The Rudolf Steiner Archive

On the boundary between the sensory world and the supersensible worlds

[ 1 ] For the realization of the relationship between the different worlds, it is important to consider that a force which in one world must unfold an effect corresponding to the sense of the world order can then be directed against this world order when it unfolds in another world. Thus it is necessary for the being of man that the two opposing forces are present in his etheric body: the ability to transform into other beings and the strong sense of self. Both forces of the human soul cannot be brought to unfold without being attenuated by the soul in the senses. In the elementary world they are present in such a way that through their mutual balance they make the human entity possible, just as sleep and waking in the sensory world make human life possible. The relationship between two such opposing forces could never be such that the one extinguishes the other, but it must be such that both come to development and have a balancing effect on each other." Now ego-feeling and the ability to transform can only work on each other in the elementary world in the way indicated; only that which results from the mutual relationship and cooperation of the two forces can work into the sense world in the sense of the world order. If the degree of transformability that a human being must have in his etheric body were to have an effect on his sensory being, then the human being would feel himself to be something in his soul that he is not in accordance with his physical body. The physical body gives man a fixed imprint in the sense world, through which he is placed in this world as a certain personal being. Thus he is not placed in the elementary world with his etheric body. In this world, in order to be fully human, he must be able to assume the most varied forms. If this were impossible for him, he would be condemned to complete solitude in the elementary world; he could know nothing of anything but himself; he would feel himself related to no being and no process. For this world, however, this would mean that the corresponding beings and processes would not exist for such a person. - But if the human soul were to develop in the sense world the capacity for transformation necessary for the elementary world, it would lose its personal essence. Such a soul would live in contradiction with itself. For the physical world, the ability to transform must be a power resting in the depths of the soul; a power which gives the soul its basic mood, but which does not unfold in the sense world. - The supersensible consciousness must live itself into the capacity for transformation; if it were not able to do so, it could not make observations in the elementary world. Thus the super-sensible consciousness acquires an ability which it should only use as long as it knows itself in the elementary world, but which it must suppress as soon as it returns to the sense world. The supersensible consciousness must always observe the border between the two worlds; it must not operate in the sensory world with abilities that are appropriate to a supersensible world. If the soul, when it knows itself in the sensory world, were to allow the transforming ability of its etheric body to continue to work, the ordinary consciousness would be filled with ideas that do not correspond to any entity in the sensory world. The soul would enter into the confusion of imaginative life. The observance of the boundary between the worlds is a necessary condition for the right effect of the supersensible consciousness. - Whoever wants to attain supersensible consciousness must be careful that nothing disturbing creeps into his ordinary consciousness through the knowledge of supersensible worlds. - If one becomes acquainted with the "Guardian of the Threshold", one will know the state of the soul in the sensory world, how strong it is to banish from the sensory-physical consciousness that which may not be effective in it from the powers and abilities of the supersensible worlds. If one enters the supersensible world without the self-knowledge mediated by the "Guardian of the Threshold", one can be overwhelmed by the experiences of this world. These experiences can force their way into the physical-sensory consciousness as illusionary images. They then take on the character of sensory perceptions; and the necessary consequence of this is that the soul takes them for reality, which they are not. Properly developed clairvoyance will never regard the images of the elementary world as real in the same sense that the physical-sensory consciousness must regard the experiences of the sense world as real. The images of the elemental world are only brought into the right context with the reality to which they correspond through the soul's ability to transform.

[ 2 ] The second force necessary for the etheric body - the strong sense of self - must not enter the life of the soul within the sensory world in a way that is appropriate to the elementary world. If it does, it becomes the source of immoral inclinations in the sense world, insofar as these are connected with egoism. - At this point in its view of the world, spiritual science finds the origin of "evil" in human action. It would be misjudging the world order to believe that this world order could exist without the forces that form the source of evil. If these forces were not present, the etheric being of man could not develop in the elementary world. These forces are perfectly good forces if they only become effective in the elementary world; they bring about evil by not remaining at rest in the depths of the soul and regulating there the relationship of man to the elementary world, but by being transferred into the experience of the soul within the sense world and thereby transforming themselves into instincts of egoism. They then work against the ability to love and thus become the origins of immoral behavior.

[ 3 ] If the strong sense of self passes from the etheric body into the physical body, this not only strengthens egoism but also weakens the etheric body. The supersensible consciousness must make the discovery that on entering the supersensible world the stronger the egoism in the experience within the sense world, the weaker the necessary ego feeling. Egoism does not make man strong in the depths of his soul, but weak. - And when man passes through the gate of death, the effect of egoism, which has been developed in the life between birth and death, occurs in such a way that it makes the soul weak for the experiences of the supersensible world