A Road to Self-Knowledge
GA 16
Second Meditation
In which the Attempt is made to form a True Conception of the Elemental or Etheric Body
[ 1 ] Through the idea which the soul has to form in connection with the fact of death, it may be driven into complete uncertainty with regard to its own being. This will be the case when it believes that it cannot obtain knowledge of any other world but the world of the senses and of that which the intellect is able to ascertain about this world. The ordinary life of the soul directs its attention to the physical body. It sees that body being absorbed after death into the workshop of nature, which has no connection with that which the soul experiences before death as its own existence. The soul may indeed know (through the preceding Meditation) that the physical body during life bears the same relation to it as after death, but this does not lead it further than to the acknowledgment of the inner independence of its own experiences up to the moment of death. What happens to the physical body after death is evident from observation of the outer world. But such observation is not possible with regard to its inner experience. In so far then as it perceives itself through the senses, the soul in its ordinary life cannot see beyond the boundary of death. If the soul is incapable of forming any ideas which go beyond that outer world which absorbs the body after death, then with regard to all that concerns its own being it is unable to look into anything but empty nothingness on the other side of death.
If this is to be otherwise, the soul must perceive the outer world by other means than those of the senses and of the intellect connected with them. These themselves belong to the body and decay together with it. What they tell us can lead to nothing but to the result of the first Meditation, and this result consists merely in the soul being able to say to itself: “I am bound to my body. This body is subject to natural laws which are related to me in the same way as all other natural laws. Through them I am a member of the outer world and a part of this world is expressed in my body, a fact which I realise most distinctly, when I consider what the outer world does to that body after death. During life it gives me senses and an intellect which make it impossible for me to see how matters stand with regard to my soul's experiences on the other side of death.” Such a statement can only lead to two results. Either any further investigation into the riddle of the soul is suppressed and all efforts to obtain knowledge on this subject are given up; or else efforts are made to obtain by the inner experience of the soul that which the outer world refuses. These efforts may bring about an increase of power and energy with regard to this inner experience such as it would not have in ordinary life.
[ 2 ] In ordinary life man has a certain amount of strength in his inner experiences, in his life of feeling and thought. He thinks, for instance, a certain thought as often as there is an inner or outer impulse to do so.
Any thought may, however, be chosen out of the rest and voluntarily repeated again and again without any outer reason, and with such intense energy as actually to make it live as an inner reality. Such a thought may by repeated effort be made the exclusive object of our inner experience. And while we do this we can keep away all outer impressions and memories which may arise in the soul. It is then possible to turn such a complete surrender to certain thoughts or feelings exclusive of all others, into a regular inner activity. If, however, such an inner experience is to lead to really important results, it must be undertaken according to certain tested laws. Such laws are recorded by the science of spiritual life. In my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment, a great number of these rules or laws are mentioned. Through such methods we obtain a strengthening of the powers of inner experience. This experience becomes in a certain way condensed. What is brought about by this we learn through that observation of ourselves which sets in when the inner activity described has been continued for a sufficiently long time. It is true that much patience is required before convincing results appear. And if we are not disposed to exercise such patience for years, we shall obtain nothing of importance. [ 3 ] Here it is only possible to give one example of such results, for they are of many varieties. And that which is mentioned here is adapted to further the particular method of meditation which we are now describing.
[ 4 ] A man may carry out the inner strengthening of the life of his soul which has been indicated for a long period without perhaps anything happening in his inner life which is able to alter his usual way of thinking with regard to the world. Suddenly, however, the following may occur. Naturally the incident to be described might not occur in exactly the same way to two different persons. But if we arrive at a conception of one experience of this kind, we shall have gained an understanding of the whole matter in question. [ 5 ] A moment may occur in which the soul gets an inner experience of itself in quite a new way. At the beginning it will generally happen that the soul during sleep wakes up, as it were, in a dream. But we feel at once that this experience cannot be compared with ordinary dreams. We are completely shut off from the world of sense and intellect, and yet we feel the experience in the same way as when we are standing fully awake before the outer world in ordinary life. We feel compelled to picture the experience in ourselves. For this purpose we use ideas such as we have in ordinary life, but we know very well that we are experiencing things different from those to which such ideas are normally attached. These ideas are only used as a means of expression for an experience which we have not had before, and which we are also able to know that it is impossible for us to have in ordinary life.
