The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Occultism and Initiation

Public Lecture

[ 1 ] Anyone who speaks of occultism in our time must be prepared for the fact that much of what they have to say will be received not merely as a collection of bold hypotheses, but perhaps even as daydreaming or fantasy. And if, in a soul immersed in contemporary educational life and perhaps in contemporary scientific life, a sense of contradiction arises at first against much of what will be said in this evening’s discussion, I ask you to accept my assurance that I myself most certainly belong to those who can fully understand and find comprehensible such a contradiction as it stirs in the hearts of our time. First of all, I would like to point out what is meant when we speak today of occultism and of those methods of research that lead to the results of occultism and which can be summarized in the word “initiation.” For, fundamentally speaking, initiation means nothing other than the sum of all those tasks that a person must accomplish if they wish to attain the results of occultism. Now, by occultism I do not mean here all the various things that are currently being propagated here and there under this name, but rather I mean those very specific results of a kind of Spiritual Science that, at their core, conform to contemporary scientific modes of thought and logical requirements. I mean all those insights that, under this name and from the perspective just mentioned, seek to enter into contemporary life—insights that consider matters regarding which it must undoubtedly be held that ordinary science and ordinary cognition cannot lead to them. What is finding its way into literature today from this perspective is all too easily capable of provoking quite a strong reaction from many of our contemporaries, provoking it to such an extent that one says in response: What is all this that appears and seeks to offer insights into a supersensible life, into supersensible facts—what is all this when compared with the findings of contemporary science, which are based on such rigorous, conscientious research! — The insights that appear here and that I mean are, above all, those that lead beyond what is perceptible to the senses and what is knowable through the ordinary intellect bound to the instrument of the brain; those that lead beyond what can be experienced within the cycle of birth and death; those that lead into the regions that a human being enters when they pass through the gate of death. And the findings to which this Spiritual Science—or, let us also say, this occultism—arrives speak of a development of the actual spiritual core of the human being in such a way that, when the human being passes through the gate of death, this spiritual -soul core passes into a supersensible, into a spiritual world, that he takes with him from the life he has led between birth and death within the physical body certain powers, from which he, in connection with other purely supersensible forces and powers, in an interim period that elapses between death and a new birth, acquires the abilities and powers through which, as a spiritual-soul core, they connect with what is given as a physical legacy within physical heredity—that is, what is inherited from father and mother and from ancestors in general—and which thus unites with these purely physical substances and forces to form the whole human being.

[ 2 ] From this you can see that the results of this research must speak of such a development of the spiritual-soul core of the human being, which leads through repeated earthly lives—that is, of reincarnation, of repeated earthly lives—and which also speaks of the fact that what we experience in terms of inner abilities, which spring forth from our soul in a single life, indeed, even the blows of fate we experience—that these are, in a certain sense, the results of what we have prepared for ourselves in previous earthly lives, and that, in turn, what we go through, experience, and acquire in terms of abilities in this earthly life is carried through the gate of death and processed in a supersensible, purely spiritual world, so that, when it has been fully processed in this spiritual world, it may once again enter into a new earthly existence in the manner described. This insight alone is something that can profoundly move people today. Added to this are the concepts that, based on Spiritual Science, seek to explain the aspects of human nature that belong to the supersensible realm alongside the sensory being—those concepts that aim to demonstrate that, in addition to the physical body we perceive with our external senses, the human being possesses a supersensible vehicle that can, in a certain sense, be perceived through the methods of Spiritual Science, and which is recognized as the spiritual -soul core that undergoes the character-forming destinies through repeated earthly lives. Indeed, one even finds in the literature of Spiritual Science references to earlier states of our human life in long-past epochs of earthly existence; indeed, references are made—in a manner grounded in Spiritual Science—to states in the cosmos that occurred when the Earth did not yet exist as the present planet — that is, reference is made to states that took place before our earthly life. Reference is thus made to the development of cosmic life itself, to the transformation of our Earth and other celestial bodies. From the methods of this science, one must admit, on the one hand, that if anything can be known about these things at all, such knowledge belongs to that which must touch human life in the very, very deepest way, because it is connected with what human beings actually are in their deepest nature and essence. And on the other hand, it must be pointed out that, precisely from the standpoint of our current, let us say, knowledge of nature, a justified skepticism arises regarding the possibility of knowledge in this field.

