Initiation and Its Results: A Sequel to "The Way of Initiation"

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Darvaro College Xibran?

FROM

Le&yarcL.W... .Sargent.

INITIATION
AND ITS RESULTS

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

THE WAY OF INITIATION

' Or, How to attain Knowledge of the Higher Wodds

By RUDOLF STEINER, Ph. D.

With Biographical Notes of the Author by

edouardshur£

See List of Books on hut pagts

SOME PRESS NOTICES

"This little book ('The Way op Initiation') gives a singularly interesting
account of the personality and thought of a modern mystic and occultist... The
chapters form the most lucid exposition of the purposes and methods of oc-
cultism available to the lay reading public." — The Manchester Quardlmn.

"The Path of Discipleship with its conditions is plainly set forth in brief
compass. It may be commended to those who wish to enlarge their acquaint-
ance with the things unseen."— Re view of Reviews.

"We welcome 'The Way of Initiation,' by Dr. Steiner, written in clear,
precise, and philosophical language, and excellently translated into good strong
English by Mr. Max Gysi. . . To the orthodox and heterodox thinker upon life
in its highest sense we have no hesitation in recommending this book." — The
Times of India.

"Among recent books of more than ordinary excellence, a volume entitled
'The Way of Initiation,' by Rudolf Steiner, Ph. D., strongly commends
itself to all who are earnestly seeking plain, practical advice and luminous
teaching concerning the course to be actually pursued so as to give unmistak-
able insight into the real nature of the spiritual universe." — Light.

"The book is safe and sound, and Mr. M ax Gysi has conferred a benefit on us
in bringing it within the reach of English-speaking students and followers
along the narrow path which leads to higher words." — The Annals of
Pbychical Science.

"Dr. Steiner sees that the Western disciple needs the Wisdom of the West...
It is distinctly a work of insight, and not of mere thought; its description of
the facts of the inner world is marked by that vividness which can be found
in the writings of one who has seen, and nowhere else. Above all, it is inspi-
ring even where it is not informing." — St. Bthelburga's Leaflet, Rev.
W. P. Cobb, D. D.

% INITIATION
AND ITS RESULTS

A SEQUEL TO

"THE WAY OF INITIATION"

RUDOLF STEINER, Ph. D.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY

CLIFFORD BAX

FIRST AMERICAN EDITION

1909

MACOY PUBLISHING AND MASONIC SUPPLY CO.

NEW YORK. U S. A.

MAX GYSL 5 BELSLZE LANE
LONDON, N. W.

V KARVASD TJUirse (.; C ;j, w

iii»\i£ 22, 1Q33

ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HAM,

LONDON, 1909.

BERNE CONVENTION.

PHatodbr

New YoA, U. S. A.

CONTENTS

Page

Foreword 7

I. The Astral Centers tChakras) . 11

II. The Constitution of the Etheric Body . 39

III. Dream life 65

IV. The Three States of Consciousness . . 77
V. The Dissociation of Human

Personality During Initiation . 89
VI. The First Guardian of the

Threshold 107

VII. The Second Guardian of the

Threshold— Life and Death 121

List of Books, etc 187

FOREWORD

The widespread interest taken in the first volume
of this series (entitled " The Way of Initiation ") ,
and its success, have encouraged me to place before
English readers, in the present volume, a translation
of the articles written by Dr. Steiner as a sequel to
the above series, and originally published in L/ucifer
Gnosis (Nos. 20-28), a theosophical magazine, pub-
lished by M. Altmann, Leipzig, and edited by Dr.
Rudolf Steiner. The same magazine is now bring-
ing out a series of articles, entitled " The Theory of
Cognition according to Occultism," which, when fin-
ished, will conclude these very important communica-
tions from a source of genuine occult wisdom. When
completed, I propose to publish them as a third vol-
ume of this series.

To save disappointment to some readers into whose
hands this book may chance to fall, let me frankly
state at the outset that neither this nor its companion
volumes are intended for people who deny the possi-
bility of attaining knowledge by other means than
their physical organs of sense; the belief in, or at least

Initiation and its Results

the hypothetical acceptance of the reality of the un-
seen world and of forces not perceptible by our
physical senses is therein taken for granted. For
those unable to accept these premises there exists a
vast literature which, if approached with an unpreju-
diced mind and carefully studied, will convince them
of all that is here postulated.

These volumes might be called advanced text-books
of occultism, and those to whom the subject is repel-
lent had better not read them, because they are writ-
ten by an occultist of a very high order for those
really interested in the subject, and desirous of ad-
vancing in their self -development to a point hitherto
unattainable by them, since it has not until now been
deemed expedient openly to publish such far-reaching
revelations of the occult. The book is intended for
those only who will use every power gained for the
helping of their fellow-pilgrims, and who place self-
sacrifice and unselfish devotion to the best interests of
mankind above all other virtues.

On the other hand, there are a large number of
people, deeply interested in the subject, who were
under the impression that there is only the one occult-
ism whose home is in the East, and who now eagerly
welcome a teaching, sprung from a Western source,
which shows them that they need not go beyond Eu-

Foreword

rope in their search either for genuine occult knowl-
edge, or for teachers competent to instruct those will-
ing to fulfil the conditions necessary for the safe
treading of the narrow Path leading up to the feet
of the One Initiator.

There are few leaders of thought at the present
day who have a larger following than Dr. Steiner in
the German-speaking part of Mid-Europe, and I
know of no other teacher able to gather around him
from 400 to 500 cultured people who will eagerly
travel any distance and stay for two or three weeks
wherever he may choose to lecture. During his re-
cent courses of addresses on the Apocalypse, the Gos-
pel according to St. John, " From Buddha to Christ,"
on Cosmogony, etc. etc., held in Berlin and Bale, in
Christiania and Budapest, in Munich and Rome — to
mention only a few of the cities visited by this inde-
fatigable worker for the good of humanity, — students
were gathered together from all parts of Europe;
from Hammerfest in the North and Palermo in the
South, from Eastern Siberia, and from France and
Spain.

That we are living at present in a wonderful time
of transition, when

" The old order changeth, yielding place to new,"

may be gathered from the fact that a very large num-
ber of those most eager to welcome these wonderful

Initiation and its ResulU

teachings are recruited from highly cultured classes,
whose predecessors of but two decades ago would have
scoff ed at the whole subject.

In conclusion, I should like to draw attention to
the close and wonderful relation which the careful
student may trace between the exercises and " trials "
set forth in " The Way of Initiation " and the
means of vivification of the astral organs (chakras)
described in this volume. After the success of the
first volume, we are satisfied that there is a widespread
demand in English-speaking countries for the teach-
ings of Theosophy as enunciated by Dr. Steiner, and
we shall try gradually to make accessible to English
readers all the more important works of this truly
great Mystic and Occultist.

For those who are fully satisfied with the exoteric
teachings of the day this volume is not intended, but
it is earnestly hoped that it may bring Light and
Peace to serious seekers after truth.

Max Gysi.

London, August 81, 1000.

THE ASTRAL CENTERS
(CHAKRAS)

It is one of the essential principles of genuine oc-
cultism that he who devotes himself to a study of it
should only do so with a complete understanding;
should neither undertake nor practise anything of
which he does not realize the results. An occult
teacher giving a person either instruction or counsel
will invariably begin with an explanation of those
changes in body, in soul, and in spirit, which will
occur to him who seeks for the higher knowledge.

We shall consider here some of these effects upon
the soul of the occult student, for only he who is cog-
nisant of what is now to be said can undertake with
a full understanding the practises which will lead to
a knowledge of the superphysical worlds. Indeed,
one may say that it is only such who are genuine
occult students. By true occultism all experimenting
in the dark is very strongly discouraged. He who
will not undergo with open eyes the period of school-
ing, may become a medium, but all such efforts can-
not bring him to clairvoyance as it is understood by
the occultist.

Initiation and its Results

To those who, in the right way, have practised the
methods (concerning the acquisition of superphysical
knowledge) which were indicated in my book, en-
titled The Way of Initiation, 1 certain changes occur
in what is called "the astral body" (the organism
of the soul). This organism is only perceptible to
the clairvoyant. One may compare it to a more or
less luminous cloud which is discerned in the midst
of the physical body, and in this astral body the im-
pulses, desires, passions, and ideas become visible.
Sensual appetites, for example, are manifested as
dark-red outpourings of a particular shape; a pure
and noble thought is expressed in an outpouring of
reddish-violet color; the clear-cut conception of a
logical thinker will appear as a yellow figure with
quite sharp outlines; while the confused thought of
a cloudy brain is manifested as a figure with vague
outlines. The thoughts of people with views that are
one-sided and firmly fixed will appear sharp in their
outlines, but immobile; while those of people who re-
main accessible to other points of view are seen to be
in motion, with varying outlines.

1 The Way of Initiation, or How to Attain Knowledge of the
Higher Worlds. By Rudolf Steiner, Ph.D. With a foreword
by Annie Besant, and some Biographical Notes of the Author by
Edouard Schur6.

The Astral Centers

The further the student now advances in his psychic
development, the more will his astral body become
regularly organized; in the case of a person whose
psychic life is undeveloped, it remains ill-organized
and confused. Yet in such an unorganized astral
body the clairvoyant can perceive a form which stands
out clearly from its environment. It extends from
the interior of the head to the middle of the physical
body. It appears as, in a certain sense, an independ-
ent body possessed of special organs. These organs,
which are now to be considered, are seen to exist in
the following parts of the physical body: the first
between the eyes; the second at the larynx; the third
in the region of the heart; the fourth in what is called
the pit of the stomach; while the fifth and sixth are
situated in the abdomen. Such forms are technically
known as " wheels " (chakras) or "lotus-flowers."
They are so called on account of their likeness to
wheels or flowers, but of course it should be clearly
understood that such an expression is not to be ap-
plied more literally than when one calls the lobes of
the lungs the "wings." Just as everybody knows
that here one is not really dealing with " wings/' so
must it be remembered that in respect of the " wheels"
one is merely speaking figuratively. These " lotus-
flowers " are at present, in the undeveloped person,
of dark colors and without movement — inert. In the

Initiation and its Results

clairvoyant, however, they are seen to be in motion
and of luminous color. In the medium something
similar happens, albeit in a different way; but that
part of the subject cannot now be pursued any fur-
ther. As soon as the occult student begins his prac-
tises, the lotus-flowers first become lucent; later on
they begin to revolve. It is when this occurs that the
faculty of clairvoyance begins. For these " flowers "
are the sense-organs of the soul, and their revolutions
make manifest the fact that one is able to perceive in
the superphysical world. No one can behold any
superphysical thing until he has in this way developed
his astral senses.

The sense-organ, which is situated in the vicinity
of the larynx, allows one to perceive clairvoyantly
the thoughts of another person, and also brings a
deeper insight into the true laws of natural phe-
nomena. The organ situated near the heart permits
of a clairvoyant knowledge concerning the sentiments
of another person. He who has developed it can also
observe certain of the deeper powers in animals and
plants. By means of the organ that lies in the pit of
the stomach one acquires knowledge of the capacities
and talents of a person: by this, too, one is enabled to
see what parts in the household of nature are played
by animals, plants, stones, metals, atmospheric phe-
nomena, and so on.

The Astral Centers

The organ situated at the larynx has sixteen " pet-
als " or " spokes " ; that which is in the region of the
heart has twelve; that which is in the pit of the stom-
ach has ten. Now certain activities of the soul are
connected with the development of these sense-organs,
and he who practises them in a particular way con-
tributes something to the development of the astral
organs concerned. Eight of the sixteen petals of the
" lotus " have been developed already dining an ear-
lier stage of human evolution, in a remote past. To
this development the human being contributed noth-
ing. He held them as a gift of Nature, when he was
yet in a dreamy, dull state of consciousness. At that
stage of human evolution they were already active.
The manner of their activity, however, was only com-
patible with the dull state of consciousness already
mentioned. As consciousness then grew brighter, the
petals became obscure and withdrew their activity.
The other eight can be developed by a person's con-
scious practise, and after that the entire lotus becomes
both brilliant and active. The acquisition of certain
capacities depends upon the development of every one
of these petals. Yet, as already shown, one can only
consciously develop eight of them; the other eight
reappear spontaneously.

Their development is consummated in the follow-
ing manner. One must apply oneself with care and

Initiation and its Results

attention to certain functions of the soul which one
usually exercises in a careless manner and without
attention. There are eight such functions- The first
depends on the manner in which one receives ideas.
People usually allow themselves to he led in this re-
spect by chance alone. They hear this and that, they
see one thing and another, upon which they base their
ideas. While this is the case the sixteen petals of the
lotus remain quite torpid. Only when one begins in
this matter to take one's education into one's own
hands do they really begin to be effective. All con-
ceptions must be guarded with this end in view.
Every idea should have some significance. One ought
to see in it a certain message, a fragment of knowl-
edge concerning the things of the outer world, and
one must not be satisfied with conceptions that have
no such significance. One should so govern one's
mental life that it becomes a mirror of the outer
world, and should direct one's energies to the expul-
sion of incorrect ideas.

The second of these functions is concerned, in a
similar way, with the control of the resolutions. One
should only make resolutions after a well-founded,
full consideration of even the most insignificant points.
All thoughtless deeds, all meaningless actions, should
be put far away from the soul. For everything one
must have well-considered grounds, and one ought

The Astral Centers

never to do a thing for which there is no real need.

The third function relates to speech. The occult
student should only utter what is sensible and pur-
poseful. All talking for the sake of talking draws
him away from his path. He must avoid the usual
method of conversation, in which all manner of things,
unselected and heterogeneous, are spoken of together.
In accomplishing this, however, he must not preclude
himself from intercourse with his fellows. Precisely
in such intercourse ought his conversation to grow in
significance. He answers everybody, but he does so
thoughtfully and after careful consideration of the
question. He never speaks without grounds for what
he says. He seeks to use neither too many nor too
few words.

The fourth function is the regulation of outward
action. The student seeks to direct his actions in such
a way that it fits in with the actions of his fellow-men
and with the peculiarities of his environment. He
rejects all actions that are disturbing to others or that
are antagonistic to those which are customary around
him. He tries so to act that his deeds may combine
harmoniously with his environment, with his position
in life, and so forth. Where he is caused to act by
some external suggestion he considers carefully how
he can best respond. Where he is his own master, he

Initiation and its Results

considers the effects of his methods of action with the
utmost care.

The fifth activity here to be noticed lies in the man-
agement of the entire life. The occult student en-
deavors to live in conformity with both Nature and
Spirit. Never over-hasty, he is also never idle. In-
dolence and superfluous activity lie equally far away
from him. He looks upon life as a means for work
and he lives accordingly. He arranges habits, and
fosters health so that a harmonious life is the outcome.

The sixth is concerned with human endeavor. The
student tests his capacities and his knowledge and
conducts himself in the light of such self-knowledge.
He tries to perform nothing that is beyond his pow-
ers ; but also to omit nothing for which they inwardly
seem adequate. On the other hand, he sets before
himself aims that coincide with the ideal, with the
high duty of a human being. He does not merely
regard himself half thoughtlessly as a wheel in the
vast machinery of mankind, but endeavors to com-
prehend its problems, to look out beyond the trivial
and the daily. He thus endeavors to fulfil his obliga-
tions ever better and more perfectly.

The seventh change in the life of his soul deals
with the effort to learn as much from life as possible.
Nothing passes before the student without giving him
occasion to accumulate experience which is of value

The Astral Centers

to him for life. If he has done anything wrongly or
imperfectly, it offers an opportunity later on to make
it correspondingly either right or perfect. If he sees
others act, he watches them with a similar intent. He
tries to collect from experience a rich treasure, and
ever to consult it attentively; nor, indeed, will he do
anything without having looked back over experi-
ences that can give him help in his decisions and
actions.

Finally, the eighth is this: the student must from
time to time look inward, sink back into himself, take
careful counsel with himself, build up and test the
foundations of his life, run over his store of knowl-
edge, ponder upon his duties, consider the contents
and aim of life, and so forth. All these matters have
already been mentioned in The Way of Initiation (see
page 7) ; here they are merely recapitulated in con-
nection with the development of the sixteen-petalled
lotus. By means of these exercises it will become ever
more and more perfect, for upon such practices de-
pends the development of clairvoyance. For in-
stance, the more a person thinks and utters what
harmonizes with the actual occurrences of the outer
world, the more quickly will he develop this faculty.
He who thinks or speaks anything that is untrue kills
something in the bud of the sixteen-petalled lotus.
Truthfulness, Uprightness, and Honesty are in this

Initiation and its Results

connection formative, but Falsehood, Simulation, and
Dishonesty are destructive forces. The student must
recognize that not merely " good intentions " are
needed, but also actual deeds. If I think or say any-
thing which does not harmonize with the truth, I kill
something in my astral organs, even although I be-
lieved myself to speak or think from intentions ever
so good. It is here as with the child who needs must
burn itself if it falls into the fire, even although this
may have occurred from ignorance. The regulation
of the above-mentioned activities of the soul in the
manner described, allows the sixteen-petalled lotus to
ray forth in splendid hues and imparts to it a definite
movement. Yet it must be remarked that the signs
of clairvoyant faculty cannot appear before a certain
stage of this development is reached. So long as it
is a trouble to lead this kind of life the faculty remains
unmanifested. So long as one has to give special
thought to the matters already described, one is yet
unripe. Only when one has carried them so far that
one lives quite habitually in the specified manner can
the preliminary traces of clairvoyance appear. These
matters must therefore no longer seem troublesome,
but must become the habitual way of life. There is no
need to watch oneself continually, nor to force oneself
on to such a life. Everything must become habitual.
There are certain instructions by the fulfilment of

The Astral Centers

which the lotus may be brought to blossom in another
way. But such methods are rejected by true occult-
ism, for they lead to the destruction of physical health
and to the ruin of morality. They are easier to ac-
complish than those described, which are protracted
and troublesome, but the latter lead to the true goal
and cannot but strengthen morality. (The student
will notice that the spiritual practises described above
correspond to what is called in Buddhism " the eight-
fold path." Here the connection between that path
and the upbuilding of the astral organs must be ex-
plained.)

