Esoteric Lessons for the First Class of the School for Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum by Rudolf Steiner Second Lesson – Dornach, February 22, 1924

Esoteric Lessons for the First Class of the School for Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum

by Rudolf Steiner

Translated from the German by Frank Thomas Smith

Second Lesson – Dornach, February 22, 1924

My dear friends,

We will relate what is said today to the previous lesson, partly to preserve the thread, and partly because there are members present who were not here last time. We shall therefore start with a short recapitulation of the last lesson.

We proceeded in thought to the place where the human being – who with normal consciousness can grasp the sense-world, which is the world that surrounds him – can feel himself related to the super-sensible, related to a being which corresponds to his own being. And we want to first develop this sensation before proceeding to the mysteries of the spiritual life, which we will do shortly.

The first sensation should make us aware of how the human being, in his normal condition, lives surrounded by the world of the senses, which however he is not able to identify with his own being. We shall therefore develop this theme. And although the words “Know thyself!” have been enunciated throughout the ages, encouraging man to perform his noblest deeds, still he can find no answers, no satisfaction if, under the influence of “Know thyself”, he only sees what the senses provide – the exterior world. Now, however, he is directed towards something else, something beyond the exterior world.

If with this sensation, which one can have when one gazes out to the depths of cosmic space with the question of his own being in mind, when in thought we approach super-sensible being, which is one with the inner human being, then the corresponding sensation will be given through the words I provided to you the last time:

Where on earth-foundations, color upon color,
Life creative manifests itself;
Where from earthly substance, form on form,
The lifeless world is fashioned;
Where the sentient beings, powerful in will,
Delight in the warm glow of their existence;
Where you yourself, O Man, derive
Your bodily existence from earth and air and light:

There you do enter, for your own true-being,
Cold, night-enveloped darkness.
In vain you ask of the dumb expanse
What you are, what you were, or will become.
For your own being, this light of day grows dim
To the soul's night, the darkness of the spirit.
Then do you turn your anxious seeking soul
Unto that light that shines out of the darkness.

We can now observe and feel in our souls the beauty, the greatness and the sublimity of the external world, but we also realize that we can never find our own being in this world. For the person who seeks the spirit, it is necessary to repeatedly feel this sensation in his soul. Because by deeply experiencing the sensation that by looking out into the external world we gain no answer to the question of who we are, feeling this sensation again and again gives the soul the impulse and the strength that can carry us into the spiritual world. Yet just as by having this sensation we will be carried up into the spiritual world, we must also bear in mind that the person of normal consciousness in normal life is unprepared to encounter that world, which in reality is the world of his own being.

Therefore on the border between the sense-world and the spiritual world that guardian stands who earnestly warns people against crossing over into the spiritual world unprepared. And it is the case, my dear friends, that we must always keep in mind the fact that the Guardian stands before the [entrance to] the spiritual world for the well-being of unprepared human beings. And we must therefore be quite clear about the necessity for a certain attitude of soul in order to achieve real knowledge and insight.

If such insight were provided to everyone walking down the street it would be terrible for them because they wouldn't be prepared. They would be receiving it without the preparatory attitude of soul. Therefore we must deeply feel the second sensation which over and over again tells us how we must approach the Guardian:

And from the darkness there appears,
In your own likeness manifesting you,
Yet forming you into a deeper parable,
Mightily working, in the cosmic ether,
The solemn spirit-word your heart can hear.

The Spirit-Messenger to you: he who alone
Can lighten up your path.
Before him lie the far-spread fields of sense-existence,
Behind him yawn the depths of the abyss.

And here, before the darkness of the spirit-fields,
Hard by the yawning chasm of existence,
Rings forth the ancient power of his creator-word:
Behold, I am the only gate of knowledge.

Then the Guardian himself speaks while we are still on this side, in the sense-fields. He points to the other side where for us is unmitigated darkness while we are on this side, but which is to become light-filled, which must become light to us through spirit-knowledge, from out of which he speaks who alone is bright. He speaks, indicating the apparent darkness, this maya-darkness:

From the wide expanse of beings in space
Who experience existence in light,
From the tread of time's onward course
Which finds in creating its very activity,
From the depths of the feeling heart
Where in the Self the world is founded:

There resounds in the soul's utterance,
There shines from the spirit's thoughts
Which from divine healing forces
In the cosmic-creative powers
Weave the mighty existential words:
O Man, know thyself! 

Whoever can feel deeply enough the words which resound from the Guardian's mouth, if he looks back upon himself, will realize that this looking back, the perception in looking back, constitutes the first stage of self-knowledge. Self-knowledge which is preparatory for the true self-knowledge which reveals spiritual cosmic knowledge of the being which is one with our own humanity. And then the knowledge arises which one can obtain on this side of the threshold of spiritual existence, knowledge which reveals the contamination in our own thinking, feeling and willing in terrible but true images; as three beasts arising from the yawning abyss between the sense-world and the spirit-world.

What we should feel at the abyss of being between the maya, the illusion, and the real world, should appear before our souls as the fourth sensation.

Yet you must beware of the abyss;
Otherwise its beasts will devour
You, if you pass by me in haste.
Your cosmic age has placed them there
In you as enemies of knowledge.

Behold the first beast, the crooked back
The bony head, the scrawny body,
His skin is all a dullish blue;
Your fear of creative spiritual being
Begat the monster in your will;
Knowledge bravery alone will overcome it.

We must be quite clear, my dear friends, that bravery in acquiring knowledge is not present at first in the soul, but cowardice for acquiring knowledge is what dominates. Especially in our time that cowardice is what holds back most people from even approaching an insight into the spiritual world. 

Behold the second beast, it bares
Its teeth in a warped face, scornfully it lies,
Yellow with gray spots is its body;
Your hate of spiritual revelation
Begat this weakling in your feeling;
Your burning thirst for knowledge must subdue him.

That is the second thing that we have within us – which plants doubt in our soul, every kind of uncertainty about the spiritual world. It is inherent in feeling, because feeling is weak and cannot rise to enthusiasm. True knowledge must outgrow superficial enthusiasm which trails all kinds of cheap external life. Inner enthusiasm, inner fire which becomes a burning thirst for knowledge; that is what overcomes the second beast.

