Occult Science - An Outline
GA 13
Preface to the 1925 Edition
[ 1 ] Fifteen years having now elapsed since the first publication of this book, it may be suitable for me to say something more about the spiritual circumstances and my own state of mind when it originated. [ 2 ] It had been my intention that its main content should form part of a new and enlarged version of my Theosophy, published several years before. But this did not prove possible. At the time when Theosophy was written the subject-matter of the present volume could not be brought into an equally finished form. In my Imaginative perceptions I beheld the spiritual life and being of individual Man and was able to describe this clearly. The facts of cosmic evolution were not present to me to the same extent. I was indeed aware of them in many details, but the picture as a whole was lacking.
[ 3 ] I therefore resolved to make no appreciable change in the main content of the earlier volume. In the new edition as in the first, the book Theosophy should describe the essential features of the life of individual Man, as I had seen it in the spirit. Meanwhile I would quietly be working at a new and independent publication, Occult Science—An Outline.
[ 4 ] My feeling at that time was that the contents of this book must be presented in scientific thought-forms—that is, in forms of thought akin to those of Natural Science, duly developed and adapted to the description of what is spiritual. How strongly I felt this “scientific” obligation in all that I wrote at that time in the field of spiritual knowledge, will be evident from the Preface to the First Edition (1909), here reproduced. [ 5 ] But the world of the spirit as revealed to spiritual sight can only partly be described in thought-forms of this kind. What is revealed cannot be fully contained in mere forms of thought. This will be known to anyone who has had experience of such revelation. Adapted as they are to the exposition of what is seen by the outer senses, the thoughts of our every-day consciousness are inadequate, fully to expound what is seen and experienced in the spirit. [ 6 ] The latter can only be conveyed in picture-form, that is, in Imaginations, through which Inspirations speak, which in their turn proceed from spiritual reality of Being, experienced in Intuition. (Concerning “Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition,” the necessary explanations will be found both in the present volume and in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment.)
[ 7 ] Today, however, one who sets out to tell of the spiritual world in Imaginations cannot rest content with such pictorial descriptions. He would be foisting on to the civilization of our time the outcome of a state of consciousness quite unrelated to existing forms of knowledge. It is to the normal consequences of the present age that he must bring home the truths which can indeed only be discovered by a higher consciousness of the present age that he must bring home the truths which can indeed only be discovered by a higher consciousness—one that sees into the spiritual world. The subject-matter of his exposition, namely the realities of the world of spirit, will then be case into forms of thought which the prevailing consciousness of our time—scientifically thoughtful and wide-awake, though unable yet to see into the spiritual world—can understand.
[ 8 ] An inability to understand will at most be due to hindrances that are self-imposed. The reader may have fixed in his mind some definition of the inherent limitations of human knowledge, due to a mistaken generalization of the limits of Natural Science. [ 9 ] Spiritual cognition is a delicate and tender process in the human soul, and this is true not only of the actual “seeing” in the spirit, but of the active understanding with which the normal “non-seeing” consciousness of our time can come to meet the results of seership. [ 10 ] People with half-formed notions who allege auto-suggestion in this regard have little idea of the real depth and intimacy of such understanding. For the scientific understanding of the physical world there may be truth or error in our theories and concepts. [ 11 ] For the spiritual world, it is no longer a merely theoretic issue; it is a matter of living experience. [ 12 ] When a man's judgment is tinged however slightly by the dogmatic assertion that the ordinary (not yet clairvoyant) consciousness—through its inherent limitations—cannot really understand what is experienced by the seer, this mistaken judgment becomes a cloud of darkness in his feeling-life and does in fact obscure his understanding.
[ 13 ] To an open mind however, though not yet “seeing” in the spirit, what is experienced by the seer is comprehensible to a very full extent, if once the seer has cast it into forms of thought. It is no less intelligible than is a finished work of art to the non-artist. Nor is this understanding confined to the realm of aesthetic feeling as in the latter instance; it lives in full clarity of thought, even as in the scientific understanding of Nature.