[ 3 ] The next question that can be raised in light of such research findings is precisely the one we are here to address this evening. It is, after all, nothing other than the all-too-legitimate question: By what means do those who provide such information and make such claims arrive at their conclusions? How do they do it? For there is no need to dwell further on the fact that current science cannot provide any knowledge about these matters, that one cannot penetrate those realms using the methods which, despite their conscientiousness and certainty, despite their internal logic, truly no one can admire more than the conscientious scholar of Spiritual Science. But when this question is raised, another may immediately arise for the human soul. In the face of a certain fact, the question may arise: Since it is now beyond doubt that in every human heart, in every human breast, there is a deep longing for knowledge of such things, how is it that human beings, precisely through the most conscientious research methods, appear cut off from the world into which they wish to look? If one considers this question impartially, one very soon comes to the conclusion that human beings can actually understand only a certain kind of fact, which they confront in a very specific way. Fundamentally, human beings can understand only that of which they know how it arises, how it comes to be. They can understand only that in whose creation they can participate in a certain way with awareness. Humans can understand only that in whose creation they are able to be present in a certain way. But when humans turn their gaze to what surrounds them in nature, to the essence of all the natural kingdoms, then they must say to themselves: Yes, just as they are, just as they are placed before me in their finished form, I can take them in with my senses; I can recognize them by, for example, investigating their laws through combinations of my intellect; but the moment I seek to grasp the becoming, the process of coming into being, the gaze that seeks to penetrate into things essentially fails. — The entities and facts of the natural realms present themselves to humans as finished, as created things, and it seems as though he could not initially participate in the creation of the created.

[ 4 ] When a person looks inward again and surveys what lives in their inner life as thoughts, mental images, feelings, and impulses of the will, they thereby possess a more or less rich inner world—a world whose reality they truly experience far more than the reality of external things, indeed more than the reality of that which belongs to the external world from themselves. For who could deny that our pains and sufferings, our drives and desires, our thoughts and ideals—in short, that which ebbs and flows within our inner life from the moment we wake until we fall asleep—are more real to us than the reality of the physical and physiological processes taking place in our organism? But even then, no matter how hard we try to gain insight into our inner life—we see how this inner life is kindled by the external world, how this or that seizes us, how this or that fills us with worry or joy; yet we cannot participate in its actual genesis, in the creative process. And precisely when we consider how a thing becomes comprehensible to us only when we participate in the creative process, then it becomes clear to us what is denied to us by the two modes of observation indicated. We need only cast a glance at what our imagination brings forth, what we create through what lies, so to speak, within our own inner power, what we shape according to our thoughts and ideals; we need only recall what human beings are already able to comprehend today through their technology; the way in which they combine the forces of nature and how what they experience there as participation in the building, in the creating, in the becoming, evokes a sense of satisfied insight—and how he feels unsatisfied, how he feels as if standing before a gate through which he is not admitted, when he beholds the things around him and within himself, in whose creative process he cannot even participate.

[ 5 ] The question now is whether it might not be possible, after all, to find a way into what we actually perceive as the processes of becoming in existence—processes in which we ourselves are situated—and to participate in the creative? There is a realm in which we can know directly that we participate in the creative process in a certain way, yet we know just as well that we cannot look into the creative process with our ordinary consciousness through perception and observation! What is meant here reveals itself to the human being every day, if only they reflect a little on the strange phenomena in the alternation of sleeping and waking. These phenomena are of immense significance for those who wish to penetrate more deeply into the essence of life. They evoke what we might call a mystery of life; and if ordinary consciousness fails to notice that something so infinitely significant lies in this alternation of sleep and wakefulness, this is likely due only to the fact that everything familiar loses its power of impression on human beings. Because people are simply accustomed to seeing sleep and wakefulness alternate within twenty-four hours, they no longer perceive the profound significance, the grandeur and power, to which this very everyday phenomenon points us. If we wish to characterize the difference between sleep and wakefulness, this characterization is at first a triviality, a matter of course, for every person knows that their state of sleep begins in such a way that the fulfillment of their soul—which is present from waking until falling asleep, and which manifests itself in the ebbing and flowing of feelings, sensations, drives, desires, and passions, mental images and ideals, fades away, that this whole world sinks into the darkness, into the gloom of the unconscious. But every person is also convinced that work continues on their being even in the intermediate state between falling asleep and waking up, that something is happening, something is happening in which they simply cannot be present with their consciousness. So what can be said about the alternating states of sleep and wakefulness is certainly self-evident; but when we reflect on this self-evidence, we realize that the reason why a barrier is placed here before our knowledge and understanding is actually not particularly far-fetched. We must tell ourselves, when we consider this alternation of waking and sleeping, that, fundamentally speaking, our entire conscious daily life, our entire waking life, must be something like a process of destruction, like a process of dissolution of deeper processes taking place within our organism. I cannot go into the physical, chemical, and physiological processes that take place within the phenomenon of fatigue here—for that would lead too far afield; that is not what matters now. But this is what can become clear to everyone: that fatigue is something like a process of wear and tear, a process of destruction of deeper forces at work within our organism. From this we can conclude that our waking daily life actually has the peculiarity that it does not participate in our building up, in our creation, but rather, in its result, reveals fatigue; that it, in essence, continually consumes and dissolves us. In fact, waking life is a process of dissolution and destruction, and it is actually obvious to any impartial observer that sleep is the opposite process: a creative process that restores, puts back in order, and recreates what the waking process kills and causes to wither.