Behold the third beast, with cloven muzzle,
Its eye is glassy, posture slouching,
Dirty-red its form appears to you;
Your doubts in the power of spiritual light
Begat this ghost within your thinking;
Your creative knowledge must make it yield. 

We must find the courage and the fire to bring activity to our thinking. When we create with ordinary consciousness we create arbitrarily, we create what is not real. When, however, we correctly prepare ourselves for creative thinking, the spiritual world streams into our creative thinking. And then, due to knowledge-bravery, to a burning thirst for knowledge and to creative knowledge, we are truly standing in the spiritual world. 

Only When you have overcome all three
Will wings sprout from your soul
To fly the abyss over,
Which separates you from the knowledge fields
To which your heart desires
To consecrate itself in healing.

Such sensations can lead to feeling what we must activate in ourselves in order to enter the spiritual world as genuine, living human beings. In ordinary life it is often the most banal things which cause us to realize that life is serious and not a mere game. But what leads to knowledge does not impress us as much as exterior life does. It is all too easily made a game. And one is convinced that the game is in earnest. But one harms one's self and others greatly by playing at spiritual striving, by not being completely earnest about it.

This earnestness should not be expressed as sentimentality. Humor may be called for with respect to some aspects of life. But the humor must then be serious. When we compare earnestness with mere game-playing, it is not sentimentality, false piety or the rolling of eyes as opposed to games. Rather is it the possibility of really concentrating on spiritual striving and consistently and wholeheartedly living in it.

In order to sense the importance of what I am saying, my dear friends, it would be really good for spiritual striving if all the friends who are sitting here – especially those who have been in the Anthroposophical Society for a long time – to ask themselves the following question: How often have I resolved to undertake some task related to anthroposophical life, and how often have I completely forgotten about it after a short time? Perhaps I would have done it if I had thought about it, but I did not think about it any more. It was extinguished, just as a dream is extinguished.

It is neither meaningless nor unimportant to ask yourselves such a question. And perhaps it would not be unimportant if a large number of our friends were to undertake something in this direction now.

The Christmas Conference [1923] was to be the beginning of true esotericism pouring into the entire anthroposophical worldview stream, supported by the Anthroposophical Society. How often – one can ask – have I forgotten what I found to be quite beautiful during the Christmas Conference and in my thoughts and feelings continued as though the Anthroposophical Society were the same as it was before the Christmas Conference. And if someone says: that is not the case with me, it could be quite important for that person to ask himself: Am I fooling myself to think it is not the case with me? In respect to all anthroposophical activity have I realized that a new phase of the Anthroposophical Society has begun? To ask this question is very significant, for then the correct earnestness enters the soul.

And you see, this is connected to the life-blood of the Anthroposophical Society and therefore to the life-blood of every member who has requested acceptance in the Class; and it is good if it relates to something which exerts a strong influence in life. Therefore it would be good if all those who wish to belong to the Class ask themselves: Isn't there something I can do – now that the Anthroposophical Society has been re-founded – do differently than previously. Couldn't I introduce something new into my life as an anthroposophist? Couldn't I change the way I acted previously by introducing something new?

That would be enormously important, if taken seriously, for every individual who belongs to the Class. For thereby it would be possible for the Class to continue without being burdened by such heavy baggage. For everyone who keeps to the old humdrum routine burdens the progress of the Class. It is perhaps not noticeable, but true nevertheless. In esoteric life there is no possibility of introducing what is so prevalent in life: interpreting lies as truth. If one tries to do this in esoteric life it is not the interpretation which matters, but the truth. In esoteric life only the truth works, nothing else. You may color something because of vanity, but what has been colored makes no impression on the spiritual world. The unvarnished truth is what is effective in the spiritual world.

From all this you can judge how different spiritual realities are – which under the surface of life work today as always – from what everyday life shows, patched up as it is with so many lies. Very little of what passes today between people is true. To continually remind ourselves of this belongs to the beginning of work within the Class. For only with this notion can we find the strength to cooperate here in the Class with what will be unfolded in our souls from lesson to lesson in order that we may find the path to the spiritual world. 

For we will only be able to recognize what must be cultivated in our thinking, feeling and willing in order for the three beasts to be defeated: thinking, the thought - phantom; feeling - mockery; willing - the bony crookedness of spirit. For these three beasts are the enemies of knowledge. We see them in the mirror, but as realities from the yawning abyss of being.

And deeply rooted with our humanity is everything which hinders us from real knowledge, firstly in our thinking. Normal human thinking is reflected in the thought-phantom of the first beast, the form of which was described thus:

Behold the third beast, with cloven muzzle,
Its eye is glassy, posture slouching,
Dirty-red its form appears to you;

It is the image of ordinary human thinking which thinks about things of the outside world and doesn't realize that such thinking is a corpse. Where did the being live whose corpse this ordinary thinking is?

Yes, my dear friends, nowadays – in accordance with contemporary civilization – when thinking from waking in the morning till retiring at night according to the guidance given us in school and in life itself, our thinking is a corpse. It is dead. When did it live, and where?

It lived before we were born; it lived when our souls were in pre-earthly existence. Just as you imagine, dear friends, that the human being lives on the physical earth animated by his soul within and he goes around in this physical body until his death, when the animating soul is invisible to external observation and the corpse is visible – the dead form of the human figure. You must imagine this related to thinking. A living, organic, growing, moving being possessed it before the human being entered into earthly existence. Then it becomes a corpse buried in our own heads, in our brains. And just as if a corpse in the tomb were to declare: I am the man! so declares our thinking when it lies buried in the brain as a corpse and thinks about the external things of the world. It is a corpse. It is perhaps depressing to realize that it is a corpse, but it is true, and esoteric knowledge must hold to the truth. 

That is the meaning of the Guardian of the Threshold's words. After he has described the warning of the three beasts, he continues. And the words which resound in our hearts are these:

The third beast's glassy eye,
Is the evil counter-image
Of thinking, that denies itself
In you and chooses death,
Forsaking the spirit-force
which before it's earthly life
Lived in fields of spirit.

