Rudolf Steiner

“ Just as there the heat reflected their own personality back to them, so do the gaseous organisms now reflect back to them, in gleams of light, the images of their clairvoyant consciousness. They clairvoyantly behold what is taking place on the Sun. And this vision is by no means mere observation; it is as though something of the force which mortals call love made itself felt in the images which stream forth from the Sun. If a clairvoyant looks more closely, he will find the cause of this phenomenon. Exalted beings have blended their activity with the light that is being radiated from the Sun. ”

“ As, on the threshold of death, a sort of memory-picture arose before the human ego, so there now arises a vision of the life approaching. Again he sees a picture, this time showing all the obstacles which he has to clear away, if he is to advance in evolution. And what he thus sees becomes the starting-point for forces which he must bring with him into his new life. The picture of the pain he has caused the other man becomes a force which impels the ego, on entering life again, to make amends for this pain. ”

“ We can experience a blissful sensation when contemplating the purity and passionless nature of the growing plant. We can awaken the feeling within us how certain higher perfections must be paid for through the acquisition of passions and desires. This, then, can change the blissful sensation previously experienced into a serious mood: and then only can it stir within us the feeling of liberating happiness, if we abandon ourselves to the thought of the red blood that can become the carrier of inner pure experiences, like the red sap of the rose. ”

“ Man's being has brought forth his likeness with respect to certain parts of the physical and etheric bodies. However a being totally different from the parent being does not come into existence, but the kernel of the parent-being passes over into the offspring. No new being arises, but the same one in a new form.
Thus the Moon human being experiences a change of consciousness. When the Sun period draws near, his pictured images become dimmer and dimmer, and blissful devotion takes possession of him; the harmonies of the universe resound in his peaceful inner being. ”

“ Living creatures fall a prey to death in order that new life may arise. It is occult science which throws light on Goethe's beautiful phrase: “Nature invented Death in order to have much Life.” Just as in the ordinary sense there could be no life without death, so can there be no real knowledge of the visible world without insight into the invisible. All discernment of the visible must plunge again and again into the invisible in order to develop. Thus it is evident that occult science alone makes the life of revealed knowledge possible. ”

“ I am seeking something that will lift my soul into the sphere of the divine, leading it to its true home; I do not want information about the human being and world-processes.” People who talk in this way have no idea that by such feelings they are barring the door to what they are really seeking. For it is just when, and only when, with a free and open mind, in self-surrender and patience, they assimilate what they call “merely” food for the intellect, that they will find that for which their souls are athirst. ”

“ And the remarkable thing here is that the person so situated will have no feeling of being a captive. He will, on the contrary, think he is going through quite a different experience, for the image called forth by the Guardian of the Threshold may be such as to awaken in the soul of the observer the impression that in the pictures which appear at this stage of development he has before him the whole universe in its entirety—the impression of having attained to the summit of all knowledge, and of there being, therefore, nothing left to strive after. ”

“ That which had up to this time been imprisoned, evolves now into something we are able to confront; we feel, in fact, at certain times outside of what we have been accustomed to regard as our own being, as our own ego. It is as though one now lived in two egos,—one, which we have hitherto known; the other, a newly born being, superior to the first,—and we become aware that the former ego acquires a certain independence in its relationship to the second, just as the physical body has a certain measure of freedom in its relation to that first ego. ”

“ It is by no means necessary to think only of the so-called important events of life: every one, in every sphere of life, be his four walls ever so humble, will be possessed of experience enough, provided only his mind is truly receptive. Experiences need not be sought—they abound on every hand.
Of particular importance is the way in which experience may be utilized by the human soul. For instance, one may make the discovery that someone whom he or another greatly reveres, has some quality that must be regarded as a flaw in his character. ”

“ Let us imagine a particular picture presenting itself to man in the imaginative world. As long as he maintains indifference toward it, it will continue to show a particular form. As soon, however, as he is moved by feelings of like or dislike with regard to it, its form will change. Pictures, therefore, at first present not only something independent and external to man, but they reflect also what man himself is. These pictures are permeated through and through with man's own being. This falls like a veil over the other beings. ”