We feel, for instance, as though thunderstorms were all around us. We hear thunder and see lightning. And yet we know we are in our own room. We feel permeated by a force previously quite unknown to us. Then we imagine we see rents in the walls around us, and we feel compelled to say to ourselves or to some one we think is near us. "I am now in great difficulties, the lightning is going through the house and taking hold of me; I feel it seizing and dissolving me.” When such a series of representations has been gone through, the inner experience passes back to ordinary soul-conditions. We find ourselves again in ourselves with the memory of the experience just undergone. If this memory is as vivid and accurate as any other, it enables us to form an opinion of the experience. We then have a direct knowledge that we have gone through something which cannot be experienced by any physical sense nor by ordinary intelligence, for we feel that the description just given and communicated to others or to ourselves is only a means of expressing the experience. Although the expression is a means of understanding the fact of the experience, it has nothing in common with it. We know that we do not need any of our senses in having such an experience.
One who attributes it to a hidden activity of the senses or of the brain, does not know the true character of the experience. He adheres to the description which speaks of lightning, thunder, and rents in the walls, and therefore he believes that this experience of the soul is only an echo of ordinary life. He must consider the thing as a vision in the ordinary sense of the word. He cannot think otherwise. He does not take into consideration, however, that when one describes such an experience one only uses the words lightning, thunder, rents in the walls as pictures of that which has been experienced, and that one must not mistake the pictures for the experience itself. It is true that the matter appears to one as if one really saw these pictures. But one did not stand in the same relation to the phenomenon of the lightning in this case as when seeing a flash with the physical eye. The vision of the lightning is only something which, as it were, conceals the experience itself; one looks through the lightning to something beyond which is quite different, to something which cannot be experienced in the outer world of sense.
[ 6 ] In order that a correct judgment may be made possible, it is necessary that the soul which has such experiences should, when they are over, be on a thoroughly sound footing with regard to the ordinary outer world. It must be able clearly to contrast what it has undergone as a special experience, with its ordinary experience of the outer world. Those who in ordinary life are already disposed to be carried away by all kinds of wild imaginings regarding things, are most unfit to form such a judgment. The more sound—or one might say sober—a sense of reality we have got the more likely we are to form a true and, therefore, valuable judgment of such things. One can only attain to confidence in supersensible experiences when one feels with regard to the ordinary world that one clearly perceives its processes and objects as they really are.
[ 7 ] When all necessary conditions are thus fulfilled, and when we have reason to believe that we have not been misled by an ordinary vision, then we know that we have had an experience in which the body was not transmitting perceptions. We have had direct perception through the strengthened soul without the body. We have gained the certainty of an experience when outside the body.
[ 8 ] It is evident that in this sphere the natural differences between fancy or illusion and true observation made when outside the body, cannot be indicated in any other way than in the realm of outer sense perception. It may happen that some one has a very active imagination with regard to taste, and therefore, at the mere thought of lemonade, gets the same sensation as if he were really drinking it. The difference, however, in such a case becomes evident through the association of actual circumstances in life. And so it is also with those experiences which are made when we are out of the body. In order to arrive at a fully convincing conception in this sphere, it is necessary that we should become familiar with it in a perfectly healthy way and acquire the faculty of observing the details of the experience and correcting one thing by another.
[ 9 ] Through such an experience as the one described, we gain the possibility of observing that which belongs to our proper self not only by means of the senses and intellect—in other words, the bodily instruments. Now we not only know something more of the world than those instruments will allow of, but we know it in a different way. This is especially important. A soul that passes through an inner transformation will more and more clearly comprehend that the oppressive problems of existence cannot be solved in the world of sense because the senses and the intellect cannot penetrate deeply enough into the world as a whole. Those souls penetrate deeper which so transform themselves as to be able to have experiences when outside the body; and it is in the records which they are able to give of their experiences that the means for solving the riddles of the soul can be found.
[ 10 ] Now an experience that occurs when outside the body is of a quite different nature from one made when in the body. This is shown by the very opinion which may be formed about the experiences described, when, after it is over, the ordinary waking condition of the soul is re-established and memory has come into a vivid and clear condition. The physical body is felt by the soul as separated from the rest of the world, and seems only to have a real existence in so far as it belongs to the soul. It is not so, however, with that which we experience within ourselves and with regard to ourselves when outside the body, for then we feel ourselves linked to all that may be called the outer world. All our surroundings are felt as belonging to us just as our hands do in the world of sense. There is no indifference to the world outside us when we come to the inner soul-world. We feel ourselves completely grown together, and woven into one with that which here may be called the world. Its activities are actually felt streaming through our own being. There is no sharp boundary line between an inner and an outer world. The whole environment belongs to the observing soul just as our two physical hands belong to our physical head.