[ 14 ] To make such understanding possible, however, the seer must have contrived to express what he has seen, in genuine forms of thought, without thereby depriving it of its “Imaginative” character.
[ 15 ] Such were my reflections while working at the subject-matter of my Occult Science, [ 16 ] and, with these premises in mind, by 1909 I felt able to achieve a book, bringing the outcome of my spiritual researches, up to a point into adequate forms of thought—a book moreover which should be intelligible to any thoughtful reader who did not himself impose unnecessary hindrances to understanding.
[ 17 ] While saying this retrospectively today I must however admit that in the year 1909 the publication of this book appeared to me a venture of some temerity. For I was only too well aware that the professional scientists above all, and the vast number of others who in their judgment follow the “scientific” authority, would be incapable of the necessary openness of mind. [ 18 ] Yet I was equally aware that at the very time when the prevailing consciousness of mankind was farthest remote from the world of spirit, communications from that world would be answering to an urgent need. [ 19 ] I counted on there also being many people feeling so weighted down by the prevailing estrangement from the living spirit that with sincere longing they would welcome true communications from the spiritual world. This expectation was amply confirmed during the years that followed. [ 20 ] The books Theosophy and Occult Science have been widely read, though they count not a little on the reader's good will. For it must be admitted, they are not written in an easy style. [ 21 ] I purposely refrained from writing a “popular” account, so-called. I wrote in such a way as to make it necessary to exert one's thinking while entering into the content of these books. In so doing, I gave them a specific character. The very reading of them is an initial step in spiritual training, inasmuch as the necessary effort of quiet thought and contemplation strengthens the powers of the soul, making them capable of drawing nearer to the spiritual world.
[ 22 ] Misunderstandings were soon evoked by the chosen title, Occult Science. A would-be science, people said, cannot in the nature of the case be “occult” or “secret.” Surely a rather thoughtless objection, for no man will deliberately publish what he desires to be secretive about or to keep obscure. The entire book is evidence that far from being claimed as a special “secret,” what is here presented is to be made accessible to human understanding like any other science. Speaking of “Natural Science” we mean the science of Nature. “Occult Science” is the science of what takes its course in realms which are “occult” inasmuch as they are discerned, not in external Nature—Nature as seen by the outer senses—but in directions to which the soul of man becomes attentive when he turns his inner life towards the spirit. [ 23 ] It is “Occult Science” as against “Natural Science.”
[ 24 ] Of my clairvoyant researches into the world of spirit it has often been alleged that they are a re-hash, howsoever modified, of ideas about the spiritual world which have prevailed from time to time, above all in earlier epochs of human history. In the course of my reading I was said to have absorbed these things into the sub-conscious mind and then reproduced them in the fond belief that they were the outcome of my own independent seership. Gnostic doctrines, oriental fables, and wisdom-teachings were alleged to be the real source of my descriptions. [ 25 ] But these surmises too were the outcome of no very deeply penetrating thought. [ 26 ] My knowledge of the spiritual—of this I am fully conscious—springs from my own spiritual vision. At every stage—both in the details and in synthesis and broad review—I have subjected myself to stringent tests, making sure that wide-awake control accompanies each further step in spiritual vision and research. Just as a mathematician proceeds from thought to thought—where the unconscious mind, auto-suggestion and the like can play no part at all—so must the consciousness of the seer move on from one objective Imagination to another. Nothing affects the soul in this process save the objective spiritual content, experienced in full awareness.
[ 27 ] It is by healthy inner experience that one knows a spiritual “Imagination” to be no mere subjective picture but the expression of a spiritual reality in picture-form. Just as in sensory perception anyone sound in mind and body can discriminate between mere fancies and the perception of real facts, so a like power of discernment can be attained by spiritual means.
[ 28 ] So then I had before me the results of conscious spiritual vision. They were things “seen,” living in my consciousness, to begin with, without any names. [ 29 ] To communicate them, some terminology was needed, and it was only then—so as to put into words what had been wordless to begin with—that I looked for suitable expressions in the traditional literature. These too I used quite freely. In the way I apply them, scarcely one of them coincides exactly with its connotation in the source from which I took it. Only after the spiritual content was known to me from my own researches did I thus look for the way to express it. [ 30 ] As to whatever I might formerly have read—with the clear consciousness and control above referred-to, [ 31 ] I was able to eliminate such things completely while engaged on supersensible research.