If to all that has been said there is added the
observance of certain orders which the student may
only receive orally from the teacher, there results an
acceleration in the development of the sixteen-petalled
lotus. But such instructions cannot be given outside
the precincts of an occult school. Yet the regulation
of life in the way described is also useful for those
who will not, or cannot, attach themselves to a school.
For the effect upon the astral body occurs in every
case, even if it be but slowly. To the occult pupil
the observance of these principles is indispensable. If
he should try to train himself in occultism without
observing them, he could only enter the higher world
with defective mental eyes; and in place of knowing
the truth he would then be merely subject to decep-

Initiation and its Results

tion and illusion. In a certain direction he might be-
come clairvoyant; but fundamentally nothing but a
blindness completer than of old would beset him. For
hitherto he stood at least firmly in the midst of the
sense-world and had in it a certain support; but now
he sees beyond that world and will fall into error con-
cerning it before he is able to stand securely in a
higher sphere. As a rule, indeed, he cannot distin-
guish error from truth, and he loses all direction in
life. For this very reason is patience in such matters
essential. It must always be remembered that the
occult teacher may not proceed very far with his
instructions unless an earnest desire for a regu-
lated development of the lotus-flowers is already pres-
ent. Only mere caricatures of these flowers could be
evolved if they were brought to blossom before they
had acquired, in a steady manner, their appropriate
form. For the special instructions of the teacher
bring about the blossoming of the lotuses, but form
is imparted to them by the manner of life already
outlined.

The irregular development of a lotus-flower has,
for its result, not only illusion and fantastic concep-
tions where a certain kind of clairvoyance has oc-
curred, but also errors and lack of balance in life
itself. Through such development one may well
become timid, envious, conceited, self-willed, stiff -

The Astral Centers

necked, and so on, while hitherto one may have pos-
sessed none of these characteristics. It has already
been said that eight petals of the lotus were developed
long ago, in a very remote past, and that these in the
course of occult education unfold again of themselves.
In the instruction of the student, all care must now
be given to the other eight. By erroneous teaching
the former may easily appear alone, and the latter
remain untended and inert. This would be the case
particularly when too little logical, reasonable think-
ing is introduced into the instruction. It is of
supreme importance that the student should be a sen-
sible and clear-thinking person, and of equal impor-
tance that he should practise the greatest clarity of
speech. People who begin to have some presentiment
of superphysical things are apt to become talkative
about such things. In that way they retard their
development. The less one talks about these matters
the better. Only he who has come to a certain stage
of clearness ought to speak of them.

At the commencement of the instructions occult
students are astonished, as a rule, to find how little
curiosity the teacher exhibits concerning their experi-
ences. It were best of all for them if they were to
remain entirely uncommunicative about these experi-
ences, and should say nothing further than how suc-
cessful or how unsuccessful they had been in the

Initiation and its Results

performance of their exercises or in the observance of
their instructions. The occult teacher has quite other
means of estimating their progress than their own
communications. The eight petals now under con-
sideration always become a little hardened through
such communication where they ought really to grow
soft and supple. An illustration shall be given to
explain this, not taken from the superphysical world,
but, for the sake of clearness, from ordinary life.
Suppose that I hear a piece of news and thereupon
form at once an opinion. In a little while I receive
some further news which does not harmonize with
the previous information. I am constrained thereby
to reverse my original judgment. The result of this
is an unfavorable influence upon my sixteen-petalled
lotus. It would have been quite otherwise if, in the
first place, I had suspended my judgment; if con-
cerning the whole affair I had remained, inwardly in
thought and outwardly in words, entirely silent until
I had acquired quite reliable grounds for the forma-
tion of my judgment. Caution in the formation and
the pronouncement of opinions becomes, by degrees,
the special characteristic of the occult student. There-
by he increases his sensibility to impressions and ex-
periences, which he allows to pass over him silently
in order to collect the largest possible number of facts
from which to form his opinions. There exist in the

The Astral Centers

lotus-flower bluish-red and rose-red shades of color
which manifest themselves under the influence of such
circumspection, while in the opposite case orange and
dark red shades would appear.

The twelve-petalled lotus which lies in the region
of the heart is formed in a similar way. Half its
petals, likewise, were already existent and active in a
remote stage of human evolution. These six petals
do not require to be especially evolved in the occult
school: they appear spontaneously and begin to re-
volve when we set to work on the other six. In the
cultivation of these, as in the previous case, one has
to control and direct certain activities of the mind in
a special way.

It must be clearly understood that the perceptions
of each astral or soul-organ bear a peculiar character.
The twelve-petalled lotus possesses perception of quite
a different kind from that of the sixteen petals. The
latter perceives forms. The thoughts of a person and
the laws under which a natural phenomenon takes
place appear to the sixteen-petalled lotus as forms —
not, however, rigid, motionless forms, but active and
filled with life. The clairvoyant, in whom this sense
is well evolved, can discern a form wherewith every
thought, every natural law, finds expression. A
thought of vengeance, for example, manifests as an
arrowlike, pronged form, while a thought of good-

Initiation and its Results

will frequently takes the shape of an opening flower.
Clear-cut, meaningful thoughts are formed regularly
and symmetrically, while hazy conceptions take on
hazy outlines. By means of the twelve-petalled flower
quite different perceptions are acquired. Approxi-
mately one can indicate the nature of these percep-
tions by likening them to the sense of cold and heat.
A clairvoyant equipped with this faculty feels a men-
tal warmth or chilliness raying out from the forms
discerned by means of the sixteen-petalled flower. If
a clairvoyant had evolved the sixteen-petalled lotus,
but not the lotus of twelve petals, he would only
observe a thought of goodwill as the shape already
described, while another in whom both senses were
developed would also discern that outraying of the
thought which one can only call a mental warmth.
It may be remarked in passing that in the occult
school one sense is never evolved without the other,
so that what has just been said should only be re-
garded as having been stated for the sake of clarity.
By the cultivation of the twelve-petalled lotus the
clairvoyant discovers in himself a deep comprehension
of natural processes. Everything that is growing or
evolving rays out warmth; everything that is decay-
ing, perishing, or in ruins, will seem cold.

The development of this sense may be accelerated
in the following manner. The first requirement is

The Astral Centers

that the student should apply himself to the regula-
tion of his thoughts. Just as the sixteen-petalled
lotus achieves its evolution by means of earnest and
significant thinking, so is the twelve-petalled flower
cultivated by means of an inward control over the
currents of thought. Errant thoughts which follow
each other in no logical or reasonable sequence, but
merely by pure chance, destroy the form of the lotus
in question. The more one thought follows another,
the more all disconnected thought is thrown aside, the
more does this astral organ assume its appropriate
form. If the student hears illogical thought ex-
pressed, he should silently set it straight within his
own mind. He ought not, for the purpose of per-
fecting his own development, to withdraw himself
uncharitably from what is perhaps an illogical men-
tal environment. Neither should he allow himself to
feel impelled to correct the illogical thinking around
him. Rather should he quietly, in his own inner self,
constrain this whirlpool of thoughts to a logical and
reasonable course. And above all things ought he
to strive after this regulation in the region of his own
thoughts.

A second requirement is that he should control his
actions in a similar way. All instability or dishar-
mony of action produces a withering effect upon the
lotus-flower which is here in consideration. If the

Initiation and its Results

student has done anything he should manage the suc-
ceeding act so that it forms a logical sequence to the
first, for he who acts differently from day to day will
never evolve this faculty or sense.

The third requirement is the cultivation of perse-
verance. The occult student never allows himself to
be drawn by this or that influence aside from his goal
so long as he continues to believe that it is the right
one. Obstacles are for him like challenges to over-
come them and never afford reasons for loitering on
the way.

The fourth requirement is tolerance as regards all
persons and circumstances. The student should seek
to avoid all superfluous criticism of imperfections
and vices, and should rather endeavor to comprehend
everything that comes under his notice. Even as the
sun does not refuse its light to the evil and the vicious,
so he, too, should not refuse them an intelligent sym-
pathy. If the student meets with some trouble, he
should not waste his force in criticism, but bow to
necessity and seek how he may try to transmute the
misfortune into good. He does not look at another's
opinions from his own standpoint alone, but seeks to
put himself into his companion's position.

The fifth requirement is impartiality in one's rela-
tion to the affairs of life. In this connection we speak

The Astral Centers

of " trust " and " faith." The occult student goes out
to every person and every creature with this faith,
and through it he acts. He never says to himself,
when anything is told to him, " I do not believe that,
since it is opposed to my present opinions." Far
rather is he ready at any moment to test and rear-
range his opinions and ideas. He always remains
impressionable to everything that confronts him.
Likewise does he trust in the efficiency of what he
undertakes. Timidity and skepticism are banished
from his being. If he has any purpose in view, he
has also faith in its power. A hundred failures can-
not rob him of this confidence. It is indeed that
" faith which can move mountains."

The sixth requirement is the cultivation of a cer-
tain equanimity. The student strives to temper his
moods, whether they come laden with sorrow or with
joy. He must avoid the extremes of rising up to the
sky in rapture or sinking down to the earth in de-
spair, but should constantly control his mind and
keep it evenly balanced. Sorrow and peril, joy and
prosperity alike find him ready armed.

The reader of theosophical literature will find the
qualities here described, under the name of the " six
attributes " which must be striven after by him who
would attain to initiation. Here their connection with
the astral sense, which is called the twelve-petalled

Initiation and its Results

lotus, is to be explained. The teacher can impart
specific instructions which cause the lotus to blossom;
but here, as before, the development of its symmetri-
cal form depends upon the attributes already men-
tioned. He who gives little or no heed to that
development will only form this organ into a carica-
ture of its proper shape. It is possible to cultivate a
certain clairvoyance of this nature by directing these
attributes to their evil side instead of to the good. A
person may be intolerant, faint-hearted, and conten-
tious toward his environment; may, for instance, per-
ceive the sentiments of other people and either run
away from them or hate them. This can be so accen-
tuated that on account of the mental coldness which
rays out to him from opinions which are contrary to
his own, he cannot bear to listen to them, or else
behaves in an objectionable manner.

The mental culture which is important for the de-
velopment of the ten-petalled lotus is of a peculiarly
delicate kind, for here it is a question of learning to
dominate, in a particular manner, the very sense-
impressions themselves. It is of especial importance
to the clairvoyant at the outset, for only by this fac-
ulty can he avoid a source of countless illusions and
mental mirages. Usually, a person is not at all clear
as to what things have dominion over his memories
and fancies. Let us take the following case. Some-

The Astral Centers

one travels on the railway, and busies himself with a
thought. Suddenly his thoughts take quite another
direction. He then recollects an experience which he
had some years ago, and interweaves it with his im-
mediate thought. But he did not notice that his
eyes have been turned toward the window, and were
caught by the glance of a person who bears a likeness
to someone else who was intimately concerned with
the recollected experience. He remains unconscious
of what he has seen and is only conscious of the re-
sults, and he therefore believes that the whole affair
arose spontaneously. How much in life occurs in
such a way! We play over things in our lives which
we have read or experienced without bringing the
connection into our consciousness. Some one, for in-
stance, cannot bear a particular color, but he does not
realize that this is due to the fact that the school-
teacher of whom he was afraid, many years ago, used
to wear a coat of that color. Innumerable illusions
are based upon such associations. Many things pene-
trate to the soul without becoming embodied in the
consciousness. The following case is a possible ex-
ample. Some one reads in the paper about the death
of a well-known person, and straightway is convinced
that yesterday he had a presentiment about it, al-
though he neither saw nor heard of anything that
could have given rise to such a thought. It is quite

Initiation and its Results

true, the thought that this particular person would
die, emerged yesterday " by itself," only he has failed
to notice one thing. Two or three hours before this
thought occurred to him yesterday he went to visit
an acquaintance. A newspaper lay on the table, but
he did not read it. Yet unconsciously his eyes fell
upon an account of the dangerous illness in which the
person concerned was lying. He was not conscious
of the impression, but the effects of it were, in reality,
the whole substance of the " presentiment."

If one reflects upon such matters, one can measure
how deep a source of illusion and fantasy they sup-
ply. It is this that he who desires to foster the ten-
petalled lotus must dam up, for by means of the latter
one can perceive characteristics deeply embedded in
human and other beings. But the truth can only be
extracted from these perceptions if one has entirely
freed oneself from the delusions here described. For
this purpose it is necessary that one should become
master of that which is carried in to one from the
external world. One must extend this mastery so
far that veritably one does not receive those influ-
ences which one does not desire to receive, and this
can only be achieved gradually by living a very pow-
erful inward life. This must be so thoroughly done
that one only allows those things to impress one on

The Astral Centers

which one voluntarily directs the attention, and that
one really prevents those impressions which might
otherwise be unconsciously registered. What is seen
must be voluntarily seen, and that to which no atten-
tion is given must actually no longer exist for oneself.
The more vitally and energetically the soul does its
inward work, the more will it acquire this power.
The occult student must avoid all vague wanderings
of sight or hearing. For him only those things to
which he turns his eye or his ear must exist. He must
practise the power of hearing nothing even in the
loudest disturbance when he wishes to hear nothing:
he must render his eyes unimpressionable to things
which he does not especially desire to notice. He
must be shielded as by a mental armor from all un-
conscious impressions. But in the region of his
thoughts particularly must he apply himself in this
respect. He puts a thought before him and only
seeks to think such thoughts as, in full consciousness
and freedom, he can relate to it. Fancy he rejects.
If he finds himself anxious to connect one thought
with another, he feels round carefully to discover how
this latter thought occurred to him. He goes yet
further. If, for instance, he has a particular an-
tipathy for anything, he will wrestle with it and en-
deavor to find out some conscious connection between
the antipathy and its object. In this way the uncon-

Initiation and its Results

scious elements in his soul become ever fewer and
fewer. Only by such severe self -searching can the
ten-petalled lotus attain the form which it ought to
possess. The mental life of the occult student must
be an attentive life, and he must know how to ignore
completely everything which he does not wish, or
ought not, to observe.

If such introspection is followed by a meditation,
which is prescribed by the instructions of the teacher,
the lotus-flower in the region of the pit of the stomach
blossoms in the correct way, and that which had ap-
peared (to the astral senses already described) as
form and heat acquires also the characteristics of
light and color. Through this are revealed, for in-
stance, the talents and capacities of people, the pow-
ers and the hidden attributes of Nature. The col-
ored aura of the living creature then becomes visible;
all that is around us then manifests its spiritual at-
tributes. It will be obvious that the very greatest care
is necessary in the development of this province, for
the play of unconscious memories is here exceedingly
active. If this were not the case, many people would
possess the sense now under consideration, for it ap-
pears almost immediately if a person has really got
the impressions of his senses so completely under his
power that they depend on nothing but his attention

The Astral Centers

or inattention. Only so long as the dominion of the
senses holds the soul in subjection and dullness, does
it remain inactive.

Of greater difficulty than the development of this
lotus is that of the six-petalled flower which is situ-
ated in the center of the body. For to cultivate this
it is necessary to strive after a complete mastery of
the whole personality by means of self -consciousness,
so that body, soul, and spirit make but one harmony.
The functions of the body, the inclinations and pas-
sions of the soul, the thoughts and ideas of the spirit
must be brought into complete union with each other.
The body must be so refined and purified that its
organs assimilate nothing which may not be of ser-
vice to the soul and spirit. The soul must assim-
ilate nothing through the body, whether of passion
or desire, which is antagonistic to pure and noble
thoughts. The spirit must not dominate the soul
with laws and obligations like a slave-owner, but
rather must the soul learn to follow by inclination and
free choice these laws and duties. The duties of an
occult student must not rule him as by a power to
which he unwillingly submits, but rather as by some-
thing which he fulfils because he likes it. He must
evolve a free soul which has attained an equilibrium
between sense and spirit. He must cany this so far
that he can abandon himself to the sense because it

Initiation and its Results

has been so ennobled that it has lost the power to
drag him down. He must no longer require to curb
his passions, inasmuch as they follow the good by
themselves. As long as a person has to chastise him-
self he cannot arrive at a certain stage of occult edu-
cation, for a virtue to which one has to constrain
oneself is then valueless. As long as one retains a
desire, even although one struggles not to comply
therewith, it upsets one's development, nor does it
matter whether this appetite be of the soul or of the
body. For example, if some one avoids a particular
stimulant for the purpose of purifying himself by
refining his pleasures, it can only benefit him if his
body suffers nothing by this deprivation. If this be
not the case it is an indication that the body requires
the stimulant, and the renunciation is then worthless.
In this case it may even be true that the person in
question must first of all forego the desirable goal
and wait until favorable conditions — perhaps only in
another life — shall surround him. A tempered re-
nunciation is, under certain circumstances, a much
greater acquisition than the struggle for something
which in given conditions remains unattainable. In-
deed, such a tempered renunciation contributes more
than such struggle to one's development.

