The Threshold of the Spiritual World
GA 17
XII. Concerning Spiritual Cosmic Beings
[ 1 ] When clairvoyant consciousness comes to life in the elemental world, it finds beings there who are able to develop a life in that world which man only acquires within the physical world. These beings do not feel their self—their ego—as man feels his in the physical world; they permeate that self with their will much more than man does his; they will their own existence as it were, and feel their existence as something which they give to themselves through their will. On the other hand, with regard to their thinking, they have not the feeling that they are creating their thoughts, as man creates his; they feel all their thoughts as suggestions, as something which is not in them but in the universe, and which is streaming out of the universe into their being. Thus in these beings no doubt can ever arise but that their thoughts are the reflection of the thought-order poured forth into the universe. They do not think their own thoughts, but cosmic thoughts. With their activity of thought they live in cosmic thoughts; but they will their existence. Their life of feeling is shaped in accordance with this will and thought of theirs. They feel themselves to be a link in the whole cosmic system; and they feel the necessity of willing their existence in a manner corresponding to that system.
[ 2 ] When the clairvoyant soul grows familiar with the world inhabited by these beings, it comes naturally to an idea of its own thinking, feeling, and willing. These faculties of the human soul could not be unfolded within the elemental world in man's etheric body. Human will would be only a weak, dreamlike faculty in the elemental world, human thought merely an indistinct, fleeting world of ideas. No feeling of the ego would come into existence there at all. For all these things it is necessary for man to be invested with a physical body.
[ 3 ] When the clairvoyant human soul ascends from the elemental world into the spiritual world proper, it experiences itself in conditions which diverge still further than do elemental conditions from those of the physical world. In the elemental world there is still much that is reminiscent of the physical world; but in the spiritual world man confronts entirely new conditions. He can do nothing there if he has only the ideas which are to be gained in the physical world. All the same, man's inner life as a human soul in the physical world must be so strengthened that he will bring over from that world into the spiritual world that which makes a sojourn there possible. If such a strengthened life of the soul were not brought into the spiritual world, man would simply lapse into unconsciousness there. He could only be present there in the same sort of way in which a plant is present in the physical world. We have, as human souls, to bring with us into the spiritual world all those things not really existing in the physical world but manifesting themselves there nevertheless as if they were existent. We must be able to form conceptions in the physical world, which, though prompted by that world, do not directly correspond to any thing or occurrence in it. Every delineation of things in the physical world, or description of physical occurrences, is meaningless in the spiritual world. [ 4 ] What may be perceived with the senses, or expressed in conceptions applicable in the physical world, does not exist in the spiritual world. On entering the latter, everything to which physical ideas can be applied must, so to speak, be left behind. But ideas which have been so formed in the physical world that they do not correspond to any physical thing or process, are still present in the soul when it enters the spiritual world. Naturally some of these ideas may have been formed erroneously. If these are present in the consciousness on its entering the spiritual world, by their very being they prove themselves as not belonging to that world. They act in such a way as to impress on the soul the urgency of returning to the physical world or the elemental world, in order to exchange these erroneous ideas for the right ones. But when the soul brings correct ideas into the spiritual world, what is related to them in that world presses to meet them; the soul feels in the spiritual world that actual beings are present there, who actually are in their whole inner substance what only appear as thoughts within itself. These beings have a body, which may be called a thought-body. In this body they experience themselves as independent beings, just as man experiences himself independently with the physical world.
Now amongst the conceptions acquired by man, there arc certain thoughts saturated with feelings which are adapted to strengthen the life of the soul in such a way that it is able to receive an impression from the beings of the spiritual world. When the feeling of self-surrender, such as must be developed for the faculty of transformation in the elemental world, becomes so much intensified that in that surrender the being into which we are transformed is felt not merely as sympathetic or antipathetic, but can live again in its own special way in the soul surrendered to it, then the faculty of perception of the spiritual world is coming into existence. Then one spiritual being speaks, as it were, in one way to the soul, another in another way; and a spiritual intercourse ensues, which consists in a language of thoughts. We experience thoughts; but we know that we are experiencing beings in these thoughts. To live in beings who do not merely express themselves in thoughts, but arc actually present in those thoughts with their individuality, is to live with the soul in the spiritual world.
