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An Outline of Occult Science

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Title: An Outline of Occult Science

Author: Rudolf Steiner


        
Release date: December 20, 2009 [eBook #30718]
                Most recently updated: June 16, 2020

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE ***





                       An Outline of Occult Science

                                    By

                          Rudolf Steiner, Ph.D.

              Authorized Translation from the Fourth Edition

                             (Newly Revised)

                           AnthropoSophic Press

                                 New York

                                   1922





CONTENTS


Preface to the Fourth Edition.
Author’s Remarks To First Edition
Chapter I. The Character of Occult Science
Chapter II. The Nature of Man
Chapter III. Sleep and Death
Chapter IV. The Evolution of the World and Man
Chapter V. Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
Chapter VI. The Present and Future Evolution of the World and of Humanity
Chapter VII. Details from the Domain of Occult Science Man’s Etheric Body
Footnotes






PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION.


One who undertakes to represent certain results of scientific spiritual
research of the kind recorded in this book, must above all things be
prepared to find that this kind of investigation is at the present time
almost universally regarded as impossible. For things are related in the
following pages about which those who are today esteemed exact thinkers,
assert that they will probably remain altogether indeterminable by human
intelligence. One who knows and can respect the reasons which prompt many
a serious person to assert this impossibility, would fain make the attempt
again and again to show what misunderstandings are really at the bottom of
the belief that it is not given to human knowledge to penetrate into the
superphysical worlds.

For two things present themselves for consideration. First, no human being
will, on deeper reflection, be able in the long run to shut his eyes to
the fact that his most important questions as to the meaning and
significance of life must remain unanswered, if there be no access to
higher worlds. Theoretically we may delude ourselves concerning this fact
and so get away from it; the depths of our soul-life, however, will not
tolerate such self-delusion. The person who will not listen to what comes
from these depths of the soul will naturally reject any account of
supersensible worlds. There are however people—and their number is not
small—who find it impossible to remain deaf to the demands coming from the
depths of the soul. They must always be knocking at the gates which, in
the opinion of others, bar the way to what is “incomprehensible.”

Secondly, the statements of “exact thinkers” are on no account to be
despised. Where they have to be taken seriously, one who occupies himself
with them will thoroughly feel and appreciate this seriousness. The writer
of this book would not like to be taken for one who lightly disregards the
enormous thought-labour which has been expended in determining the limits
of the human intellect. This thought-labour cannot be put aside with a few
phrases about “academic wisdom” and the like. In many cases it has its
source in true striving after knowledge and in genuine discernment.
Indeed, even more than this must be admitted; reasons have been brought
forward to show that that knowledge which is to-day regarded as scientific
cannot penetrate into supersensible worlds, and these reasons _are in a
certain sense irrefutable_.

Now it may appear strange to many people that the writer of this book
admits this freely, and yet undertakes to make statements about
supersensible worlds. It seems indeed almost impossible that a person
should admit _in a certain sense_ the reasons why knowledge of
superphysical worlds is unattainable, and should yet speak about those
worlds.

Yet it is possible to take this attitude, and at the same time to
understand that it impresses others as being inconsistent. It is not given
to every one to enter into the experiences we pass through when we
approach supersensible realms with the human intellect. Then it turns out
that intellectual proofs may certainly be irrefutable, and that
_notwithstanding this_, they need not be decisive with regard to reality.
Instead of all sorts of theoretical explanations, let us now try to make
this comprehensible by a comparison. That comparisons are not in
themselves proofs is readily admitted, but this does not prevent their
often making intelligible what has to be expressed.

Human understanding, as it works in everyday life and in ordinary science,
is actually so constituted that it cannot penetrate into superphysical
worlds. This may be proven beyond the possibility of denial. But this
proof can have no more value for a certain kind of soul-life than the
proof one would use in showing that man’s natural eye cannot, with its
visual faculty, penetrate to the smallest cells of a living being, or to
the constitution of far-off celestial bodies.

Just as the assertion is true and demonstrable that the ordinary power of
seeing does not penetrate as far as the cells, so also is the other
assertion which maintains that ordinary knowledge cannot penetrate into
supersensible worlds. And yet the proof that the ordinary power of vision
has to stop short of the cells in no way excludes the investigation of
cells. Why should the proof that the ordinary power of cognition has to
stop short of supersensible worlds, decide anything against the
possibility of investigating those worlds?

One can well sense the feeling which this comparison may evoke in many
people. One can even understand that he who doubts and holds the above
comparison against this labor of thought, does not even faintly sense the
whole seriousness of that mental effort. And yet the present writer is not
only fully convinced of that seriousness, but is of opinion that that work
of thought may be numbered among the noblest achievements of humanity. To
show that the human power of vision cannot perceive the cellular structure
without the help of instruments, would surely be a useless undertaking;
but in exact thinking, to become conscious of the nature of that thought
is a necessary work of the mind. It is only natural that one who devotes
himself to such work, should not notice that reality may refute him. The
preface to this book can be no place for entering into many “refutations”
of former editions, put forth by those who are entirely devoid of
appreciation of that for which it strives, or who direct their unfounded
attacks against the personality of the author; but it must, none the less,
be emphasized that belittling of serious scientific thought in this book
can only be imputed to the author by one who wishes to shut himself off
from the _spirit_ of what is expressed in it.

Man’s power of cognition may be augmented and made more powerful, just as
the eye’s power of vision may be augmented. Only the means for
strengthening the capacity of cognition are entirely of a spiritual
nature; they are inner processes, belonging purely to the soul. They
consist of what is described in this book as meditation and concentration
(contemplation). Ordinary soul-life is bound up with the bodily
instrument; the strengthened soul-life liberates itself from it. There are
schools of thought at the present time to which this assertion must appear
quite senseless, to which it must seem based only upon self-delusion.
Those who think in this way will find it easy, from their point of view,
to prove that “all soul-life” is bound up with the nervous system. One who
holds the standpoint from which this book has been written, can thoroughly
understand such proofs. He understands people who say that only
superficiality can assert that there may be some kind of soul-life
independent of the body, and who are quite convinced that in such
experiences of the soul there exists a connection with the life of the
nervous system, which the “dilettantism of occult science” merely fails to
detect.

Here certain quite comprehensible habits of thought are in such sharp
contradiction to what has been described in this book, that there is as
yet no prospect of coming to an understanding with many people. It is here
that we come to the point where the desire must arise that it should no
longer be a characteristic of our present day culture to at once decry as
fanciful or visionary a method of research which differs from its own. But
on the other hand it is also a fact at the present time that a number of
people can appreciate the supersensible method of research, as it is
presented in this book, people who understand that the meaning of life is
not revealed in general phrases about the soul, self, and so on, but can
only result from really entering into the facts of superphysical research.

Not from lack of modesty, but with a sense of joyful satisfaction, does
the author of this book feel profoundly the necessity for this fourth
edition after a comparatively short time. The author is not prompted to
this statement by lack of modesty, for he is entirely too conscious of how
little even this new edition approaches that “outline of a supersensuous
world concept” which it is meant to be. The whole book has once more been
revised for the new edition, much supplementary matter has been inserted
at important points, and elucidations have been attempted. But in numerous
passages the author has realized how poor the means of presentation
accessible to him prove to be in comparison with what superphysical
research discovers. Thus it was scarcely possible to do more than point
out the way in which to reach conceptions of the events described in this
book as the Saturn, Sun, and Moon evolutions. An important aspect of this
subject has been briefly remodelled in this edition. But experiences in
relation to such things diverge so widely from all experiences in the
realm of the senses, that their presentation necessitates a continual
striving after expressions which may be, at least in some measure,
adequate. One who is willing to enter into the attempted presentation
which has here been made, will perhaps notice that in the case of many
things which cannot possibly be expressed by mere words, the endeavour has
been made to convey them by the _manner_ of the description. This manner
is, for instance, different in the account of the Saturn evolution from
that used for the Sun evolution, and so on.

Much complementary and additional matter has been inserted in this edition
in the part dealing with “Perception of the Higher Worlds.” The endeavour
has been made to represent in a graphic way the kind of inner
soul-processes by which the power of cognition liberates itself from the
limits which confine it in the world of sense and thereby becomes
qualified for experiencing the supersensible world. The attempt has been
made to show that these experiences, even though gained by entirely inner
ways and methods, still do not have a merely subjective significance for
the particular individual who gains them. The description attempts to show
that _within_ the soul stripped of its individuality and personal
peculiarities, an experience takes place which _every_ human being may
have in the same way, if he will only work at his development from out his
subjective experiences. It is only when “knowledge of supersensible
worlds” is thought of as bearing this character that it may be
differentiated from old experiences of merely subjective mysticism. Of
this mysticism it may be said that it is after all more or less a
subjective concern of the mystic. The scientific spiritual training of the
soul, however, as it is described here, strives for objective experiences,
the truth of which, although recognized in an entirely inner way, may yet,
for that very reason, be found to be universally valid. This again is a
point on which it is very difficult to come to an understanding concerning
many of the habits of thought of our time.

In conclusion, the author would like to observe that it would be well if
even the sympathetic reader of the book would take its statements exactly
as they stand. At the present time there is a very prevalent tendency to
give this or that spiritual movement an historical name, and to many it is
only such a name that seems to make it valuable. But, it may be asked,
what would the statements in this book gain by being designated
“Rosicrucian,” or anything else of the kind? What is of importance is that
in this book a glimpse into supersensible worlds is attempted with the
means which in our present period of evolution are possible and suitable
for the human soul; and that from this point of view the problems of human
destiny and human existence are considered beyond the limits of birth and
death. It is not a question of an endeavor which shall bear this or that
old name, but of a striving after truth.

On the other hand, expressions have also been used, with hostile
intention, for the conception of the universe presented in this book.
Leaving out of account that those which were intended to strike and
discredit the author most heavily are absurd and objectively untrue, these
expressions are stamped as unworthy by the fact that they disparage a
fully _independent_ search for truth; because the aggressors do not judge
it on its own merits, but try to impose on others, as a judgment of these
investigations, erroneous ideas about their dependence upon this or that
tradition,—ideas which they have invented, or adopted from others without
reason. However necessary these words are in face of the many attacks on
the author, it is yet repugnant to him in this place to enter further into
the matter.

RUDOLF STEINER
_June, 1913._





AUTHOR’S REMARKS TO FIRST EDITION


In placing a book such as this in the hands of the public, the writer must
calmly anticipate every kind of criticism regarding his work which is
likely to arise in the present day. A reader, for instance, whose opinions
are based upon the results of scientific research, after noting certain
statements made here touching these things, may pronounce the following
judgment: “It is astounding that such statements should be possible in our
time. The most elementary conceptions of natural science are distorted in
such a manner as to denote positively inconceivable ignorance of even the
rudiments of science. The author uses such terms, for instance, as ‘heat’
in a way that would lead one to infer that he had let the entire wave of
modern thought on the subject of physics sweep past him unperceived. Any
one familiar with the mere elements of this science would show him that
not even the merest dilettante could have made these statements, and they
can only be dismissed as the outcome of rank ignorance.”

This and many a similar verdict might be pronounced, and we can picture
our reader, after the perusal of a page or two, laying the book
aside,—smiling or indignant, according to his temperament,—and reflecting
on the singular growths which a perverse tendency of thought may put forth
in our time. So thinking, he will lay this volume aside, with his
collection of similar freaks of the brain. What, however, would the author
say should such opinions come to his knowledge? Would he not, from his
point of view, also set the critic down as incapable of judgment or, at
least, as one who has not chosen to bring his good will to bear in forming
an intelligent opinion? To this the answer is most emphatically—No! In no
sense whatever does the author feel this, for he can easily conceive of
his critic as being not only a highly intelligent man, but also a trained
scientist, and one whose opinions are the result of conscientious thought.
The author of this book is able to enter into the feelings of such a
person and to understand the reasons which have led him to form these
conclusions.

Now, in order to comprehend what the author really means, it is necessary
to do here what generally seems to him to be out of place, but for which
there is urgent cause in the case of this book, namely, to introduce
certain personal data. Of course, nothing will be said in this connection
but what bears upon the author’s decision to write this book. What is said
in it could not be justified if it bore merely a personal character. A
book of this kind is bound to proffer views to which any person may
attain, and these views must be presented in such a way as to suggest no
shade of the personal element, that is, as far as such a thing is
possible.

It is therefore not in this sense that the personal note is sounded. It is
only intended to explain how it was possible for the author to understand
the above characterized opinions concerning his presentations, and yet was
able to write this book.

It is true there is one method which would have made the introduction of
the personal element unnecessary—this would have been to specify in detail
all those particulars which would show that the statements here made are
in agreement with the progress of modern science. This course would,
however, have necessitated the writing of many volumes, and as such a task
is at present out of the question, the writer feels it necessary to state
the personal reasons which he believes justify him in thinking such an
agreement thoroughly possible and satisfactory. Were he not in a position
to make the following explanations, he would most certainly never have
gone so far as to publish such statements as those referring to heat
processes.

Some thirty years ago the author had the opportunity of studying physics
in its various branches. At that time the central point of interest in the
sphere of heat phenomena was the promulgation of the so-called “Mechanical
Theory of Heat,” and it happened that this theory so particularly
engrossed his attention that the historical development of the various
interpretations associated with the names of Julius Robert Mayer,
Helmholtz, Joule, Clausius, and others, formed the subject of his
continuous study. During that period of concentrated work he laid those
foundations which have enabled him to follow all the actual advances since
made with regard to the theory of physical heat, without experiencing any
difficulty in penetrating into what science is achieving in this
department. Had he been obliged to confess himself unable to do this, the
writer would have had good reason for leaving unsaid and unwritten much
that has been brought forward in this book.

He has made it a matter of conscience, when writing or speaking on occult
science, to deal only with matters on which he could also report, in what
seemed an adequate manner, the views held by modern science. With this,
however, he does not wish in the least to give the impression that this is
always a necessary prerequisite. Any one may feel a call to communicate or
to publish whatever his judgment, his sense of truth, and his feelings may
prompt him to, even if he is ignorant of the attitude taken by
contemporary science in the matter. The writer wishes to indicate merely
that he holds to the pronouncements he has made. For instance, he would
never have written those few sentences on the human glandular system, nor
those regarding man’s nervous system, contained in this volume, were he
not in a position to discuss both subjects in the terms used by the modern
scientist, when speaking of the glandular and nervous systems from the
standpoint of science.

In spite of the fact that it may be said that he who speaks concerning
“heat,” as is done here, knows nothing of the elements of modern physics,
yet the author feels himself quite justified, because he believes that he
knows present day research along those lines, and because if it were
unknown to him, he would have left the subject alone. He knows that such
utterances may be ascribed to lack of modesty, but it is necessary to
declare his true motives, lest they should be confounded with others of a
very different nature, a result infinitely worse than a verdict of mere
vanity.

He who reads this book as a philosopher, may well ask himself, “Has this
author been asleep to present day research in the field of the theory of
cognition? Had he never heard of the existence of a man called Kant?” this
philosopher might ask, “and did he not know that according to this man it
was simply inadmissible, from a philosophic point of view, to put forward
such statements?” and so on, while in conclusion he might remark that
stuff of so uncritical, childish, and unprofessional a nature should not
be tolerated among philosophers, and that any further investigation would
be waste of time. However, here again, for reasons already advanced and at
the risk of being again misinterpreted, the writer would fain introduce
certain personal experiences.

His studies of Kant date from his sixteenth year, and he really believes
he is now capable of criticizing quite objectively, from the Kantian point
of view, everything that has been put forward in this book. On this
account, too, he might have left this book unwritten were he not fully
aware of what moves a philosopher to pass the verdict of “childishness”
whenever the critical standard of the day is applied. Yet one may actually
know that in the Kantian sense the limits of possible knowledge are here
exceeded: one may know in what way Herbart (who never arrived at an
“arrangement of ideas”) would discover his “naive realism.” One may even
know the degree to which the modern pragmatism of James and Schiller and
others would find the bounds of “true presentments” transgressed—those
presentments which we are able to make our own, to vindicate, enforce, and
to verify.

We may know all these things and yet, for this very reason, feel justified
in holding the views here presented. The writer has dealt with the
tendencies of philosophic thought in his works: “The Theory of Cognition
of Goethe’s World-Concept”; “Truth and Science”; “Philosophy of Freedom”;
“Goethe’s World Concept” and “Views of the World and Life in the
Nineteenth Century.”

Many other criticisms might be suggested. Any one who had read some of the
writer’s earlier works: “Views of the World and Life in the Nineteenth
Century,” for instance, or a smaller work on _Haeckel and his Opponents_,
might think it incredible that one and the same man could have written
those books as well as the present work and also his already published
“Theosophy.” “How,” he might ask, “can a man throw himself into the breach
for Haeckel, and then, turn around and discredit every sound theory
concerning monism that is the outcome of Haeckel’s researches?” He might
understand the author of this book attacking Haeckel “with fire and
sword”; but it passes the limits of comprehension that, besides defending
him, he should actually have dedicated “Views of the World and Life in the
Nineteenth Century” to him. Haeckel, it might be thought, would have
emphatically declined the dedication had he known that the author was
shortly to produce such stuff as _An Outline of Occult Science_, with all
its unwieldy dualism.

The writer of this book is of the opinion that one may very well
understand Haeckel without being bound to consider everything else as
nonsense which does not flow directly from Haeckel’s own presentments and
premises. The author is further of the opinion that Haeckel cannot be
understood by attacking him with “fire and sword,” but by trying to grasp
what he has done for science. Least of all does he hold those opponents of
Haeckel to be in the right, against whom he has in his book, _Haeckel and
his Opponents_, sought to defend the great naturalist; for surely, the
fact of his having gone beyond Haeckel’s premises by placing the spiritual
conception of the world side by side with the merely natural one conceived
by Haeckel, need be no reason for assuming that he was of one mind with
the latter’s opponents. Any one taking the trouble to look at the matter
in the right light must see that the writer’s recent books are in perfect
accord with those of an earlier date.

But the author can also conceive of a critic who in general and offhand
looks upon the presentations of this book as the out-pourings of a fantasy
run wild or as dreamy thought-pictures. Yet all that can be said in this
respect is contained in the book itself, and it is explicitly shown that
sane and earnest thought not only can but _must_ be the touch-stone of all
the facts presented. Only one who submits what is here advanced to logical
and adequate examination, such as is applied to the facts of natural
science, will be in a position to decide for himself how much reason has
to say in the matter.