[ 32 ] But the critics then found echoes of traditional ideas in the terms I used. Paying little heed to the real trend and content of my descriptions, they focused their attention on the words. If I spoke of “lotus flowers,” in the human astral body, they took it as proof that I was reproducing Indian doctrines in which this term occurs. Nay, the term “astral body” itself only showed that I had been dipping into medieval writings. And if I used the terms Angeloi, Archangeloi and so on, I was merely reviving the ideas of Christian Gnosticism. [ 33 ] Time and again I found myself confronted with comments of this kind.
[ 34 ] I take the present opportunity of mentioning this too. Occult Science—an Outline, now to be published in a new edition, is after all an epitome of anthroposophical Spiritual Science as a whole, and is pre-eminently exposed to the same kinds of misunderstanding.
[ 35 ] Since the Imaginations described in this book first grew into a total picture in my mind and spirit, I have unceasingly developed the researches of conscious seership into the being of individual Man, the history of Mankind, the nature and evolution of the Cosmos. The outline as presented fifteen years ago has in no way been shaken. Inserted in its proper place and context, everything that I have since been able to adduce becomes a further elaboration of the original picture.
Vorrede zur 16. – 20. Auflage
[ 1 ] Jetzt, nachdem fünfzehn Jahre seit dem ersten Erscheinen dieses Buches verflossen sind, darf ich wohl vor der Öffentlichkeit einiges sagen über die Seelenverfassung, aus der heraus es entstanden ist.
[ 2 ] Ursprünglich war mein Plan, seinen wesentlichen Inhalt als letzte Kapitel meinem lange vorher erschienenen Buche «Theosophie» anzufügen. Das ging nicht. Dieser Inhalt rundete sich damals, als die «Theosophie» ausgeführt wurde, nicht in der Art in mir ab wie derjenige der «Theosophie». Ich hatte in meinen Imaginationen das geistige Wesen des Einzelmenschen vor meiner Seele stehen und konnte es darstellen, nicht aber standen damals schon die kosmischen Zusammenhänge, die in der «Ge- heimwissenschaft» darzulegen waren, ebenso vor mir. Sie waren im einzelnen da; nicht aber im Gesamtbild.
[ 3 ] Deshalb entschloss ich mich, die «Theosophie» mit dem Inhalte erscheinen zu lassen, den ich als das Wesen des Lebens eines einzelnen Menschen erschaut hatte, und die «Geheimwissenschaft» in der nächsten Zeit in aller Ruhe durchzuführen.
[ 4 ] Der Inhalt dieses Buches musste nach meiner damaligen Seelenstimmung in Gedanken gegeben werden, die für die Darstellung des Geistigen geeignete weitere Fortbildungen der in der Naturwissenschaft angewendeten Gedanken sind. Man wird es den hier wieder abgedruckten «Vorbemerkungen zur ersten Auflage» anmerken, wie stark ich mich mit allem, was ich damals über Geisteserkenntnis schrieb, vor der Naturwissenschaft verantwortlich fühlte.
[ 5 ] Aber man kann nicht in solchen Gedanken allein das zur Darstellung bringen, was sich dem geistigen Schauen als Geist-Welt offenbart. Denn diese Offenbarung geht in einen bloßen Gedankeninhalt nicht ein. Wer das Wesen solcher Offenbarung erlebend kennengelernt hat, der weiß, dass die Gedanken des gewöhnlichen Bewusstseins nur geeignet sind, das sinnlich Wahrgenommene, nicht aber das geistig Geschaute, auszudrücken.
[ 6 ] Der Inhalt des geistig Geschauten lässt sich nur in Bildern (Imaginationen) wiedergeben, durch die Inspirationen sprechen, die von intuitiv erlebter geistiger Wesenheit herrühren. (Über das Wesen von Imagination, Inspiration und Intuition findet man das Notwendige in dieser «Geheimwissenschaft» selbst und in meinem Buche «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?».)
