The Rudolf Steiner Archive

3. The Path to Knowledge and Its Connection to Human Morality

[ 1 ] The series of lectures we have today and tomorrow could perhaps be used to discuss matters that are similar; except that we will discuss them once in a way that is appropriate for members—for those friends who have spent some time within a branch working to base their view of the world on the perspectives from which we proceed—while tomorrow, during the public lecture, similar topics and similar starting points will be considered, but in a way that is more suitable for those who, so to speak, are approaching this movement directly from the outside world and are still unfamiliar with Spiritual Science.

[ 2 ] Today we shall, as it were, take as our starting point what is a well-known requirement for all those who wish to make progress not only in Spiritual Science alone, but perhaps also in the development of their inner being. It is, after all, emphasized time and again that for a person’s inner development—so that this may lead to their being able to have experiences in the spiritual world—the purity and loving nature of their goals and intentions are of very special importance. We might perhaps say—albeit in a certain sense one-sidedly, though everything one says must necessarily be one-sided—that a spiritual researcher, or indeed anyone who wishes to ascend into the spiritual worlds and somehow discover something of these worlds for themselves, must above all possess a certain quality of soul. This quality of the soul must be such that the person sympathizes—and indeed sympathizes energetically—with the good, the noble, and the beautiful, and that they feel, so to speak, an aversion to the evil and the ugly. The purity of the moral nature of the soul is, after all, repeatedly required in relation to the path into the spiritual worlds, and we might well say: For an ascent into the spiritual worlds that is truly in keeping with the spirit of our present age, a complete permeation of the soul with true, moral intentions and goals is absolutely necessary. We shall hear later that it is indeed possible to attain clairvoyant powers even without these basic conditions; but acquiring clairvoyant powers without the basic conditions just described always has something questionable about it.

[ 3 ] To understand this, let us first clarify what we actually mean by the moral nature of human beings. We are led to speak of the moral nature of human beings when, on the one hand, we first consider the impulses that come to human beings from the external world, prompting them to act, to will, or to desire. When a person is prompted by something that is part of their natural needs—such as hunger or thirst—to perform this or that action, or even merely to desire or will this or that action, we do not, as is well known, say that such desiring or willing constitutes moral actions. Of course, this does not mean they are necessarily immoral. But when a stone falls to the ground, that is not a moral act either, and we feel no inclination whatsoever to apply morality as a standard. Nor do we feel inclined to speak of morality when a person satisfies the natural needs of their body by eating and drinking. Nor do we feel compelled to speak of morality when a person sees a beautiful flower or something else beautiful somewhere and, because the object in question makes a beautiful, pleasing impression, is thereby prompted to desire it, to want it. In that case, too, we do not speak of morality.

[ 4 ] When, exactly, do we speak of morality in relation to human nature? Only then, when it is not external stimuli such as hunger and thirst or the sense of well-being that some object arouses in us that prompt us to do this or that, but when the impulse arises from the innermost core of our being like a command—a command from within us that is independent of external stimuli. We become particularly aware of the difference that lies between this moral and what I will not call immoral, but rather morally indifferent, when we consider how, through external motivation, we might be able to do this or that, which we then do not do because the inner command—which we call a moral impulse—speaks against it.

[ 5 ] Let’s take, for example, the very obvious, trivial case of someone who has a strong inclination to drink too much. Then, if he were in a position to do so, he would simply drink. Or he might also follow an inner voice that has nothing to do with that inclination, but which is opposed to this external impulse and says: What the external impulse seeks to bring about must not be! — Here we see that something within us can speak that contradicts the external impulse. Now, we call everything that amounts to such a contradiction and inner condemnation of our actions “moral.” We can therefore speak of moral action only when we disregard all external impressions, everything to which we are compelled by external factors, and look only to what speaks from within us. It is precisely this ability to hear within oneself something that transcends external impulses—something that can even contradict these external impulses—that elevates humanity above the animal realm.

