth and death are only for this spirit, transformations, just as the unfolding of the flower from the bud is a transformation enacted before our physical eyes. But if one desires to attain to direct perception of these facts, one must first awaken the spiritual vision by the means here indicated.

[ 16 ] In order to meet an objection which may be raised by certain people already possessed of some psychical experience, let it be at once admitted that there are shorter and simpler ways than this, and that there are persons who have direct perception of the actualities of birth and death, without having had to pass through all the stages of discipline here set forth. There are human beings endowed with high psychical faculties, to whom only a slight impulse is necessary for the developing of these powers. But they are exceptional, and the methods described above are safer, and are capable of general application. Similarly, it is possible to gain some knowledge of chemistry by special methods; but in order to make safer the science of chemistry, the recognised, reliable course must be followed.

[ 17 ] An error fraught with serious consequences would result from the assumption that the goal could be reached more simply by allowing the mind to dwell merely on an imaginary plant or a grain of seed. It may be possible by such means to evoke a force which would enable the soul to attain the inner vision. But this vision will be, in most cases, a mere figment of the imagination, for the main object is not to create arbitrarily a mental vision, but to allow the veritable nature of things to form an image within one's mind. The truth must well up from the depth of one's own soul, but the necromancer who shall call up the truth must not be one's ordinary self, but rather must the objects of one's perception themselves exercise their magical power, if one is to perceive their inner reality.

[ 18 ] After the disciple has evolved, by such means, the rudiments of spiritual vision, he may proceed to the contemplation of human nature itself. Simple appearances of ordinary life must be chosen first. But before making any attempts in this direction, it is imperative for the student to strive after an absolute sincerity of moral character. He must banish all thoughts of ever using the insight to be attained in these ways for his own personal benefit. He must be absolutely determined that under no circumstances will he avail himself, in an evil sense, of any power which he may gain over his fellow-creatures. This is the reason why everyone who desires to gain direct insight into the secrets of human nature must follow the golden rule of true Occultism. And the golden rule is this: For every one step that you take in the pursuit of the hidden knowledge, take three steps in the perfecting of your own character. He who obeys this rule can perform such exercises as that which is now explained.

[ 19 ] Begin by observing a person filled with a desire for some object. Direct your attention to this desire. It is best to choose a. time when this desire is at its height, and when it is not yet certain whether the object of the desire will be attained or not. Then surrender yourself entirely to the contemplation of that which you observe, but maintain the utmost inner tranquillity of soul. Make every endeavour to be deaf and blind to everything that may be going on around you at the same time, and bear in mind particularly that this contemplation is to evoke a state of feeling, in your soul. Allow this state of feeling to arise in your soul, like a cloud rising on an otherwise cloudless horizon. It is to be expected, of course, that your observation will be interrupted, because the person on whom it is directed will not remain in this particular state of mind for a sufficient length of time. Presumably you will fail in your experiment hundreds and hundreds of times. It is simply a question of not losing patience. After many attempts you will ultimately realise the state of feeling spoken of above as fast as the corresponding mental phenomena pass through the soul of the person under observation. After a time you will begin to notice that this feeling in your own soul is evoking the power of spiritual vision into the psychical condition of the other. A luminous image will appear in your field of vision. And this luminous image is the so-called astral manifestation evoked by the desire-state when under observation. Again we may describe this image as flame-like in appearance. It is yellowish red in the centre and reddish blue or lilac at the edges. Much depends upon treating such experiences of the inner vision with great delicacy. It will be best for you at first to talk of them to nobody except your teacher, if you have one. The attempt to describe such appearances in appropriate words usually only leads to gross self-deception. One employs ordinary terms not applicable to such purposes and therefore much too gross and clumsy. The consequence is that one's own attempt to clothe this vision in words unconsciously leads one to blend the actual experience with an alloy of imaginary details. It is, therefore, another important law for the occult inquirer that he should know how to observe silence concerning his inner visions. Observe silence even towards yourself. Do not endeavour to express in words that which you see, or to fathom it with reasoning faculties that are inadequate. Freely surrender yourself to these spiritual impressions without any mental reservations, and without disturbing them by thinking about them too much. For you must remember that your reasoning faculties were, at first, by no means equal to your faculties of observation. You have acquired these reasoning faculties through experiences hitherto confined exclusively to the world as apprehended by your physical senses, and the faculties you are now acquiring transcend these experiences. Do not, therefore, try to measure your new and higher perceptions by the old standard. Only he who has already gained some certainty in his observation of inner experiences ought to speak about them with the idea of thereby stimulating his fellow-beings.

[ 20 ] As a supplementary exercise the following may be set forth. Direct your observation in the same way upon a fellow-being to whom the fulfilment of some wish, the gratification of some desire has just been granted. If the same rules and precautions are adopted as in the previous instance, you will once more attain to spiritual perception. You will distinguish a flame-like appearance which is yellow in the centre and greenish at the edges.

