The Destiny of Individuals and of Nations
GA 157
2 March 1915, Berlin
8. Three Decisions on the Path Imaginative Perception
Dear friends, once again let us first of all remember those are out there at the front, in the great arena of present-day events:
Spirits of your souls, guardian guides,
On your wings let there be borne
The prayer of love from our souls
To those whom you guard here on earth.
Thus, united with your might,
A ray of help our prayer shall be
For the souls it seeks out there in love.
And for those who because of those events have already gone through the gate of death:
Spirits of your souls, guardian guides,
On your wings let there be borne
The prayer of love from our souls
To those whom you guard here on earth.
Thus, united with your might,
A ray of help our prayer shall be
For the souls it seeks out there in love.
May the spirit we are seeking as we work towards spiritual knowledge, the spirit who has gone through the Mystery of Golgotha for the good of the earth, for the freedom and progress of man, be with you and the hard duties you have to perform!
Last week we gave some detailed consideration to souls who, if we want to look for them now, have to be looked for in the spiritual worlds. And we considered souls who are close to us, letting them tell us one thing or another that can illumine for us the time a soul entity spends in the spiritual world. Today I want to consider more the path the human soul may take to enter into the spiritual worlds While dwelling in a body here on earth, there to find the spiritual realms we spoke of last week, where what are called ‘dead’ souls may be found. It has to be stressed over and over again that the path into the spiritual worlds appropriate to the soul of modern man in the light of the whole evolution of mankind is a path with many preparatory stages, some of them difficult indeed, stages that have to be won through. Today I intend to speak of some aspects of the path to insight and I shall do so from a point of view that may be called imaginative perception.
Dear friends, you know very well already that in the spiritual world the human soul is really and truly able to learn and observe only in a Way that does not make use of the body as an instrument. Everything We are able to gain by using the body as our instrument can only provide knowledge and experience relating to the physical world. To experience the spiritual worlds we must find a way of doing so outside the physical body. That way is indeed open to modern man, though it is not easy to achieve observation of the spiritual world by going outside the body. Another point is that anyone not able to make such observations himself will be able to evaluate observations achieved in the spiritual world, once they have been achieved, on the basis of a genuinely sound common sense, that is not just the common sense generally called sound, but a genuinely sound common sense. Today, however, our subject will be the path as such, the way the human soul on the one hand comes out of the physical body, as we might put it, and on the other enters into the spiritual world. As I said, I want to use the approach of imaginative perception today. Last week we took another approach. Many things will have to be presented in the form of images and it will be up to you to pursue these further In meditation. In doing so you will find that this path is one of very special significance.
It is possible to enter into the spiritual world through three doors, as it were. The first may be called the Door of Death, the second the Door of the Elements and the third the Door of the Sun. Anyone Wishing to follow the path to knowledge in its entirety will have to take the road to knowledge through all three doors.
The Door of Death has always been very fully considered wherever the mysteries were taught. This Door of Death cannot be reached unless we seek to reach it through meditation, a term by now thoroughly familiar, which means by giving ourselves up to certain thoughts or feelings that are exactly the right ones at the time for our individual personality. We make them the absolute centre of our conscious minds, identifying with them completely. It is very easy for human effort to flag when this path is taken, for lack of ease and the overcoming of obstacles are part of this and are essential. So it will be necessary again and again to make those quiet, deeply personal efforts, endeavouring to give ourselves up to those thought contents, those feelings, in such a way that we forget the whole world and live only in those thoughts, those feelings. When we learn to achieve this over and over again we shall finally be in a position where we perceive something that is like a kind of independent life within the thought on which our conscious mind is focused. We shall get the feeling that until then we had merely been thinking that thought, making it the focus of our conscious mind; now, however, this thought will be felt to be developing a life of its own, an inner activity of its own. It is as though we found ourselves in a position where we are truly able to produce a distinct entity within us. The thought begins to take shape as an inner structure. That is an important moment, for we realize that this thought, this feeling, has a life of its own and we feel ourselves to be the enveloping form holding this thought, this feeling. We are then able to say to ourselves that our efforts have made us the arena where something has been able to develop that is now achieving a life of its own through us.
It is an important moment in the life of a person practising meditation when he awakens to himself and the thought held in meditation comes to life. He will then realize that spiritual objectivity has come to him, that the spiritual world is paying attention to him, that it has drawn close. Of course, it is not easy to reach this level of experience, for before it is reached we have to live through feelings and sensations for which the human being has a natural aversion. A certain feeling of isolation has to be experienced for example; a feeling of loneliness, an experience of being abandoned by the physical world as it were, the feeling that this physical world does many things that wear us down, threatening to crush us. It is through this feeling of isolation that we finally reach the point where we are able to bear the strong inner life to which our thought awakens, into which it is born, as I should like to put it. There is much indeed that goes against the grain. There is much in man that goes against him and this can lead to a real experience of thought coming to life within him. There is One particular feeling that comes up, an inner experience that comes up, which is one we really do not want to have. At the same time we will not admit to ourselves that we do not want to have it, saying instead: ‘Oh, I'll never do it! I'll go to sleep in the process. My ability to think will go, for this goes beyond my inner strength.’ In short, We will automatically come up with all kinds of excuses, for the experience to be gone through is that thought, in thus becoming enlivened, really becomes a distinct entity. It assumes reality, taking on a form of identity. Then the vision arises, and not merely the feeling, that the thought is like a small seed to begin with, a round seed one might say, and that it then grows and develops into something that has definite form, extending into the head from outside. Then a challenge is presented: ‘You have identified with the thought and now you are inside the thought and growing into your own head with the thought. Essentially, however, you are still outside.’ The thought assumes the form of a winged human head that continues into indefiniteness and then extends into one's own body through the head. The thought thus develops into something like a winged angel's head. That is what we must actually achieve. It is difficult to have this experience, and you will really believe you are losing all ability to think at the moment when the thought grows to assume that form. One feels one will be taken from oneself at that moment. And what so far has been the body we have known, into which the thought is now reaching, will feel like an automaton that has been left behind.
There are also a great many obstacles in the objective spiritual world to prevent this becoming visible to us. The winged angel's head truly becomes an inner vision but there are all kinds of obstacles against it becoming visible. Above all, the point reached is the actual threshold of the spiritual world. If we succeed in standing firm within ourselves the way I have described, we are then on the threshold of the spiritual world, truly on the threshold of the spiritual world. There, however,
stands the potentate we have always been calling Ahriman, though at first he will be quite invisible to man. We do not see him. And it is Ahriman who makes sure we do not see the thought entity taking the form I have described to you. He does not want us to see it. He wants to prevent that. The best way of reaching that point is by the path of meditation, of course, and this always makes it easy for Ahriman to bring to nought, as it were, what we want to achieve, so long as we cling to the prejudices of the physical world. And I really has to be said that people have no idea how much they cling to prejudice with regard to the physical world. They cannot imagine that there is another world with different laws from those of the physical world. It is not possible for me today to discuss all the prejudices we carry with us when we come to the threshold of the spiritual world, but let me present one very major prejudice, one of a fairly subtle nature.
You see, speaking of the physical world people speak of monist philosophy, of there being only one ultimate substance or principle, frequently saying to themselves: ‘I can only understand the world if I see the whole of it as a unity.’ We have had some strange experiences particularly in this respect. When we started our spiritual movement here in Berlin with just a few members—that is quite a few years ago now—people found their way to us who then discovered that after all they could not feel they belonged to us in every fibre of their being. There was a lady, for instance, who after a few months came and told us that what spiritual science had to offer was not really the right thing for her, for it meant one had to do a great deal of thinking and thinking wiped out exactly the things that were important to her. She said she always sort of went to sleep when thinking. She also felt that really there was only thing that counted, and that was unity! It became evident that in her case the unity of the world which monists look for in all kinds of spheres—and not only the materialists among monists—had become a fixed idea: Unity, unity, unity! She wanted to look only for unity. In the intellectual life of Germany, one particular philosopher, Leibniz, was very much a monadologist. He sought not unity, but the many monads45According to Leibniz, monads are the ultimate substantial constituents of the world and these must be unextended and therefore mental or spiritual by nature. God and human souls are considered monads in this philosophy. (Translator). which for him were ensouled entities. He therefore knew quite clearly that as soon as one enters into the spiritual world it can be a matter only of plurality, not of unity. And so there are monists and pluralists. These views are considered philosophies. The monists fight the pluralists who are speaking in terms of plurality; they themselves only speak of unity.
For you see, it is like this: Unity and plurality are concepts that only apply to the physical world. And now people are thinking these things must also apply to the spiritual world. But there they do not apply. There we have to be prepared to see a unity at one moment and then having to overcome this unity the next moment, and that it will show itself to to be a plurality. It is unity and plurality at one and the same time. Nor is it possible to transfer ordinary arithmetic, physical mathematics, to the spiritual world. It is one of the most powerful, and at the same time also most profound, Ahrimanic Prejudices—wanting to apply concepts we have acquired in the physical world just as they are to the spiritual world. We really must arrive on its threshold without bag and baggage, unencumbered with all we have learned in the physical world. We have to be prepared to leave things behind on the threshold. All concepts and ideas, and, indeed, especially the concepts we have made great effort to achieve, have to be left behind. We have to be prepared to accept that in the spiritual world something quite new is given. Man has an enormous tendency to cling to what is given in the physical world. He wants to take his achievements from the physical world into the spiritual world. Yet it must be possible for him to face a clean slate, face utter emptiness, where his only guide will be the thought that is beginning to assume life. This entry into the spiritual world has been called the Door of Death because it is really much more of a death even than Physical death. In physical death people are convinced they put aside their physical body. On entry into the spiritual world we must resolve really to put aside our concepts and ideas and to allow our essential nature to be rebuilt.
Now we come to stand before the winged thought entity that I have spoken of. We shall come to stand before it if we really make every effort to live within a thought. All we need to know then is that when the moment that lies ahead makes-different demands on us from those we have envisaged we must truly stand fast, we must not turn back as it were. The turning back tends to be an unconscious reaction. We flag, but our flagging merely indicates that we are not willing to leave behind bag and baggage. We are not prepared to do this because it means that the soul has to die in a way, with all it has acquired on the physical plane, before it can enter into the spiritual world. This door therefore has to be called the Door of Death, such being its nature. Then we shall be able to use the winged thought as a spiritual eye we have acquired, or also a spiritual ear, for it is exactly through this thought entity that we hear, sense, perceive what is there in the spiritual world.
Dear friends, it is possible to speak of specific experiences we may gain that allow us the enter into the spiritual world. Nothing else is required if we wish to gain these experiences but to persist in meditation using the prescribed method. Above all, it must be clearly understood that certain feelings with which we approach the threshold of the spiritual world will have to be put aside beforehand. These feelings arise because we usually want the spiritual world to be different from the way it presents itself to us.
This, then, is the first door, the Door of Death.
The second door is the Door of the Elements. It is the second door to be gone through by all who practise meditation with true devotion. It is, of course, also possible for people to have the benefit of a constitution that lets them reach the second door without having gone through the first. This is not a good thing from the point of view of true insight, but it is possible to get to that point without having gone through the first door. Full and proper insight will be gained only by going through the first door and then approaching the second in conscious awareness. This second door comes about in the following way. You see, having gone through the Door of Death one first of all finds oneself in specific conditions which one can see are really similar to sleep if looked at externally, considering their effect en man and the way they are apparent in the life of man. Inwardly, however, they are quite different. Externally, man is as though in a sleep state when in these conditions. It is exactly at the point when his thought has begun to live, when it begins to stir, to grow, that external man is in a sleep-like state. He need not be lying down—he may be sitting on a chair—but he is in a kind of sleep state. Outwardly this state cannot really be distinguished from the ordinary sleep state; inwardly, however, it is very different. Returning to the normal state we have in life we then realize that we were not asleep but within the life of thought, just as we are now in a condition where we have woken to the physical world, as usual, and are looking through our own eyes at things which are luminous. Yet we also know that now when we are awake we are thinking, producing thoughts, putting them together. Just before, however, when we were in that other state, the thoughts were producing themselves out of themselves. One thought approached another; they illumined one another; one thought moved away from another—and what we usually do ourselves when thinking has there been doing itself. We know that whilst we are normally an ego that attaches one thought to another, we float first to the one thought and then to another, when in this other state we are united with them; then we are off and within a third thought and afterwards Come floating back again. We get the feeling that space has ceased to exist.
I think you will agree that in physical space the position is that if we feel drawn to a point and look back on it, then move away from it and finally want to approach it again, we would first have to make our way back again; we would have to make our way there and back. This does not apply in the other state. Space is not like the space we know then, and we jump through space, as it were. One moment we are at one point, the next we have gone. We do not pass through space. The laws of space have ceased to exist. Here we are alive and active within thought itself. We know that the ego has not died. It is active within the life of thought, but we are not immediately masters of the thoughts within which we now live. The thoughts produce themselves—we are drawn along. We are not actively swimming in the currents of thoughts; instead the thoughts are taking us on their shoulders as it were, carrying us along. This state has to come to an end. It does so when we go through the Door of the Elements. Then We gain control of it all and are able to create a particular line of thought quite deliberately. Then our will is alive within the whole of thought life. This again is a tremendously important moment. I have even spoken of it exoterically in my public lectures.46Rudolf Steiner, Geist-Erkenntnis in gliicklichen und ernsten Stunden des Lebens. Berlin, 15 January 1915. In Aus schicksaltragender Zeit (GA 64). In English, extract in Anthroposophical News Sheet 14:37-8. The second goal is reached by identifying with our own destiny. This will enable us to bring the will into the world of living thought.
When we have first gone through the Door of Death we come to a point where various things are done with us in the spiritual world. We come to do things ourselves in the spiritual world by identifYing with our destiny. This is only achieved gradually. Then our thoughts assume a character identical with our own essential character- The deeds of our essential nature enter into the spiritual world. To do this properly it will be necessary to go through the second door. when we begin to use the power we derive from identifying with our destiny to take active control in our thoughts—not merely going along With a thought as though it were a dream picture but able to erase one thought or another as occasion arises and call up another—when we come to a point where we begin to be able to use our will in handling things, then we shall indeed have to go through an experience that may be referred to as going through the second door. It will be found that the will-power we shall now require presents itself to us as a fearsome beast. In the mystical tradition this has for many thousands of years been known as 'meeting the lion' . This encounter with the lion has to be gone through. It consists in a feeling of abject terror concerning what has to be done in the thought world, great fear of entering into a living union with the thought world. This terror must be overcome, just as the sense of isolation has to be overcome at the gate of death. We feel terror. This terror may present itself in all kinds i of ways, as a sensation that is not at all like fear or terror, yet it s essentially fear of what one is getting into there. It is important that we genuinely find a way of controlling the lion. The Imagination paints a very vivid picture of the beast opening its huge jaws ready to devour us. The will-power we want to use in the spiritual world is threatening to devour us. All the time the overriding sensation is that we must use our will, we must do something, we need to take hold of one thing or another, and at the same time another feeling arises in connection with all these elements of will activity into which we are entering. It is the feeling that they will devour us if we take hold of them, extinguish us in the world. That is the lion devouring us. What we literally must do—if we are to stay with the metaphor—is not to give in to fears that the will elements may take hold of us there in the spiritual world, devour us and strangle us; no, we must mount the lion and take hold of those will elements, using them to effect our deeds. That is the crux of the matter.