He who has evolved the six-petalled lotus can com-
municate with beings who are native to the higher

The Astral Centers

worlds, though even then only if their presence is
manifested in the astral or soul-world. In an occult
school, however, no instructions concerning the devel-
opment of this lotus-flower would be imparted before
the student had trodden far enough on the upward
path to permit of his spirit mounting into a yet higher
world. The formation of these lotus-flowers must
always be accompanied by entrance into this really
spiritual sphere. Otherwise the student would fall
into error and uncertainty. He would undoubtedly
be able to see, but he would remain incapable of esti-
mating rightly the phenomena there seen. Now there
already exists in him who has learned to evolve the
six-petalled lotus, a security from error and giddi-
ness, for no one who has acquired complete equi-
librium of sense (or body), passion (or soul), and
thought (or spirit) will be easily led into mistakes.
Nothing is more essential than this security when, by
the development of the six-petalled lotus, beings pos-
sessed of life and independence, and belonging to a
world so completely hidden from his physical senses,
are revealed before the spirit of the student. In order
to ensure the necessary safety in this world, it is not
enough to have cultivated the lotus-flowers, since he
must have yet higher organs at his disposal.

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE
ETHERIC BODY

The cultivation of the astral body, as it has been
described in the foregoing chapter, permits of a per-
son perceiving supersensual phenomena, but he who
would really find his way about the astral world must
not tarry at this stage of evolution. The mere mo-
tion of the lotus-flowers does not really suffice. The
student should be able to regulate and control the
movement of his astral organs independently, and
with complete consciousness. Otherwise, he would
become, as it were, a plaything for external forces
and powers. If he does not wish to become such, he
must acquire the faculty of hearing what is known
as " the inner word," and to effect this it is needful
to evolve not merely the astral but also the etheric
body. This is the fine body which to the eyes of the
clairvoyant appears as a kind of wraith of the phys-
ical body. It is to some extent a medium between
the physical and the astral bodies. If one is equipped
with clairvoyant powers, one can quite consciously
suggest away the physical body of a person. On

Initiation and its Results

that higher plane it is no more than what is ordi-
narily an exercise of one's attention. Just as a per-
son can withdraw his attention from anything that
is before him so that it does not exist for him, so can
the clairvoyant blot out a physical body from his
observation so that it becomes, for him, physically
transparent. If he applies this power to a human
being who stands in front of him, nothing remains
in his soul-sight except the etheric body and the astral
body, which is greater than either of the other two
and interpenetrates them both. The etheric body has
approximately the size and form of the physical body,
so that it practically fills the same space. It is an
extremely delicate and finely-organized vehicle. 1 Its
principal color is different from the seven contained
in the rainbow. He who is able to observe it is intro-
duced to a color which is not observable by the sense-
perceptions. It can be compared to the color of a
young peach-blossom as accurately as to any. If one
desires to contemplate the etheric body alone, one has
to extinguish one's observation of the astral body by
an exercise of attention similar to that already sug-

1 1 would request the physicist not to resent the expression
" etheric body." The use of the word " ether " is merely an
attempt to suggest the fineness of the phenomenon under con-
sideration. It has practically no connection at all with the
hypothetical ether of the physicist.

Constitution of Etheric Body

gested. If one omits to do so, one's view of the etheric
body is confused by the complete interpenetration of
the astral body.

Now the particles of this etheric body are in con-
tinual motion. Countless currents pass through it in
every direction. By these currents life itself is sup-
ported and regulated. Every body that has life, in-
cluding the animals and plants, possesses such an
etheric double. Even in minerals there are traces of
it perceptible to the attentive observer. These cur-
rents and movements are almost entirely independent
of the human will and consciousness, just as the action
of the heart or stomach in the physical body is inde-
pendent of our will. As long as a person does not
take his development (in the sense of acquiring super-
sensual faculties) into his own hands, this independ-
ence remains. For his development at a certain stage
consists precisely in adding to the unconscious inde-
pendent outrayings and movements of the etheric
body that by which the individual is enabled to influ-
ence them in a conscious manner by himself.

When his occult education has progressed so far
that the lotus-flowers described in the foregoing chap-
ters begin to bestir themselves, then the student is
given certain directions which lead to the evocation
of particular currents and movements within his

Initiation and its Results

etheric body. The object of these directions is to
fashion in the region of the physical heart a kind of
center from which these outrayings and movements,
with their manifold forms and colors, may go forth.
The center is, in reality, not merely a given point,
but a most complicated structure, a really wonderful
organ. It glows and shimmers with all kinds of
color and displays forms of the greatest symmetry —
forms which are capable of transformation with as-
tonishing speed. Other forms and outrayings of
color proceed from this organ to the other parts of
the body, as also to those of the astral body, which
they entirely pervade and illumine. The most im-
portant of these rays move, however, toward the
lotus-flowers. They pervade each petal and regulate
its revolutions; then, streaming out at the points of
the petals, they lose themselves in the surrounding
space. The more evolved a person may be, the
greater becomes the circumference to which these
rays extend.

The twelve-petalled lotus-flower has a peculiarly
close connection with the center already described.
The rays move directly into it, and from it proceed,
on the one side, toward the sixteen-petalled and the
two-petalled lotuses, and, on the other, the lower side,
to the lotuses of eight, of six, and of four petals.

Constitution of Etheric Body

This is the reason why the very greatest care must
be given to the development of the twelve-petalled
lotus. If any imperfection be there allowed, the en-
tire formation of the whole structure must remain
disorderly. From what has here been said, one may
imagine how delicate and intimate is this occult edu-
cation, and how strictly one has to conduct oneself if
everything is to be developed in the proper way. It
will now be quite evident that instruction concerning
the development of supersensual faculties can only
be given by one who has already experienced every-
thing which he desires to awaken in another, and who
is unquestionably in a position to know whether his
instructions will be rewarded with success.

If the student follows out what is prescribed for
him in these instructions, he introduces into his etheric
body outrayings and vibrations which are in harmony
with the laws and the evolution of the world to which
he belongs. Consequently, these instructions are re-
flections of the great laws which govern the develop-
ment of the world. They consist of special exercises
in meditation and in concentration, which, if appro-
priately practised, produce the results described. The
content of these instructions may only be imparted
to the individual during his occult education. At
certain periods these instructions must entirely per-
vade his soul with their content, so that he is inwardly,

Initiation and its Results

as it were, filled with it. He starts quite simply with
what is necessary above all things, a deepening and an
interiorization of the reasonable and sensible thought
of the head. This thought is thus made free and in-
dependent of all sense-impressions or experiences. It
is in a certain manner concentrated into a point which
is entirely in the power of the individual. By doing
this a preliminary center for the rays of the etheric
body is formed. This center is not yet in the region
of the heart, but in that of the head, and it appears
to the clairvoyant as the outgoing point of the vibra-
tions. Only that occult educational course is success-
ful which creates this center first. If this center were
from the outset transferred to the region of the heart,
the clairvoyant could doubtless obtain glimpses of the
higher worlds; but he would yet lack any true insight
/ into the connection between these higher worlds and
that of our senses, and this for the individual at a
certain stage of the world's evolution is an uncondi-
tional necessity. The clairvoyant must not become
a mere enthusiast; he must retain his footing upon
firm earth.

The center in the head, when it has become duly

settled, is then transferred further down, that is to

/ say, to the region of the larynx. This change is

j again induced by a particular exercise of concentra-

Constitution of Etheric Body

tion. Then the characteristic vibrations of the eth-
eric body stream forth from this point, and illumi-
nate the astral space that surrounds the individual.

A further exercise enables the student to determine
for himself the position of his etheric body. Hitherto
this position depended upon the forces which came
from without or proceeded from the physical body.
By means of such development the individual is able
to direct the etheric body to all sides. This faculty
is effected by outrayings which move approximately
along both hands and are centered in the two-petalled
lotus that is situated in the region of the eyes. As
a result of all this, the rays which flow forth from
the larynx are shaped into round forms of which a
quantity proceed to the two-petalled lotus, and from
there take their way as undulating currents along
the hands.

One finds as a further development that these cur-
rents branch out, ramify in a delicate manner, and
become in a certain sense like wicker-work, so that
the entire etheric body is enmeshed in a network.
Since hitherto the etheric body has had no closure to
externals, so that the life-currents of the great ocean
of life flowed freely in and out, it now becomes neces-
sary that impacts from outside should pass through
this cuticle. Thus the individual becomes sensitive to

Initiation and its Results

these external streams: they become perceptible to
him. The time has now come to give the complete
system of rays and vibrations a center in the heart.
That, again, is accomplished by means of a medita-
tive and concentrative exercise, and simultaneously
the student attains the point at which he can hear the
" inner word." All things now acquire for him a
new significance. They become audible, as it were,
in their innermost nature; they speak to him from
their true being. The currents already described
place him in touch with the interior of the world to
which they appertain. He begins to mingle his life
with the life of his environment, and can let it rever-
berate in the vibrations of his lotus-flowers. Thus the
individual enters the spiritual world. If he has come
so far, he acquires a new understanding of all that
the great teachers of humanity have uttered. The
sayings of the Buddha, for instance, now produce a
new effect upon him. They pervade him with a
beatitude of which he had never dreamed before. For
the sound of the words now follows the movements
and rhythms which he has formed within himself.
He is now able to know directly how a person like
the Buddha did not proclaim his own individual rev-
elations, but those which flowed into him from the
inmost being of all things. A fact must here be ex-
plained which could only be comprehended in the

Constitution of Etheric Body

light of what has already been said. The many
repetitions in the sayings of the Buddha are not
rightly understood by the people of our present evo-
lutionary stage. For the occult student they are like
something upon which he may gladly let his inner
senses rest, for they correspond to certain rhythmic
movements in the etheric body. Devotional musing
on these, with complete inward peace, creates a har-
mony with these movements, and because they them-
selves are echoes of certain universal rhythms which
also at particular points repeat themselves and make
regular returns to their former modes, the individual,
listening to the wisdom of the Buddha, puts himself
into harmony with the secrets of the universe.

In the theosophical handbooks we meet with four
attributes which must be developed by the student on
what is called the probationary path, in order that he
may attain the higher knowledge. The first is the
faculty for discriminating between the eternal and
the temporal, the true and the false, the truth and
mere opinion. The second is a right estimate of the
eternal and true as opposed to the perishable and
illusory. The third faculty is that of practising the
six qualities already mentioned in the foregoing chap-
ters: thought-control, control of action, perseverance,
tolerance, good faith, and equanimity. The fourth
attribute necessary is the longing for freedom. A

Initiation and its Results

mere intellectual comprehension of what is included
in these attributes is utterly worthless. They must
become so incorporated into the soul that they endure
as inner habits. Let us take, for instance, the first of
these attributes — the discrimination between the eter-
nal and the temporal. , One must so educate oneself
that quite naturally one discriminates in everything
that confronts one between its impermanent charac-
teristics and those that will endure. This can only
be accomplished if in one's observation of the external
world one continues again and again to make this
attempt. At last the gaze in quite a natural way
discerns what endures, just as hitherto it had satisfied
itself with the impermanent. " All that is imperma-
nent is only a parable " — that is a truth which be-
comes an obvious conviction for the soul. And so,
too, must it be with the others of the four attributes
on the path of probation.

Now under the influence of these four spiritual
habits the etheric body actually transforms itself. By
the first — the discrimination between the true and the
false — the center already described is formed in the
head and that in the larynx is prepared. The exer-
cises of concentration, before mentioned, are above
all things essential to any true formation. It is they
that create, while the four spiritual habits bring to

Constitution of Etheric Body

fruition. If the center in the larynx has been pre-
pared, the free control of the etheric body, as above
explained, will follow, and its separation, its network
covering, be produced by the correct estimating of
the eternal as opposed to the impermanent. If the
student acquires this power of estimation, the facts
of the higher worlds will gradually become percep-
tible. Only it must not be thought that one has
merely to perform those actions which appear to be
important when measured by the intellect alone. The
smallest action, every little thing accomplished, has
something of importance in the vast household of the
world, and it is only necessary that one should be-
come conscious of this importance. It is not a ques-
tion of underestimating the daily affairs of life, but
of rightly estimating them. Enough has been said
in the previous chapter of the six virtues of which the
third attribute is composed. They are connected with
the development of the twelve-petalled lotus in the
region of the heart, and this, as already indicated, is
associated with the life-current of the etheric body.
The fourth attribute, which is the longing for free-
dom, serves to bring to fruition the etheric organ
situated in the heart. If these attributes have become
real spiritual habits, the individual frees himself from
everything which only depends upon the capacities
of his personal nature. He ceases to contemplate

Initiation and its Results

things from his own separate standpoint. The limits
of his narrow self, which fetter him to this outlook,
disappear. The secrets of the spiritual world reveal
themselves to his inner self. This is liberation. For
all fetters constrain the individual to regard things
and beings as if they corresponded to his personal
limitations. From this personal manner of regarding
things the occult student must become independent
and free.

From this it will be clear that the writings which
have proceeded from the mighty sages can become
effective in the innermost deeps of human nature.
The sayings concerning the four attributes are just
such emanations of " primeval wisdom." They can
be found under one form or another in all the great
religions. The founders of the great religions did
not give mankind these teachings from vague feel-
ing. They based them on much firmer foundations,
because they were mighty Initiates. Out of their
knowledge did they shape their moral teachings.
They were aware how these would react upon the
finer nature of men, and desired that the culture of
these qualities should gradually lead to the organiza-
tion of that finer nature. To live according to these
great religions is to work out one's own spiritual per-
fection, and only in so doing can one really serve the

Constitution of Etheric Body

world. Self-perfection is in no wise selfish, for the
imperfect man is also an imperfect servant of hu-
manity and of the world. The more perfect one
becomes the more does one serve the world. " If the
rose adorns herself she adorns the garden."

The founders of religions are therefore the great
magicians. That which comes from them flows into
the souls of men and women, and thus with human-
ity the whole world moves forward. The founders
of religions have consciously worked with this evolu-
tionary process of humanity. One only understands
the true meaning of religious instructions when one
realizes that they are the result of actual knowledge
concerning the innermost depths of human nature.

The leaders of religion were mighty sages, and it
is out of their knowledge that the ideals of humanity
have sprung. Yet the individual comes nearer to
these leaders when he uplifts himself in his own evo-
lution to their heights.

If a person has evolved his etheric body in the man-
ner just described, an entirely new life is opened up
before him, and at the proper period in the course of
his training he now receives that enlightenment which
adapts him to this new existence. For example, he
sees (by means of the sixteen-petalled lotus) the
shapes of a higher world. He must then realize how

Initiation and its Results

different are these forms when caused by this or that
object or being. In the first place, he should notice
that he is able, in a certain manner, to influence
some of these forms very powerfully by means of his
thoughts and feelings, but others not at all, or only
to a limited extent. One species of these figures will
be altered immediately if the observer thinks to him-
self when they appear, " that is beautiful," and then
in the course of his contemplation changes his thought
and thinks " that is useful." It is particularly char-
acteristic of the forms which come from minerals or
from objects artistically made, that they possess the
peculiarity of changing under every thought or feel-
ing which is directed upon them by the observer. In
a lesser degree this is also true of the forms that pro-
ceed from plants, and to a still smaller extent of those
that are connected with animals. These forms are
full of life and motion, but this motion only pertains
to that part which is under the influence of human
thought or feeling, and in the other parts it is effected
by forces upon which a person can exercise no influ-
ence. Now there appears within this whole world a
species of forms which are almost entirely unaffected
by activities on the part of human beings. The stu-
dent can convince himself that these forms proceed
either from minerals or artificial shapes, and not from
animals or plants. In order to make these things

Constitution of Etheric Body

quite clear, he must now observe those forms which
he can realize to have proceeded from the feelings,
impulses, and passions of human beings. Yet he
may find that upon these forms his own thoughts and
feelings still hold some influence, even although it
be comparatively small. • There always remains a
residuum of forms in this world upon which all such
influences are less and less effective. Indeed, this
residuum comprises a very large proportion of those
forms which are usually discerned by the student at
the outset of his career. He can only enlighten him-
self concerning the nature of this species by observ-
ing himself. He then learns that they were produced
by himself, that what he does or wishes or wills finds
expression in these forms. An impulse that dwells
in him, a desire that he possesses, a purpose that he
harbors, and so forth, are all manifested in these
forms; indeed, his whole character displays itself in
this world of shapes. By means of his thoughts and
feelings a person can exercise an influence upon all
the forms which do not come from himself; but upon
those which are sent into the higher world from his
own being he possesses no power when once he has
created them.

