An Outline of Occult Science

But the former of these two feelings requires the greater degree of inner energy, for which reason the second is the more common among beginners in occult training. But it may gradually come to pass that the student will become aware of having been during the entire time of sleep in this other world, only emerging therefrom when he awakes. And his memory of beings and facts connected with this other world will become ever more and more distinct, thus showing that in one form or another he has now entered upon what one may call continuity of consciousness. (The continuation of consciousness during sleep.)

Still, for this to be so, it is not necessary that man's consciousness should always continue during sleep. Much will already have been attained in the matter of the continuity of consciousness should [pg 300] the person, whose sleep is in general like that of the ordinary individual, have certain periods during his sleeping hours when he is aware of being in the psycho-spiritual world; or if, on awakening, he is able to remember such a condition of consciousness. It should, however, be borne in mind that what is here described is to be understood only as a transition state. It is well to pass through this state as a part of training; yet it should not be imagined that any conclusive views concerning the psycho-spiritual world may be gained from this transition state, for in this condition the soul is uncertain, and unable as yet to rely upon its own perceptions. But through such experiences the soul gathers ever more strength enabling it also during waking hours to ward off the disturbing influences of the physical outer and inner world and thus to attain psycho-spiritual observation. Then impressions through the senses no longer reach the soul; brain-fettered reason is silent and even the image of the meditation, through which one has only prepared oneself for spiritual vision, has been dropped from consciousness. Whatever is given out through occult science in this or that form should never originate in any psycho-spiritual observation other than that which is made with fully waking consciousness. The first experience is one in which the student can say to himself:

Even should I now disregard everything that can come to me through impressions from the outer physical world, still I look upon my inner being not as upon one in which all activity has ceased, but I look upon a being [pg 301] which is self-conscious in a world of which I know nothing as long as I permit myself to be governed only by the impressions of ordinary reason and of the senses. The soul at this moment has the sensation that, in the manner described above, it has given birth to a new being as its own essential soul-kernel. And the being possesses totally different qualities from those which were previously present in the soul.

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

This is an event of great importance, for through it man comes to know what it means to live in that world which he has been endeavoring to reach by means of training. It is this second, this new-born, ego which can be led to cognizance of the spiritual world, and in it can be developed that which has as much significance for the spiritual world as our sense organs have for the physical world of the [pg 302] senses. Should this development have attained to the requisite degree, the student will not only be aware of himself as a new-born ego, but he will recognize the spiritual facts and entities around him, just as he perceives the physical world through the action of his physical senses; and this is a third important experience.

To meet properly this stage of spiritual training one must take into account that with the strengthening of the forces of the soul a degree of self-love and egoism appears with such intensity as is quite unknown in the ordinary life of the soul. It would be a mistake for anyone to think that it is only a case of ordinary self-love at this point. Self-love becomes so strong at this stage of development that it acquires the strength of a nature-force within the soul, and a vigorous training of the will is necessary in order to conquer this powerful egoism. This training of the will must go hand in hand with the rest of the spiritual training. A strong inclination exists to feel absolutely happy in a world which we have gradually created for ourselves. And we must be able to obliterate, in the manner above described, that to which we have previously devoted ourselves with all our powers. We must efface ourselves in the imaginative world we have reached. But this effacement is opposed by the strongest impulses of egoism.

The idea might easily arise that the exercises in spiritual training are something merely external which have no connection with the moral development [pg 303] of the soul. In this connection it must be said that the moral force necessary for the conquest of egoism, as described, cannot be gained unless the moral condition of the soul is brought to a corresponding stage. Progress in spiritual training is unthinkable unless moral progress takes place at the same time. The conquest of egoism is impossible without moral force. All talk of spiritual training not being at the same time moral training is certainly contrary to fact.

