The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Inspiration

[ 1 ] From the description of imagination it has become clear how through it the secret disciple leaves the ground of external sensory experiences. This is the case to an even greater degree in inspiration. With it, the imagination is based on much less of what can be called an external stimulation. Man must find within himself the power that makes it possible for him to form ideas about something. He must be inwardly active to a much higher degree than is the case with external cognition. In the latter he gives himself up to the external impressions, and they cause the ideas in him. This devotion is omitted in inspiration. There are now no eyes to provide colors, no ears to provide sounds, etc. All the content of the imagination must, so to speak, be created through its own activity, that is, through purely spiritual processes. And into that which man thus creates through the activity of his inner being, the revelation of the higher real world must be imprinted. A peculiar contradiction seems to arise in such a description of the higher world of knowledge. Man is supposed to be in a certain way the creator of his ideas; and yet these ideas must not, of course, be his creatures; but through them the processes of the higher world must express themselves just as the processes of the lower world express themselves in the perceptions of the eyes, ears, etc. This, however, is a contradiction. But this is a contradiction that must be found in the description of this kind of cognition. For it is precisely that which the secret disciple must acquire on the path to inspiration, that he brings about by way of his inner activity something which in ordinary life he is forced to do from without. - Why do conceptions not proceed arbitrarily in ordinary life? Because in his imagination man must be guided by external objects. All arbitrariness of the "I" falls away, because the objects say: we are like this or like that. The objects speak as they should be imagined, the "I" has nothing to determine. Whoever does not want to submit to the objects, imagines the wrong things; and he would soon realize how little he could cope with this in the world. This necessary attitude of man to the things of the external world in cognition can be described by the term "selfless". Man must behave selflessly towards things. And the outside world is his teacher in this selflessness. It deprives him of all illusions, all fantasies, all illogical judgments, everything unobjective, by simply placing its correct image before his senses.

[ 2 ] If a person wants to prepare himself for inspiration, he must bring his inner self to such an extent that this selflessness is inherent in him, even if nothing from outside compels him to do so. He must learn to create inwardly, but in such a way that his "I" does not in the least play an arbitrary role in this creation. The difficulties involved in achieving such selflessness become all the more apparent the more one considers which soul forces are particularly relevant for inspiration. - A distinction is made between the three basic powers of the soul's life: imagination, feeling and volition. In ordinary sensory cognition, imagination is stimulated by external objects. And through these externally stimulated perceptions, feeling and volition also receive their specific directions. For example, a person sees an object; this gives him pleasure, as a result of which he desires the object in question. The pleasure is in the feeling; through this the will is aroused, as it has itself received its character from the imagination. But the ultimate ground of imagination, feeling and volition is the external object. - Another case would be this. A person experiences an event. This causes him fear. He runs away from the scene of the event. Here, too, the external events are the first cause; they come to perception through the senses, become ideas, the feeling of fear arises; and the will - which is realized in running away - is the consequence. In the case of inspiration, an external object in this form falls away. The senses are out of the question for perception. They therefore cannot be the stimulators of ideas. From this side, no influence is exerted on feeling and volition. - But it is precisely these two from which, as from a mother soil, the ideas rise inwardly during inspiration, grow out, as it were. And true ideas will grow if the parent soil is healthy, errors and delusions if it is unhealthy.

[ 3 ] As surely as the inspirations that spring from a healthy feeling and volition can be revelations of a higher world, so surely do the errors, delusions and fantasies about a higher world spring from a desolate feeling and volition.

