The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Practical Aspects

[ 1 ] When a person undergoes his training with regard to feelings, thoughts and moods in the way described in the chapters on preparation, enlightenment and initiation, he brings about a similar organization in his soul and spirit as nature has brought about in his physical body. Before this training, soul and spirit are unstructured masses. The clairvoyant perceives them as interlocking, spiral vortices of mist, which are preferably perceived as reddish and reddish-brown or even reddish-yellow colors with a dull glow; after the formation they begin to shine spiritually like the yellowish-green, greenish-blue colors and show a regular structure. Man attains such regularity and thus higher knowledge when he brings the same order to his feelings, thoughts and moods as nature has brought to his bodily functions, so that he can see, hear, digest, breathe, speak and so on. — The occult disciple gradually learns to breathe and see with the soul and so on, to hear and speak with the spirit and so on.

[ 2 ] Only a few practical aspects belonging to the higher education of the soul and spirit will be explained in more detail here. They are those that basically anyone can follow without taking other rules into consideration and through which they can progress a long way in the occult science.

[ 3 ] A special training must be sought in patience. Every impatient impulse has a paralyzing, even deadening effect on the higher abilities dormant in man. One should not demand that immeasurable insights into the higher worlds open up overnight. For then, as a rule, they will certainly not come; contentment with the least that one achieves, peace and serenity should increasingly take possession of the soul. - It is understandable that the learner impatiently awaits the results. Nevertheless, he achieves nothing as long as he does not master this impatience. Nor is it of any use to fight this impatience in the ordinary sense of the word. Then it only gets stronger. You then deceive yourself about it, and in the depths of your soul it only sits all the stronger. Only if you give yourself over and over again to a very specific thought, making it completely your own, will you achieve anything. This thought is: "I must indeed do everything for the education of my soul and spirit; but I will quite calmly wait until I am found worthy of certain enlightenment by higher powers." If this thought becomes so powerful in a person that it develops into a character trait, then one is on the right path. This character disposition will then already be expressed outwardly. The gaze of the eye becomes calm, the movements sure, the decisions determined, and all that is called nervousness gradually departs from the person. Seemingly insignificant, small rules come into consideration. For example, someone inflicts an insult on us. Before our occult education, we turn our feelings against the insulter. Anger wells up inside us. In the occult student, however, the thought immediately arises on such an occasion: "Such an insult changes nothing about my value"; and he then does what is to be done against the insult with calmness and composure, not out of anger. Of course, it is not a question of simply accepting every insult, but of being as calm and confident in the punishment of an insult to oneself as one would be if the insult had been inflicted on someone else, for whom one has the right to punish it. — It must always be borne in mind that occult training does not take place in gross external processes, but in subtle, silent transformations of the emotional and mental life.

[ 4 ] Patience attracts the treasures of higher knowledge. Impatience repels them. In haste and restlessness, nothing can be attained in the higher realms of existence. Above all, desire and desire must be silent. These are qualities of the soul from which all higher knowledge shies away. As valuable as all higher knowledge is, it must not be demanded if it is to come to us. He who wants it for his own sake will never attain it. — And this requires above all that one is true to oneself in the deepest soul. One must not deceive oneself in anything about oneself. You must look your own faults, weaknesses and inadequacies in the face with inner truthfulness. - The moment you excuse any of your weaknesses to yourself, you have placed a stone on the path that should lead you upwards. You can only remove such stones through self-enlightenment. There is only one way to get rid of your mistakes and weaknesses, and that is to recognize them correctly. Everything lies dormant in the human soul and can be awakened. People can also improve their intellect and reason if they calmly and serenely realize why they are weak in this respect. Such self-knowledge is of course difficult, because the temptation to deceive oneself is immeasurably great. Those who become accustomed to truth against themselves open the gates to higher insight.

[ 5 ] Any curiosity must disappear in the occult disciple. He must as much as possible get out of the habit of asking questions about things that he only wants to know to satisfy his personal thirst for knowledge. He should only ask what can serve him to perfect his being in the service of development. At the same time, however, his joy and devotion to knowledge should not be paralyzed in any way. He should devoutly listen to everything that serves such a goal and seek out every opportunity for such devotion.