Now it follows from what has been said that from
this higher aspect of human inner nature one's own
world of impulses, desires, and conceptions is seen to

Initiation and its Results

express itself in outward shapes, just like all other
beings or objects. To the higher knowledge the
inner world appears as a part of the outer world.
Just as anyone in the physical world who should be
surrounded with mirrors could look at his physical
form in that way, so, too, in a higher world does the
spiritual self of man appear to him as an image re-
flected in a mirror.

At this stage of development the student has ar-
rived at the point when he overcomes the " illusion
of the personal self," as it has been expressed in
theosophical books. He can now regard that inner
personality as something external to himself, just as
previously he recognized as external the things which
affected his senses. Thus he learns by gradual expe-
rience to master himself as hitherto he mastered the
beings around him.

If any one obtains a view into this higher world
before his nature has been sufficiently prepared, he
stands before the character-picture of his own soul
as before an enigma. There his own impulses and
passions confront him in the shapes of animals or,
more seldom, of human beings. It is true that the
animal forms of this world have never quite the ap-
pearance of those in the physical world, but still, they
possess a remote resemblance. By the inexpert ob-

Constitution of Etheric Body

server they may easily be taken for the same. When
one enters this world, one must adopt an entirely new
method of forming one's judgments. For, seeing
that those things which properly pertain to the inner
nature appear as external to oneself, they are only
discerned as the mirrored reflections of what they
really are. When, for instance, one perceives a num-
ber, one must reverse it as one would read what is
seen in a mirror. 265 would mean in reality 562. One
sees a sphere as if one were in the center of it. One
has therefore at first to translate correctly these inner
perceptions. The attributes of the soul appear like-
wise as if in a mirror. A wish that is directed toward
something outside appears as a form which moves
toward the person who wished it. Passions that have
their habitation in the lower part of human natttre
take on the forms of animals or of similar shapes that
let themselves loose upon the individual. In reality
these passions are struggling outward; it is in the
external world that they seek for satisfaction, but this
outward striving appears in the mirrored reflection
as an attack upon the impassioned person.

If the student, before attaining the higher vision,
has learned by quiet, sincere examination of himself
to realize his own attributes, he will then, at the mo-
ment when his inner self appears to him as a mirrored

Initiation and its Results

reflection outside, find courage and power to conduct
himself in the right way. People who have not prac-
tised such introspection sufficiently to enable them to
know their own inner natures will not recognize them-
selves in these mirrored pictures and will mistake
them for something foreign. Or they may become
alarmed at the vision and say to themselves, because
they cannot endure the sight, that the whole thing is
nothing but an illusion which cannot lead them any-
where. In either case the person, by his unseasonable
arrival at a certain stage in the development of his
higher organization, would stand disastrously in his
own way.

It is absolutely necessary that the student should
pass through this experience of spiritually seeing his
own soul if he is to press onward to higher things.
' For in his own self he then possesses that spirituality
by which he can best judge. If he has already ac-
quired a fair realization of his own personality in the
physical world, and when the picture of that person-
ality first appears to him in the higher world, he is
then able to compare the one with the other. He can
refer to the higher as to a thing known to him, and
in this way can advance on firm ground. If, on the
contrary, he were confronted by numbers of other
spiritual beings, he would be able to gain hardly any

Constitution of Etheric Body

information concerning their nature and attributes.
He would very soon feel the ground slipping away
from his feet. It cannot too often be repeated that a
safe entrance into the higher worlds can only follow
a solid knowledge and estimate of one's own nature.

It is pictures, then, that the student meets on his
way up to the higher worlds, for the realities which
are expressed by these pictures are really in himself.
He must soon become sufficiently mature to prevent
himself from desiring, at this first stage, veritable
realities, but to allow of his regarding these pictures
as appropriate. But inwardly he soon learns some-
thing completely new from his observation of this
picture-world. His lower self only exists for him as
mirrored pictures, yet in the midst of these reflections
appears the true reality that is his higher self. Out
of the pictures of the lower personality the form of
the spiritual ego becomes visible. Then from the
latter threads are spun to other and higher spiritual
realities.

This is the moment when the two-petalled lotus in
the region of the eyes is required. If this now begins
to stir, the individual attains the power of setting his
higher ego in connection with spiritual, superhuman
entities. The currents which flow from this lotus
move so toward these higher entities that the move-

Initiation and its Results

ments here spoken of are fully apparent to the indi-
vidual. Just as the light makes physical objects
visible to the eyes, these currents reveal the spiritual
things of the higher worlds. Through sinking him-
self into certain ideas which the teacher imparts to
the pupil in personal intercourse, the latter learns to
set in motion, and then to direct the currents pro-
ceeding from this lotus-flower of the eyes.

At this stage of development especially, what is
meant by a really sound capacity for judgment and
a clear, logical training is manifested. One has only
to consider that here the higher self, which had hith-
erto slumbered unconscious and like a seed, is born
into conscious existence. One is here concerned not
with a figurative, but with a veritable birth in the
spiritual world, and the being now born, the higher
self, if it is to be capable of life, must enter that world
with all the necessary organs and conditions. Just
as nature takes precautions that a child shall come
into the world with well-formed ears and eyes, one
must take precautions in the self -development of an
individual, so that his higher self shall enter existence
with the necessary attributes. These laws which have
to do with the development of the higher organs of
the spirit are no other than the sound, rational, and
moral laws of the physical world. The spiritual ego

Constitution of Eiheric Body

matures in the physical self, as the child in the moth-
er's womb. The health of the child depends upon
the normal working of natural laws in the womb of
the mother. The health of the spiritual self is simi-
larly conditioned by the laws of common intelligence
and reason that work in the physical life. No one
who does not live and think healthily in the physical
world can give birth to a sound spiritual self. Nat-
ural and rational life is the basis of all true spiritual
evolution. Just as the child, when still in the womb
of the mother, lives according to natural forces which
after its birth it uses with its organs of sense, so the
higher self in a human being lives according to the
laws of the spiritual world even during its physical
incarceration; and even as the child out of a vague
sensational life acquires the powers above mentioned,
so can a human being also acquire the powers of the
spiritual world before his own higher self is born.
Indeed, he must do this if the latter is to enter its
world as a completely developed being. It would be
quite wrong for anyone to say, " I cannot follow the
teachings of the mystic and theosophist until I can
see them for myself," for if he should adopt this view,
he could certainly never attain to genuine higher
knowledge.

He would be in the same position as a child in the
mother's womb who should reject the powers that

Initiation and its Results

would come to him through the mother, and should
intend to wait until he could create them for himself.
Even as the embryo of the child learns in its dim life
to accept as right and good what is offered to it, so
should it be with the person who is still blindfolded
in relation to the truths declared in the teachings of
mystic or theosophist. There is an insight, based
upon intuition of the truth and a clear, sound, all-
round critical reason, concerning these teachings, that
exists before one can yet see spiritual things for one-
self. First, one must learn the mystical wisdom, and
by this very study prepare oneself to see. A person
who should learn to see before he has prepared him-
self in this way would resemble a child who was born
with eyes and ears but without a brain. The entire
world of sound and color would widen out before
him, but he could make no use of it.

That which before appealed to the student through
his sense of truth, his reason, and his intelligence, be-
comes, at the stage of occult education already de-
scribed, his own experience. He now has a direct
realization of his higher self, and he learns how this
higher self is connected with spiritual entities of a
loftier nature and how it forms a union with them.
He sees how the lower self descends from a higher
world, and it is revealed to him how his higher nature

Constitution of Etheric Body

outlasts the lower. Now he can distinguish between
what is permanent in himself and what is perishable,
and this is nothing less than the power to understand
from his own observation the teachings concerning
the incarnation of the higher self in the lower. It
will now become plain to him that he stands in a
lofty spiritual relation thereto, that his attributes and
his destiny are originated by this very relation. He
learns to know the law of his life, his Karma. He
perceives that his lower self, as it at present shapes
his destiny, is only one of the forms which can be
adopted by his higher nature. He discerns the possi-
bility stretching before his higher self, of working
upon his own nature so that he may become ever
more and more perfect. Now, too, he can penetrate
into the great differences between human beings in
regard to their comparative perfection. He will rec-
ognize that there are before him people who have
already traversed the stages that still lie in front of
him. He discerns that the teachings and deeds of
such people proceed from the inspiration of a higher
world. All this he owes to his first glimpse into this
higher world. Those who have been called " the mas-
ters of wisdom," " the great Initiates of humanity,"
will now begin to appear as veritable facte.

These are the treasures which the student at this
stage owes to his development: insight into his higher

Initiation and its Results

self; into the doctrine of the incarnation of this
higher self in a lower; into the laws hy which life in
the physical world is regulated according to its spir-
itual connections — in short, the law of Karma; and,
finally, insight into the nature of the great Initiates.

Of the student who has arrived at this stage it is
said that douht has entirely vanished away. If he
has already acquired a faith which is based upon rea-
son and sound thought, there now appears in its place
full knowledge and an insight which nothing what-
soever can make dim.

Religions have presented in their ceremonies, their
sacraments, and their rites, external visible pictures
of the higher spiritual beings and events. None but
those who have not penetrated into the depths of the
great religions can fail to notice this; but he who has
seen for himself these spiritual realities will under-
stand the great significance of each outward and
visible act. Then for him the religious service itself
becomes a representation of his own communion with
the spiritual, superhuman world. One often finds it
said in theosophical literature, even if not quite so
plainly expressed, that the occult student at this stage
becomes " free from superstition." Superstition in
its essence is nothing but dependence upon outward

Constitution of Etheric Body

and visible acts, without insight into the spiritual
facts of which they are the expression.

It has been shown how the student, by arriving at
this stage, becomes veritably a new person. Little
by little he can now mature himself by means of the
currents that come from the etheric body, until he
can control the still higher vital element, that which
is called "the fire of Kundalini," and by so doing
can attain a completer liberty from the bondage of
his physical body.

Ill

DREAM-LIFE

An intimation that the student has arrived at the
stage of evolution described in the foregoing chapter
is the change which comes over his dream-life. Hith-
erto his dreams were confused and haphazard, but
now they begin to assume a more regular character.
Their pictures begin to arrange themselves in an or-
derly way, like the phenomena of daily life. He can
discern in them laws, causes, and effects. The con-
tents of his dreams will likewise change. While
hitherto he discerned only the reverberations of daily
life, mixed impressions of his surroundings or of his
physical condition, there now appear before him pic-
tures of a world with which he had no acquaintance.
At first, indeed, the general nature of his dreams will
remain as of old in so far as the dream differentiates
itself from waking phenomena by presenting in em-
blematical form whatever it wishes to express. This
dramatization cannot have escaped the notice of any
attentive observer of dream-life. For instance, you
may dream that you are catching some horrible crea-
ture and experiencing an unpleasant sensation in
your hand. You wake up to discover that you are

Initiation and its Results

tightly holding a piece of the bed-clothes. The per-
ception does not express itself plainly, but only
through the allegorical image. Or you may dream
that you are flying from some pursuer and in conse-
quence you experience fear. On waking up you find
that during sleep you had been suffering from pal-
pitation of the heart. The stomach which is replete
with indigestible food will cause uneasy dream-pic-
tures. Occurrences in the neighborhood of the sleep-
ing person may also reflect themselves allegorically
in dreams. The striking of a clock may evoke the
picture of soldiers marching by to the sound of their
drums. Or a falling chair can become the origin of
a complete dream-drama in which the sound of fall-
ing is translated into a gun report, and so forth.
The more regulated dreams of the person whose
etheric body has begun its development have also this
allegorical method of expression, but they will cease
to repeat merely the facts of the physical environ-
ment or of the sense-body. As these dreams which
owe their origin to such things become orderly they
are mixed up with similar dream-pictures which are
the expression of things and events in another world.
Here one has experiences that lie beyond the range
of one's waking consciousness. Now it must never be
fancied that any true mystic will then make the things
which in this manner he experiences in dreams the

Dream-Life

basis of any authoritative account of the higher world.
One must only consider such dream-experiences as
hints of a higher development. Very soon, as a fur-
ther result of this, we find that the pictures of the
dreaming student are no longer, as hitherto, with-
drawn by the guidance of a careful intellect, but are
regulated thereby, and methodically considered like
the conceptions and impressions of the waking con-
sciousness. The difference between this dream-con-
sciousness and the waking state grows ever smaller
and smaller. The dreamer becomes, in the fullest
meaning of the word, awake in his dream-life: that
is to say, he can feel himself to be the master and
leader of the pictures which then appear.

During his dreams the individual actually finds
himself in a world which is other than that of his
physical senses. But if he possesses only unevolved
spiritual organs, he can receive from that world only
the confused dramatizations already mentioned. It
would only be as much at his disposal as would be
the sense-world to a being equipped with nothing
but the most rudimentary of eyes. In consequence
he could only discern in this world the reflections and
reverberations of ordinary life. Yet in dreams he can
see these, because his soul interweaves its daily per-
ceptions as pictures into the stuff of which that other

Initiation and its Results

world consists. It must here be clearly understood
that in addition to the workaday conscious life, one
leads in this world a second and unconscious existence.
Everything that one perceives or thinks becomes im-
pressed upon this other world. Only if the lotus-
flowers are evolved can one perceive these impressions.
Now certain minute beginnings of the lotus-flowers
are always at the disposal of anyone. During daily
consciousness he cannot perceive with them, because
the impressions made on him are very faint. It is
for similar reasons that during the daytime one can-
not see the stars. They cannot strike our perceptions
when opposed by the fierce and active sunlight, and
it is just in this way that faint spiritual impressions
cannot make themselves felt in opposition to the
masterful impressions of the physical senses. When
the door of outward sense is closed in sleep, these
impressions can emerge confusedly, and then the
dreamer remembers what he has experienced in an-
other world. Yet, as already remarked, at first these
experiences are nothing more than that which con-
ceptions related to the physical senses have impressed
on the spiritual world. Only the developed lotus-
flowers make it possible for manifestations which are
unconnected with the physical world to show them-
selves. Out of the development of the etheric body
arises a full knowledge concerning the impressions

Dream-Life

that are conveyed from one world to another. With
this the student's communication with a new world
has begun. He must now — by means of the instruc-
tions given in his occult training — first of all acquire
a twofold nature. It must become possible for him
during waking hours to recall quite consciously the
beings he has observed in dreams. If he has acquired
this faculty he will then become able to make these
observations during his ordinary waking state. His
attention will have become so concentrated upon spir-
itual impressions that these impressions need no longer
vanish in the light of those which come through the
senses, but are, as it were, always at hand.

If the student is able to do this, there then arises
before his spiritual eyes something of the picture
which has been described in a former chapter. He
can now discern that what exists in the spiritual world
is the origin of that which corresponds to it in the
physical world, and, above all things, can he learn in
this world to know his own higher self. The task
that now confronts him is to grow, as it were, into
this higher self, or, in other words, to regard it as
his only true self, and also to conduct himself accord-
ingly. He now retains, more and more, the concep-
tion and the vital realization that his physical body
and what hitherto he designated "himself " is only

Initiation and its Results

an instrument of the higher self. He takes an atti-
tude toward his lower self, such as might be taken
by some one limited to the world of sense with regard
to some instrument or vehicle which serves him. Just
as such a person would not consider the carriage in
which he travelled to be himself, though he says " I
travel," or " I go," so, too, the developed person,
when he says " I go through the door," retains in his
mind the conception, " I take my body through the
door." This must become for him such an habitual
idea that he never for a moment loses the firm ground
of the physical world, that never a feeling of estrange-
ment in the world of sense arises. If the student does
not wish to become a mere fantastic or vain enthusiast,
he must work with the higher consciousness, so that
he does not impoverish his life in the physical world,
but enriches it, even as the person who makes use of
a railway instead of his own legs may enrich himself
by going for a journey.

If the student has raised himself to such a life in
the higher Ego, then — or still more probably during
the acquisition of the higher consciousness — it will be
revealed to him how he may stir into life what is called
the fire of Kundalini which lies in the organ at the
heart, and, further, how he may direct the currents
described in a previous chapter.

Dream-Life

This fire of Kundalini is an element of finer mate-
rial which flows outward from this organ and streams
in luminous loveliness through the self -moving lotus-
flowers and the other canals of the evolved etheric
body. Thence it radiates outward on the surround-
ing spiritual world and makes it spiritually visible,
just as the sunshine falling upon the surrounding
objects makes visible the physical world.

How this fire of Kundalini in the organ at the
heart is fanned into life may only form the subject
of actual occult training. Nothing can be said of it
openly.