[ 6 ] We must feel that morality contains something that is true in and of itself. This is the essential characteristic of all moral impulses: that they are true in and of themselves, and that external circumstances can contribute nothing when an action is to be described as moral or immoral. If we nevertheless seem to label something as moral due to external influences, we are often succumbing to an illusion in doing so. If one were to say, for example: Human beings organize themselves in such a way that, with regard to eating and drinking, they do not merely follow hunger and thirst, but the principle that it is simply necessary to care for their organism in order to sustain themselves in the external world, so that one might regard the external necessities of life as the decisive impulses—this would be an illusion. Only if we can add to the external the inner impulse—that it is right and good for a person to sustain themselves on earth, and not merely for the sake of the external task but for the sake of the inner task of the person that may follow from it—only then is morality present; otherwise, it is merely an illusion. The hallmark of what is moral is thus that the impulse is not prompted by the external world, but springs purely from the forces of our soul. Now, of course, someone might say: But there are also evil voices within us; we often follow impulses that we clearly recognize as inner impulses and that are by no means such that we can call them moral. One might say—but we cannot discuss this chapter in depth today, because we have set ourselves a different task today—that when a person follows such seemingly inner impulses that are bad or evil, they are in truth not following themselves, but rather impulses whose origin they do not know and which they confuse with those that come from within. We are all familiar, from our Spiritual Science observations, with the Luciferic forces. These do not come from within, but rather, in a sense, from without, in that the Luciferic beings have established themselves in our astral body and not in our ego, so that when we define the moral in this way, we are exposed to numerous contradictions. If we examine this more closely, we will find that the characteristic feature of morality is that all moral impulses must arise from the innermost core of our being. Here we can hold up as an ideal, so to speak, that which morally appeals to us, which evokes our moral delight, which can fill us with rapture and enthusiasm—that in which the human being is so completely at one with themselves, so completely within their inner self. And while it is already extraordinarily useful and necessary in ordinary life for a person to realize that they are fully at one with themselves only in moral judgments, or in judgments that arise in a similar way, this is an absolute fundamental requirement for practical occultism. It must be recognized as a principle of the occultist. It is essential that all events in him unfold according to the pattern of moral impulses, that nothing happens in the soul when one enters the higher path of knowledge that does not occur according to the pattern of a genuine moral impulse.

[ 7 ] It is important that a person who wishes to become a practical occultist and walk the path of knowledge resolve not to do anything about which they cannot say: When I compare it with what is within the human being—what I call morality—the two must be similar. — At no stage may the path of knowledge deviate from what proves to be similar to human moral behavior. The similarity between the path of knowledge and moral impulses extends even into the details. This will be made clear by means of a very specific example.

[ 8 ] Given the way people are today, there is something quite unique about morality. Ultimately, the Ten Commandments are still the most significant of our laws. If we examine them more closely, we see that the Ten Commandments are structured in a very particular way. Of the ten, only three are formulated in such a way that they say: “You shall do something.” — The other seven are formulated in such a way that they say: “You shall not!” — This shows that the world powers see a much greater necessity in giving people moral laws that say: “You shall not do something”—than those that say: “You shall do something.” — For what is commanded not to do stands to what is commanded to do as seven to three. We can therefore say: Morality must generally operate in human nature in such a way that it particularly takes the position of saying: “You shall not do something.”

[ 9 ] We can examine this seven-to-three ratio more closely in the Ten Commandments. If we consider the seven that state: “Thou shalt not do something”—these all refer to things of the outer world, to what one ought not to do in the physical world; in contrast, the three commandments that contain the “Thou shalt” actually refer to that which transcends the physical world. They state: “You shall believe in one God”—“You shall not misuse the name of this God”—and so on. From this we see that, with regard to the truly spiritual matters of the soul, the commandments are positive; in contrast, all commandments that relate to actual moral behavior in external physical life contain a “You shall not.” For even if we might think that the fourth commandment, “You shall honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the earth,” is positive, we nevertheless sense that it essentially has a strongly negative character, just like the other six commandments. It is a kind of transitional commandment that, while referring to the physical world, nevertheless leads upward from this physical world into the spiritual world. We can prove this down to the smallest detail, I would say, for in all ancient peoples the so-called ancestor cult formed the basis of religion, and in the ancestors, the forefathers, there was at the same time something divine. In this respect, the veneration of the ancestors—of whom the immediate forebears are only a special case—was a kind of transition from the sensory world to the higher world. But in particular, this fourth commandment was nevertheless related to the immediate physical world, to the relationship of children to their parents. With regard to parents, we can fulfill this commandment; we can feel that the fourth commandment is initially given in a positive sense, that it is established over human beings to prevent something from happening. In the case of the first commandments, the object to which they refer does not yet exist in the physical world.