After saying this much about those who may at first be inclined to take
exception to this work, we may perhaps be permitted to address a few words
to those on whose sympathetic attention we can rely. These will find all
broad essentials contained in the first chapter, “Concerning the Nature of
Occult Science.” A word, however, must here be added. Although this book
deals with investigations carried beyond the confines of intellect limited
to the world of the senses, yet nothing has been asserted except what can
be grasped by any person possessed of unprejudiced reasoning powers backed
by a healthy sense of truth, and who is at the same time willing to turn
these gifts to the best account; and the writer emphatically wishes it to
be understood that he hopes to appeal to readers who will not be content
with merely accepting on “blind faith” the matters presented, but who will
take the trouble to test them by the light of their own understanding and
by the experiences of their own lives. Above all, he desires _cautious_
readers, who will allow themselves to be convinced only by what can be
logically justified. The writer is well aware that his work would be worth
nothing were its value to rest on blind belief; it is valuable only in the
degree to which it can be justified by unbiased reason. It is an easy
thing for “blind faith” to confound folly and superstition with truth, and
doubtless many, who have been content to accept the supersensible on mere
faith, will be inclined to think that this book makes too great demands
upon their powers of thought. It is not a question of merely making
certain communications, but rather of presenting them in a manner
consistent with a conscientious view of the corresponding plane of life;
for this is the plane upon which the loftiest matters are often handled
with unscrupulous charlatanism, and where knowledge and superstition come
into such close contact as to be liable to be confused one with the other.

Any one acquainted with supersensual research will, on reading this book,
be able to see that the author has sought to define the boundary line
sharply between what can be communicated now from the sphere of
supersensible cognition, and that which will be given out, at a later
time, or at least, in a different form.

RUDOLF STEINER
_December, 1909._





CHAPTER I. THE CHARACTER OF OCCULT SCIENCE


At the present time the words “occult science” are apt to arouse the most
varied feelings. Upon some people they work like a magic charm, like the
announcement of something to which they feel attracted by the innermost
powers of their soul; to others there is in the words something repellent,
calling forth contempt, derision, or a compassionate smile. By many,
occult science is looked upon as a lofty goal of human effort, the crown
of all other knowledge and cognition; others, who are devoting themselves
with the greatest earnestness and noble love of truth to that which
appears to them true science, deem occult science mere idle dreaming and
fantasy, in the same category with what is called superstition. To some,
occult science is like a light without which life would be valueless; to
others, it represents a spiritual danger, calculated to lead astray
immature minds and weak souls, while between these two extremes is to be
found every possible intermediate shade of opinion.

Strange feelings are awakened in one who has attained a certain
impartiality of judgment in regard to occult science, its adherents and
its opponents, when one sees how people, undoubtedly possessed of a
genuine feeling for freedom in many matters, become intolerant when they
meet with this particular line of thought. And an unprejudiced observer
will scarcely fail in this case to admit that what attracts many adherents
of occult science—or occultism—is nothing but the fatal craving for what
is unknown and mysterious, or even vague. And he will also be ready to own
that there is much cogency in the reasons put forward against what is
fantastic and visionary by serious opponents of the cause in question. In
fact, one who studies occult science will do well not to lose sight of the
fact that the impulse toward the mysterious leads many people on a vain
chase after worthless and dangerous will-o’-the-wisps.

Even though the occult scientist keeps a watchful eye on all errors and
vagaries on the part of adherents of his views, and on all justifiable
antagonism, yet there are reasons which hold him back from the immediate
defence of his own efforts and aspirations. These reasons will become
apparent to any one entering more deeply into occult science. It would
therefore be superfluous to discuss them here. If they were cited before
the threshold of this science had been crossed, they would not suffice to
convince one who, held back by irresistible repugnance, refuses to cross
that threshold. But to one who effects an entry, the reasons will soon
manifest themselves, with unmistakable clearness from within.

This much, however, implies that the reasons in question point to a
certain attitude as the only right one for an occult scientist. He avoids,
as much as he possibly can, any kind of outer defence or conflict, and
lets the cause speak for itself. He simply puts forward occult science;
and in what it has to say about various matters, he shows how his
knowledge is related to other departments of life and science, what
antagonism it may encounter, and in what way reality stands witness to the
truth of his cognitions. He knows that an attempted vindication would,—not
merely on account of current defective thinking but by virtue of a certain
inner necessity,—lead into the domain of artful persuasion; and he desires
nothing else than to let occult science work its own way quite
independently.

The first point in occult science is by no means the advancing of
assertions or opinions which are to be proven, but the communication, in a
purely narrative form, of experiences which are to be met with in a world
other than the one that is to be seen with physical eyes and touched with
physical hands. And further, it is an important point that through this
science the methods are described by which man may verify for himself the
truth of such communications. For one who makes a serious study of genuine
occult science will soon find that thereby much becomes changed in the
conceptions and ideas which are formed—and rightly formed—in other spheres
of life. A wholly new conception necessarily arises also about what has
hitherto been called a “proof.” We come to see that in certain domains
such a word loses its usual meaning, and that there are other grounds for
insight and understanding than “proofs” of this kind.

All occult science is born from two thoughts, which may take root in any
human being. To the occult scientist these thoughts express facts which
may be experienced if the right methods for the purpose are used. But to
many people these same thoughts represent highly disputable assertions,
which may arouse fierce contention, even if they are not regarded as
something which may be “proven” impossible.

These two thoughts are, first, that behind the visible world there is
another, the world invisible, which is hidden from the senses and also
from thought that is fettered by these senses; and secondly, that it is
possible for man to penetrate into that unseen world by developing certain
faculties dormant within him.

Some will say that there is no such hidden world. The world perceived by
man through his senses is the only one. Its enigmas can be solved out of
itself. Even if man is still very far from being able to answer all the
questions of existence, the time will certainly come when sense-experience
and the science based upon it will be able to give the answers to all such
questions.

Others say that it cannot be asserted that there is no unseen world behind
the visible one, but that human powers of perception are not able to
penetrate into that world. Those powers have bounds which they cannot
pass. Faith, with its urgent cravings, may take refuge in such a world;
but true science, based on ascertained facts, can have nothing to do with
it.

A third class looks upon it as a kind of presumption for man to attempt to
penetrate, by his own efforts of cognition, into a domain with regard to
which he should give up all claim to knowledge and be content with faith.
The adherents of this view feel it to be wrong for weak human beings to
wish to force their way into a world which should belong to religious
life.

It is also alleged that a common knowledge of the facts of the sense-world
is possible for mankind, but that in regard to supersensible things it can
be merely a question of the individual’s personal opinion, and that in
these matters there can be no possibility of a certainty universally
recognized. And many other assertions are made on the subject.

The occult scientist has convinced himself that a consideration of the
visible world propounds enigmas to man which can never be solved out of
the facts of that world itself. Their solution in this way will never be
possible, however far advanced a knowledge of those facts may be. For
visible facts plainly point, through their own inner nature, to the
existence of a hidden world. One who does not see this closes his eyes to
the problems which obviously spring up everywhere out of the facts of the
sense-world. He refuses to recognize certain questions and problems, and
therefore thinks that all questions can be answered through facts within
reach of sense perception. The questions which he is willing to ask are
all capable of being answered by the facts which he is convinced will be
discovered in the course of time. Every genuine occultist admits this. But
why should one, when he asks no questions, expect answers on certain
subjects? The occult scientist says that to him such questioning is
natural, and must be regarded as a wholly justifiable expression of the
human soul. Science is surely not to be confined within limits which
prohibit impartial inquiry.

The opinion that there are bounds to human knowledge which it is
impossible to pass, compelling man to stop short of the invisible world,
is thus met by the occult scientist: he says that there can exist no doubt
concerning the impossibility of penetrating into the unseen world by means
of the kind of cognition here meant. One who considers it the only kind
can come to no other opinion than that man is not permitted to penetrate
into a possibly existing higher world. But the occult scientist goes on to
say that it is possible to develop a different sort of cognition, and that
this leads into the unseen world. If this kind of cognition is held to be
impossible, we arrive at a point of view from which any mention of an
invisible world appears as sheer nonsense. But to an unbiased judgment
there can be no basis for such an opinion as this, except that its
adherent is a stranger to that other kind of cognition. But how can a
person form an opinion about a subject of which he declares himself
ignorant? Occult science must in this case maintain the principle that
people should speak only of what they know, and should not make assertions
about anything of which they are ignorant. It can only recognize every
man’s right to communicate his own experiences, not every man’s right to
declare the impossibility of what he does not, or will not, know. The
occult scientist disputes no one’s right to ignore the invisible world;
but there can be no real reason why a person should declare himself an
authority, not only on what he may know, but also on things considered
unknowable.

To those who say that it is presumption to penetrate into unseen regions,
the occult scientist would merely point out that this _can_ be done, and
that it is sinning against the faculties with which man has been endowed
if he allows them to waste instead of developing and using them.

But he who thinks that views about the unseen world are necessarily wholly
dependent on personal opinion and feeling is denying the common essence of
all human beings. Even though it is true that every one must find light on
these things within himself, it is also a fact that all those, who go far
enough, arrive at the same, not at different conclusions regarding them.
Differences exist only as long as people will not approach the highest
truths by the well-tested path of occult science, but attempt ways of
their own choosing. Genuine occult science will certainly fully admit that
only one who has followed, or at any rate has begun to follow the path of
occult science, is in a position to recognize it as the right one. But all
those who follow that path will recognize its genuineness, and have always
done so.

The path to occult knowledge will be found, at the fitting moment, by
every human being who discerns in what is visible the presence of
something invisible, or who even but dimly surmises or divines it, and
who, from his consciousness that powers of cognition are capable of
development, is driven to the feeling that what is hidden may be unveiled
to him. One who is drawn to occult science by such experiences of the soul
will find opening up before him, not only the prospect of finding the
answers to certain questions which press upon him, but the further
prospect of overcoming everything which hampers and enfeebles his life.
And in a certain higher sense it implies a weakening of life, in fact a
death of the soul, when a person is compelled to turn away from, or to
deny, the unseen. Indeed, under certain circumstances despair is the
result of a man’s losing all hope of having the invisible revealed to him.
This death and despair, in their manifold forms, are at the same time
inner spiritual foes of occult science. They make their appearance when a
person’s inner force is dwindling away. In that case, if he is to possess
any vital force it must be supplied to him from without. He perceives the
things, beings, and events which approach his organs of sense, and
analyzes them with his intellect. They afford him pleasure and pain, and
impel him to the actions of which he is capable. For a while he may go on
in this way: but at length he must reach a point at which he inwardly
dies. For that which may thus be extracted for man from the outer world,
becomes exhausted. This is not a statement arising from the personal
experience of one individual, but something resulting from an impartial
survey of the whole of human life. That which secures life from exhaustion
lies in the unseen world, deep at the roots of things. If a person loses
the power of descending into those depths so that he cannot be perpetually
drawing fresh vitality from them, then in the end the outer world of
things also ceases to yield him anything of a vivifying nature.

It is by no means the case that only the individual and his personal weal
and woe are concerned. Through occult science man gains the conviction
that from a higher standpoint the weal and woe of the individual are
intimately bound up with the weal and woe of the whole world. This is a
means by which man comes to see that he is inflicting an injury on the
entire world and every being within it, if he does not develop his own
powers in the right way. If a man makes his life desolate by losing touch
with the unseen, he not only destroys in his inner self something, the
decay of which may eventually drive him to despair, but through his
weakness he constitutes a hindrance to the evolution of the whole world in
which he lives.

Now man may delude himself. He may yield to the belief that there is
nothing invisible, and that that which is manifest to his senses and
intellect contains everything which can possibly exist. But such an
illusion is only possible on the surface of consciousness and not in its
depths. Feeling and desire do not yield to this delusive belief. They will
be perpetually craving, in one way or another, for that which is
invisible. And if this is withheld, they drive man to doubt, to
uncertainty about life, or even to despair. Occult science, by making
manifest what is unseen, is calculated to overcome all hopelessness,
uncertainty, and despair,—everything, in short, which weakens life and
makes it unfit for its necessary service in the universe.

The beneficent effect of occult science is that it not only satisfies
thirst for knowledge but gives strength and stability to life. The source
whence the occult scientist draws his power for work and his confidence in
life is inexhaustible. Any one who has once had recourse to that fount
will always, on revisiting it, go forth with renewed vigour.

There are people who will not hear anything about occult science, because
they think they discern something unhealthy in what has just been said.
These people are quite right as regards the surface and outer aspect of
life. They do not desire that to be stunted, which life, in its so-called
reality, offers. They see weakness in man’s turning away from reality and
seeking his welfare in an unseen world which to them is synonymous with
what is chimerical and visionary. If as occult scientists we do not desire
to fall into morbid dreaming and weakness, we must admit that such
objections are partially justified. For they are founded upon sound
judgment, which leads to a half truth instead of a whole truth merely
because it does not penetrate to the roots of things, but remains on the
surface. If occult science were calculated to weaken life and estrange man
from true reality, such objections would certainly be strong enough to cut
the ground from under the feet of those who follow this spiritual line of
life. But even in regard to such opinions as these, occult science would
not be taking the right course in defending itself in the ordinary sense
of the word. Even in this case it can only speak by means of what it gives
to those who really penetrate into its meaning, that is, by the real force
and vitality which it bestows. It does not weaken life, but strengthens
it, because it equips man not only with the forces of the manifest world
but with those of the invisible world of which the manifest is the effect.
Thus it does not imply an impoverishment, but an enrichment, of life. The
true occult scientist does not stand aloof from the world, but is a lover
of reality, because he does not desire to enjoy the unseen in a remote
dream-world, but finds his happiness in bringing to the world ever fresh
supplies of force from the invisible sources from whence this very world
is derived, and from which it must be continually fructified.

Some people find many obstacles when they enter upon the path of occult
science. One of these is expressed in the fact, that a person, attempting
to take the first steps, is sometimes discouraged because at the outset he
is introduced to the details of the supersensible world, in order that he
may, with entire patience and devotion, become acquainted with them. A
series of communications is made to him concerning the invisible nature of
man, about certain definite occurrences in the kingdom of which death
opens the portals, and regarding the evolutions of man, the earth, and the
entire solar system. What he expected was to enter the supersensible world
easily, at a bound. Now he is heard to say: “Everything which I am told to
study is food for my mind, but leaves my soul cold. I am seeking the
deepening of my soul-life. I want to find myself within. I am seeking
something that will lift my soul into the sphere of the divine, leading it
to its true home; I do not want information about the human being and
world-processes.” People who talk in this way have no idea that by such
feelings they are barring the door to what they are really seeking. For it
is just when, and only when, with a free and open mind, in self-surrender
and patience, they assimilate what they call “merely” food for the
intellect, that they will find that for which their souls are athirst.
That road leads the soul to union with the divine, which brings to the
soul knowledge of the works of the divine. The uplifting of the heart is
the result of learning to know about the creations of the spirit.

On this account occult science must begin by imparting the information
which throws light on the realms of the spiritual world. So too, in this
book, we shall begin with what can be unveiled concerning unseen worlds
through the methods of occult research. That which is mortal in man, and
that which is immortal, will be described in their connection with the
world, of which he is a member.

Then will follow a description of the methods by which man is able to
develop those powers of cognition latent within him, which will lead him
into that world. As much will be said about the methods as is at present
possible in a work of this kind. It seems natural to think that these
methods should be dealt with first. For it seems as though the main point
would be to acquaint man with what may bring him, by means of his own
powers, to the desired view of the higher world. Many may say, “Of what
use is it for me that others tell me what they know about higher worlds? I
wish to see them for myself.”

The fact of the matter is that for really fruitful experience of the
mysteries of the unseen world, previous knowledge of certain facts
belonging to that world is absolutely necessary. Why this is so, will be
sufficiently brought out from what follows.

It is a mistake to think that the truths of occult science which are
imparted by those qualified to communicate them, before mention is made of
the means of penetrating into the spiritual world itself, can be
understood and grasped only by means of the higher vision which results
from developing certain powers latent in man. This is not the case. For
investigating and discovering the mysteries of a supersensible world, that
higher sight is essential. No one is able to discover the facts of the
unseen world without the clairvoyance which is synonymous with that higher
vision. When however, the facts have been discovered and imparted, every
one who applies to them the full range of his ordinary intellect and
unprejudiced powers of judgment, will be able to understand them and to
rise to a high degree of conviction concerning them. One who maintains
that the mysteries are incomprehensible to him, does not do so because he
is not yet clairvoyant, but because he has not yet succeeded in bringing
into activity those powers of cognition which may be possessed by every
one, even without clairvoyance.

A new method of putting forward these matters consists in so describing
them, after they have been clairvoyantly investigated, that they are quite
accessible to the faculty of judgment. If only people do not shut
themselves off by prejudice, there is no obstacle to arriving at a
conviction, even without higher vision. It is true that many will find
that the new method of presentment, as given in this book, is far from
corresponding to their customary ways of forming an opinion. But any
objection due to this will soon disappear if one takes the trouble to
follow out these customary methods to their final consequences.

When, by an extended application of ordinary thought, a certain number of
the higher mysteries have been assimilated and found intelligible by any
one, then the right moment has come for the methods of occult research to
be applied to his individual personality:—these will give him access to
the unseen world.

Nor will any genuine scientist be able to find contradiction, in spirit
and in truth, between his science, which is built upon the facts of the
sense-world, and the way in which occult science carries on its
researches. The scientist uses certain instruments and methods. He
constructs his instruments by working upon what “nature” gives him. Occult
science also uses an instrument, but in this case the instrument is man
himself. And that instrument too must first be prepared for that higher
research. The faculties and powers given to man by nature at the outset
without his co-operation, must be transformed into higher ones. In this
way man is able to make himself into an instrument for the investigation
of the unseen world.





CHAPTER II. THE NATURE OF MAN


With the consideration of man in the light of occult science, what this
signifies in general, immediately becomes evident. It rests upon the
recognition of something hidden behind that which is revealed to the outer
senses and to the intellect acquired through perception. These senses and
this intellect can apprehend only a part of all that which occult science
unveils as the total human entity, and this part is the _physical body_.
In order to throw light upon its conception of this physical body, occult
science at first directs attention to a phenomenon which confronts all
observers of life like a great riddle,—the phenomenon of death,—and in
connection with it, points to so-called inanimate nature, the mineral
kingdom. We are thus referred to facts, which it devolves on occult
science to explain, and to which an important part of this work must be
devoted. But to begin with, only a few points will be touched upon, by way
of orientation.