[ 7 ] Aber der Darsteller der Imaginationen aus der Geist-Welt kann gegenwärtig nicht bloß diese Imaginationen hinstellen. Er stellte damit etwas dar, das als ein ganz anderer Bewusstseinsinhalt neben dem Erkenntnisinhalt unseres Zeitalters, ohne allen Zusammenhang mit diesem, stünde. Er muss das gegenwärtige Bewusstsein mit dem erfüllen, was ein anderes Bewusstsein, das in die Geist-Welt schaut, erkennen kann. Dann wird seine Darstellung diese Geist-Welt zum Inhalte haben; aber dieser Inhalt tritt in der Form von Gedanken auf, in die er hineinfließt. Dadurch wird er dem gewöhnlichen Bewusstsein, das im Sinne der Gegenwart denkt, aber noch nicht in die Geist-Welt hineinschaut, voll verständlich.
[ 8 ] Diese Verständlichkeit bleibt nur dann aus, wenn man sich selbst Hindernisse vor sie legt. Wenn man die Vorurteile, die die Zeit aus einer falsch aufgefassten Naturanschauung von «Grenzen des Erkennens» sich gebildet hat, zu den eigenen macht.
[ 9 ] Im Geist-Erkennen ist alles in intimes Seelen-Erleben getaucht. Nicht nur das geistige Anschauen selbst, sondern auch das Verstehen, das das nicht-schauende gewöhnliche Bewusstsein den Ergebnissen des Schauenden entgegenbringt.
[ 10 ] Von dieser Intimität hat keine Ahnung, wer in dilettantischer Art davon spricht, dass der, der zu verstehen glaubt, sich das Verständnis selbst suggeriert.
[ 11] Aber es ist so, dass, was innerhalb des Begreifens der physischen Welt bloß in Begriffen als Wahrheit oder Irrtum sich auslebt, der geistigen Welt gegenüber Erlebnis wird.
[ 12 ] Wer in sein Urteil nur leise empfindend die Behauptung einfließen lässt, das geistig Geschaute sei von dem gewöhnlichen, noch nicht schauenden Bewusstsein — wegen dessen Grenzen — nicht erfassbar, dem legt sich dieses empfindende Urteil wie eine verfinsternde Wolke vor das Erfassen; und er kann wirklich nicht verstehen.
[ 13 ] Aber dem unbefangenen nicht-schauenden Bewusstsein ist das Geschaute voll verständlich, wenn es der Schauende bis in die Gedankenform hineinbringt. Es ist verständlich, wie dem Nicht-Maler das fertige Bild des Malers verständlich ist. Und zwar ist das Verständnis der Geist-Welt nicht das künstlerisch-gefühlsmäßige wie bei einem Kunstwerk, sondern ein durchaus gedankenmäßiges wie der Naturerkenntnis gegenüber.
[ 14 ] Um aber ein solches Verständnis wirklich möglich zu machen, muss der Darsteller des geistig Geschauten seine Schauungen bis zu einem richtigen Hineingießen in Gedankenform bringen, ohne dass sie innerhalb dieser Form ihren imaginativen Charakter verlieren.
[ 15 ] Das stand alles vor meiner Seele, als ich mein «Geheimwissenschaft» ausarbeitete.
[ 16 ] 1909 fühlte ich dann, dass ich mit diesen Voraussetzungen ein Buch zustandebringen könne, das: erstens den Inhalt meiner Geistesschau bis zu einem gewissen, aber zunächst genügenden Grade, in die Gedankenform gegossen, brachte; und das zweitens von jedem denkenden Menschen, der sich keine Hindernisse vor das Verständnis legt, verstanden werden kann.
[ 17 ] Ich sage das heute, indem ich zugleich ausspreche, dass damals — 1909 — mir die Veröffentlichung des Buches als ein Wagnis erschien. Denn ich wusste ja, dass die geforderte Unbefangenheit gerade diejenigen nicht aufbringen können, die Naturwissenschaft beruflich treiben, und ebensowenig alle die zahlreichen Persönlichkeiten, die in ihrem Urteile von diesen abhängig sind.