[ 11 ] In spite of this, however, we may say that a certain part of this outer world belongs more to ourselves than the rest of the environment, in the same way in which we speak of the head as independent of the hands or feet. Just as the soul calls a piece of the outer physical world its body, so when living outside the body it may also consider a part of the supersensible outer world as belonging to it. When we penetrate to an observation of the realm accessible to us beyond the world of the senses, we may very well say that a body unperceived by the senses belongs to us. We may call this body the elemental or etheric body, but in using the word “etheric” we must not allow any connection with that fine matter which science calls “ether” to establish itself in our mind.
[ 12 ] Just as the mere reflection upon the connection between man and the outer world of nature leads to a conception of the physical body which agrees with facts, so does the pilgrimage of the soul into realms that can be perceived outside the physical body lead to the recognition of an elemental or etheric body, or body of formative forces.
Zweite Meditation
Der Meditierende versucht eine wahre Vorstellung von dem elementarischen oder ätherischen Leibe zu gewinnen
[ 1 ] Durch die Vorstellung, welche die Seele sich in Anknüpfung an die Tatsache des Todes machen muß, kann sie in eine völlige Unsicherheit über ihr eigenes Wesen hineingetrieben werden. Es wird dies dann der Fall sein, wenn sie glaubt, von keiner andern Welt etwas wissen zu können, als nur allein von der Sinnenwelt und von dem, was der Verstand über diese Welt zu erkennen vermag. Das gewöhnliche Seelenleben richtet den Blick auf den physischen Leib. Es sieht diesen nach dem Tode übergehen in den Naturzusammenhang, der ohne Anteil ist an dem, was die Seele vor dem Tode als ihr eigenes Dasein erlebt. Sie kann zwar wissen (durch die vorangehende Meditation), dass der physische Leib auch während des Lebens zu ihr in demselben Verhältnisse steht wie nach dem Tode: aber dies führt sie nicht weiter als zur Anerkennung der inneren Selbständigkeit des eigenen Erlebens bis zum Tode. Was mit dem physischen Leibe nach dem Tode geschieht, das ergibt ihr die Beobachtung der Außenwelt. Für das innere Erleben gibt es eine solche Beobachtung nicht. So wie dieses Seelenleben ist, kann es den Blick nicht über die Grenze des Todes hinaus richten. Ist die Seele außerstande sich Vorstellungen zu machen, welche über die Welt hinausgehen, von welcher der Leib nach dem Tode aufgenommen wird, dann hat sie auch keine Möglichkeit, in etwas anderes als in das leere Nichts jenseits des Todes in bezug auf alles Seelische zu blicken. Sollte dies anders sein, so müßte die Seele die Außenwelt mit anderen Mitteln wahrnehmen als mit den Sinnen und mit dem an die Sinne gebundenen Verstand. Diese sind selbst zum Leibe gehörig und verfallen mit ihm. Was sie sagen, kann nie zu etwas anderem führen als zu dem Ergebnis der ersten Meditation. Und das besteht nur darin, dass die Seele sich gestehen kann: - du bist an deinen Leib gebunden. Dieser ist Naturgesetzen unterworfen, welche zu dir stehen, wie alle andern Naturgesetze. Du bist durch sie ein Glied der Außenwelt, und diese hat an dir einen Anteil, der sich dir am deutlichsten offenbart, wenn du betrachtest, was sie mit deinem Leibe nach dem Tode macht. Für das Leben gibt sie dir Sinne und einen Verstand, welche es dir unmöglich machen, zu sehen, wie es mit deinem seelischen Erleben jenseits der Todesgrenze steht. Dies Geständnis kann nur zu zwei Ergebnissen führen. Entweder es wird alles weitere Nachforschen über das Seelenrätsel unterdrückt und Verzicht geleistet, auf diesem Gebiete etwas zu wissen. Oder es werden Anstrengungen gemacht, durch das seelische Erleben im Innern das zu erreichen, was die Außenwelt versagt. - Diese Anstrengungen können dazu führen, das innere Erleben kraftvoller, energischer zu machen, als es im gewöhnlichen Dasein ist.