[ 10 ] The structure of this Ten-Commandments-like entity points us toward what constitutes an essential feature of morality in the sensory world: that moral impulses may contradict what a person would do if they merely followed the impulses of the physical world. This clearly states, for the path of knowledge that must be built according to the pattern of moral impulses: We must moralize all our knowledge on the occult path of knowledge; our otherwise merely theoretical laws of knowledge must become inner moral laws. — Thus, that which pertains primarily to the physical plane must, when a person confronts it through inner knowledge of things, become such that they erase what lies directly before them, so that they say: I erase it, just as the lower inclinations are erased when the moral “Thou shalt not” calls out. — Indeed, for this reason, every true description of the path of knowledge points out that the surest way to raise the powers of knowledge into the higher world is through the refinement of moral impulses. This is already expressed in every detail. Let us suppose we have some plant. What can we first describe as an external impulse emanating from it? Let us take the leaf of the plant. There we can describe as an external impulse the fact that the leaves appear green to us. Thus, in the physical, sensory world, for example, rose petals are green. Now let us suppose that it were required of someone who, as a practical occultist, truly wished to attain higher knowledge, that they should educate themselves according to the pattern of moral insights; then most images would have to arise in such a way that they hold up this green leaf and, in contrast to the greenness of the plant, the inner impulse awakens: You shall not be green. — It must be possible for us to look at the green leaf with such vision that the external impulse does not take effect, so that just as the evil inclination is extinguished before the moral judgment, the greenness of the leaf is extinguished by another, let us say, clairvoyant power. Indeed, if a person develops their clairvoyant powers in the correct manner, as described in *How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds*, then they learn to look at the green leaf, and just as moral judgments extinguish evil inclinations, so the greenness of the leaf—which applies only to the physical plane—is extinguished. And where greenness would otherwise appear, we have, in this case, a pale rose-red or a color similar to that of a peach blossom in relation to the clairvoyant faculty. This appears when we are able to remove through our clairvoyant power what is in maya, what is on the physical plane. Thus, through clairvoyant power, we remove what is on the physical plane and bring forth what, as the supersensible, underlies the sensible. So we can say: Entering the path of knowledge truly occurs just as the moral experience of the human being does. The juxtaposition of the supersensible and the sensible worlds works precisely as the moral impulse works upon immoral inclinations. If, on the other hand, one were to look at the roses themselves—for example, this rose here, which has such a rich red on the physical plane—one would perceive a bright, translucent green for this rose, and for the lighter rose, a kind of rich green with a slightly blue nuance.

[ 11 ] Thus, in a single case, we have seen that occult judgments, which correspond to clairvoyant perception, are structured psychologically in the same way as moral judgments, which eliminate what is immoral. From this we can conclude that what we said at the outset is confirmed. For we must, in order to attain higher insights, learn to erase the immediate impressions of the physical, external world, to make maya disappear, so that something else takes the place of maya. Now, as is well known, one learns a subject best by committing it to memory through things that are similar to what is to be learned. No one, in order to learn, will practice on things that have nothing to do with the subject in question. I have never heard of anyone becoming a mathematician simply by going for a walk, because this is not a similar activity. Thus, one can only acquire such spiritual faculties, which are similar to moral impulses, by practicing with what a person already has in ordinary life. They do not yet possess clairvoyance; that is something that must be acquired slowly and laboriously. But a person always has the opportunity to look inward in their soul and ask themselves: Which things do I find morally good, and which morally reprehensible? — Most people do not act immorally because they do not know what is moral, but only because their inclinations, drives, desires, or passions contradict their moral insight. Then, once we have examined ourselves in this way, we can return to something we discover within ourselves, such as an affirmation of what we can call moral. And if we now practice this meditation by asking ourselves: How can we conceive of this or that in the world according to our moral judgment? — and create images and immerse ourselves in them, then we will experience things and emotional habits in our soul — they will truly mature in our soul — that are akin to clairvoyant powers.