[ 18 ] Aber es stand gerade die Tatsache vor meiner Seele, dass in der Zeit, in der sich das Bewusstsein der Menschheit von der Geist-Welt am weitesten entfernt hatte, die Mitteilungen aus dieser Geist-Welt einer allerdringendsten Notwendigkeit entsprechen.
[ 19 ] Ich zählte darauf, dass es auch Menschen gibt, die mehr oder weniger die Entfernung von aller Geistigkeit so schwer als Lebenshindernis empfinden, dass sie zu Mitteilungen aus der Geist-Welt mit innerer Sehnsucht greifen.
[ 20 ] Und die folgenden Jahre haben das ja voll bestätigt. Die «Theosophie» und «Geheimwissenschaft» haben als Bücher, die im Leser guten Willen voraussetzen, auf eine schwierige Stilisierung einzugehen, weite Verbreitung gefunden.
[ 21 ] Ich habe ganz bewusst angestrebt, nicht eine «populäre» Darstellung zu geben, sondern eine solche, die notwendig macht, mit rechter Gedankenanstrengung in den Inhalt hineinzukommen. Ich habe damit meinen Büchern einen solchen Charakter aufgeprägt, dass deren Lesen selbst schon der Anfang der Geistesschulung ist. Denn die ruhige, besonnene Gedankenanstrengung, die dieses Lesen notwendig macht, verstärkt die Seelenkräfte und macht sie dadurch fähig, der geistigen Welt nahe zu kommen.
[ 22 ] Daß ich dem Buche den Titel Geheimwissenschaft» gegeben habe, hat sogleich Missverständnisse hervorgerufen. Von mancher Seite wurde gesagt, was «Wissenschaft» sein will, darf nicht «geheim» sein. Wie wenig bedacht war ein solcher Einwand. Als ob jemand, der einen Inhalt veröffentlicht, mit diesem «geheim» tun wolle. Das ganze Buch zeigt, dass nichts als «geheim» bezeichnet, sondern eben in eine solche Form gebracht werden sollte, dass es verständlich sei wie nur irgendeine «Wissenschaft». Oder will man, wenn man das Wort «Naturwissenschaft» gebraucht, nicht andeuten, dass es sich um Wissen von der «Natur» handelt? Geheimwissenschaft ist Wissenschaft von dem, was sich insoferne im «Geheimen» abspielt, als es nicht draußen in der Natur wahrgenommen wird, sondern da, wohin die Seele sich orientiert, wenn sie ihr Inneres nach dem Geiste richtet.
[ 23 ] «Geheimwissenschaft» ist Gegensatz von «Naturwissenschaft».
[ 24 ] Meinen Schauungen in der geistigen Welt hat man immer wieder entgegengehalten, sie seien veränderte Wiedergaben dessen, was im Laufe älterer Zeit an Vorstellungen der Menschen über die Geist-Welt hervorgetreten ist. Man sagte, ich hätte mancherlei gelesen, es ins Unterbewusste aufgenommen und dann in dem Glauben, es entspringe aus dem eigenen Schauen, zur Darstellung gebracht. Aus gnostischen Lehren, aus orientalischen Weisheitsdichtungen und so weiter soll ich meine Darstellungen gewonnen haben.
[ 25 ] Man ist, indem man dieses behauptet hat, mit den Gedanken ganz an der Oberfläche geblieben.
[ 26 ] Meine Erkenntnisse des Geistigen, dessen bin ich mir voll bewusst, sind Ergebnisse eigenen Schauens. Ich hatte jederzeit bei allen Einzelheiten und bei den großen Übersichten mich streng geprüft, ob ich jeden Schritt im schauenden Weiterschreiten so mache, dass vollbesonnenes Bewusstsein diese Schritte begleite. Wie der Mathematiker von Gedanke zu Gedanke schreitet, ohne dass Unbewusstes, Autosuggestion und so weiter eine Rolle spielen, so — sagte ich mir — muss geistiges Schauen von objektiver Imagination zu objektiver Imagination schreiten, ohne dass etwas anderes in der Seele lebt als der geistige Inhalt klar besonnenen Bewusstseins.