[ 6 ] In particular, an education of desire is necessary for occult training. One should not become desireless. Because everything we are supposed to achieve, we should also wish for. And a wish will always come true if there is a very special power behind it. This power comes from the right recognition. "Not to wish in any way before you have recognized the right thing in a field" is one of the golden rules for the occult disciple. The wise man first learns the laws of the world, then his wishes become forces which are realized. - An example that has a clear effect should be given here. Certainly many people wish to learn something about their life before they were born from their own experience. Such a wish is quite futile and fruitless as long as the person concerned has not acquired the knowledge of the laws through spiritual scientific study - and indeed in their finest, most intimate character - of the essence of the eternal. But if he has really acquired this knowledge and then wants to progress, he will do so through his refined, purified desire.

[ 7 ] It is also useless to say: Yes, I want to overlook my previous life and learn for that very purpose. Rather, one must be able to let go of this desire completely, to eliminate it entirely from oneself, and first learn without this intention. One must develop the joy, the devotion to what one has learned without the aforementioned intention. This is the only way to learn to have the corresponding desire in such a way that it leads to its fulfillment.

[ 8 ] When I am wrathful or annoyed, I erect a wall around myself in the world of the soul and the forces that should develop my soul's eyes cannot approach me. For example, if a person annoys me, he sends a spiritual current into the soul world. I cannot see this current as long as I am still able to get angry. My anger hides it from me. Now I must not believe that I will immediately have a spiritual (astral) manifestation when I am no longer angry. For this requires that a spiritual eye first develops in me. But the disposition for such an eye lies in every human being. It remains ineffective as long as a person is capable of getting angry. But it is also not immediately there when one has fought a little against anger. Rather, one must continue to fight anger and continue to do so patiently; then one day one will realize that this spiritual eye has developed. However, anger is not the only thing you have to fight to achieve this goal. Many people become impatient or doubtful because they have been fighting against certain qualities of the soul for years and the clairvoyance does not materialize. They have then developed some qualities and let others overgrow all the more. The gift of clairvoyance only occurs when all the qualities that prevent the corresponding dormant abilities from emerging have been suppressed. However, the beginnings of seeing (or hearing) appear earlier; but these are delicate little plants that are easily subject to all kinds of errors and that also die easily if they are not carefully nurtured and cared for.

[ 9 ] Fearfulness, superstition and prejudice, vanity and ambition, curiosity and unnecessary communicativeness, making distinctions between people according to outward signs of rank, sex, tribe and so on are among the qualities that must be combated, just like anger and resentment. In our time it will be quite difficult to understand that combating such qualities has anything to do with increasing the capacity for knowledge. But every occult scientist knows that much more depends on such things than on the expansion of intelligence and the setting up of artificial exercises. In particular, a misunderstanding can easily arise when some believe that one should be foolhardy because one should be fearless, that one should close oneself off to the differences between people because one should fight against prejudices of class, race and so on. Rather, one only learns to recognize correctly when one is no longer caught up in prejudices. It is already true in the ordinary sense that the fear of an appearance prevents me from judging it clearly, that a racial prejudice prevents me from looking into a person's soul. The occult disciple must develop this ordinary sense with great subtlety and acuity.

[ 10 ] A stone is also thrown in the way of occult education by everything a man says without having thoroughly purified it in his thoughts. And here something must be taken into consideration which can only be explained by an example. For example, if someone says something to me and I have to reply to it, I must endeavor to pay more attention to the other person's opinion, feeling, even prejudice, than to what I myself have to say at the moment about the matter in question. This indicates a fine training in tact to which the occult disciple must devote himself carefully. He must acquire a judgment as to how far it is significant for the other person when he opposes his own opinion with his own. One should therefore not hold back with one's opinion. There can be no question of that. But you should listen to the other person as carefully as possible and form your own response from what you have heard. Again and again in such a case a thought arises in the occult disciple; and he is on the right path when this thought lives in him in such a way that it has become a character trait. This is the thought: "It does not matter that I mean something different from the other, but that the other will find the right thing of his own if I contribute something to it." Through such and similar thoughts, the character and conduct of the occult disciple is imbued with mildness, which is a principal means of all occult training. Hardness frightens away the mental formations around you that are supposed to awaken your spiritual eye; mildness removes the obstacles and opens your organs.