[ 5 ] With regard, however, to the beings of the elemental world, the soul has the feeling that they have the cosmic thoughts flowing into their own individual beings, and that they will their own existence in conformity with this universal thought streaming into them.
[ 6 ] But with regard to the beings who need not descend to the elemental world to gain that which man can only gain in the physical world, and who attain that stage of existence in the spiritual world, the human soul has the feeling that they consist wholly of thought substance ; that not only do the cosmic thoughts flow into them, but that the beings themselves actually live in that movement of thought with their individuality. They entirely allow the cosmic thoughts to think themselves within them in a living way. Their life consists in the apprehension of this cosmic language of thought, and their willing consists in their being able to express themselves in thought. This thought-existence of theirs reacts vitally upon the universe, for thoughts which are beings converse with other thoughts which are also beings.
[ 7 ] Human thoughts are the reflection of this spiritual life of thought-beings. During the period through which the human soul passes between death and rebirth, it is woven into this life of thought-beings, just as it is woven into physical existence between birth and death. When the soul enters physical existence through birth, or rather through conception, the permanent thought-entity of the soul works in a shaping and inspiring way on the fate of that soul. In human destiny what has remained of the soul from the earth-lives preceding the present one, works in the same way as pure living thought-beings work in the universe.
[ 8 ] When clairvoyant consciousness enters this spiritual world of living thought-beings, it feels itself to be in a completely new relationship towards the physical world. The latter confronts it in the spiritual world as another world, just as in the physical world the spiritual world appears as another one. But to spiritual sight the physical world has lost everything which can be perceived of it within physical existence. All those qualities seem to have vanished which are grasped with the senses, or the intellect which is bound up with the senses. On the other hand, it is obvious from the standpoint of the spiritual world that the true, original nature of the physical world is itself spiritual To the soul's gaze, looking from the spiritual world, there appear instead of the previous physical world, spiritual beings unfolding their activities in such a way that through the converging of those activities that world comes into being which, looked at through the senses, is the very world that man has before him in his own physical existence. Seen from the spiritual world, the qualities, forces, materials, etc., of the physical world disappear as such, and are revealed as mere appearances. From the spiritual world man sees only beings, and in them lies true reality.
[ 9 ] Similarly from the elemental world, when beheld from the spiritual world, there vanishes everything which is not actual being. And the soul feels that in this world too, it has to do with beings who, by letting their activities converge, cause an existence to become manifest which through the organs of sympathy and antipathy appears as elemental.
[ 10 ] The essential part of projecting one's life into supersensible worlds consists in the fact that beings take the place of the conditions and qualities which the consciousness has around it in the physical world. The supersensible world reveals itself ultimately as a world of beings, and whatever exists in addition to those beings is the expression of their actions. Indeed, both the physical world and the elemental world appear as the deeds of spiritual beings.
Von dem ätherischen Leibe des Menschen und von der ätherischen Welt
[ 1 ] Wenn das hellsichtige Bewußtsein in der elementarischen Welt auflebt, dann findet es dort Wesenheiten, welche in derselben ein Leben entfalten können, das sich der Mensch nur innerhalb der Sinneswelt erwirbt. Diese Wesen erfühlen ihr Selbst - ihr Ich - nicht so, wie der Mensch es in der Sinneswelt erfühlt; sie durchdringen dieses Selbst viel mehr als der Mensch mit ihrem Wollen; sie wollen sich. Sie empfinden ihr Dasein als etwas, das sie sich durch ihren Willen selbst geben. Dagegen haben sie ihrem Denken gegenüber nicht das Gefühl, daß sie ihre Gedanken hervorbringen, wie sie der Mensch hervorbringt; sie fühlen alle ihre Gedanken als Eingebungen, als etwas, was nicht in ihnen, sondern in der Welt ist, und das aus der Welt in ihr Wesen hereinstrahlt. So kann für diese Wesen niemals ein Zweifel darüber entstehen, daß ihre Gedanken das Spiegelbild der über die Welt ausgegossenen Gedankenordnung sind. Sie denken nicht ihre Gedanken; sie denken die Weltgedanken. Mit ihrem Denken leben diese Wesenheiten in den Weltgedanken; aber sie wollen sich selbst. Ihr Gefühlsleben ist diesem ihrem Wollen und Denken gemaß gestaltet. Sie fühlen sich als Glied des Weltganzen; und sie fühlen die Notwendigkeit, sich so zu wollen, wie es diesem Weltganzen entspricht.—
[ 2 ] Wenn sich die geistschauende Seele in die Welt dieser Wesen einlebt, dann kommt sie zur naturgemäßen Vorstellung ihres eigenen Denkens, Fühlens und Wollens. Diese menschlichen Seelenfähigkeiten könnten innerhalb der elementarischen Welt im ätherischen Menschenleib nicht zur Entfaltung kommen. Das menschliche Wollen würde in der elementarischen Welt nur eine schwache, traumhafte Kraft bleiben; das menschliche Denken eine verschwimmende, hinhuschende Vorstellungswelt. Ein Ich-Gefühl käme da überhaupt nicht zum Dasein. Zu alledem ist für den Menschen das Umkleidetsein mit dem physischen Leibe notwendig.