“ It is now that wisdom is implanted in the Sun-Moon body. It has been shown that during the ebb-tide the germs of the intellectual and sentient souls are implanted. But the development of these, as well as of the consciousness-soul and with it the birth of the “Ego”—the free self consciousness—does not ensue until the Earth period.
At the Moon stage the intellectual- and sentient-souls have as yet no appearance of being used by human beings as a means of expression; they appear rather as instruments of those Sons of Life who belong to humanity. ”

“ And such a feeling, which might even be called a dawning consciousness of self, abides within the soul through this union with the physical body. But the soul still feels the process of absorbing air in an absolutely psycho-spiritual way, as an image, which appears in the form of tone-pictures surging up and down; these give form to the embryo which is being incorporated within them. The soul everywhere feels itself in the midst of sound waves, and that it is fashioning the body in accordance with those tone forces. Thus are human forms developed at that stage of evolution. ”

“ The knowledge which a man now acquires through his intelligence, he then gained in a manner suited to that time,—directly through an inner, in a certain sense, clairvoyant cognition. He perceived the things around him, and while perceiving them there arose within his soul the percept, the image that was needed. Whenever knowledge is gained in this way, not only pictures of the physical sense-world come to light, but from the depths of consciousness a certain knowledge of facts and beings arises which are not of the physical world. ”

“ Just as the thought of the creator of a house stands behind the physical laws which make it explicable, so too, behind what is affirmed, with perfect accuracy by physical science, stands that of which occult science treats. ”

“ But he who thinks that views about the unseen world are necessarily wholly dependent on personal opinion and feeling is denying the common essence of all human beings. Even though it is true that every one must find light on these things within himself, it is also a fact that all those, who go far enough, arrive at the same, not at different conclusions regarding them. Differences exist only as long as people will not approach the highest truths by the well-tested path of occult science, but attempt ways of their own choosing. ”

“ During waking life the soul is given up to the impressions of the senses, and to the thoughts and pictures that these evoke in it. During sleep the senses cease to make any impression, and the soul loses consciousness. The whole of the day's experience sinks down into the sea of unconsciousness. Let us now consider how it would be if man were able to become conscious during sleep, notwithstanding that all impressions of the senses were completely obliterated, as they are in deep sleep. Now would any memory remain to him of what had happened while he was awake. ”

“ Man had perceptions of taste only during the first quarter of his earth-life, and even then they seemed to the soul like a memory of the experience of his disembodied state. As long as they lasted, his body continued to grow more and more solid by assimilating external substances. In the second quarter of earth life growth still continued, but the form was already fully developed. At this time man could perceive other living beings near him only through their heat, light, and sound effects; for he was not as yet capable of imagining the solid element. ”

“ The unprejudiced educator may undoubtedly observe clearly that he impresses the consciousness of his pupil with something taken from life's experiences which in itself is foreign to his merely inherited qualities, but which, however, appears to him as if the work out of which these experiences arise, had been done by him in the past. Only repeated lives on earth, in conjunction with the facts set forth by occult science as taking place in spiritual regions between two earthly lives,—only this view can afford a satisfactory explanation of present human life looked at from every side. ”

“ The essential characteristic of the fourth period is that, by the exclusion of the soul from direct communion with the psycho-spiritual world, the human faculties of intelligence and feeling were thereby strengthened and invigorated. The souls whose powers of intelligence and feeling had at that time developed to a great extent as the result of former incarnations, carried over with them the fruits of this development into their incarnations during the fifth period. ”

“ The entire world then appears as thought-structure, confronting man just like the plant and animal worlds in the realm of the physical senses. In the same manner feeling and will, which have become independent, stimulate two other powers within the soul to work in it as separate entities. And yet a seventh power and entity must be added, which resembles the ego itself. Thus man, on reaching a particular stage of development, finds himself to be composed of seven entities, all of which he has to guide and control. ”

“ By many, occult science is looked upon as a lofty goal of human effort, the crown of all other knowledge and cognition; others, who are devoting themselves with the greatest earnestness and noble love of truth to that which appears to them true science, deem occult science mere idle dreaming and fantasy, in the same category with what is called superstition. To some, occult science is like a light without which life would be valueless ”