[ 2 ] Im gewöhnlichen Leben hat der Mensch eine gewisse Stärke seiner inneren Erlebnisse, seines Empfindungs- und Gedankenlebens. Er hegt zum Beispiel einen Gedanken so oft, als sich ein äußerer oder innerer Anlaß dazu ergibt. Es kann aber irgendein Gedanke aus der Zahl der andern herausgenommen werden und ohne weiteren Anlaß immer wieder durchdacht, in intensiver Art innerlich erlebt werden. Man kann einen solchen Gedanken wiederholt zum einzigen Gegenstande des inneren Erlebens machen. Und während man dieses tut, kann man alle äußeren Eindrücke und alle Erinnerungen, die in der Seele auftauchen möchten, von sich ferne halten. Man kann eine solche volle, alles andre ausschließende Hingabe an Gedanken, oder auch an Empfindungen, zu einer regelmäßigen inneren Betätigung machen. - Soll ein solches inneres Erleben zu wirklich bedeutsamen Ergebnissen führen, so muß es allerdings nach gewissen, erprobten Gesetzen unternommen werden. Solche Gesetze werden von der Wissenschaft des Geisteslebens verzeichnet. Man findet eine größere Anzahl in meiner Schrift angegeben: «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?» - Durch solches Vorgehen erreicht man eine Verstärkung der Kräfte des inneren Erlebens. Dieses verdichtet sich gewissermaßen. Was dadurch geschieht, das kann man erkennen an den Beobachtungen an sich selbst, die eintreten, wenn die geschilderte innere Betätigung eine genügend lange Zeit fortgesetzt wird. Man braucht allerdings in den meisten Fällen viel Geduld, bis überzeugende Ergebnisse eintreten. Und wer nicht geneigt ist, diese Geduld jahrelang zu üben, der wird nichts Besonderes erzielen.
[ 3 ] Es ist nur möglich, hier ein Beispiel anzuführen von solchen Ergebnissen. Diese sind mannigfaltiger Art. Und was hier angeführt wird, das ist geeignet, den Meditationsweg, mit dessen Schilderung hier begonnen worden ist, fortzusetzen.
[ 4 ] Ein Mensch kann lange die angegebene innere Verstärkung seines Seelenlebens üben. Er wird vielleicht nichts in sich erleben, was geeignet ist, ihn anders über die Welt denken zu lassen, als er bisher gewohnt war. Dann aber kann einmal das Folgende eintreten. Naturgemäß wird, was hier zu schildern ist, nicht in genau der gleichen Art sich bei zwei Menschen einstellen. Wer aber von einem solchen Erlebnis eine Vorstellung zu gewinnen sucht, der hat sich über das ganze hier in Betracht kommende Gebiet aufgeklärt.
[ 5 ] Es kann ein Augenblick eintreten, in dem die Seele sich innerlich ganz anders erlebt als gewöhnlich. Zumeist wird das anfangs so geschehen, dass die Seele aus dem Schlafe wie zu einem Traume sich belebt. Nur zeigt sich sogleich, dass sich das Erlebnis mit dem nicht vergleichen läßt, was man sonst als Träume kennt. Man ist dann der Sinnes- und Verstandeswelt ganz entrückt, und man erlebt doch so, wie man im gewöhnlichen Dasein nur erlebt, wenn man im wachen Zustande der Außenwelt gegenübersteht. Man fühlt sich gedrängt, das Erlebnis in sich vorzustellen. Man nimmt zu dem Vorstellen solche Begriffe, die man im gewöhnlichen Leben hat; aber man weiß sehr genau, dass man anderes erlebt, als das ist, worauf sich in normaler Art diese Begriffe beziehen. Diese betrachtet man nur als ein Ausdrucksmittel für ein Erlebnis, das man vorher nicht gehabt hat, und von dem man auch wissen kann, dass es im gewöhnlichen Dasein unmöglich ist. Man fühlt sich etwa allseitig von Gewitterstürmen umgeben. Man hört Donner und vernimmt Blitze. Man weiß sich in einem Zimmer eines Hauses. Man fühlt sich durchsetzt von einer Kraft, von welcher man vorher nichts gewußt hat. Dann vermeint man Risse um sich her in den Mauern zu sehen. Man ist veranlaßt, sich oder einer Person, die man neben sich zu haben glaubt, zu sagen: jetzt handelt es sich um Schweres; der Blitz geht durch das Haus, er erfaßt mich; ich fühle mich von ihm ergriffen. Er löst mich auf. - Wenn dann eine solche Reihe von Vorstellungen abgelaufen ist, dann geht das innere Erleben in die gewöhnliche