Your can see, of course, what this is all about. Having first of all gone through the gate of death we are then outside the body, and out there we can only use the forces of the wilt. We must fit into the cosmic harmonies. The forces to be used out there are also within us, it is only that they function at an unconscious level—the forces that make the blood move, make our hearts beat, derive from spiritual entities. And we become immersed in these when we immerse ourselves in the element of will. These forces are within us. If someone is taken hold of by the element of will without having followed the regular esoteric path, without having gone through the gate of death, he is taken hold of by the forces that normally circulate in his blood, beat to his heart. He is then not using the forces that exist outside his body but the forces present within his body. This would be ‘grey magic’. It would induce a person to intervene in the spiritual world of his Own accord with forces we should not use to intervene in the spiritual world. So it is important that we see the lion at this point, that we truly have this beast before us and know: That is what it looks like, that is how the forces of will want to take hold of us, and we must lay hold of it out there outside the body. If we do not go up to the second door we shall not see the lion and shall then be in permanent danger of wanting to rule the world out of human egotism. The right Path to knowledge is the one that leads first of all out of the physical body and existence as a human being, after which we approach the relationship we will need to form with the entities of the spiritual world.
Now, of course, most people are inclined to look for an easier way to the spiritual world than through genuine meditation. It is possible, for instance, to avoid the Door of Death and approach the second door if one's inner constitution permits this. This is achieved by giving oneself up to specific mental pictures, particularly of the fervent type, that are supposed to suggest general surrender to the whole universe. Mental pictures suggested by some mystic or other with only partial knowledge, suggested in good faith. But they mean we pass over thought effort as though in a dream, with feelings being stimulated directly. Feeling are whipped up, the emotions are enthusiastified. It will indeed be possible to reach the second door by this method, and one will also be given over to the will forces, but instead of controlling the lion the person is devoured by it and the lion will do as it likes with him. This means that things will occur that fundamentally speaking are occult, but in the main are egotistical. Despite a certain inherent risk it is therefore necessary from the point of view of the true esoteric teaching of today again and again not to draw attention to any kind of mysticism that merely whips up feelings and emotions. Such an appeal to elements that whip up the inner life of man, cracking the whip to drive him out of his physical body whilst keeping him in the context of his blood and heart forces, the physical forces active in the blood and the heart, will lead him to perceive the spiritual world iii a way; this cannot be denied and may indeed have much to be said for it that is good. But it makes man feel his way about in uncertainty in the spiritual world, so that he is not the least able to differentiate between egotism and altruism.
One finds oneself in a difficult situation having to stress this, for present-day minds are still very apt to got to sleep during proper meditation and anything relating to it. They prefer not to tighten uP their thinking to the point where it is possible to identify oneself with the thinking process. They much prefer to be told: Give yourself up to all-loving devotion, to the universal spirit, or something like that. The result is that thinking is avoided and the emotions are whipped up. People are indeed guided to spiritual perception in that way; but they are not in full conscious awareness and are unable to tell if the things they experience there, things they experience for themselves, arise from egotism or do not arise from egotism. Yes, parallel to selfless meditation there has to be enthusiasm brought into all our feelings, but the point is that this must run parallel to thought. Thought must not be excluded. Certain mystics are, however, seeking to achieve something exactly by the method of suppressing thought and giving themselves up entirely to the glow of whipped-up emotions.
This is a difficult point, for it does work and people who whip UP their feelings like that do progress much faster. They do enter the spiritual world and they have all kinds of experiences there, and that is what most people want. For most people it is not a question of entering the spiritual world in the right way but rather of getting there altogether. The uncertainty arises because if we do not first go through the Door of Death and instead approach the Door of the Elements directly, Lucifer will prevent us from actually perceiving the lion. We are then devoured by it before we see it, as it were. The problem is that we are no longer able to tell what relates to us and what is Part of the world out there. We come to know spiritual entities, elemental spirits. It is possible to get to know quite an extensive spiritual world without going through the Door of Death, but on the whole these are spiritual entities whose function it is to maintain the human circulation and human heart action. Such entities are of course always present in the spiritual, the elemental, world around us. These are spirits whose sphere of life is the air, the warmth flowing around us, and also light.
Their sphere of life also lies in the music of the spheres our physical organs are unable to hear. They are spiritual entities active and present in all that lives. That is the world we would then enter. It all gets very seductive because it really is possible to make the most marvellous spiritual discoveries in this world. You know, when someone who has not gone through the Door of Death but has marched straight up to the lion gate, failing to see the lion, perceives an elemental spirit whose function it is to maintain heart activity, such an elemental spirit—which also has to maintain the hearts of other people—may on occasion give news of other people, even of people from the past; or it may offer prophetic tidings relating to the future. So the business may bring great successes but it still is not the right path, for it does not give us free mobility in the spiritual world.
The third door to be passed is the Door of Sun. Again there will be a specific experience as we approach this door. At the Door of Death we must perceive a winged angel's head, at the Door of the Elements a lion. At the Door of the Sun we must perceive a dragon, a wild dragon. And we must take a proper look at this wild dragon. But now Lucifer and Ahriman will together make every effort to make the dragon invisible, to hide it from our spiritual vision. If we do perceive it we shall find that, fundamentally speaking, this wild dragon has above all to do with ourselves. It is the tissue of the instincts and feelings fundamentally relating to what in ordinary life we call our lowest nature. The dragon has within it all the forces we need for the process of digestion and many other things—if you'll forgive my reference to such base functions. The principle within us that enables us to digest food and perform a number of other functions linked to what strictly speaking is our lowest nature appears to us in the t-07. of a dragon. We must look at it as it emerges from us coil upon coil. It is far from beautiful, that dragon, and this makes it easy for Lucifer and Ahriman to influence our unconscious soul life and get us to a point where unconsciously we do not want to know about seeing the dragon. It is a tissue also of all our idiocies, all our vanities, our pride and self-seeking and also of our basest instincts.
The Door of the Sun is given that name because it is the forces dwelling in the sun that also weave the very tissue of which the dragon is composed. Sun forces make it possible for us to digest our food and perform those other organic functions. This truly comes about through living with the sun. If we do not perceive the dragon at the Door of the Sun the dragon will devour us and we shall become one with it in the spiritual world. We shall then no longer be different from the dragon; we shall actually be the dragon going through experiences in the spiritual world. And the dragon can experience things of great significance, it can learn magnificent things as it were. Those are experiences more enticing, I'd say, then those made at the Door of Death or after passing the Door of Death. The experiences made at the Door of Death are colourless to begin with, shadowy and subtle, so slight and subtle that they easily escape us and we are not much inclined to develop the degree of attention needed to take hold of them. And again a certain pitch must be reached in order that something so delicately coming to life in our thought may be able to expand. In the end it will expand into a world. But it calls for long term active effort and endeavour to reach the point where it shows itself as a reality full of colour, sound and life. We must let those forms that are without sound or colour take on life from all corners of infinity, as it were.
If for example we want to use what may be called ‘head clairvoyance’—meaning the type of clairvoyance that arises when thought is enlivened—to detect the simplest spirit of the air or of water, this spirit of the air or the water will initially be something so slight and shadowy as it flits across the horizon that it will not catch our interest. If it is to assume colour or to sound forth, colour has to come to it from the whole periphery of the cosmos. That however will only happen after a long period of inner effort. It will only happen if we watt for this to be given to us. Just think, if you have such a small spirit of the air, metaphorically speaking. and it is to come out in colour, to appear in colour, then the colour has to radiate in from a mighty part of the cosmos. It will be necessary to have the strength to make it radiate in. Such strength however can only be achieved through devotion. The radiant forces have to come in from out there through devotion. If we are all of a kind with the dragon, if we are One with it, and we see a spirit of the air or the water, the inclination will be to let the powers radiate out that are within us, specifically in the organs which in ordinary life are called lower organs. That Is much more easily done. The head is in itself a perfect organ, but the astral body and the ether body of the head do not have much colour to them. The colours have been used to form the brain, for instance, and particularly the cranium, the bony skull cap. If therefore you used head clairvoyance on the threshold of the spiritual world to lift your astral body and ether body out of the physical body, there would not be much colour to it. Colours are used to form the perfect organ, the brain. If on the other hand you use, shall we say belly clairvoyance, to lift the astral body and ether body out of the stomach. the liver, the gallbladder and other organs, the colours have not been used in the same way to form perfect organs. These organs are only on the way to perfection. What comes from the astral body and ether body of the belly is beautifully coloured; it glitters and glistens in all kinds of sun colours. Lifting your astral body and ether body out of that region you will bestow the most marvellous colours and hues upon the forms you are seeing. It is therefore possible for someone to see marvellous colours and paint pictures in gorgeous colours.
It is of course interesting to study the spleen, the liver and the gut. Anatomists find this interesting and for science it is indeed necessary. Yet if someone with knowledge goes into this, the beautiful and colourful pictures which appear represent what lies at the back of the digestive process two hours after a meal. There can be no objection to this being investigated. Today anatomists find it necessary to study these organs; one day science will gain a great deal from investigating them and knowing what the ether body is doing when the stomach is digesting food. One thing has to be clearly understood however—if we do not have conscious awareness as we go through the Door of the Sun, we will not know that we are offloading everything mere is in the ether and astral bodies of our bellies onto the dragon, separating it out. Letting this radiate out into the forms seen clairvoyantly we do indeed perceive a marvellous world. The beautiful result is also the one most easily achieved, but it does not in the first place arise through higher powers, out of head clairvoyance' but through belly clairvoyance. It is very important that we know this. For the cosmos nothing is low in the absolute sense, only relatively speaking. The cosmos needs to work with tremendously significant forces to bring about what is needed for the digestive system. The point, however, is that we must not fall into error, not deceive ourselves, but know things as they are. To know that something presenting itself from a truly marvellous aspect is nothing but the digestive process, that is something really important. If on the other hand we believe, say, that a special angelic sphere is revealing itself to us in such a picture, then we are indeed in error. A reasonable man will therefore not be against a science being nurtured on the basis of such knowledge but merely against such things being put in a false light. That is the real point. It may happen, for instance, that some process in the course of digestion results in someone always lifting out a specific part of his ether body at a specific stage in the digestive process; he may then be a natural clairvoyant. It is however important to know what is going on there.
Man will find it difficult therefore to use head clairvoyance—i.e. a sphere where all colour present in the ether and astral bodies has been used to bring about the marvellous structure of the brain—and make forms that are without colour or sound assume full colour and to resound. With ‘belly clairvoyance’ on the other hand he will find it relatively easy to see the most marvellous things in the world. This belly clairvoyance does of course also involve powers which man must learn to use. The powers used there for the digestive process are after all merely transformed power. We will experience them in their right form if we get better and better at identifying with our destiny. In this field, too, it will teach us to draw up not just the winged angel s head that came up first but the other part that follows, and it is important to draw up not just the powers that serve digestion but also those of a higher kind. Those are the powers that lie in our karma, in our destiny. Identifying ourselves with these we shall be able to send forth the spiritual entities we see around us, entities whose tendency is such that sounds and colours flow inward from the universe. Then, of course, the spiritual world will have its full content, it will be concrete, so real and concrete that we find ourselves within it the same way we find ourselves in the physical world.
A particular problem arises at the Door of Death. We really have the feeling—and this, too, has to be overcome—that we will lose ourselves there. Having made a real effort, however, to identify with the thought element we can also be aware that we may have lost ourselves but will find ourselves again. That is an experience one has there. We lose ourselves on entering into the spiritual world, but we also know that we shall find ourselves again. The step has to taken of reaching the abyss, losing ourselves in the abyss, but trust that we shall find ourselves again over there. That is an experience to be gone through. Everything I have described refers to inner experiences that have to be gone through. It is important to know what really happens to the soul there. It is just the same when we are supposed to see something; it is easier if a friend points it out than if we try and work it out for ourselves. But everything I have described can be achieved if you practise true devotion in giving yourself up again and again to your inner work and to inner overcoming through meditation. This has been described in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and in the second part of Occult Science.
This is especially important—that such different kinds of experience are met with beyond the threshold of the spiritual world. If we desire—and this is only natural—to see a continuation of the physical world in the spiritual world, a duplicate of it; if we think everything is bound to look the same in the spiritual world as it does here in the physical world, we cannot enter that world. It will indeed be necessary to go through something that feels like a reversal of everything we have known here in the physical world. Here in the Physical world we are used to open our eyes, for example, and see light, to gain the impression of light. If we expect to be able to open a spiritual eye in the spiritual world and gain an impression of light, we cannot enter that world for we will have the wrong expectations. Something like a mist will be woven which veils the spiritual senses, hiding the spiritual world from us the way a sea of mist hides the mountains from view. It is not possible, for instance, to see objects illumined by light in the spiritual world. It must be understood that in the spiritual world we ourselves shine forth with the light. When light falls on an object in the physical world the object becomes visible to us. In the spiritual world we ourselves are inside the ray of light, touching the object with the light. One therefore knows one is swimming with the ray of light in the spiritual world; one knows oneself to be within the radiant light. This serves to indicate how we can acquire ideas that can help us get on in the spiritual world. It is extremely useful, for instance, to visualize the following: What would it be like if you were inside the sun now? Not being inside the sun you are seeing objects when they are illumined by the sun s rays, because they reflect the light. Imagine now you are inside the sun's rays and touching the objects with them. This contact is an experience we have in the spiritual world; in fact, experience in the spiritual world consists of our knowing ourselves to be alive within it. We know ourselves to be alive within the weaving of thoughts. It is just when this state begins, where we consciously know ourselves to be within the weaving of the thoughts, that there is an immediate transition to the state of knowing oneself to be within the bright radiance of light. For thought arises from light. Thought weaves in the light. But it will only be at that point that we experience ourselves as becoming immersed in light when we are within the weaving of thoughts.
Mankind is now at a stage where such concepts have to be acquired. Otherwise men will find themselves in completely unfamiliar worlds when they go through the gate of death and enter the spiritual world. The capital resources men were given by the gods at the very beginning of earth evolution have gradually been used up. Men now no longer take with them through the gate of death the remnants of past inheritance. They now need to acquire ideas bit by bit here in the physical world that will enable them to pass through the gate of death and see the entities that come to meet them there offering the dangers of temptation and seduction. It is because of these great cosmic schemes that spiritual science has to be made known to man now, that spiritual science must come among men. And today in particular, in these fateful days, we can observe transitions really being made. People are presently going through the gate of death at a young age, as the great destiny of the age demands. They may be said to have consciously allowed death to approach them whilst still young. I am not so much speaking of the moment just before death occurs, say on the battlefield. In that situation many elements of enthusiasm and so on may be present and these make the moment of death far less elevated or far less a moment of utter concentration than we are Inclined to think. But when death has occurred it leaves an ether body that has not yet been used up, leaves an unspent ether body in our time. The dead individual can look at this and he will perceive this Phenomenon, this fact of death, with much greater clarity than he would see it when death has ensued due to illness or old age.
Death on the field of battle is an event of much greater intensity and has much powerful effects than death occurring in another way. It therefore has an effect on the soul that has gone through the gate of death, for it is instructive. Death is terrible—or at least can be terrible—to man whilst he is within his body! However, once he has gone through the gate of death and looks back to his death, death will be the most wonderful experience ever possible in the human cosmos. Looking back to his entry into the spiritual world through death is the most marvellous, the most glorious, magnificent and beautiful event on which the dead individual can ever look back during the time between death and rebirth. Birth has left little real trace in our physical awareness, for no one equipped with ordinary, undeveloped faculties will recall his physical birth. But death is certainly always there for a soul which has gone through the gate of death, from the moment consciousness develops. Death will always be present and present as the most beautiful, the one who brings resurrection into the spiritual world.47In the second of the available records (very detailed notes), this passage reads:
I am able to give you the words of one who has gone through the gate of death as a young man now in the present time. His words have come through to me and they really come as a surprise, one might say, because they show how this dead individual who is experiencing death with great clarity as something he went through on the field of battle is now finding his way into the different kind of experience one has after death. They show him working his way out of earthly ideas and into spiritual ideas. Let me communicate these words to you. They were picked up, if I may call it this, when one of those who died on the field of battle tried to let them reach those he left behind.