[ 3 ] Wenn die hellsichtige Menschenseele aus der elementarischen in die eigentliche Geisteswelt aufsteigt, so erlebt sie sich in Bedingungen, die noch weiter abstehen von denjenigen der Sinneswelt als die elementarischen. In der Elementenwelt erinnert noch manches an die Sinneswelt. In der geistigen Welt steht man vor völlig neuen Verhältnissen. Man kann da nichts anfangen, wenn man nur die Vorstellungen hat, welche man in der Sinneswelt gewinnen kann. Dennoch muß man als Menschenseele in der Sinneswelt das Innenleben so verstärken, daß man aus dieser Welt in die geistige das hinüberbringt, was den Aufenthalt in derselben möglich macht. Brächte man ein also verstärktes Seelenleben nicht in die Geisteswelt mit, so würde man in derselben einfach der Bewußtlosigkeit verfallen. Man könnte dann in derselben nur so gegenwärtig sein, wie etwa eine Pflanze in der Sinneswelt gegenwärtig ist. Man muß in die geistige Welt als Menschenseele alles dasjenige mitbringen, was in der Sinneswelt nicht vorhanden ist, was sich jedoch innerhalb derselben als vorhanden bezeugt. Man muß sich in der Sinneswelt Vorstellungen bilden können, zu welchen diese wohl anregt, die aber keinem Dinge oder Vorgange in derselben unmittelbar entsprechen. Alles, was dieses oder jenes Ding in der Sinneswelt abbildet, oder was diesen oder jenen sinnlichen Vorgang schildert, ist bedeutungslos in der geistigen Welt.
[ 4 ] Was man mit Sinnen wahrnehmen könnte, was man mit den Begriffen belegen könnte, die sich in der Sinneswelt anwenden lassen, ist in der Geisteswelt nicht vorhanden. Beim Eintritte in die Geisteswelt muß man alles gewissermaßen hinter sich lassen, worauf sinnliche Vorstellungen anwendbar sind. Vorstellungen aber, welche man sich in der Sinneswelt so gebildet hat, daß sie keinem sinnlichen Dinge oder Vorgange entsprechen, die sind in der Seele auch noch anwesend, wenn sie die geistige Welt betritt. Naturgemäß können unter diesen Vorstellungen solche sein, welche irrtümlich gebildet sind. Wenn diese im Bewußtsein beim Eintritte in die geistige Welt vorhanden sind, so erweisen sie sich durch ihr eigenes Dasein als nicht hingehörig. Sie wirken so, daß sie der Seele den Drang einprägen, zurückzukehren in die Sinnes- oder die elementarische Welt, um dort an die Stelle der irrtümlichen Vorstellungen die richtigen zu setzen. Was aber die Seele an richtigen Vorstellungen in die geistige Welt hineinbringt, dem strebt in dieser Welt ein Verwandtes entgegen; die Seele erfühlt in der geistigen Welt, daß dort Wesen vorhanden sind, welche mit ihrem ganzen Innensein so sind, wie innerhalb ihrer selbst nur die Gedanken sind. Diese Wesenheiten haben einen Leib, den man Gedankenleib nennen kann. In diesem Gedankenleib erleben sich diese Wesen als selbständig, wie der Mensch sich innerhalb der Sinneswelt selbständig erlebt. Von den Vorstellungen, welche sich der Mensch erwirbt, sind zunächst gewisse mit Gefühlen durchtränkte Gedanken geeignet, das Seelenleben so zu verstärken, daß es von den Wesenheiten der geistigen Welt einen Eindruck erhalten kann. Wenn das Gefühl der Hingabe, wie es für die Verwandlungsfähigkeit in der elementarischen Welt entwickelt werden muß, so verschärft wird, daß in dieser Hingabe das fremde Wesen, in das man sich verwandelt, nicht nur sympathisch oder antipathisch erfühlt wird, sondern so, daß es mit seiner Eigenart in der Seele, die sich hingibt, aufleben kann, dann tritt die Wahrnehmungsfähigkeit für die geistige Welt ein. Es spricht dann gewissermaßen das eine geistige Wesen in dieser, das andere in einer anderen Weise zur Seele. Und es entsteht ein geistiger Verkehr, der in einer Gedankensprache besteht. Man erlebt Gedanken; aber man weiß, daß man in den Gedanken Wesen erlebt. In Wesen zu leben, die in Gedanken sich nicht bloß ausdrücken, sondern die mit ihrem Eigensein in den Gedanken anwesend sind, heißt mit der Seele in der geistigen Welt leben.