[ 4 ] The secret training therefore sets itself the task of showing man the means which enable him to make his feelings and his volitional impulses fruitful for inspiration. As in all matters of secret training, here too we are dealing with an intimate regulation and shaping of the soul's life. One must first acquire certain feelings which one knows only to a small degree in ordinary life. Some of these feelings will be indicated here. Among the most important is a greater sensitivity to "true" and "untrue", to "right" and "wrong". Of course, ordinary people also have similar feelings. But they must be developed to a much greater degree in the secret disciple. Suppose someone makes a logical error: someone else recognizes this error and sets the matter right. Let us realize how great the share of judgement, of reason, is in such a correction and how small the feeling of pleasure is in the case of the correct, of displeasure in the case of the incorrect Mind you, it is not intended to claim that the pleasure and correspondingly the displeasure are not present at all. But the degree to which they are present in ordinary life must increase indefinitely in the secret training. The secret disciple must systematically direct his attention to the life of his soul: and he must bring it to the point where the logically incorrect becomes a source of pain, which does not fall short of a physical pain; and in the opposite way, the "right" must give him real joy or pleasure. Thus, where another only sets his intellect, his power of judgment in motion, the secret disciple must learn to live through the whole sequence of feelings, from pain to enthusiasm, from painful tension to the delightful release in possession of the truth. Yes, he must learn to feel something like hatred towards that which is experienced by the "normal" person only as a sober, cold "wrong"; he must develop a love for truth in himself, which has a very personal character; as personal, as warm as the lover feels towards the beloved. - In the circles of our "educated" people, too, one will certainly often speak of the "love of truth"; but what is meant there cannot be compared at all with what the secret disciple must go through in silent, inner soul work in this direction. He must patiently again and again submit to himself by trial this or that "true", this or that "false"; and devote himself to the matter in order not merely to train his power of judgment, which soberly distinguishes between "true" and "false", but he must gain a very personal relationship to it all. - It is quite true that at the beginning of such a training man can fall into what may be called "hypersensitivity". An incorrect judgment that he hears in his surroundings, an inconsistency, etc. can cause him almost unbearable pain. - This must therefore be taken into account during training. For if this were not done, great dangers could arise for the balance of the pupil's soul. If care is taken that the character remains firm, then storms can take place in the life of the soul, and the person still has the strength to live in harmony with the outside world. A mistake is made in every case where the secret disciple is brought to an antagonism towards the outer world, so that he finds it unbearable or even wants to flee from it. The higher emotional world must not be allowed to develop at the expense of the regular working and working in the outer world; therefore, the inner elevation of the emotional life must correspond to a strengthening of the power of resistance to the outer impressions. The practical secret training therefore instructs man never to undertake the above-mentioned exercises to train his emotional world without at the same time also developing himself in the direction that he can gain an understanding of what life demands of man in terms of the feeling of tolerance. He must at the same time be able to feel within himself the most vivid pain when, for example, a person makes an incorrect judgment, and be completely tolerant of this person, because the thought is just as vivid in the soul: this person must judge in this way, and his judgment is to be reckoned with as a fact. - It is true, however, that the inner life of the secret scientist will transform itself more and more into a double life. Ever richer processes will take place in his soul during his pilgrimage through life, becoming more and more independent of what the outer world gives, a second world. But this double life will be precisely what is fruitful for the genuine practice of life. What emerges as a result is quick-wittedness of judgment and accuracy in making decisions. Where the person who is far removed from such training has to go through long chains of thought, is driven back and forth between decision and perplexity, the secret scientist will quickly survey the situations of life, quickly uncover connections hidden from the ordinary eye, etc. It often requires a great deal of patience for him to enter into the slow way in which another person can grasp something, while for him this grasp happens as quick as an arrow.

[ 5 ] So far we have only spoken of the qualities that the emotional life must possess in order for inspiration to occur in the right way. The other question is this: How do feelings become fruitful so that they give birth to real ideas belonging to the world of inspiration? If one wants to understand what the secret science has to give as an answer to this question, one must familiarize oneself with the fact that the human soul life always has a certain treasure of feelings that go beyond the measure of what is stimulated by the sensory perceptions. Man feels, as it were, more than what things force him to feel. It is only that in ordinary life this excess is applied in such a direction that it must be transformed into another through secret training. Take, for example, a feeling of anxiety or fear. It will be easy to realize that in many cases the fear or anxiety is greater than it would be if it were entirely appropriate to a corresponding external process. Imagine now that the secret disciple works energetically on himself so that in no case that occurs to him will he have greater fear or anxiety than is really justified in relation to the corresponding external events. Now a certain degree of fear or anxiety is always generated by the expenditure of soul power. This soul-power is actually lost by generating fear or anxiety. The secret disciple really saves this soul power when he denies himself fear or anxiety - and other things. And it remains available to him for something else. If he repeats such processes often, an inner treasure is formed from the soul forces that are continually spared, and the secret disciple will soon experience that from such emotional savings the germs of ideas grow which express revelations of the higher life. Such things cannot be "proved" in the ordinary sense; one can only give the secret disciple the instruction: do this or that - and he will see, when he carries out the matter, that the unmistakable fruits will appear.