Here all is light
And I feel
Power of life.
Death has woken
Me from sleep,
From spirit slumber.
I shall abide,
And power of light
Arising in me
Will become deed.
That, as it were, is what the dead individual learned by looking on the death he went through, as if his essential nature was taking In all it must learn to live after death; and it also wants to make this known, wants to reveal it.
Here all is light and I feel power of life.
He feels that he is more alive now where his comprehension of the spiritual world is concerned than he was before his death. He experiences death as one who awakens us, as a teacher:
Death has woken me from sleep,
From spirit slumber.
And he feels that he will be one who does things in the spiritual world. But he feels the it is the radiant powers within him that do the doing, he feels light coming to life within him:
I shall abide,
And power of light
Arising in me
Will become deed.
It really is possible to see everywhere, and to see rightly, that anything perceived in the spiritual world will again and again provide absolute confirmation of the things that can also become generally known out of the spiritual world through what is called imaginative perception. And it is this one so much wants to see come to life through our spiritual movement: that we do not merely have knowledge of the spiritual world but that this knowledge really comes to life in us so strongly that we learn new ways of feeling with the world, share In the experience of the world as the ideas of spiritual science come to life within us. As I have said so often, fundamentally we are asked to bring inward life into the thoughts of spiritual science; this is the contribution we are asked to make to the further development of the world, that the spiritual thoughts born out of spiritual science may stream together and soar up into the spiritual world as powers of Illumination that are given back to the radiant universe; that the universe may unite with the element which those who have gone through the gate of death in these fateful times are making part of the movement of spiritual culture for mankind. Then the words will come true which again shall conclude our talk today:
Out of courage shown in battle,
Out of the blood shed in war,
Out of the grief of those who are left,
Out of the people's deeds of sacrifice
Spirit fruits will come to grow
If souls with knowledge of the spirit
Turn their mind to spirit realms.
Achter Vortrag
Meine lieben Freunde, wir gedenken wiederum zuerst derjenigen, die draußen auf den großen Feldern der Ereignisse der Gegenwart stehen:
Geister eurer Seelen, wirkende Wächter,
Eure Schwingen mögen bringen
Unserer Seelen bittende Liebe
Eurer Hut vertrauten Erdenmenschen,
Daß, mit eurer Macht geeint,
Unsre Bitte helfend strahle
Den Seelen, die sie liebend sucht.
Und für diejenigen, die infolge dieser Ereignisse schon durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind:
Geister eurer Seelen, wirkende Wächter,
Eure Schwingen mögen bringen
Unserer Seelen bittende Liebe
Eurer Hut vertrauten Sphärenmenschen,
Daß, mit eurer Macht geeint,
Unsre Bitte helfend strahle
Den Seelen, die sie liebend sucht.
Der Geist, den wir durch unsere erstrebte Geist-Erkenntnis suchen, der Geist, der zu der Erde Heil, zu der Menschheit Freiheit und Fortschritt durch das Mysterium von Golgatha gegangen ist, der sei mit euch und euren schweren Pflichten!
Wir haben vor acht Tagen hier im einzelnen betrachtet uns nahestehende Seelen, die, wenn sie jetzt aufgefunden werden sollen, in geistigen Welten aufgesucht werden müssen. Und wir haben so hingeschaut zu diesen uns nahestehenden Seelen, daß wir gerade von ihnen uns haben das oder jenes sagen lassen, was uns Licht verschaffen kann über den Aufenthalt von Wesen in der geistigen Welt. Heute möchte ich die Betrachtung mehr auf den Weg lenken, den die Menschenseele nehmen kann, wenn sie hier im Leibe weilt, in die geistigen Welten hinein, um eben diejenigen geistigen Gefilde zu finden, von denen wir das letzte Mal als dem Aufenthalt der sogenannten verstorbenen Seelen gesprochen haben. Es muß ja immer wieder und wiederum betont werden, daß derjenige Weg in die geistigen Welten hinein, welcher nach der ganzen Entwickelung der Menschheit der Seele der Gegenwart ziemt, ein Weg ist, der durch mannigfaltige Vorbereitungen geht, die zum Teil eben schwierig sind, aber überwunden werden müssen. Und ich möchte heute von einem Gesichtspunkt, den man nennen kann den Gesichtspunkt der imaginativen Erkenntnis, auf einiges im Erkenntniswege hindeuten.
Das ist Ihnen ja ganz geläufig, meine lieben Freunde, daß die Menschenseele wirklich in der geistigen Welt nur Erfahrungen, Beobachtungen machen kann, wenn sie sich nicht bedient des Instrumentes des Leibes. Alles dasjenige, was wir durch das Instrument des Leibes gewinnen können, alles das kann uns ja nur Erfahrungen, Erlebnisse geben, die in der physischen Welt vorhanden sind. Wollen wir Erlebnisse der geistigen Welten haben, so müssen wir die Möglichkeit finden, sie mit unserer Seele außerhalb unseres physischen Leibes zu machen. Nun steht wirklich dem Menschen der Gegenwart diese Möglichkeit offen, wenn sie auch schwierig ist, außerhalb seines Leibes die Beobachtungen der geistigen Welt zu machen. Außerdem ist es immer möglich, daß solche Beobachtungen der geistigen Welt, wenn sie gemacht werden, wenn sie einmal da sind, von dem anderen, der sie nicht machen kann, nach der wirklich gesunden Vernunft beurteilt werden können, nicht nur der Vernunft, die man eine gesunde nennt, sondern nach der wirklich gesunden Vernunft. Aber es soll heute gesprochen werden von dem Wege selbst, von der Art, wie die Menschenseele, man kann auf der einen Seite sagen, herauskommt aus dem physischen Leibe, und auf der anderen Seite, wie sie hineinkommt in die geistige Welt. Und da ich, wie gesagt — heute vor acht Tagen haben wir es von einem anderen Gesichtspunkte aus betrachtet -, diesen Weg heute vom imaginativen Erkenntnisstandpunkt aus betrachten will, so wird manches bildlich zu erörtern sein, was dann Ihrer Meditation überlassen bleibt, weiter zu verfolgen. Wenn Sie das tun, dann werden Sie sehen, daß dieser Erkenntnisweg ganz besonders von Bedeutung ist.
Durch drei Tore kann man gewissermaßen in die geistige Welt eintreten. Das erste kann man nennen das Tor des Todes, das zweite Tor kann man nennen das Tor der Elemente und das dritte kann man nennen das Tor der Sonne. Derjenige, der den vollen Erkenntnisweg gehen will, der muß durch alle drei Tore den Erkenntnisweg nehmen.
Das Tor des Todes ist seit uralten Zeiten immer wiederum da, wo man von Mysterienwahrheiten gesprochen hat, wirklich besprochen worden. Dieses Tor des Todes kann nicht erreicht werden, wenn wir es nicht zu erreichen suchen durch dasjenige, was uns ja hinlänglich bekannt ist unter dem Namen Meditation, das heißt Hingabe an irgendwelche, gerade für unsere Individualität geeignete Gedanken oder Empfindungen, die wir so in den Mittelpunkt unseres Bewußstseins hineinstellen, daß wir uns ganz mit ihnen identifizieren. Natürlich erlahmt sehr leicht gerade auf diesem Wege die menschliche Anstrengung, weil es ja wirklich Unbequemlichkeit und Überwindung von inneren Hemmnissen gibt und geben muß, wenn man immer wiederum die stillen intimen Anstrengungen zu machen hat, sich den gegebenen Gedankenmassen, den gegebenen Empfindungen so hinzugeben, daß man die ganze Welt vergißt und nur in diesen Gedanken, in diesen Empfindungen lebt. Aber man wird eben, wenn man das immer wiederum zustandebringt, in die Lage kommen, in dem Gedanken, den man in den Mittelpunkt des Bewußstseins rückt, nach und nach etwas wahrzunehmen wie eine Art selbständigen Lebens dieses Gedankens. Man wird das Gefühl bekommen: bisher hast du diesen Gedanken immer nur gedacht; du hast den Gedanken in den Mittelpunkt des Bewußtseins gestellt; jetzt fängt er aber an, ein eigenes Leben, eine eigene innere Regsamkeit zu entwickeln. Es ist, wie wenn man in die Lage käme, ein Wesen wirklich in sich hervorzubringen. Der Gedanke fängt an, ein innerliches Gebilde zu werden. Das ist der wichtige Moment, wenn man merkt, daß dieser Gedanke, diese Empfindung ein Eigenleben hat, so daß man sich gleichsam wie die Hülle dieses Gedankens, dieser Empfindung fühlt. So daß man sich sagen kann: deine Anstrengungen haben dich dazu gebracht, einen Schauplatz abzugeben, auf dem sich etwas entwickelt, was jetzt durch dich zu einem eigenen Leben kommt.
Dieses eigene Erwachen, dieses sich Beleben des meditativen Gedankens, das ist ein bedeutungsvoller Moment im Leben des Meditanten. Dann merkt er, daß er von der Objektivität des Geistigen ergriffen ist, daß sich gewissermaßen die geistige Welt um ihn kümmert, daß sie an ihn herangetreten ist. Natürlich ist es nicht so einfach, bis zu diesem Erleben zu kommen, denn man muß, bevor man zu diesem Erleben kommt, mancherlei Empfindungen durchmachen, die der Mensch aus einem natürlichen Gefühl heraus nicht ganz gerne durchmacht. Ein gewisses Gefühl der Vereinsamung zum Beispiel, ein Gefühl der Einsamkeit, ein Gefühl der Verlassenheit muß man durchmachen. Man kann nicht die geistige Welt ergreifen, ohne sich vorher gewissermaßen von der physischen Welt verlassen zu fühlen, zu fühlen, daß diese physische Welt manches tut, was uns wie zermürbt, wie zermalmt. Aber durch solches Gefühl der Vereinsamung hindurch müssen wir dahin kommen, erst ertragen zu können diese innere Lebendigkeit, zu der der Gedanke erwacht, ich möchte sagen, sich gebiert. Vieles, vieles widerstrebt nun dem Menschen; im Menschen selbst widerstrebt vieles dem Menschen, was zur richtigen Empfindung führen kann von diesem innerlichen Beleben des Gedankens. Namentlich ist es ein Gefühl, ‘zu dem wir kommen, ein inneres Erlebnis, zu dem wir kommen und das wir eigentlich nicht haben wollen. Aber wir gestehen uns zugleich nicht, daß wir es nicht haben wollen, sondern wir sagen: Ach, das kannst du doch nicht erreichen! — Dabei schläfst du ein. Dabei verläßt dich dein Denken, die innere Spannkraft will nicht mitgehen. Kurz, man wählt unwillkürlich allerlei Ausreden, denn das, was man erleben muß, das ist, daß der Gedanke, indem er sich so belebt, eigentlich wirklich wesenhaft wird. Er wird wesenhaft, er bildet sich zu einer Art von Wesen aus. Und man hat dann die Schauung — nicht bloß das Gefühl -: der Gedanke ist zuerst wie, man möchte sagen, ein kleiner Keim, rundlich, und wächst sich dann aus zu einem bestimmt gestalteten Wesen, das von außen in unser Haupt hinein sich fortsetzt, so daß der Gedanke einem diese Aufgabe stellt: du hast dich mit ihm identifiziert, nun bist du in dem Gedanken drinnen, und nun wächst du mit dem Gedanken in dein eigenes Haupt hinein; aber du bist im wesentlichen noch draußen. Der Gedanke nimmt die Form an wie ein geflügelter Menschenkopf, der ins Unbestimmte ausläuft und sich dann hineinerstreckt in den eigenen Leib durch das Haupt. Der Gedanke wächst sich also aus wie zu einem geflügelten Engelskopf. Dies muß man tatsächlich erreichen. Es ist schwierig, dieses Erlebnis zu haben, deshalb will man wirklich glauben, in diesem Moment, wo der Gedanke sich also auswächst, alle Möglichkeit des Denkens zu verlieren. Man glaubt, man werde sich selbst genommen in diesem Augenblick. Das aber fühlt man wie einen zurückgelassenen Automaten, was man als seinen Leib bisher gekannt hat und wo hinein der Gedanke sich erstreckt.
Außerdem sind in der objektiven geistigen Welt allerlei Hindernisse vorhanden, uns dieses sichtbar zu machen. Dieser geflügelte Engelskopf wird wirklich innerlich sichtbar, aber es sind alle möglichen Hindernisse da, uns das sichtbar zu machen. Und vor allen Dingen ist der Punkt, den man da erreicht hat, die wirkliche Schwelle der geistigen Welt. Und wenn es einem gelingt, also zu sich zu stehen, wie ich es geschildert habe, dann ist man an der Schwelle der geistigen Welt, wirklich an der Schwelle der geistigen Welt. Aber da steht, zunächst ganz unsichtbar für den Menschen, diejenige Gewalt, die wir immer Ahriman genannt haben. Man sieht ihn nicht. Und daß man das, was ich jetzt auseinandergesetzt habe als das ausgewachsene Gedankenwesen, nicht sieht, das bewirkt Ahriman. Er will nicht, daß man das steht. Er will das verhindern. Und weil es ja vorzugsweise der Weg der Meditation ist, auf dem man bis zu dem Punkte kommt, so wird es immer dem Ahriman leicht, einem gewissermaßen das, wozu man kommen soll, auszulöschen, wenn man hängt an den Vorurteilen der physischen Welt. Und wirklich, man muß sagen: der Mensch glaubt gar nicht, wie sehr er eigentlich an diesem Vorurteil der physischen Welt hängt; wie er sich gar nicht vorstellen kann, daß es eine Welt gibt, die andere Gesetze hat als die physische Welt. Ich kann nicht alle Vorurteile, die man mitbringt an die Schwelle der geistigen Welt, heute erörtern, aber ein hauptsächlichstes will ich doch erörtern, ein etwas intimeres Vorurteil.
Sehen Sie, die Menschen reden, wenn sie von der physischen Welt reden, von monistischer Weltanschauung, von Einheit, und sagen sich sehr häufig: Ich kann die Welt nur dann begreifen, wenn mir die ganze Welt als eine Einheit erscheint. Wir haben da zuweilen gerade mit Bezug auf solche Dinge recht sonderbare Erfahrungen durchmachen müssen. Als wir hier in Berlin unsere geisteswissenschaftliche Bewegung begonnen haben mit wenigen Mitgliedern vor jetzt doch schon recht vielen Jahren, da haben sich manche Menschen hereingefunden, die dann doch nach ihrem ganzen Wesen sich nicht als zugehörig fühlen konnten. So zum Beispiel fand sich eine Dame, die nach einigen Monaten zu uns kam und sagte: Das alles tauge eigentlich für sie nicht, was die Geisteswissenschaft vorzubringen in der Lage sei, denn da müsse man zuviel denken, und das Denken, das lösche bei ihr alles aus, was ihr gerade wertvoll sei; sie komme immer in eine Art von Einschlafen beim Denken. Und außerdem meine sie, daß es ja nur ein Wertvolles gebe — das sei die Einheit! Nun erwies es sich, daß die Einheit der Welt, die der Monist auch sucht auf den mannigfaltigsten Gebieten - nicht bloß der materialistische Monist -, bei ihr wie zu einer fixen Idee geworden war: Einheit, Einheit, Einheit! Sie wollte durchaus die Einheit suchen. — Nun haben wir einen deutschen Philosophen, Leibniz, in der deutschen Geistesentwickelung, einen entschieden monadologischen Philosophen, der nicht die Einheit gesucht hat, sondern die vielen Monaden, die für ihn seelische Wesen waren -, der also das klar wußte: sobald man in die geistige Welt kommt, da kann es sich nicht um eine Einheit handeln, sondern nur um eine Vielheit. So gibt es Monisten und Pluralisten. Das sieht man als Weltanschauungen an. Die Monisten bekämpfen die Pluralisten, die von der Vielheit sprechen; sie sprechen nur von der Einheit.
