The Rudolf Steiner Archive

On the guardian of the threshold and some peculiarities of supersensible consciousness

[ 1 ] With his experience in the sensory world, man stands outside the spiritual world, in which, in the sense of the preceding considerations, his essence is rooted. What part this experience has in the human being can be seen when one considers that the supersensible consciousness which enters the supersensible worlds requires a strengthening of the very powers of the soul which are acquired in the sensory world. If this reinforcement is not present, the soul feels a certain reluctance to enter the supersensible world. It even wants to save itself from this entry by seeking "proofs" for the impossibility of such an entry.

[ 2 ] But if the soul finds itself strong enough to enter, if it recognizes within itself the powers that allow it, after entering, to assert its entity as an independent one and to experience in the field of its consciousness not only thoughts but also entities, as it must in the elementary and in the spiritual world: then it also feels that it has only been able to gather these powers within life in the sensory world. It recognizes the necessity of being guided through the sensory world in its worldly course.

[ 3] In particular, this insight arises from the experiences that the supersensible consciousness has with thinking. On entering the elementary world, consciousness is filled with entities that are perceived in image form. Within this world it is not able to develop a similar inner activity of the soul in relation to its entities as is developed in the life of thought within the sense world. - Nevertheless, it would be impossible to find one's way within this elementary world as a human being if one did not enter it thinking. Without thinking contemplation one would certainly see the entities of the elementary world; but one would not be able to know in truth what it is. One would be like a person who has a writing in front of him that he cannot read; such a person sees with his eyes exactly the same as the one who can read the writing; but it has meaning and essence only for him.

[ 4 ] However, during its sojourn in the elementary world, the supersensible consciousness by no means exercises the kind of thinking activity that takes place in the sensory world. It is rather the case that a thinking being - like the human being - perceives the meaning of its beings and powers with the elementary world in its correct vision, and that a non-thinking being would perceive the images without their meaning and essence.

[ 5 ] When the spiritual world is entered, the ahrimanic entities, for example, would be taken for something completely different than what they are if they were not seen by the soul as a thinking entity. It is the same with the Luciferian and other entities of the spiritual world. The ahrimanic and luciferic entities are seen by man as what they are when he looks at them from the spiritual world with the clairvoyant gaze that has been empowered by thinking.

[ 6 ] If the soul did not arm itself with sufficient thinking power, the Luciferian entities, when seen from the spiritual world, would seize the clairvoyant world of images and create the illusion in the observing soul that it is penetrating deeper and deeper into the spiritual world actually sought, while in truth it is sinking deeper and deeper into the world which the Luciferian forces want to prepare as one equal to its essence. The soul would indeed feel more and more independent, but it would settle into a spiritual world that does not correspond to its essence and original source. It would enter a spiritual environment that is alien to it. - The world of the senses conceals such entities as the Luciferic ones. Therefore they cannot disturb the consciousness within the sense world. They simply do not exist for it. And the consciousness has the possibility, unperturbed by them, to strengthen itself sufficiently - mentally. It is one of the instinctive characteristics of healthy consciousness that it only wants to enter the spiritual world to the extent that it has sufficiently strengthened itself to see through it in the sense world. Consciousness is attached to the way in which it can experience itself in the sense world. It feels itself to be in its element when it can experience itself with the thoughts, feelings, affects, etc. that it owes to the sense world. How strongly the consciousness is attached to this experience is particularly evident at the moment when entry into the supersensible worlds actually takes place. Just as one clings to dear memories in special moments of one's life, so on entering the supersensible worlds all the inclinations of which one is only capable at all come up with necessity as if from the depths of the soul. One becomes aware of how one is basically attached to the life that connects man with the sensory world. This attachment shows itself there in its full truth, without all the illusions that one otherwise makes about this fact in life. On entering the supersensible world - as a kind of first supersensible achievement - a piece of self-knowledge comes about of which one could hardly have had any idea before. And it becomes apparent what you have to leave behind if you really want to enter the world with knowledge, in which you are actually constantly in it. What one has consciously and unconsciously made of oneself as a human being in the sensory world comes before the soul's gaze with the utmost clarity. - This experience can often have the consequence that one drops all further attempts to penetrate into the supersensible worlds. For, in addition, one gains clarity about how one must learn to feel and sense differently if the sojourn in the spiritual world is to be successful. One must come to the decision to develop a completely different inner state of soul than one had before, or - in other words: - one must gain another one in addition to the one previously attained.