I will repeat it:

The third beast's glassy eye,
Is the evil counter-image
Of thinking, that denies itself
In you and chooses death,
Forsaking the spirit-force
which before it's earthly life
Lived in fields of spirit.

Thinking, with which we achieve so much here in the sense-world, for the gods of the cosmos is the corpse of our soul's being. By entering into an earthly existence we have died in thinking during this time on earth. The death of thinking had gradually been preparing itself since the year 333 A.D. The middle of the fourth post-Atlantean period. Before that life had poured into thinking, which was the heritage of pre-earthly existence. The Greeks felt that vitality, as did the Orientals, in that they thought of thinking as being the work of the spirit, of the gods. They knew, in that they thought, that in every thought the god lived. That has been lost. Thinking has become dead. And we must heed the message of the times that reaches us through the Guardian:

Yet you must beware of the abyss;
Otherwise your beasts will consume you
If you hastily pass me by;
Your cosmic age has put them in
You, as enemies of knowledge. 

This cosmic age began in the year 333 after Christianity began, after the first third of the fourth century had passed. And now thinking, devoid of the force of life, is clearly present in everything. And the dead thinking of the nineteenth century forced dead materialism to the surface of human civilization.

It is different with feeling. The greatest enemy of humanity, Ahriman, has not yet been able to kill feeling in the same way he killed thinking. Feeling also lives in human beings in the present cosmic age. But man has to a great extent driven this feeling down from full consciousness into the halfway unconscious. Feeling arises in the soul. Who has it in his power, as he has thinking in his power? To whom is it clear what lives in feeling as it is clear to him what lives in thinking?

Take one of the saddest – to the spirit saddest – occurrences of our times, my dear friends. When people think clearly they are citizens of the world, for they well know that thinking makes you human, even when it is dead in the present age.

But people are separated by their feeling into nations, and especially today they let this unconscious feeling dominate in the worst possible way. Because people feel themselves as only belonging to a certain group, all kinds of conflicts arise.

Nevertheless, world karma places us in a certain human group, and it is our feeling that acts as an instrument of world karma when we are placed in this tribe, in that class, in that nation. It is not through thinking that we are so placed. Thinking, if it is not colored by feeling and willing, is the same thinking everywhere. Feeling, however, is graduated according to the different regions of the world. Feeling lies halfway in the unconscious, alive yes, but in the unconscious. Therefore the ahrimanic spirit, unable to exert influence on the living part, uses the opportunity to agitate in the unconscious. And he concentrates this agitation on the confusion between truth and error. All our prejudices based on feeling are colored by ahrimanic influences and impulses.

If we want to enter the spiritual world this feeling must rise up before our souls. We must be able to include feeling in the development of knowledge. Through constant review of our own being, we must be able to know what kind of persons we are as feeling human beings. This is not easy. With thinking it is relatively easy to achieve clarity about ourselves. We don't always do it, but it is still easier to admit: you are not exactly a genius, or you lack clear thinking about this or that. At the most, it is either vanity or opportunism which prevents us from achieving clarity about our thinking.

But with feeling we never really get to the point of observing ourselves in our souls. We are always convinced that the direction of our feeling is the correct one. We must delve most intimately into our souls if we wish to know ourselves as feeling human beings. Only by facing ourselves directly with complete conscientiousness do we lift ourselves up, do we lift ourselves up over the obstacles which the second beast places before us on the path to the spiritual world. 

Otherwise, if we do not occasionally practice this self-knowledge as feeling human beings, then we will always develop a mocking countenance with respect to the spiritual world. Because we are not conscious of our ailing feeling capacity, we are also unconscious of being mockers of the spiritual world. We disguise the mockery in all possible forms, but we are still mocking the spiritual world. And it is just those, of whom I spoke previously, who lack earnestness, who are the scoffers. They are sometimes embarrassed to express the mockery even to themselves, but they are still mocking the spiritual world. For how can one lack seriousness regarding the spiritual world, playing games about it, without mocking it. To such as they the Guardian speaks:

The second beast's mocking countenance
Is the evil counter-force of feeling,
Which hollows out its own soul
And creates an empty life
Instead of fullness of spirit
With light from the force of the sun
Before earthly existence. 

The first beast is the reflection of our will. The will does not only dream, it does not lie only half in the unconscious; it lies completely in the unconscious.

I have often described to you, my dear friends, how the will lies deep in the unconscious. And deep in the unconscious is where man seeks the paths of his karma, at least for ordinary consciousness. Every step that a person takes in life related to karma is measured. But he knows nothing about it. It is all unconscious. Previous earth-lives work forcefully into his karma. Karma leads us to our life's crises, to our decisions, to our doubts. Here we meet the individual's aberrations, the person who lives only for himself, and seeks only his own way. In thinking: one seeks the path which all men seek. In feeling: one seeks the path which his group seeks. In feeling we recognize if someone is from the north, from the west or the south, from eastern, southern or central Europe. One must concentrate on the will's unconscious impulses in order to see another human being as a single individual, rather than merely a human being in general or a member of a group. This is an act of will – but also deep in the unconscious. The first beast shows the aberrations of the will.

The Guardian reminds us:

The first beast's bony spirit:
The will's evil creative power,
Which would estrange your own body
From the soul's inherent strength
And devote it to the counter-forces,
Which would steal in future time
Cosmic being from the gods. 

In our willing work the spiritual powers which want to strip our bodies from us during our earthly existence and therewith take a portion of our souls with it, in order to build an earth which does not continue to develop as Jupiter, Venus, Vulcan. Rather the earth is to be sundered from divine intentions and stolen at some point in the future. Together with the earth stolen from the gods, the human being would be united with certain powers which work in his will...the same will through which he seeks his karma.

The first beast is surely capable of revealing in a mirror-image what is working in the will: bony head, dried-out body with dull blue skin, the crooked back. It is the Ahrimanic spirit, which acts in the will when karma is being sought and which can only be overcome by the courage of knowledge. So the Guardian of the Threshold speaks about this beast as I have just described.

I will read it again:

The first beast's bony spirit:
The will's evil creative power,
Which would estrange your own body
From the soul's inherent strength
And devote it to the counter-forces,
Which would steal in future time
Cosmic being from the gods. 