The spiritual world becomes plainly perceptible as
composed of objects and beings only for the indi-
vidual who in such a way can send the fire of Kun-
dalini through his etheric body and into the outer
world, so that its objects are illumined by it. From
this it will be seen that a complete consciousness of
an object in the spiritual world is entirely dependent
upon the condition that the person himself has cast
upon it the spiritual light. In reality the Ego, who
has drawn forth this fire, no longer dwells in the
physical human body at all, but (as has been already
shown) apart from it. The organ at the heart is
only the spot where the individual from without en-
kindles that fire. If he wished to do this, not here

Initiation and its Results

but elsewhere, then the spiritual perceptions pro-
duced by means of the fire would have no connection
with the physical world. Yet one should relate all
the higher spiritual things to the physical world it-
self, and through oneself should let them work in the
latter. The organ at the heart is precisely the one
through which the higher self makes use of the lower
self as his instrument and whence the latter is directed.

The feeling which the developed person now bears
toward the things of the spiritual world is quite other
than that which is characteristic of ordinary people
in relation to the physical world. The latter feel
themselves to be in a certain part of the world of
sense, and the objects they perceive are external to
them. The spiritually evolved person feels himself
to be united with the spiritual objects that he per-
ceives, as if, indeed, he were within them. In spir-
itual space he veritably moves from place to place,
and is therefore spoken of in the language of occult
science as " the wanderer." He is practically with-
out a home. Should he continue in this mere wan-
dering, he would be unable to define clearly any
object in spiritual space. Just as one defines an ob-
ject or a locality in physical space by starting from
a certain point, so must it also be in regard to the
other world. He must seek for a place there which

Dream-Life

he practically completely explores — a place of which
he spiritually takes possession. This he must make
his spiritual home and set everything in relation to
it. The person who is living in the physical world
sees everything in a like manner, as if he carried the
ideas of his physical home wherever he went. Invol-
untarily a man from Berlin will describe London
quite otherwise than a Parisian. Only there is a dif-
ference between the spiritual and the physical home.
Into the latter you are born without your own co-
operation, and from it in youth you have acquired
a number of ideas which will henceforth involuntarily
give color to everything. The spiritual home, on the
contrary, you have formed for yourself with full
consciousness. You therefore shape your opinions
when going out from it in the full, unprejudiced
light of freedom. This formation of a spiritual home
is known in the speech of occult science as " the
building of the hut."

The spiritual outlook at this point extends at first
to the spiritual counterparts of the physical world,
so far as these lie in what we call the astral world. In
this world is found everything which in its nature is
akin to human impulse, feeling, desire, or passion.
For in every sense-object that surrounds a person
there are forces which are related to these human

Initiation and its Remits

forces. A crystal, for instance, is formed by powers
which, when seen from the higher standpoint, are
perceptible as akin to the impulse which acts in
the human being. By similar forces the sap is drawn
through the vessels of the plant, the blossoms unfold,
the seed-cases are made to burst. All these powers
acquire form and color for the developed spiritual
perceptions, just as the objects of the physical world
have color and form for physical eyes. At the stage
of development here described the student no longer
sees merely the crystal or the plant, but likewise the
spiritual forces behind them, even as he does not now
see the impulses of animal or human being only
through their external manifestations, but also di-
rectly as veritable objects, as in the physical world
he can see chairs and tables. The entire world of in-
stinct, impulse, wish or passion, whether of a person
or of an animal, is there in the astral cloud, in the
aura with which the subject is en wrapt.

Besides this, the clairvoyant at this stage of his
evolution perceives things that are almost or entirely
withdrawn from the perceptions of sense. For ex-
ample, he can observe the astral difference between a
place which is for the most part filled with persons
of low development and another which is inhabited
by high-minded people. In a hospital it is not only
the physical but also the astral atmosphere which is

Dream-Life

other than that of the ball-room. A commercial town
has a different astral air from that of a university
town. At first the powers of perceiving such things
will be but weak in the person who has become clair-
voyant. At first it will seem to be connected with
the objects concerned, very much as is the dream-
consciousness of the ordinary person in relation to his
waking consciousness, but gradually he will com-
pletely awaken on this plane also.

The highest acquisition that comes to the clairvoy-
ant, when he has reached this degree of sight, is that
by which the astral reaction of animal or human
impulses or passions is revealed to him. A loving
action has quite a different astral appearance from
one which proceeds out of hatred. The sensual appe-
tite gives rise to a horrible astral image, and the feel-
ing that is based on lofty things to one that is beau-
tiful. These correspondences or astral pictures are
only to be seen faintly during physical human life,
for their strength is much lessened by existence in
the physical world. A wish for any object displays
itself, for instance, as a reflection of the object itself,
in addition to that which the wish appears to be in
the astral world. If, however, that wish is satisfied
by the attainment of the physical object, or if at
least the possibility of such satisfaction is present, the
corresponding image would only make a very faint

Initiation and its Results

appearance. It first comes into its full power after
the death of a person, when the soul, according to
its nature, continues to foster such desires, but can-
not any longer satisfy them because the object and
its own physical organs are both lacking. Thus the
gourmet will still have the desire to tickle his palate;
but the possibility of satisfaction is absent, since he
no longer possesses a palate. As a result of this the
desire is displayed as an exceptionally powerful image
by which the soul is tormented. These experiences
after death among the images of the lower soul-
nature are known as the period in " Kamaloka," that
is to say, in the region of desire. They only vanish
away when the soul has cleansed itself from all appe-
tites which are directed towards the physical world.
Then does the soul mount up into a loftier region
which is called " Devachan." Although these images
are thus weak in the person who is yet alive, they still
exist and follow him as his own environment in Kama-
loka, just as the comet is followed by its tail, and
they can be seen by the clairvoyant who has arrived
at this stage of development.

Among such experiences and all that are akin to
them the occult student lives in the world that has
been described. He cannot as yet bring himself into
touch with still loftier spiritual adventures. From
this point he must climb upward still higher.

THE THREE STATES OF
CONSCIOUSNESS

The life of man is passed in three states, which
are as follows: waking, dreaming sleep, and dream-
less deep sleep. One may comprehend how to attain
to a higher knowledge of the spiritual worlds by
forming an idea of the changes in the conditions that
have to be undergone by the aspirant to such knowl-
edge. Before a person has passed through the neces-
sary training, his consciousness is continually broken
by the periods of rest which accompany sleep. Dur-
ing these periods the soul knows nothing of the outer
world and nothing either of itself. Only at certain
times above the wide ocean of unconsciousness there
will arise dreams which are related to events in the
outside world or to the conditions of the physical
body. At first one recognizes in dreams only a special
manifestation of the sleep-existence, and commonly
men speak of two states only — waking and sleeping.
From the occult standpoint, however, dreams have a
special significance, apart from both the other two
states. It has already been shown in a previous chap-
ter how changes occur in the dream-existence of the

Initiation and its Results

person who undertakes the ascent to higher knowl-
edge. His dreams lose their meaningless, disorderly,
and illogical character, and begin gradually to form
a regulated, correlated world. With continued de-
velopment this new world, born of one's dreams, will
yield nothing to outer and phenomenal realities, not
only as regards its inner truth, but also in the facts
which it reveals, for these in the fullest sense of the
word present a higher reality. In the phenomenal
world especially there are secrets and riddles hidden
everywhere. This world reveals admirably the effects
of certain higher facts, but he who limits his percep-
tions to the senses alone cannot penetrate into causes.
To the occult student such causes are partly revealed
in the state already described as being evolved out
of his dream-existence. To be sure, he ought not to
regard these revelations as actual knowledge so long
as the same things do not reveal themselves to him
during ordinary waking life as well. But to that he
also attains. He acquires the power to enter the
state which he had first evolved from his dream-life
during the hours of waking consciousness. Then the
phenomenal world is enriched for him by something
quite new. Just as a person who, though born blind,
undergoes an operation on his sight and finds every-
thing in his environment enriched by the new testi-
mony of visual perception, so does the person who

Three States of Consciousness

has become clairvoyant in the above manner, regard
the entire world around him, perceiving in it new
characteristics, new beings, and new things. No
longer is it necessary that he should wait for a dream
in order that he may live in another world, for he
can transport himself into the state of higher percep-
tion at any suitable time. This condition or state has
an importance for him comparable to that of percep-
tion with open eyes as opposed to a blindfold state.
One can say quite literally that the occult student
opens the eyes of his soul and sees things which must
ever remain veiled from the bodily senses.

This state (which has previously been described in
detail) only forms the bridge to a still higher stage
of occult knowledge. If the exercises which are as-
signed to him should be continued, the student will
discover at the appropriate time that the vigorous
changes hitherto mentioned affect not only his dream-
life, but that the transformation extends even to what
was before a deep and dreamless sleep. He notices
that the utter unconsciousness in which he has always
found himself during this sleep is now broken by
conscious isolated experiences. Out of the great
darkness of sleep arise perceptions of a kind which
he had never known before. Naturally it is no easy
matter to describe these perceptions, for our language
is only adapted to the phenomenal world, and in con-

Initiation and its Results

sequence it is only possible to find approximate words
to describe what does not appertain to that world at
all. Still, one has to make use of these words in
describing the higher worlds, and this can only be
done by the free use of simile; yet, seeing that every-
thing in the world is interrelated, such an attempt
can be made. The things and beings of the higher
worlds are anyway so distantly connected with those
of the phenomenal world that though in good faith
a portrayal of these higher worlds in the words usu-
ally descriptive of the phenomenal world may be
attempted, one must always retain the idea that very
much in descriptions of this kind must obviously par-
take of the nature of simile and imagery. Occult
education itself is only partially carried on by the use
of ordinary language; for the rest, the student learns
in his ascent a special symbolical language, an em-
blematical method of expression; but nothing con-
cerning this can at present, and for very good rea-
sons, be openly imparted. The student must acquire
it for himself in the occult school. This, however,
need form no obstacle to the acquisition of some
knowledge concerning the nature of the higher worlds
by means of an ordinary description, such as will here
be given.

If we wish to give some suggestion of the expe-
riences mentioned above as appearing from out of

Three States of Consciousness

the sea of unconsciousness during the period of deep
sleep, we may best liken them to those of hearing.
We can speak of perceptible sounds and words. If
we may liken the experiences of dreaming sleep to a
certain kind of seeing comparable to the perceptions
of the eyes, the experiences of deep sleep allow of
similar comparison with oral impressions. It may be
remarked in passing that of these two faculties that
of sight remains the higher even in the spiritual
worlds. Colors are there still higher than sounds or
words, but the student at the beginning of his de-
velopment does not perceive these higher colors, but
merely the inferior sounds. Only because the indi-
vidual, after his general development, is already
qualified for the world which reveals itself to him in
dreaming sleep, does he straightway perceive its col-
ors, but he is still unqualified for the higher world
which is kindled in deep sleep, and in consequence
this world reveals itself to him at first as sounds and
words; later on he can mount up, here as elsewhere,
to the perception of colors and forms.

If the student now realizes that he passes through
such experiences in deep sleep, his next task is to
make them as clear and vivid as possible. In the
beginning this is very difficult, for remembrance dur-
ing the waking state is at first extraordinarily scanty.

Initiation and its Results

You know well on waking that you have experienced
something; but as to its nature you remain completely
in obscurity. The most important thing during the
beginning of this state is that you should remain
peaceful and composed, and should not allow your-
self, even for a moment, to lapse into any unrest or
impatience. Under all circumstances the latter con-
dition is injurious. It can never accelerate any fur-
ther development, but in every case must delay it.
You must abandon yourself calmly, as it were, to
what is given to you: all violence must be repressed.
If at any period you cannot recall these experiences
during the deep sleep, you should wait patiently until
it becomes possible to do so, for such a moment will
certainly some day arrive. If you have previously
been patient and calm, the faculty of remembrance,
when it comes, will be a securer possession; while,
should it for once appear, perhaps in answer to for-
cible methods, it would only mean that for a much
longer period it would afterwards remain entirely lost.

If the power of remembrance has once appeared
and the experiences of sleep emerge complete, vivid,
and clear before the waking consciousness, attention
should then be directed to what here follows. Among
these experiences, we can clearly distinguish two
kinds. The first kind is totally foreign to everything
that one has ever experienced. At first one may take

Three States of Consciousness

pleasure in these, may let oneself be exalted by them;
but after a while they are put aside. They are the
first harbingers of a higher spiritual world to which
one only becomes accustomed at a later period. The
other kind of experiences, however, will reveal to the
attentive observer a peculiar relationship to the ordi-
nary world in which he lives. Concerning those ele-
ments of life on which he ponders, those things in his
environment which he would like to understand, but
is unable to understand with the ordinary intellect,
these experiences during sleep can give him infor-
mation. During his daily life man reflects on that
which surrounds him and he arrives at conceptions
which make comprehensible to him the interrelation
of things. He tries to understand in thought what
he perceives with sense. It is with such ideas and
conceptions that the sleep-experiences are concerned.
That which was hitherto merely a dark and crepus-
cular conception now assumes a sonorous and vital
character which can only be compared to the sounds
and words of the phenomenal world. It seems to the
student ever more and more that the solution of the
riddle upon which he ponders is whispered in sounds
and words that proceed from a finer world. Then
ought he to relate what has come to him in this way
with the matters of ordinary life. What was hith-
erto only accessible to his thought has now become

Initiation and its Results

an actual experience for him, living and significant
as can seldom, if ever, be the case with an experience
in the world of sense. The things and beings of the
phenomenal world are shown thereby to be more than
merely what they seem to the perceptions of the
senses. They are the expression and the efflux of a
spiritual world. This spiritual world which lay hith-
erto obscure now reveals itself to the occult student
in the whole of his environment.

It is easy to see that the possession of this per-
ceptive faculty can only prove itself to be a blessing
if the soul-senses of the person in whom they have
been opened are in perfect order, just as we can only
use our ordinary senses for the accurate observation
of the world if they are in a well-regulated condition.
Now these higher senses are formed by the individual
himself in accordance with exercises which are given
to him in the course of his occult training. As much
concerning these exercises as may be openly said has
been already given in The Way of Initiation. The
rest is imparted by word of mouth in the occult
schools. Among these exercises we find concentra-
tion, or the directing of attention upon certain defi-
nite ideas and conceptions that are connected with
the secrets of the universe; and meditation, or the
living within such ideas, the complete submerging of

Three States of Consciousness

oneself within them in the manner already explained.
By concentration and meditation a person works upon
his own soul and develops within it the soul-organs of
perception. While he applies himself to the prac-
tice of meditation and concentration his soul evolves
within his hody as the embryo child grows in the
body of the mother. When, during sleep, the spe-
cific experiences above described begin to occur, the
moment of birth has arrived for the full-grown soul,
who has thereby become literally a new being brought
by the individual from seed to fruit. Instructions
concerning the subject of meditation and concentra-
tion must therefore be very carefully prepared and
equally carefully followed out, since they are the
very laws which determine the germination and evo-
lution of the higher soul-nature of the individual;
and this must appear at its birth as a harmonious and
well-formed organism. If, on the contrary, there
were something lacking in these instructions, no such
being would appear, but in its place one that was
misborn from the standpoint of spiritual matters,
and incapable of life.

That the birth of this higher soul-nature should
occur during deep sleep will not seem hard of com-
prehension if we consider that the tender organism,
still unable to withstand much opposition, could

Initiation and its Results

hardly make itself noticed by a chance apparition
among the powerful, harsh events of workaday life.
Its activity cannot be observed when opposed by the
activity of the body. In sleep, however, when the
body is at rest, the activity of the higher soul, at first
so faint and unapparent, can come into sight in so
far as it depends upon the perception of sense. A
warning must here again be given that the occult
student should not regard these sleep-experiences as
entirely reliable sources of knowledge so long as he
is not in a position to transport himself to the plane
of the awakened higher soul during waking-con-
sciousness as well. If he has acquired this power he
is able to perceive the spiritual world between and
within the experiences of the day, or, in other words,
can comprehend as sounds and words the hidden
secrets of his surroundings.

At this period of development we must clearly
understand that we are dealing, at first, with sepa-
rate, more or less unconnected, spiritual experiences.
We must be on our guard against the erection of
any system of knowledge, whether complete or only
interdependent. By so doing we should merely con-
fuse the soul-world with all manner of fantastical
ideas and conceptions; and thus we could very easily
weave a world which has really no connection what-

Three States of Consciousness

ever with the true spiritual world. The occult stu-
dent must practise continually the strictest self-con-
trol. The right method is to grow clearer and clearer
in one's realization of the separate and veritable
experiences which occur, and then to wait for the
arrival of new experiences, full and unforced in their
nature, which will connect themselves, as if on their
own account, with those that have already occurred.
By virtue of the power of the spiritual world in which
he has now once found his way, and by virtue, also,
of practising the prescribed exercises, the student now
experiences an ever-enlarging, ever more compre-
hensive, outspreading of consciousness in deep sleep.
Out of what was erstwhile mere unconsciousness, more
and more experiences emerge, and ever fewer and
fewer become those periods in the sleep-existence that
remain unconscious. Thus, then, do the separate ex-
periences of sleep continually close in upon each other
without this actual interlocking being disturbed by
a multitude of combinations and inferences which
would still arise from the meddling of the intellect
accustomed to the phenomenal world. The less one's
ordinary habits of thought are mixed up in some un-
authorized manner with these higher experiences, the
better it is.