[ 27 ] Daß man von einer Imagination weiß, sie ist nicht bloß subjektives Bild, sondern Bild-Wiedergabe objektiven Geist-Inhaltes, dazu bringt man es durch gesundes inneres Erleben. Man gelangt dazu auf geistig-seelische Art, wie man im Bereich der Sinnesanschauung bei gesunder Organisation Einbildungen von objektiven Wahrnehmungen richtig unterscheidet.
[ 28 ] So hatte ich die Ergebnisse meines Schauens vor mir. Sie waren zunächst «Anschauungen», die ohne Namen lebten.
[ 29 ] Sollte ich sie mitteilen, so bedurfte es der Wortbezeichnungen. Ich suchte dann später nach solchen in älteren Darstellungen des Geistigen, um das noch Wortlose in Worten ausdrucken zu können. Ich gebrauchte diese Wortbezeichnungen frei, so dass wohl kaum eine derselben in meinem Gebrauche zusammenfällt mit dem, was sie dort war, wo ich sie fand.
[ 30 ] Ich suchte aber nach solcher Möglichkeit, mich auszudrücken, stets erst, nachdem mir der Inhalt im eigenen Schauen aufgegangen war.
[ 31 ] Vorher Gelesenes wusste ich beim eigenen forschenden Schauen durch die Bewusstseinsverfassung, die ich eben geschildert habe, auszuschalten.
[ 32 ] Nun fand man in meinen Ausdrücken Anklänge an ältere Vorstellungen. Ohne auf den Inhalt einzugehen, hielt man sich an solche Ausdrücke. Sprach ich von «Lotosblumen» in dem Astralleib des Menschen, so war das ein Beweis, dass ich indische Lehren, in denen man den Ausdruck findet, wiedergäbe. ja, sprach ich von «Astralleib» selbst, so war dies das Ergebnis des Lesens mittelalterlicher Schriften. Gebrauchte ich die Ausdrücke: Angeloi, Archangeloi und so weiter, so erneuerte ich einfach die Vorstellungen christlicher Gnosis.
[ 33 ] Solches ganz an der Oberfläche sich bewegende Denken fand ich immer wieder mir entgegengehalten.
[ 34] Auch auf diese Tatsache wollte ich gegenwärtig beim Wiedererscheinen der «Geheimwissenschaft» in neuer Auflage hinweisen. Das Buch enthält ja die Umrisse der Anthroposophie als eines Ganzen. Es wird daher vorzüglich betroffen von den Missverständnissen, denen diese ausgesetzt ist.
[ 35 ] Ich habe seit der Zeit, in der in meiner Seele die Imaginationen, die das Buch wiedergibt, in ein Gesamtbild zusammengeflossen sind, unausgesetzt das forschende Schauen in den Menschen, in das geschichtliche Werden der Menschheit, in den Kosmos und so weiter fortgebildet; ich bin im einzelnen zu immer neuen Ergebnissen gekommen. Aber, was ich in der «Geheimwissenschaft» vor fünfzehn Jahren als Umriss gegeben habe, ist für mich in nichts erschüttert worden. Alles, was ich seither sagen konnte, erscheint, wenn es an der rechten Stelle diesem Buche eingefügt wird, als eine weitere Ausführung der damaligen Skizze.
Goetheanum, 10. Januar 1925
Rudolf Steiner
Preface to the 16th - 20th edition
[ 1 ] Now that fifteen years have passed since the first appearance of this book, I think I may say a few things to the public about the state of mind from which it emerged.
[ 2 ] Originally, my plan was to add its essential content as the last chapter to my book "Theosophy", which had appeared long before. That did not work out. At that time, when "Theosophy" was completed, this content did not round itself out in me in the same way as that of "Theosophy". In my imagination I had the spiritual being of the individual before my soul and was able to depict it, but the cosmic connections, which were to be depicted in "spiritual science", were not already before me at that time. They were there in detail, but not in the overall picture.