Ja, sehen Sie, die Sache ist aber diese, daß Einheit und Vielheit überhaupt Begriffe sind, die nur für die physische Welt Geltung haben. Und nun glaubt man, in der geistigen Welt müßten diese Begriffe auch gelten. Da gelten sie aber nicht. Da muß man sich darauf gefaßt machen, daß man zwar eine Einheit erblickt, aber daß man diese Einheit im nächsten Augenblick überwinden muß, und daß sie sich als Vielheit zeigt. Sie ist zugleich eine Einheit und eine Vielheit. Man kann auch nicht in die geistige Welt das gewöhnliche Rechnen, die physische Mathematik hineintragen. Das gehört zu den stärksten, aber auch intimsten ahrimanischen Vorurteilen, daß man die Begriffe, die man sich angeeignet hat in der physischen Welt, so wie sie sind, in die geistige Welt hineintragen will. Aber man muß wirklich ohne Sack und Pack, ohne beschwert zu sein mit dem, was man in der physischen Welt gelernt hat, ankommen an ihrer Schwelle; bereit, es an ihrer Schwelle zurückzulassen. Alle Begriffe, gerade auch diejenigen Begriffe, um die man sich am meisten abgemüht hat, muß man zurücklassen und sich darauf gefaßt machen: da, in der geistigen Welt, da werden einem auch neue Begriffe gegeben, da wird einem ganz Neues gewährt. Dieses Hängen an dem, was die physische Welt gibt, ist ungeheuer stark beim Menschen. Er will dasjenige, was er in der physischen Welt erobert hat, hineintragen in die geistige Welt. Aber er muß die Möglichkeit haben, vor einer vollständigen Tabula rasa zu stehen, vor einer vollständigen Leerheit zu stehen, und nur den Gedanken, der anfängt sich zu beleben, seinen Führer sein lassen. Man hat diesen Eingang in die geistige Welt die Pforte des Todes genannt aus dem Grunde, weil es eigentlich wirklich ein stärkerer Tod noch ist als der physische Tod. Im physischen Tode sind die Menschen überzeugt davon, daß sie ihren physischen Leib ablegen; aber wir müssen uns entschließen bei dem Eintritt in die geistige Welt, auch wirklich unsere Begriffe, unsere Vorstellungen und Ideen abzulegen und unser Wesen neu aufbauen zu lassen.
Nun treten wir hin vor dieses geflügelte Gedankenwesen, von dem ich gesprochen habe. Wir werden schon hintreten, wenn wir uns wirklich alle Mühe geben, in einem Gedanken zu leben. Und dann brauchen wir eben nur zu wissen, wenn der Augenblick, der eintritt, andere Anforderungen, als wir sie uns vorgestellt haben, an uns stellt, daß wir ihnen wirklich auch standhalten, daß wir nicht sozusagen zurückgehen. Dieses Zurückgehen geschieht meist unbewußt. Man erlahmt, aber das Erlahmen ist eben nur der Ausdruck, daß man nicht Sack und Pack ablegen will, weil gewissermaßen die ganze Seele mit dem, was sie sich angeeignet hat auf dem physischen Plane, absterben muß, damit sie in die geistige Welt eintreten kann. Deshalb muß man dieses Tor ganz sachgemäß das Tor des Todes nennen. Und dann schaut man gerade durch dieses geflügelte Gedankenwesen wie durch ein neues geistiges Auge, das man sich angeeignet hat; oder auch durch ein geistiges Ohr, denn man hört auch, man fühlt auch, man vernimmt gerade durch dieses dasjenige, was in der geistigen Welt vorhanden ist.
Es ist eben möglich, meine lieben Freunde, zu sprechen von besonderen Erfahrungen, die man machen kann, damit man in die geistige Welt hineintritt. Daß man diese Erfahrungen machen könne, dazu ist eben wirklich nichts anderes notwendig als Ausharren im vorgezeichneten Meditieren. Namentlich ist es notwendig, sich klar zu werden, daß gewisse Empfindungen, die man heranbringt an die Schwelle der geistigen Welt, wirklich vorher abgelegt werden müssen. Empfindungen, die sich wirklich ergeben daraus, daß man diese geistige Welt gewöhnlich anders haben möchte, als sie einem entgegentritt.
Das ist also das erste Tor, das Tor des Todes.
Das zweite Tor nun ist das Tor der Elemente. Dieses Tor der Elemente, das wird derjenige, der wirklich eifrig der Meditation sich ergibt, als zweites durchmachen. Aber man kann auch gewissermaßen durch seine Organisation begünstigt sein und sogar an das zweite Tor kommen, ohne durch das erste gegangen zu sein. Das ist nicht gut für ein wirkliches Erkennen, aber es kann sein, daß man dahin gelangt, ohne durch das erste Tor hindurchgegangen zu sein. Ein wirklich sachgemäßes Erkennen ergibt sich nur, wenn man durch das erste Tor gegangen ist und dann an das zweite Tor bewußt tritt. Dieses zweite Tor, das ergibt sich in der folgenden Weise. Sehen Sie, wenn man durch das Tor des Todes gegangen ist, so fühlt man sich zunächst in gewissen Zuständen, von denen man sehen kann: sie sind wirklich äußerlich, in ihrer Wirkung auf den Menschen, in der Art, wie der Mensch sie darlebt, dem Schlafe ähnlich, innerlich aber sind sie ganz verschieden. Äußerlich ist der Mensch wie schlafend während solcher Zustände. Gerade dann, wenn der Gedanke begonnen hat zu leben, wenn er anfängt, sich zu regen, sich zu vergrößern, dann ist der äußere Mensch wirklich wie im Schlafe dabei. Er braucht nicht zu liegen, er kann sitzen, aber er ist wie im Schlafe dabei. Und so wenig, wie man äußerlich unterscheiden kann diesen Zustand vom Schlafe, so sehr ist er innerlich zu unterscheiden. Denn wenn man dann übergeht aus diesem Zustand in den gewöhnlichen Lebenszustand, dann merkt man erst: du hast nicht geschlafen, sondern du warst im Gedankenleben, genau so wie du darinnen bist jetzt, wo du wie gewöhnlich in der physischen Welt erwacht bist und durch deine Augen hinausschaust auf das, was leuchtet. Aber man weiß auch: Jetzt, wo du wach bist, denkst du, du machst die Gedanken, du setzest sie zusammen; aber kurz vorher, als du in jenem Zustande warst, machten sich die Gedanken durch sich selbst. Der eine kam an den anderen heran; sie klärten einander auf; es tritt der eine von dem anderen hinweg, und das, was man sonst macht im Denken, das hat sich da selbst gemacht. Aber man weiß: während man sonst ein Ich ist, das einen Gedanken an den anderen ansetzt, so schwimmt man gleichsam während dieses Zustandes in dem einen, schwimmt zu dem anderen hin, man ist damit vereinigt; dann ist man fort in einem dritten und schwimmt dann wiederum herbei; man hat das Gefühl: der Raum besteht eigentlich nicht mehr.
Nicht wahr, im physischen Raum würde es so sein, wenn man hingezogen wäre zu einem Punkt und zurückblickte und dann von ihm sich entfernte, und wenn man dann von neuem an ihn herankommen wollte, dann müßte man erst den Weg wieder hin machen; man müßte den Weg hin und zurück machen. Das ist dann in dem anderen Zustand nicht der Fall. Da ist der Raum nicht so; da durchspringt man den Raum gleichsam. In einem Augenblick ist man an einem Punkt; im anderen ist man wieder weg. Man geht nicht durch den Raum durch. Die Gesetze des Raumes haben aufgehört. Man lebt und webt jetzt selbst in dem Gedanken darinnen. Man weiß: das Ich ist nicht erstorben, es webt im Gedankenleben darinnen, aber man kann noch nicht gleich, wenn man in den Gedanken lebt, Herr sein der Gedanken; die Gedanken machen sich selbst. Man wird gezogen. Man schwimmt nicht selbst in den Gedankenströmen, sondern die Gedanken nehmen einen gleichsam auf den Rücken und tragen einen. Der Zustand muß auch aufhören. Und er hört auf, wenn man durch das Tor der Elemente geht. Dann bekommt man das Ganze in seine Willkür hinein, dann kann man aus Absicht einen bestimmten Gedankenweg machen. Man lebt dann mit seinem Willen drinnen in dem ganzen Gedankenleben. Das ist wiederum ein ungeheuer bedeutungsvoller Moment. Und: deshalb habe ich sogar exoterisch in öffentlichen Vorträgen darauf hingewiesen: das zweite erreicht man dadurch, daf man sich mit seinem Schicksal identifiziert. Dadurch erlangt man die Gewalt, in dem Gedankenweben mit Willen darinnen zu sein.
Zuerst, wenn man gegangen ist durch das Tor des Todes, erreicht man das, daß mit einem in der geistigen Welt das oder jenes getan wird. Daß man selbst tun lernt in der geistigen Welt, das erlangt man eben, indem man sich mit seinem Schicksal identifiziert. Man erlangt es erst allmählich. Dann gewinnen eben die Gedanken eine Wesenheit, die mit unserer eigenen Wesenheit identisch ist. Die Taten von unserer Wesenheit kommen in die geistige Welt hinein. Aber um dies in der richtigen Weise zu tun, hat man eben durch das zweite Tor zu gehen. Indem man beginnt, mit der Kraft, die einem wird aus der Identifikation mit dem Schicksal, im Gedanken weben zu wollen so, daß man nicht bloß mitgeht mit dem Gedanken wie mit einem Traumbild, sondern daß man unter Umständen diesen oder jenen Gedanken auslöschen kann und einen anderen heraufholen kann, daß man also mit Willen hantieren kann, wenn das so beginnt, muß man wirklich diese Erfahrung durchmachen, die man das Durchgehen durch das zweite Tor nennen kann. Und da zeigt sich, daß sich dasjenige, was man nun als Willenskraft braucht, wie ein eigentlich furchtbares Ungeheuer darstellt. Man hat es immer in der Mystik seit Tausenden und Tausenden von Jahren die Begegnung mit dem «Löwen» genannt. Diese Begegnung mit dem Löwen muß man durchmachen. Sie besteht darin, in bezug auf das Fühlen, daß man vor dem Tun in der Gedankenwelt, vor diesem Lebendig-sich-Verbinden mit der Gedankenwelt, eigentlich wirklich —- man kann es so nennen — eine heillose Furcht bekommt, die man ebenso überwinden muß wie die Einsamkeit an der Pforte des Todes. Furcht bekommt man. Diese Furcht, die kann einern in der mannigfaltigsten Weise sich als dieses oder jenes Gefühl vortäuschen, das gar nicht Furcht ist. Aber es ist doch im wesentlichen Furcht vor dem, wo man da hineinkommt. Und das, worauf es ankommt, ist, daß man wirklich die Möglichkeit finder, dieses Tier, dem man begegnet, diesen Löwen zu beherrschen. Denn in der Imagination stellt sich einem das richtig so dar, als wenn er sein riesenhaftiges Maul aufsperrte und einen verschlingen wollte. Jene Willenskraft, die man anwenden will in der geistigen Welt, sie droht einen eigentlich zu verschlingen. Man ist fortwährend von dem Gefühl beherrscht: du sollst wollen, du mußt etwas tun, mußt dieses oder jenes ergreifen. Aber von all diesen Elementen des Wollens, in die man hineingeht, hat man das Gefühl: wenn du es ergreifst, verschlingt es dich, löscht dich aus in der Welt. Das ist das Verschlingen durch den Löwen. Also, man muß wirklich — bildlich kann man es so nennen -, statt sich der Furcht hinzugeben, daß darinnen in der geistigen Welt einen die Willenselemente ergreifen und verschlingen und erwürgen, sich auf den Rücken des Löwen schwingen und diese Willenselemente ergreifen, muß von sich aus zum Handeln sie benützen. Das ist es, worauf es ankommt.
Nun sehen Sie ja, was das Wesentliche dabei ist. Ist man zuerst durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen, dann ist man draußen außer dem Leibe, und dann kann man nur draußen die Kräfte des Willens benützen. Man muß sich in die Weltenharmonie einfügen. Solche Kräfte aber, die man draußen benützen muß, hat man auch in sich, nur walten sie unbewußt. Die Kräfte, die unser Blut bewegen, die unser Herz pochen machen, die rühren von geistigen Wesen her, in die man untertaucht, wenn man in das Wiillenselement hineintaucht. Wir haben diese Kräfte in uns. Wenn also jemand, ohne daß er den geordneten esoterischen Weg durchmacht, ergriffen wird vom Willenselement — ohne daß er durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen ist —, dann ergreifen ihn diejenigen Kräfte, die sonst in seinem Blut zirkulieren, in seinem Herzen pochen. Dann verwendet er die Kräfte nicht, die außerhalb seines Leibes, sondern die Kräfte, die in ihm sind. Das würde graue Magie sein. Das würde den Menschen veranlassen, von sich aus in die geistige Welt einzugreifen mit den Kräften, mit denen wir nicht in die geistige Welt eingreifen dürfen. Und daß man nun den Löwen sieht, daß man dieses Untier wirklich vor sich hat, daß man weiß, so sieht es aus, so wollen einen die Willenskräfte erfassen, und man muß sich ihrer draußen außer dem Leibe bemächtigen — darauf kommt es an. Tritt man nicht an das zweite Tor heran, sieht man ihn nicht, den Löwen, so steht man immer in Gefahr, aus dem menschlichen Egoismus heraus die Welt beherrschen zu wollen. Daher ist der richtige Erkenntnisweg der: zuerst heraus aus dem physischen Leibe und dem physischen Menschensein, und dann erst draußen herantreten an das Verhältnis, in das man einzugehen hat mit den Wesenheiten, die draußen sind. Nun, dem steht ja gegenüber der Hang der meisten Menschen, wirklich auf eine bequemere Weise als durch gute Meditation in die geistige Welt hineinzukommen. So zum Beispiel kann man die Pforte des Todes vermeiden und, wenn die inneren Anlagen günstig sind, an das zweite Tor herantreten. Das erreicht man dadurch, daß man sich besonderen Vorstellungen, insbesondere inbrünstigen Vorstellungen hingibt, die so ein allgemeines Aufgehen in dem ganzen All darstellen sollen. Vorstellungen, die angeraten werden von dem oder jenem halbwissenden Mystiker, in gutem Glauben angeraten werden. Dadurch betäubt man sich über das Gedankenstreben hinweg und regt direkt das Gefühl an. Man peitscht das Gefühl an, man enthusiasmiert das Gefühl. Dadurch kann man allerdings zunächst an das zweite Tor gelangen und wird auch den Willenskräften übergeben, aber man beherrscht den Löwen nicht, sondern man wird von ihm verschlungen, und der Löwe tut mit einem, was er will. Das heißt: es geschehen im Grunde genommen okkulte, aber im wesentlichen egoistische Dinge. Daher ist es wirklich immer wieder notwendig, aber auch, man möchte sagen, etwas riskant, vom Gesichtspunkte wahrer echter Gegenwarts-Esoterik nicht zu verweisen auf all das, was eine nur Gefühl und Empfindung aufpeitschende Mystik ist. Dieses Appellieren an das, was den Menschen innerlich aufpeitscht, was ihn herauspeitscht aus seinem physischen Leibe, aber ihn doch im Zusammenhang läßt mit den Blut- und Herzenskräften, den physischen Blut- und Herzenskräften, bewirkt eine gewisse Art von Wahrnehmen der geistigen Welt, die dann nicht abzuleugnen ist, die auch viel Gutes enthalten kann, aber die den Menschen zu einem in der geistigen Welt unsicher tappenden Wesen macht und ihn gar nicht fähig macht, Egoismus und Altruismus voneinander zu unterscheiden.