[ 7 ] And yet - what actually happens at such a moment of entry into the supersensible world? One looks at the being that one has always been; but one does not now look at it from the sensory world from which one has always looked at it before; one looks at it, without illusion, in its truth from the spiritual world. One looks at it in such a way that one feels fully penetrated by the powers of knowledge that are able to measure it in its spiritual value. When one looks at oneself in this way, it also shows why one does not want to enter the supersensible world consciously without fear; it shows the degree of strength one has for this entry. One sees how one keeps oneself away from it as a knowing being. And the more closely one sees through oneself in this way, the more strongly the tendencies emerge through which one wants to remain in the sensory world with one's consciousness. As if from the recesses of the soul's depths, heightened knowledge draws these inclinations out. They must be recognized, for only then can they be overcome. But it is in recognizing them that they particularly demonstrate their power. They want to overpower the soul; it feels itself drawn down by them as if into indefinite depths. The moment of self-knowledge is a serious one. There is far too much philosophizing and theorizing about self-knowledge in the world. This distracts the soul's gaze from the seriousness associated with it rather than driving it towards it. And in spite of all this seriousness, what satisfaction it affords when one considers how human nature is so arranged that it is prompted by its instincts not to enter the spiritual world before it can develop its degree of maturity as self-awareness within itself. What a satisfaction that the most significant encounter with a being of the supersensible world is the encounter with one's own being in its truth, which is to be carried further in the development of humanity! One can say that there is a being in the human being that keeps careful watch at the boundary that must be crossed when entering the supersensible world. This spiritual entity within the human being, which he is himself, but which he can recognize as little through ordinary consciousness as the eye can see itself, is the "guardian at the threshold" into the spiritual world. One learns to recognize it in the moment in which one is not only actually itself, but also stands opposite it, as if standing outside it, like another.

[ 8 ] Like other experiences of the supernatural worlds, the "Guardian of the Threshold" also makes the intensified, inherently strengthened soul abilities visible. For apart from the fact that the encounter with the "Guardian" is elevated to knowledge for the clairvoyant mind's eye, this encounter is by no means an event that only occurs for the person who has become clairvoyant. Exactly the same fact in which this encounter consists occurs for every human being every time he falls asleep, and the self-encounter, which is quite the same as standing before the "Guardian of the Threshold", lasts as long as sleep lasts. In sleep the soul rises to its supersensible essence. However, its inner powers are then not strong enough to evoke a consciousness of itself. - For the understanding of the supersensible experience, especially in its tender beginnings, it is also of particular importance to direct the soul's attention to the fact that the soul can already have begun to experience the supersensible without being able to form any appreciable knowledge of it. Clairvoyance first appears in a very delicate way. In such a way that one often, in the expectation of seeing something almost tangible, does not pay attention to the heal-sensory impressions that flit by. One does not want to recognize them as such. They then appear in such a way that they already prepare their being forgotten by appearing; they then enter the field of consciousness so weakly that they remain completely unnoticed like light clouds of the soul. Because this is so, and because one usually expects something quite different from the spiritual view than what it is at first, it is not found by many serious seekers after the spiritual world. - The encounter with the "Guardian of the Threshold" is also important in this respect. If one has just awakened the soul in the direction of self-knowledge, then this encounter itself may only be like a first tender flicker of a spiritual vision; one will not, however, consign it to oblivion as easily as other supersensible impressions, because one is more interested in one's own being than in anything else. - However, there is absolutely no need for the encounter with the "guardian" to be one of the first supersensible experiences. The empowerment of the soul can take place in different directions. The first directions which the soul takes can also lead other beings or processes into its spiritual circle of vision before this encounter. But this encounter will take place relatively soon after entering the supersensible world.