[ 11 ] And with mildness another trait will soon develop in the soul: the calm attention to all the subtleties of spiritual life in the surroundings with complete silence of one's own soul emotions. And when a person has reached this stage, the soul impulses of his surroundings affect him in such a way that his own soul grows and develops like a plant thriving in the sunlight. Mildness and silence in true patience open the soul to the world of souls, the spirit to the land of spirits. - "Remain in peace and seclusion, close your senses to what they have handed down to you before your occult training, bring to a standstill all thoughts that have been surging up and down within you according to your previous habits, become completely still and silent within yourself and wait in patience, then higher worlds will begin to train your soul eyes and spirit ears. You must not expect to see and hear immediately in the world of souls and spirits. For what you do only helps to train your higher senses. But you will only see spiritually and hear spiritually when you have these senses. Once you have remained in peace and seclusion for a while, go about your usual daily business by first deeply imprinting the thought in your mind: I will become what I am meant to become when I am ready. And strictly refrain from drawing anything from the higher powers to yourself by your arbitrary will." These are instructions that every occult disciple receives from his teacher at the beginning of the path. If he observes them, he perfects himself. If he does not observe them, then all work is in vain. But they are only difficult for those who do not have patience and steadfastness. There are no other obstacles than those which everyone throws in his own way and which everyone can avoid if he really wants to. This must be emphasized again and again, because many people form a completely false idea about the difficulties of the occult path. In a certain sense, it is easier to cross the first stages of this path than to cope with the most everyday difficulties of life without occult training. — Moreover, only those things may be communicated here that are not accompanied by any kind of danger to physical and mental health. There are, of course, other ways that lead more quickly to the goal; but what is meant here has nothing to do with these, because they can have certain effects on the person that an experienced occult practitioner does not strive for. Since some of these paths do repeatedly come to public attention, we must expressly warn against entering them. For reasons that only the initiated can understand, these paths can never be made public in their true form. And the fragments that appear here and there can lead to nothing beneficial, but to the undermining of health, happiness and peace of mind. Those who do not want to entrust themselves entirely to dark forces, of whose true nature and origin they can know nothing, should avoid getting involved in such things.

[ 12 ] A few things can be said about the environment in which the exercises of occult training should be carried out. Because a lot depends on it. But the situation is different for almost everyone. Whoever practises in an environment that is only filled with selfish interests, for example the modern struggle for existence, must be aware that these interests will not remain without influence on the development of his spiritual organs. It is true that the inner laws of these organs are so strong that this influence cannot become too harmful. As little as a lily can become a thistle through an inappropriate environment, so little can the soul's eye develop into something other than what it is destined for, even if the selfish interests of modern cities influence it. But it is good under all circumstances if the occult student occasionally makes the quiet peace and the inner dignity and grace of nature his surroundings. The situation is particularly favorable for those who can undertake their occult training entirely in the green world of plants or between sunny mountains and the lovely weaving of simplicity. This drives out the inner organs in a harmony that can never arise in the modern city. Those who have at least been able to breathe pine air, look at snowy peaks and observe the quiet hustle and bustle of forest animals and insects during their childhood are somewhat better off than mere city dwellers. But none of those who have been given the task of living in the city may refrain from feeding their educated souls and minds with the inspired teachings of spiritual research. Those whose eyes cannot follow the greenery of the forests day after day every spring should instead feed their hearts with the sublime teachings of the Bhagavad-Gita, the Gospel of St. John, St. Thomas of Kempen and the presentations of the results of spiritual science. There are many paths to the summit of insight; but a correct choice is indispensable. — Those who know the occult know many things about such paths that seem strange to the uninitiated. For example, someone can be very far along the occult path. He may, so to speak, be on the point of opening his soul's eyes and spiritual ears; and then he has the good fortune to take a voyage over the calm or perhaps the wildly moving sea, and a blindfold comes off his soul's eyes: suddenly he becomes seeing. — Another is also so far gone that this blindfold only needs to come off; it happens through a strong stroke of fate. On another person this blow would probably have had the effect of paralyzing his strength, undermining his energy; for the occult disciple it becomes the occasion of enlightenment. — A third one endures in patience; he has endured for years without any noticeable fruit. Suddenly, as he sits quietly in the silent chamber, there is a spiritual light around him, the walls disappear, become spiritually transparent, and a new world spreads out before his eyes, which have become seeing, or sounds to his ears, which have become hearing.