Man ist gerade, wenn man das betonen muß, bei einem schwierigen Punkt, denn bei der eigentlichen Meditation und alledem, was sich auf sie bezieht, schlafen die Gemüter der Gegenwart noch vielfach ein. Sie lieben es, das Denken doch nicht so straff anzuspannen, wie es notwendig ist, um sich mit dem Denken zu identifizieren. Sie lieben es vielmehr, wenn man ihnen sagt: Vertiefe dich in eine alliebende Hingabe zum Weltengeiste oder dergleichen, wobei mit Umgehung des Denkens das Gemüt aufgepeitscht wird. Dann werden die Menschen wirklich in geistige Wahrnehmungen hineingeführt; sie sind aber nicht mit vollem Bewußtsein darinnen und können nicht unterscheiden, ob die Dinge, die sie darinnen erleben, die sie bei sich erleben, dem Egoismus entspringen oder nicht dem Egoismus entspringen. Gewiß, es muß parallelgehen der selbstlosen Meditation die Enthusiasmierung aller Empfindungen, aber eben parallelgehen dem Gedanken. Es muß der Gedanke nicht ausgeschaltet werden. Aber gerade darin, den Gedanken vollständig zu unterdrücken und sich nur dem aufgepeitschten erglühten Gefühl hinzugeben, suchen gewisse Mystiker etwas.
Man ist deshalb hier an einem schwierigen Punkt, weil es ja nützt, weil ja diejenigen viel schneller vorwärtskommen, die so ihre Gefühle aufpeitschen. Sie kommen hinein in die geistige Welt, sie erleben darin allerlei, und das wollen ja die meisten Menschen. Es handelt sich bei den meisten Menschen nicht darum, in der richtigen Weise in die geistige Welt zu kommen, sondern überhaupt nur hineinzukommen. Die Unsicherheit, die dabei eintritt, ist diese, daß wir ja, wenn wir nicht zuerst durch die Pforte des Todes gehen, sondern gewissermaßen direkt an die Pforte der Elemente gehen, dort von Luzifer noch verhindert werden, den Löwen wirklich wahrzunehmen; daß wir gleichsam, bevor wir ihn wahrnehmen, von ihm verschlungen werden. Das Schwierige ist, daß wir nicht mehr unterscheiden können, was sich auf uns bezieht und was draußen ist in der Welt. Wir lernen geistige Wesenheiten kennen, Elementargeister. Eine ganz umfängliche geistige Welt kann man erkennen lernen, auch ohne durch die Pforte des Todes zu gehen, aber es sind zumeist geistige Wesenheiten, welche die Aufgabe haben, den menschlichen Blutlauf, die menschliche Herztätigkeit zu unterhalten. Solche Wesenheiten sind in der geistigen, der elementaren Welt um uns herum ja immer da. Es sind Geister, die ihr Lebenselement in der Luft, in der uns umfließenden Wärme und auch im Licht haben, die auch ihr Lebenselement in den ja physisch nicht mehr wahrnehmbaren Sphärentönen haben, geistige Wesenheiten, die alles Lebendige durchweben und durchziehen. In diese Welt kommen wir dann natürlich hinein. Und verführerisch wird die Sache, weil ja wirklich die wunderbarsten geistigen Entdeckungen gemacht werden können in dieser Welt. Nicht wahr, wenn jetzt von einem, der nicht durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen ist, sondern der direkt an das Löwentor herangerückt ist und den Löwen nicht gesehen hat, wahrgenommen wird ein Elementargeist, der die Aufgabe hat, die Herztätigkeit zu unterhalten, so kann dieser Elementargeist, der auch zugleich die Herztätigkeit anderer Menschen unterhält, unter Umständen Nachricht bringen von anderen Menschen, sogar von Menschen aus der Vergangenheit, oder er kann aus der Zukunft prophetische Nachrichten bringen. Also von großem Erfolg kann die Sache begleitet sein, aber es ist dennoch nicht der richtige Weg, weil er uns nicht frei macht in unserer Beweglichkeit in der geistigen Welt.
Das dritte Tor, das zu durchwandern ist, ist das Tor der Sonne. Und da müssen wir, wenn wir an dieses Tor kommen, wiederum eine Erfahrung machen. Während wir am Tor des Todes einen geflügelten Engelskopf, am Tor der Elemente einen Löwen wahrzunehmen, zu schauen haben, müssen wir am Tor der Sonne einen Drachen, einen wilden Drachen wahrnehmen. Und dieser wilde Drache, den müssen wir richtig anschauen. Aber Luzifer und Ahriman zusammen bemühen sich nun, den unsichtbar zu machen, ihn uns nicht zum geistigen Gesicht zu bringen. Wenn wir ihn wahrnehmen, dann nehmen wir aber wahr, daß dieser wilde Drache im Grunde genommen das allermeiste mit uns selbst zu tun hat, denn er ist gewoben aus unseren Trieben und Empfindungen, die sich im Grunde auf das, was wir im gewöhnlichen Leben unsere niederste Natur nennen, beziehen. Dieser Drache enthält alle die Kräfte, die wir zum Beispiel brauchen — verzeihen Sie das Prosaische des Ausspruches - zum Verdauen und noch zu manchem anderen. Das, was in uns steckt und die Kräfte abgibt, daß wir verdauen, und manches andere, was im engsten Sinne an unsere allerniederste Persönlichkeit gebunden ist, das erscheint uns in Form des Drachen. Wir müssen ihn anschauen, wenn er sich aus uns herauswindet. Schön ist er nicht, der Drache, und daher haben Luzifer und Ahriman es leicht, unser unterbewußtes Seelenleben so zu beeinflussen, daß wir unbewußt nichts wissen wollen vom Sehen dieses Drachen. Es sind ja in ihn auch hineingewoben alle Albernheiten, alle unsere Eitelkeiten, unsere Stolzheit und unsere Selbstsucht, aber auch die niedersten Triebe.
Wenn wir den Drachen nicht schauen am Tor der Sonne -— man nennt es das Tor der Sonne, weil gerade in den Sonnenkräften die Kräfte leben, aus denen auch der Drache gewoben ist, denn die Sonnenkräfte sind es, die bewirken, daß wir verdauen und die anderen organischen Verrichtungen vollziehen, es ist wirklich durch das Zusammenleben mit der Sonne -, wenn wir also den Drachen nicht schauen am Tor der Sonne, dann verschlingt er uns, dann werden wir in der geistigen Welt eins mit ihm. Dann sind wir nicht mehr unterschieden von dem Drachen, dann sind wir eigentlich der Drache, der erlebt in der geistigen Welt. Und er kann Bedeutungsvolles erleben, er kann gewissermaßen großartige Erfahrungen machen. Erfahrungen, welche, ich möchte sagen, einschmeichelnder sind als diejenigen, die man macht am Tor des Todes oder hinter dem Tor des Todes. Die Erfahrungen, die man macht am Tor des Todes, sind zunächst farblos, schattenhaft, intim, so leicht und intim, daß sie uns leicht entschwinden, daß wir gar nicht sehr geneigt sind, die Aufmerksamkeit zu entfalten, um sie festzuhalten. Und wir müssen immer wiederum uns anspannen, dasjenige, was da leicht im Gedanken sich belebt, sich vergrößern zu lassen. Es vergrößert sich zuletzt zu einer Welt. Aber, bis es auftritt als farben-, töne-, lebensdurchdrungene Wirklichkeit, das fordert langes, energisches Arbeiten und Streben. Denn man muß gewissermaßen diese farb- und tonlosen Gestalten sich beleben lassen überall aus der Unendlichkeit her. Will man zum Beispiel den einfachsten Luft- oder Wassergeist entdecken durch, man kann es jetzt nennen, Kopfhellsehen — gemeint ist das Hellsehen, was entsteht durch Belebung des Gedankens -, dann ist zunächst dieser Luft- oder Wassergeist etwas, was so leicht und schattenhaft über den Horizont der geistigen Welt hinhuscht, daß es einen gar nicht interessiert. Und wenn er farbig oder tönend werden soll, dann muß aus dem ganzen Umkreis des Kosmos die Farbigkeit an ihn heranrücken. Das geschieht aber erst in langer innerer Arbeit. Das geschieht erst durch Warten, bis man begnadet wird. Denn denken Sie, wenn Sie also — bildlich gesprochen - solch einen kleinen Luftgeist haben, wenn er jetzt in Farben herankommen soll, wenn er gefärbt erscheinen soll, so muß von einem mächtigen Teil des Kosmos die Farbe hereinstrahlen. Man muß die Kraft haben, sie hereinstrahlen zu machen. Diese Kraft kann aber nur durch Hingabe erreicht werden, erworben werden. Die strahlenden Kräfte müssen von außen hereinkommen durch Hingabe. Ist man mit seinem Drachen einerlei, ist man eins mit ihm, dann wird man, wenn man einen Luft- oder Wassergeist sieht, geneigt sein, die Kräfte, die in einem drinnen sind, und gerade in den im gewöhnlichen Leben niedrig genannten Organen drinnen sind, hinauszustrahlen. Das ist viel leichter. Unser Haupt ist an sich ein vollkommenes Organ, aber in dem astralischen Leibe und dem Ätherleib des Hauptes, da ist nicht viel Farbiges darinnen, weil die Farben verwendet sind zum Beispiel um das Gehirn, namentlich die Gehirnschale, zu bilden. So daß, wenn Sie aus dem Haupte heraus durch Kopfhellsehen an der Schwelle der geistigen Welt den Astralleib und Ätherleib herausheben aus dem physischen Leibe, so hat er nicht viel Farbe in sich. Die Farben sind verwendet, um das vollkommene Organ, das Gehirn, zu bilden. Wenn Sie aber im — wir können es nennen Bauchhellsehen aus den Organen des Magens, der Leber, der Galle und so weiter den Astralleib und Ätherleib herausheben, da sind die Farben noch nicht so verwendet, um vollkommene Organe zu bilden. Diese Organe sind erst auf dem Wege zur Vollkommenheit. Dasjenige, was vom Astralleib und Ätherleib des Bauches ist, das ist wunderschön gefärbt, das glänzt und glitzert in allen möglichen Sonnenfarben. Und heben Sie da den Ätherleib und Astralleib heraus, so verleihen Sie den Gestalten, die Sie sehen, die wunderbarsten Färbungen und Tönungen. So daß es vorkommen kann, daß jemand Wunderbares sieht und ganz großartige farbige Gemälde entwirft. Es ist gewiß interessant, denn für den Anatomen ist es ja auch interessant, Milz, Leber und Gedärme zu untersuchen, und es ist dies vom Standpunkte der Wissenschaft auch notwendig. Aber wenn es derjenige, der kundig ist, untersucht, so ist das, was in so schönen farbigen Bildern erscheint, dasjenige, was zwei Stunden nach dem Essen dem Verdauungsprozeß zugrunde liegt. Dagegen ist gewiß nichts einzuwenden, daß man das untersucht. So wie der Anatom die Dinge untersuchen muß, so wird die Wissenschaft einmal viel davon haben, diese Dinge zu untersuchen, zu wissen, was der Ätherleib macht, wenn der Magen verdaut. Aber darüber müssen wir uns ganz klar sein: Wenn wir nicht bewußt an das Tor der Sonne gehen, und dadurch nicht wissen: wir laden all dasjenige, was im Äther- und Astralleib unseres Bauches ist, in diesen Drachen hinein, wir sondern das ab -, dann strahlen wir es hinaus in die Hellseher-Gebilde, dann bekommen wir allerdings eine wunderbare Welt. Das Schönste und leichtest zu Erreichende kommt zunächst nicht von den höheren Kräften, vom Kopfhellsehen, sondern vom Bauchhellsehen. Und das ist durchaus wichtig zu wissen. Denn für den Kosmos gibt es nichts im absoluten Sinne Niedriges, es gibt nur relativ Niedriges. Der Kosmos muß mit ungeheuer bedeutsamen Kräften arbeiten, um das zustande zu bringen, was zum menschlichen Verdauungsapparat notwendig ist. Aber es handelt sich darum, daß wir uns keinen Irrtümern hingeben, keinen Täuschungen uns hingeben, sondern daß wir wissen, was die Dinge sind. Wenn wir wissen, daß irgend etwas, was einen wunderbaren Aspekt darbietet, nichts anderes ist als der Verdauungsprozeß, so ist das außerordentlich wichtig. Wenn wir aber glauben, daß uns durch ein solches Bild vielleicht eine besondere Engelswelt sich offenbare, dann sind wir eben in einem Irrtum befangen. Also nicht dagegen, daß eine Wissenschaft gepflegt wird aus diesem Wissen, kann sich der Vernünftige wenden, sondern nur dagegen, daß etwa solche Dinge in ein falsches Licht gerückt werden. Das ist es, um was es sich handelt. So kann es zum Beispiel vorkommen, daß jemand eben gerade durch einen Vorgang innerhalb des Verdauungsprozesses in einer bestimmten Etappe der Verdauung immer einen bestimmten Teil des Ätherleibes heraushebt; dann kann er ein natürlicher Hellseher sein. Man muß da nur wissen, um was es sich handelt.
Der Mensch wird also schwer dazu kommen, durch Kopfhellsehen, wo alles Farbige des Äther- und Astralleibes dazu verwendet ist, um das wunderbare Gefüge des Gehirns zustande zu bringen, das Farblose und Tonlose zum Vollgefärbten, Tönenden zu bringen. Aber er wird verhältnismäßig leicht dazu kommen, mit Bauchhellsehen die wunderbarsten Dinge der Welt zu sehen. Dabei liegen natürlich in diesem Bauchhellsehen auch Kräfte, die der Mensch verwenden lernen muß. Diejenigen Kräfte, die da verwendet werden zu unserem Verdauungsprozeß, sind ja nur verwandelte Kräfte, und richtig erleben wir sie, wenn wir immer mehr und mehr ausbilden lernen die Identifizierung mit dem Schicksal. Das ist auch auf diesem Felde dasjenige, was uns lehrt: dem, was zuerst als geflügelter Engelskopf heraufkam, müssen wir ja nachziehen den anderen Teil, und da handelt es sich darum, daß wir nicht nachziehen nur die Kräfte, die zur Verdauung dienen, sondern auch diejenigen, die höherer Art sind; das sind diejenigen, die in unserem Karma, unserem Schicksal liegen. Wenn wir uns damit identfizieren, dann gelingt es uns, hinauszutragen die geistigen Wesen, die wir um uns sehen, die jetzt die Tendenz haben, daß die Töne und Färbungen hereinfließen aus dem Weltenraum. Dann wird natürlich die geistige Welt eine vollinhaltliche, eine konkrete, ebenso wirklich und konkret, daß wir uns darin befinden, wie wir uns in der physischen Welt befinden.