In these words from the Guardian of the Threshold's mouth resound further the warning to the human being seeking knowledge and insight.

Let the following words live most intensively in our souls, my dear friends, and let us listen often to the Guardian's words:

The third beast's glassy eye,
Is the evil counter-image
Of thinking, that denies itself
In you and chooses death,
Forsaking the spirit-force
which before it's earthly life
Lived in fields of spirit.

Once again, you must grasp the concordance in these verses

[The first stanza of this mantram is written on the blackboard:]

The third beast's glassy eye,
Is the evil counter-image
Of thinking, that denies itself
In you and chooses death,
Forsaking the spirit-force
which before it's earthly life
Lived in fields of spirit.

At first we feel what each stanza contains.

The second stanza refers to feeling:

[The second stanza is written on the blackboard.]

The second beast's mocking countenance
Is the evil counter-force...

[counter-"force”, no longer “part”, but “force”!] ...of feeling,

Which hollows out its own soul
And creates an empty life
Instead of fullness of spirit
With light from the force of the sun
Before earthly existence.

Now we feel first: “denies”, and then “hollows out” and feel the nuance that enters into the verses by “denies” becoming “hollows out”.

The Guardian's words directed to willing:

The first beast's bony spirit:
The will's evil creative power,
Which would estrange your own body
From the soul's inherent strength
And devote it to the counter-forces,
Which would steal in future time
Cosmic being from the gods. 

This third stanza is written on the blackboard:

The first beast's bony spirit:
The will's evil creative power,

[Now no longer “image” or “force”, but “power”. You must feel the escalation.]

Which would estrange your own body

[and now you have here the escalation: first the intellectual: “denies”; then instigation in inner life: “hollows out”: then what completely eliminates inner life: “estrange”.]

From the soul's inherent strength
And devote it to the counter-forces,
Which would steal in future time
Cosmic being from the gods.

Note that in all three stanzas the word “evil” echoes. [The word is underlined.] And if you observe and feel the critical points in the escalations and in the difference between thinking, feeling and willing [the words are underlined], and if you correctly sense how all three are united by the always recurring word “evil”, then, my dear friends, each stanza will become a mantram for you, according to its inner meaning. And they can become a guide on the three stages to the spiritual world – that of the third beast, of the second beast and of the first beast. And if you never omit these three concordances and never fail to unite the three by the one decisive word towards an inner soul- then they will become your guide, my dear friends, on the path past the Guardian of the Threshold and into the spiritual world.

We will get to know him better in the following lessons.

The third beast's glassy eye,
Is the evil counter-image
Of thinking, that denies itself
In you and chooses death,
Forsaking the spirit-force
which before it's earthly life
Lived in fields of spirit.

The second beast's mocking countenance
Is the evil counter-force of feeling,
Which hollows out its own soul
And creates an empty life
Instead of fullness of spirit
With light from the force of the sun
Before earthly existence.


The first beast's bony spirit:
The will's evil creative power,
Which would estrange your own body
From the soul's inherent strength
And devote it to the counter-forces,
Which would steal in future time
Cosmic being from the gods. 

Esoteric Lessons for the First Class of the Free School for Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum by Rudolf Steiner Lesson One in Prague

Esoteric Lessons for the First Class

of the Free School for Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum

by Rudolf Steiner

Lesson One in Prague

From stenographic records not revised by the speaker. The original stenographic records for the two lessons in Prague were not preserved, nor were the blackboard drawings.

Translated by Frank Thomas Smith

Prague, April 3, 1924

My dear Friends,

Since the Anthroposophical Society has been re-founded in a new form during the Christmas Conference, what had been given in the old Anthroposophical Society as esoteric instruction in various groups shall now stream into the School for Spiritual Science, which shall be a kind of center for the whole anthroposophical movement within the Anthroposophical Society. Naturally, according to the nature of its activities, this School will be centered at the Goetheanum in Dornach; and there we will strive more and more and will finally achieve the form which is sought: that it be expanded to reach all the friends who belong to the anthroposophical movement the world over who cannot come to Dornach. And what I will tell you today in this lesson and in the next esoteric class, my dear friends, will be spoken within this School for Spiritual Science. As an introduction I wish to inform you about its constitution.

Those who decide, after having been members of the Anthroposophical Society for two years, to become members of this School, acquire certain obligations in a spiritual sense. And the leadership of the School will always endeavor, when issuing the membership cards, to ascertain whether the persons involved are able to take on such spiritual obligations.

When someone enters the Anthroposophical Society he or she at first presumes – and rightly so – that they will learn and experience Anthroposophy. They wish at first to become acquainted with Anthroposophy. And therefore since the Christmas Conference complete openness is the rule; also that the members of the Anthroposophical Society are not subject to obligations of any kind.

Nevertheless, whoever becomes a member of the Free School for Spiritual Science must keep in mind that this School for Spiritual Science is to be the source of anthroposophical life in the present and in the immediate future. Anthroposophical life is founded on what has always been called “secret knowledge” or “occult science”. This is not meant to imply that the world “occult” is to be understood as meaning that a small circle of people is doing things that the rest of the world may not know; rather it has always meant that what is taught in the Esoteric Universities has its source in the deepest hidden inner core of the human being, as opposed to what belongs to the outer world, in a certain sense outside the human body. And that has always been called “secret” or “occult” as opposed to “public”. Occult means that the knowledge designated as such is manifested in the deepest, occult inner being of the human being; and it must not lose its rightful place, its rightful appreciation, even its rightful image if it is profaned when it is made publicly accessible, as always happens when things are made widely accessible to the public, for we can then assume that these things are not received with the necessary earnestness and the necessary esteem.

The first thing that must be required of the person who undertakes this esoteric training is that he or she does so with the deepest earnestness. And the School for Spiritual Science also has this requirement. And it demands of its members that they be true representatives of the anthroposophical worldwide movement in all walks of life. So that this School, or its leadership, most be responsible for saying to anyone it does not consider to be a true representative that they can no longer be members of the School.

This is not a tyrannical regulation, my dear friends, it is rather one based on the principle: freedom for freedom. If the leadership of the School wishes to lead it in the proper way, then it must be able to say with whom it forms the School's content. And for this reason we must indicate the earnestness with which the person who wishes to approach the School grasps Anthroposophy as a worldwide movement.