[ 3 ] Therefore I decided to let "Theosophy" appear with the content that I had seen as the essence of the life of an individual human being, and to carry out "Secret Science" in the near future in all tranquillity.
[ 4 ] The content of this book had to be given in thoughts that are suitable further developments of the thoughts used in the natural sciences, according to the mood of my soul at that time. It will be evident from the "Preliminary remarks to the first edition" reprinted here how strongly I felt responsible to natural science for everything I wrote about spiritual knowledge at that time.
[ 5 ] But such thoughts alone cannot represent what is revealed to spiritual vision as the spirit-world. For this revelation does not enter into a mere thought content. Anyone who has experienced the nature of such revelation knows that the thoughts of ordinary consciousness are only suitable for expressing what is perceived by the senses, but not what is spiritually seen.
[ 6 ] The content of what is spiritually seen can only be expressed in images (imaginations), through which inspirations that stem from intuitively experienced spiritual essence speak. (The necessary information about the nature of imagination, inspiration and intuition can be found in this "secret science" itself and in my book "How to Gain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds".
[ 7 ] But the performer of the imaginations from the spirit world cannot merely present these imaginations. He would be representing something that would stand as a completely different content of consciousness next to the cognitive content of our age, without any connection to it. He must fill the present consciousness with that which another consciousness, looking into the spirit-world, can recognize. Then its representation will have this spirit-world as its content; but this content appears in the form of thoughts into which it flows. This makes it fully comprehensible to ordinary consciousness, which thinks in terms of the present but does not yet see into the spirit world.
[ 8 ] This comprehensibility only fails to materialize if we place obstacles in front of it. When one adopts as one's own the prejudices that time has formed from a misconceived view of nature of the "limits of cognition".
[ 9 ] In spiritual cognition, everything is immersed in the intimate experience of the soul. Not only the spiritual gazing itself, but also the understanding that the non-gazing ordinary consciousness brings to the results of the gazer.
[ 10 ] Of this intimacy he has no idea who dilettantishly speaks of the fact that he who believes to understand suggests understanding to himself.
[ 11 ] But it is so that what is lived out within the comprehension of the physical world merely in concepts as truth or error becomes experience in relation to the spiritual world.
[ 12 ] Whoever allows the assertion to flow into his judgment that what is spiritually seen cannot be grasped by the ordinary, not yet seeing consciousness - because of its limitations - lays this perceiving judgment like a darkening cloud before the grasping; and he really cannot understand.
[ 13 ] But to the unbiased non-seeing consciousness, what is seen is fully comprehensible if the seer brings it into the thought-form. It is understandable, just as the finished picture of the painter is understandable to the non-painter. And indeed, the understanding of the spirit world is not an artistic-emotional one as with a work of art, but a thoroughly intellectual one as with the knowledge of nature.
[ 14 ] But in order to make such an understanding truly possible, the performer of the spiritually seen must bring his visions to the point of a proper casting into thought form, without them losing their imaginative character within this form.
[ 15 ] This was all before my soul when I worked out my "Secret Science".
[ 16 ] In 1909 I then felt that with these premises I could produce a book which: firstly, brought the content of my spiritual vision to a certain, but initially sufficient degree, cast in thought form; and secondly, which can be understood by any thinking person who places no obstacles in front of understanding.
[ 17 ] I say this today by saying that at the time - in 1909 - the publication of the book seemed to me to be a risk. For I knew that the required impartiality could not be mustered by those who pursue natural science professionally, nor by all the numerous personalities who depend on it for their judgment.
[ 18 ] But it was just the fact before my soul that in the time in which the consciousness of mankind had moved furthest away from the spirit-world, the communications from this spirit-world correspond to a most urgent necessity.
[ 19 ] I counted on the fact that there are also people who more or less perceive the distance from all spirituality so severely as an obstacle to life that they reach for messages from the spirit world with inner longing.