[ 12 ] So the next thing a person can do to awaken their clairvoyant powers is to ensure that their morality and their actions become one. This is the best training for clairvoyant powers. That is why it is always emphasized that one should actually attain clairvoyant powers through nothing other than the elevation of one’s moral character.

[ 13 ] If we consider this, we will indeed have to ask ourselves: Are there not perhaps other paths to clairvoyance? We often see that people who attain a high degree of clairvoyant ability do not make a particularly moral impression on us, so that we cannot assume that they first cultivated their morality, their sense of right and wrong, or their enthusiasm for moral judgment. We see that people who have developed clairvoyant powers through all sorts of other means exhibit certain bad qualities that they previously had little or none of; for example, they become outright liars when they begin to develop clairvoyant powers. — Yes, at times it becomes a very dangerous thing for a person’s character, especially when they develop clairaudience. Clairvoyance is not yet as dangerous as clairaudience. How does this fit in with what has been said? Well, as you may recall, in my book *How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds*, it is pointed out at every crucial point that the path to knowledge of the higher worlds must be followed as it has been characterized today. But it is equally certain that there are other paths as well. One need only study this path in the right way, and one will soon see why qualities can arise such as those just described. We must be clear that we first have within us the spiritual-soul core of our being, which we summarize in its center when we say “I” or “I am.” This spiritual-soul core is embedded in the astral, etheric, and physical bodies. Just as human beings now live in the world, we actually live—when we live inwardly—in our “I”; for all soul activities in the waking human being are linked in some way to the “I,” appearing, as it were, against the background of the “I.”

[ 14 ] I have often cited a personal example involving one of my schoolmates, who was already quite a materialist even as a young student and used to say: When we think and when we feel, we are dealing only with processes in the brain; it is through the activity of our brain that we think and feel. Even back then, he was developing thoroughly materialistic theories: How can one speak of the ‘I,’ of the core of one’s being? It is the brain that feels, wills, and thinks! — I replied to him: “Well, then why do you keep lying and always say, ‘I think, I feel, I will,’ when you know that your brain is doing that?” — Of course, one could say that this is a cheap, trivial objection; but what matters is that it is correct, significant, and immediately valid. From the moment we wake up until we fall asleep, we live in connection with our ego and cannot separate our ego from anything we think, feel, or will. Now, what we experience inwardly in this way—and which is thoroughly linked to our ego—is as if embedded in the astral, etheric, and physical bodies. We do not experience these bodies directly in normal life. All manner of hidden, inexplicable things emerge from the astral body, but what goes on within it is unknown to the human being, just as what goes on in the depths is unknown to one who merely observes the surface ripples of the sea. One need only observe life once to see how unknown is what goes on in the hidden depths of life.

[ 15 ] For example, there is a child who, at the age of seven, experienced just once being treated unfairly by his father or mother. This caused a certain amount of distress in the child, but it was ignored because, to the outside world, it seemed to disappear very quickly. But it has merely descended into the astral body; down there it swirls and churns. The child lives on until the age of sixteen or seventeen. He is in school. Then something happens; the teacher does this or that. Another child would have merely been upset by it, but this child commits suicide! Anyone who views this child’s life only superficially will say all sorts of things about the reasons that led to the suicide. Only those who look at life in its depths, where it surges and churns, in the astral body, will know that one of the most important causes was the experience of injustice in the seventh year. That lives on down there in secret and is only brought to the surface by the incident at school; had that not happened, the suicide would not have occurred.