In order the satisfy the needs of all those who come to it under the present conditions of civilization in order to enhance their spiritual life, the School has been divided into Sections. The indications I will give during this and the next lesson are meant to be within the General Anthroposophical Section, which I myself will lead, along with the Pedagogical Section.

Within the School for Spiritual Science we will also have a Section for the Arts of Speech and music, under the leadership of Marie Steiner; a Medical Section under the leadership of Dr. Ita Wegman; a Section of the Sculptural Arts under the leadership of Miss Maryon; we will also have a section dedicated to the fine arts – something practically ignored today to the detriment of civilization – under the leadership of Albert Steffen; then an Astronomical section led by Dr. Vreede; and a section for Natural Science led by Dr. Wachsmuth.

We have also recently established, due to necessity, something about which nothing can yet be said because it is in such ferment, but one which the School in the Goetheanum has the honest intention to deal with: a Youth Section has been founded based on what the youth of today is striving for, although young people can only express themselves unclearly about what they are seeking. Objectively considered, this is something quite new – to clarify, to make conscious what is cloaked in obscure feelings of lacking something. To raise all this to clear consciousness is what the Section – which I may now call the Section for Youth-Wisdom – is striving for.

The Free School for Spiritual Science wishes to offer esoteric life as an extension of what can be found in today's external culture – what the world longs for in the strongest way – without realizing that what is striven for is just what should live in the esoteric activity of our School for Spiritual Science.

We have no intention of imitating what today's external universities do in a different way. That happened when certain opinions – not influenced by me – were tried out in Dornach. I saw them from the beginning as not quite correct. But in these things we are obliged to accept what is striving for the light of day. So now that the trial has been made and it has become obvious that the objective cannot be reached in that way, the School should no longer give the impression that it is competing with what is done in typical universities, but that it give to humanity what it is not possible to receive in typical educational institutes; it should be something which humanity profoundly desires.

In this way, the Free School for Spiritual Science is meant to be a true center for what is experienced in the anthroposophical movement.

When I say that this School should be taken with the utmost earnestness, I would like to indicate at the same time that these words themselves are not taken seriously enough. Therefore I should like to emphasize it again. Not the person who considers the esoteric life that is to flow through this School as something that lives alongside his life, so to speak; not that person will be a member of this School in the right way, but only the person whose life is completely permeated with the truth that an internal connection between his life and the esoteric teaching that flows from this School must exist, will be a member in the right and proper sense.

Because, my dear friends, you will not judge this School correctly if you consider it to be the result of human arbitrariness. This School is a spiritual determination; it arose by listening to what the spiritual powers that guide the world consider to be what is correct for humanity in our times.

Do not therefore consider this School to be a human enterprise. Consider it, rather, as the institution which derives from the will of the spiritual beings who are near to the earth and who work for the welfare of humanity.

If you consider it to be the earthly reflection of a spiritual institution, then you understand it in the right way. And when you realize that he who speaks every word within this School feels responsible to none other than the spiritual powers who lead the anthroposophical movement, then will you feel correctly in this sense. So this School is an understanding between the spiritual powers responsible for the present evolutionary phase of humanity and those who seek membership in this School.

You stand so to speak, my dear friends, directly before the spiritual world when you become a member of this School. And the more intensively you comprehend this, the more you will carry within you what this School must be, what alone gives it a real meaning. Whoever knows that the spirit itself speaks through the School will surely find the necessary earnestness to follow what is happening here.

All that we do in Dornach in the School by and by – one cannot take the fifth step before the third one, but only by and by after the fourth – will be sent in the corresponding notifications to all the members of the School. So that over time by and by an inner contact will be established between each individual member, no matter where he may be, and what flows from this School in Dornach.

*

Our first consideration, my dear friends, will be directed to what the person meets who earnestly sets out on the path to esoteric knowledge.

Real knowledge, my dear friends! We must clearly realize that what we meet in the outer world are the tasks to fulfill in the physical earthly life between birth and death. And we would misunderstand ourselves and the gods if we disdained what we meet in the physical world between birth and death. Human beings should dedicate themselves to their tasks in the physical world. But what do we find in this physical world? We finds beauty, greatness, grandeur in all that we see in the wonderful formations of the mineral kingdom, which also forms the ground which we need in order to accomplish our earthly tasks. We find wonderful majesty in the vegetable kingdom; we find what we need in the animal kingdom, what is our own in the physical human kingdom. We find these things in the kingdoms of nature elevated to the sublime when we lift our gaze to the clouds, to the blue sky or to the stars, to the sun and the moon. To not find beauty, greatness and grandeur in all this would lead us along the wrong path in life.

To enter the esoteric does not mean denying all this beauty, greatness and grandeur which meets us. But no matter how far we go into the mineral world with its wonderfully formed crystal shapes, no matter how far we go into colorful world of vegetation from which the sunlight reflects on to us, no matter how far we also go in observing at what magically emanates in the animal word from the depths of nature's being, and how we admire the way in which the secrets of the world unite within this physical human form, what we feel in our profound inner being we do not find in all those kingdoms of form and color and life in this world. And finally the individual stands within this world and may say: I feel the greatness, the beauty and the grandeur of everything that unfolds out there in forms and in colors; but what I myself am must originate in another world.

It it just when one strongly feels the beauty, greatness and grandeur of the physical, sensory world and feels that he cannot find there what the best part of what he himself is, the more is he urged to where all esoteric teaching begins: he is urged towards the abyss beyond which lies the human being's true origin. He is urged towards that abyss from where he must see the frontier between the sensory world and the spiritual world; he is urged to a place at the abyss where he is shown a kind of bridge which leads over to a completely different world, at the entrance of which lies the threshold to knowledge and to the spiritual world.

And what I am to tell you now, my dear friends, are the messages from the figure which has always been called the Guardian of the Threshold in esoteric circles.

It stands there, that lofty figure – those who achieve initiation learn to recognize it – a being who is truly no less real than a physical human being on earth, who in its reality towers far above the physical person on earth.