[ 5 ] Gegenüber den Wesenheiten der elementarischen Welt hat die Seele das Gefühl, daß diese Wesenheiten die Weltgedanken in ihr Eigensein hereinstrahlend haben, und daß sie sich wollen in Gemäßheit dieses in sie einstrahlenden Weltendenkens.
[ 6 ] Gegenüber den Wesenheiten, welche nicht zur elementarischen Welt herabzusteigen brauchen, um das zu erreichen, was der Mensch erst in der Sinneswelt erreicht, sondern welche zu dieser Stufe des Daseins schon in der geistigen Welt gelangen, hat die Menschenseele das Gefühl, daß diese Wesenheiten ganz aus Gedankensubstanz bestehen, daß die Weltengedanken in sie nicht nur einstrahlen, sondern daß die Wesen selbst mit ihrem Eigensein in diesem Gedankenweben leben. Sie lassen völlig die Weltgedanken in sich lebend denken. Ihr Leben verläuft in dem Wahrnehmen der Weltgedankensprache. Und ihr Wollen besteht darin, daß sie sich gedankenhaft zum Ausdrucke bringen können. Und dieses ihr Gedankensein wirkt wesenhaft auf die Welt zurück. Gedanken, welche Wesen sind, sprechen mit anderen Gedanken, welche auch Wesen sind.
[ 7 ] Das menschliche Gedankenleben ist das Spiegelbild dieses geistigen Gedankenwesenlebens. In der Zeit, welche für die menschliche Seele zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt verläuft, ist sie in dieses Gedankenwesenleben so einverwoben, wie sie in der Sinneswelt in das physische Dasein einverwoben ist. Tritt die Seele durch die Geburt (beziehungsweise durch die Empfängnis) in das Sinnessein, so wirkt die Gedanken-Dauer-Wesenheit der Seele so, daß sie das Schicksal dieser Seele ausgestaltet, inspiriert. In dem menschlichen Schicksale wirkt dasjenige, was aus den der Gegenwart vorangegangenen Erdenleben von der Seele verblieben ist, so, wie die reinen Gedankenlebewesen in der Welt wirken.
[ 8 ] Wenn das übersinnliche Bewußtsein in diese - geistige - Welt der Gedankenlebewesen eintritt, so fühlt es sich gegenüber der Sinneswelt in vollständig neuen Verhältnissen. Diese Sinneswelt steht ihr in der geistigen Welt als eine «andere Welt» gegenüber, so, wie ihr die geistige Welt in der Sinneswelt als eine andere gegenübersteht. Aber es hat diese Sinneswelt für die Geistesschau alles verloren, was von ihr innerhalb des Sinnesseins wahrgenommen werden kann. Wie verschwunden sind alle Eigenschaften, welche durch Sinne oder den an die Sinne gebundenen Verstand aufgefaßt werden. Dagegen zeigt sich von dem Gesichtspunkte der geistigen Welt aus, daß die wahre, die ureigene Natur der Sinneswelt selbst geistig ist. Es treten für den Seelenblick, der von der geistigen Welt aus schaut, statt der früheren Sinneswelt geistige Wesen auf, die ihre Wirksamkeiten entfalten, und zwar so, daß durch das Zusammenströmen dieser Wirksamkeiten die Welt entsteht, welche, durch Sinne angesehen, eben zu der Welt wird, welche der Mensch in seinem eigenen Sinnessein vor sich hat. Von der Geisteswelt aus gesehen, verschwinden die Eigenschaften, Kräfte, Stoffe usw. der Sinneswelt; sie enthüllen sich als bloßer Schein. Man hat von dieser Welt aus nur noch Wesenheiten vor sich. In diesen Wesenheiten liegt die wahre Wirklichkeit.
