The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The Splitting of the Personality During Initiation

[ 1 ] During sleep, the human soul does not receive messages from the physical sensory organs. The perceptions of the ordinary external world do not flow to it in this state. It is in truth in a certain respect outside the part of the human being, the so-called physical body, which mediates the sensory perceptions and the thinking when awake. It is then only in connection with the finer bodies (the etheric body and the astral body), which are beyond the observation of the physical senses. But the activity of these finer bodies does not cease in sleep. Just as the physical body is in contact with the things and beings of the physical world, just as it receives effects from them and acts upon them, so the soul lives in a higher world. And this life continues during sleep. In fact, the soul is in full activity during sleep. But man can know nothing of his own activity as long as he has no spiritual organs of perception, through which he can observe during sleep what is going on around him and what he himself is doing, just as well as he can observe his physical surroundings with his ordinary senses during the day. The secret training consists (as has been shown in the previous chapters) in the training of such spiritual sensory tools.

[ 2 ] If a person's sleep life is transformed through secret training in the sense described in the previous chapter, he can consciously follow everything that goes on around him in this state; he can find his way around his surroundings at will, as is the case with his experiences during waking everyday life through the ordinary senses. It should be noted, however, that the perception of the ordinary sensory environment already presupposes a higher degree of clairvoyance. (This has already been indicated in the previous chapter.) At the beginning of development, the secret disciple only perceives things that belong to another world, without being able to notice their connection with the objects of his everyday sensory environment.

[ 3 ] What is illustrated by such characteristic examples of dream and sleep life takes place continuously in human beings. The soul lives without interruption in higher worlds and is active within the latter. From these higher worlds it draws the stimuli through which it continually influences the physical body. But for the human being this higher life remains unconscious. The secret disciple, however, brings it to consciousness. Thus his life becomes a different one altogether. As long as the soul is not seeing in the higher sense, it is guided by superior world beings. And just as the life of a blind person who has become sighted through an operation becomes different from what it was before, since he had to rely on his guide, so the life of the human being changes through the secret training. He will outgrow his leadership and must henceforth assume his leadership himself. As soon as this occurs, he is, understandably, subject to errors of which the ordinary consciousness is unaware. He now acts out of a world from which he was previously influenced by higher powers of which he himself was unaware. These higher powers are ordered by the general harmony of the world. The secret disciple steps out of this world harmony. He now has to do things himself that were previously carried out for him without his involvement.

[ 4 ] Because the latter is the case, much is said in the writings that deal with such things about the dangers connected with the ascent to the higher worlds. The descriptions that are sometimes given of such dangers are well suited to make fearful minds look at this higher life only with trepidation. But it must be said that these dangers only exist if the necessary precautions are disregarded. If, on the other hand, everything that true secret training gives as advice is really observed, then the ascent takes place through experiences that surpass in violence and greatness everything that the boldest fantasy of the sensual man can imagine; but there can be no question of any impairment of health or life. Man becomes acquainted with gruesome forces that threaten life at every turn. It becomes possible for him to make use of certain powers and beings that are beyond sensory perception. And the temptation is great to seize these powers in the service of one's own illicit interest or to use such powers erroneously out of a lack of knowledge of the higher worlds. Some of such particularly significant experiences (for example the encounter with the "Guardian of the Threshold") will be described in these essays. - But it must be remembered that the powers hostile to life are present even when they are not known. It is true, however, that their relationship to man is then determined by higher forces and that this relationship also changes when man enters this previously hidden world with consciousness. But in return his own existence is enhanced, his circle of life is enriched by an enormous field. There is only a real danger if the secret disciple, through impatience or immodesty, assumes a certain independence too soon in relation to the experiences of the higher world, if he cannot wait until he really gains sufficient insight into the supersensible laws. In this field, humility and modesty are even less empty words than in ordinary life. But if the disciple possesses these in the very best sense, he can be sure that his ascent into the higher life will take place without danger to anything that is usually called health and life. - Above all, there must be no disharmony between the higher experiences and the processes and demands of everyday life. Man's task is definitely to be sought on this earth. And he who wants to evade the tasks on this earth and flee to another world may be sure that he will not reach his goal. - But what the senses perceive is only a part of the world. And in the spiritual lie the entities which express themselves in the facts of the sensual world. One should become a partaker of the spirit so that one can carry its revelations into the sensory world. Man transforms the earth by implanting into it what he explores from the spirit world. Therein lies his task. Only because the sensual earth depends on the spiritual world, because one can only truly work on earth if one is a participant in those worlds in which the creative forces are hidden, should one want to ascend to the latter. If one approaches the secret training with this attitude and does not deviate for a moment from the direction thus indicated, then one does not have to fear the slightest danger. No one should allow the dangers in prospect to deter them from secret training; for everyone, however, this prospect should be a stern challenge to acquire the qualities that the true secret student should have.