[ 6 ] It is, of course, natural that we can know nothing about this very creative process within us that takes place during sleep. It is a creative process that takes place within us, yet of which we can know nothing, because we lose consciousness immediately before this creative process must begin; thus, we cannot penetrate it with our knowledge when a creative process is occurring within us. But it follows directly from this that we could grasp what is creative in nature, in the processes of the world, if we were able to maintain our consciousness beyond the state in which it is numbed. At the very moment when a human being develops their creative power within themselves, their consciousness is numbed; he enters a state of sleep, of unconsciousness. And we see from this that the human being, as it currently exists, is constituted in such a way that when a person were to engage in a creative activity—one that takes place within themselves, no less—they become numbed, their consciousness fades, and they cannot bear witness to the creative process. We thus have, in that activity within our organism which proves to be creative, something within ourselves that we cannot penetrate, because our consciousness is numbed to it, because this process remains an external world to our consciousness. There is no other way to gain insight into the things that lie beyond the sensory world than by coming to a position where we can transcend our consciousness, penetrate a creative process as it “unfolds” within us, or at least a similar process.

[ 7 ] Where in the world is there anything that can teach us to transcend ourselves and our ordinary consciousness, to penetrate into something foreign to us, and yet not be numbed, not fall into a kind of sleep? Within the broad scope of our ordinary consciousness, there are two things in relation to which a person must admit that they lead him out of his ordinary consciousness, out of his everyday consciousness, and yet do not numb him or lull him to sleep, as is the case every evening. And these two things, which within ordinary consciousness can serve as a kind of model for the consciousness’s emergence from itself and its penetration into the foreign, these two things lie in the moral realm. Through two moral experiences that permeate the whole of human life, the human soul can create model concepts for the way in which it can find the path out of itself without our consciousness being numbed. And these two things are, first, compassion, and second, conscience. And when we study how, in moral life, compassion and conscience relate to consciousness, we first gain an idea of how this consciousness might emerge from within itself. When we develop compassion, love, and empathy for another soul, then—depending on our capacity—we do not experience within ourselves that which touches us—for that would not be the experience of compassion and love—but rather we experience the joys, the sufferings, the pains, and the pleasurable things of the other soul. We are indeed in such a moment when we are able to merge compassionately into the other soul; we are indeed living—an unbiased observation can teach us this—outside our ordinary consciousness; we are inside the other soul. A profound mystery of life actually lies before our soul in this. This is all the more profound because, in this living over into another, when we feel morally, we are not numbed, our consciousness does not fade away. And it is a true measure of a person’s morality to what extent they are able to fully maintain their consciousness when they are not to experience their own sufferings and joys, but rather the sufferings and joys of another soul. And it is precisely a moral defect when consciousness feels numbed by the sufferings and joys of the foreign soul, for then it is in a situation similar to that of one’s own creative activity, which takes place during sleep. Consciousness, as it were, falls asleep in the face of foreign suffering and foreign joy.

[ 8 ] And a second experience, also in the moral realm, that takes us beyond our ordinary consciousness is conscience; the conscience of which we can say, if we consider it impartially: Whatever we may want to do or refrain from doing—whether out of our instincts and desires, out of the passion of our existence, out of the demands of the everyday sympathies and antipathies we feel, whatever we may love or loathe—external factors such as upbringing or social context may speak to us, but what we call conscience never speaks to us from the outside. Conscience comes to us from a world—this is what we feel, what we experience—from which it speaks into our world of perception; for everything we can perceive is corrected, when it becomes an impulse for action, by the supersensory demands of conscience. That something can thus be said to our soul that lies beyond ordinary consciousness—in the moral realm, conscience bears witness to this. And again, a moral defect exists when our soul, where conscience should speak, falls into a kind of slumber, does not hear the voice of conscience, but listens only to what within the sensory world can speak to the impulses of action out of sympathy or antipathy. If we can learn to step out of our consciousness without becoming numb, we can observe in the conscience, even within ordinary consciousness, a phenomenon through which the soul is addressed in such a way that it is not compelled to perceive anything, nor to allow itself to be driven by anything that acts upon it from the external world. From this, however, it can be seen: If the possibility exists to relate to other, foreign beings—to things lying outside our knowledge and consciousness—in a manner similar to how we relate to foreign beings in the moral realm through compassion and love; if, that is, we allow our conscience to reveal truths to us that do not come from the sensory world—if it is possible to penetrate into such foreign entities and allow truths to speak into our souls in the same way that conscience speaks, then there is a prospect of entering a world other than the one given to us in our waking consciousness from the moment we wake up until we fall asleep. This, however, is indeed possible, and the possibility arises in a practical way through those methods we call the methods of initiation. These methods of initiation consist in allowing our soul life—insofar as it involves mental images, feeling, and will—to be engaged in a somewhat different way than we are accustomed to for external knowledge and for the external perception of the world.