But the person who at first receives the esoteric messages in the form of concepts and feelings in an unprejudiced way, must feel how this Guardian of the Threshold stands there reminding the seeker for knowledge what he must experience if he really wishes to enter the field of knowledge.

Why does the Guardian of the Threshold stand there? He stands there because true knowledge can only be achieved if we seek it with the correct, positive preparation and attitude. True striving for knowledge is not theoretical. True striving for knowledge is only achieved when the soul rises above what the sensory world offers.

He who approaches this knowledge too early and unprepared, without the correct attitude, will not achieve it in the right way. He will cause harmful effects to himself and to the world. Achievement of true striving for knowledge is to a large extent the case for those who seek the right path to the spiritual world as it will be taught in the three Classes of the School for Spiritual Science. This is also the case, although more in an inner soul sense, for those who wish to merely accept information about the spiritual world. [“soul” is meant here as a lower level of knowledge than the “spiritual” level. Trans.] There must be at least an echo, however, of what the candidate for initiation experiences during his encounter with the Guardian of the Threshold.

It is this experience we are going to talk about now. For whoever receives these informative messages and allows them to work on him with the appropriate earnestness in the right way by practice and feeling, finds in them the path leading over the Threshold and into the spiritual world.

So, my dear friends, let our souls experience now what the Guardian of the Threshold brings to our attention if we wish to advance from the apparent-knowledge on this side of the world to the true knowledge on the other side.

There he stands with his admonishing gaze. He speaks about how the world of the senses is beautiful and great and sublime. But he also speaks about how the human being cannot find in this beautiful and great and sublime world what he considers the most meaningful, the most essential part of him. He points, this Guardian of the Threshold, over the abyss which extends to the left and to the right of the Threshold, he points to another region, to the region of the spirit. There, however, deepest darkness reigns at first. And it must occur to the human being that in the deepest darkness in him caused by the sensory world's impressions lies the source, the origin of his own being.

And when translated from the spiritual language that the Guardian of the Threshold speaks, this is approximately what he says when the person approaches his earnest gaze:

Where on earthly ground, color on color
Life is manifest in creation;
Where from earthly matter, form on form,
The lifeless is given shape;
Where sentient Beings, strong in will
Warm themselves in joy of existence;
Where you, O man, your bodily being
derive from earth and air and light.

There your true being enters
Deep, night-cloaked, cold darkness;
You ask in the dark sweeping expanse
No longer, who you are and were and will be.
For your own being the day grows dimly
To the soul's night, to spirit-darkness;
And you turn with angst of soul
Toward the light that from darkness streams.

And from out the darkness you appear,
– you in image shape revealed –
Yet also a parable of you,
Earnest spirit-words in cosmic ether
Heard by your heart, imparting strength,

The Spirit-Messenger, who alone
Can light for you the way;
Before him the fields of sense widen,
Behind him yawn the abyss-depths.

And before his dark spirit-fields,
Hard by the yawning abyss of being,
Resounds his anciently potent creative words:
Behold, I am the only gate to knowledge.

My dear friends, When the Guardian of the Threshold draws attention to the enormous contrast that exists between what can be seen by the senses before contact with the Guardian of the Threshold and what can be deduced from the darkness that lies beyond the Threshold, and when the seeker begins trying to investigate the origin and source of his own being, then he is allowed to anticipate what awaits him – what awaits him when he becomes capable of living in that light which must first appear from out of the darkness on the other side of the abyss. And then the Guardian of the Threshold continues, his words resounding (I will bring these words written on a piece of paper the next time) the second time the Guardian indicates what the person may expect when he crosses over the Threshold and has developed the organ within his own illuminated interior in order to leave the darkness behind and approach what the Guardian of the Threshold now speaks:

From the distant beings in space
Who experience existence in light,
From the stages of the course of time,
Which finds expression in creating,
From the depths of heart-felt feeling
Where in the Self the world is fathomed:

They resound in the speech of the soul,
They gleam in the spirit-thoughts,
From divine curative powers,
In the cosmic formative forces
The undulating existential words:
O man, know thyself.

Thus the Guardian points to the spaces of existence where being is experienced in light, and those other spaces of existence where in the march of time the creative powers work from epoch to epoch; the depths of the human heart's feeling are pointed to, where the whole world presents itself as though in a mirror. In that these three worlds are pointed out – the world of space, the world of time, the world of heart-felt depths – the eternal existential words can resound from the world-creating powers: “O man, know thyself!”

Then the human being's inside aspect must be shown. But this aspect is not only in the human interior, but also in the entire world. What we bear inside us immediately goes forth and shapes itself in the exterior cosmic ether. Oh, the secret thoughts, the secret feelings and the desires and willing – they immediately go forth and take shape in the cosmic ether. So that in the outer world in the form of such shapes we see ourselves as we really are.

While seeing ourselves as we really are the Guardian of the Threshold resounds, explaining to a certain extent what we are. For why is the abyss there, dividing the sensory world from the spiritual world? It is there so that the forces arising within us may not accompany us over the Threshold. Such forces are within us which want to hold us back, not allow us to cross over the Threshold to true knowledge. There are such forces in our thinking; there are such forces in our feeling; there are such forces in our willing.

They are formless when we only have an idea of them. When we envision them though, these hindering, hampering powers which are in our thinking, feeling and willing – inscribed in the cosmic ether – then they appear as misshapen beasts. And whoever cannot see in this meaningful image of misshapen beasts what in his own inner self pulls him down, hindering the crossing the threshold, cannot truly know himself. The moment in life must come when we see before us the images of what lives in our thinking, feeling and willing as restraining forces. We may not have any illusions about this. With ordinary consciousness we usually do not know what we are like, and we do not take what we are seriously. The Guardian of the Threshold makes us conscious of this in the form of images, in the form of truth.

These are the words with which he explains the figures which will be engraved in the ether by the opposing forces in our will, feeling and thinking. The human being must stand horrified before these figures which he inscribes in the cosmic ether; and only then will he feel what he must overcome if he wants to progress toward true knowledge.

The Guardian of the Threshold speaks explaining the figures that rise up as figures in our thinking, feeling and willing:

Yes, you must beware of the abyss;
Otherwise its beasts will devour You
if you pass by me in haste.
Your cosmic age has placed them there
In you as enemies of knowledge.