Within manifested nature the physical body, according to occult science,
is that part of man which is of the same nature as the mineral kingdom. On
the other hand, that which distinguishes man from minerals is considered
as not being part of the physical body. From the occult point of view,
what is of supreme importance is the fact that death separates the human
being from that which, during life, is of like nature with the mineral
world. Occult science points to the dead body as that part of man which is
to be found existing in the same way in the mineral kingdom. It lays
strong emphasis upon the fact that in this principle of the human being,
which it looks upon as the physical body, and which death reduces to a
corpse, the same materials and forces are at work as in the mineral realm;
but no less emphasis is laid upon the fact that at death disintegration of
the physical body sets in. Occult science therefore says: “It is true that
the same materials and forces are at work in the physical body as in the
mineral, but during life their activity is placed at the disposal of
something higher. They are left to themselves only when death occurs. Then
they act, as they must in conformity with their own nature, as decomposers
of the physical body.”

Thus a sharp distinction must be drawn between the manifested and the
hidden elements in man. For during life, that which is hidden from view
has to wage perpetual war on the materials and forces of the mineral
world. This indicates the point at which occult science steps in. It has
to characterize that which wages the war alluded to, as a principle which
is hidden from sense-observation. Clairvoyant sight alone can reveal its
workings. How man arrives at awareness of this hidden element, as plainly
as his ordinary eyes see the phenomena of sense, will be described in a
later part of this book. Results of clairvoyant observation will be given
now for the reason already pointed out in the preceding pages, that is,
that communications about the way in which the higher sight is obtained
can only be of value to the student when he has first become acquainted,
in the form of a narrative, with the results of clairvoyant research. For
in this sphere it is quite possible to understand things which one is not
yet able to observe. Indeed, the right path to higher vision starts with
understanding.

Now, although the hidden something which wages war on the disintegration
of the physical body can be observed only by the higher sight, it is
plainly visible in its effects to the human faculty of judgment which is
limited to the manifested world; and these effects are expressed in the
form or shape in which mineral materials and forces are combined during
life. When death has intervened, the form disappears little by little, and
the physical body becomes part of the rest of the mineral world. But the
clairvoyant is able to observe this hidden something as an independent
member of the human organism, which during life prevents the physical
materials and forces from taking their natural course, which would lead to
the dissolution of the physical body. This independent principle is called
the etheric or vital body.

If misunderstandings are not to arise at the outset, two things must be
borne in mind in connection with this account of a second principle of
human nature. The word “etheric” is used here in a different sense from
that of modern physics, which designates as “ether” the medium by which
light is transmitted. In occult science the use of the word is limited to
the sense given above. It denotes that which is accessible to higher
sight, and can be known to physical observation only by its effects, that
is, by its power of giving a definite form or shape to the mineral
materials and forces present in the physical body. Again, the use of the
word “body” must not be misunderstood. It is necessary to use the words of
every day language in describing things on a higher plane of existence,
and these terms, when applied to sense-observation, express only what is
physical. The etheric body has, of course, nothing of a bodily nature in
the physical sense, however ethereal we might imagine such a body to be.
As soon as the occultist mentions this etheric or vital body, he reaches
the point at which he is bound to encounter the opposition of many
contemporary opinions. The development of the human mind has been such
that the mention of such a principle of human nature is necessarily looked
upon as unscientific. The materialistic way of thinking has arrived at the
conclusion that there is nothing to be seen in a living body but a
combination of physical substances and forces such as are also found in
the so-called inanimate body of the mineral, the only difference being
that they are more complicated in the living than in the lifeless body.
Yet it is not very long since other views were held, even by official
science.

It is evident to any one who studies the works of many earnest men of
science, produced during the first half of the nineteenth century, that at
that time many a genuine investigator of nature was conscious of some
factor acting within the living body other than in the lifeless mineral.
It was termed “vital force.” It is true this vital force is not
represented as being what has been above characterized as the vital body,
but underlying the conception was a dim idea of the existence of such a
body. Vital force was generally regarded as something which in a living
body was united with physical matter and forces in the same way that the
force of a magnet unites itself with iron. Then came the time when vital
force was banished from the domain of science. Mere physical and chemical
causes were accounted all sufficient.

At the present moment, however, there is a reaction in this respect in
some scientific quarters. It is sometimes conceded that the hypothesis of
something of the nature of “vital force” is not pure nonsense. Yet even
the scientist who concedes this much is not willing to make common cause
with the occultist with regard to the vital body. As a rule, it serves no
useful purpose to enter upon a discussion of such views from the
standpoint of occult science. It should be much more the concern of the
occultist to recognize that the materialistic way of thinking is a
necessary concomitant phenomenon of the great advance of natural science
in our day. This advance is due to the vast improvements in the
instruments used in sense-observation. And it is in the very nature of man
to bring some of his faculties to a certain degree of perfection at the
expense of others. Exact sense-observation, which has been evolved to such
an important extent by natural science, was bound to leave in the
background the cultivation of those human faculties which lead into the
hidden worlds. But the time has come when this cultivation is once more
necessary; and recognition of the invisible will not be won by combating
opinions which are the logical outcome of a denial of its existence, but
rather by setting the invisible in the right light. Then it will be
recognized by those for whom the “time has come.”

It was necessary to say this much, in order that it may not be imagined
that occult science is ignorant of the standpoint of natural science when
mention is made of an “etheric body,” which, in many circles must
necessarily be considered as purely imaginary.

Thus the etheric body is the second principle of the human being. For the
clairvoyant, it possesses a higher degree of reality than the physical
body. A description of how it is seen by the clairvoyant can be given only
in later parts of this book, when the sense in which such descriptions are
to be taken will become manifest. For the present it will be enough to say
that the etheric body penetrates the physical body in all its parts, and
is to be regarded as a kind of architect of the latter. All the physical
organs are maintained in their form and shape by the currents and
movements of the etheric body. The physical heart is based upon an etheric
heart, the physical brain, upon an etheric brain, and the physical, with
this difference, that in the etheric body the parts flow into one another
in active motion, whereas in the physical body they are separated from
each other.

Man has this etheric body in common with all plants, just as he has the
physical body in common with minerals. Everything living has its etheric
body.

The study of occult science proceeds upwards from the etheric body to
another principle of the human being. To aid in the formation of an idea
of this principle, it draws attention to the phenomenon of sleep, just as
in connection with the etheric body attention was drawn to death. All
human work, so far as the manifested world is concerned, is dependent upon
activity during waking life. But that activity is possible only as long as
man is able to recuperate his exhausted forces by sleep. Action and
thought disappear, pain and pleasure fade away during sleep, and on
re-awaking, man’s conscious powers ascend from the unconsciousness of
sleep as though from hidden mysterious sources of energy. It is the same
consciousness which sinks down into dim depths on falling asleep and
ascends from them again on re-awaking.

That which awakens life again out of this state of unconsciousness is,
according to occult science, the third principle of the human being. It is
called the astral body. Just as the physical body cannot keep its form by
means of the mineral substances and forces it contains, but must, in order
to be kept together, be interpenetrated by the etheric body, so is it
impossible for the forces of the etheric body to illuminate themselves
with the light of consciousness. An etheric body left to its own resources
would be in a permanent state of sleep.(1) An etheric body awake, is
illuminated by an astral body. This astral body seems to sense-observation
to disappear when man falls asleep; to clairvoyant observation it is still
present, with the difference that it appears separated from or drawn out
of the etheric body. Sense-observation has nothing to do with the astral
body itself, but only with its effects in the manifested world, and these
cease during sleep. In the same sense in which man possesses his physical
body in common with plants, he resembles animals as regards his astral
body.

Plants are in a permanent state of sleep. One who does not judge
accurately in these matters may easily make the mistake of attributing to
plants the same kind of consciousness as that of animals and human beings
in the waking state; but this assumption can only be due to an inaccurate
conception of consciousness. In that case it is said that, if an external
stimulus is applied to a plant, it responds by certain movements, as would
an animal. The _sensitiveness_ of some plants is spoken of,—for example,
of those which contract their leaves when certain external things act upon
them. But the characteristic mark of consciousness is not that a being
reacts in a certain way to an impression, but that it experiences
something in its inner nature which adds a new element to mere reaction.
Otherwise we should be able to speak of the consciousness of a piece of
iron when it expands under the influence of heat. Consciousness is present
only when, through the effect of heat, the being feels pain or pleasure
inwardly.

The fourth principle of being which occult science attributes to man is
one which he does not share in common with the rest of the manifested
world. It is that which differentiates him from his fellow creatures and
makes him the crown of creation. Occult science helps in forming a
conception of this further principle of human nature by pointing out the
existence of an essential difference between the kinds of experience in
waking life. On the one hand, man is constantly subjected to experiences
which must of necessity come and go; on the other, he has experiences with
which this is not the case. This fact comes out with special force if
human experiences are compared with those of animals. An animal
experiences the influences of the outer world with great regularity; under
the influence of heat and cold it becomes conscious of pain or pleasure,
and during certain regularly recurring bodily processes it feels hunger
and thirst. The sum total of man’s life is not exhausted by such
experiences; he is able to develop desires and wishes which go beyond
these things. In the case of an animal it would always be possible, on
going far enough into the matter, to ascertain the cause—either within or
without its body—which impelled it to any given act or feeling. This is by
no means the case with man. He may engender wishes and desires for which
no adequate cause exists either inside or outside of his body. A
particular source must be found for everything in this domain; and
according to occult science this source is to be found in the human “I” or
“ego.” Therefore the ego will be spoken of as the fourth principle of the
human being.

Were the astral body left to its own resources, feelings of pleasure and
pain, and sensations of hunger and thirst, would take place within it, but
there would be lacking the consciousness of something lasting in all these
feelings. It is not the permanent as such, which is here designated the
“ego,” but rather that which experiences this permanent element. In this
domain, conceptions must be very exactly expressed if misunderstandings
are not to arise. With the becoming aware of something permanent, lasting,
within the changing inner experiences, begins the dawn of “ego
consciousness.”

The sensation of hunger, for instance, cannot give a creature the feeling
of having an ego. Hunger sets in when the recurring causes make themselves
felt in the being concerned, which then devours its food just because
these recurring conditions are present. For the ego-consciousness to
arise, there must not only be these recurring conditions, urging the being
to take food, but there must have been pleasure derived from previous
satisfaction of hunger, and the consciousness of the pleasure must have
remained, so that not only the present experience of hunger but the past
experience of pleasure urges the being to take nourishment.

Just as the physical body falls into decay if the etheric body does not
keep it together, and as the etheric body sinks into unconsciousness if
not illuminated by the astral body, so the astral body would necessarily
allow the past to be lost in oblivion unless the ego rescued the past by
carrying it over into the present. What death is to the physical body and
sleep to the etheric, the power of forgetting is to the astral body. We
may put this in another way, and say that life is the special
characteristic of the etheric body, consciousness that of the astral body,
and memory that of the ego.

It is still easier to make the mistake of attributing memory(2) to an
animal than that of attributing consciousness to a plant. It is so natural
to think of memory when a dog recognizes its master, whom perhaps it has
not seen for some time; yet in reality the recognition is not due to
memory at all, but to something quite different. The dog feels a certain
attraction toward its master which proceeds from the personality of the
latter. This gives the dog a sense of pleasure whenever its master is
present, and every time this happens it is a cause of the repetition of
the pleasure. But memory only exists in a being when he not only feels his
present experiences, but retains those of the past. A person might admit
this, and yet fall into the error of thinking the dog has memory. For it
might be said that the dog pines when its master leaves it, and therefore
it retains a remembrance of him. This too is an inaccurate opinion. Living
with its master has made his presence a condition of well-being to the
dog, and it feels his absence much in the same way in which it feels
hunger. One who does not make these distinctions will not arrive at a
clear understanding of the true conditions of life.

Memory and forgetfulness have for the ego much the same significance that
waking and sleeping have for the astral body. Just as sleep banishes into
nothingness the cares and troubles of the day, so does forgetfulness draw
a veil over the sad experiences of life and efface part of the past. And
just as sleep is necessary for the recuperation of the exhausted vital
forces, so must a man blot out from his memory certain portions of his
past life if he is to face his new experiences freely and without
prejudice. It is out of this very forgetfulness that strength arises for
the perception of new facts. Let us take the case of learning to write.
All the details which a child has to go through in this process are
forgotten. What remains is the ability to write. How would a person ever
be able to write if each time he took up his pen all his experiences in
learning to write rose up before his mind?

Now there are many different degrees of memory. Its simplest form is
manifest when a person perceives an object and, after turning away from
it, retains its image in his mind. He formed the image while looking at
the object, A process was then carried out between his astral body and his
ego. The astral body lifted into consciousness the outward impression of
the object, but knowledge of the object would last only as long as the
thing itself was present, unless the ego absorbed the knowledge into
itself and made it its own.

It is at this point that occult science draws the dividing line between
what belongs to the body and what belongs to the soul. It speaks of the
astral body as long as it is a question of the gaining of knowledge from
an object which is present. But what gives knowledge duration is known as
soul. From this it can at once be seen how close is the connection in man
between the astral body and that part of the soul which gives a lasting
quality to knowledge. The two are, to a certain extent, united into one
principle of human nature. Consequently, this unity is often denoted the
astral body. When exact terms are desired, the astral body is called the
_soul-body_, and the soul, in so far as it is united with the latter, is
called the _sentient soul_.

The ego rises to a higher stage of its being when it centres its activity
on what it has gained for itself out of its knowledge of objective things.
It is by means of this activity that the ego detaches itself more and more
from the objects of perception, in order to work within that which is its
own possession. The part of the soul on which this work devolves is called
the rational- or intellectual-soul.(3) It is the peculiarity of the
sentient and intellectual souls that they work with that which they
receive through sense-impressions of external objects of which they retain
the memory. The soul is then wholly surrendered to something which is
really outside it. Even what it has made its own through memory, it has
actually received from without. But it is able to go beyond all this, and
occult science can most easily give an idea of this by drawing attention
to a simple fact, which, however, is of the greatest importance. It is,
that in the whole range of speech there is but one name which is
distinguished by its very nature from all other names. This is the name
“I.” Every other name can be applied by any one to the thing or being to
which it belongs. The word “I,” as the designation of a being, has a
meaning only when given to that being by himself. Never can any outside
voice call us by the name of “I.” We can apply it only to ourselves. I am
only an “I” to myself; to every one else I am a “you,” and every one else
is a “you” to me. This fact is the outward expression of a deeply
significant truth. The real essence of the ego is independent of
everything outside of it, and it is on this account that its name cannot
be applied to it by any one else. This is the reason why those religions
confessions which have consciously maintained their connections with
occult science, speak the word “I” as the “unutterable name of God.” For
the fact above mentioned is exactly what is referred to when this
expression is used. Nothing outward has access to that part of the human
soul of which we are now speaking. It is the “hidden sanctuary” of the
soul. Only a being of like nature with the soul can win entrance there.
“The divinity dwelling in man speaks when the soul recognizes itself as an
ego.” Just as the sentient and intellectual souls live in the outer world,
so a third soul-principle is immersed in the divine when the soul becomes
conscious of its own nature.

In this connection a misunderstanding may easily arise; it may seem as
though occult science interpreted the ego to be one with God. But it by no
means says that the ego is God, only that it is of the same nature and
essence as God. Does any one declare the drop of water taken from the
ocean to be the ocean, when he asserts that the drop and the ocean are the
same in essence or substance? If a comparison is needed, we may say, “The
ego is related to God as the drop of water is to the ocean.” Man is able
to find a divine element within himself, because his original essence is
derived directly from the Divine. Thus man, through the third principle of
his soul, attains an inner knowledge of himself, just as through his
astral body he gains knowledge of the outer world. For this reason occult
science calls the third soul-principle _the consciousness-soul_, and it
holds that the soul-part of man consists of three principles, the
_sentient-_, _intellectual-_, and _consciousness-souls_, just as the
bodily part has three principles, the _physical_, _etheric_, and _astral
bodies_.

The real nature of the ego is first revealed in the consciousness-soul.
Through feeling and reason the soul loses itself in other things; but as
the consciousness-soul it lays hold of its own essence. Therefore this ego
can only be perceived through the consciousness-soul by a certain inner
activity. The images of external objects are formed as those objects come
and go, and the images go on working in the intellect by virtue of their
own force. But if the ego is to perceive itself, it cannot merely
_surrender_ itself; it must first, by inner activity, draw up its own
being out of its depths, in order to become conscious of it. A new
activity of the ego begins with this self cognition,—with
self-recollection. Owing to this activity, the perception of the ego in
the consciousness-soul possesses an entirely different meaning for man
from that conveyed by the observation of all that reaches him through the
three bodily principles and the two other soul-principles. The power which
reveals the ego in the consciousness-soul is in fact the same power which
manifests everywhere else in the world; only in the body and the lower
soul-principles it does not come forth directly, but is manifested little
by little in its effects. The lowest manifestation is through the physical
body, thence a gradual ascent is made to that which fills the intellectual
soul. Indeed, we may say that with each ascending step one of the veils
falls away in which the hidden centre is wrapped. In that which fills the
consciousness-soul, this hidden centre emerges unveiled into the temple of
the soul. Yet it shows itself just here to be but a drop from the ocean of
the all-pervading Primordial Essence; and it is here that man first has to
grasp it,—this Primordial Essence. He must recognize it in himself before
he is able to find it in its manifestations.

That which penetrates into the consciousness-soul like a drop from the
ocean is called by occult science _Spirit_. In this way is the
consciousness-soul united with the spirit, which is the hidden principle
in all manifested things. If man wishes to lay hold of the spirit in all
manifestation, he must do it in the same way in which he lays hold of the
ego in the consciousness-soul. He must extend to the visible world the
activity which has led him to the perception of his ego. By this means he
evolves to yet higher planes of his being. He adds something new to the
principles of his body and soul. The first thing that happens is that he
himself conquers what lies hidden in his lower soul-principles, and this
is effected through the work which the ego carries on within the soul. How
man is engaged in this work becomes evident if we compare a high-minded
idealist with a person who is still given up to low desires and so-called
sensual pleasures. The latter becomes transmuted into the former if he
withdraws from certain lower tendencies and turns to higher ones. He thus
works through his ego upon his soul thereby ennobling and spiritualizing
it. The ego has become the master of that man’s soul-life. This may be
carried so far that no desire or wish can take root in the soul unless the
ego permits its entrance. In this way the whole soul becomes a
manifestation of the ego, which previously only the consciousness-soul had
been. All civilized life and all spiritual effort really consist in the
one work, which has for its object to make the ego the master. Every one
now living is engaged in this work whether he wishes it or not, and
whether or not he is conscious of the fact.