Only he who passes through such an experience might advance the following objections: how can one be sure to be dealing with actualities, and not with mere fancies, visions or hallucinations, when he thinks he is having spiritual perceptions? Now the matter lies thus: every person, who has been systematically trained and who has arrived at the stage already characterized, will be in a position to note the difference between his own percept and a spiritual reality, just as well as a man endowed with sound sense knows the difference between the percept of a bar of hot iron and the actual presence of such a bar that he touches with his hand. The difference is determined by experience and by nothing else; and in the spiritual world, too, life is the touchstone. Just as we know that in the world of the senses an imagined bar of iron, however hot, will burn no one's fingers, so does the trained occultist know whether he is passing through a spiritual experience merely in his imagination or whether his awakened spiritual organs of perceptions are impressed [pg 304] by actual facts or beings. The precautions to be taken during schooling, in order that the student may not fall a victim to such delusions will be dealt with in the following pages.

It is of the greatest importance that the student should have attained to a certain very definite condition of the soul when the consciousness of the new-born ego commences. For through his ego, man is the ruler of his sensations, feelings, and conceptions, his impulses, desires, and passions. Observations and percepts cannot be left in the soul to follow their own devices; they must be regulated according to the laws of thought. And it is the ego, as it were, that controls these thought-laws, and by means of them brings order into the life of perception and thought.

It is similar with regard to desires and passions, inclinations and impulses. The fundamental ethical laws become the guides of these forces of the soul, and by reason of the moral judgment, the ego becomes the soul's guide within this domain. Now if a person detaches a higher ego from his ordinary ego, the latter becomes to a certain extent independent. That much life-power is now taken away from it as is needed for the use of that higher ego. But let us consider the case of a person who has not, as yet, developed certain ability and firmness in exercising the laws of thought and in the power of judgment, but who nevertheless desires to bring about the birth of his higher ego. He will be able to leave to his ordinary ego only as much thought capacity as he [pg 305] has previously developed. If the amount of well-ordered thinking is insufficient, then the ordinary ego which has now become independent, will certainly fall victim to confused, disordered, fantastic thoughts and judgment, and moreover, since in such a case the new-born ego must inevitably be weak also, the disordered lower ego will gain the upper hand, and the person will lose his ability for balanced judgment. Had he developed sufficient capability and firmness in logical thinking, he might have calmly left his ordinary ego to go its own way.

In the ethical sphere it is precisely the same. Should a person not have attained firmness in the matter of his moral judgment, should he not have become sufficiently master over his inclinations, impulses, and passions, he will then render his ordinary ego independent while in a condition in which it will be overwhelmed by all these soul forces. It may then happen that the person will become worse through the birth of his higher ego than he was before. Had he waited to bring about this birth until he had sufficiently developed his ordinary self, attaining firmness in the matter of ethical judgment, stability of character, and depth of conscience, he would then have been in a position to have all these virtues left within that first ego when the birth of the second came about. Neglecting to do so, however, lays him open to the danger of losing his moral balance, which under the right course of training cannot happen.

Anyone who has the firm intention of doing all in his power that may give confidence to the first ego in the execution of what it has to fulfil, need never be dismayed when the second ego becomes detached as the result of such spiritual training. Yet he must remember that the power of self-delusion in man is very great with regard to the belief that he has now reached the stage of “ripeness” for any special thing.

During the spiritual training here described the student develops his thought-life to such an extent that he is not exposed to dangers which are often thought to be connected with training. This cultivation of thought brings about all the inner experiences that are necessary, but causes them to be so enacted that the soul lives through them without any injurious shocks. Without an adequate development of thought, these experiences may produce a feeling of great uncertainty in the soul. The method here emphasized calls forth experiences in such a way that they may produce all their effect and yet not cause serious shocks. By developing the life of thought the student becomes more of a spectator of the experiences of his inner life, whereas without such thought-development he is in the very midst of the experience and is shaken by all the shocks incidental to it.

Systematic training points out certain qualities which the student must acquire by means of exercises, in order to find the way to the higher worlds and especial stress is laid on the following,—control of the soul over its thoughts, its will, and its feelings. The manner in which this control is acquired through exercise has a dual aim. On the one hand, the soul by this practice acquires a firmness, reliance, and balance, which will not forsake it even after the birth of the second ego; and on the other hand, this latter ego is provided with strength and inner fortitude for its journey.