Seelenverfassung über. Man findet sich in sich mit der Erinnerung an das eben Erlebte. Ist diese Erinnerung so lebhaft und so treu wie eine andre, dann befähigt sie auch, ein Urteil sich zu bilden über das Erlebte. Man weiß dann unmittelbar, dass man etwas durchgemacht hat, was man durch keinen leiblichen Sinn und auch nicht durch den gewöhnlichen Verstand durchmachen kann. Denn man fühlt, dass die eben gemachte Beschreibung, die man sich oder andern geben kann, nur ein Mittel ist, das Erlebnis auszudrücken. Der Ausdruck ist zwar ein Verständigungsmittel über die Sache; aber er hat mit dieser nichts gemein. Man weiß, dass man für ein solches Erlebnis keinen seiner Sinne braucht.—Wer etwa von einer verborgenen Wirksamkeit der Sinne oder des Gehirnes sprechen will, der kennt die wahre Gestalt des Erlebnisses nicht. Er hält sich an die Beschreibung, die vom Blitz, Donner, Mauerrissen redet, und deswegen glaubt er, dass die Seele nichts erlebt hat als Nachklänge des gewöhnlichen Daseins. Er muß das Erlebte für eine Vision im gewöhnlichen Sinne des Wortes halten. Er vermag nicht anders, als so zu denken. Er berücksichtigt nur nicht, dass derjenige, welcher ein solches Erlebnis schildert, mit den Worten Blitz, Donner, Mauerrisse nur Bilder meint für das Erlebte, und dass er dieses nicht mit den Bildern verwechselt. Es ist richtig, dass ihm die Sache so erscheint, als ob er diese Bilder wirklich wahrnehmen würde. Er verhält sich aber in einem solchen Falle zur Blitzerscheinung nicht so, wie er dies tut, wenn er mit seinem Auge einen Blitz sieht. Für ihn bildet die Vision des Blitzes nur etwas, was sich gewissermaßen über das wahre Erlebnis hinüberbreitet; er sieht durch den Blitz auf etwas ganz anderes, auf etwas, das in der sinnlichen Außenwelt nicht erlebt werden kann.
[ 6 ] Notwendig ist, damit ein richtiges Urteil zustande komme, dass die Seele, die solches erlebt, dann, wenn das Erlebnis vorbei ist, in völlig gesunder Art sich zur Außenwelt verhält. Sie muß richtig vergleichen können, was sie als besonderes Erlebnis gehabt hat, mit dem Erleben der gewöhnlichen Außenwelt. Wer schon im gewöhnlichen Leben dazu neigt, sich zu allerlei Schwärmereien über die Dinge hinreißen zu lassen, der taugt schlecht zu einem solchen Urteil. Je mehr der Mensch gesunden, man möchte sagen, nüchternen Wirklichkeitssinn hat, desto besser ist es, wenn es sich um eine wahrhafte und wertvolle Beurteilung solcher Dinge handelt. Vertrauen in übersinnliche Erlebnisse kann man sich selbst nur entgegenbringen, wenn man in bezug auf die gewöhnliche Welt sich sagen darf, dass man die Vorgänge und Dinge in klarer Weise so nimmt, wie sie sind.
[ 7 ] Sind so alle notwendigen Bedingungen erfüllt, und hat man Grund anzunehmen, dass man nicht einer gewöhnlichen Vision zum Opfer gefallen ist, dann weiß man, dass man etwas erlebt hat, wozu man den Leib nicht als Vermittler der Beobachtung gehabt hat. Man hat ohne den Leib unmittelbar durch die in sich stärker gewordene Seele beobachtet. Man hat die Vorstellung eines Erlebnisses außerhalb seines Leibes gewonnen.
[ 8 ] Es kann einleuchtend sein, dass auf diesem Gebiete gesetzmäßige Unterschiede zwischen Träumerei oder Illusion und wahrer außerhalb des Leibes vollzogener Beobachtung nicht in anderem Sinne angegeben werden können als auf dem Gebiet der äußeren Sinneswahrnehmung. Es kann vorkommen, dass jemand lebendige Geschmacksphantasie hat und schon bei der bloßen Vorstellung einer Limonade ähnlich empfindet, wie wenn er eine solche wirklich trinkt. Den Unterschied des einen von dem andern ergibt aber denn doch der ganze Zusammenhang des Lebens. Und so ist es auch mit den Erlebnissen, die außerhalb des Leibes gemacht werden. Um zu völlig überzeugenden Vorstellungen auf diesem Gebiete zu kommen, ist notwendig, sich in gesunder Art in dasselbe einzuleben, sich die Fähigkeit anzueignen, die Zusammenhänge des Erlebens zu beobachten, und so das eine durch das andere zu korrigieren.