[ 20 ] And the following years have fully confirmed this. "Theosophy" and "Secret Science" were widely distributed as books that required the reader to be willing to accept a difficult stylization.
[ 21 ] I have quite consciously aimed not to give a "popular" presentation, but one that makes it necessary to enter into the content with real effort of thought. I have thus given my books such a character that reading them is itself the beginning of training the mind. For the calm, prudent effort of thought that this reading requires strengthens the powers of the soul and thereby enables it to come closer to the spiritual world.
[ 22 ] The fact that I gave the book the title "Secret Science" immediately gave rise to misunderstandings. Some people said that what wants to be "science" must not be "secret". How little thought was given to such an objection. As if someone who publishes content wanted to do something "secret" with it. The whole book shows that nothing should be described as "secret", but should be put into such a form that it is understandable like only any "science". Or, when one uses the word "natural science", does one not want to imply that it is about knowledge of "nature"? Secret science is the science of that which takes place in the "secret" insofar as it is not perceived outside in nature, but where the soul orients itself when it directs its inner being towards the spirit.
[ 23 ] "Secret science" is the opposite of "natural science".
[ 24 ] My visions in the spiritual world have repeatedly been objected to as being altered renditions of what people's ideas about the spirit world have emerged in the course of older times. It was said that I had read some things, absorbed them into the subconscious and then presented them in the belief that they arose from my own vision. I am said to have gained my depictions from Gnostic teachings, oriental wisdom poems and so on.
[ 25 ] By asserting this, one has remained entirely on the surface with one's thoughts.
[ 26 ] My insights into the spiritual, of which I am fully aware, are the results of my own seeing. At all times, in all details and in the great overviews, I have strictly examined myself to see whether I am taking each step in the process of looking further in such a way that full consciousness accompanies these steps. Just as the mathematician moves from thought to thought without the unconscious, autosuggestion and so on playing a role, so - I said to myself - spiritual vision must move from objective imagination to objective imagination without anything living in the soul other than the spiritual content of clearly prudent consciousness.
[ 27 ] The fact that one knows from an imagination that it is not merely a subjective image, but an image-reproduction of objective spiritual content, is achieved through healthy inner experience. One arrives at it in a spiritual-mental way, just as one correctly distinguishes imagination from objective perceptions in the area of sensory perception with a healthy organization.
[ 28 ] So I had the results of my seeing before me. They were initially "views" that lived without names.
[ 29 ] If I wanted to communicate them, I needed word names. I then later searched for them in older depictions of the spiritual in order to be able to express what was still wordless in words. I used these word designations freely, so that hardly any of them coincide in my use with what they were where I found them.
[ 30 ] But I always looked for such a way of expressing myself only after the content had dawned on me in my own contemplation.
[ 31 ] I knew how to eliminate what I had previously read through the state of consciousness I have just described in my own exploratory contemplation.
[ 32 ] Now one found echoes of older ideas in my expressions. Without going into the content, one kept to such expressions. If I spoke of "lotus flowers" in the astral body of man, this was proof that I was reproducing Indian teachings in which the expression is found. indeed, if I spoke of "astral body" itself, this was the result of reading medieval writings. If I used the expressions: Angeloi, Archangeloi and so on, I was simply renewing the ideas of Christian gnosis.
[ 33 ] I found myself repeatedly confronted with this kind of thinking, which was completely superficial.
[ 34 ] I also wanted to point out this fact when the new edition of "Geheimwissenschaft" reappeared. The book contains the outlines of anthroposophy as a whole. It is therefore particularly affected by the misunderstandings to which it is exposed.
[ 35 ] Since the time in which the imaginations which the book reproduces have flowed together in my soul into an overall picture, I have continued to develop my inquiring gaze into the human being, into the historical development of humanity, into the cosmos and so on; I have always come to new results in detail. But what I outlined in "Secret Science" fifteen years ago has not been shaken in any way. Everything I have been able to say since then, when added to this book in the right place, appears as a further elaboration of the outline I gave then.
Goetheanum, January 10, 1925
Rudolf Steiner