[ 9 ] Why do we form mental images, notions, and ideas in our everyday lives? No one will deny that, especially for people today, the purpose for which they form mental images, notions, and ideas is to gain, through these mental images, notions, and ideas—and indeed through their sensations and feelings—a certain understanding of what exists in the external world around them. After all, we call “truth” today whatever in our concepts and ideas corresponds to some external world, to a phenomenon of the external world, whatever, as it were, reflects this phenomenon of the external world. For all external life, for all external culture, this activity of our inner life is, of course, the only correct one. This activity of our inner life must change completely if we wish to penetrate the supersensible mysteries of existence; in other words, if we—to use the frowned-upon word—wish to penetrate the occult mysteries; then we must be able to completely disregard, in the case of concepts, ideas, mental images, and indeed even sensations, feelings, and impulses of the will, what they signify in the external world. We must not ask at first: What do they mean in terms of their truth value for this or that in the external world? We must regard everything that can thus become the content of our inner life merely as an inner pedagogical means of self-education for our inner life. We must allow concepts, ideas, and even sensations and feelings to take effect in our soul in such a way that we keep this soul isolated from everything we can take in from the external world—and even from what we have already absorbed in the course of life through experiences and accumulated in our memory. If, through a vigorous exercise of the will, we can turn away from all the impressions the external sensory world can offer us, from all the combinations our intellect can make, if we can also turn away from all anxieties and worries, from all joys and other things accumulated in our memory, if we can empty the soul, just as it empties itself when sleep sets in at night due to fatigue, but if we can then achieve the exact opposite of what happens in sleep; if we are able, while fully maintaining consciousness, to direct this consciousness toward any fruitful, specifically symbolic mental images, toward those that are as ambiguous as possible—for one must not ask about their truth value, but about their educational value for the soul—;; then, when one concentrates this soul through an energetic act of will upon a specific content—either a mental image or a sensory impulse—which one places at the center of one’s inner life, and if one now directs the soul’s activity, purified of all else, toward this self-chosen image and, with ever-increasing duration, brings it to the point where, through strong concentration of will, the entire soul life now kept awake is focused on such self-chosen content— then one will notice that not from this content, but rather from the soul forces expended and energetically held together, something radiates into our inner life, and we are enabled to experience something inwardly that we cannot otherwise experience, from which we then gain the direct experience, the immediate perception: You are now experiencing something that is as real, as important, as essential to existence as the things you see through your eyes, hear through your ears—which are also real, but which you could never have experienced through external sensory activity and through the intellect. — In short, only now does one begin to know what this actually is: supersensible experience; only now does one know oneself to be present within its spiritual-soul core; only now does one begin to grasp that one can lead a life in an inner soul entity, independent of physicality. The entire consciousness is thereby transformed.

[ 10 ] I would like to point out explicitly that what leads to such inner activity bears a strong resemblance to, yet is in fact the opposite of, the trivial process that is triggered, for example, when one directs one’s external attention to a shiny object and puts oneself into a kind of trance. What is thus brought about by a state of mind that is not otherwise present is caused by intense concentration on an object that holds back the rest of the soul’s activity. In this respect, what is achieved through the described concentration on an inner, freely chosen content corresponds to such an activity of the soul, because it is also concentration; but it is the opposite insofar as our consciousness is extinguished by the fact that we put ourselves into a kind of hypnosis through a glittering object, whereas our consciousness is always preserved when we, through an energetic will, bring an inner—and only inner—content of imagination into the center of our soul life. Such a method of drawing upon one’s own soul is called, using a technical term within Spiritual Science, meditation. That is true meditation. And I expressly note that this meditation is, in practice, far more difficult than one might initially believe when it is described so simply. For it is not a matter of a few experiments in this field; rather, one must attempt, through mental images and ideas formed again and again—ideas drawn from moral and intellectual life, particularly symbolic ideas—one must try again and again to engage in such concentration, such meditation, until the decisive moment arises, which lies simply in the inner knowledge: You have within you a spiritual-soul core that lives in a supersensible reality and that, in perceiving itself within this supersensible reality, does not make use of the external sense organs or the intellect bound to the brain.