[ 9 ] Man hat durch ein Erlebnis, wie das geschilderte es ist, die Möglichkeit gewonnen, dasjenige, was zu dem eigenen Selbst gehört, nicht nur durch die Sinne und den Verstand, also durch die leiblichen Werkzeuge, zu beobachten. Man weiß nunmehr über die Welt nicht nur etwas andres, als was diese Werkzeuge erkennen lassen; man weiß auch auf andere Art. Darauf kommt es ganz besonders an. Eine Seele, die eine innerliche Umwandlung durchmacht, kommt immer mehr dazu, einzusehen, dass in der Sinneswelt deswegen die bedrückenden Daseinsfragen sich nicht zur Lösung bringen lassen, weil die Sinne und der Verstand nicht tief genug in die Welt eindringen können. Tiefer dringen die Seelen ein, welche sich so umwandeln, dass sie außerhalb des Leibes erleben können. In den Mitteilungen, welche sie über ihre Erlebnisse machen können, liegt vor, was die seelischen Rätsel lösen kann.
[ 10 ] Nun ist ein Erleben, das außerhalb des Leibes sich vollzieht, von ganz andrer Art als ein solches im Leibe. Darüber klärt eben das Urteil auf, das in bezug auf das geschilderte Erlebnis gebildet werden kann, wenn nach ihm der gewöhnliche wache Seelenzustand wieder eingetreten und die Erinnerung lebhaft und klar genug zustande gekommen ist. Den sinnlichen Leib fühlt die Seele getrennt von der übrigen Welt, sie nimmt ihn als nur zu sich gehörig wahr. So ist es nicht mit dem, was man in sich und an sich erlebt außerhalb des Leibes. Da fühlt man sich verbunden mit allem, was man Außenwelt nennen kann. Was in der Umgebung ist, das fühlt man mit sich verbunden wie im Sinnesleben seine Hand. Es ist keine Gleichgültigkeit der Außenwelt gegenüber einer seelischen Innenwelt vorhanden. Man empfindet sich im vollen Maße als zusammengewachsen, verwoben mit dem, was man die Welt nennen kann. Deren Wirkungen gehen durch die eigene Wesenheit wahrnehmbar hindurch. Es ist keine scharfe Grenze zwischen Innenwelt und Außenwelt. Es gehört von dieser zu der betrachtenden Seele die ganze Umgebung, wie zum physischen Kopfe die beiden Hände des Leibes gehören. Trotzdem kann man von einem Stück dieser Außenwelt sprechen, das mehr zum eigenen Selbst gehört als die übrige Umgebung, wie man vom Kopfe als selbständigem Gliede gegenüber den Händen oder Füßen spricht.
[ 11 ] Die Seele nennt ein Stück sinnlicher Außenwelt ihren Leib. Die außerhalb dieses Leibes erlebende Seele kann ebensogut einen Teil der nicht sinnlichen Außenwelt zu sich gehörig betrachten. Dringt der Mensch zu einer Beobachtung dieses jenseits der Sinnenwelt ihm zugänglichen Gebietes vor, so kann er davon sprechen, dass ein sinnlich nicht wahrnehmbarer Leib zu ihm gehört. Man kann diesen Leib den elementarischen oder ätherischen Leib nennen; wobei man bei dem Worte «ätherisch» nicht den von der Physik «Äther» genannten feinen Stoff in seine Vorstellung einbeziehen soll.
[ 12 ] Wie die bloße Überlegung über das Verhältnis des Menschen zur natürlichen Außenwelt die den Tatsachen entsprechende Vorstellung des physischen Leibes ergibt, so führt die Wanderschaft der Seele in Gebiete, die außerhalb des Sinnenleibes erschaut werden können, zur Anerkennung eines elementarischen oder ätherischen oder Bildekräfteleibes.