[ 16 ] We have no certainty even about what takes place immediately below the threshold of consciousness when the astral body experiences the immediate present, much less about how the astral body is structured and composed in its formation, or what its elements and entities are. There we are embedded in what the spiritual-soul forces, known to us as the Hierarchies, have organized within us. Down there in the astral body are many forces, just as there are many in the depths of the sea that cannot be seen when one notices only the ripples on the surface. And just as the ripples on the surface relate to what lies beneath the sea, so does the conscious ego relate to what is happening down in the astral body. Here the diver must come, who can dive down into this world of the astral body, and this diver is none other than the clairvoyant.

[ 17 ] This is even more true of the etheric body; there we find even more hidden depths. And what about the physical body! Although a person has it right in front of them, they have the least control over it, and in that regard they can really only do what the stomach wants. If he had to choose between fighting an upset stomach or immoral inclinations, he would set aside all moral efforts and strive for a healthy stomach. The physical body is subject to laws that the human being does not possess in his conscious ego, but which he acquires from the outside in maya. The astral, etheric, and physical bodies are permeated with forces from the beings of the higher hierarchies. But this does not prevent these forces from rising up into the conscious ego, from the hidden depths of the human being, flowing up into the conscious ego, as we have indeed seen in the case of the child, which actually happened. From the age of seven, the appearance of injustice had triggered a force in the astral body that then played up into consciousness when the teacher took the cloth used to wipe the blackboard and struck the boy, who had by then turned sixteen, in the face. He leaves the classroom, happens to find the chemistry lab open, goes inside, and takes poison. Using all the methods of psychological science, one could demonstrate how the matter was brought to the surface by the force of what was down there in the astral body.

[ 18 ] However, what lies within the human being can also be drawn up into the conscious ego through certain behaviors. Through the conscious ego, we could draw forces up from the astral body and thereby acquire clairvoyant—that is, extrasensory—powers in our consciousness. In doing so, however, we are, as it were, drawing up forces from what the gods have given us. This is, in fact, something that is frequently recommended in books that provide instructions for embarking on a path of knowledge. Very often, those who write such books have no idea of the true process, because these things are not done with the conscientiousness with which they must be done. Now, however, it must be understood that the forces instilled into our astral, etheric, and physical bodies by higher hierarchies belong there. If we pump them up, we deprive our organism of something; we take away something from what the gods have given us, and thereby weaken ourselves. This weakening can manifest in such a way that the truthfulness instilled by the gods is damaged. These forces, which previously prevented a person from lying, are pumped up to such an extent that he now begins to lie. Herein lies the great difference between this method of attaining clairvoyant powers and the one described earlier, as you will find it consistently applied in my treatise “How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?” On what is this method based? Precisely on the fact that nothing is developed on the path of knowledge that is not carried out according to the pattern of purely moral judgment. This, however, never flows from the astral body, but must be acquired as something that rises like an inner voice within the conscious ego. For we cannot address as a moral being that which does not possess a conscious ego. We speak of morality only in the case of a being that is capable of allowing impulses to rise from the core of its being, which is linked to its inner essence.

[ 19 ] Now, however, in addition to the moral forces, there must arise those that lead the soul upward into the higher world. If these are not to come from our astral body, then they cannot come from within ourselves at all. They cannot possibly come from within ourselves, for whatever comes from within us would have to come from the conscious “I.” But apart from moral impulses, at most only aesthetic judgments—which decide on beauty—and, in a certain sense, mathematical judgments rise up in human beings from the conscious ego. Yet these things are not to be drawn up from the astral body; so where can they possibly come from? From the supersensible world into which we are placed and which, indeed, has brought forth our three bodies. But these forces need not come from these three bodies themselves. We must therefore not take the roundabout route through the three bodies, but rather a path that brings us into direct connection with the spiritual realms, with the beings of the hierarchies, so that these forces of the higher world flow directly into us. We must therefore have access to these worlds through which higher forces can flow into our souls. For this, it is necessary that all higher knowledge be connected with something other than ordinary knowledge. Ordinary knowledge does not lead into the higher worlds. To enter the higher worlds, a very specific fundamental mood of the soul is necessary. This is the first thing that even the ancient Greek philosophers emphasized: someone who can merely think well, who seeks to grasp things merely intellectually, through mere thinking and philosophizing, cannot enter the spiritual worlds. One must start from something else. Before one approaches a thing with the intention of knowing it, one must approach it in a different way.