[ 6 ] To an imprecise observer of what has just been described, it could easily appear to be a contradiction that, on the one hand, an enrichment of the emotional world is demanded, in that feelings of pleasure, pain, etc. are to be aroused by what otherwise only arouses the judgment of the intellect - and, on the other hand, precisely savings of feelings are spoken of. This contradiction disappears immediately if one considers that the savings are to be made in those feelings which are stimulated by the external senses. Precisely that which is spared appears as an enrichment compared to the spiritual experiences. And it is quite true that feelings spared in this way in the sensory world of perception not only become free in the other sphere, but that they prove to be creative in this sphere. They create the material for the ideas in which the spiritual world reveals itself.

[ 7 ] It would not go very far, however, if one only wanted to stop at such savings as have been indicated above. More is needed for greater success. One must supply the soul with a far greater treasure of feeling-producing power than is possible in this way. For example, one must expose oneself to certain external impressions on a trial basis and then completely deny oneself the feelings that occur in the so-called "normal" state. One must, for example, confront an event which "normally" excites the soul and completely deny oneself this excitement. One can do this by actually confronting such an event or merely by imagining it. The latter is even better for fruitful secret training. Since the pupil is initiated into imagination, either before his preparation for inspiration or simultaneously with the latter, he must actually be able to place an event imaginatively before his soul with the same power as if it were really there. - If, in the course of long inner work, the student exposes himself again and again to things and processes and forbids himself to have corresponding "normal" feelings, the mother soil for inspiration is created in his soul. - It should only be mentioned here as an interim remark that the person who describes such a training for inspiration can fully appreciate it if, from the point of view of our present-day education, some objections are raised against such a description. And one can not only object to this or that, one can even smile and say: "Inspiration cannot be pedantically taught; it is a natural gift of genius." Yes, certainly, from the point of view of this contemporary education it may seem quite comical when there is much talk about the education of someone for whom this education does not want to know anything about an explanation; but this contemporary education is not aware of how little it is able to think its own trains of thought through to the end. Anyone who wanted to expect a confessor of this contemporary education to believe that some more highly developed animal did not develop slowly, but "suddenly" appeared, would soon hear that those educated in the modern sense do not believe in such a "miracle". Such a thing is "superstition". Well, in the area of the life of the soul, however, such a modern educated person is, in the style of his own views, a person afflicted by blatant superstition. He does not want to think that a more perfect soul must also have developed, that it cannot suddenly appear as a natural gift. Outwardly, however, many a genius appears to be born "out of nothing", to be there in an inexplicable way; but it only appears so to the materialistic superstition; the spiritual scientist knows that a genial disposition which is born in a man in one life as if out of nothing is simply the result of his education for inspiration in an earlier life on earth. - Materialistic superstition is bad in the theoretical field; but it is far worse in such a practical field as this. Since it assumes that geniuses must "fall from heaven" in all the future, it does not care about such "occult nonsense" or such "fantastic mysticism" that speaks of preparation for inspiration. In this way, however, the superstition of the materialists hinders the true progress of mankind. It does not ensure that the dormant abilities in people are developed.

[ 8 ] In reality, those who call themselves progressives and freethinkers are often those who are the enemies of true progress. But this should - as I said - only be an interim remark, which is necessary with regard to the relationship of secret science to the current formation of the times.