Second meditation
The meditator tries to gain a true conception of the elementary or etheric body
[ 1 ] Through the idea which the soul must form in connection with the fact of death, it can be driven into a complete uncertainty about its own being. This will be the case if it believes that it cannot know anything about any other world than only the world of the senses and what the intellect is able to recognize about this world. The ordinary life of the soul focuses on the physical body. After death, it sees it passing over into the natural context, which has no part in what the soul experiences as its own existence before death. It can indeed know (through the preceding meditation) that the physical body also stands in the same relationship to it during life as after death: but this does not lead it further than to the recognition of the inner independence of its own experience until death. What happens to the physical body after death is determined by observation of the external world. There is no such observation for the inner experience. As this soul life is, it cannot look beyond the boundary of death. If the soul is incapable of forming ideas that go beyond the world from which the body is absorbed after death, then it also has no possibility of looking into anything other than the empty nothingness beyond death in relation to everything spiritual. If this were otherwise, the soul would have to perceive the outside world by means other than the senses and the intellect, which is bound to the senses. These are themselves part of the body and decay with it. What they say can never lead to anything other than the result of the first meditation. And that consists only in the fact that the soul can confess to itself: - You are bound to your body. It is subject to the laws of nature, which relate to you like all other laws of nature. Through it you are a member of the outside world, and this has a part in you which is revealed to you most clearly when you consider what it does with your body after death. For life it gives you senses and a mind which make it impossible for you to see how your spiritual experience is beyond the boundary of death. This confession can only lead to two results. Either all further research into the riddle of the soul is suppressed and you renounce knowing anything in this area. Or efforts are made to achieve through the soul's inner experience what the outer world fails to achieve. - These efforts can lead to making the inner experience more powerful, more energetic than it is in ordinary existence.
[ 2 ] In ordinary life, a person has a certain strength in his inner experiences, his sensory and thought life. For example, he harbors a thought as often as an external or internal cause arises. However, any one thought can be taken out of the number of others and, without further cause, be thought through again and again, experienced inwardly in an intense way. One can repeatedly make such a thought the sole object of one's inner experience. And while you are doing this, you can keep all external impressions and all memories that might arise in your soul away from you. One can make such a complete devotion to thoughts, or also to sensations, which excludes everything else, a regular inner activity. - If such an inner experience is to lead to really significant results, it must, however, be undertaken according to certain tried and tested laws. Such laws are recorded by the science of spiritual life. You will find a large number of them given in my writing: "How does one attain knowledge of the higher worlds?" - Through such a procedure one achieves a strengthening of the powers of inner experience. To a certain extent, this condenses. What happens as a result can be recognized by the observations of oneself that occur when the inner activity described is continued for a sufficiently long time. In most cases, however, you need a lot of patience until convincing results are achieved. And if you are not inclined to exercise this patience for years, you will not achieve anything special.
[ 3 ] It is only possible to give one example of such results here. These are manifold. And what is cited here is suitable for continuing the path of meditation, the description of which has been begun here.
[ 4 ] A person can practise the indicated inner strengthening of his soul life for a long time. He may not experience anything within himself that is capable of making him think differently about the world than he was used to. But then the following may occur. Naturally, what is to be described here will not occur in exactly the same way in two people. But whoever seeks to gain an idea of such an experience has enlightened himself about the whole area under consideration here.
[ 5 ] A moment can occur in which the soul experiences itself inwardly quite differently than usual. In most cases, this will initially happen in such a way that the soul awakens from sleep as if in a dream. However, it immediately becomes apparent that the experience cannot be compared with what is otherwise known as dreams. One is then completely removed from the sensory and intellectual world, and yet one experiences as one only experiences in ordinary existence when one faces the outside world in a waking state. One feels compelled to imagine the experience within oneself. We take the concepts that we have in ordinary life for our imagination, but we know very well that we are experiencing something other than what these concepts normally refer to. One regards them only as a means of expression for an experience which one has not had before, and of which one can also know that it is impossible in ordinary existence. For example, you feel surrounded on all sides by thunderstorms. One hears thunder and hears lightning. You know you are in a room of a house. You feel permeated by a force of which you previously knew nothing. Then you think you see cracks in the walls around you. You are prompted to say to yourself or to a person you believe to be next to you: now it is something heavy; the lightning is passing through the house, it is seizing me; I feel myself seized by it. It dissolves me. - When such a series of images has passed, the inner experience passes over into the ordinary state of the soul. One finds oneself with the memory of what one has just experienced. If this memory is as vivid and as faithful as any other, then it also enables one to form a judgment about the experience. One then knows immediately that one has gone through something that cannot be experienced through any bodily sense or through the ordinary mind. For you feel that the description you have just made, which you can give yourself or others, is only a means of expressing the experience. The expression is indeed a means of understanding the thing, but it has nothing in common with it. One knows that one does not need any of one's senses for such an experience - anyone who wants to speak of a hidden effectiveness of the senses or the brain does not know the true form of the experience. He adheres to the description that speaks of lightning, thunder, cracks in the wall, and therefore he believes that the soul has experienced nothing but echoes of ordinary existence. He must regard what he has experienced as a vision in the ordinary sense of the word. He cannot help but think so. He only fails to take into account that the person who describes such an experience means by the words lightning, thunder, cracks in the wall only images for what he has experienced, and that he does not confuse this with the images. It is right that the thing appears to him as if he really perceived these images. In such a case, however, he does not relate to the lightning phenomenon in the same way as he does when he sees lightning with his eye. For him, the vision of lightning is only something that, as it were, extends beyond the true experience; through the lightning he sees something completely different, something that cannot be experienced in the sensory external world.