[ 21 ] By such observations of one's fellow-creatures one may easily be led into a moral fault—one may become uncharitable. All conceivable means must be taken to fight against this tendency. Anyone exercising such powers of observation should have risen to the level, on which one is absolutely convinced that thoughts are actual things. He may then no longer allow himself to admit thoughts incompatible with the highest reverence for the dignity of human life and of human liberty. Not for one moment must he entertain the idea of regarding a human being as a mere object for observation. It must be the aim of self-education to see that the faculties for a psychic observation of human nature go hand in hand with a full recognition of the rights of each individual. That which dwells in each human being must be regarded as something holy, and to be held inviolate by us even in our thoughts and feelings. We must be possessed by a feeling of reverential awe for all that is human.

[ 22 ] For the present, only these two examples can be given as to the methods by which an insight into human nature may be achieved, but they will at least serve to point out the way which must be followed. He who has gained the inner tranquillity and repose which are indispensable for such observations, will already, by so doing, have undergone a great transformation. This will soon reach the point at which the increase of his spiritual worth will manifest itself in the confidence and composure of his outward demeanour. Again, this alteration in his demeanour will react favourably on his inner condition, and thus he will be able to help himself further along the road. He will find ways and means of penetrating more and more into the secrets of human nature, hidden from our external senses, and he will then also become ripe for a deeper insight into the mysterious correlations between the nature of man, and of all else that exists in the universe. By following this path, the disciple will approach closer and closer to the day on which he will be deemed worthy of taking the first steps of initiation; but before these can be taken one thing more is necessary. At first it may not be at all apparent to the student why it should be necessary, but he cannot fail to be convinced of it in the end.

[ 23 ] The quality which is indispensable to him who would be initiated is a certain measure of courage and fearlessness. He must absolutely go out of his way to find opportunities for developing these virtues. In the occult schools they are cultivated quite systematically; but life in this respect is itself an excellent school of occultism, nay, possibly the best. To face danger calmly, to try to overcome difficulties unswervingly, this is what the student must learn to do; for instance, in the presence of some peril, he must rise at once to the conception that fears are altogether useless, and ought not to be entertained for one moment, but that the mind ought simply to be concentrated on what is to be done. He must reach a point where it has become impossible for him ever again to feel afraid or to lose his courage. By self-discipline in this direction he will develop within himself quite distinct qualities which he needs if he is to be initiated into the higher mysteries. Just as man in his physical being requires nervous force in order to use his physical senses, so also, in his psychic nature, he requires the force which is only produced in the courageous and the fearless. For in penetrating to the higher mysteries he will see things which are concealed from ordinary humanity by the illusions of the senses. The latter, by hiding the higher verities from our gaze, are in reality our benefactors, since they prevent us from perceiving that which, if realised without due preparation, would throw us into unutterable consternation, things which we could not bear to behold. The disciple must be able to endure this sight. He loses certain supports in the outer world which were owing to the very illusions that encompassed him. It is truly and literally as if his attention were suddenly drawn to a certain danger by which for some time he had already been threatened unconsciously. He was not afraid hitherto, but now that he sees his peril, he is overcome by terror, although the danger has not been rendered any greater by his knowledge thereof.

[ 24 ] The forces at work in the world are both destructive and creative. The destiny of manifested beings is birth and death. The Initiate is to behold this march of destiny. The veil, which in the ordinary course of life clouds the spiritual eyes, is then to be uplifted. The man is himself, however, interwoven with these forces, with this destiny. His own nature contains destructive and creative powers. As undisguisedly as the other objects of his vision are revealed to the eye of the seer, his own soul is bared to his gaze. In the face of this self-knowledge, the disciple must not suffer himself to droop, and in this he will only succeed if he has brought with him an excess of the necessary strength. In order that this may be the case he must learn to maintain inner calm and confidence in the most difficult circumstances; he must nourish within himself a firm faith in the beneficent forces of existence. He must be prepared to find that many motives which have actuated him hitherto will actuate him no longer. He must needs perceive that he has hitherto often thought or acted in a certain manner, because he was still in the toils of ignorance. Reasons like those which influenced him before will now disappear. He has done many things out of personal vanity; he will now perceive how utterly futile all such vanity is in the eyes of the Initiate. He has done much from motives of avarice; he will now be aware of the destructive effect of all avariciousness. He will have to develop entirely new springs for his thought and action, and it is for this that courage and fearlessness are required.

[ 25 ] It is a matter especially of cultivating this courage and this fearlessness in the inmost depths of the mental life. The disciple must learn never to despair. He must always be equal to the thought: “I will forget that I have again failed in this matter. I will try once more, as though nothing at all had happened.” Thus he will fight his way on to the firm conviction that the universe contains inexhaustible fountains of strength from which he may drink. He must aspire again and again to the Divine which will uplift and support him, however feeble and impotent the mortal part of his being may prove. He must be capable of pressing on towards the future, undismayed by any experiences of the past. Every teacher of Occultism will carefully ascertain how far the disciple, aspiring to initiation into the higher mysteries, has advanced on the road of spiritual preparation. If he fulfils these conditions to a certain point, he is then worthy to hear uttered those Names of things which form the key that unlocks the higher knowledge. For Initiation consists in this very act of learning. to know the things of the universe by those Names which they bear in the spirit of their Divine Author. And the mystery of things lies in these Names. Therefore is it that the Initiate speaks another language than that of the uninitiated, for the former knows the Names by which things were called into existence.