[ 11 ] Now, from all the processes described here, you will be able to draw one conclusion: that we actually always remain within ourselves, that we have, in essence, turned away from the entire external world and withdrawn into our inner selves. What we can initially experience here is, in fact, and can only be, an inner experience; but this inner experience initially leads us, in practical terms, to a very specific point. The person who engages in concentration and meditation in this way soon sees—and indeed sees it truly—their field of vision filled with realities, realities that we may, for the sake of argument, initially call visions. All manner of things appear in the form of images that cannot be compared to anything previously experienced; in terms of certain outward appearances, they can be compared, but particularly in terms of the way they are composed and how they affect us, it is an entirely new experience—it is not a combination of what came before. We can call this thoroughly new phenomenon, in accordance with common usage, a vision. It also resembles, one might say, dream images to a T; only, when compared to ordinary dream images, it is of an immensely greater intensity and of an imposing—one might say, intrusive—reality.

[ 12 ] Now, from all the processes described here, you will be able to draw one conclusion: that we actually always remain within ourselves, that we have, in essence, turned away from the entire external world and withdrawn into our inner selves. What we can initially experience here is, in fact, and can only be, an inner experience; but this inner experience initially leads us, in practical terms, to a very specific point. The person who engages in concentration and meditation in this way soon sees—and indeed sees it truly—their field of vision filled with realities, realities that we may, for the sake of argument, initially call visions. All manner of things appear in the form of images that cannot be compared to anything previously experienced; in terms of certain outward appearances, they can be compared, but particularly in terms of the way they are composed and how they affect us, it is an entirely new experience—it is not a combination of what came before. We can call this thoroughly new phenomenon, in accordance with common usage, a vision. It also resembles, one might say, dream images to a T; only, when compared to ordinary dream images, it is of an immensely greater intensity and of an imposing—one might say, intrusive—reality.

[ 13 ] Now, from all the processes described here, you will be able to draw one conclusion: that we actually always remain within ourselves, that we have, in essence, turned away from the entire external world and withdrawn into our inner selves. What we can initially experience here is, in fact, and can only be, an inner experience; but this inner experience initially leads us, in practical terms, to a very specific point. The person who engages in concentration and meditation in this way soon sees—and indeed sees it truly—their field of vision filled with realities, realities that we may, for the sake of argument, initially call visions. All manner of things appear in the form of images that cannot be compared to anything previously experienced; in terms of certain outward appearances, they can be compared, but particularly in terms of the way they are composed and how they affect us, it is an entirely new experience—it is not a combination of what came before. We can call this thoroughly new phenomenon, in accordance with common usage, a vision. It also resembles, one might say, dream images to a T; only, when compared to ordinary dream images, it is of an immensely greater intensity and of an imposing—one might say, intrusive—reality.

[ 14 ] But this is connected to something else—only these stages of initiation can be described—namely, that little by little the entire process compels us to give up something that the ordinary clairvoyant is very reluctant to give up. The ordinary clairvoyant is so happy when he can now live in the world of his visions; he takes such pride in his experiences of a higher world, and they are so evocative that they can easily be taken as reality. Then he can very easily slip into a state of nervous exhaustion. But if the described act of will—with the full awareness: “You are doing all this yourself!”— — is maintained, if consciousness never falls asleep, then what many find distressing occurs: that this power, which lies in the aforementioned act of will, sets about destroying the entire imaginative world, that it is thrown into confusion, that much of what this ordinary clairvoyant considers most valuable is wiped out. In other words, the following occurs: While in the manifestation of imaginative consciousness we have an element that truly represents the forces constituting a creative process—for we do not allow it to proceed beyond the limit where destruction would set in— while we truly, following the pattern of ordinary consciousness, step out of our consciousness in compassion and love and enter into a creative process, we then—when, through the described act of will, we intervene in our visionary world in a self-destructive, self-organizing, but also intervening in a synthesizing way in our visionary world, to develop within ourselves an activity that is perceptible nowhere in the external world and yet very soon reveals itself to observation as the creative activity taking place within us and hidden from ordinary consciousness—that creative activity which represents the core of our spiritual -psychic core of our being, how it works upon our own organism, how it in turn draws its forces from the spiritual environment, how it stands within the spiritual cosmos. On the next stage, which is technically called inspiration, we learn to recognize our spiritual-psychic core of being, how it stands within the creative forces of the cosmos itself. While imagination, as the first stage of initiation, actually leads us only into ourselves—and does so in such a way that a world is conjured up for us, which is, however, only a visionary world—we ascend to a higher stage through the process of inspiration. Something strikes the entire visionary world like a bolt of lightning, something that seems to come directly from the spiritual cosmos—and indeed it does, as observation itself shows—yet it speaks to us in a way that we recognize in ordinary, normal consciousness only through our conscience. In our conscience we have a point of comparison with the way in which the imaginative consciousness is addressed in inspiration; but then this imagination passes over into inspiration, and through it we enter into a real spiritual, into a real supersensible world.