Eine besondere Schwierigkeit am Tor des Todes macht das, daß wir wirklich die Empfindung haben - und die müssen wir auch überwinden -, du verlierst dich selbst eigentlich da! Aber wenn man wirklich sich angestrengt hat und sich mit dem Gedanklichen identifiziert, kann man sogleich auch das Bewußtsein haben: Du verlierst dich, aber du findest dich wieder. Das ist eine Erfahrung, die man macht. Man verliert sich, wenn man eintritt in die geistige Welt, aber man weiß, daß man sich auch wiederfindet. Den Übergang hat man zu machen: an den Abgrund zu kommen, im Abgrund sich zu verlieren, aber mit dem Vertrauen, daß man sich drüben wiederfindet. Das ist eine Erfahrung, die man durchmachen muß. Alles, was ich geschildert habe, sind eben durchaus innere Erlebnisse, die man durchzumachen hat. Und daß man erfährt, was da eigentlich mit der Seele geschieht, das ist wichtig. Es ist das gerade, wie wenn man etwas sehen soll; wird man hingewiesen von einem Freund, dann ist das besser, als wenn man es sich selbst ausdenkt. Aber erreichen kann man alles das, was geschildert worden ist, indem man sich wirklich hingebungsvoll immer wiederum der inneren Arbeit und inneren Überwindung durch Meditation hingibt, wie Sie es geschildert finden in den Büchern «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?» und im zweiten Teil der «Geheimwissenschaft».
Dies ist von ganz besonderer Wichtigkeit, daß man diese andersartigen Erfahrungen machen lernt jenseits der Schwelle der geistigen Welt. Wenn man, wie es ja naturgemäß ist beim Menschen, bloß den Drang hat, in der geistigen Welt eine Fortsetzung, eine Verdoppelung nur der physischen Welt zu finden, wenn man meint, in der geistigen Welt müsse alles ebenso aussehen wie hier in der physischen Welt, dann kann man nicht hineinkommen. Man muß wirklich das durchmachen, was man wie eine Umkehrung empfindet von alledem, was man hier in der physischen Welt erfahren hat. Hier in der physischen Welt ist man gewöhnt, zum Beispiel die Augen aufzumachen und Licht zu sehen, durch das Licht beeindruckt zu werden. Wenn man das erwartet in der geistigen Welt, daß? man ebenso ein geistiges Auge aufmachen kann, um durch das Licht beeindruckt zu werden, dann kann man nicht hineinkommen, denn man erwartet etwas Falsches. Das webt etwas wie einen Nebel, der sich vor die geistigen Sinne legt, der einem die geistige Welt verdeckt, so wie ein Nebelmeer einem ein Gebirge verdeckt. In der geistigen Welt kann man zum Beispiel nicht von Licht beschienene Gegenstände sehen, sondern da muß man sich klar sein darüber, daß? man mit dem Lichte selbst strahlt in der geistigen Welt. Wenn in der physischen Welt der Lichtstrahl auf einen Gegenstand fällt, sieht man ihn; in der geistigen Welt aber ist man in dem Lichtstrahl selber darinnen und berührt damit den Gegenstand. So daß man sich selbst schwimmend mit dem Lichtstrahl in der geistigen Welt weiß; man weiß, daß man im strahlenden Licht drinnen ist. Das ist dasjenige, was einem einen Fingerzeig geben kann, wie man sich Begriffe aneignen kann, die geeignet sind, einem in der geistigen Welt vorwärtszuhelfen. Es ist zum Beispiel ungeheuer nützlich, sich einmal vorzustellen: Wie wäre es, wenn du jetzt in der Sonne wärest? Dadurch, daf du nicht in der Sonne bist, siehst du die Gegenstände, wenn die Sonnenstrahlen die Gegenstände beleuchten, durch die zurückgeworfenen Strahlen. Man muß sich vorstellen, man ist in den Sonnenstrahlen drinnen und berührt damit die Gegenstände. Diese Berührung ist ein Erlebnis in der geistigen Welt; darin besteht gerade das Erleben in der geistigen Welt, daß man sich darinnen lebendig weiß. Man weiß sich lebendig im Weben der Gedanken. Gerade wenn dieser Zustand anfängt, daß man sich bewußt im Weben der Gedanken darinnen weiß, dann geht das unmittelbar über in ein Sich-Wissen im hellstrahlenden Licht. Denn der Gedanke ist aus dem Licht. Der Gedanke webt im Licht. Aber das erfährt man erst dann, daß man eigentlich wie untertaucht in das Licht, wenn man in diesem Gedankenweben darinnen ist.
Die Menschheit ist jetzt auf einer Stufe, wo sie sich solche Vorstellungen aneignen muß, damit sie nicht durch die Pforte des Todes geht, wo sie ja in der geistigen Welt darinnen ist, und dann in ganz ungewohnte Welten hineinkommt. Das Kapital, das die Menschen mitbekommen haben von den Göttern im Erdenurbeginn, ist allmählich aufgezehrt. Die Menschen tragen jetzt das nicht mehr mit durch die Pforte des Todes, was noch Reste waren eines alten Erbgutes. Sie müssen sich jetzt allmählich hier in der physischen Welt Begriffe aneignen, die auch dann, wenn die Menschen durch die Pforte des Todes geschritten sind, dazu dienen, die ihnen nach Überschreitung als versucherische und verführerische, als gefährlich entgegentretende Wesen sichtbar zu machen. Mit diesen großen kosmischen Zusammenhängen ist es verbunden, daß eben jetzt Geisteswissenschaft der Menschheit mitgeteilt werden muß, daß Geisteswissenschaft unter die Menschen treten muß. Und man kann beobachten, wie gerade in unseren Tagen, in unseren so schicksalsbewegten Tagen, Übergänge wirklich geschaffen werden. Es gehen Menschen in jungen Jahren jetzt durch die Pforte des Todes, vom großen Zeitenschicksale gefordert, die gewissermaßen mit vollem Bewußtsein in jungen Jahren den Tod an sich haben herankommen lassen. Ich meine jetzt nicht so sehr den Moment, bevor der Tod zum Beispiel auf dem Schlachtfelde eingetreten ist. Da mag ja vieles da sein an Begeisterung und dergleichen, die das Erlebnis des Todes zu keinem so eminenten, so von Aufmerksamkeit durchtränkten machen, als man sonst glauben möchte. Aber wenn er eingetreten ist, der Tod, dann ist es ein Tod, der übrigläßt einen noch unverbrauchten Ätherleib, in unserer Zeit übrigläfßft einen unverbrauchten Ätherleib, auf den der Tote nun hinschauen kann; so daß nun der Tote dieses Phänomen, diese Tatsache des Todes, mit einer viel größeren Deutlichkeit sieht, als er es dann sieht, wenn der Tod durch Krankheit oder durch Altersschwäche eintritt.
Dieser Tod auf dem Schlachtfeld ist ein intensiveres, ein stärker wirkendes Ereignis in unseren Tagen als ein Tod, der auf andere Weise eintritt. Dadurch wirkt das auf die Seele, die durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen ist, und wirkt belehrend. Der Tod ist schrecklich oder kann wenigstens schrecklich sein für den Menschen, solange er im Leibe weilt. Wenn der Mensch aber durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen ist und zurückblickt auf den Tod, so ist der Tod das schönste Erlebnis, das überhaupt im menschlichen Kosmos möglich ist. Denn dieses Zurückblicken auf dieses Hineingehen in die geistige Welt durch den Tod ist zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt das allerwunderbarste, das schönste, großartigste, herrlichste Ereignis, auf das der Tote überhaupt zurückschauen kann. So wenig wie von unserer Geburt in unserem physischen Erleben jemals wirklich steht — es erinnert sich ja kein Mensch mit den gewöhnlichen, nicht ausgebildeten Fähigkeiten an seine physische Geburt -, sicher steht immer der Tod da für die Seele, die durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen ist, von dem Auftauchen des Bewußtseins an. Er ist immer vorhanden, aber er steht da als das Schönste, als der Auferwecker in die geistige Welt hinein. Und er ist ein Belehrer wunderbarster Art, ein Belehrer, der wirklich für die empfängliche Seele beweisen kann, daß es eine geistige Welt gibt, weil er das Physische durch seine eigene Wesenheit vernichtet und aus dieser Vernichtung eben nur hervorgehen läßt dasjenige, was geistig ist. Und diese Auferstehung des Geistigen, mit dem vollständigen Abstreifen des Physischen, das ist ein Ereignis, das immer dasteht zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt. Das ist ein tragendes, ein wunderbar großes Ereignis, und in sein Verständnis wächst die Seele nach und nach hinein; wächst hinein in einer ganz einzigartigen Weise dann, wenn nun dieses Ereignis in dem Grade, man möchte sagen, ein selbstgewähltes Ereignis ist, wenn der Mensch sich diesen Tod natürlich nicht gesucht, aber zum Beispiel dadurch, daß er gewissermaßen freiwillig sich eingereiht hat, ihn doch freiwillig gefunden hat. Dadurch gewinnt dieser Moment wiederum an Deutlichkeit. Und ein Mensch, der sonst nicht viel über den Tod nachgedacht hat, der wenig oder nur zum Teil sich um die geistige Welt gekümmert hat, der kann nun gerade in unserer Zeit an dem Tode, nach seinem Tode, einen wunderbaren Belehrer bekommen. Und das ist für den Zusammenhang der physischen mit der geistigen Welt etwas, was gerade in diesem Kriege als etwas ungeheuer Bedeutsames steckt. Ich habe es schon in einigen Vorträgen dieser schweren Zeit betont: es reicht nicht aus dasjenige, was wir tun können durch die bloße Belehrung, durch das Wort; aber ungeheure Belehrung wird für die Menschen der Zukunft kommen dadurch, daß so viele Tode eingetreten sind. Die wirken auf die Toten, und die Toten wiederum greifen ein in den Zukunftskulturprozeß der Menschheit.
So kann ich gerade von einem solchen Toten, der in jungen Jahren in unseren Tagen durch die Todespforte gegangen ist, Worte mitteilen, die, ich möchte sagen, durchgekommen sind; Worte, die gerade deshalb einem überraschend sind gewissermaßen, weil sie bezeugen, wie der Tote, der den Tod mit besonderer Deutlichkeit fühlte als auf dem Schlachtfelde erlebt, nun sich hineinfindet in dieses andersartige Erleben nach dem Tode; wie er sich herausarbeitet aus den Erden-Vorstellungen und sich hineinarbeitet in die geistigen Vorstellungen. Ich will Ihnen auch diese Worte hier mitteilen. Sie sind, wenn ich das so charakterisieren darf, aufgefangen, als ein solcher auf dem Schlachtfelde Verstorbener sie wie heranbringen wollte an diejenigen, die er zurückgelassen hat.
Im Leuchtenden,
Da fühl’ ich
Die Lebenskraft.
Der Tod hat mich
Vom Schlaf erweckt,
Vom Geistesschlaf.
Ich werde sein,
Und aus mir tun,
Was Leuchtekraft
In mir erstrahlt.
Das ist gewissermaßen von dem Hinblicken nach dem erlittenen Tode von dem Toten erlernt, im Erlernen erlebt, so wie wenn das Wesen sich erfüllte mit dem, was es nach dem Tode eben leben lernen muß am Anblick des Todes, und wovon es auch Kunde geben, was es offenbaren will.
Im Leuchtenden, da fühl’ ich die Lebenskraft.
Also er fühlt, daß er im höheren Grade lebendig ist in bezug auf das Erfassen der geistigen Welt, als er es hier war vor dem Tode. Er fühlt den Tod als eine Art Erwecker und Belehrer:
Der Tod hat mich vom Schlaf erweckt,
Vom Geistesschlaf.
Und nun fühlt er auch schon, daß er ein Handelnder wird in der geistigen Welt:
Ich werde sein, und aus mir tun...
Aber er fühlt, daß dieses Tun in ihm die Leuchtekräfte tun, er fühlt das Licht in ihm erleben:
Ich werde sein,
Und aus mir tun,
Was Leuchtekraft
In mir erstrahlt.
Man kann eben überall sehen, richtig sehen, wie dasjenige, was erschaut werden kann in der geistigen Welt, immer wieder und wiederum von neuem die reinste Bestätigung desjenigen abgibt, was auch wiederum durch die sogenannte Imaginationserkenntnis aus dieser geistigen Welt heraus eben im allgemeinen bekannt werden kann. Und das ist es, was man so möchte, daß es belebt werde, so recht belebt werde durch unsere geisteswissenschaftliche Bewegung: daß wir es nicht bloß zu tun haben mit einem Wissen von der geistigen Welt, sondern daß dieses Wissen in uns wirklich so lebendig werde, daß wir eine andere Art mit der Welt zu fühlen, mit der Welt zu empfinden uns aneignen, indem die Begriffe der Geisteswissenschaft in uns lebendig werden. Dieses innerliche Beleben der Gedanken der Geisteswissenschaft, das ist ja dasjenige, wie ich schon oft gesagt habe, schon wiederholt gesagt habe, was von uns im Grunde genommen gefordert wird, so gefordert wird, daß es unser Beitrag sein soll für die Weiterentwickelung der Welt, damit zusammenfließen die aus der Geisteswissenschaft heraus geborenen spirituellen Gedanken, die sich in die geistige Welt hinauferheben wie Leuchtekräfte, die dem leuchtenden Weltall zurückgegeben werden; damit das Weltall sich vereinige mit dem, was die durch die Pforte des Todes Gegangenen in unseren schicksalsschweren Tagen der geistigen Kulturbewegung der Menschheit einverleiben. Dann wird das eintreten, was einbegriffen ist in die Worte, mit denen wir auch heute wieder unsere Betrachtungen schließen wollen:
Aus dem Mut der Kämpfer,
Aus dem Blut der Schlachten,
Aus dem Leid Verlassener,
Aus des Volkes Opfertaten
Wird erwachsen Geistesfrucht —
Lenken Seelen geistbewußt
Ihren Sinn ins Geisterreich.
Eighth Lecture
My dear friends, we once again remember first those who stand outside in the great fields of present events:
Spirits of your souls, active guardians,
May your wings bring
The pleading love of our souls
To those earthly beings entrusted to your care,
That, united with your power,
Our plea may shine forth
To the souls that seek it lovingly.
And for those who have already passed through the gates of death as a result of these events:
Spirits of your souls, active guardians,
May your wings bring
The pleading love of our souls
To the people of the spheres you protect,
That, united with your power,
Our plea may shine helpfully
Upon the souls whom it lovingly seeks.
The spirit we seek through our striving for spiritual knowledge, the spirit that has come to the earth to bring salvation, freedom, and progress to humanity through the mystery of Golgotha, may it be with you and your difficult duties!
Eight days ago, we looked here in detail at souls close to us who, if they are to be found now, must be sought in spiritual worlds. And we looked at these souls close to us in such a way that we allowed them to tell us this or that which can shed light on the whereabouts of beings in the spiritual world. Today I would like to direct our consideration more toward the path that the human soul can take when it dwells here in the body, into the spiritual worlds, in order to find precisely those spiritual realms of which we spoke last time as the abode of the so-called departed souls. It must be emphasized again and again that the path into the spiritual worlds, which is appropriate for the soul of the present after the entire development of humanity, is a path that goes through manifold preparations, some of which are difficult but must be overcome. And today I would like to point out a few things on the path of knowledge from a point of view that can be called the point of view of imaginative knowledge.