If you conduct yourself rightly, you now approach
nearer and nearer to that stage of the way at which

Initiation and its Results

the entire sleep-life is passed in complete conscious-
ness. Then you exist, when the body is at rest, in a
reality as actual as is the case while you are awake.
It is superfluous to remark that during sleep we are
dealing, at first, with a reality entirely different from
the phenomenal environment in which the body finds
itself. Indeed we learn — nay, must learn if we are
to keep our footing on firm ground and avoid becom-
ing a fantastic — to relate the higher experiences of
sleep to the phenomenal environment. At first, how-
ever, the world which is entered in sleep is a com-
pletely new revelation. In occult science the impor-
tant stage at which consciousness is retained interiorly
through the entire sleep-life is known as the " con-
tinuity of consciousness." *

In the case of a person who has arrived at this
point, experiences and events do not cease during the
intervals when the physical body rests, and no impres-
sions are conveyed to the soul through the medium
of the senses.

1 That which is here referred to is, at a certain stage of devel-
opment, a kind of " ideal," the goal which lies at the end of a
long road. The next things that the student learns are two
extensions of consciousness — first, into a soul-state wherein
hitherto nothing but unregulated dreams were possible, and,
secondly, into another state wherein hitherto nothing was possi-
ble except unconscious and dreamless sleep. He then knows
the three states, even if it remains impossible for him to refuse
entirely all tribute to the ordinary state of sleep.

THE DISSOCIATION OF HUMAN PER-
SONALITY DURING INITIATION

During deep sleep the human soul does not regis-
ter impressions through the medium of the physical
senses. In that state the perceptions of the external
world do not touch it. It is, in truth, outside the
coarser part of human nature, the physical body, and
is only connected with the finer bodies — known as the
astral and etheric- — which escape the observation of
the physical senses. The activity of these finer bodies
does not cease in sleep. Even as the physical body
stands in a certain relation to the things and beings
of its own world, even as it is affected by these and
affects them, so is it also with the soul in a higher
world, but in this latter case, experience continues
during sleep. The soul is then veritably in full ac-
tivity, but we cannot know of these personal activities
as long as we have no higher senses, by means of which
we may observe, during sleep, what happens around
us and what we do ourselves, just as well as we can
use our ordinary senses in daily life for the observa-
tion of our physical environment. Occult training

Initiation and its Results

consists (as has been shown in the foregoing chap-
ters) in the upbuilding of just such higher senses.

By means of examples like that which follows one
can readily conceive how the soul with its finer ve-
hicles may continue its activity during the intervals
when the physical body is at rest. It is no mere
nursery tale which will here be told, but a real case
from life, which was observed with all the means pos-
sessed by the clairvoyant investigator and with all
the care which it is incumbent upon him to exercise;
nor is it related as a "proof," but merely as an
illustration. 1

A young man stood confronted by an examination
which would probably decide his entire future life.
For a long time previously, he had worked for it
assiduously, and consequently, on the evening before
the examination, was exceedingly tired. He was to

1 It has been necessary to make this preamble, since the
superstitious followers of materialism, as soon as they hear of any
such story, immediately respond by declaring that these cases
prove nothing. They whittle away everything of the kind as
the result of delusion and inaccurate observation. To them it
should be remarked, by way of reply, that the clairvoyant inves-
tigator does not require such indirect proofs; he attains to a
direct knowledge by means of the higher sight. Nevertheless,
facts of the kind related above serve to illustrate what is meant.
To establish their truth other means exist than those which ma-
terialistic learning will use in the unimpeachable exposition of a
matter of ordinary fact.

Dissociation of Personality

appear before the examiners punctually at eight in
the morning of the following day. He wanted to
have a night's restful sleep before the trial, but he
feared lest, on account of his exhaustion, he might
not be able to wake himself at the right hour. He
therefore took the precaution to arrange that a per-
son living in the next room should wake him at six
o'clock by knocking at his door. Thus he was able
to abandon himself to sleep with an easy mind. On
the following day he awoke, not at the call of his
neighbor, but out of a dream. He heard six sharp
rifle-reports, and with the sixth he was awake. His
watch — equipped with no alarm — stood at six o'clock.
He dressed himself, and after half an hour his neigh-
bor awoke him. In reality, it was only just then six
o'clock, for his watch, by some accident, had gained
half an hour in the night. The dream which awak-
ened him had timed itself to the erroneous watch.
What was it, then, which happened here? The soul
of the young man had remained active even during
his sleep. Because he had previously formed a con-
nection between this activity of soul and the watch
at his side, there had remained a connection between
the two for the whole of the night, so that on the
next day the soul came, as it were, to the hour of six
simultaneously with the watch. This activity had
impressed itself on the young man's consciousness

Initiation and its Results

through the pictorial dream already described, which
had awakened him. One cannot explain it away by
reference to the increasing light of day or anything
similar, for the soul acted not in accordance with the
real time of day, but with the erroneous watch. The
soul was active like a veritable watchman while the
physical person slept. It is not the activity of the
soul which is lacking in sleep, but rather a conscious-
ness of that activity.

If, by occult training, the sleep-life of a person is
cultivated, in the way already set forth in the previ-
ous chapter, he can then follow consciously everything
which passes before him while in this particular state;
he can voluntarily put himself en rapport with his
environment, just as with his experiences, known
through the physical senses, during the continuance
of the waking consciousness. Had the young man
in the above example been a clairvoyant, he would
have been able to watch the time for himself during
sleep, and in consequence to have awakened himself.
It is necessary to state here that the perception of the
ordinary phenomenal environment presupposes one of
the higher stages of clairvoyance. At the beginning
of his development at this stage, the student only
perceives things which pertain to another world, with-
out being able to discern their relation to the objects
of his workaday surroundings.

Dissociation of Personality

That which is illustrated in such typical examples
of dream — or sleep — life is repeatedly experienced
by people. The soul lives on unintermittently in the
higher worlds and is active within them. Out of
those higher worlds it continually draws the sugges-
tions upon which it works when again in the physical
body, while the ordinary man remains unconscious of
this higher life. It is the work of the occult student
to make it conscious, and by so doing his life becomes;
transformed. So long as the soul has not the higher
sight, it is guided by foreign agencies, and just as
the life of a blind man to whom sight is given by an
operation becomes quite different from what it was
before, so that he can henceforth dispense with a
guide, thus also does the life of a person change un-
der the influence of occult training. He, too, is now
abandoned by his guide and must henceforward guide
himself. As soon as this occurs he is, of course, liable
to errors of which his waking consciousness had no
conception. He now deals with a world in which,
hitherto and unknown to himself, he had been influ-
enced by higher powers. These higher powers are
regulated by the great universal harmony. It is from
this harmony that the student emerges. He has now
to accomplish for himself things which were hitherto
done for him without his co-operation.

Because this is the case there will be much said in

Initiation and its Results

the treatises which deal with such things concerning
the dangers which are connected with an ascent into
the higher worlds. The descriptions of these dangers
which have sometimes been given are very apt to
make timid souls regard this higher life only with
horror. It should here be said that these experiences
only occur if the necessary rules of prudence are neg-
lected. On the other hand, if everything which a
genuine occult education imparts as counsel were here
given as a warning, it would be manifest that the
ascent is through experiences which in magnitude, as
in form, surpass everything that has been painted by
the boldest fancy of an ordinary person; yet it is not
reasonable to talk of possible injury to health or life.
The student learns to recognize horrible threatening
forms that haunt every corner and cranny of life. It
is even possible for him to make use of such powers
and beings who are withdrawn from the perceptions
of sense, and the temptation to use these powers in
the service of some forbidden interest of his own is
very great. There is also the possibility of employ-
ing these forces in erroneous ways, owing to an in-
adequate knowledge concerning the higher worlds.
Some of these especially important events (as, for
example, the meeting with "the Guardian of the
Threshold ") will be described further on in this
treatise. Yet one must realize that these hostile pow-

Dissociation of Personality

ers are around us even when we do not know any-
thing about them. It is true that in this case their
relation to man is determined by higher powers, and
that this relationship only changes when he con-
sciously enters the world which was hitherto unknown
to him. At the same time, this will enhance his ex-
istence and enlarge the circle of his life to an enor-
mous extent. There is danger only if the student,
whether from impatience or arrogance, assumes too
early an independence in his attitude toward the ex-
periences of the higher world — if he cannot wait until
he acquires a really mature insight into superphysical
laws. In this sphere the words "humility" and
" modesty " are still less empty than in ordinary life.
If these, in the very best sense, are the attributes of
the student, he may be sure that his ascent into the
higher life may be achieved without any danger to
what one usually means by health and life. Above
all things it is needful that there should be no dis-
harmony between these higher experiences and the
events and demands of every-day life. The student's
task throughout is to search on earth, and he who
tries to withdraw from the sacred tasks of this earth
and to escape into another world may be sure that
he never reaches his goal. Yet what the senses be-
hold is only a part of the world, and in spiritual
regions lie the causes of what are facts in the phe-

Initiation and its Results

nomenal world. One should participate in the things
of the spirit in order to carry one's revelations into
the world of the senses. Man transforms the earth,
by implanting in it that which he has discovered in
the spiritual world, and that is his task. Yet, because
the earth is dependent upon the spiritual world — be-
cause we can only be truly effective on earth if we
h£ve part in those worlds wherein lie concealed the
creative forces — we ought to be willing to ascend into
those regions. If a person enters on a course of occult
training with this sentiment, and if he never deviates
for a moment from the directions already given, he
has not even the most insignificant of dangers to fear.
No one ought to hold back from occult education on
account of the dangers that confront him; rather
should the very prospect form a powerful inducement
toward the acquisition of those qualities which must
be possessed by the genuine occult student.

After these preliminaries, which ought certainly to
dispel all forebodings, let us now describe one of these
" dangers." It is true that very considerable changes
are undergone by the finer bodies of the occult stu-
dent. These changes are connected with certain evo-
lutionary events which happen within the three fun-
damental forces of the soul — the will, the feelings,
and the thoughts. As regards the occult training of

Dissociation of Personality

a person these three forces stand in a definite relation,
regulated by the laws of the higher world. He does
not will, nor think, nor feel, in an arbitrary manner.
If, for example, a particular idea arises in his mind,
then, in accordance with natural laws, a certain feel-
ing is attached to it, or else it is followed by a reso-
lution of the will that is likewise connected with it
according to law. You enter a room, find it to be
stuffy, and open the window. You hear your name
called, and follow tKe call. You are questioned and
you answer. You perceive an ill-smelling object and
you experience a feeling of disgust. These are sim-
ple connections between thought, feeling, and will.
If, however, the student surveys human life, he will
observe that everything in it is built up on such con-
nections. Indeed, we only call the life of a person
" normal " if we detect in it just that interrelation
of thought, feeling, and will which is founded on the
laws of human nature. We deem it contrary to these
laws if a person, for instance, takes pleasure in an
ill-smelling object, or if, on being questioned, he does
not answer. The success which we expect from a
right education or a fitting instruction consists in our
presupposition that we can thereby impart to our
pupil an interrelation of thought, feeling, and will
that corresponds to human nature. When we pre-
sent to a pupil any particular ideas, we do so on the

Initiation and its Results

supposition that they will assimilate, in an orderly
association, with his feelings and volitions. AH this
arises from the fact that in the finer soul-vehicles of
man the central points of the three powers, feeling,
thinking, and willing, are connected with each other
in a definite way. This connection in the finer soul-
vehicles has also its analogy in the coarse physical
body. There, too, the organs of volition stand in a
certain orderly relation to those of thinking and feel-
ing. A definite thought regularly evokes a feeling
or a volition. In the course of a person's higher
development the threads which connect these three
principles with each other are severed. At first this
rupture occurs only in regard to the finer organism
of the soul; but at a still higher stage the separation
extends also to the physical body. In the higher
spiritual evolution of a person his brain actually di-
vides into three separated parts. The separation,
indeed, is of such a nature that it is not perceptible
to ordinary sense-observation, nor could it be detected
by the keenest physical instruments. Yet it occurs,
and the clairvoyant has means of observing it. The
brain of the higher clairvoyant divides into three
independent active entities: the thought-brain, the
feeling-brain, and the willing-brain.

The organs of thinking, feeling, and willing re-
main, then, quite free in themselves, and their con-

Dissociation of Personality

nection is no longer maintained by a law innate in
them, but must now be tended by the growing higher
consciousness of the individual. This, then, is the
change which the occult student observes coming over
himself — that there is no longer a connection between
a thought and a feeling, or a feeling and a volition,
except when he creates the connection himself. No
impulse drives him from thought to action if he does
not voluntarily harbor it. He can now stand com-
pletely without feeling before an object which, be-
fore his training, would have filled him with glowing
love or violent hatred; he can likewise remain action-
less before a thought which heretofore would have
spurred him on to action as if by itself. He can ex*
ecute deeds by an effort of will where not the remot-
est cause would be visible to a person who had not
, been through the occult school. The greatest acquis
sition which the occult student inherits is the attain*
ment of complete lordship over the connecting threads
of the three powers of the soul; yet simultaneously
these connections are placed entirely at his own re-
sponsibility.

Only through such alterations in his nature can a
person come into conscious touch with certain super-
physical powers and entities. For between his own
soul and certain fundamental forces of the world
there are correspondences or links. The power, for

Initiation and its Results

instance, which lies in the will can act upon, and per-
ceive, particular things and entities of the higher
world, but it can only do so when dissociated from
the threads that link it with the feelings and thoughts
of the soul. As soon as this separation is effected the
activities of the will can be manifested, and so is it
likewise with the forces of thought and feeling. If a
person sends out a feeling of hatred, it is visible to
the clairvoyant as a thin cloud of light of a special
hue, and the clairvoyant can ward off such a feeling,
just as an ordinary person wards off a physical blow
that is aimed at him. Hate is a perceptible phenom-
enon in the superphysical world, but the clairvoyant
is only able to perceive it in so far as he can send
out the force which resides in his feelings, just as an
ordinary person can direct outwards the receptive fac-
ulty of his eyes. What is here applied to hatred ap-
plies also to far more important facts in the phenom-
enal world. The individual can come into conscious
communion with them by this very liberation of the
elemental forces in the soul.

On account of this division of the thinking, feeling,
and willing forces it is now possible that a threefold
error may overtake the development of a person who
has been disregardf ul of his occult instructions. Such
an error might occur if the connecting threads were

100

Dissociation of Personality

severed before the student had acquired so much
knowledge of the higher consciousness as would
enable him to hold the reins by which to guide well,
such as a free, harmonious co-operation of the sep-
arate forces would supply. For, as a rule, the three
human principles at any given period of life are
not symmetrically developed. In one the power of
thought is advanced beyond those of feeling and will;
in a second, another power has the upper hand over
its companions. So long as the connection between
these forces — a connection produced by the laws of
the higher world — remains intact, no injurious irreg-
ularity, in the higher sense, can result from the pre-
dominance of one force or another. In a person of
will-power, for instance, thought and feeling work
by those laws to equalize all and to prevent the over-
weighty will from falling into a kind of degeneration.
If such a person, however, should take up an occult
training, the law-given influence of thought and feel-
ing upon the monstrous, unchecked, oppressive will
would entirely cease. If, then, the individual has not
carried his control of the higher consciousness so far
that he can call up the desirable harmony for him-
self, the will continues on its own unbridled way and
repeatedly overpowers its possessor. Thought and
feeling lapse into complete debility; and the individ-
ual is whipped like a slave by his own overmastering

101

Initiation and its Results

will. A violent nature which rushes from one un-
curbed action to another is the result.

A second deviation ensues if feeling shakes off its
appropriate bridle in the same extreme manner. A
person who bows in adoration before another may
easily give himself over to an unlimited dependence,
until his own thought and will are ruined. In place
of the higher knowledge a pitiful vacuity and feeble-
ness would become the lot of such a person. Again,
in a case where feeling largely preponderates, a na-
ture too much given over to piety and religious aspi-
ration may lapse into religious extravagance that
carries him away.

The third evil is found where thought is too promi-
nent, for then there may result a contemplative na-
ture inimical to life and shut within itself. To such
persons the world only appears to have any signifi-
cance so far as it offers them objects for the satisfac-
tion of their limitless thirst for wisdom. They are
never impelled by a thought either to a f eeling or to
a deed. They are seen at once to be cold, unfeeling
folk. They fly away from every contact with the
things of ordinary life as from something that stings
them to aversion, or that at least has lost all meaning
for them.

These are the three ways of error against which the

102

Dissociation of Personality

occult student should be counselled: over-action, ex*
cess of feeling, and a cold, unloving struggle after
wisdom. Viewed from without — as also from the ma-
terialistic medical standpoint — the picture of an occult
student upon one of these byways does not greatly
differ (especially in degree) from that of a madman,
or at least of a person suffering from severe nervous
illness. From all this it will be clear how important
it is to occult education that the three principles of
the soul should throughout be symmetrically devel-
oped, before their innate connection is severed and
the awakened higher consciousness enthroned in its
place; for if a mistake once occurs, if one of these
principles falls into lawlessness, the higher soul ap-
pears as a thing misborn. The unbridled force then
pervades the individual's entire personality; and one
cannot expect the balance to be restored for a long
time. That which seems but a harmless characteristic
so long as its possessor is without occult training, —
especially if he belongs to the willing, thinking, or
feeling type, — is so increased in the occult student
that the more homely virtues, so necessary for every-
day life, are apt to be obscured.