[ 15 ] And now, having reached through our own development the point where we can look beyond sensory events, we are able to comprehend, for example, the wondrous mystery of human becoming and also of human death. For now it will no longer occur to us to believe that what lives within a human being’s soul—when we see this person come into existence through birth, when we witness how the child’s indefinite facial features and clumsy movements gradually develop into definite and skillful ones—it will be impossible for us to say that everything which emerges in the child from the center of the soul, which gives the body’s physiognomy its plastic form—to the extent that even the finer convolutions of the brain are formed after birth—everything that confronts us in this way, that would be merely a result of heredity. Now, rather, we look back to the spiritual-soul core that comes from a completely different world, which unites with what is received from father and mother, and now we speak not only of inherited traits, but of what connects from the spiritual world with what is inherited from father and mother, from the ancestors in general. What is otherwise only a matter of faith becomes a real insight: that the spiritual-soul core comes from the spiritual world and itself shapes the physical body. And further: When we then observe life—observe it with the insight gained through initiation—we see how the spiritual-soul core increasingly directs the experiences and events of existence between death and a new birth toward its inner self, drawing them away from the outer world. We understand how, through this withdrawal of the core of being from the external, the face becomes furrowed, and we gain the immediate impression: While, after we have passed the peak of life, our external physical body begins to wither, even our brain begins to wither, so that what the soul holds within can no longer find expression and it seems as though the soul itself were withering away— we see how that which can no longer express itself withdraws into its innermost being, gathers its strength, how precisely that which we have lived through, experienced, endured, and conquered gathers within the soul and is then at its strongest, possessing its greatest inner power, when the body releases us; its strongest inner power, which, if the process is followed further, unites with the forces that, in a supersensible world, assemble the archetype for a new embodiment, for a new body in a new life. Thus, the evolution of the spiritual-soul core of the being, its creative work on the outer physical body, becomes an immediate fact through looking into the spiritual world. And when we then compare what stands at the beginning of life—the gradual, plastic shaping of the body—with what stands at the end—the soul’s withdrawal of life experiences into itself, the detachment of the soul’s forces from the body, and the passing through the gate of death: then, for a supersensible observation, it becomes like comparing the initial and final processes, say in the case of a plant, where the final process is such that what is formed as a seed again forms the starting point for the next plant to be. But while we see the beginning and the end linked in such a way that essentially the same thing always appears, through a supersensible insight gained in initiation we see that what the soul has experienced in life is woven into the spiritual-soul core of the being, and when the human being returns after the interval between death and a new birth—which is a long time—this spiritual-soul core forms its new body. But now this spiritual-soul core forms its new body, its new existence, in such a way that it manifests the effects of what was experienced as causes in earlier lives.

[ 16 ] Thus, through the methods gained by initiation—which, in a sense, find their model in the empathy and conscience of ordinary consciousness—the processes of the supersensible world connected with the human being become a matter of direct knowledge. Initiation thereby becomes the path for ascending into the supersensible worlds.

[ 17 ] If you now delve deeper into what could only be outlined here, if you explore it further in my book *How Does One Gain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?*, you will find that this initiation, as it is described here, has a very specific characteristic. For in its entire course and in the way it presents events, it is entirely guided by the requirements of the current education of humanity, the current demands of logic, common sense, and science; so that more and more these processes of initiation can be recognized by people as the path by which human beings—indeed, every human being—can attain knowledge of the supersensible world. Through processes that are entirely free, brought about solely by the awakening of his soul and his inner soul forces, he elevates himself into those supersensible processes that provide him with insight into the path of his spiritual-soul core through the world, insights that do not merely belong to a world that need not concern us, but to a world from which we must continually draw strength and confidence for ordinary life. The fact that initiation takes into account the means of our present logic, our present scientific requirements, is indeed a new achievement, one might say, of the initiatory process. You see, after all, that people will gradually come to gain insights in this way, following the pattern of scientific thought, insights that penetrate religious feeling and give religious feeling satisfaction through knowledge. This, however, marks a turning point brought about by the very visible penetration of the initiation process into the culture of the present and the future. A turning point has occurred in the development of humanity, which we can describe as the shift that will take place from belief to knowledge of supersensible things.