What is required is that man's thinking power shall in all domains conform to facts. In the physical world of the senses, life is the great teacher of the human ego with regard to reality. Were the soul to allow its thoughts to roam aimlessly hither and thither, it would soon be corrected by life, unless it were willing to enter into combat with it; the soul must conform its thoughts to the facts of life. Now, when man leads his thoughts away from the world of the physical senses, he misses the corrective influence of this latter. If his thought is not able to be its own mentor, it will be as unsteady as a will-o'-the-wisp. Consequently, the student's thought must be exercised in such a way that its course and object are self-determined. Inner firmness and a capacity to concentrate strictly on one object: this is what such thinking must of itself engender. And for this reason the thought exercises should not be concerned with complicated objects or those foreign to [pg 308] life, but should, on the contrary, deal with those that are simple and familiar. Any one who succeeds in fixing his mind, over a period of several months and for a space of at least five minutes a day, on such ordinary objects as a pin or a lead pencil, excluding for the time being all other thoughts not concerned with the object under contemplation, will have accomplished much in the right direction. (A new article may be chosen each day, or the same one adhered to for the space of several days.)

Even those who feel themselves to be “thinkers” need not despise this method of preparing themselves for occult training, because by fixing the attention for a time upon a really familiar object one may be sure that he will be thinking in accordance with facts, and one who asks himself the questions: “What are the constituent parts of a pencil?” “How are these materials prepared?” “How are they afterwards put together?” “When were pencils invented, etc.?” will surely be adapting his perceptions to realities more than he who meditates on the descent of man, or asks himself what life is.

Simple thought exercises prepare us better for an adequate concept of the world in its Saturn, Sun, and Moon stages of development than those based on learned and complicated ideas. For the important thing is not at all just to think, but to think in conformity with facts by means of an inner force. Once one has been trained to accuracy by means of an obvious, physical sense process, the desire to think in conformity with facts will have become habitual, [pg 309] even if thought does not feel itself under the control of the physical sense-world and its laws; we then lose the tendency to let our thoughts drift about aimlessly.

And as in the world of thought, so in the realm of the will, the soul must become the ruler. In the physical sense-world it is life that rules. It urges upon man this or that as a necessity, and the will feels itself constrained to satisfy these same wants. In following higher training, man must accustom himself to obey his own commands strictly, and those who acquire this habit will feel less and less inclined to desire what is of no moment. All that is unsatisfying and unstable in the life of the will comes from the desire for things of the possession of which we have formed no distinct concept. Discontent such as this may, when the higher ego is desirous of emerging from the soul, throw that person's whole inner life into disorder; and it is a good exercise to give oneself for the space of several months some command to be carried out at a specified time of day: “To-day, at this or that particular hour, you will do this or that thing.” Thus we gradually become able to command the time at which a thing is to be done and the manner in which it is to be performed, so as to admit of its being accomplished with utmost exactitude. Thus we lift ourselves above the bad habit of saying, “I should like this,” and “I want the other,” while exercising no thought of the possibility of its accomplishment.

In the second part of Faust, Goethe puts the following words into the mouth of a seeress: “Him I love who craves the impossible,” and Goethe himself, in his “Prose Proverbs,” says: “To live in the idea means treating the impossible as though 't were possible.”

Such sentiments must not be put forward as objections against what has here been stated, for the demands made by Goethe and his seeress (Manto) can be fulfilled only by those who have first educated themselves through desire for that which is possible, and have in so doing, arrived at being able, by means of their strong “will,” to treat the “impossible” in such a manner that through their willing it becomes transformed into the possible.