You are well aware, my dear friends, that the human soul can only have experiences and make observations in the spiritual world if it does not use the instrument of the body. Everything we can gain through the instrument of the body can only give us experiences that exist in the physical world. If we want to have experiences of the spiritual worlds, we must find a way to do so with our soul outside our physical body. Now, this possibility is indeed open to people today, even if it is difficult to make observations of the spiritual world outside their bodies. Furthermore, it is always possible that such observations of the spiritual world, once they have been made, can be judged by others who are unable to make them, according to truly sound reason, not just reason that is called sound, but truly sound reason. But today we will speak of the path itself, of the way in which the human soul, on the one hand, emerges from the physical body and, on the other hand, enters the spiritual world. And since, as I said — eight days ago we looked at it from a different point of view — I want to look at this path today from the standpoint of imaginative knowledge, some things will have to be discussed figuratively, which you will then have to pursue further in your meditation. If you do so, you will see that this path of knowledge is of particular importance.
One can enter the spiritual world through three gates, so to speak. The first can be called the gate of death, the second gate can be called the gate of the elements, and the third can be called the gate of the sun. Those who want to walk the full path of knowledge must take the path of knowledge through all three gates.
Since ancient times, the gate of death has always been discussed wherever mystery truths have been discussed. This gate of death cannot be reached unless we seek to reach it through what is well known to us as meditation, that is, devotion to certain thoughts or feelings that are particularly suited to our individuality, which we place at the center of our consciousness in such a way that we identify ourselves completely with them. Of course, human effort very easily slackens in this way, because there really is and must be discomfort and the overcoming of inner inhibitions when one has to make the quiet, intimate effort again and again to surrender oneself to the given mass of thoughts, to the given feelings, in such a way that one forgets the whole world and lives only in these thoughts, in these feelings. But if you manage to do this again and again, you will gradually begin to perceive something like a kind of independent life in the thought that you have placed at the center of your consciousness. You will get the feeling: until now, you have only ever thought this thought; you have placed the thought at the center of your consciousness; but now it is beginning to develop a life of its own, an inner vitality. It is as if you were able to bring a being into existence within yourself. The thought begins to become an inner structure. This is the important moment when you realize that this thought, this feeling, has a life of its own, so that you feel, as it were, like the shell of this thought, this feeling. So that you can say to yourself: your efforts have led you to give up a stage on which something is developing that is now coming into its own life through you.
This awakening, this enlivening of the meditative thought, is a significant moment in the life of the meditator. Then he realizes that he is seized by the objectivity of the spiritual, that the spiritual world is, in a sense, taking care of him, that it has approached him. Of course, it is not so easy to reach this experience, because before you reach it, you have to go through many feelings that people do not particularly enjoy experiencing out of their natural feelings. For example, you have to go through a certain feeling of isolation, a feeling of loneliness, a feeling of abandonment. One cannot grasp the spiritual world without first feeling, in a sense, abandoned by the physical world, feeling that this physical world does many things that wear us down, that crush us. But through such feelings of isolation, we must come to be able to endure this inner vitality, to which the thought awakens, I would say, gives birth. Many, many things now repel human beings; within human beings themselves, many things repel them that could lead to the right feeling for this inner enlivening of thought. In particular, it is a feeling we come to, an inner experience we come to and which we do not really want to have. But at the same time we do not admit to ourselves that we do not want it; instead we say: Oh, you cannot achieve that! — And in doing so we fall asleep. Our thinking abandons us, our inner tension refuses to go along. In short, we involuntarily choose all kinds of excuses, because what we must experience is that the thought, in becoming so animated, actually becomes real. It becomes real, it develops into a kind of being. And then you have the vision—not just the feeling—that the thought is at first like, one might say, a small seed, roundish, and then grows into a distinctly formed being that continues from outside into your head, so that the thought sets you this task: you have identified with it, now you are inside the thought, and now you are growing with the thought into your own head; but you are essentially still outside. The thought takes the form of a winged human head that runs out into the indefinite and then stretches into your own body through your head. The thought thus grows into a winged angel's head. This must actually be achieved. It is difficult to have this experience, which is why one really wants to believe that, at the moment when the thought grows out, one loses all possibility of thinking. One believes that one is being taken away from oneself at that moment. But one feels this as if one were a machine left behind, which one has known until now as one's body and into which the thought extends.
Furthermore, in the objective spiritual world, there are all kinds of obstacles preventing us from seeing this. This winged angel head really becomes visible within us, but there are all kinds of obstacles preventing us from seeing it. And above all, the point one has reached is the real threshold of the spiritual world. And if one succeeds in standing by oneself as I have described, then one is at the threshold of the spiritual world, truly at the threshold of the spiritual world. But there stands, at first completely invisible to human beings, the force we have always called Ahriman. You cannot see it. And it is Ahriman who causes you not to see what I have now described as the fully developed thought being. He does not want you to see it. He wants to prevent it. And because it is primarily through meditation that one reaches this point, it is always easy for Ahriman to extinguish, so to speak, what one is supposed to achieve if one clings to the prejudices of the physical world. And really, it must be said: human beings do not believe how much they actually cling to these prejudices of the physical world; how they cannot even imagine that there is a world that has different laws than the physical world. I cannot discuss all the prejudices that people bring with them to the threshold of the spiritual world today, but I would like to discuss one of the most important, a somewhat more intimate prejudice.
You see, when people talk about the physical world, they talk about a monistic worldview, about unity, and very often say to themselves: I can only understand the world if the whole world appears to me as a unity. We have sometimes had quite strange experiences in this regard. When we started our spiritual scientific movement here in Berlin with just a few members many years ago, some people joined who, after all, could not feel that they belonged here. For example, a lady came to us after a few months and said: “None of what spiritual science has to offer is really suitable for me, because it requires too much thinking, and thinking erases everything that is valuable to me; I always fall into a kind of sleep when I think. And besides, I believe that there is only one thing that is valuable—and that is unity!” Now it turned out that the unity of the world, which the monist seeks in the most diverse areas — not just the materialistic monist — had become a fixed idea for her: unity, unity, unity! She wanted to seek unity at all costs. Now we have a German philosopher, Leibniz, in the development of German thought, a decidedly monadological philosopher who did not seek unity, but rather the many monads, which for him were spiritual beings—who therefore knew clearly that as soon as one enters the spiritual world, there can be no question of unity, but only of multiplicity. Thus, there are monists and pluralists. This can be seen as worldviews. Monists fight against pluralists, who speak of multiplicity; they speak only of unity.
Yes, you see, the thing is that unity and multiplicity are concepts that only apply to the physical world. And now people believe that these concepts must also apply in the spiritual world. But they do not apply there. There one must be prepared to see that although one perceives unity, one must overcome this unity in the next moment, and that it reveals itself as multiplicity. It is both unity and multiplicity at the same time. Nor can one carry ordinary arithmetic, physical mathematics, into the spiritual world. It is one of the strongest but also most intimate Ahrimanic prejudices that people want to carry the concepts they have acquired in the physical world into the spiritual world just as they are. But one must really arrive at its threshold unencumbered, unburdened by what one has learned in the physical world, ready to leave it behind at the threshold. All concepts, especially those that one has struggled hardest to acquire, must be left behind, and one must be prepared for the fact that there, in the spiritual world, new concepts will be given, something completely new will be granted. This attachment to what the physical world offers is incredibly strong in human beings. They want to carry what they have conquered in the physical world into the spiritual world. But they must have the opportunity to stand before a completely blank slate, before complete emptiness, and let only the thoughts that begin to come to life be their guide. This entrance into the spiritual world has been called the gate of death because it is actually a stronger death than physical death. In physical death, people are convinced that they are laying down their physical body; but when we enter the spiritual world, we must decide to truly lay down our concepts, our ideas, and our thoughts and allow our being to be rebuilt.
Now let us step before this winged being of thought of which I have spoken. We will already be there if we really make every effort to live in a single thought. And then we need only know that when the moment comes that demands more of us than we had imagined, we will truly be able to withstand it, that we will not, so to speak, turn back. This retreat usually happens unconsciously. One becomes weary, but this weariness is only an expression of the fact that one does not want to lay down one's baggage, because, in a sense, the whole soul must die with what it has acquired on the physical plane in order to enter the spiritual world. That is why this gate must be called the gate of death. And then one looks through this winged thought being as through a new spiritual eye that one has acquired; or also through a spiritual ear, for one also hears, one also feels, one perceives through this very thing that which is present in the spiritual world.
It is possible, my dear friends, to speak of special experiences that one can have in order to enter the spiritual world. In order to have these experiences, nothing more is necessary than perseverance in the prescribed meditation. In particular, it is necessary to realize that certain feelings that one brings to the threshold of the spiritual world must really be discarded beforehand. Feelings that really arise from the fact that one would like this spiritual world to be different from how it appears to one.
This is therefore the first gate, the gate of death.
The second gate is the gate of the elements. Those who are truly devoted to meditation will pass through this gate of the elements as the second gate. But one can also be favored by one's constitution, so to speak, and even reach the second gate without having passed through the first. This is not good for true recognition, but it is possible to get there without passing through the first gate. True recognition only comes when one has passed through the first gate and then consciously approaches the second gate. This second gate arises in the following way. You see, when you have passed through the gate of death, you initially feel yourself in certain states which you can see are truly external in their effect on the human being, in the way the human being lives them, similar to sleep, but internally they are completely different. Externally, the human being is like asleep during such states. Precisely when the thought has begun to live, when it begins to stir, to grow, then the outer human being is truly as if asleep. He does not need to lie down, he can sit, but he is as if asleep. And just as little as one can distinguish this state from sleep outwardly, so much the more can it be distinguished inwardly. For when one then passes from this state into the ordinary state of life, one realizes only then: you were not asleep, but you were in the life of thought, just as you are now, where you have awakened as usual in the physical world and are looking out through your eyes at what shines. But you also know that now that you are awake, you think you are forming your thoughts, putting them together; but shortly before, when you were in that state, the thoughts formed themselves. One came to the other; they clarified each other; one moved away from the other, and what you otherwise do in thinking did itself. But you know that while you are otherwise an I that puts one thought after another, during this state you float, as it were, in one thought, float toward another, are united with it; then you are gone into a third and float back again; you have the feeling that space no longer exists.
Wouldn't it be the same in physical space if you were drawn to a point and looked back and then moved away from it, and if you then wanted to approach it again, you would first have to retrace your steps; you would have to go there and back. That is not the case in the other state. Space is not like that there; you leap through space, as it were. In one moment you are at one point; in the next you are gone again. You do not pass through space. The laws of space have ceased to apply. You now live and weave within it in your thoughts. You know that the I has not died, it weaves within the life of thought, but when you live in thought, you cannot yet be master of your thoughts; the thoughts make themselves. You are drawn. You do not swim in the streams of thought, but the thoughts take you on their backs, as it were, and carry you. This state must also come to an end. And it ends when you pass through the gate of the elements. Then one gains control over the whole thing, then one can deliberately follow a certain path of thought. One then lives with one's will within the whole life of thought. This is again an immensely significant moment. And that is why I have even pointed this out exoterically in public lectures: the second is achieved by identifying oneself with one's destiny. This gives you the power to be in the web of thoughts with your will.
First, when you have passed through the gate of death, you achieve that this or that is done to you in the spiritual world. You learn to do things yourself in the spiritual world by identifying with your destiny. You only achieve this gradually. Then your thoughts take on a substance that is identical with your own substance. The deeds of your substance enter the spiritual world. But in order to do this in the right way, you have to pass through the second gate. By beginning to use the power that comes from identifying with destiny to weave thoughts in such a way that one does not merely go along with the thoughts as with a dream image, but that one can, under certain circumstances, erase this or that thought and bring up another, that one can thus use one's will, when this begins, one must really go through this experience, which can be called passing through the second gate. And there it becomes apparent that what is now needed as willpower appears as a truly terrible monster. In mysticism, for thousands and thousands of years, this encounter has always been called the encounter with the “lion.” One must go through this encounter with the lion. It consists in feeling, before acting in the world of thoughts, before this living connection with the world of thoughts, that one actually experiences — one can call it that — a hopeless fear, which one must overcome just as one must overcome loneliness at the gate of death. You get fear. This fear can manifest itself in the most diverse ways as this or that feeling, which is not fear at all. But essentially it is fear of what you are entering into. And what matters is that you really find the possibility of mastering this animal you encounter, this lion. For in your imagination, it appears as if it is opening its enormous mouth and wants to devour you. The willpower that you want to apply in the spiritual world actually threatens to devour you. You are constantly dominated by the feeling: you must want, you must do something, you must seize this or that. But with all these elements of will that you enter into, you have the feeling that if you seize them, they will devour you, wipe you out of the world. That is being devoured by the lion. So, instead of giving in to the fear that the elements of will will seize and devour and strangle you in the spiritual world, you must really — figuratively speaking — swing yourself onto the lion's back and seize these elements of will, using them to act on your own behalf. That is what matters.
Now you see what is essential here. Once you have passed through the gate of death, you are outside your body, and then you can only use the forces of the will outside. You have to fit into the harmony of the world. But you also have within you the forces that you have to use outside, only they are unconscious. The forces that move our blood, that make our hearts beat, come from spiritual beings into which you immerse yourself when you dive into the element of will. We have these forces within us. So if someone, without going through the orderly esoteric path, is seized by the element of will—without having passed through the gate of death—then those forces that otherwise circulate in his blood, that beat in his heart, seize him. Then he does not use the forces outside his body, but the forces that are within him. That would be gray magic. This would cause people to intervene in the spiritual world on their own initiative with forces that we are not allowed to use in the spiritual world. And now, when you see the lion, when you really have this beast in front of you, when you know that this is what it looks like, that this is how the forces of will want to seize you, and you have to take hold of them outside your body — that is what matters. If you do not approach the second gate, you do not see the lion, and you are always in danger of wanting to rule the world out of human egoism. Therefore, the right path to knowledge is this: first, step out of the physical body and physical human existence, and only then approach the relationship you have to enter into with the beings that are outside. Now, this is opposed by the tendency of most people to want to enter the spiritual world in a more comfortable way than through good meditation. For example, one can avoid the gate of death and, if one's inner dispositions are favorable, approach the second gate. This is achieved by indulging in special ideas, especially fervent ideas, which are supposed to represent a general merging with the whole universe. These ideas are recommended by this or that half-knowledgeable mystic, who recommends them in good faith. In this way, one numbs oneself to intellectual striving and directly stimulates the emotions. One whips up the emotions, one enthuses the emotions. In this way, one can initially reach the second gate and be handed over to the forces of the will, but one does not control the lion; instead, one is devoured by it, and the lion does with one what it wills. This means that, basically, occult but essentially selfish things happen. Therefore, it is really necessary, but also somewhat risky, from the point of view of true, genuine contemporary esotericism, not to refer to anything that is merely mysticism that whips up feelings and sensations. This appeal to what whips people up inside, what whips them out of their physical bodies, but still leaves them connected to the forces of blood and heart, the physical forces of blood and heart, brings about a certain kind of perception of the spiritual world that cannot be denied, that can also contain much good, but which makes people feel uncertain in the spiritual world and makes them completely incapable of distinguishing between egoism and altruism.
It is precisely when one has to emphasize this that one comes to a difficult point, because in actual meditation and everything related to it, the minds of the present day still fall asleep in many cases. They do not like to strain their thinking as much as is necessary to identify with it. They much prefer to be told to immerse themselves in all-loving devotion to the world spirit or something similar, whereby the mind is whipped up without thinking. Then people are really led into spiritual perceptions; but they are not fully conscious of them and cannot distinguish whether the things they experience there, which they experience within themselves, spring from egoism or do not spring from egoism. Certainly, selfless meditation must go hand in hand with the enthusiasm of all the senses, but it must go hand in hand with thought. Thought must not be eliminated. But it is precisely in completely suppressing thought and giving oneself over to whipped-up, inflamed feelings that certain mystics seek something.