Again, by this work human nature is drawn upward to higher stages of
being. Man develops new principles of his being. These lie hidden from him
behind what is manifest. If man is able by working upon his soul, to make
his ego master of it, so that the latter brings into manifestation what is
hidden, the work may extend yet farther and include the astral body. In
that case the ego takes possession of the astral body by uniting itself
with the hidden wisdom of this astral principle. In occult science the
astral body which is thus conquered and transformed by the ego is called
the _Spirit-Self_. (This is the same as what is known as “_Manas_” in
theosophical literature, a term borrowed from the wisdom of the East.) In
the Spirit-Self a higher principle is added to human nature, one which is
present as though in the germ, and which in the course of the work of the
human being on itself comes forth more and more.

Man conquers his astral body by pushing through to the hidden forces lying
behind it; a similar thing happens, at a later stage of development, to
the etheric body: but the work on the latter is more arduous, for what is
hidden in the etheric body is enveloped in two veils, but what is hidden
in the astral body in only one.(4) Occult science gives an idea of the
difference in the work on the two bodies by pointing out certain changes
which may take place in man in the course of his development. Let us at
first think of the way in which certain soul-qualities of man develop when
the ego works upon the soul; how pleasures and desires, joys and sorrows,
may change. We have only to look back to our childhood. What gave us
pleasure then, what caused us pain? What have we learned in addition to
what we knew as children? All this is but an expression of the way in
which the ego has gained the mastery over the astral body, for it is this
principle which is the vehicle of pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow.
Compared with these things, how little in the course of time do certain
other human qualities change, for example, the temperament, the deeper
peculiarities of the character, and like qualities. A passionate child
will often retain certain tendencies to sudden anger during its
development in later life.

This is such a striking fact that there are thinkers who entirely deny the
possibility of changing the fundamental character. They assume that it is
something permanent throughout life, and that it is merely a question of
its being manifested in one way or another. But such an opinion is due to
defective observation. To one who is capable of seeing such things, it is
evident that even the character and temperament of a person may be
transformed under the influence of his ego. It is true that this change is
slow in comparison with the change in the qualities before mentioned. We
may compare the relation to each other of the rates of change in the two
bodies to the movements of the hour-hand and minute-hand of a clock. Now
the forces which bring about a change of character or temperament belong
to the hidden forces of the etheric body. They are of the same nature as
the forces which govern the kingdom of life,—the same, therefore, as the
forces of growth, nutrition, and generation. Further explanations in this
work will throw the right light on these things.

Thus it is not when man simply gives himself up to pleasure and pain, joy
and sorrow, that the ego is working on the astral body, but when the
peculiarities of these qualities of the soul are changed; and the work is
extended in the same way to the etheric body, when the ego applies its
energies to changing the character or temperament. This change, too, is
one in which every person living is engaged, whether consciously or not.
The most powerful incitement to this kind of change in ordinary life is
that given by religion. If the ego allows the impulses which flow from
religion to work upon it again and again, they become a power within it
which extends to the etheric body and changes it as lesser impulses in
life effect the transformation of the astral body. These lesser impulses,
which come to man through study, reflection, the ennobling of feeling, and
so on, are subject to the manifold changes of existence; but religious
feelings impress a certain stamp of uniformity upon all thinking, feeling,
and willing. They diffuse an equal and single light over the whole life of
the soul.

Man thinks and feels one thing to-day, another to-morrow, the causes of
which are of many different kinds; but one who, consistently holding to
his religious convictions, has a glimpse of something which persists
through all changes, will relate his thoughts and feelings of to-day, as
well as his experiences of to-morrow, to that fundamental feeling he
possesses. Thus religious belief has the power of permeating the whole of
the soul-life. Its influences increase in strength as time goes on because
they are constantly repeated. Hence they acquire the power of working upon
the etheric body.

In a similar way the influences of true art work upon man. If,—going
beyond the outer form, colour and tone of a work of art,—he penetrates to
its spiritual foundations with his imagination and feeling, then the
impulses thus received by the ego actually reach the etheric body. When
this thought is followed out to its logical conclusion, the immense
significance of art in all human evolution may be estimated. Only a few
instances are pointed out here of what induces the ego to work upon the
etheric body. There are many similar influences in human life which are
not so apparent at the first glance. But these instances are enough to
show that there is yet another principle of man’s nature hidden within
him, which the ego is making more and more manifest. Occult science
denotes this second principle of the spirit the _Life-Spirit_. (It is the
same which in current theosophical literature is called Budhi, a term
borrowed from Eastern wisdom.) The expression “Life-Spirit” is
appropriate, because the same forces are at work within it as are active
in the vital body, with the difference that when they are manifesting in
the latter the ego is not active. When, however, these powers express
themselves as the Life-Spirit, they are interpenetrated by the ego.

Man’s intellectual development, the purification and ennobling of his
feelings and of the manifestations of his will, are the measure of the
degree in which he has transformed the astral body into the Spirit-Self.
His religious experiences, as well as many others, are stamped upon the
etheric body, making it into the Life-Spirit. In the ordinary course of
life this happens more or less unconsciously; so-called initiation, on the
contrary, consists in man’s being directed by occult science to the means
through which he may quite consciously take in hand this work on the
Spirit-Self and Life-Spirit. These means will be dealt with in later parts
of this book. In the meantime it is important to show that, besides the
soul and the body, the spirit also is working within man. It will be seen
later how this spirit belongs to the eternal part of man, as contrasted
with the perishable body.

But the work of the ego on the astral and etheric bodies does not exhaust
its activity, which is also extended to the physical body. A slight effect
of the influence of the ego on the physical body may be seen when certain
experiences cause a person to blush or turn pale. In this case the ego is
actually the occasion of a process in the physical body. Now if through
the activity of the ego in man, changes occur influencing the physical
body, the ego is really united with the hidden forces of the physical
body, that is, with the same forces which bring about its physical
processes. Occult science says that during such activity the ego is
working on the physical body. This expression must not be misunderstood.
It must on no account be supposed that this work is of a grossly material
nature. What appears as gross material in the physical body is merely the
manifested part of it; behind this are the hidden forces of its being,
which are of a spiritual nature. When the ego puts forth its energies in
the manner described, it unites itself, not with the outer material
manifestation of the physical body, but with the invisible forces which
bring that body into being and afterwards cause it to decay. This work of
the ego on the physical body can only very partially become clear to man’s
consciousness in ordinary life. It can become fully clear only when, under
the influence of occult science, man consciously takes the work into his
own hands. Then he becomes aware that there is a third spiritual principle
within him. It is that which occult science calls the _Spirit-Man_, as
contrasted with physical man. (In theosophical literature this
“Spirit-Man” is known as Atma.)

Again, with regard to the Spirit-Man, it is easy to make a mistake. In the
physical body we see man’s lowest principle, and on this account find it
hard to realize that the work on that body should be accomplished by the
highest principle of the human entity. But just because the spirit active
within the physical body is hidden under three veils, the highest kind of
human effort is needed in order to make the ego one with that which is the
hidden spiritual energy of the body.

Occult science, therefore, represents man as a being composed of many
principles. Those of a bodily nature are:

      the physical body,
      the etheric or vital body,
      the astral body.

The soul-principles are:

      the sentient-soul,
      the intellectual- or rational-soul,
      the consciousness-soul.

It is in the soul that the ego diffuses its light. Of a spiritual nature
are:

      the Spirit-Self,
      the Life-Spirit,
      the Spirit-Man.

It follows from what was said above that the sentient-soul and the astral
body are closely united and in a certain sense are one. Similarly, the
consciousness-soul and the Spirit-Self form a whole, for in the
consciousness-soul the spirit shines forth, and thence irradiates with its
light the other principles of the human being. Hence occult science also
speaks of man’s organization as follows. The intellectual-soul is simply
called the ego, because it partakes of the nature of the ego, and in a
certain sense is the ego, not yet conscious of its spiritual nature. We
thus have seven divisions of man:

      (1) physical body;
      (2) etheric or vital body;
      (3) astral body;
      (4) Ego;
      (5) Spirit-Self;
      (6) Life-Spirit;
      (7) Spirit-Man.

Even one accustomed to materialistic habits of thought would not find in
this sevenfold organization of man the “fanciful magic” often attributed
to the number seven, if one would only keep strictly to the meaning of the
above explanations without himself injecting arbitrarily the idea of
something magical into the matter. Occult science speaks of these seven
principles of man in exactly the same way, only from the standpoint of a
higher form of observation of the world, as allusion is commonly made to
the seven colours that make up white light, or to the seven notes of the
scale (the octave being regarded as a repetition of the keynote). As light
appears in seven colours, and sound in seven tones, so is the unity of
man’s nature manifested in the seven principles described. No more
superstition attaches to the number seven in the case of occult science
than when associated with the spectrum or with the scale.

On one occasion when these facts were put forward verbally, the objection
was made that the statement about the number seven does not apply to
colours, since there are others beyond the red and violet rays, invisible
to the eye. But even in this respect the comparison with colours holds
good, for, in fact, the human being expands beyond the physical body on
the one side, and beyond the Spirit-Man on the other; only to the methods
of spiritual observation of which occult science here speaks, are these
extensions of the human being “spiritually invisible,” just as the colours
beyond red and violet are physically invisible. This explanation becomes
necessary, because the opinion so easily arises that occult science does
not seriously apply itself to scientific thinking, but treats such matters
unscientifically. However, one who carefully considers the meaning of the
statements made by occult science will find that in reality it is never at
variance with genuine science; neither when it brings forward the facts of
natural science as illustrations, nor when its statements are directly
connected with natural research.





CHAPTER III. SLEEP AND DEATH


The nature of waking consciousness cannot be fathomed without observing
that condition which man experiences during sleep, and the problem of life
cannot be approached without studying death. Any one failing to perceive
the importance of occult science may distrust the manner in which it
studies sleep and death. Occult science is, however, capable of
appreciating the motives from which such distrust arises. For there is
nothing incomprehensible in the assertion that man exists for an active,
purposeful life, that his acts depend on his devotion thereto, and that
absorption in such conditions as sleep and death can result only from a
taste for idle dreaming, and can lead to nothing else than vain
imaginings.

The refusal to accept anything of so fantastic a nature may readily be
regarded as the expression of a sound mind, while indulgence in such “idle
dreaming” is accounted morbid, and a pursuit fit only for people in whom
the joy and ardour of life are lacking, and who are incapable of “real
work.” It would be wrong to set this assertion aside at once as an
injustice, for it contains a certain grain of truth. It is one quarter
truth, and must be completed by the remaining three quarters belonging to
it. Now if we dispute the one quarter which is right, with one who
recognizes that one quarter quite distinctly but who does not dream of the
other three quarters, we only rouse his suspicions. For it must be indeed
granted absolutely that the study of that which lies hidden in sleep and
death is morbid if it leads to weakness or to estrangement from real life.
No less must we admit that much of that which has always called itself
occult science in the world, and which is even now practised under that
name, bears the impression of what is unhealthy and hostile to life; but
this certainly does not spring from _genuine occult science_.

The real fact of the matter is this, that just as a man cannot always be
awake, so neither is he sufficiently equipped for the actual conditions of
life, in its entire range, without that which occult science has to offer
him. Life continues during sleep, and the forces which work and labour
during the waking state draw their strength and refreshment from that
which sleep gives them. It is thus with the things under our observation
in the manifested world. The boundaries of the world are wider than the
field of this observation; and what man recognizes in the visible must be
supplemented and fertilized by what he is able to know of the invisible
world. A man who did not continually renew his exhausted forces by sleep,
would bring his life to destruction; and in the same way a view of the
world which is not fertilized by a knowledge of the unseen, must lead to a
feeling of desolation.

It is similarly so with regard to death. Living creatures fall a prey to
death in order that new life may arise. It is occult science which throws
light on Goethe’s beautiful phrase: “Nature invented Death in order to
have much Life.” Just as in the ordinary sense there could be no life
without death, so can there be no real knowledge of the visible world
without insight into the invisible. All discernment of the visible must
plunge again and again into the invisible in order to develop. Thus it is
evident that occult science alone makes the life of revealed knowledge
possible. When it emerges in its true form it never enfeebles life, but
strengthens it and ever renews its freshness and health, when, left to its
own resources, it has become weak and diseased.

When a man sinks into sleep the connection between his principles changes,
as described earlier in this work. The part of the sleeping man which lies
upon his couch comprises the physical and etheric bodies, but not the
astral body and not the ego. It is because the etheric body remains bound
to the physical body in sleep that the life-activities continue. For the
moment the physical body is left to itself, it must of necessity fall into
decay. The things that are extinguished in sleep are ideas, pain,
pleasure, joy, grief, the ability to express conscious will, and similar
facts of existence. But the astral body is the vehicle of all these
things. That the astral body, with all its joy and sorrow, its realm of
thought and will, is annihilated in sleep is an opinion that cannot be
entertained by an unbiased judgment; it exists still, but in another
condition. In order that the human ego and the astral body may not only be
endowed with pleasure and pain and all the other things we have named, but
also have a conscious perception of them, it is necessary that the astral
body should be united with the physical and etheric bodies. This is the
case during waking life, but not in sleep. The astral body has withdrawn
itself from the other bodies. It has adopted another kind of existence
than that which it possesses while united with the physical and etheric
bodies. Now it is the task of occult science to study this other kind of
existence in the astral body. During sleep, the astral body withdraws from
the possibility of external observation and occult science must trace it
in its hidden life, until it again takes possession of its physical and
etheric bodies on waking.

As in all cases when knowledge of the hidden things and events of life
have to be dealt with, clairvoyant observation is necessary for the
discovery of the real facts of the sleep state in its true nature, but if
that which may be discovered by this means has once been made clear, it is
comprehensible to really unprejudiced thought without further
demonstration. For events in the unseen world show themselves by their
effects in the manifested world. If what is revealed by clairvoyant vision
is an explanation of visible events, such a confirmation by life itself is
the proof which may rightly be demanded. Even one who will not use the
means to be given later for the attainment of clairvoyant vision, may have
the following experience: he may, in the first place, take the statements
of the clairvoyant for granted, and then apply them to the material events
within his experience. He will then find that life thereby becomes clear
and comprehensible; and the more exact and minute his observations of
ordinary life, the more readily will he come to this conclusion.

Even though the astral body during sleep passes through no experiences,
though it is not conscious of pleasure, pain, and the like, it does not
remain inactive. On the contrary, it is a fact that active work is its
function in the sleep state. For it is the astral body which strengthens
and recuperates man’s forces, exhausted during waking life. As long as the
astral body is united with the physical and etheric bodies it is related
to the outer world through these two bodies. They convey to it perceptions
and representations. Through the impressions which they receive from their
surroundings, it experiences pleasure and pain. Now the physical body can
be preserved in the form and shape suitable to the individual only by
means of the human etheric body. But this human form can be preserved only
by an etheric body which on its part receives corresponding forces from
the astral body. The etheric body is the builder, the architect, of the
physical body. It can, however, construct in the true sense only when it
receives from the astral body the impulse as to the manner in which it
must build. In this latter are contained the models, according to which
the etheric body gives the physical body its form. During our waking hours
these models for the physical body are not present in the astral body, or,
at least, only to a certain extent. For in waking life the soul replaces
these models with its own images. When a person directs his senses upon
his environment he thus creates in his ideas pictures which are copies of
the world around him. In fact these copies at first disturb the prototypes
which give the etheric body the impulse to preserve the physical body.
Such disturbance could not be present if a man, by virtue of his own
activity, could convey to his astral body those pictures which would give
the right impulse to the etheric body. Yet this very disturbance plays an
important part in human life, and is able to express itself because the
models for the etheric body do not come into full play in the waking life.
This fact is revealed by “fatigue.” Now, during sleep, no external
impressions disturb the force of the astral body. Therefore in this
condition it can expel fatigue. The work of the astral body during sleep
consists in removing fatigue, and it can accomplish this only by leaving
the physical and etheric bodies. During waking life the astral body does
its work within the physical body; during sleep it works on the latter
from without.

For instance, just as the physical body has need of the outer world, which
is of like substance with itself, for its supply of food, something of the
same kind takes place in the case of the astral body. Let us imagine a
physical human body removed from the surrounding world: it would die. That
shows that physical life is an impossibility without the entire physical
environment. In fact, the whole earth must be just as it is if physical
human bodies are to exist upon it. For, in reality, the whole human body
is only a part of the earth,—indeed, in a wider sense, part of the whole
physical universe. In this respect it is related in the same sense as, for
example, the finger of a hand to the entire human body. Separate the
finger from the hand and it cannot remain a finger: it withers away. Such
would also be the fate of the human body were it removed from that body of
which it is a member,—from the conditions of life with which the earth
provides it. Let it be raised above the surface of the earth but a
sufficient number of miles and it will perish as the finger perishes when
cut off from the hand. If this fact is less apparent in the case of a
man’s physical organism than in that of his finger and his body, it is
merely because the finger cannot walk about on the body as man is able to
do on the earth, and because on that account the dependence of the former
is more obvious.

In the same way that the physical body is embedded in the physical world
to which it belongs, so does the astral body form a part of its own world,
only it is torn out of it in waking life. We can form a clear idea of what
happens by having recourse to an analogy. Imagine a vessel filled with
water. No one drop is a separate thing in itself within that entire mass
of water. But let us take a little sponge and with it suck up a single
drop from the whole mass of water. Something of this kind happens to the
human astral body on awaking. During sleep it is in a world resembling its
own nature. In a certain sense it forms part of it. On awaking, the
physical and etheric bodies suck it up: they absorb it; they contain the
organs through which it perceives the outer world. In order to achieve
this perception it has to leave its own world, for it is in that world
alone that it can receive the models which it needs for the etheric body.