A really serious danger is at hand when the stu-
dent has acquired the faculty of calling up before
him in waking consciousness those things that he can
experience in the state of sleep. As long as it is only

108

Initiation and its Results

a matter of illuminating the intervals of sleep, the
sense-life, regulated according to common universal
laws, always works during the waking hours towards
restoring the disturbed equilibrium of the soul. That
is why it is so essential that the waking life of an
occult student should in every respect be healthy and
systematic. The more he fulfils the demand which
is made by the external world upon a sound and pow-
erful type of body, soul, and spirit, the better it is
for him. On the other hand, it may be very bad for
him if his ordinary waking life acts so as to excite
or irritate him; if any disturbing or hindering influ-
ence from the external life occurs during the great
changes that are undergone by his inner nature. He
should seek for everything which corresponds to his
powers and faculties, everything that puts him in an
undisturbed harmonious connection with his environ-
ment. He should avoid everything which upsets this
harmony, everything that brings unrest and fever
into his life. Regarding this, it is not so much a
matter of removing this unrest or fever in an external
sense, as of taking care that the moods, purposes,
thoughts, and bodily health do not thereby undergo
a continual fluctuation. During his occult training
all this is not so easy for a person to accomplish as
it was before, since the higher experiences, which are
now interwoven with his life, react uninterruptedly

104

Dissociation of Personality

upon his entire existence. If something in these
higher experiences is not in its place, the irregularity
lurks perpetually and is liable to throw him off the
right path at every turn. For this reason the student
should omit nothing which will secure for him a last-
ing control over his entire nature, nor should pres-
ence of mind, and a peaceful survey of all possible
situations in life ever be allowed to desert him. A
genuine occult training, indeed, itself engenders all
these attributes, and in the course of such training
one only learns to know these dangers at the precise
moment when one acquires the full power to rout
them from the field.

105

THE FIRST GUARDIAN OF THE
THRESHOLD

Among the important experiences that accompany
an ascent into the higher worlds is that of " Meeting
with the Guardian of the Threshold." In reality-
there is not only one such Guardian, but two; one
known as " the Lesser," the other as " the Greater."
The student meets with the former when, in the man-
ner described in the last chapter, he begins to loosen
the connection between the volitions, the thoughts,
and the feelings so far as they concern the etheric
and astral bodies. The meeting with the Greater
Guardian occurs when this loosening of the links
further extends to the physical body (that is to say,
the brain).

The Lesser Guardian of the Threshold is an inde-
pendent being. It did not exist before the individual
had arrived at this particular point in his evolution.
It is the individual's creation. Only one of its essen-
tial functions can be here described, — indeed it were
no easy matter to furnish a complete description.

107

Initiation and its Remits

First of all, let us present in narrative form the
meeting of the occult student with the Guardian of
the Threshold, Only by means of this meeting does
the former become aware of the separation of the
threads that connected his thoughts, his volitions,
and his feelings.

A terrible spectral creature, in truth, is this that
confronts the student. The latter needs all the pres-
ence of mind and all the faith in the security of his
way to wisdom which he could acquire during his
previous training.

The Guardian proclaims his significance in some-
thing like these words: — "Hitherto, powers which
were invisible to you have watched over you. They
worked so that in the course of your life your good
deeds brought their reward, your evil actions their
disastrous results. Through their influence your
character formed itself out of your experiences and
your thoughts. They were the instruments of your
fate. It was they that ordered the measure of joy
and pain which was meted out to you in any one of
your incarnations, according to your conduct in
earlier lives. They ruled you by the all-binding law
of Karma. Now they shall free you from a part of
their constraint, and a portion of that which they
have accomplished for you must you now accomplish
for yourself. In the past you have borne many hard

108

The First Guardian

blows from Fate. Did you not know wherefore?
Each was the effect of a pernicious deed in a life gone
by. You found joy and gladness, and you partook
of them. They, too, were the fruits of earlier deeds.
In your character you have many beautiful qualities,
many ugly flaws; and both of these you have woven
for yourself out of your bygone experiences and
thoughts. Till now you did not know of this; only
the effects were revealed to you. But they, the Kar-
mic Powers, beheld all the deeds of your former lives,
all your obscure thoughts and feelings; and thus have
they determined what you now are and the manner
in which you now live.

" But the hour has come when all the good and the
evil aspects of your bygone lives shall be laid open
before you. Till now they were interwoven with
your whole being; they were in you, and you could
not see them, even as with physical eyes you cannot
see your own physical brain. Now, however, they
detach themselves from you; they emerge from your
personality. They assume an independent form
which you can observe, even as you observe the stones
and flowers of the external world. And I — I am that
very being which has found for itself a body wrought
of your noble and your ignoble deeds. My spectral
robe is woven according to the entries in your life's

109

Initiation and its Results

ledger. Hitherto you have borne me invisibly within '
yourself, yet it was well for you that this should be,
for the wisdom of the destiny which was hidden even
from yourself has therefore worked hitherto toward
the extinguishing of the hideous stains that were
upon my form. Now that I have emerged, that hid-
den wisdom also departs from you. It will hence-
forth trouble itself no more concerning you. It will
now leave the work in your hands alone. It is for me
to become a complete and splendid being, if I am not,
indeed, to fall into decay. If this, the latter, should
occur, then should I drag you also down into a dark
and ruined world. If you would avoid this, then let
your own wisdom become so great that it can take
over to itself the task of that other wisdom which
was hidden from you, and is now departed. When
you have passed my threshold I shall never leave
your side for a single moment. From henceforth,
when you do or think anything that is evil, you will
straightway discern your guilt as a hideous, demoni-
acal distortion of this that is my form. Only when
you have made good all your bygone evil deeds and
have so elevated yourself that further evil becomes
a thing impossible to you, — only then will my being
be transformed into glorious beauty. Then, too,
shall I again unite myself with you in one being for
the helping of your further activity.

110

The First Gruardicm

" My threshold is constructed out of every feeling
of fear to which you are still accessible, out of every
shrinking from the power which will take over to
itself the complete responsibility for all your deeds
and thoughts. So long as you have still any fear
of that self-government of your fate, all that belongs
to this threshold has not yet been built into it; and
so long as a single stone is there found missing, you
must remain standing as one forbidden entrance, or
else must you stumble. Seek not, then, to pass my
threshold until you feel yourself liberated from all
fear, ready for the highest responsibility.

" Hitherto I have only emerged from your per-
sonality when Death recalled you from an earthly
life, but even then my form was veiled from you,
Only the powers of destiny who watched over you
could behold me, and they were able, in accordance
with my appearance, to build in you, during the in-
terval between death and a new birth, all that power
and that capacity wherewith in a new terrestrial ex-
istence you could labor at the glorifying of my form
for the assurance of your progress. It was on ac-
count of my imperfection, indeed, that the powers of
destiny were driven again and again to lead you back
into a new incarnation upon earth. If you died, I
was yet there; and according to me did the Lords of
Karma fashion the manner of your re-birth.

Ill

Initiation and its Results

" Only when through an endless procession of lives
you have brought me to perfection shall you no
longer descend among the powers of death, but, hav-
ing united yourself absolutely with me, you shall
pass over with me into immortality.

" Thus do I stand before you here to-day visible,
as I have always stood invisible beside you in the
hour of death. When you shall have passed my
threshold you will enter those kingdoms which else
would have opened to you only at physical death.
You will enter them with full knowledge, and hence-
forth, when you wander outwardly visible upon the
earth, you will also move through the kingdom of
death, which is the kingdom of eternal life. I am in-
deed the angel of Death; yet at the same time I am
the bringer of an imperishable higher life. Through
me you will die while still living in your body, to be
reborn into an immortal existence.

" The kingdom that you now enter will introduce
you to beings of a superhuman kind, and in that
kingdom happiness will be your lot. But the first
acquaintance to be made in that world must be my-
self, I that am your own creation. Erstwhile I
lived upon your life, but now through you I have
grown, to a separate existence and here stand before
you as the visible gauge of your future deeds, per-

112

The First Guardian

haps, too, as your constant reproach. You were able
to form me, but in so doing you have taken up the
duty of transforming me."

What has been here presented in a narrative form
one must not imagine to be merely something alle-
gorical, but realize that it is an experience of the
student which is the highest degree actual. 1 The
Guardian will warn him not to go further if he does
not feel in himself the power necessary for the ful-
filment of those demands which have been set forth
in the preceding speech. Although the form of the
Guardian is so frightful, it is yet nothing but the
effect of the student's own past lives, his own char-
acter, risen out of him into an independent life. This

1 It will be divined from the above that the Guardian of the
Threshold there described is an (astral) form, such as is re-
vealed to the awakened higher sight of the occult student, and it
is to this superphysical " meeting " that occult science conducts.
It is one of the lesser magical performances to make the Guard-
ian of the Threshold visible on the physical plane also. To
make this possible it is necessary to produce a cloud of smoke,
consisting of fine substances, by means of some frankincense
which is composed of a number of ingredients in a particular
commixture. The developed power of the magician is then able
to mould the smoke into shape and to animate its substance with
the still unbalanced Karma of the individual. He who is suffi-
ciently prepared for the higher vision no longer requires this
phenomenal sight, while he who sees his still unbalanced Karma,
without adequate preparation, as a visible living creature before
his eyes, exposes himself to the greatest danger of falling into
evil byways. The Guardian of the Threshold has been romanti-
cally depicted by Bulwer Lytton in Zanoni.

118

Initiation and its Results

awakening is brought about by the mutual separa-
tion of the volitions, the thoughts, and the feelings.
It is an experience of the deepest significance when
one feels for the first time that one has produced a
spiritual being. The next thing to be aimed at is
the preparation of the occult student so that he can
endure the terrible sight without a vestige of timidity,
and at the moment of the meeting really feel his
power to be so increased that he can take it upon
himself to effect with full realization the glorifying
of the Guardian.

A result of this meeting with the Guardian of the
Threshold, if successful, is that the next physical
death of the student is an event entirely different
from what death was before. He consciously goes
through the death whereby he lays aside the physical
body, as he lays aside an outworn garment or one
that is grown useless on account of a sudden rent.
This — his physical death — is now only an important
fact, as it were, to those who have lived with him,
whose preceptions are still restricted to the world of
the senses. For them the occult student " dies," but
for himself nothing of importance in his whole en-
vironment is changed. The entire superphysical
world into which he steps already stood open to him
before death, and it is the same world that after death
confronts him.

114

The First Guardian

Now, the Guardian of the Threshold is also con-
nected with other matters. The individual belongs
to a family, a nation, a race. His deeds in this world
depend upon his relationship to this greater unit.
His individual character is likewise connected with
it. The conscious deeds of a single person are by no
means the sum of all he must reckon with in respect
of his family, stock, nation, and race. There is a
destiny, as there is a character, pertaining to the fam-
ily or the race or the nation. For the person who
is restricted to his senses these things, remain as gen-
eral ideas, and the materialistic thinker will regard
the occult scientist contemptuously when he hears
that for the latter the family or national character,
the lineal or racial destiny, becomes just as real a
being as the personality which is produced by the
character and destiny of the individual. The occult-
ist comes to know of higher worlds in which the sep-
arated personalities are discerned as members, like
the arms, legs, and head of an individual; and in the
life of a family, of a nation, or a race, he sees at work
not only the separate individuals, but also the very
real souls of the family, nation, or race. Indeed, in
a certain sense, the separate individuals are only the
executive organs of this family or racial spirit. In
truth, one can say that the soul of a nation, for ex-
ample, makes use of an individual belonging to that

115

Initiation and its Result*

nation, for the execution of certain deeds. The na-
tional soul does not descend to sensible reality. It
dwells in higher worlds, and in order to work in the
physical world makes use of the physical organs of
a particular person. In a higher sense it is as when
an architect makes use of a workman for executing
the details of a building. Every person gets his work
assigned him, in the truest sense of the words, by the
soul of the family, the nation, or the race. Now the
ordinary person is by no means initiated into the
higher scheme of his work. He works unconsciously
toward the goal of the nation or race. From the
moment when the occult student meets the Guardian
of the Threshold, he has not merely to discern his
own tasks as a personality, but must also work con-
sciously at those of his nation or his race. Every
extension of his horizon implies an extension of his
duties. As a matter of fact, the occult student joins
a new body to those finer vehicles of his soul. He
puts on another garment. Hitherto he went through
the world with those coverings which clothed his per-
sonality. That which he must accomplish for his
community, his nation, or his race, is managed by the
higher spirits which utilize his personality. A fur-
ther revelation which is now made to him by the
Guardian is that henceforth these spirits will with-
draw their hands from him. He must get quite clear

116

The First Guardian

of that union. Now, if he did not develop in himself
those powers which pertain to the national or racial
spirits, he would completely harden himself as a sep-
arate creature and would rush upon his own destruc-
tion. Doubtless there are many people who would
say, " Oh! I have entirely freed myself from all lineal
or racial connections; I only want to be man and
nothing but man." To these one must reply, " Who,
then, brought you to this freedom? Was it not your
family who gave you that position in the world where
you now stand? Was it not your ancestry, your na-
tion, your race, that have made you what you are?
They have brought you up; and if you are now ex-
alted above all prejudices, if you are one of the light-
bringers and benefactors of your clan, or even of
your race, you owe that to their education. Indeed,
when you say of yourself that you are ' nothing as
a person/ you owe the very fact that you have so
become to the spirit of your community." Only the
occult student learns what it means to be cut off en-
tirely from the family, the clan, or the racial spirit.
He alone realizes the insignificance of all such edu-
cation in respect of the life which now confronts him,
for everything that has gathered around him falls
utterly away when the threads that bind the will, the
thoughts, and the feelings are sundered. He looks
back on all the events of his previous education as

117

Initiation and its Results

one must regard a house of which the stones have
fallen apart in pieces and which one must therefore
build up again in a new form.

It is more than merely a figure of speech to say
that after the Guardian of the Threshold has uttered
his first communications, there rises up from the
place where he stands a great whirlwind, which ex-
tinguishes all those lights of the spirit which had
hitherto illumined the pathway of life. At the same
time an utter blackness engulfs the student. It is
only broken a little by the rays that stream forth
from the Guardian of the Threshold, and out of that
darkness resound his last admonitions: — " Step not
across my threshold before you are assured that you
can illuminate the blackness by yourself: take not a
single step forward unless you are certain that you
have a sufficiency of oil in your lamp. The lamps of
the guides which hitherto you have followed will now,
in the future, be absent." After these words the
student has to turn round and direct his gaze back-
ward. The Guardian of the Threshold now draws
away a veil that before had hidden deep secrets. The
lineal, the national, the racial spirits are revealed in
their complete reality, and the student now sees
clearly how he had been guided so far, but it also
dawns upon him that henceforth he will have no such

118

The First Guardian

guidance. This is a second warning received at the
threshold from its guardian.

No one can attain to this vision unprepared; but
the higher training, which generally makes it possible
for a person to press on to the threshold, puts him
simultaneously in a position to find at the right mo-
ment the necessary power. Indeed, this training is
of so harmonious a kind, that the entrance into the
new life can be made to lose its exciting and tumultu-
ous character. The experience at the threshold is,
for the occult student, attended by a foreshadowing
of that bliss which is to form the keynote of his newly
awakened life. The sensation of a new freedom will
outweigh all other feelings; and together with this
sensation the new duties and the new responsibilities
will seem as something which must needs be under-
taken by a person at a particular stage in his life.

110

VII

THE SECOND GUARDIAN OF
THE THRESHOLD

LIFE AND DEATH

It has already been shown how important for the
individual is the meeting with the so-called Lesser
Guardian of the Threshold, because he then becomes
aware of a superphysical being which he has himself
created. The body of this being is constructed out
of the results — hitherto imperceptible to him — of his
actions, feelings, and thoughts. It is these invisible
forces that have become the cause of his destiny and
his character. It is then clear to the individual that
in the past he himself laid the ground-plans for the
present. His nature now stands revealed, to a cer-
tain extent, before him. For instance, it comprises
particular inclinations and habits. He can now un-
derstand why he has them. He has met with certain
blows of fate; he now knows whence they came. He
perceives why he loves one and hates another; why
he is made happy by this and unhappy by that. By
means of the invisible causes the visible life is made
comprehensible. The essential facts of life, too, such

121

Initiation and its Results

as illness and health, death and birth, unveil them-
selves before his gaze. He observes how he had
woven before his birth the causes which necessitated
his return to life. From thenceforth he knows that
being within himself which is constructed in the vis-
ible world after an imperfect manner, and which can
only be brought to perfection in the same visible
world; for in no other world is there the opportunity
of working at the upbuilding of that being. Further
than this, he sees how death cannot sever him last-
ingly from this world. For he should say to himself:
" Once I came for the first time to this world be-
cause I was a being that needed the life here lived
in order to evolve those attributes which could not be
developed in any other world. Here must I remain
until I have evolved in myself whatever can here be
attained. I shall only become, at some far-off time,
a fit worker in another world if I have developed in
the phenomenal world all the qualities which pertain
to it."