[ 20 ] All knowledge begins with wonder, and only those who start from wonder and amazement are on the path to true knowledge. Anything we have not first encountered with a sense of wonder and amazement cannot lead to the path of knowledge at all. Let all pedagogy proclaim that one must start from perception; if there is not first wonder and amazement, it remains mere intellectual recognition. Wonder is the first thing one must have.

[ 21 ] The second thing that allows us to enter the spiritual world is that we learn to revere. A reverence for that which works through the object. A realization that is not so closely linked to the soul—such that the soul walks the path of knowledge in the sense that it first lives in wonder and reverence for that which reveals itself through the object—does not go beyond intellectual knowledge.

[ 22 ] The third is to feel in harmony with world events. The Spiritual Science teachings offer many means to achieve this, particularly by carrying the idea of karma within us with all the seriousness of life. It is a long way from merely believing in karma in human life to the point where it becomes a true, serious part of life. If we are truly convinced of karma, then when someone slaps us, we must not say: “I don’t like that you’re slapping me!” — but rather we should ask: “Who actually gave me this slap?” I myself, for in a past life I must have done something at some point that caused the other person to slap me, and I have not the slightest reason to tell him he is wronging me; rather, I have, in a sense, set up a machine for myself. — To be in harmony with world events, not in conflict with them—that is the third point. The Gospel itself teaches this: If someone strikes you on your right cheek, then offer the other one as well. — When one knows that one must seek the cause within oneself through karma, when one recognizes how one is merely living out what one has brought about through one’s own willfulness, through one’s own fault, then one comes to a sense of harmony with the world process. That is the third.

[ 23 ] And the fourth is: complete surrender to the process of the world, viewing oneself as if one were merely a part of it. Thus, we can list four qualities with which we can relate to the outside world, to the outer side of life: First, to admire and marvel; second, to revere; third, to know oneself to be in harmony with the world process; and fourth, to surrender completely to this world process.

[ 24 ] By developing these qualities, we open our soul, opening it in such a way that those forces can flow into it—forces that, as it were, flow forth virginally from the spiritual world—forces that we breathe in like fresh mountain air after having previously breathed in air that has been used up by other organisms. Thus we see what a great difference there is between what can be given, so to speak, by grace through the higher hierarchies themselves, and what we acquire by drawing up something from the forces they place within our organism. Through such contemplation, we truly learn to distinguish between two paths, both of which lead to true clairvoyance. But one path leads to clairvoyance through the human being’s direct encounter with the beings of the higher hierarchies.

[ 25 ] Human beings have not always existed as moral beings. As long as humans had only developed the astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body, one could not speak of moral impulses. We speak of ancient Sun beings who acquired the etheric body, and of Moon beings who acquired the astral body. But during these periods of development, there was no realm of morality anywhere. It is the mission of the Earth that morality be added to what human beings can otherwise experience. This is the task for acquiring the powers that lead into the spiritual world: human beings must develop beyond what they have acquired in the course of Saturn, Sun, and Moon development. From all this it can be inferred that, since it can be demonstrated directly through reason, one must not say that human beings can entrust themselves entirely without judgment to the paths of knowledge offered to them, whether to black magic or to moral impulses. One need only be willing to examine them through reason. If one merely attempts to engage with today’s description in the right way, what has been said will prove to be true, so that when one applies such standards to the description of paths of knowledge, one can truly distinguish them without further ado. And it is important that one learn to say to oneself: For me, the description of a path of knowledge in which not everything follows the pattern of a moral impulse is suspect from the outset. — The person who does not regard as suspect a path that would contradict what one can actually perceive as moral impulses, who cannot feel the necessity of moral impulses, would then have only himself to blame if he were to find himself in danger. That is why it was by no means unnecessary to include this consideration among the reflections that can be made, for it is indeed quite right and good that those who are interested in Spiritual Science today should not merely accept the things that have been researched, but should also, in a certain sense, familiarize themselves with how these things are discovered. Let us suppose that someone wishes to accept Spiritual Science but does not wish to embark on the path of knowledge itself in this incarnation. It is also useful for them to form a mental image of how the insights are gained. They can form an opinion about it, just as a chemist accepts a truth because they have the experiment described to them through which the relevant insights are gained, even if they have not performed the experiment themselves.