[ 9 ] Now the powers of the soul, which are stored up as a treasure within the pupil through the marked failure of the "normal" feelings, would certainly, even without the help of anything else, be transformed into inspirations. And the secret disciple would experience how true ideas arise in his soul which represent experiences in higher worlds. The matter would begin with the simplest experiences of supersensible processes, and slowly more complicated and higher things would come to light if the pupil continued to live inwardly in the direction indicated. - In reality, however, such secret training would be quite impractical today, and it is therefore probably not carried out anywhere where serious work is done. For if the pupil wanted to develop in this way everything "out of himself" that inspiration can give: he would quite certainly come to "spin out of himself" everything that has ever been said here, for example, about the nature of man, about man's life after death, about the development of the human race and the planets, and so on. But such a disciple would need immeasurably long periods of time. It would be as if, for example, someone wanted to spin the whole of geometry out of himself, regardless of what people before him had already done in this field. Certainly, "in theory" such a thing is quite possible. To carry it out in practice would be folly. In secret science, too, one does not proceed in this way, but has those things handed down to him by a teacher which have been achieved for mankind by inspired predecessors. This tradition must at present provide the basis for one's own inspiration. That which is offered today in the relevant literature and in lectures etc. from the field of secret science can certainly provide such a basis for inspiration. There are, for example, the teachings about the various basic parts of the human being (physical body, etheric body, astral body, etc.), the knowledge about life after death until a new embodiment, then, for example, everything that has been printed under the title "From the Akashic Chronicle". It must be emphasized that inspiration is needed for finding and experiencing the higher truths, but not for understanding them. Without inspiration one cannot first find what is communicated under the title "From the Akashic Chronicle". But if one receives it through communication, then one can see it through ordinary logical judgment. No one should claim that it asserts things that cannot be understood logically without inspiration. One does not find them incomprehensible because one is not inspired, but only because one does not want to reflect sufficiently. - So when you are told such truths, they arouse inspiration in your soul by their own power. If you want to be inspired, you only have to try not to receive these insights soberly and intellectually, but to let yourself be carried away by the upswing of ideas into every possible emotional experience. And how can one not do this! Can the feeling remain dull if one lets the overwhelming processes pass before one in the spirit, as the earth has developed from the moon, sun and Saturn, or if one sees through the infinite depths of human nature through a realization of one's etheric, astral body, etc.? One might almost say: bad enough for one who can experience such thought structures in sobriety. For if he did not experience them in sobriety, but lived through all possible emotional tensions and emotional solutions, all increases and crises, all progress and regressions, all catastrophes and proclamations: then the mother soil for inspiration itself would be prepared in him. However, one can only really develop the necessary life in feelings in the face of such messages from a higher world if one does exercises of the kind indicated above. Those who turn all their emotional powers to the external sensory world of perception will find the stories from a higher world to be "dry concepts", "gray theory". He will never be able to understand why the other person's heart is warmed when he hears the messages of secret science, while he remains "cool to the core". He will even say: "It's all for the mind, it's intellectual; I want something for the soul." But he doesn't tell himself that it's because of him that his heart remains cold.

[ 10 ] Many still underestimate the power of what lies hidden in these messages from a higher world alone. And in connection with this, they overestimate all kinds of other exercises and procedures. Yes, what use is it to me, they say, if others tell me what it looks like in higher worlds: I would like to look in there myself. They just usually lack the patience to delve into such stories from higher worlds again and again. If they did, they would see the power of these "mere stories" and how truly their own inspiration is stimulated when they receive the inspiration of others. - Certainly, other exercises must be added to "learning" if the pupil is to make rapid progress in experiencing the higher worlds; but no one should underestimate the unlimited importance of "learning" in particular. And in any case, no one can be given hope that he will make rapid conquests in the higher worlds through any exercises who does not at the same time bring it upon himself to immerse himself unceasingly in the communications which, purely narrative, are made of the processes and beings of the higher worlds from the appointed side. - The fact that at present such communications are made in literature and in lectures, etc., and that the first hints are also given about the exercises which lead to knowledge of the higher worlds (e.g. the descriptions in "How does one attain knowledge of the higher worlds?" are just such first hints), one can now learn some of what was formerly only communicated in strictly closed secret schools. As has often been mentioned, such a publication stems from the circumstances of our time and must happen. However, it must always be emphasized that, although this makes it easier to acquire secret knowledge, it cannot completely replace the safe guidance of an experienced secret teacher.

[ 11 ] Cognition through inspiration leads man to experience the processes in the invisible worlds, e.g. the development of man, that of the earth and its planetary embodiments; but if within these higher worlds not only processes but beings come into consideration, then intuition must enter as a mode of cognition. What happens through such beings is recognized in the image through imagination, according to the laws and relationships through inspiration; if one wants to face the beings themselves, then one needs intuition. - How inspiration integrates itself into the world of imagination, how it permeates the latter as a "spiritual music" and thereby becomes the means of expression of the beings to be recognized through intuition, will be discussed later. Then intuition itself will also be dealt with. It should only be pointed out here that what is called "intuition" in secret science has nothing to do with what the word "intuition" is often used for in popular language at present. It is used to describe a more or less uncertain "hunch" as opposed to a clear, logically gained knowledge of the mind or reason. In secret science, "intuition" is not something unclear and uncertain, but a high type of knowledge, full of the brightest clarity and the most unquestionable certainty.