A certain equanimity should pervade the soul of the occult student concerning the world of feeling. And to attain this result, it is necessary that the soul should have mastery over the expressions of joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain. But it is just concerning the acquisition of this faculty that some prejudice might arise: one might be afraid of becoming dull and indifferent if he does not “rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.” Yet this is not what is meant. What is pleasurable should rejoice the soul, and sorrow should give it pain, but what the soul is to learn to achieve is control over the expression of joy and sorrow. If that is his aim, the student will become aware that, far from becoming “dull and unsympathetic,” he will be growing all the more receptive to the joy and [pg 311] sorrow around him. But it is true that the student will here find that he needs to watch himself carefully for a considerable time to be able to acquire the faculty indicated. He must be careful to see that he partakes of pain and pleasure to the full, yet without so giving himself up to either that he gives involuntary expression to it. It is not justified sorrow that should be suppressed, but the involuntary weeping; not the revulsion against a mean act, but the blind raging in anger; not the precaution against danger, but the senseless “being afraid,” etc.

It is only by means of such exercises that the occult student can gain the inner calmness of soul necessary in order that, at the birth of the higher ego, the soul may not find itself as a kind of double, leading a second and unhealthy life alongside of the higher self. It is especially in these matters that we should not yield to self-deception. Some people may be of the opinion that they already possess in everyday life a certain degree of equanimity, and that they therefore stand in no need of such exercises; yet it is especially those who doubly need them. For it is quite possible to remain equable when surveying the things of this life, and then when ascending into the higher world to show evidences of a want of equanimity all the greater because it had only been held in check. For it should be emphatically understood that in the matter of occult training it is not so much a question of what we may already seem to possess, but of carefully and regularly practicing what we need. Contradictory [pg 312] as this phrase may appear, it is nevertheless true that though life may have trained us to this or to that, the qualities to serve us in occult training are those that we have acquired for ourselves. Should life have rendered us excitable, we must train ourselves to conquering this trait; yet if life has engendered in us equanimity, we should so rouse ourselves by our own efforts that the soul may be capable of responding to the impressions it receives.

Thought and feeling may be cultivated by yet another means, namely, by the acquirement of the characteristic known as positiveness. There is a beautiful legend in which it is related of Christ Jesus, that He, with others, passed the dead body of a dog. The others turned aside from the hideous sight, but Christ Jesus spoke admiringly of the creature's beautiful teeth. One can, through practice, attain to the condition of mind in regard to the world, which is indicated in this legend. Error, vice, and ugliness should not deter the soul from seeing truth, goodness, and beauty, wherever they are to be found. Nor is this positiveness to be mistaken for want of judgment, or for deliberately closing the eyes to what is bad, false, and inferior. He who can admire the beautiful teeth of a decaying animal can also see that decaying corpse—yet the corpse does not hinder his observing the beauty of the teeth. Thus, though what is bad cannot be deemed good, nor [pg 313] error acclaimed as truth, we can yet train ourselves so that what is bad need not prevent us from recognizing what is good, nor need errors render us insensible to that which is true.

Thought, combined with will, attains to a certain maturity if we strive never to allow what we have already experienced or learned to rob us of our unbiased receptiveness for new experiences. Such a thought as: “I have never heard that before; I don't believe it!” should lose all significance where the occult student is concerned; indeed, he should endeavour, for a fixed period of time, to allow every thing and every creature to convey something new to his mind. Every breath of air, every leaf on the tree, the prattling of a child,—each and all will teach him something, provided he be willing to bring a different point of view to bear upon it from the one he has hitherto held.

It may, of course, be possible to go too far in this particular, and we must not at any time lose sight of the experiences we have previously had. Indeed, what we experience in the present should be judged in accordance with the sum of our past experiences. These must be laid on one side of the scale, while on the other the occult student should place an inclination for ever gathering new knowledge. Above all, a belief in the possibility that new experiences may contradict the old.

Thus we have enumerated those five qualities of the soul which the occult student in regular training, should acquire; control of the trend of his thoughts; [pg 314] control of the impulses of his will; equanimity in sorrow and joy; positiveness in his judgment of the world; and impartiality in his view of life. After giving consecutive periods of time to the acquiring of these qualities through continued practice, the student must go still further, and bring all these qualities into a harmonious whole within the soul, to achieve which, he will have to practice the exercises in twos and twos together, or three and one, simultaneously, so as to bring about the harmony desired.

