The Rudolf Steiner Archive

4.4. An important Characteristic of Spiritual Perception

[ 1 ] The perceptions that the soul makes in the realm of spiritual reality do not live on in the soul in the same way as the ideas that are gained from sensory perceptions. Although it is possible to compare these perceptions with the ideas of memory in the sense of the first chapter of this "Sketchy expansions of the content of this writing", the former do not behave in the soul in the same way as the latter. What is experienced as a mental perception can not be retained in its immediate form in the soul like a memory. If one is to have the same mental perception again, it must also be re-established in the soul. In other words, the soul's relationship to the corresponding spiritual reality must be sought again. And this re-establishment cannot be compared to remembering a sensory impression, but only to visualizing the same sensory object that one had with an earlier impression. What can be retained directly in the memory of the real mental perception is not the perception itself, but the action of the soul through which one arrives at the corresponding perception. If I strive to have a mental perception again that I had some time ago, I should not look for the memory of this perception, but for the memory that recalls the preparations of my soul that led me to the perception. The perception then arises through a process that is independent of me. It is important to be fully aware of this duality of the process, because only in this way can one attain a correct knowledge of what is truly spiritually objective.

In practice, however, the nature of this duality is modified by the fact that the content of spiritual perception can be transferred from the looking consciousness into the ordinary consciousness. Then it becomes an abstract idea in the latter. And this can be remembered in the ordinary way.

However, much can be gained for a correct conscious relationship of the soul to the spiritual world precisely by practicing carefully to recognize the differences that occur with a certain subtlety within the life of the soul:

1. Soul processes that lead to a spiritual perception;
2. spiritual perceptions themselves;
3. spiritual perceptions converted into concepts of ordinary consciousness