This is a difficult point because it is useful, because those who whip up their feelings in this way progress much more quickly. They enter the spiritual world, they experience all kinds of things there, and that is what most people want. For most people, it is not a question of entering the spiritual world in the right way, but simply of entering it at all. The uncertainty that arises is that if we do not first pass through the gate of death, but go directly to the gate of the elements, so to speak, we are prevented by Lucifer from truly perceiving the lion; that we are, as it were, devoured by him before we perceive him. The difficult thing is that we can no longer distinguish between what relates to us and what is outside in the world. We get to know spiritual beings, elemental spirits. It is possible to learn to recognize a very extensive spiritual world even without passing through the gate of death, but these are mostly spiritual beings whose task is to maintain the human blood circulation and the activity of the human heart. Such beings are always present in the spiritual, elemental world around us. They are spirits whose life element is in the air, in the warmth that surrounds us, and also in the light. They also have their life element in the sphere tones, which are no longer physically perceptible. They are spiritual beings that interweave and permeate all living things. We then naturally enter this world. And the matter becomes seductive because the most wonderful spiritual discoveries can indeed be made in this world. Isn't it true that if someone who has not passed through the gate of death but has approached the lion's gate directly and has not seen the lion perceives an elemental spirit whose task is to maintain the heart's activity, then this elemental spirit, which also maintains the heart activity of other people, can under certain circumstances bring news of other people, even of people from the past, or it can bring prophetic messages from the future. So the matter can be accompanied by great success, but it is nevertheless not the right way, because it does not make us free in our mobility in the spiritual world.
The third gate that must be passed through is the gate of the sun. And when we come to this gate, we must again have an experience. While at the gate of death we see a winged angel's head, and at the gate of the elements we see a lion, at the gate of the sun we see a dragon, a wild dragon. And we must look at this wild dragon properly. But Lucifer and Ahriman now join forces to make it invisible, to prevent us from seeing it with our spiritual eyes. When we perceive it, however, we realize that this wild dragon has, in essence, a great deal to do with ourselves, for it is woven from our instincts and feelings, which basically relate to what we call our lowest nature in ordinary life. This dragon contains all the forces we need, for example — forgive the prosaic nature of the expression — for digestion and many other things. That which is within us and gives us the forces to digest and many other things that are bound in the strictest sense to our lowest personality appears to us in the form of the dragon. We must look at it when it writhes out of us. The dragon is not beautiful, and therefore Lucifer and Ahriman find it easy to influence our subconscious soul life in such a way that we unconsciously do not want to see this dragon. All our foolishness, all our vanity, our pride, and our selfishness are woven into it, but also our basest instincts.
If we do not see the dragon at the gate of the sun—it is called the gate of the sun because it is precisely in the forces of the sun that the forces from which the dragon is woven live, for it is the forces of the sun that cause us to digest and perform other organic functions; it is really through our coexistence with the sun—if, then, we do not see the dragon at the gate of the sun, then it devours us, then we become one with it in the spiritual world. Then we are no longer distinct from the dragon; then we are actually the dragon, experiencing the spiritual world. And it can experience meaningful things; it can, in a sense, have magnificent experiences. Experiences which, I would say, are more appealing than those one has at the gate of death or behind the gate of death. The experiences one has at the gate of death are at first colorless, shadowy, intimate, so light and intimate that they easily slip away from us, so that we are not very inclined to develop the attention necessary to hold on to them. And we must always strain ourselves again to allow what is easily enlivened in our thoughts to grow larger. It finally enlarges into a world. But until it appears as a reality filled with color, sound, and life, it requires long, energetic work and striving. For one must, in a sense, allow these colorless and soundless forms to come to life everywhere out of infinity. If, for example, one wants to discover the simplest air or water spirit through what we might now call clairvoyance—meaning the clairvoyance that arises from the animation of thought—then this air or water spirit is at first something that flits so lightly and shadowy across the horizon of the spiritual world that it does not interest us at all. And if it is to become colored or sounding, then color must approach it from the entire circumference of the cosmos. But this only happens after long inner work. It only happens by waiting until one is gifted. For think, if you have such a little air spirit, figuratively speaking, and it is now to come into colors, if it is to appear colored, then the color must shine in from a powerful part of the cosmos. One must have the power to make it shine in. But this power can only be attained, acquired, through devotion. The radiant forces must come in from outside through devotion. If you are one with your dragon, if you are one with it, then when you see an air or water spirit, you will be inclined to radiate the forces that are within you, and especially those that are in the organs that are considered low in ordinary life. This is much easier. Our head is in itself a perfect organ, but in the astral body and the etheric body of the head there is not much color, because the colors are used, for example, to form the brain, especially the skull. So when you lift the astral body and etheric body out of the physical body at the threshold of the spiritual world through clairvoyance, it does not have much color in it. The colors are used to form the perfect organ, the brain. But when you lift the astral body and etheric body out of the organs of the stomach, liver, gallbladder, and so on — we can call this abdominal clairvoyance — the colors are not yet used to form perfect organs. These organs are only on their way to perfection. That which belongs to the astral body and etheric body of the abdomen is beautifully colored, shining and glittering in all possible colors of the sun. And if you lift out the etheric body and astral body, you give the forms you see the most wonderful colors and shades. So it can happen that someone sees something wonderful and designs magnificent colored paintings. It is certainly interesting, because it is also interesting for the anatomist to examine the spleen, liver, and intestines, and it is also necessary from the point of view of science. But when the knowledgeable person examines them, what appears in such beautiful colored images is what underlies the digestive process two hours after eating. There is certainly nothing wrong with examining this. Just as the anatomist must examine things, science will one day benefit greatly from examining these things, from knowing what the etheric body does when the stomach digests. But we must be very clear about this: if we do not consciously go to the gate of the sun and thereby know that we are loading everything that is in the etheric and astral bodies of our abdomen into this dragon, if we do not separate it off, then we radiate it out into the clairvoyant structures, and then we certainly get a wonderful world. The most beautiful and easiest to achieve does not come initially from the higher forces, from head clairvoyance, but from belly clairvoyance. And that is very important to know. For in the cosmos there is nothing low in the absolute sense, there is only relative low. The cosmos must work with enormously significant forces to bring about what is necessary for the human digestive system. But the point is that we do not give in to errors, we do not give in to delusions, but that we know what things are. If we know that something that presents a wonderful aspect is nothing more than the digestive process, then that is extremely important. But if we believe that such an image might reveal a special world of angels to us, then we are simply mistaken. So it is not against the cultivation of science based on this knowledge that reasonable people can object, but only against the misrepresentation of such things. That is what it is all about. For example, it may happen that someone, precisely through a process within the digestive process at a certain stage of digestion, always lifts out a certain part of the etheric body; then he may be a natural clairvoyant. One only needs to know what it is all about.
It will therefore be difficult for human beings to achieve clairvoyance through the head, where all the colors of the etheric and astral bodies are used to bring about the wonderful structure of the brain, to bring the colorless and soundless into full color and sound. But it will be relatively easy for them to see the most wonderful things in the world through clairvoyance of the abdomen. Of course, this abdominal clairvoyance also contains forces that human beings must learn to use. The forces that are used in our digestive process are only transformed forces, and we experience them correctly when we learn to identify more and more with destiny. This is also what teaches us in this field: we must follow up what first came up as a winged angel's head with the other part, and this means that we must not only follow up the forces that serve digestion, but also those that are of a higher nature; these are the forces that lie in our karma, our destiny. When we identify with this, we succeed in carrying out the spiritual beings we see around us, who now have the tendency to let the tones and colors flow in from the world space. Then, of course, the spiritual world becomes a complete, concrete world, just as real and concrete as the physical world in which we find ourselves.
A particular difficulty at the gate of death is that we really have the feeling—and we must overcome it—that we are actually losing ourselves there! But if we have really made an effort and identified with our thoughts, we can immediately also have the awareness: we are losing ourselves, but we will find ourselves again. That is an experience you have. You lose yourself when you enter the spiritual world, but you know that you will find yourself again. You have to make the transition: to come to the abyss, to lose yourself in the abyss, but with the confidence that you will find yourself again on the other side. That is an experience you have to go through. Everything I have described are inner experiences that one has to go through. And it is important to experience what actually happens to the soul. It is just like when you are supposed to see something; if a friend points it out to you, it is better than if you think it up yourself. But you can achieve everything that has been described by devoting yourself wholeheartedly to inner work and inner overcoming through meditation, as you will find described in the books “How to Know Higher Worlds” and in the second part of “Occult Science.”
It is of particular importance that one learns to have these different experiences beyond the threshold of the spiritual world. If, as is natural for human beings, one merely has the urge to find a continuation, a duplication of the physical world in the spiritual world, if one thinks that everything in the spiritual world must look the same as here in the physical world, then one cannot enter it. You really have to go through what feels like a reversal of everything you have experienced here in the physical world. Here in the physical world, you are used to opening your eyes and seeing light, to being impressed by light. If you expect the same thing in the spiritual world, that you can open your spiritual eyes and be impressed by the light, then you cannot enter, because you are expecting something wrong. This weaves something like a fog that lies before the spiritual senses, obscuring the spiritual world, just as a sea of fog obscures a mountain range. In the spiritual world, for example, you cannot see objects illuminated by light, but you must be clear that you yourself shine with the light in the spiritual world. When a ray of light falls on an object in the physical world, you see it; but in the spiritual world, you are inside the ray of light itself and touch the object with it. So you know that you are floating with the ray of light in the spiritual world; you know that you are inside the radiant light. This is what can give you a hint as to how you can acquire concepts that are suitable for helping you advance in the spiritual world. For example, it is extremely useful to imagine what it would be like if you were in the sun right now. Because you are not in the sun, you see objects when the sun's rays illuminate them through the rays reflected back. You have to imagine that you are inside the sun's rays and touching objects with them. This touch is an experience in the spiritual world; this is precisely what experiencing the spiritual world consists of, knowing that you are alive within it. You know that you are alive in the web of thoughts. Just when this state begins, when you know yourself to be consciously within the web of thoughts, then this immediately passes into a knowing of yourself in the brightly shining light. For thought is made of light. Thought weaves in light. But you only experience this when you are actually immersed in the light, when you are within this web of thoughts.
Humanity is now at a stage where it must acquire such ideas so that it does not pass through the gate of death, where it is in the spiritual world, and then enter completely unfamiliar worlds. The capital that human beings received from the gods at the beginning of the earth has gradually been used up. People no longer carry through the gate of death what were remnants of an ancient heritage. They must now gradually acquire concepts here in the physical world that will serve, even after they have passed through the gate of death, to make visible to them beings that will appear as tempting and seductive, as dangerous. It is connected with these great cosmic relationships that spiritual science must now be communicated to humanity, that spiritual science must come among people. And we can observe how, especially in our days, in our fateful days, transitions are truly being created. People are now passing through the gate of death at a young age, called upon by the great destinies of the times, who, in a sense, have allowed death to come to them with full consciousness in their youth. I am not referring so much to the moment before death occurs, for example on the battlefield. There may be a great deal of enthusiasm and the like, which prevent the experience of death from being as eminent and attention-grabbing as one might otherwise believe. But when death does occur, it is a death leaves behind an unspent etheric body, in our time leaves behind an unspent etheric body, which the dead person can now look at; so that the dead person now sees this phenomenon, this fact of death, with much greater clarity than he sees it when death occurs through illness or old age.
This death on the battlefield is a more intense, more powerful event in our day than death that occurs in other ways. This has an effect on the soul that has passed through the gate of death and has an instructive effect. Death is terrible, or at least can be terrible, for human beings as long as they dwell in the body. But when a person has passed through the gate of death and looks back on death, death is the most beautiful experience that is possible in the human cosmos. For this looking back on entering the spiritual world through death is, between death and new birth, the most wonderful, the most beautiful, the most magnificent, the most glorious event that the dead can look back on. Just as little as our birth ever really stands in our physical experience—no human being with ordinary, untrained abilities remembers their physical birth—death always stands securely for the soul that has passed through the gate of death, from the moment consciousness arises. It is always present, but it stands there as the most beautiful thing, as the awakener into the spiritual world. And it is a teacher of the most wonderful kind, a teacher who can truly prove to the receptive soul that there is a spiritual world, because it destroys the physical through its own essence and allows only that which is spiritual to emerge from this destruction. And this resurrection of the spiritual, with the complete stripping away of the physical, is an event that always stands between death and new birth. This is a fundamental, wonderfully great event, and the soul gradually grows into its understanding; it grows into it in a very unique way when this event is, so to speak, a self-chosen event, when the person has not sought this death, of course, but has found it voluntarily, for example, by voluntarily joining the ranks. This in turn makes this moment even clearer. And a person who has not thought much about death, who has paid little or only partial attention to the spiritual world, can now, especially in our time, find a wonderful teacher in death, after death. And this is something that is immensely significant for the connection between the physical and spiritual worlds, especially in this war. I have already emphasized this in several lectures during this difficult time: it is not enough to do what we can through mere instruction, through words; but tremendous instruction will come to the people of the future through the fact that so many deaths have occurred. These deaths have an effect on the dead, and the dead in turn intervene in the future cultural process of humanity.
Thus, I can share words from one such dead person who passed through the gates of death at a young age in our time, words that, I would say, have come through; words that are surprising in a way precisely because they testify to how the dead, who felt death with particular clarity as experienced on the battlefield, now finds himself in this different experience after death; how he works his way out of earthly conceptions and into spiritual conceptions. I would also like to share these words with you here. They were, if I may characterize them as such, caught as if someone who had died on the battlefield wanted to convey them to those he left behind.
In the light,
I feel
The life force.
Death has awakened me
From sleep,
From spiritual sleep.
I will be,
And from myself I will do
What the light
Shines in me.
This is, in a sense, learned from looking back on the death suffered by the dead, experienced in learning, just as when the being is filled with what it must learn to live after death at the sight of death, and of which it also gives news, what it wants to reveal.
In the light, I feel the life force.
So he feels that he is more alive in relation to the perception of the spiritual world than he was here before death. He feels death as a kind of awakener and teacher:
Death has awakened me from sleep,
From spiritual sleep.
And now he already feels that he is becoming an actor in the spiritual world:
I will be, and from myself I will do...
But he feels that this doing is done by the forces of light within him; he feels the light within him:
I will be,
And from myself I will do,
What is the power of light
That shines within me.
One can see everywhere, see clearly, how that which can be seen in the spiritual world repeatedly and anew gives the purest confirmation of that which can also be known in general through so-called imaginative knowledge from this spiritual world. And that is what we want to see enlivened, truly enlivened, through our spiritual scientific movement: that we are not merely dealing with knowledge of the spiritual world, but that this knowledge becomes so alive within us that we acquire a different way of feeling and perceiving the world, as the concepts of spiritual science become alive within us. This inner enlivening of the thoughts of spiritual science is, as I have often said, repeatedly said, what is basically required of us, so required that it should be our contribution to the further development of the world, so that the spiritual thoughts born out of spiritual science, which rise up into the spiritual world like luminous forces, flow together and are returned to the shining universe; so that the universe may unite with what those who have passed through the gate of death have incorporated into our fateful days of the spiritual cultural movement of humanity. Then what is contained in the words with which we wish to conclude our reflections today will come to pass:
From the courage of the fighters,
From the blood of the battles,
From the suffering of the forsaken,
From the sacrifices of the people
The fruits of the spirit will grow —
Souls will consciously guide
Their minds into the realm of spirits.