Just as food is supplied to the physical body from its surroundings, so
are the pictures of the world surrounding the astral body presented to it
during the state of sleep. There, indeed, it lives in the universe, beyond
the physical and etheric bodies: in that same universe out of which the
whole man is born. The source of the images by means of which man receives
his form is in this universe. He is linked in harmony with it; and when he
awakens he rises above the surface of this all-pervading harmony to attain
external perception. In sleep his astral body returns to the universal
harmony. He brings so much strength from it to his bodies on awaking that
he can once more dispense for a time with sojourning in the realm of
harmony. The astral body returns during sleep to its home, and, on
awaking, brings back into life freshly invigorated forces. That which the
astral body thus gains, and brings with it on waking, finds its outer
expression in the refreshment afforded by sound sleep.

Further exposition of occult science will show that this home of the
astral body is more extensive than that which belongs to the physical body
in the narrower sense of the physical environment. Thus, while man as a
physical being is a member of this earth, his astral body belongs to
worlds in which other heavenly bodies besides our earth are included.
During sleep, therefore,—(this can be made clear, as we have said, only by
further explanations)—it enters a world to which other stars than the
earth belong. In recognition of the fact that man lives during sleep in a
world of stars, that is, in an astral world, occult science calls that
principle of man which has its real home in that “astral” world and which,
every time it returns to the sleep state, draws renewed force from that
world, the _astral body_.

It should be superfluous to point out that a misunderstanding might easily
arise with regard to these facts; in our time, however, when certain
materialistic modes of representation exist, it becomes quite necessary to
draw attention to them. In quarters where such representation prevails it
may, of course, be said that such a thing as fatigue can be scientifically
investigated only in accordance with physical conditions. Even if the
learned are not yet unanimous with regard to the physical cause of
fatigue, one thing is quite firmly established; we must accept certain
physical processes which lie at the root of this phenomenon. It would be
well, however, if it were recognized that occult science does not in any
way oppose this assertion. It admits everything that is said in this
connection, just as it is admitted that for the physical erection of a
house one brick must be laid upon another, and that when the house is
finished its form and construction can be explained by purely mechanical
laws. But the thought of the architect is necessary for the building of
the house. This cannot be discovered merely by examination of physical
laws.

Just as the thought of the creator of a house stands behind the physical
laws which make it explicable, so too, behind what is affirmed, with
perfect accuracy by physical science, stands that of which occult science
treats. This comparison is of course often put forward when the
justification for a spiritual background to the world is in question; and
it may be considered a trivial one. But what is important in such matters
is not familiarity with certain conceptions, but that the proper weight
should be given them in establishing a fact. One may be prevented from
doing this simply because contrary ideas have so much power over the
judgment that this weight is not felt.

Dreaming is an intermediate state between sleeping and waking. What dream
experiences offer to thoughtful observation is the many-coloured
interweaving of a picture-world, which nevertheless conceals within itself
some sort of law and order. At first this world seems to have an ebb and
flow, often in confused succession. Man in his dream-life is set free from
the laws of waking consciousness which bind him to sense-perception and
the laws of reason. And yet dreams have some sort of mysterious law,
attractive and fascinating to human speculation, and this is the deeper
reason why the beautiful play of imagination lying at the root of artistic
feeling is always apt to be compared to dreaming. We need only recall a
few characteristic dreams to find this corroborated. A man dreams, for
example, that he is driving off a dog that is attacking him. He wakes, and
finds himself in the act of unconsciously pushing off part of the
bedclothes which had been lying on an unaccustomed part of his body and
which had therefore become oppressive. What is it that dream-life makes,
in this instance, out of an incident perceptible to the senses? In the
first place, it leaves in complete unconsciousness what the senses would
perceive in the waking state. But it holds fast to something
essential—namely, the fact that the man wishes to repel something; and
round about this it weaves a metaphorical occurrence.

The pictures, as such, are echoes of waking life. There is something
arbitrary in the way in which they are drawn from it. Every one feels that
the same external cause may conjure up various dream-pictures. But they
give symbolic expression to the feeling that one has something to ward
off. The dream creates symbols; it is a symbolist. Inner experiences can
also be transformed into such dream-symbols. A man dreams that a fire is
crackling beside him; he sees flames in his dream. He wakes up feeling
that he is too heavily covered and has become too warm. The feeling of too
great warmth expresses itself symbolically in the picture. Quite dramatic
experiences may be enacted in a dream. For example, some one dreams that
he is standing on the edge of a precipice. He sees a child running toward
it. The dream makes him experience all the tortures of the thought—if only
the child will not be heedless and fall over into the abyss! He sees it
fall, and hears the dull thud of the body below. He awakes, and perceives
that an object which had been hanging on the wall of the room has become
unfastened, and made a dull sound by its fall. This simple event is
expressed in dream-life by one which unravels itself in exciting pictures.
For the present it is not at all necessary to engage in reflection as to
the reason why, in the last example, the moment of the falling of a heavy
object expresses itself in a series of events which seem to spread
themselves over a certain length of time; it is only necessary to keep in
view that the dream transforms into a picture that which would present
itself to the waking sense-perception.

We see that the moment the senses cease their activity, creative power
asserts itself in man. It is the same creative power which is present in
absolutely dreamless sleep, and at that time recuperates man’s exhausted
forces. For this dreamless sleep to take place, the astral body must be
withdrawn from the etheric and physical bodies. During the dream-state it
is so far separated from the physical body as to have no further
connection with the organs of sense; but it still maintains a certain
connection with the etheric body. The capacity for perceiving the
experiences of the astral body by means of pictures is due to this
connection which it maintains with the etheric body. The moment this
connection also ceases, the pictures sink into the obscurity of
unconsciousness and dreamless sleep has set in.

The arbitrary and often nonsensical element in dream-pictures arises from
the fact that the astral body cannot, on account of its separation from
the sense-organs of the physical body, relate its pictures to the correct
objects and events of the outer environment. It is especially
illuminating, in this matter, to examine a dream in which the ego is, as
it were, split up; as, for example in the case of a person who dreams that
he is a schoolboy and cannot answer the propounded question, while
immediately afterward as the teacher, he himself answers it. The dreamer,
being unable to make use of his physical organs of perception, is not able
to connect both occurrences with himself, as the same individual.
Therefore, in order to recognize himself also as a permanent ego, man must
first be equipped with outer organs of perception. Only when he has
acquired the faculty of self-consciousness without the aid of such organs
will the permanent ego also become perceptible to him outside his physical
body. Clairvoyant consciousness has to acquire this faculty, and the
method of doing so will be treated in detail later in this work.

Even death takes place for no other cause than a change in the connection
of the principles of man’s being. And what is visible to clairvoyant
observation with regard to death may also be seen in its effects in the
manifested world; in this case also, an unbiased judgment will find the
teachings of occult science confirmed by observing external life. The
expression of the invisible in the visible is, however, less evident with
regard to these facts, and there is greater difficulty in feeling the full
importance of that which in the events of outer life endorses the
statements of occult science in this domain. These statements may be
supposed to be mere pictures of fancy, even more readily than many other
things that have been dealt with in this work, if we shut ourselves off
from the knowledge that everywhere in the visible is contained an
unmistakable foreshadowing of the invisible.

On the approach of sleep, only the astral body is released from its
connection with the etheric and physical bodies, which still remain
united, whereas at death the separation of the physical from the etheric
body takes place. The physical body is abandoned to its own forces, and
must therefore disintegrate as a corpse. At death the etheric body finds
itself in a condition in which it has never been before during the time
between birth and death,—with the exception of certain abnormal conditions
to be dealt with later. That is to say, it is now united with the astral
body in the absence of the physical body; for the etheric and astral
bodies do not separate immediately after death: they are held together for
a time by the agency of a force the presence of which can be easily
understood; for were this force not present the etheric body could not
detach itself from the physical body. It would remain bound to the latter,
as is shown in the case of sleep, when the astral body is not able to rend
asunder these two principles of man’s being. This force comes into action
at death. It releases the etheric from the physical body, so that the
former remains united to the astral body. Clairvoyant observation shows
that this connection varies with different people after death. The time of
its duration is measured by days. For the present, this period of time is
mentioned only for the sake of information.

Subsequently, the astral body is also released from the etheric body and
goes on its way alone. During the union of the two bodies, the individual
is in a state which enables him to be aware of the experiences of his
astral body. As long as the physical body is there, the work of
reinforcing the wasted organs has to be begun from without, as soon as the
astral body is liberated from it. When once the physical body is
separated, this work ceases. Nevertheless, the force which was expended in
this way while the man was asleep, continues after death and can now be
applied to some other end. It is now used for making the astral body’s own
experiences perceptible. During his connection with his physical body the
outer world enters man’s consciousness in images; after the body has been
laid aside, that which is experienced by the astral body, when it is no
longer connected with sense organs, with this outer physical world,
becomes perceptible. At first it has no new experiences. Its connection
with the etheric body prevents it from experiencing anything new.

What, however, it does possess, is _memory_ of its past life. The etheric
body still being present causes that past life to appear as a vivid and
comprehensive panorama. That is man’s first experience after death. He
sees his life from birth to death spread out before him in a series of
pictures. Memory is only present in the waking state, when during life man
is united with his physical body, and it is present only to the extent
allowed by that body. Nothing is lost to the soul that has made an
impression on it during life. Were the physical body a perfect instrument
for the purpose, it would be possible, at any moment during life, to
conjure up the whole of the past before the eyes of the soul. At death
there is no longer any obstacle to this. As long as the etheric body
remains, there exists a certain degree of perfection of memory. But this
disappears according to the degree in which the etheric body loses the
form which it possessed while united with the physical body, and which
resembles that body. This is the very reason why the astral body
separates, after a time, from the etheric body. It can remain united with
the latter only so long as the form of the etheric body corresponds with
that of the physical body.

During the period of life between birth and death, separation of the
etheric body occurs only in exceptional cases, and for no longer than a
brief space of time. If, for example, a man exposes one of his limbs to
pressure, part of his etheric body may become separated from the physical
one. We say on such occasion that the limb has “gone to sleep,” and the
peculiar sensation we feel results from the separation of the etheric
body. (Of course a materialistic manner of explanation may here again deny
the invisible behind the visible and say: all this arises merely from the
physical disturbance caused by the pressure.) Clairvoyant vision can see
in such a case, how the corresponding part of the etheric body extends
beyond the physical limb. Now if a man experiences an unusual shock, or
something similar, such a separation of the etheric body from a large part
of the physical body may result, for a short time. That is the case when a
man, for some reason or other, is suddenly brought face to face with
death,—for example when drowning, or threatened by a fatal accident when
mountaineering. What is related by people who have had such experiences
comes, in fact, very near the truth, and can be ratified by clairvoyant
observation. They declare that in such moments their whole lives pass
before their minds as though in a huge memory-picture.

Out of the many examples which might here be adduced, allusion will be
made to one only, because it originates from a man whose mode of thought
would make everything said here about such things seem pure fancy.(5)
Moriz Benedict, the distinguished criminal anthropologist and eminent
investigator in many other realms of natural science, relates in his
_Reminiscences_ an experience of his own,—to the effect that once, when on
the point of drowning in a bath he had seen his whole life pass before his
memory as though in a single picture. If other people describe differently
the pictures seen by them under similar circumstances, and even in such a
way that they seem to have little to do with the events of their past
life, that does not contradict what has been said; for the pictures which
arise in the quiet abnormal condition during the separation from the
physical body are sometimes at first sight, unintelligible in their
relation to life. Correct observation, however, would always recognize
this relationship.

Neither is it an objection if, for example, some one who was once on the
point of drowning did not experience what has been described; for it must
be borne in mind that this can happen only when the etheric body is really
separated from the physical body,—when, moreover, the former is still
united with the astral body. If, through the fright, a loosening of the
etheric and astral bodies also takes place, the experience is not
forthcoming, because then complete unconsciousness ensues, as in dreamless
sleep.

Immediately after death the events of the past appear as though compressed
by the memory into a picture. After its separation from the etheric body,
the astral body pursues its further wanderings alone. It is not difficult
to realize that everything continues to exist which, by means of its
activity, the astral body has made its own during its sojourn in the
physical body. The ego has to a certain extent elaborated the Spirit-Self,
the Life-Spirit, and the Spirit-Man. As far as these are developed, they
do not owe their existence to the organs present in the different bodies,
but to the ego; and it is precisely this ego which needs no outer organs
for perception; nor does it require any such organs in order to retain
possession of what it has made one with itself. It might be objected: “Why
then is there no perception during sleep of the developed Spirit-Self,
Life-Spirit, and Spirit-Man?” For this reason that the ego is chained to
the physical body between birth and death. Even though, during sleep, it
is out of the physical body with the astral body it nevertheless remains
closely connected with the physical body; for the activity of the astral
body is directed toward the physical body. On this account the ego is
relegated to the outer world of sense for its observations, and cannot
receive spiritual revelations in their direct form. Not until death do
these revelations come within reach of the ego, because by means of death
the ego is freed from its connection with the physical and etheric bodies.
Another world may flash upon the consciousness the moment it is withdrawn
from the physical world which during life monopolizes its activity.

Now there are reasons why even at this juncture all connection with the
outer physical world of sense does not cease for man. That is to say,
certain desires remain which sustain the connection. There are desires
which man creates just because he is conscious of his ego as the fourth
principle of his being. These desires and wishes, springing from the
existence of his three lower bodies, can operate only in the external
world, and cease to operate when these bodies are cast aside. Hunger is
caused by the external body; as soon as that external body is no longer
connected with the ego, hunger ceases. Now, had the ego no further desires
than those springing from its own spiritual nature, it might at death draw
full satisfaction from the spiritual world into which it is transplanted.
But life has given it other desires as well. It has kindled in it a
longing for pleasures only to be enjoyed by means of physical organs,
although these pleasures themselves do not originate in the nature of
those organs. It is not only the three bodies which demand gratification
from the physical world, but the ego itself finds pleasures in that world,
for the enjoyment of which there exist no means whatever, in the spiritual
world.

During life the ego has two kinds of desires: those that spring from the
bodies and must therefore be gratified within the bodies, but which must
also come to an end with their disintegration; and those that arise from
the spiritual nature of the ego. As long as the ego lives in the bodies,
those cravings are satisfied by means of the bodily organs. For in the
manifestations of the bodily organs the hidden spiritual element is at
work, and the senses receive something spiritual as well, in everything of
which they are cognizant. That spiritual element is also present after
death, although in a different form. Everything spiritual that the ego
longs for while in the world of sense, it still possesses when the senses
are no longer there.

Now if a third kind of wish were not added to these two, death would mean
only a transition from desires which may be satisfied through the senses
to such as are fulfilled by the revelation of the spiritual world. The
third kind of desire is that which is created by the ego during life in
the sense-world, because it finds pleasure in that world, even when no
spiritual element is revealed in it. The humblest pleasures may be
manifestations of the spirit. The satisfaction afforded a starving
creature by taking food is a manifestation of the spirit, for by taking
food something is thereupon brought about without which, in a certain
sense, the spiritual nature could not develop. But the ego can go beyond
the pleasure, which in this case is the outcome of necessity. It may even
long for the delicious food quite apart from the service rendered to the
spirit by taking nourishment.

It is the same with other things in the sense-world. Desires are created
in this way which would never have appeared in the sense-world if the
human ego had not been incorporated in it. Neither do such desires arise
from the spiritual nature of the ego. The ego must have pleasures of the
senses as long as it lives in the body, even though it be for the very
reason that its own nature is spiritual. For the spirit manifests in
material things, and the ego is enjoying nothing less than spirit when it
surrenders itself to that element in the sense-world which is irradiated
by the light of the spirit. Moreover, it will continue to enjoy this light
even when the senses are no longer the medium through which the spiritual
rays pass. But there is no fulfillment possible in the spiritual world for
desires in which the spirit is not living even in the world of the senses.

When death takes place, the possibility of gratifying desires of this
description is cut off. Pleasure in good things to eat can be induced only
by the presence of the physical organs required for their consumption,—the
palate, tongue, and so forth; but when man has laid aside his physical
body he no longer possesses these organs. If, however, the ego still
craves that kind of pleasure the craving must remain unsatisfied. As long
as this pleasure corresponds to the spiritual need, it is caused only by
the presence of the physical organs; but should it happen that the ego has
created the desire without serving the spirit in so doing, it retains it
after death in the form of a craving which thirsts in vain for
gratification. We can form an idea of what man then experiences only by
imagining some one suffering from burning thirst in a region where, far
and wide, there is no water to be found. This is the predicament of the
ego after death, as long as it retains ungratified desires for the
pleasures of the outer world, and has no organs by means of which to
satisfy them. Of course the burning thirst, serving as a comparison for
the condition of the ego after death, must be thought of as enormously
increased, and it must be imagined as extending to all desires still
existing, for which all possibility of gratification is lacking.

The next condition of the ego consists in freeing itself from this bond of
attraction to the outer world. With regard to this world, it has to attain
purification and liberation. It must be cleansed of all wishes which it
has created while in the body, and which have no native rights in the
spiritual world. As an object is caught and burned up by fire, so is the
world of desire, described above, broken up and destroyed after death. A
vista is then opened into that world which occult science calls the
“consuming fire” of the spirit. This fire seizes upon desires of a sensual
nature which however are not rooted in the spirit. Revelations of this
kind which occult science is bound to make with regard to such events may
appear hopeless and terrible. It may seem a fearful thing that a hope for
the realization of which sense-organs are required, should after death be
transformed into despair, and that a wish that can be fulfilled only by
the physical world should be changed into torturing deprivation. Yet we
can hold such an opinion only as long as we fail to realize that the
wishes and desires seized by the “consuming fire” after death do not, in a
higher sense, represent forces beneficial to life but destructive to it.

By means of these forces the ego binds itself to the sense-world more
closely than is necessary, in order to draw from it all the experience it
requires. For the sense-world is a manifestation of the hidden and
spiritual world which lies behind it; and the ego could never attain
spiritual happiness through the bodily senses, which are the only form in
which the spiritual can be manifested, unless it utilized the senses to
seek the spiritual element in sense-experience. Nevertheless, the ego
loses sight of the true spiritual reality in the physical world to such an
extent that it experiences sensual desires irrespective of the needs of
the spirit. If sense pleasure, as the expression of the spirit, serves to
raise and develop the ego, any pleasure which is not an expression of the
spirit warps and impoverishes it. Even though such a desire finds the
means of its gratification in the sense-world, still its destructive
effect upon the ego is thereby in no way diminished; but it is not until
after death that its disastrous effects become apparent.