[ 9 ] Ähnlich ist es mit der elementarischen Welt. Auch aus dieser entschwindet für den Blick von der geistigen Welt her alles, was nicht Wesenheit selbst ist. Und die Seele fühlt, daß sie es auch in dieser Welt mit Wesenheiten zu tun hat, welche durch das Zusammenströmenlassen ihrer Wirksamkeiten ein Dasein erscheinen lassen, welches durch die Organe der Sympathie und Antipathie eben als elementarisches erscheint.
[ 10 ] Ein wesentlicher Teil des Einlebens in die übersinnlichen Welten besteht darin, daß an die Stelle der Zustände und Eigenschaften, welche das Bewußtsein in der Sinnes-welt um sich hat, Wesenheiten treten. Die übersinnliche Welt offenbart sich zuletzt als eine Welt von Wesenheiten; und was außer diesen Wesenheiten noch vorhanden ist, als Ausdruck der Taten dieser Wesenheiten. Aber auch die Sinneswelt und die elementarische Welt erscheinen als die Taten der geistigen Wesenheiten.
Of the etheric body of man and of the etheric world
[ 1 ] When the clairvoyant consciousness comes to life in the elemental world, it finds beings there who can unfold a life in it that man only acquires within the sense world. These beings do not feel their self - their I - in the same way as man feels it in the sense world; they permeate this self much more than man with their will; they want themselves. They perceive their existence as something that they give themselves through their will. On the other hand, they do not have the feeling towards their thinking that they produce their thoughts as man produces them; they feel all their thoughts as inspirations, as something that is not in them but in the world, and that radiates from the world into their being. Thus there can never be any doubt for these beings that their thoughts are the reflection of the order of thoughts poured out upon the world. They do not think their thoughts; they think the thoughts of the world. With their thinking, these beings live in the thoughts of the world; but they want themselves. Their emotional life is shaped in accordance with their willing and thinking. They feel themselves as a member of the world whole; and they feel the necessity to will themselves in a way that corresponds to this world whole.
[ 2 ] When the spirit-seeing soul settles into the world of these beings, it comes to the natural conception of its own thinking, feeling and willing. These human soul abilities could not unfold within the elemental world in the etheric human body. Human volition would remain only a weak, dreamlike force in the elemental world; human thinking would be a blurred, scurrying world of imagination. A sense of self would not come into existence at all. For all this, being clothed in the physical body is necessary for the human being.
[ 3 ] When the clairvoyant human soul ascends from the elemental into the actual spiritual world, it experiences itself in conditions that are even further removed from those of the sensory world than the elemental. In the elemental world many things still remind us of the sense world. In the spiritual world we are faced with completely new conditions. You can do nothing there if you only have the ideas that you can gain in the sense world. Nevertheless, as a human soul one must strengthen the inner life in the sense world in such a way that one brings over from this world into the spiritual world that which makes the stay in it possible. If one did not bring such a strengthened soul life into the spiritual world, one would simply fall into unconsciousness in it. One could then only be present in it in the same way as a plant is present in the sense world. As a human soul one must bring into the spiritual world all that which is not present in the sense world, but which proves to be present within it. One must be able to form ideas in the sense world to which it certainly stimulates, but which do not correspond directly to any thing or process in it. Everything that depicts this or that thing in the sensory world, or that describes this or that sensory process, is meaningless in the spiritual world.