Behold the first beast, the crooked back
The bony head, the scrawny body,
His skin is all a dullish blue;
Your fear of creative spiritual being
Begat the monster in your will;
Knowledge bravery alone will overcome it.

Behold the second beast, it bares
Its teeth in a warped face, scornfully it lies,
Yellow with gray spots is its body;
Your hate of spiritual revelation
Begat this weakling in your feeling;
Your flame for knowledge must subdue him.

Behold the third beast, with cloven muzzle,
Its eye is glassy, posture slouching,
Dirty-red its form appears to you;
Your doubts in the power of spiritual light
Begat this ghost within your thinking;
Your creative knowledge must make it yield.

Only when you've defeated the three
Will wings sprout upon your soul
To fly the abyss over,
Which separates you from the knowledge fields
To which your heart desires
To consecrate itself in healing.

Only when we have seen, shuddering, images of the opposing powers in our thinking, feeling and willing, does the strength arise from these negative forces enabling us to enter the true field of knowledge. And whoever does not want to see himself in the images of the three beasts which exist in human beings because he fears knowledge, hates knowledge and doubts knowledge, will never attain self-knowledge. Nor will he who hesitates, shuddering so to see himself, attain world knowledge.

Therefore, my sisters and brothers, these three beasts are placed once again before your souls as the Guardian speaks:

Yes, you must beware of the abyss;
Otherwise its beasts will devour You
if you pass by me in haste.
Your cosmic age has placed them there
In you as enemies of knowledge.

Behold the first beast, the crooked back
The bony head, the scrawny body,
His skin is all a dullish blue;
Your fear of creative spiritual being
Begat the monster in your will;
Knowledge bravery alone will overcome it.

Behold the second beast, it bares
Its teeth in a warped face, scornfully it lies,
Yellow with gray spots is its body;
Your hate of spiritual revelation
Begat this weakling in your feeling;
Your flame for knowledge must subdue him.

Behold the third beast, with cloven muzzle,
Its eye is glassy, posture slouching,
Dirty-red its form appears to you;
Your doubts in the power of spiritual light
Begat this ghost within your thinking;
Your creative knowledge must make it yield.

Only when you've defeated the three
Will wings sprout upon your soul
To fly the abyss over,
Which separates you from the knowledge fields
To which your heart desires
To consecrate itself in healing.

How the human being obtains the wings, how he finds the strength to defeat these three beasts, will be the subject of the next lesson, Saturday afternoon at 5 p.m.

And when these words in such a visibly horrible form have pointed toward our self-knowledge, when they have rung out, then once again – as if in perspective – what may be expected when the words “O man, know thyself!” are fulfilled. But only the first part can be given by observing the three beasts. The rest will be the subject of the next lesson.

Then the Guardian of the Threshold calls out once again:

From the distant beings in space
Who experience existence in light,
From the stages of the course of time,
Which finds expression in creating,
From the depths of heart-felt feeling
Where in the Self the world is fathomed:

They resound in the speech of the soul,
They gleam in the spirit-thoughts,
From divine curative powers,
In the cosmic formative forces
The undulating existential words:
O man, know thyself.

Finding & Embracing our Double

Reginald Machell 

IT is the Double that shields us from the otherwise penetrating blaze of purity, that in a higher form of passion is diffused and filtered by the host of past company we bring with us...

The phantom man is not to be despised inasmuch as it is what we have made it, and also from the viewpoint that all parts which comprise our being hold great and significant purpose....

If you consider the position of men and women who are growing in evolution, you will find that goodness may well be disproportionate and uncontainable to aspects of their fledgling egos. Too much of anything can bring about unbearable pressure from without and within, and this holds true also for even goodness as known to us by the actions of the spirit.

The body of the Double is astral indeed, although it is not the whole of our astral composure, yet it can most definitely walk about as whole when cleaved from the constitution of a man. As a ghost it can and does wander seeking out those things to which it is stimulated to - ever wanting of the world even after its connections have been severed from.

Depending upon the spiritual nature of the man from whom it has been made, it may be that it does disseminate quite rapidly. Or if it has been comprised and saturated with life during the incarnation and belongs to a temperament which lusts and leaks with habitual self-indulgence which lies contrary to creativity, sharing or life, then this shade of a man can wander quite strong in self, having had so much vitality poured into its nature whilst the man had lived, that it may then go on into perpetuation, hovering and leeching off those who hold to similar activity.

Our first consideration with this being is that it is foremostly impressionable to us and of our making and that we are indeed responsible in every way for it. It is the greater host to the community of lesser elementals which we carry; whilst at the same time it, unlike they, holds signatory and solitary being. The lesser elementals and thought-forms which flit around a man have a primary body which is shared amongst them and it is innocuous to good or to evil permutations. This primary body holds a group consciousness of kind, which experiences the impressions of the man collectively amongst other men concurrently.

Our Double however, holds an individuality which is its own insofar as it is distinct from our own spirit-beings and holds a degree of self-awareness which may one day work independently of the man to whom it is attached. The difficulty in concept here, is only that the Double referred to comprises an impermanent body which breaks down eventually after the soul of the man has retired from the Earth (usually this is so, but there are exceptions longstanding). Whilst also there is the being of the Double, who is as a deformed Angel that is committed to the individual and all of his story over the eons of lifetimes and has been scorned in nature, and like the knotted and twisty-gnarly tree of countless seasons of soul, bears all of the sins attributable to that man for which it follows.

Oh, what hideous spectre does pursue me!
All my years from Heaven to Earth and back again;
That gaze goes through me and I am shamed once more!
I have led this pitiable creature to Hell,
But it would not stay; saying:
"Do you not love me for what you have made of me?"
And of all the vile essences expressed in that accusation,
No truer judgment could set upon the jailer himself.
And once again I know my remorse.

These beings of remorse are the ongoing soul-natures which are ensheathed in astral passion, central to our Double's manifesting. They too have being and incarnating body - that of the astral substance in which we have clothed them.