[ 6 ] It is necessary for a correct judgment to come about that the soul, which experiences such things, then, when the experience is over, relates to the outside world in a completely healthy way. It must be able to compare correctly what it has had as a special experience with the experience of the ordinary outside world. Anyone who, even in ordinary life, tends to get carried away with all kinds of ravings about things is ill-suited to such a judgment. The more a person has a healthy, one might say sober, sense of reality, the better it is when it comes to a true and valuable assessment of such things. One can only have confidence in supersensible experiences if one can say to oneself in relation to the ordinary world that one clearly takes the processes and things as they are.
[ 7 ] If all the necessary conditions are thus fulfilled, and if one has reason to assume that one has not fallen victim to an ordinary vision, then one knows that one has experienced something for which one has not had the body as a mediator of observation. Without the body, one has observed directly through the soul, which has become stronger in itself. You have gained the idea of an experience outside your body.
[ 8 ] It may be obvious that in this field, lawful differences between dreaming or illusion and true observation carried out outside the body cannot be stated in a different sense than in the field of external sensory perception. It can happen that someone has a vivid imagination of taste and feels the same way when he merely imagines a lemonade as when he really drinks one. The difference between the one and the other, however, is the whole context of life. And so it is with the experiences that are made outside the body. In order to arrive at completely convincing ideas in this area, it is necessary to familiarize oneself with it in a healthy way, to acquire the ability to observe the connections of experience and thus to correct the one through the other.
[ 9 ] Through an experience such as the one described, one has gained the possibility of observing that which belongs to one's own self not only through the senses and the intellect, i.e. through the bodily tools. One now not only knows something different about the world than what these tools reveal; one also knows in a different way. This is particularly important. A soul that undergoes an inner transformation comes more and more to realize that the oppressive questions of existence cannot be solved in the sense world because the senses and the intellect cannot penetrate deeply enough into the world. The souls penetrate deeper, transforming themselves in such a way that they can experience outside the body. The messages they can make about their experiences are what can solve the riddles of the soul.
[ 10 ] Now an experience that takes place outside the body is of a completely different kind than one that takes place in the body. This is clarified by the judgment that can be formed in relation to the experience described, if after it the usual waking state of the soul has returned and the memory has come about vividly and clearly enough. The soul feels the sensual body separately from the rest of the world, it perceives it as belonging only to itself. This is not the case with what one experiences in and of oneself outside the body. There you feel connected to everything that can be called the outside world. What is in the environment, one feels connected to oneself as one feels connected to one's hand in sensory life. There is no indifference of the outer world to the inner world of the soul. One feels oneself to be fully integrated, interwoven with what one can call the world. Its effects perceptibly pass through one's own being. There is no sharp boundary between the inner world and the outer world. The whole environment belongs to the observing soul, just as the two hands of the body belong to the physical head. Nevertheless, one can speak of a part of this outer world that belongs more to one's own self than the rest of the surroundings, just as one speaks of the head as an independent member in relation to the hands or feet.
[ 11 ] The soul calls a piece of the sensual outer world its body. The soul experiencing outside this body can just as well regard a part of the non-sensual external world as belonging to itself. If the human being penetrates to an observation of this area that is accessible to him beyond the world of the senses, he can speak of a sensually imperceptible body belonging to him. This body can be called the elementary or etheric body; whereby the word "etheric" should not include the subtle substance called "ether" by physics.
[ 12 ] Just as the mere consideration of man's relationship to the natural outside world gives rise to the concept of the physical body, which corresponds to the facts, so the wandering of the soul into areas that can be seen outside the sensory body leads to the recognition of an elementary or etheric or formative force body.