[ 4 ] What one could perceive with the senses, what one could describe with the concepts that can be applied in the sensory world, does not exist in the spiritual world. When entering the spiritual world, one must, so to speak, leave behind everything to which sensory concepts can be applied. But ideas which one has formed in the sense world in such a way that they do not correspond to any sensual thing or process are still present in the soul when it enters the spiritual world. Naturally, among these conceptions there may be those which are erroneously formed. If these are present in the consciousness when it enters the spiritual world, then they prove to not belong there through their own existence. They act in such a way that they impress upon the soul the urge to return to the sensory or elementary world in order to replace the erroneous ideas with the correct ones. But what the soul brings into the spiritual world in terms of right ideas, a relative strives towards in this world; the soul senses in the spiritual world that beings are present there, which are with their whole inner being as only thoughts are within themselves. These beings have a body which can be called the thought body. In this thought body these beings experience themselves as independent, just as the human being experiences himself independently within the sense world. Of the ideas which the human being acquires, certain thoughts imbued with feelings are initially suitable for strengthening the soul life in such a way that it can receive an impression of the beings of the spiritual world. If the feeling of devotion, as it must be developed for the ability to transform in the elementary world, is intensified in such a way that in this devotion the foreign being into which one transforms oneself is not only felt sympathetically or antipathically, but in such a way that it can come to life with its peculiarity in the soul that devotes itself, then the ability to perceive the spiritual world occurs. One spiritual being then speaks to the soul in this way, the other in another. And a spiritual communication arises which consists of a language of thought. One experiences thoughts; but one knows that one experiences beings in the thoughts. To live in beings who do not merely express themselves in thoughts, but who are present in the thoughts with their own being, is to live with the soul in the spiritual world.
[ 5 ] In relation to the beings of the elementary world, the soul has the feeling that these beings have the world thoughts radiating into their own being, and that they want to live in accordance with this world thinking radiating into them.
[ 6 ] In contrast to the beings who do not need to descend to the elementary world in order to achieve what man first achieves in the sense world, but who already reach this stage of existence in the spiritual world, the human soul has the feeling that these beings consist entirely of thought substance, that the world thoughts not only radiate into them, but that the beings themselves live with their own being in this weaving of thoughts. They allow the world thoughts to live in them completely. Their life proceeds in the perception of the world thought language. And their will consists in the fact that they can express themselves thoughtfully. And this being of their thoughts has an essential effect on the world. Thoughts, which are beings, speak with other thoughts, which are also beings.
[ 7 ] The human thought life is the mirror image of this spiritual thought being life. In the time that passes for the human soul between death and a new birth, it is interwoven into this thought being life in the same way as it is interwoven into the physical existence in the sense world. When the soul enters the sensory world through birth (or conception), the thought-permanent being of the soul works in such a way that it shapes and inspires the destiny of this soul. In the human destiny, that which has remained of the soul from the earth lives preceding the present works in the same way as the pure thought beings work in the world.
[ 8 ] When the supersensible consciousness enters this - spiritual - world of thought beings, it feels itself in a completely new relationship to the sense world. This sense world stands opposite it in the spiritual world as an "other world", just as the spiritual world stands opposite it in the sense world as another. But this sense world has lost everything for the spiritual vision that can be perceived by it within the sense being. How vanished are all the qualities that are perceived through the senses or the mind bound to the senses. On the other hand, from the point of view of the spiritual world, it is evident that the true, intrinsic nature of the sense world itself is spiritual. For the soul's vision, which looks from the spiritual world, spiritual beings appear instead of the former sense world, which unfold their activities, and in such a way that through the confluence of these activities the world arises which, seen through the senses, becomes precisely the world which man has before him in his own sense being. Seen from the spiritual world, the qualities, forces, substances, etc. of the sense world disappear; they reveal themselves as mere appearances. From this world one has only entities before one. True reality lies in these entities.
[ 9 ] It is similar with the elementary world. From this world, too, everything that is not essence itself disappears for the view from the spiritual world. And the soul feels that in this world, too, it has to do with entities which, by letting their efficacies flow together, make an existence appear which, through the organs of sympathy and antipathy, appears as elementary.
[ 10 ] An essential part of entering the supersensible worlds consists in the fact that entities take the place of the states and qualities which consciousness has around it in the sensory world. The supersensible world ultimately reveals itself as a world of entities; and what is still present apart from these entities, as an expression of the deeds of these entities. But the sense world and the elementary world also appear as the deeds of the spiritual beings.