[ 5 ] After these prerequisites, which probably eliminate all frightfulness, we will now proceed to the description of some so-called "dangers". However, great changes take place with the above-mentioned finer bodies in the secret disciple. Such changes are connected with certain developmental processes of the three basic forces of the soul, with will, feeling and thinking. Before the secret training of the human being, these three forces are connected in a very specific way, regulated by higher world laws. Man does not arbitrarily will, feel or think. When, for example, a certain idea appears in consciousness, it is followed by a certain feeling according to natural laws or it is followed by a decision of will that is lawfully connected with it. You enter a room, find it dull and open the windows. You hear your name called and answer the call. You are asked a question and give an answer. You see a foul-smelling thing and get a feeling of displeasure. These are simple connections between thinking, feeling and willing. But if you look at human life, you will find that everything in this life is based on such connections. Indeed, a person's life can only be described as "normal" if one notices in it such a connection between thinking, feeling and willing, which is based on the laws of human nature. One would find it contrary to these laws if, for example, a person felt pleasure at the sight of a foul-smelling object or if he did not answer questions. The success that one expects from a correct education or appropriate teaching is based on the assumption that one can establish a connection between thinking, feeling and willing in the pupil that corresponds to human nature. If certain ideas are taught, it is on the assumption that they will later enter into lawful connections with his feelings and volitional decisions. - All this stems from the fact that in the finer soul-bodies of man the centers of the three powers, thinking, feeling and willing, are connected with each other in a lawful way. And this connection in the finer soul organism also has its image in the gross physical body. In this, too, the organs of volition are in a certain lawful connection with those of thinking and feeling. A certain thought therefore regularly evokes a feeling or an activity of the will. - In the higher development of the human being, the threads that connect the three basic forces are now interrupted. At first this interruption occurs only in the finer soul organism as characterized; but with still higher ascent the separation also extends to the physical body. (In the higher spiritual development of man, for example, his brain actually breaks down into three separate parts. The separation, however, is such that it is not perceptible to ordinary sensory perception and cannot be detected even by the sharpest sensory instruments. But it occurs, and the clairvoyant has means to observe it. The brain of the higher clairvoyant is divided into three independently acting entities: the thinking, feeling and volitional brain).

[ 6 ] The organs of thought, feeling and will are then completely independent. And their connection is now not established by any laws implanted in them, but must be effected by the awakened higher consciousness of man himself. - For this is the change which the secret disciple notices in himself, that no connection arises between an idea and a feeling or a feeling and a decision of the will and so on, unless he himself creates one. No impulse leads him from a thought to an action if he does not bring about this impulse freely within himself. He can now stand completely unfeeling before a fact which, before his training, inspired him with ardent love or the fiercest hatred; he can remain inactive with a thought which previously inspired him to an action as if of its own accord. And he can carry out deeds out of volitional decisions for which a person who has not undergone secret training has not the slightest reason. The great achievement of the secret disciple is that he attains complete mastery over the interaction of the three soul forces; but this interaction is also placed entirely under his own responsibility.

[ 7 ] It is only through this transformation of his being that man can enter into conscious contact with certain supersensible forces and entities. For his own soul forces have a corresponding relationship to certain basic forces of the world. The power, for example, which lies in the will, can have an effect on certain things and beings of the higher world and also perceive them. But it can only do this when it has become free of its connection with the feeling and thinking within the soul. As soon as this connection is severed, the effect of the will emerges outwards. And so it is with the forces of thinking and feeling. If a person sends me a feeling of hatred, this is visible to the clairvoyant as a fine cloud of light of a certain color. And such a clairvoyant can ward off this feeling of hatred in the same way that a sensory person wards off a physical blow that is struck against him. Hatred becomes a visible phenomenon in the supersensible world. But the clairvoyant can only perceive it by being able to send the power that lies in his feelings outwards, just as the sensory man directs the receptivity of his eye outwards. And as with hatred, so it is with far more significant facts of the sensual world. Man can enter into conscious contact with them by uncovering the basic forces of his soul.