[ 18 ] Faith, however, is—and it becomes easier to understand that this shift can occur if one takes this into account. —faith, as it has arisen, is such that, when one studies things specifically through the means of initiation, it is evident that wherever it has arisen, it is not something contrived, as a more recent form of enlightenment rooted in the insubstantial would have us believe, but rather every faith can be traced back to findings made by initiated individuals, to experiences of initiation. There is, however, this certain difference between the newer initiation referred to here—which will increasingly become the initiation of humanity as a whole—and the initiation of ancient times.

[ 19 ] In ancient times, it was a strict rule—and it remains a strict rule today for many initiations throughout the world—that whoever seeks the path described must have a kind of guide, whom certain circles refer to as the spiritual guide, the guru. What is the task of this guru? Well, we have seen that in the course of that inner development that has been described, one encounters certain dangers—dangers about which one must be warned. Initially, the task in those initiations that have been handed down from ancient times was for the guru to serve as a warning. He can still be that today, if he is simply the person one seeks out as a kind of teacher, as in the external sciences, and in whom one has trust. But it is extremely obvious that what the old Guru had to be, the new one wants to be—yet what he must never be and will be allowed to be less and less as initiation adapts to the progressive development of humanity. Basically, initiation began everywhere as has been described. The individual was given—except that he had his personal guide—the specific rules: now you shall concentrate on this, then on that; now you shall do this exercise, then that one; then, under strict guidance, the state was brought about in which the world of the imagination entered. Whereas now—and this lies in the nature of modern man—modern man must come to possess within himself, through his own energetic act of will, what has been described: to raise the imagination to the level of inspiration, the ancient guru took on the task of leading the disciple from the imagination to inspiration through certain influences to which the human being is more readily receptive once brought to such a stage of initiation, so that what has been described here as residing within the human being is then exerted as an impulse by the guru upon the disciple. Something is, as it were, transplanted from the Guru into the disciple, bringing order into his imaginative and visionary life. But with this, the Guru has the disciple completely in his power; through this, the disciple is, in a certain sense, an instrument in the hands of the Guru. And you understand that this was linked to all ancient initiations—from which, in essence, all religious denominations also originated—the strict requirement that the Guru, that the Initiator, must be above all immorality, above any possibility of exerting an improper influence on the disciple, that he must be above any possibility of deceit in his entire disposition, and that something could come of it only if he possessed this quality; that he directed his influence solely toward transmitting to the disciple the images of knowledge of the higher world that he himself had gained, so that he might ease the disciple’s path.

[ 20 ] I believe that if you are willing to objectively examine the course of modern consciousness, you will not need much evidence to see that humanity will become increasingly independent of personal influence, even with regard to higher, supersensory knowledge. This is simply part of humanity’s ongoing evolution. The gurus who gathered their disciples around them in the same way as founders of religions or sects will increasingly disappear from the process of human development; in their place, for those seeking initiation, will come people of trust—the kind of trust one gains just as one gains trust in any other teacher. But it must be, so to speak, the self-chosen teacher, not a guru appointed by any external authority. Founding sects in the manner of the ancient adepts is not something that will overcome humanity’s hardships. And it is even good if, with regard to this supersensory development, people are not very gullible but very skeptical, if they ask themselves not just once or twice but many times whom they should place their trust in, and if they are able to muster a great deal of skepticism when something like a prophet, a sect founder, or an adept is imposed upon them from the outside as a great teacher. This will always be a dangerous pitfall, especially in the field we are discussing here, when spiritual movements that seek to introduce occultism into the world rely above all on so-called “great teachers”—those who are to be imposed on people from the outside, rather than arising from the natural trust, the inner trust that emerges from the encounter with the teacher and develops within the student themselves. We have, in a certain sense, experienced a classic example that is not out of place to mention here. We have witnessed the example of a personality who has emerged in recent decades and brought great and significant insights to humanity; not insights recognized by the external Enlightenment, but ones that, through their inner substance, have revealed themselves as something that leads deeply into the supersensory mysteries. Such things are indeed contained in the books of H.P. Blavatsky, who is famous in certain circles. What is written in these books is, even for those well-versed in these matters, at times something extraordinarily great and significant, leading deeper into the mysteries of existence than anything else. But unfortunately, at the starting point of the occult movement that was thus initiated, there was something that harmed this occult movement—something I do not wish to present here as an error; on the contrary, it did harm, even though it had its validity: H.P. Blavatsky referred to teachers who had not become known to the world—to her gurus. Anyone who has insight into H.P. Blavatsky’s abilities knows that she was not in a position to arrive at these things independently through them. H.P. Blavatsky could never have arrived at these high insights through her own abilities. They speak for themselves, insofar as they are true, and they can be verified. Therefore, it did no harm that H.P. Blavatsky had to refer to traditions, to teachings that originated from gurus and to which she herself could never have arrived. It has, of course, harmed her movement that things were accepted not on the basis of the inner truth of occultism, but on the basis of external authority. However willingly some may accept it, the time has passed—whether justifiably or not—and the necessity of the times teaches us that the possibility of simply accepting things on the authority of gurus is over. Things must be accepted on the authority of common sense. And so what can be gained along the path described in writings such as my *Theosophy* may present itself to you in such a way that, while it could only be explored in the manner described today, once it is there as a result, it can be tested, compared with the facts of life, and need not be merely accepted on the basis of any authority. Thus, initiation can only be regarded as genuine if it is understood today to adapt to the modern cultural process, employing methods and means accessible to every human being.