For this reason a man may, by gratifying such desires, create, during his
life, new and similar desires, wholly unaware that he is enveloping
himself in a “consuming fire.” What becomes visible to him after death is
only what already surrounded him during his life, and by thus becoming
visible it at once appears in its salutary and beneficent effect. A human
being who loves another is certainly not attracted merely by that part of
him which is perceptible to the physical senses—the only part which is cut
off from observation after death—but after death, just that part of the
dear one then becomes visible for the perception of which the physical
organs were only the means. The one thing, in fact, which would prevent a
man from beholding his friend clearly is the presence of desires which can
be satisfied only by means of physical organs. Unless these desires are
extinguished, he can have no conscious perception of his friend after
death. When looked at in this light, the terrible and hopeless character
which after-death experiences might assume for man, according to the
descriptions given by occult science, becomes changed into one which is
thoroughly satisfying and consoling.

Now the first after-death experiences differ entirely in yet another
respect from those during life. During the time of purification man lives,
as it were, backwards. He lives over again the whole span of his life
since birth; beginning with the events immediately preceding his death,
and reversing the order of his experiences, he goes through them again
until he reaches back to childhood. In this process he sees with
spiritually enlightened eyes all those things which were not inspired by
the spiritual nature of the ego, with the difference that he now
experiences these things in reverse order.

For instance, a man who died in his sixtieth year, and who at the age of
forty had, in an outburst of anger, caused some one either physical or
mental pain, will go through this experience again when, on the return
journey of existence after death, he reaches that point in his fortieth
year; but now he does not experience the satisfaction which his attack had
afforded him during life; instead, he experiences the pain which he
inflicted upon the other man. It may at once be seen, however, that
whatever pain he feels in the after-death experience is caused by a desire
of the ego arising only from the outer physical world; in reality the ego
does not only injure another by the indulgence of such a desire, but it
also injures itself; although the injury to itself is not apparent during
life.

After death, however, the whole of the harmful world of desires becomes
visible to the ego, which then feels attracted toward every being or
object which had kindled the desire, in order that this may be destroyed
in the “consuming fire” by the same means that created it. When man, on
his return journey, reaches the moment of his birth, then only have all
such desires been purged in the purifying flames, and henceforth nothing
remains to hinder him from devoting himself entirely to the spiritual
world. He enters upon a new phase of existence. In the same way that he
laid aside his physical body at death and, soon afterward, his etheric
body, so does that part of his astral body dissolve which can only live in
the consciousness of the outer physical world.

Occult science, therefore, recognizes three corpses,—the physical,
etheric, and astral. The period at which the last is cast off by man is
marked by the time of purification, which amounts to about one third of
the time elapsed between birth and death. The reason why this is so can
only be explained later, when the course of human life is examined from
the standpoint of occult science. To clairvoyant observation, astral
corpses, which have been cast off by human beings passing from the state
of purification into a higher existence, are constantly visible in the
world surrounding man, in exactly the same way that physical corpses, in
places inhabited by men, are apparent to physical observation.(6)

After purification an entirely new state of consciousness begins for the
ego. Whereas before death the outer perceptions must flow to the ego, in
order that upon these perceptions the light of consciousness might be able
to fall, so now in like manner from within, streams a world which attains
consciousness. The ego is living in this world also between birth and
death; only then this world is clothed in the manifestations of the
senses. It is only when the ego, freed from all the ties of sense, turns
inward to behold its own “holy of holies,” that its true innermost nature,
which had hitherto been obscured by the senses, is revealed to it. In the
same way that the ego is recognized inwardly before death, so, after death
and purification, is the spiritual life inwardly revealed to it in all its
fulness. This revelation really takes place immediately after the etheric
body is laid aside; but it is obscured by the dark cloud of desires turned
toward the outer world. It is as though a world of spiritual bliss were
invaded by black demoniacal phantoms, caused by those desires which are
being destroyed by the “consuming fire.” Indeed, these desires are not
mere phantoms, but real entities, which become apparent immediately after
the ego is deprived of physical organs, and is thus able to discern those
things which are of a spiritual nature. These entities have the appearance
of distorted caricatures of the objects with which the individual had
formerly become acquainted through his senses.

Clairvoyant observation shows that this place of purging fire is peopled
by beings whose appearance may well seem horrifying and painful to
spiritual vision, whose pleasure seems to consist in destruction, and
whose passions impel them to evil-doing of such a description that the
evil of the physical world seems insignificant in comparison. Whatever
desires of the kind described above are brought into that world by man,
are looked upon by these beings as food, by means of which their powers
are continually strengthened and invigorated.

The picture thus sketched of a world imperceptible to the senses may seem
less incredible if we look with an unprejudiced eye on part of the animal
world. What is a fierce, devouring wolf, from a spiritual point of view?
What does it reveal to us through that which our senses perceive? Nothing
else than a soul that lives in desires, and acts by desire. The external
form of the wolf may be called an embodiment of those desires; and if man
had no organs with which to perceive that form, if its desires appeared
invisibly in their effects,—if, therefore, a force invisible to the eye
were prowling about, and might be the cause of all that happened through
the visible wolf,—he would still be forced to recognize the existence of a
creature corresponding to it. Now the beings of the region of purifying
fire are not visible to the physical eye, but to clairvoyant sight only;
but their effects are clearly apparent. They bring about the destruction
of the ego when it gives them nourishment. These effects are clearly
visible if what began as a pleasure leads to excess and debauchery.

For even what is perceptible to the senses would attract the ego only in
so far as the pleasure had its root in the ego’s own nature. The animal is
prompted by desire for that in the outer world which its three bodies
crave. Man has higher enjoyments, because to the three principles of his
bodily nature is added the fourth, the ego. But if the ego seeks a
gratification which does not tend toward the maintenance and development
of its nature but to its destruction, then such a craving can be neither
the effect of its three bodies, nor that of its own nature, but can only
be caused by beings, concealed from the senses in their true form, but
able furtively to approach that higher nature of the ego, and excite in it
desires which, though it is cut off from the senses, can still be
satisfied only by means of sense-organs.

For there are beings which feed on passions and desires of a worse kind
than those of an animal nature, because they do not expend themselves on
objects of the senses but seize upon the spiritual element and drag it
down to a sensual level. Therefore the forms of such beings are more
hideous, more horrible, to spiritual sight than are the forms of the
fiercest animals, in which after all only passions rooted in the senses
are incarnated. And the destructive forces of these beings immeasurably
surpass any destructive rage existing in the animal world as perceived by
the senses. Occult science must in this way enlarge man’s view so as to
include a world of beings standing, in a certain respect, lower than the
visibly destructive animal world.

When man has passed through the world of purification after death, he
finds himself in a world the contents of which are spiritual, and which
also creates in him longings which can be satisfied only by spiritual
things. But even now man distinguishes between that which properly belongs
to his ego and what forms the environment of that ego—one might say, its
spiritual outer world. Only that, of which he becomes sensible in this
environment, pours in upon him in the same way that the perception of his
own ego poured in upon him during his sojourn in the body. Whereas man’s
environment in the life between birth and death speaks to him through his
bodily organs, after death when all the bodies are laid aside the language
of his new environment penetrates directly into the innermost sanctuary of
the ego. Man’s whole environment is now filled with beings of a like
nature with his ego, for only an ego has access to an ego. Just as
minerals, plants, and animals surround man in the sense-world, and compose
it, so, after death, is he surrounded by a world composed of beings of a
spiritual nature.

Yet he takes something with him into this world which is not part of his
environment there; it is what the ego has experienced in the world of the
senses. First of all, the sum of these experiences appeared, as a
comprehensive memory-picture, immediately after death, while the etheric
body was still united to the ego. The etheric body itself is then, indeed,
laid aside, but something of the memory-picture remains with the ego as an
everlasting possession. Just as though an extract or essence were made out
of all the events and experiences which a man encounters between birth and
death, so might we describe that which is left behind. It is the spiritual
product of life, its fruit. This product is of a spiritual nature. It
contains everything spiritual which is revealed through the senses, yet
this spiritual treasure could not have been gathered save by life in the
sense-world.

This spiritual fruit of the sense-world becomes after death the ego’s own
inner world. With it the ego enters a world, which consists of beings who
reveal themselves in the same and only manner in which man in his
innermost depths, can become conscious of his own ego. As a plant seed,
which is the essence of the whole plant, grows only when buried in another
world, the earth, so now that which the ego brings from the sense-world
gradually unfolds itself as a seed under the influence of the spiritual
environment in which it has been planted. Occult science can, of course,
only portray in pictures what happens in this “spirit-world;” still those
pictures present themselves as absolute reality to the clairvoyant’s
sight, when he investigates invisible happenings, corresponding to those
which are visible to the physical eye. Whatever of that world can be
described, may be visualized by comparison with the world of the senses
for although it is of a purely spiritual nature, it nevertheless resembles
the physical world in certain respects. Just as, for instance, in the
physical world, a color appears when some object impresses the eye, so in
the spirit-world a color appears to the ego when a being acts upon it. But
this latter phenomenon is perceived in the same manner as the ego can be
perceived inwardly between birth and death. It is not as though the light
outside fell within upon the man, but as though another being directly
affected the ego, causing the latter to picture this influence in a
colour-form.

Thus do all things in the spiritual environment of the ego find expression
in a world of coloured rays. As their origin is of a different kind, it
goes without saying that these colours of the spiritual world are also of
a somewhat different character from physical colours. A similar thing is
true of other impressions received by man in the world of sense. But it is
the sounds of the spiritual world that most nearly resemble the
impressions of the sense-world; and the more at home a man becomes in the
spiritual world, the more he realizes it as a life of self-determined
motion, which may be compared with the sounds, and the harmony of sounds,
of the physical world. Only he does not feel the tones as something
approaching an organ from outside, but as a force streaming forth into the
outer world through his ego. He feels the sound just as in the sense-world
he feels his own speech or song, only he knows that in the spiritual world
these sounds, streaming out from him, are at the same time the
manifestations of other beings, who are pouring themselves into the world
through him.

A still higher manifestation takes place in the spirit-land when the sound
becomes the “spiritual word.” Then there streams through the ego not only
the pulsing life of another spiritual being, but such a being itself
communicates its own inner nature to the ego; and then, when the spiritual
word streams through the ego, two beings live in one another, without that
separating element which every companionship in the sense-world must carry
with it. And this is really the nature of the communion of the ego with
other spiritual beings after death.

There are three regions in the spiritual world, which may be compared to
the three divisions of the physical sense-world. The first region is in a
certain respect the “solid land” of the spiritual world, the second the
“sphere of ocean and river,” and the third the “atmospheric region.” That
which assumes physical form on earth, so that it can be perceived by
physical organs, in accordance with its spiritual nature, is to be seen in
the first region of the spirit-world. There, for instance, may be seen the
force that fashions the form of a crystal. Only what is there revealed is
the opposite of that which appears in the sense-world. In that world the
space which is filled by a mass of rock appears to spiritual sight as a
kind of hollow space; but round about this hollow is seen the force which
fashions the form of the rock. The colour of the rock in the sense-world
appears in the spiritual world as its complementary colour; thus a red
stone is green when seen from the spirit-world, a green stone is red, and
so on. Other qualities also appear in their opposites. Just as stone,
masses of earth, and like materials make up the solid land—the continental
region of the world of sense—so do the structures described above compose
the solid land of the spiritual world.

All that is life in the sense-world belongs to the ocean-region of the
spiritual world. To the physical eye, life appears in its effects in
plants, animals, and men. To spiritual vision, life is a flowing
substance, like oceans and rivers, diffused through the spirit-world. A
still better comparison is that of the circulation of the blood in the
body; for whereas seas and rivers are seen to be irregularly distributed
in the physical world, a certain regularity in distribution of the flowing
life reigns in the spirit-world, as in the circulation of the blood. This
“flowing life” is simultaneously heard as spiritual sound.

The third region of the spirit-world is its “atmosphere.” What is known in
the physical world as “feeling” is also present there, permeating
everything like the air on the earth. We must imagine a rushing sea of
feeling. Pain and sorrow, joy and rapture, flow through this region, like
wind and storms in the atmosphere of the physical world. Imagine a battle
fought on earth. There confront one another not merely human forms, as
seen by the physical eye, but feelings opposed to feelings, passions to
passions; pain fills the battlefield just as much as do the forms of men.
All that is seething there of passion, pain, and the joy of victory is not
only perceptible in its effects as revealed to the physical senses; it may
be seen with the spiritual senses as an atmospheric process in the
spirit-world. Such an event in the spiritual world is like a thunderstorm
in the physical, and the perception of these events may be compared to the
hearing of words in the physical world. For this reason it is said that as
the air envelops and permeates earthly things, so do “interweaving
spiritual words” pervade the beings and events of the spirit-world.

And still further observations are possible in this spirit-world. What may
be compared to light and heat in the physical world is there too. That
which permeates everything in the spirit-world, as earthly things and
beings are permeated by heat, is the world of thought itself. There,
however, thoughts must be regarded as living and independent beings. What
is understood by man in the manifested world as thought is but a shadow of
what lives as a thought-being in the spirit-world. Imagine thought, as it
now exists in man, raised out of him and as an active, energetic being,
endowed with an inner life of its own, and you have a feeble illustration
of that which fills the fourth region of the spirit-world. In the physical
world between birth and death what man understands as thought is but the
manifestation of the thought-world as it is able to mould itself by means
of the instruments afforded by the bodies. All such thoughts cherished by
man, that carry with them an enrichment of the physical world have their
origin in this region. By such thoughts are meant not only the ideas of
great inventors and men of genius; but those ideas found in every
individual which he does not owe solely to the external world, but through
which he, so to speak, transforms that world.

In so far as feelings and passions are concerned, the cause of which lies
in the outer world, these feelings are perceptible in the third region of
the spirit-world; but everything which so lives in a man’s soul as to make
him a creator,—influencing, transforming and fertilizing his
environment,—is manifest in its original and intrinsic form in the fourth
division of the spirit-world.

That which exists in the fifth region may be compared to physical light.
In its archetypal form it is wisdom in manifestation. Beings who diffuse
wisdom throughout their surroundings, as the sun pours light on physical
beings, belong to this realm. Whatever is illuminated by their wisdom
stands forth in its true meaning and significance for the spiritual world,
just as the colour of a physical object is seen when the light falls upon
it. There are still higher regions of the spirit-world, which will be
described later in this work.

Into this world the ego is plunged after death, together with the results
it carries with it out of physical life. And these results are still
united with that part of the astral body which is not cast off at the end
of the time of purification. In fact, only that part falls away which, in
its desires and wishes, turned, after death, toward physical life. The
plunging of the ego into the spiritual world, with what it has acquired in
the physical world, may be compared to the planting of a grain of seed in
the soil in which it can mature. As the grain of seed draws substances and
forces from its surroundings in order that it may develop into a new
plant, so the condition of the ego, when implanted in the spiritual world,
is one of development and growth.

Hidden within that which is perceived by an organ, there lies the force
whereby that same organ was formed. The eye perceives light; but without
light there would be no eye. Creatures spending their lives in darkness do
not develop organs of sight. Thus the whole of man’s physical body is
created out of the hidden forces of that of which he becomes conscious
through his bodily organs. The physical body is built up by the forces of
the physical world, the etheric body by those of the life-world, and the
astral body is formed out of the astral world. Now when the ego is
transferred to the spirit-world it is met by just those forces which
remain hidden to physical perception.

What appear to man’s view in the first region of the spirit-world are the
spiritual beings that are always surrounding him, and that have built up
his physical body. Thus in the physical world man perceives nothing but
the manifestations of those spiritual forces which have formed his own
physical body. After death he is in the very midst of these moulding
forces, which, previously hidden, now appear to him in their true forms.
In the same way, in the second region, he is in the midst of the forces by
which his etheric body was organized, and in the third region there pour
in upon him the potencies out of which his astral body was formed. The
higher regions of the spirit-world also direct toward him those forces
from which he was built in the life between birth and death.

These denizens of the spiritual world are at present working in
co-operation with that which man has brought with him as the product of
his last life, which now becomes a germ; and through this co-operation man
is, first of all, built up anew as a spiritual being. The physical and
etheric bodies are still joined in sleep; the astral body and the ego are,
it is true, outside them, but still connected with them. Whatever
influences the astral body and the ego receive, in such a state, from the
spiritual world, can serve only to recuperate the forces exhausted during
the waking state.

But when the physical and etheric bodies have been laid aside, and, after
the time of purification, also those parts of the astral body still bound
by their desires to the physical world, then everything pouring in upon
the ego from the spiritual world is not only a reforming but a
reorganizing force. After a certain period, to be dealt with in later
chapters, the ego again gathers round it an astral body which will be able
to live in such an etheric and physical body as man possesses between
birth and death. A man can once more pass through birth and renew his
earthly existence, in which, however, will be incorporated the results of
his former life. Until the rebuilding of his astral body, man is a witness
of his reconstruction. As the powers of the spirit-world are not
manifested to him through external organs, but from within outward, like
his own ego in self-consciousness, he is able to observe that
manifestation as long as his attention is not turned to an outer world of
perception. But from the moment that the astral body is reconstituted, his
attention is turned outward; the astral body once more craves an outer
etheric and physical body. It is thus turned away from the inner
revelations. For this reason there is now an intermediate state, during
which man is immersed in unconsciousness. Consciousness can emerge again
in the physical world only when the necessary organs for physical
perception are formed.

During this period, in which consciousness illuminated by inner perception
ceases, the new etheric body begins to link itself to the astral and man
can once again enter a physical body. In the linking together of these two
bodies only such an ego could consciously take part as had of itself
created the Life-Spirit and Spirit-Man out of the creative forces, hidden
in the etheric and physical bodies. Until the individual has evolved as
far as this, beings further advanced than himself in evolution must guide
this linking together. The astral body is guided, by such beings as these,
to parents through whom it may be endowed with the appropriate etheric and
physical bodies. Before the attachment of the etheric body takes place,
something of very great importance happens to the man who is about to
re-enter physical existence.