The exercises indicated above are thus given out by occult teaching because if faithfully carried out, they not only produce in the occult student what we have called above direct results, but they lead indirectly to much else that is needed on the path to the higher worlds. He who practices these exercises sufficiently will, while doing so, become aware of many a lack and many a failing in his own soul-life, and he will at the same time find in them the very means necessary to give strength and security to the intellect, to the emotional tendencies and to the character as well. He will assuredly need many additional exercises, according to his capacities, temperament, and character; these, however, will present themselves if the above be frequently carried out. Indeed, one will notice that the already indicated exercises, indirectly, gradually yield that which at first does not seem to be in them. A person endowed with but little self-confidence, for instance, finds in the course of time, that by persistent practice the [pg 315] needed confidence in himself has come about. And it is the same with many other soul qualities.28

It is a matter of significance that the occult student is capable of raising these capabilities to ever higher degrees; and he must succeed in so controlling his thoughts and feelings that the soul will have power to maintain complete inner quietude for certain periods of time—periods during which he can keep out of his mind and heart all those things that in any way concern the outer everyday life, its joys and sorrows, its pleasures and cares, even its tasks and demands. At such a time nothing should be allowed entrance into the soul except what the soul itself admits. An abjection may easily be made to this. One might imagine that alienation must result if the student withdraws in heart and spirit from life and its duties for a certain part of the day. Yet in reality, this is by no means the case. For those who, in the above manner, give themselves up to periods of inner quietude and peace will find that out of these there grows such a fund of energy for fulfilling the outer duties of life that they are not only not less efficiently performed, but assuredly more so.

It is of great benefit at such times to detach oneself entirely from thoughts of personal affairs, and to be able to raise oneself to that which affects not oneself alone, but all mankind. If he is then able to [pg 316] fill his soul with messages from a higher spiritual world, and if they have the power of enthralling his soul to as intense a degree as any personal concern or care, then indeed will his soul have gathered fruit of especial value.

Those who thus exert themselves to regulate their soul-life will arrive at the possibility of a degree of self-observation that will permit them to review their personal affairs with the same tranquillity as those of others. Seeing one's own experiences and one's own joys and sorrows in the light in which those of another appear, is a good preparation for occult training. We bring this exercise gradually to the necessary stage, if, after the day's work is over, we allow the pictures of the day's occurrences to pass before the mind's eye. We would then see ourselves within our own experiences as in a picture; in other words, we would look at ourselves in our daily life, as an outside observer.

A certain practice in self-observation having been gained by concentrating the attention upon short divisions of the day's experience, the student will become more and more expert in this kind of retrospect, continued practice enabling him to review the events of the whole day completely and quickly. It will become ever more and more the ideal of the occult student to assume such an attitude with regard to the events of life which confront him that he will be able to await their approach with absolute calm and inner confidence, no longer judging them by the state of his own soul but according to their [pg 317] own inner meaning and inner worth. And it is by looking to this ideal that he will create a condition of soul that will enable him to meditate profoundly, as described above, upon symbolical and other thoughts and feelings.

The conditions here described must be fulfilled, because supersensible experience is built upon the foundation on which the student stands in his ordinary soul-life, before he enters the supersensible world. In a two-fold way, all supersensible experience is dependent upon the soul's point of departure before entering that world. One who is not intent, from the outset, on making sound powers of judgment the foundation of his spiritual training will develop supersensible capacities which perceive the spiritual world inaccurately and incorrectly. To a certain extent his spiritual organs of perception will develop in the wrong way. And just as a man with a defective or diseased eye cannot see correctly in the sense-world, so it is not possible to have true perceptions with spiritual organs which are not built upon the foundation of sound powers of judgment. One who starts from an immoral state of soul rises into the spiritual worlds with his spiritual vision stupified and clouded. In regard to supersensible worlds he is like a person in the sense-world who makes observations in a state of lethargy. The latter, however, will not be able to make any statements of consequence, whereas the spiritual observer, even in his stupefaction, is more awake than a person in the ordinary state of consciousness, and [pg 318] the results of his observations will therefore be erroneous in regard to the spiritual world.