[ 8 ] Through the described separation of the powers of thinking, feeling and willing, a threefold aberration is now possible in the course of man's development, if the secret scientific rules are disregarded. Such an aberration can occur if the connecting paths are destroyed before the higher consciousness has reached the stage of cognition where it is able to properly guide the reins that establish a free and harmonious interaction of the separate forces. - For, as a rule, not all three basic forces of man are equally advanced in their development at a given stage of life. In one person thinking has progressed ahead of feeling and volition, in another another another force has the upper hand over its comrades. As long as the connection between the forces established by the higher laws of the world is maintained, no disturbing irregularity in the higher sense can occur through the prominence of one or the other. In the man of will, for example, thinking and feeling have a balancing effect through those laws, and they prevent the predominant will from falling into particular degenerations. But when such a man of will enters into the secret training, the lawful influence of feeling and thought on the will, which constantly urges to tremendous feats of strength, ceases completely. If the human being is then not so far advanced in the perfect mastery of the higher consciousness that he can bring about harmony himself, the will goes its own unbridled ways. It continually overpowers its bearer. Feeling and thinking fall prey to complete powerlessness; man is whipped by the slavishly dominating power of will. A nature of violence, which moves from one unrestrained action to another, has arisen. - A second deviation arises when the feeling frees itself from the lawful reins in an immoderate manner. A person inclined to worship other people can then become boundlessly dependent to the point of losing all will and thought. Instead of higher knowledge, the most pitiful hollowing out and powerlessness is then the lot of such a personality. - Or, with such a predominant emotional life, a nature inclined to piety and religious exaltation can fall into a religious indulgence that completely enraptures it. - The third evil arises when thinking predominates. Then a life-hostile, introverted contemplation appears. For such people, the world then only seems to have meaning insofar as it provides them with objects to satisfy their boundless lust for wisdom. They are not stimulated to any action or feeling by any thought. They appear everywhere as impassive, cold natures. They flee any contact with things of everyday reality like something that disgusts them or that has at least lost all meaning for them.

[ 9 ] These are the three wrong paths that the secret disciple can fall into: violent humanity, emotional indulgence and the cold, loveless pursuit of wisdom. From an external point of view - even from the materialistic point of view of orthodox medicine - the image of such a person who has gone astray does not differ much, especially in degree, from that of an insane person or at least a seriously "mentally ill person". Of course, the secret disciple must not resemble them. The important thing with him is that thinking, feeling and volition, the three fundamental powers of the soul, have undergone a harmonious development before they can be released from their implanted connection and placed under the control of the awakened higher consciousness. - For once the mistake has been made, once a basic force has fallen prey to unrestraint, the higher soul initially emerges as a miscarriage. The unrestrained power then fills the whole personality of the person; and for a long time there is no thought of everything coming back into balance. What appears to be a harmless character disposition as long as the person is without secret training, namely whether he is a will, feeling or thinking nature, increases in the secret student in such a way that the general humanity necessary for life is completely lost in comparison. - However, this only becomes a really serious danger at the moment when the pupil acquires the ability to have experiences before him in a waking state as well as in a sleeping consciousness. As long as it remains with the mere illumination of the sleep pauses, the sensory life, regulated by the general laws of the world, always has a balancing effect on the disturbed equilibrium of the soul during the waking state. This is why it is so necessary that the waking life of the secret disciple should be regular and healthy in every respect. The more he meets the demands which the outer world makes on a healthy, vigorous organization of body, soul and spirit, the better it is for him. On the other hand, it can be bad for him if everyday waking life has an exciting or exhausting effect on him, i.e. if any destructive or inhibiting influences of external life are added to the major changes taking place within him. He should seek out everything that corresponds to his powers and that brings him into an undisturbed, harmonious coexistence with his surroundings. And he should avoid everything that is detrimental to this harmony, everything that brings unrest and haste into his life. It is not so much a question of getting rid of this restlessness and haste in an external sense, but rather of ensuring that the mood, the intentions and thoughts and the health of the body are not subjected to constant fluctuations. - All this is not as easy for man during his secret training as before. For the higher experiences which now play a part in his life have an uninterrupted effect on his whole existence. If something is not in order within these higher experiences, irregularity is constantly lurking and can throw him off the orderly course at any opportunity. Therefore, the secret disciple must not refrain from doing anything that ensures that he is always in control of his entire being. He should never lack presence of mind or a calm overview of all possible situations in life. But a genuine secret training basically produces all these qualities by itself. And one only learns to know the dangers during such training by simultaneously acquiring the full power to beat them out of the field at the right moments.