[ 26 ] Now, in our time, it is particularly necessary for those who wish to walk the path to higher knowledge to observe the things that have been described here; for we live in an age in which human beings are called upon by higher powers to become ever more and more independent. In the times that passed before the Mystery of Golgotha, clairvoyant powers flowed to human beings in a certain way without their own doing; this was like an inheritance from primeval times. But since the Mystery of Golgotha, human beings have lived in such a way that they must consciously engage with things. Therefore, it is necessary for human beings to learn to cultivate precisely that mood of the soul which is attained through the four virtues, through the four powers: wonder, admiration, reverence, feeling harmony with the world process, and surrendering to the world process; and that, precisely through the development of these virtues, they freely open themselves to those influences that may come to them from the higher hierarchies.

[ 27 ] Now there is a way, so to speak, to attune ourselves to the world from the most fundamental impulses of the soul, as embodied in these four virtues: If we repeatedly and again and again surrender in our souls to the thought that, just as we stand in the world, just as we are woven into the world of maya, the great illusion, we have sprung from the divine forces together with this maya, this illusion, which always has its origin in the spiritual world. The fact that we live in the world of maya, of illusion, does not prevent us from surrendering ourselves, in this world full of maya and illusion, to the spiritual forces from which it sprang. Maya is like life in the play of waves upon the sea, yet it is still thrown up by the sea and formed from the substance of the sea. Just as truly as the play of waves arises from the world of the sea, and the foam is a formation made of the substance of the sea, so the world of maya rises from the spiritual depths, so that we can say: Even though we are entangled in this world of illusions, we have nevertheless emerged from the Divine. — This is expressed in Western esotericism with the words: We are born of the Divine — Ex deo nascimur.

[ 28 ] And a second point is the fundamental realization that we must not draw upon those forces that the divine powers have placed within our astral, etheric, and physical bodies, but rather that we must surrender ourselves directly to the spiritual world, and let ourselves die into that world. We do this through the four virtues: feeling wonder and amazement, reverence, harmony, and devotion to the world process. These are precisely the things that draw us ever deeper into the mood that Western esotericism expresses as follows: In Christ we die — In Christo morimur.

[ 29 ] Then hope dawns within us that we are moving toward awakening in the spiritual world, that powers will dawn within us which will be bestowed upon us anew there, just as they were once bestowed upon the astral body. Through the Holy Spirit we shall be awakened anew, we shall be restored to the spiritual world, so that the human being may once again ascend into the higher world: Per spiritum sanctum reviviscimus.

[ 30 ] We must understand that any esotericism appropriate for our time must banish all methods that draw up into the I, from the lower bodies, the forces intended to lead to higher knowledge; for we are healthy precisely because these forces remain below. It is a false esoteric path when we cloud our minds in one way or another and then consider certain things to be correct simply because we have drawn up the forces that, had they remained in their proper place, would not allow us to consider these things correct. These are serious matters that lead us to truly understand why, in the text “How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?”, the forces for the development of clairvoyant abilities are localized directly in the region of our larynx. These are, in the highest sense, moral abilities, which are also presented in the Buddha’s teaching as the Eightfold Path. To a certain extent, they are moral; furthermore, they lead the human being upward toward a moralization of our very knowledge, toward an impregnation of it with that which is otherwise found only in our morality.