In his former life he created disturbing forces, which were revealed to
him on the journey retraced after death. Let us again take an example. He
caused some pain in an outburst of anger in the fortieth year of his
former life. After death, the other’s pain came before him as a force
which had interfered with the evolution of his ego. It is likewise with
all such events of his former life. On his re-entrance into physical life
these hindrances to his evolution confront the ego anew. As, on the
threshold of death, a sort of memory-picture arose before the human ego,
so there now arises a vision of the life approaching. Again he sees a
picture, this time showing all the obstacles which he has to clear away,
if he is to advance in evolution. And what he thus sees becomes the
starting-point for forces which he must bring with him into his new life.
The picture of the pain he has caused the other man becomes a force which
impels the ego, on entering life again, to make amends for this pain. Thus
the previous life has a determining effect on the new one. The deeds of
the new life are in a certain way caused by those of the former life. This
connection, following the law, between an earlier and later existence is
to be looked upon as the “Law of Destiny”; it has become usual to
designate it “Karma,” a term borrowed from oriental wisdom.

The building up of a new set of bodies, however, is not the only task
incumbent upon man between death and a new birth. While this building up
is taking place, man lives outside the physical world. That world,
however, continues to evolve during this time. The surface of the earth
changes in comparatively short periods of time. What aspect did those
regions which are now occupied by Germany bear a few thousand years ago?
When man appears on earth in a new existence, the earth rarely looks the
same as it did at the time of his last incarnation. During his absence
from the earth all sorts of changes have occurred. Now hidden forces are
also at work in this alteration of the face of the earth, proceeding from
that very world in which man finds himself after death; and he himself
must co-operate with these forces in the transformation of the earth. He
can do so only under the direction of Higher Beings until, by the creation
of his Life-Spirit and Spirit-Man, he has acquired a clear perception of
the connection between the spiritual and its expression in the physical.
But he takes part in the transformation of earthly conditions. It may be
said that during the period between death and a new birth, man so
transforms the earth that its conditions are in keeping with what he has
evolved in himself. If we look at a given place on the earth at a definite
moment, and see it again after a long lapse of time, under entirely
changed conditions, the forces which have wrought the change have
proceeded from those who are now dead. And it is this kind of connection
which exists between them and the earth until the time of rebirth.

Clairvoyant observation sees in all physical existence the manifestation
of a hidden spiritual element. To physical observation it is the light of
the sun, climatic changes, and so on, that effect the transformation of
the earth, but to clairvoyance it is the force of the dead that acts in
the rays of light which fall on the plant from the sun. The clairvoyant
sees how human souls hover about plants, how they change the surface of
the earth. Not alone upon himself nor upon the preparations for his own
new earthly existence, is man’s attention bestowed after death.—No, he is
called upon then to work upon the outer world, just as he is in life
between the time of his birth and death.

Not only does the life of man affect the conditions of the physical world
from the spirit-land; but vice versa, activity during physical existence
has its effects in the spiritual world. An example may explain what
happens in this respect. A bond of love exists between mother and child.
This love arises from a mutual attraction caused by the forces of the
sense-world. But in the course of time it changes. A spiritual tie
gradually grows out of the sense-bond, and this spiritual tie is not
created for the physical world only but for the spirit-world as well. The
same applies to other ties. Whatever is created in the physical world by
spiritual entities continues to exist in the spiritual world. Friends who
were closely united in life belong to each other in spirit-land also, and
when their bodies are laid aside they are in much more intimate communion
than during physical life. For as spirits they exist for each other in the
same way as, in the above description, spiritual beings reveal themselves
to others by inner manifestation; and a tie created between two persons
brings them together again in a new life. Thus in the truest sense of the
word we may speak of finding one another again after death.

What has once happened to a man between birth and death and from then till
a new birth, repeats itself. Man returns to earth again and again when the
fruit he has earned in a physical life has ripened in the spirit-world. It
is not, however, a case of repetition without beginning or end; but man
has emerged out of other forms of existence and passed into those which
run their course in the manner just described, and he will again in the
future pass into other forms. A viewpoint of these transition stages will
be gained when the evolution of the universe in connection with man is
subsequently considered from the standpoint of occult science.

The occurrences between death and a new birth are of course still more
concealed from outer sense-observation than is the spiritual foundation
underlying manifested life between birth and death. This sense-observation
can see only the effects of that portion of the hidden world where they
impinge upon physical existence. With regard to this the question must
arise whether man, on entering this life at birth, brings with him any
results from the events described by occult science as having taken place
between his last death and re-birth. If one finds the shell of a snail in
which there is no trace of the animal he will, in spite of that, recognize
that this snailshell was formed by the activity of an animal, and he
cannot believe that the shell constructed a form for itself, by means of
mere physical forces.

In the same way one who studies a man during life, and finds something in
him which cannot be due to _this_ life, might reasonably admit that it
arises from what occult science describes, if by doing so an explanatory
light is thrown on what is otherwise inexplicable.

Here, too, the unseen causes might appear intelligible to rational
sense-observation from their visible effects, and whoever observes life
with absolute impartiality will find that, with every fresh observation,
this appears to be more and more true. The important question, however, is
how to find the right point of view from which to observe their effects in
life. Where, for example, are the effects of that to be found which occult
science describes as incidents of the time of purification? How are the
effects of the experience which, according to occult investigations, man
undergoes in purely spiritual regions, manifested after this time of
purification?

Problems enough press upon every serious and profound student of life in
this domain. We see one man born in want and misery, endowed only with
inferior abilities, so that on account of these facts, which are incident
to his birth, he appears predestined to a miserable existence. Another,
from the first moment of his life, is tended and cherished by loving hands
and hearts; brilliant talents are unfolded in him; his gifts point to a
successful and satisfactory career. Two opposite views may be taken when
met by such questions as these. The one will adhere to what the senses
perceive and what the understanding, relying on these senses, is able to
comprehend. This view will admit no problem in the fact that one man is
born fortunate and the other unfortunate. Even if the word “chance” is not
used, there will be no question of thinking that such things are brought
about through any law of cause and effect. And with regard to talents and
abilities, such a view will consider them as “inherited” from parents,
grandparents, and other ancestors. It refuses to seek the causes in
spiritual events which the man himself met with before birth—regardless of
heredity—and by means of which he shaped his talents and abilities.

Another view would find no satisfaction in such an interpretation. It
would assert that even in the manifested world nothing happens in definite
places or surroundings without our having to presuppose causes for the
event in question. Even though in many cases such causes have not yet been
investigated, they are there. An Alpine flower does not grow in the
lowlands. Its nature has something which associates it with Alpine
regions. Just so must there be something in a man which determines his
birth in a certain environment. Causes belonging to the physical world
alone are not sufficient to account for this. To a more profound thinker
such an explanation appears in somewhat the same light as when one has
dealt another a blow, the motive for which is not attributed to the
feelings of the one but is to be explained by the physical mechanism of
the hand.

Any explanation of abilities and talents solely by “heredity” is to such a
viewpoint equally unsatisfactory. It is true one may say: “See how certain
talents are inherited in families.” During two and a half centuries
musical talents were inherited by members of the Bach family. Eight
mathematicians sprang from the Bernoulli family, to some of whom quite
different occupations were assigned in their childhood; but the inherited
talents always drove them to the family vocation. It may be further
pointed out how, by an exact investigation of the line of ancestry of a
person in one way or another the gifts of this person have shown
themselves in the forefathers, and only represent the sum of inherited
talents. Whoever holds the latter of the two views above indicated will be
sure not to let such facts pass unnoticed, but to _him_ they cannot mean
the same as they do to one who relies for his interpretation on the events
of the world of sense alone. The former will point out that inherited
talents can no more of themselves, combine into a complete personality
than can the metal parts of a watch fit themselves together. And if
objection is made that the co-operation of the parents may possibly
produce the combination of talents,—that this as it were, takes the place
of the watchmaker,—he will reply: “Look impartially at what is new in
every child-personality, at that which is absolutely new; that cannot come
from the parents, for the simple reason that it does not exist in them.”

Inaccurate thinking may create much confusion in this domain. It is still
worse when those who hold the second view are set down by the supporters
of the first as opponents of what is, after all, borne out by “ascertained
facts.” But it may well be that the latter have not the slightest
intention of denying the truth or value of those facts. For instance, they
see that a definite mental aptitude or predisposition is “inherited” in a
family, and that certain gifts accumulated and combined in one descendant
result in a remarkable personality. They are perfectly willing to
acquiesce when it is said that the most celebrated name seldom stands at
the beginning but at the end of a line of descent. But it should not be
taken amiss if they are compelled to form very different opinions on the
subject from those of people who are determined to accept nothing but
material evidence. To the latter it may be said that it is true a man
shows the characteristics of his ancestors, because the “spirit-soul”,
which enters upon physical existence at birth, draws its bodily substance
from that which heredity bestows on it. But this says nothing more than
that a being shows the peculiarities of the body into which it has
descended.

It is no doubt a singular—a trivial—comparison, but the unprejudiced
person will not deny its justification, when one says that a human being,
who shows the qualities of his forefathers, proves the origin of the
personal qualities of that human being as little as the fact that man is
wet because he has fallen into the water, proves something regarding his
inner nature. And it may further be said that if the most celebrated name
stands at the end of a line of family descent, it shows that the bearer of
that name needed that particular ancestry to build the body necessary for
the expression of his whole personality. But it is no proof that his
actual personal qualities were transmitted to him: such a statement is, on
the contrary, opposed to sound logic. If personal gifts were inherited,
they would be found at the beginning of a line of descent,(7) and starting
from that point be transmitted to the descendants. As, however, they stand
at the end, it is evident that they are _not_ transmitted.

Now it is not to be denied that those who speak of a spiritual causality
in life have contributed no less to bringing about confusion of thought.
Far too much generalizing and vague discussion comes from this quarter. To
say that a man’s personality is a combination of inherited characteristics
may certainly be compared with the assertion that the metal parts of a
watch have fitted themselves together. It must also be admitted that, with
regard to many assertions about a spiritual world, it is as though some
one said that the metal parts of a watch cannot put themselves together in
such a way as to enable the hands to move forward; some intelligence must
therefore be present to effect this forward movement. In face of such an
assertion, _he_ certainly builds on a far better foundation who says: “Oh!
I care nothing for your ‘mystical’ beings who move the hands forward. What
I want to know is the mechanical construction by means of which the
forward movement of the hands is achieved.” It is by no means a question
of merely knowing that behind a mechanism, a watch for instance, there is
an intelligence (the watchmaker); it can only be of importance to know the
ideas in the watchmaker’s mind which preceded the construction of the
watch. These thoughts may be rediscovered in the mechanism.

Mere dreaming and imagining about the supersensual only result in
confusion, for they are not calculated to satisfy opponents. The latter
are right in saying that such general allusions to super-physical beings
are not at all conducive to an understanding of facts. Of course, such
opponents might also say the same of the _exact_ statements of occult
science. But, in that case, it may be pointed out that the effects of
hidden spiritual causes are seen in manifested life. Let us assume for the
moment that what occult science asserts, proven by observation, is
correct:—that a man has gone through a time of purification after death,
and that during this period he has experienced in his soul how a certain
deed, performed by him in a former life, was a hindrance to his
progressive evolution. While he was undergoing this experience, the
impulse arose in him to make amends for that deed. He brings this impulse
with him into a new life and its presence produces a tendency in his
nature which draws him into conditions rendering the amendment
possible.—Taking into consideration a number of such impulses, we have the
cause for a man’s being born into an environment corresponding to his
destiny.

We may deal in the same way with another assumption. Let us again accept
as correct the assertion of occult science that the fruits of a past life
are incorporated in man’s spiritual germ, and that the spirit-land in
which man finds himself, between death and a new life, is the region in
which these fruits ripen, and are transformed into talents and
capabilities which will appear in a new life and will form the personality
so that it appears as the effect of what was gained in a former life. It
will become evident to any one who accepts these hypotheses and, bearing
them in mind, surveys life impartially, that while, by their means, all
material facts may be appreciated in their full truth and significance, at
the same time everything becomes intelligible which, if only material
facts were relied upon, must forever remain incomprehensible to one whose
attention is turned toward the spiritual world. And more important still,
that illogical reasoning of the kind indicated above will disappear,
namely,—that because the most distinguished name in a line of descent
stands at the end of it, its bearer must have inherited his gifts. Life
becomes logically comprehensible through the supersensual facts
ascertained by occult science.

Yet another weighty objection may be raised by the conscientious seeker
after truth who desires to find his way to facts and has no experience of
his own in the supersensual world. It may be urged that it is inadmissible
to accept the existence of facts, of any kind, simply because by means of
them something may be explained which is otherwise unintelligible. Such an
objection is meaningless to one who knows the corresponding facts from
supersensual experience, and in later chapters of this book the path will
be indicated that may be followed in order to gain knowledge not only of
the spiritual facts herein described, but also of the law of spiritual
causation as a personal experience. Any one, however, who is not willing
to enter upon this path may find the above objection important; and what
can be said against it is also of value to one who is resolved to follow
the path indicated. For if it is received in the right spirit, it is the
very best preliminary step that can be taken on this path. It is perfectly
true that one ought not to accept a statement about which one is otherwise
ignorant merely because, by means of it, something otherwise inexplicable
can be explained, but in the case of alleged spiritual facts the matter is
different. If such statements are accepted, the intellectual consequence
is not only that, by their means, life becomes intelligible, but that
through admitting these hypotheses into the thought-world, experiences of
quite a new kind are induced.

Take the following case. Something befalls a man which causes him
extremely painful sensations. He may meet the situation in one of two
ways. He may submit to the occurrence as something affecting him
painfully, and abandon himself to the painful sensation, even becoming
absorbed in his grief; or he may meet it in another way. He may say: “It
is really I myself who in a former life set the force in motion which has
brought me into contact with this thing. I have really brought it on
myself.” He may then awaken in himself all the feelings which such a
thought brings in its train. It goes without saying that the thought must
be entertained with perfect seriousness, and with the utmost possible
force, if it is to have such consequences in the life of sensation and
feeling. One who succeeds in this will meet with an experience which may
be best illustrated by a comparison. Let us suppose that two men have each
a stick of sealing wax in his hand. One begins reflecting upon its inner
nature. These reflections may perhaps be very wise, but if the “inner
nature” did not show itself in any way, some one might easily retort:
“That is all imagination.” The other, however, rubs the sealing wax with a
woolen rag, and then shows that it attracts small particles. There is an
important difference between the thoughts which have passed through the
first man’s head and his reflections, and those of the second. The
thoughts of the first man had no actual result; those of the second have
called out a hidden force, consequently something real.

The same thing happens with regard to the thoughts of a man in whose mind
the idea arises that in a former life he has set going within himself the
force which causes him to experience a certain event. The mere conception
of this stirs up strength within him which enables him to face the event
in quite a different manner from that in which he would have met it
without entertaining such an idea. It dawns upon him that an event which
he would otherwise have looked upon as an accident was really a necessity
and he will immediately see that he had the right thought, because this
thought had the power to reveal the facts to him. If such inner processes
are repeated they will grow into a source of inner power and thus prove
their truth by their fruitfulness; and little by little, this truth is
found to be powerfully effective. Such processes have a salutary effect on
body, soul, and spirit,—nay, they help life forward in every way. Man
becomes aware that in this manner he takes the right position with regard
to life’s continuity; whereas, by taking into consideration only the one
life between birth and death, he is the victim of a delusion.

Such an entirely inner proof of spiritual causation can of course be
acquired only by each one for himself, in his own inner life. But it is in
every one’s power to have it. Those who have not acquired it certainly
cannot judge of its convincing force; but those who have acquired it can
scarcely entertain any further doubt in the matter. And there is no reason
for surprise that this should be so. It is only natural that what is so
wholly bound up with the constitution of man’s inmost being and
personality can be adequately proven only by inner experience. On the
other hand, it cannot be alleged that because such a matter corresponds to
inner experience it must therefore be settled by every one for himself,
and that it is no subject for occult science. It is certain that every one
must undergo the experience for himself, just as each must see for himself
the proof of a mathematical problem. But the path by which such an
experience may be gained is open to all, just as the method of proving a
mathematical problem is available to every one.

It ought not to be denied—apart from clairvoyant observation of
course—that by means of the force producing power of the corresponding
thoughts, the just cited proof is the only one which stands firm before
all unprejudiced logic. All other considerations are no doubt very
important, but in all of them there will be something on which an opponent
might seize as a point of attack. Surely one who has acquired a fairly
impartial way of looking at things will find something in the possibility
and actual fact of man’s education, which has the power of logical proof
that a spiritual being is struggling for existence within the sheath of
the body. He will compare animals with man and say to himself that at the
birth of the former there appears certain definite qualities and
capacities as something, decisive in itself, which plainly shows how it
has been designed by heredity and how it will unfold itself in the outer
world. We see how a young chicken carries out life’s functions in the
appointed way from its birth; but by means of education something comes
into touch with man’s inner life which is independent of any connection
with his heredity, and he may be in a position to assimilate the effects
of such external influences. The educator knows that such influences are
met by forces coming from man’s inner nature. If this is not the case, all
instruction and training are meaningless. The unprejudiced educator finds
the boundary line between inherited talents and those inner forces of the
man himself which shine through them and originate in former lives, to be
very sharply marked. It is true, we cannot bring forward such weighty
proofs for things of this kind as we can for certain physical facts, by
means of scales; but then these are just the intimate things of life, and
one who has the power to appreciate such impalpable proofs will find them
convincing—even more convincing than palpable reality.

That animals may be trained, and thus, to a certain extent, acquire
qualities and capacities by education, is no objection to one who is able
to see reality, for apart from the fact that transitional stages are met
with all over the world, the results of training an animal by no means
fade away with its individual existence, as is the case with a man. What
is more, the fact has been emphasized that faculties acquired by domestic
animals through intercourse with man are transmitted, that is to say,
continue in the species, not in the individual. Darwin describes how dogs
fetch and carry without having been taught to do so, or without having
seen it done. Who would make such an assertion with regard to human
education?