The souls of Man have caused much pain to many kingdoms which support him. There are creatures dismissed into death for the purpose of sustenance; and this does not only occur with man as carnivore, but also Man in thought. His very processes impinge upon the sensitivities of beings who dwell in the neighboring etheric World, and then also into the higher realms as well. All of this must eventually turn around and change, when Man is then servant to the life he has expended on his account; and opportunities for such will arise and greet him, and the processes he goes by will be exchanged for a maturity of proper community.

Fundamental principles live themselves out in Man and must work their way through in every respect, in all of the layers of his behavior and design. These principles must make their shift from the core itself as it seems, and can only do so in the persistence of the ego's conscious demands to align with the truth of the spirit.

Love in actuality can be viewed, even in this system, as more of a philosophy. The fact that good and evil coexist has long been an argument for the placing of the shadow in relation to the light, and if for the exercise of thinking alone, there are points along these lines which can be seen to be reasonable. This may ennoble the active choice therefore for loving, inasmuch as it says that love itself is not obligatory and yet it overrides marvelously the discordant and fractured harmonies. (That sounds as though it is a contradiction, but it is no more a contradiction as is the coexistence of good and of evil, and we thought a fitting example, in truth.)

When you say that the likeness is disturbing because of the lack of discernment, this is highlighting one of the most interesting concerns any student or teacher could have. That we may have affection for an Anti-Christ because of his likeness to the Christ, and this is what brings us to him, leads us to ask if the differences between are separately important. Everything is less or more than it appears and it is the very task of the esotericist to learn to divine the properties and discover their intrinsic value as separate to each other. The power in this knowledge is in that we may now further question the apparent from the not-so-obvious realities; and may we be considered in our approach, to see if we have a light which is deflected or a look-alike that is only partly what we may think it to be, and partly perhaps that which we do not.

This study of men and their Double may bring with it a healing in relation to their fears. All experiences encountered within the world are known to Man because they have originated in a spiritual reality, with a similar experience beginning in the Heavens. Fear as it is within the higher man became known when he first felt separation from Father God. The separation itself was and wasn't so; and yet the fear struck at the heart and seized the consciousness because things were not fundamentally what they should be, and it came with the realization of this being so.

It is the fear that alerts us to the 'Uh oh' realization that change is moving upon us a little too rapidly to connect the past to the future with "I looked about and He was gone" - the fear in our soul is that we shall become Godless, because Godlessness to the Soul is death. The soul is in fear of its own end, and there is inbuilt the apprehensive knowledge of this possibility. How this is so cannot rightly be explained, simply because the Soul itself is intact and not given firsthand to the experience ordinarily.

But one may well imagine the horrors the soul may shudder with, when it suffers a loveless life as delivered it by the ego. As the ego advances it quite often is delirious and unempathetic to its encounters. When we first sensed our selves we then lost our sense of God in the strongest intuition, and then this followed through with regards to all other life to which He is apparent. This is one reason why love becomes our greatest savior, because the ego understands love and through it appeases others, our souls and our God; whilst naught else may bring them all together.

It is true to suggest that there are fears (such as this just mentioned) which live on in a man deep beneath his consciousness and have very early and unknown origins. It is interesting to watch a man in his emanations and activity when his consciousness is taken to trust and his thoughts and desires act out from an impulse which is from love before all else.

Any activity of ego can have the burden of the fear (all fears combined) within its structure. Even works which are self-pleasing (or perhaps what should be said is especially works which are self-pleasing) carry with them those fears that live both in higher reaches of self and also in double. However, when the ego is effaced with the action of one's loving occupation, attention, empathetic or sympathetic resonance and so forth, there is God working through them also to bring about the answer to the fear, the great fear, of Him having gone from their lives. So that when we experience the love beneficently, then to same measure we can say God is with us. The panic in the soul may well come from our own lovelessness, and so Man must learn to cease the search for self-indulgence alone, but seek more to fulfill and to love all else more perfectly.

The 'lower self' is a term usually used in direct relation to a specific example, and yet can be misleading if put to a schedule in blatant aspect. For example: the powers which converge around the organs and desires for reproduction are often alluded to as being incorporated within the 'lower self' or 'lower nature' or 'lower desires' whereas, those same powers are of the highest influence and principle working through Man.

The resources which pertain to the physical expression and psychic-astral vitalities can prove to incorporate a greater creativity in which God and Christ enter into Man. Such wholesome and high powers may also be left out of the process; and here the principle and example of the Double and J's remark about likeness is perfectly exampled, in that the physical act alone may well be mistaken for the godly, whilst the godly act may also be misnamed as being only that of the 'lower'. Man must align and synchronize all of his powers that they flow through from the very highest apex of his being into all that he does (and back again), for the powers not to be wasted, spilling over into that of the Double instead. From this you can see that the term 'lower' of itself is relative to that which we describe, and misleading if put to category. That which is divorced from the higher impulses can be confined to being an expression of just that alone, whilst what we may consider to be purely lower may indeed be a vehicle for the profound.

To answer an incidental question also along these lines, relative to what was just said: in the case of a man being influenced by alcohol whilst coupling, he is indeed divorced from the higher powers which perhaps could have become manifest (if also the true love was present). He is literally cut off at the waist (below both head and his heart) and the emanatory process astrally mimic less than the animals. This too falls under the activity of the Double, who is charged with vitality which promotes self-interred activity.

The interest the being of alcohol holds for the promotion of unredeemed Doubles is mainly in that of their likeness to him - a veritable Anti-Christian army, proud and assuming, ruthless in their desires, hollow in their beings, severed from the true heart and mind and their reaches.

There can be much envy which follows from the man who has lived the empty and hollow existence, inspired to hopefully contrast himself with how he could and should one day be; and although the envy is framed in a dark countenance, it comes with a wanting from a haphazard soul. This is the beginning perhaps to a change to be wrought within, for there are many promptings to self-improvement which bring about the necessary beginnings and willings for change.

Often we have stipulated that men should involve themselves in those things day-to-day which fulfill them and inspire them, and warm them to further life, for the consequence of this is that they will learn to lovingly appreciate this world and interact with all beings well because of it. Either we are discordant or harmonious; and in being discordant we are unproductive in the long run, being given to an artificial life which has only the veneer and appearance of living. The only reality is Love, and Man must learn to divine the true from the false accordingly.

-B.Hive