The highest possibilities of imaginative cognition can be realized by supporting the aforesaid meditations by that which one might call “sense-free” thinking. Now when we formulate an idea based upon observations made in the physical sense-world, our thought is not free from sense-impressions. Yet it is not as though man could formulate only such ideas: human thought need not become void and meaningless simply because it is not filled with observations derived through the channels of the senses. The most direct and the safest way for the occult student to acquire this “sense-free” thinking, is to make the facts of the higher worlds presented by occult science, the subject of his thoughts. These facts cannot be observed by means of the physical senses; nevertheless, the student will find that he will be able to grasp them—if only he has enough patience and perseverance. No one can explore higher worlds, or make his own observations therein, without having been trained. But it is quite possible without training to understand everything which investigators communicate about those regions. Should anyone ask, “How can I accept on trust what the occultist tells me, being myself as yet unable to see it?”—such an objection would be groundless, for it is perfectly possible to arrive through mere reflective thinking at the sure conviction that the matters thus communicated are true.

If a man is unable, through reflecting, to arrive at such a conviction, the reason is not that he cannot possibly “believe” something he cannot see, but simply because he has not as yet applied his powers of reflective thinking in a sufficiently unbiased, comprehensive and profound manner.

In order to be clear on this point, it must be borne in mind that human thought, if it arouses itself to energetic activity, can understand more than it usually imagines possible. For in thought there is an inner essence which is in connection with the supersensible world. The soul is not usually conscious of this connection, because it is wont to train its faculty of thought only through the world of sense. On this account it thinks incomprehensible what is imparted to it from the supersensible world. What is thus communicated is, however, not only intelligible to thought which has been spiritually trained, but to any thinking which is fully conscious of its power and is willing to make use of it.

By the persevering assimilation of what occult teachers are able to impart to us we habituate ourselves to a line of thought that is not derived from sense-observation, and we learn to recognize how, within the soul, one thought is allied to another, and how one thought calls forth another, even when the connection of ideas is not occasioned by any power of sense-observation. The essential point is that by this method we become aware of the fact that the world of thought possesses an inner life, and that while we are engaged in thought we are, indeed, in [pg 320] the realm of a supersensible living power. Thus we may say to ourselves: “There is something within me that develops an organism of thought; nevertheless, I am one with this something.” And thus in yielding to this sense-free thinking, we experience something like a being, which flows into our inner life, just as the qualities of the things of the senses flow into us through our physical organs when used for sense-observation.

“Out there in space,” says the observer of the sense-world, “is a rose: it is not unfamiliar to me, for both scent and colour proclaim its presence.” And in like manner, when sense-free thought is working within us, we need only be sufficiently unbiased in order to be able to say: “Something real proclaims its presence to me, linking thought to thought and constituting a thought-organism”—only there is a difference to be noted between the communication coming to the observer from the outer world of the senses, and that which actually reaches the sense-free thinker. The former feels that he is standing without—in front of the rose—whereas he who has given himself up to thinking which is untrammelled by the senses will feel within himself whatever thus proclaims its presence to him; he will feel himself one with it.

Those who, more or less, unconsciously consider as beings only that which they can perceive as external objects, will, it is true, be unable to entertain the feeling that whatever has the nature of a being, can also manifest itself within man by his becoming [pg 321] one with it. In order to judge correctly one must be able to have the following inner experiences: one must learn to distinguish between the thought combinations created through one's own volition, and those experienced without any voluntary exercise of the will. In the latter case, we may then say: I remain quite still within myself; I produce no trains of thought; I yield to that which “thinks within me.” Then we are fully justified in saying: Within me a being is acting, just as we are justified in saying that the rose acts upon us when we see a certain red, when we perceive a certain odor.