Now there are thinkers whose observations have led them beyond the opinion
that a man is built by purely inherited forces from without. They rise to
the thought that a spiritual being, an individuality, exists before life
in the body, and fashions it; but many of them find it impossible to
conceive that there are repeated earthly lives, and that the fruits of
former lives are moulding forces during the intermediate state between two
lives. Let us take one instance from among the ranks of these thinkers.
Immanuel Hermann Fichte, son of the great Fichte, in his _Anthropology_
(p. 528) gives the observations which led him to the following conclusion:

“Parents are _not_ generators in the full sense of the word. They supply
organic substance, and not alone this, but also that intermediate element
of mental and sense nature which appears in temperament, colouring of
character, definite tendencies, and so on, the common source of which
proves to be ‘imagination’ in the wider sense indicated by us. In all
these elements of personality, the mingling and particular combination of
the souls of the parents is unmistakable; it is therefore a perfectly
well-grounded assertion that this combination is simply the result of
procreation, even if we regard procreation, as we must do, as really a
soul-process. But the real ultimate centre of the personality is just what
is lacking here; for a deeper and more searching observation reveals the
fact that even those peculiarities of disposition are but a covering and
an instrument for the containing of the individual’s really spiritual and
ideal capabilities, and are qualified to aid these in their development or
to hinder them, but in no wise able to originate them.” It is further
stated in the same work (p. 532): “Every individual pre-exists as regards
the fundamental form of his spirit, for no individual, from a spiritual
point of view, resembles another, just as no species of animal resembles
another species.”

These thoughts reach only far enough to allow a spiritual being to come
into the human body; but as the forces shaping such a being are not
derived from causes existing in former lives, it would be necessary that,
each time a fresh personality appears, a spiritual being should come forth
from a Divine First Cause. With this hypothesis there would be no
possibility of explaining the relationship which certainly exists between
the potentialities struggling out of man’s innermost being, and that which
is forcing its way thither from his external earthly environment during
life. Man’s innermost being, issuing in the case of each single person
from a Divine First Cause, would find what confronts him in earthly life
quite strange and foreign. Only then would this not be the case—as, in
fact, it is not—if there had already been a connection between the inner
man and the outer world, and if the inner man were not living in it for
the first time.

The unprejudiced educator may undoubtedly observe clearly that he
impresses the consciousness of his pupil with something taken from life’s
experiences which in itself is foreign to his merely inherited qualities,
but which, however, appears to him as if the work out of which these
experiences arise, had been done by him in the past. Only repeated lives
on earth, in conjunction with the facts set forth by occult science as
taking place in spiritual regions between two earthly lives,—only this
view can afford a satisfactory explanation of present human life looked at
from every side. I say expressly “present” human life, for occult
investigation shows that the cycle of earthly life certainly had a
beginning, and at that time man’s spiritual being, which later entered a
bodily frame, existed under different conditions. In the following chapter
we shall go back to this primeval condition of human existence. When it
has been shown, from the reports of occult science how human beings
received their present form in connection with the evolution of the earth,
it will also be possible to indicate more precisely how the spiritual germ
of man’s being descends from superphysical worlds into a bodily form, and
how the spiritual law of causation, or “human destiny,” is developed.





CHAPTER IV. THE EVOLUTION OF THE WORLD AND MAN


From the foregoing observations it will be seen that man’s being is built
up of four principles: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral
body, and the vehicle of the ego. The ego works within the three other
principles, and transforms them. By means of this transformation, are
formed on a lower level, the sentient-soul, the rational- or
intellectual-soul, and the consciousness-soul: on a higher level of human
existence, are formed the Spirit-Self, the Life-Spirit, and Spirit-Man.
The relations existing between these human principles and the whole
universe are of a most varied character and their evolution is related to
that of the universe. By studying this evolution an insight is obtained
into the deeper mysteries of man’s being.

It is clear that human life is related in the most varied ways to the
environment or dwelling place in which it evolves. Physical science,
through the facts presented to it, has already been driven to the opinion
that the earth itself, man’s dwelling place in the broadest sense of the
word, has undergone evolution. Science points to former conditions of the
earth when man, in his present form, did not yet exist on our planet and
it shows how man has slowly and gradually evolved to his present condition
from primitive states of civilization. Physical science, therefore, comes
also to the conclusion that there is a connection between man’s evolution
and that of the heavenly body on which he lives—the earth.

Occult science traces this connection by means of a knowledge which
obtains its data from observation quickened by spiritual organs of
perception. It traces man backwards in his course of development, and the
fact becomes evident to occult science that the real inner spiritual being
of man has progressed through a series of lives on this earth. Occult
research arrives in this way at an epoch far back in the remote past, when
for the first time that inner being of man made its entry into “external
life” as we understand it. It was in this first earthly incarnation that
the ego began to function in the three bodies—the astral body, the etheric
or vital body, and the physical body; and it then carried over the results
of that activity into its next life.

If in our investigation we proceed backwards, in the manner indicated, as
far as that epoch, we discover that the ego finds an earth condition in
which the three bodies, physical, etheric, and astral, are already
developed and in which they bear a certain relation to each other. The ego
is, for the first time, united with the being composed of these three
bodies; and henceforth takes part in the further evolution of the three
bodies. Hitherto, up to the stage at which that ego came in touch with
them, they had evolved without a human ego.

Occult science must now go back still farther in its researches if it is
to answer the questions, “How did the three bodies reach that stage of
evolution at which they were able to receive an ego within them?” and “How
did that ego itself come into being and acquire the capacity for working
within these bodies?”

It is possible to answer these questions only when the gradual development
of the earth-planet itself is studied from the occult point of view. By
such investigation we arrive at a beginning of the earth-planet. That
method of examination which is based only on the facts of the physical
senses cannot arrive at conclusions concerning the beginning of the earth.
A certain point of view which avails itself of such conclusions arrives at
the result that everything material on the earth was formed out of a
primeval essence, or vapour. It is not the purpose of this work to enter
more fully into such conceptions of our planet’s origin; for in occult
science the important matter is not merely to inquire into the material
processes of the earth’s evolution, but first and foremost to discover the
spiritual causes lying behind what is material.

If we see before us a man raising his hand, we may consider his action in
two different ways: we may examine the mechanism of the arm and the rest
of the organism, in order to describe the process as it takes place from
the purely physical standpoint, or we may direct the spiritual vision to
what takes place in the man’s soul and there discover what constitutes the
inner motive for raising the hand. In this way an investigator, trained in
occult research, sees spiritual processes behind all the events of the
physical sense-world. In his eyes all transformations of the material part
of the earth-planet are manifestations of spiritual forces lying behind
what is material.

But if occult observation of this kind goes farther and farther back in
the life of the earth it comes to that point in evolution at which
material things first came into being. The material element is evolved out
of the spiritual. Up to this point the spiritual element was the only one
existing. By occult investigation the spiritual element is perceived, and
the observer can see how it becomes partly condensed, as it were, into
matter. We have before us a process which is taking place—on a higher
level—much as though we were observing a lump of ice being formed by
artificial means in a vessel of water. Just as we see the ice being
condensed out of what was previously only water, so may we, by means of
occult observation, watch the condensation of what was previously entirely
spiritual, so to speak, into material things, processes, and beings. In
this way the physical earth-planet was evolved out of a cosmic spiritual
essence; and everything that is combined materially with the earth-planet
has been condensed out of what was previously united with it spiritually.
We must not, however, think that _everything_ spiritual was at any one
time changed into material form; but, in the latter we have before us
merely the transformed portions of what was originally spiritual. Thus,
even during the period of material evolution, it is always Spirit that is
really the guiding and ruling principle.

It is obvious that the mode of thought which restricts itself to the
processes of physical sense—and to what reason is able to infer from
them—is incapable of expressing an opinion about the spiritual element of
which we are speaking. Let us assume that a being might exist to whose
senses ice would be perceptible, but not the finer condition of water,
from which ice is detached by refrigeration. For such a being, water would
be non-existent, and could become visible only when parts of it had been
transformed into ice. In the same way, the spiritual element behind
earthly processes remains hidden from one who only admits the existence of
what is perceptible to his physical senses. And if, from the physical
facts which he now perceives, he draws correct conclusions about earlier
conditions of the earth-planet, he can penetrate only as far as that point
in evolution at which the previous spiritual element was partially
condensed into material substance. Such a method of observation no more
discovers the spirit previously existing, than it perceives the spirit
which even now rules unseen behind the world of matter.

Not until we come to the last chapters of this work can we deal with those
methods by which man acquires the faculty of looking back, by means of
occult perception, upon those earlier conditions of the earth which are
now under discussion. For the present we shall merely intimate that the
facts concerning the primeval past have not passed beyond the reach of
occult research. If a being comes into corporeal existence his material
part perishes after physical death. But the spiritual forces, which from
out their own depth gave existence to the body, do not “disappear in this
way.” They leave their traces, their exact images behind them impressed
upon the spiritual ground-work of the world. Any one who is able to raise
his perceptive faculty through the visible to the invisible world, attains
at length a level on which he may see before him what may be compared to a
vast spiritual panorama, in which are recorded all the past events of the
world’s history. These imperishable traces of everything immaterial are
called in occult science the “Akashic Records.”

Here it must once more be repeated that investigations of the
supersensible realms of existence can be carried on only with the aid of
spiritual perception, and consequently can be instituted in the sphere now
under consideration, only by reading the Akashic Records above-mentioned.
Nevertheless, what was said earlier in this book in a similar instance
holds good here. Supersensible facts are only to be investigated by
supersensible perceptions; but once investigated and communicated by
occult science, they may be grasped by the ordinary powers of thought, if
these are honestly exercised without bias. In the following pages the
various conditions of the earth’s evolution, as given by occult science,
will be detailed. The transformation of our planet will be traced down to
the conditions of life in which we now find it. Any one who surveys what
comes before him at the present time merely through the evidence of his
senses, and then lends an ear to what occult science has to say on the
subject, namely:—how that which now lies before him has been evolved from
a far distant past,—will be able, if his thought is genuinely unbiased, to
say to himself: “In the first place, what occult science reports is quite
logical; in the second place, I can, if I assume the reports of occult
investigation to be correct, understand how things have become as they now
appear.” By “logical” is not meant, in this connection, of course, that
errors might not be made from a logical standpoint in some description
given by occult research. We are here speaking of “logic” as it is
understood in the ordinary life of the physical world. Just as a logical
demonstration is accepted there as it is in physical research, even though
a single investigator, in a certain domain of facts, may make illogical
statements, so is it also with regard to occult science. It may even
happen that an investigator who possesses the power of vision in
supersensible spheres may make mistakes in a logical presentment of them,
and may be corrected by another who has no supersensible perception, but
has, none the less, a capacity for sound thinking. In reality, nothing of
any weight can be said against the logical deductions of occult science.
And it ought to be unnecessary to insist that nothing can be adduced, on
purely logical grounds, against the facts themselves. In the domain of the
physical world it can never be proved by logic, but only by ocular
demonstration, whether or no there is such an animal as a whale;
similarly, supersensible facts can be known only through occult
perception.

But it cannot be sufficiently emphasized that an obligation is laid upon
the explorer of supersensible regions, before he determines to approach
the invisible worlds with his own power of perception, to acquire first of
all the aforementioned logical faculty, and this is none the less
essential if he recognizes that the world, manifest to his senses, will
become comprehensible if he accepts the communications of occult science
as correct. All experiences in the supersensible world are nothing but an
uncertain—nay, a dangerous—groping in the dark if we despise the method of
preparation which has been described. Therefore in this book the facts
concerning the supersensible processes of the earth’s evolution will first
be given, before the path leading to the attainment of supersensible
knowledge is dealt with.

We have also, it is true, to take into account that the man who, by sheer
thinking, comes to accept what supersensible research has to impart, is by
no means in the same position as one who listens to the account of a
physical occurrence which he is unable to see. For thinking is in itself a
supersensible activity. Materialistic thinking cannot of itself lead to
supersensible phenomena. But if thought is directed to supersensible
matters through the accounts given of them by occult science, it grows by
its own activity into the supersensible world. What is more, one of the
very best ways of acquiring supersensible perception is to grow into the
higher worlds by meditation upon what has been communicated by occult
science. For such a mode of entry insures great clearness of perception.
For this reason such thinking is regarded by a certain school of occult
investigation as a most valuable first step to take in occult training.

It will be readily understood that it is impossible to mention in this
book all the details of the earth’s evolution, as it has been spiritually
perceived by occultists, in order to illustrate the way in which the
supersensible world is reflected in the manifested. Nor was this what was
intended when it was said that the unseen may everywhere be demonstrated
by its manifest effects. It was meant rather that everything that man
encounters may, step by step, become clear and comprehensible if he brings
manifested events under the illumination of occult science. Only in a few
characteristic instances will reference be made in the following pages to
confirmations of the invisible by the manifest, in order to show how this
may be done everywhere in the course of practical life, if desired.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

Pursuing the evolution of the earth backward according to the above method
of scientific spiritual investigations we arrive at a spiritual condition
of our planet. But if we go farther back along this path of research we
find that everything spiritual had previously passed through a kind of
physical incarnation. Thus we come upon a bygone physical planetary
condition, which was afterwards spiritualized, and subsequently
transformed into our earth by repeated materialization. Our earth is
therefore presented to us as the reincarnation of a very ancient planet.
But occult science can go back still farther; and it then finds the whole
process twice repeated. Thus, our earth has passed through three previous
planetary conditions separated by intermediate spiritual conditions of
rest. The physical substance, however, proves to be finer and finer the
farther back we follow the incarnations.

Now man, in the form in which he is at present evolving, makes his first
appearance upon the fourth of the planetary incarnations which have been
described, the Earth proper. And the essential characteristic of his form
is that it is composed of four principles, the physical, etheric, and
astral bodies and the ego. But that form could not have appeared if it had
not been prepared by the preceding events of evolution. The method of
preparation was that, in the earlier planetary incarnation, beings were
evolved who already had three of the present four principles of man: the
physical, etheric, and astral bodies. These beings who, in a certain
sense, may be called man’s ancestors, had as yet no ego, but they
developed the three other principles and their mutual relationship to such
a point that they became sufficiently mature to receive an ego. Thus man’s
ancestor attained to a certain degree of maturity of his three principles
during the earlier planetary incarnation. This condition became
spiritualized; and out of it a new planetary condition was formed in which
man’s matured ancestors were contained, as it were, in embryo. Because the
whole planet had passed through a process of spiritualization and had
appeared in a new form, it offered those embryos, with their physical,
etheric, and astral bodies, which were contained therein, not only the
opportunity of again evolving up to the level on which they had previously
stood, but the further possibility, after having arrived at that level, of
reaching out beyond themselves through receiving the ego.

The evolution of the Earth divides itself, therefore, into two parts.
During the first period the Earth itself appears as a reincarnation of the
previous planetary state. But that recurring state is a higher one than
that of the previous incarnation, in consequence of the intervening period
of spiritualization. And the Earth contains within itself the germs of
man’s ancestors belonging to the earlier planet. These were first
developed up to the level they had previously reached. The attainment of
this level marks the end of the first period. But now, owing to its own
higher stage of evolution, the Earth is able to carry the germs still
higher, that is, to qualify them for receiving the ego. The second period
of the Earth’s evolution is that of the development of the ego in the
physical, etheric, and astral bodies.

In the same way that man had been thus carried a stage farther by the
evolution of the Earth, so also had this been the case during the earlier
planetary incarnations. For man had in some measure existed as early as
the first of these. Light is therefore thrown on the present constitution
of man if his evolution is followed back to the far-remote past of the
first of the planetary incarnations mentioned above.

In occult science the first of these is called _Saturn_; the second is
termed _Sun_; the third, _Moon_; and the fourth is the _Earth_. It must be
distinctly understood that these occult terms are not to be in any way
associated with the names used to designate the members of the present
solar system.(8) In occult science Saturn, Sun, and Moon are merely names
for bygone forms of evolution through which the Earth has passed. In the
course of the following account it will be shown what relation these
worlds of remote antiquity bear to the celestial bodies composing the
present solar system.

The relationship of the four planetary incarnations previously mentioned,
can here be only briefly sketched; for the events, the beings and their
destiny on Saturn, Sun and Moon were in truth, just as varied as they are
on the Earth itself. Therefore only a few characteristics of these
conditions can be chosen to illustrate just how these earth conditions
have evolved out of earlier ones. In this connection, one should bear in
mind that the further back we go the more dissimilar to the present ones
do these conditions become. And yet they can only be described by making
use of ideas borrowed from existing conditions of the earth. If, for
instance, light, heat, etc., are mentioned in connection with these
earlier conditions, it must not be overlooked that they are not exactly
the same as that which we now term light and heat. And yet such
terminology is accurate, for the clairvoyant observer of earlier stages of
evolution perceives something that has developed into the light and heat
of the present time. And one who follows the descriptions thus given by
occult science will, from the inner relation of these things, easily be
able to form such perceptions as correspond to those events which have
taken place in a primeval past.

Of course there will be considerable difficulty in treating of those
planetary conditions which preceded the Moon incarnation. For during the
latter, conditions prevailed which bore, at least to a degree, some
resemblance still to earthly conditions. When one attempts to describe
these conditions one finds that such resemblances to the present time form
a certain basis on which may be expressed in clear concepts the
observations made through clairvoyance. It is quite different when the
Saturn and Sun evolutions are to be described. In that case, what lies
before clairvoyant observation is utterly different from the objects and
beings now belonging to the sphere of human life. And this difference
makes it exceedingly difficult to bring the corresponding facts of
primeval times within the scope of clairvoyant consciousness at all.

Since however the present constitution of man cannot be understood without
going back to the Saturn state, the description therefore must be given.
And surely no one will misunderstand such a description who keeps in view
the existence of the difficulty, and the fact that owing to it much that
is said must be in the nature of a suggestion or hint of the facts in
question, rather than an exact description of them.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

The physical body is the oldest of the present four principles of man’s
being. It is also the one, which, in its way, has attained the greatest
perfection. Occult research shows that this part of man already existed
during the Saturn evolution. It will be shown in the following account
that the form taken by the physical body on Saturn was, of course,
something quite different from the present physical body of man. The
earthly physical human body, from its nature, can only exist by being in
connection with the etheric and astral bodies and the ego, in the manner
described earlier in this book. Such a condition did not as yet exist on
Saturn. The physical body was then passing through the first stage of its
evolution, without having a human etheric body, an astral body, or an ego
incorporated in it.

During the Saturn evolution it was growing ripe for the reception of an
etheric body. For that purpose Saturn had eventually to pass into a
spiritual condition, and then to be reincarnated as the Sun. During the
Sun incarnation the physical body developed again to the stage it had
reached on Saturn as from a germ brought over and only then could it be
inter-penetrated by an etheric body. By means of this incorporation of an
etheric body, a change took place in the nature of the physical b

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