[ 21 ] Certainly, it will be a long time before people of this or that level of education, or of this or that scientific attainment, will still need guidance from an occult teacher; their initiation must be facilitated by one who has already received it, into whom the inspirations of a higher world have already penetrated, for he alone can give the right advice in the details. But the relationship between student and teacher can only be such as it is elsewhere in our modern cultural world—between the one who wants to learn something and the one who can teach something. All the mystification surrounding adeptship, all the stepping before the world with the demand: Believe in some new prophets or founders of religions—all of this will be rejected by the modern cultural spirit, by the modern scientific spirit, and is already discredited by the mere fact that it contradicts the modern cultural spirit. Whatever one may say about teachers who are to appear: the only thing that will guarantee in the future that someone can be a teacher will be trust in their achievements, in the way they present themselves, in who they are. It must be this trust through which the one seeking counsel can be guided to the teacher. Otherwise, if this caution is not exercised—especially in the occult realm, where initiation is sought—then the danger will not vanish from the world, a danger that must always be present due to the precarious nature of the field described: the danger that simply lies in the fact that in this field, right alongside the conscientious initiate who has conscientiously sought his path into the supersensible worlds and conveys the results of that world, stands the charlatan. Charlatanism is what can so easily stand alongside the conscientious results of occultism or initiation, dictated by the spirit of truth. And because in our time credulity and a thirst for sensation regarding messages from the supersensible world—which originate from initiation—are just as great as, on the other hand, a tendency toward skepticism — because there are almost as many people who are quick to place their faith in the authority of this or that, as there are people who deny everything that has been gained even through the strictest methods of supersensory research—a path of research leading to occult facts, as it has just been described today as initiation, must now be widely disseminated. And this path of initiation is one that can be taken by any person, yet its results can impose themselves on common sense just as much as other scientific findings, which are also accepted by an unbiased mind without necessarily being verifiable in every situation. We know from the facts obtained in our clinic, for example, or elsewhere, that anyone can investigate them if they acquire the necessary method; yet one cannot verify everything; one accepts what proves suitable to human reason, what appears to be true. It can be no other way with the results of initiation. Not everyone will be able to verify them at all times, but those who investigate will increasingly share their findings with the world, and common sense will accept them just as it accepts the findings of other sciences. There is, however, one difference: the results of initiation contain the truths that every human being needs to have strength and security in the sufferings and joys of life, to have strength and security in their work and in their activities, so that they do not lose themselves when life deals them a harsh blow, but are able to grasp the center that safely leads them on the path to their ideals. But the results of his research can also give him strength when life weighs us down and we need comfort in the face of the oppressive forces of a ‘world’ where illness and death reign—by looking up to the realities of the spiritual, the supersensible world to which we belong and from which we also draw the genuine, sustaining forces for this sensory world. For what will penetrate the mind from the results of initiation and occultism is something that could be summarized in the words—which I would like to express in nuances of feeling—that have been said about initiation:

The things in the vastness of space
speak to the human senses.
They change as time passes.
With insight, the human soul penetrates,
unlimited by the vastness of space<
and undisturbed by the passage of time,
into the realm of eternity.