Among the most important experiences of the Ini-
tiate is that which occurs when he first learns to know
and to cherish the visible world at its true value; and
this knowledge comes to him by his very insight into
the superphysical world. He who cannot see there
and who consequently imagines that the superphysi-
cal worlds are infinitely the more valuable, is likely

122

The Second Guardian

to under-estimate the worth of the phenomenal world.
He, however, who has had that insight into the super-
physical worlds well knows that without his experi-
ences in the visible he would be totally powerless in
the invisible. If he would really live in the latter he
must possess the faculties and instruments for that
life, and these he can only acquire in the visible world.
He must attain spiritual vision if the invisible world
is to become perceptible to him; but this power of
vision in a "higher" world is gradually developed
through the experiences of the "lower." One can
no more be born into a spiritual world with spiritual
eyes, if one has not prepared them in the world of
sense, than a child could be born with physical eyes
if they had not already been formed in the mother's
womb.

From this standpoint it will also be obvious why
the "threshold" to the superphysical world is
watched by a " Guardian." In no case may a true
vision of that sphere be granted to a person who has
not yet acquired the necessary faculties. For this
reason, at each death a veil is drawn over the realities
of the other world when a person enters it while still
incapable of working within it. He should only be-
hold them when he is ripe for it.

When the occult student enters the superphysical
world, life assumes quite a new meaning to him, for

128

Initiation and its Results

in the world of sense he discerns the seed-ground of
a higher world; so that in a certain sense this
" higher " will seem very defective without the " low-
er," Two outlooks are opened before him: the first
into the Past; the second into the Future.

He looks into a past when this visible world was
not. Long ago had he outgrown the fancy that the
superphysical world had developed itself out of the
sense-world. He well knows that the superphysical
was the first, and that out of it everything phenom-
enal has been evolved. He sees how he himself, be-
fore he came for the first time to this phenomenal
world, belonged to a world superior to the senses.
Yet this, the pristine superphysical world, needed
to pass through the physical. Without such a
passage its further evolution would not have been
possible. Only when the beings of the phenomenal
world have developed within themselves the faculties
that correspond to that world can the supersensual
beings again move onward. These beings are no
other than men and women. They have arisen, as
they now live, from an imperfect stage of spiritual
existence, and must in their own inner nature bring
about its completion, whereby they will then be fit for
further work in the higher world. Thus begins the
outlook into the future. It points to a higher stage
in the supersensual world. In this will appear the

124

The Second Guardian

fruits which have been matured in the world of sense.
The latter, as such, will be superseded, but its experi-
ences will be incorporated into a higher sphere.

Thus is revealed the raison d'etre of illness and
death in the world of sense. Death is nothing else
than a sign that the former superphysical world had
arrived at a point from which it could not make any
further progress by itself. It would necessarily have
had to undergo a universal death if it had not re-
ceived a new life-impulse, and the new life has thus
come down to battle with universal death. Out of the
remnants of a world decaying and chilly, blossoms
the seed of a new world. That is why we have death
and life in the world. Slowly things pass over into
each other. The decaying portion of the old world
still adheres to the seeds of the new life, which in-
deed arose out of it. The fullest expression of this
may be found among human beings. Man bears as
a covering that which he has gathered about him in
the old world, and within this covering is formed the
germ of that being which in the future will have life.
He is therefore of a double nature, mortal and im-
mortal. In his ending state he is mortal; in his begin-
ning state immortal; but it is only within this two-
fold world, which finds its expression in the physical,
that he can acquire those faculties which will con-

125

Initiation and its Results

duct him to the undying world. Indeed, his task is
precisely to draw out of the mortal the fruits of the
immortal. If he glances at his own nature, which
he himself has formed in the past, he cannot but say:
" I have in me the elements of a decaying world.
They are at work in me, and only little by little can
I break their power by means of the newly created
immortal elements." Thus man goes on his way
from death to life. He applies to life what he learns
through death. If in full consciousness he could
speak to himself in his death-hour, he might say:
" Death is my teacher. The fact that I am dying is
a result of the entire past wherein I am enmeshed.
Yet the soil of death has matured in me the seed of
what is deathless. This it is that I take with me into
another world. If it had been a matter merely of
the past, I should not then have been born. At birth
the life of the past is closed. Life in the sense- world
is rescued from an all-consuming death by the new
life-germ within. The time between birth and death
is only an expression for as much as the new life was
able to rescue from the decaying past; and illness is
nothing else than the effect of that portion of the
past which is declining."

In all that has here been said we find an answer
to the question, " Why is it that only little by little

126

The Second Guardian

and through error and imperfection may man work
his way up to the good and true?" At first his
actions, feelings, and thoughts are under the domin-
ion of the fading and the mortal. From this are
shaped his physical organs, and therefore these or-
gans, and the forces which act on them, are conse-
crated to the perishable. The instincts, impulses,
and passions, or the organs which belong to them, do
not themselves manifest the imperishable, but rather
will that which emerges from the work of these or-
gans become imperishable. Only when man has
worked out of the perishable everything that is to be
worked out, will he rid himself of these principles
from which he has grown and which find their expres-
sion in the physically perceptible world.

Thus, then, the first Guardian of the Threshold
stands as the replica of the individual in his double
nature, wherein are mingled the perishable and the
imperishable; and it is then made clear to him how
much he lacks before he can attain the sublime form
of light which may once more inhabit the pure spir-
itual world.

The degree in which he is enmeshed in the physical
sense-nature will be shown to the student by the
Guardian of the Threshold. This entanglement is
expressed by the existence of instincts, impulses, ap-

127

Initiation and its Results

petites, egotistical desires, all forms of selfishness,
and so forth. It is also expressed in the connection
with a race, a nation, and so on; for nations and
races are only so many different evolutionary stages
up to the pure humanity. A race or a nation stands
so much the higher, the more completely it gives ex-
pression to its kinship with the type of pure and ideal
humanity, the more it has worked through the physi-
cal and perishable to the superphysical and imperish-
able. The evolution of the individual by means of
reincarnation in ever higher national and racial forms
is therefore a process of liberation. Ultimately the
individual will appear in his harmonious perfection.
In a similar way the pilgrimage through ever purer
moral and religious conceptions is a perfecting
process. Every moral stage, for instance, still re-
tains, beside the idealistic germ of the future, a
passion for the perishable.

Now in the Guardian of the Threshold, above de-
scribed, only the result of time that has passed away
is manifested, and in the germ of the future is only
that which has been interwoven with it in this bygone
time. Yet it is for the individual to bring into the
superphysical world of the future everything that
he can draw forth from the world of the senses. If
he should only bring that which, coming from the

128

The Second Guardian

past, is commingled with his counterpart, he would
only partially have fulfilled his earthly task. There-
fore, after some time the Greater Guardian of the
Threshold is joined to the lesser. The meeting with
the second Guardian shall again be described in nar-
rative form.

When the individual has recognized all those quali-
ties from which he has to free himself, his way is
stopped by a sublime and luminous form, whose
beauty it is quite impossible to describe in human
language. This meeting occurs when the organs of
thinking, feeling, and willing have so far loosened
themselves, even in their physical connections, that
the regulation of their reciprocal relations is no
longer managed by themselves, but by the higher
consciousness, which has now entirely separated
itself from physical conditions. The organs of
thought, feeling, and will have then become instru-
ments in the power of the human soul, who exercises
his controlling power over them from superphysical
regions. The soul, thus liberated from all the bond-
age of sense, is now met by the second Guardian of
the Threshold, who addresses him as follows: —

" You have freed yourself from the world of sense.
You have won the right to settle in the superphysical
world. From this you can now work. For your

129

Initiation and its Result*

own part you no longer require your physical em-
bodiment. If you should wish to acquire the facul-
ties by which to dwell in this higher world, you no
longer need to go back to the world of sense. Now
gaze at me! Lol how immeasurably sublime I stand,
above all that you have at present evolved out of
yourself! You have arrived at the present stage of
your progress towards perfection through the facul-
ties which you were able to develop in the sense-
world while you were still confined to it. Now, how-
ever, must a period begin in which your liberated
powers may act yet further upon the world of sense.
Hitherto you have but freed yourself, but now can
you go forth as a liberator of all your fellows. As
an individual have you striven until to-day, but now
shall you associate yourself with the whole, so that
you may bring not yourself alone into the super-
physical world, but all things else that exist in the
world of phenomena. It shall be open for you to
unite yourself with my form, but I cannot be blessed
where yet there is any one unredeemed! As a sep-
arate freed-man you would like to enter at once into
the kingdom of the superphysical, but then would
you have perforce to look down on the still unliber-
ated creatures in the world of sense, and you would
have separated your destiny from theirs. Yet you
and they are all linked with each other. It is neces-

130

The Second Guardian

sary that all of you should descend into the world of
sense in order that you may draw out of it the powers
that are needed for a higher world. If you should
separate yourself from your fellows, you will have
misused the powers which you have only been able
to develop in common with them. Had they not
descended, the descent had been impossible for you;
without them you had lacked the powers that make
up your superphysical existence. These powers for
which you have striven together with your fellows,
you must now in like manner share with them. So
long as you fail to apply every one of your acquired
powers to the liberation of your companions, I shall
obstruct your entrance into the highest regions of
the superphysical world. With those powers you
have already won, you can stay in the lower regions
of that world; but before the gates of the higher
regions I stand as one of the cherubim with fiery
sword in front of Paradise, to hinder your entrance
as long as you have powers that remain unapplied
to the world of sense. If you refuse to apply your
powers in this way, others will come who will do so;
and then will a lofty superphysical world receive
all the fruits of the sense- world, but to you will be
denied the very soil in which you were rooted. The
world ennobled will develop itself beyond you, and
you will be shut out therefrom. Then would your

131

Initiation and its Results

path be the black path, while those from whom you
had severed yourself go forward on the white way."

So speaks the Greater Guardian of the Threshold
soon after the meeting with the first watcher has
taken place. The Initiate, however, knows exactly
what lies before him if he should follow the allure-
ments of a premature abode in the superphysical
world. An indescribable splendor proceeds from the
second Guardian of the Threshold; union with him
appears as a remote ideal to the gazing soul, yet
simultaneously comes the certitude that this union
will only be possible if the Initiate has applied, to the
task of redeeming and liberating this world, every
power which has come to him therefrom. If he re-
solves to fulfil the demands of that luminous form,
he becomes one of those who lead humanity to free-
dom. He brings his gifts to the altar of mankind.
But if he prefers his own premature elevation into
the superphysical world, then will he be submerged
in the stream of human evolution. After his libera-
tion from the world of sense he can win no new pow-
ers. If he places his work at the disposal of the
world, he must renounce the prospect of acquiring
anything further for himself.

One cannot say that the individual would naturally
choose the white path, when so called upon to make

182

The Second Guardian

his decision. This depends entirely upon whether at
the time of making the decision he is so exalted that
no touch of selfishness would make the allurement
of such beatitude appear desirable. For these allure-
ments are the strongest possible; while, on the other
side, no specific allurements exist. Nothing there
evokes his egotism. That which he obtains in the
higher regions of the superphysical is nothing that
comes to him, but solely something which proceeds
from him — that is to say, the love of his fellows.
Nothing that egotism desires is denied upon the black
path. On the contrary, the fruits of this way consist
precisely in the complete gratification of egotism, and
therefore if any one merely desires bliss for himself,
he would certainly travel down that way, since it is
the appropriate path for him. No one, therefore,
should expect the occultist of the white path to give
him instruction concerning the development of his
egotistical self. The occultist has not the smallest
interest in the beatification of the individual. Each
can attain that for himself. It is not the task of the
white occultist to accelerate it. He is only concerned
with the evolution and liberation of all those beings
who are human or akin to the human. Therefore
they give instructions only as to how one may use
one's powers in co-operation with that work. Con-
sequently, they place before all other attributes those

188

Initiation and its Results

of selfless devotion and self-sacrifice. They do not
actually refuse any one, for even the most egotistical
can ennoble themselves; but he who merely seeks
something for himself, so long as he continues to do
so will gain nothing from the occultist. Indeed, even
if the latter did not refuse him help, he would deprive
himself of the natural effects of that assistance. He
who really follows out the instructions of the good
occult teachers will understand the demands of the
Greater Guardian after he has crossed the threshold;
but he who does not follow these instructions cannot
hope ever to reach the threshold. Their instructions
lead to the good, or else they are without effect at all;
for to guide us to egotistical beatitude and a mere
existence in the superphysical world is outside the
circle of their task. It is part of their duty to hold
back the student from the celestial world until he can
enter it with a will devoted entirely to selfless labor.

184

J. W. COLVILLE'S BOOKS.

A Selection of the Most Popular Works by This

Great Author and Well-know Lecturer in

Europe, America and Australia.

Universal Spiritualism* Spirit Communion in all ages among
all people. The work has two distinctive features: (1st) A
resume of the Spiritual faith and practice of Egypt, India, Persia,
Greece, Rome, China, Japan and other ancient nations, not ex-
cepting Europe, during Christian centuries. (2nd) A summary
of recent experiences in America, Great Britain, Australia, France,
Germany, Italy and other modern lands, all tending to show the
persistent continuity of spiritual revelation. Clairvoyance, Tele-
pathy and Psychic Phenomena in general are dealt with in sepa-
rate chapters at the close of the volume, which extends to 352
pages, making it a highly useful text-book for all who are
interested in the question of human immortality. W. J. Colville.

Cloth. No. 24256 1.00

Old and New Psychology. Twenty-four chapters, including
explanatory essays on many subjects of vital interest to all teachers
and students. W. J. ColvillcCloth. No. 23766 1.00

Throne of Eden, The* Twenty-six chapters presenting im-
portant teachings entrusted to the writer's charge ; also a record
of extensive travel in the Southern Hemisphere; and a rational
system of preventing as well as healing diseases. W. J. Colville.

Cloth- No.24186 1..00

Life and Power* from Within. An excellent book, embracing
the most advanced mental-physical teaching and the simplest rules
for the guidance of daily life according to New Thought standards.

W, J. Colville. Cloth. No.23151 75

Dashed Against the Rock. A scientific novel, illustrated
with many remarkable diagrams. W. J. Colville. Cloth.
No.22316 75

Health from Knowledge; or, the Law of Correspondences as
applied to healing. W. J. Colville. Leatherette. No. 22745 .50

Birthdays, The Significence of; or Our places in the univer-
sal Zodiac. W J. Colville. Leatherette. No. 22191 .50
Paper No. 22195 40

Onesimus Templeton. A vivid romance tracing the evolution
of a soul from bondage to liberty. W. J. Colville. Cloth.

No. 23771 50

Living Decalogue, The. 12 Expository Lectures. W. J.
Colville. Leatherette. No. 23156 .50

Glints of Wisdom, or Helpful Sayings for Busy Moments. Ab-
stracts from Lectures by W. J. Colville. An encyclopedia of
psychological laws contained in an endless variety of subjects.
Leatherette, BexibJe. No. 22671. .40. Paper. No. 22675 .30

Fate Mastered-Destiny Fulfilled. Three stirring essays on
live issues. Very tasteful presentation volume. W~ J. Colville.
Cloth: No. 22476 .30

Mental Therapeutics, Elementary Text Book of. Twelve
Practical Lessor W. J. Colville. No. 22420 25

Lectures, by W. J. Colville, on various subjects : Atlantis, The
Way of Initiation, Initiation and its Results. Symbolism — Its use
and Value, etc. Send for list, each 10^. 3 for .25

New works and reprints of older books will be added to this list as
fast as they can be prepaired. Write for them ; also for the\ latest
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JAMES ALLEN'S BOOKS.
A Foreward.

James Allen's Books. " I looked upon the world, and saw tha
it was shadowed by sorrow and scorched by the fierce fires of
suffering- I looked (or the cause, but could not find it until I
looked within, and there found both the cause and the self-made
nature of the cause. I looked again, deeper, and found the remedy
I found one Law, the Law of Love; one* Life, the Life of adjust
ment to that Law ; one Truth, the Truth of a conquered mind and
a quiet and obedient heart. And I dreamed of writing a book
which should help men and women, rich or poor, learned or un
learned, worldly or unworldly, to find within themselves the source
of all success, all happiness, all accomplishment, all truth: And
the dream remained with me, and at last became substantial, and
now I send it forth into the world on its mission of healing and
blessedness, knowing that it cannot fail to reach the homes and
hearts of those who are waiting and ready to receive it."

As a Man Thinketh. Inspiring and helpful "New Thought.'

The Path of Prosperity. A way leading out of undesir-
able conditions to health, success, power, abounding happiness
and the realization of prosperity.

Out from the Heart. Most optimistic and uplifting.

Entering the Kingdom. That heavenly kingdom within
the heart of man, where perfect trust, knowledge, peace and love
await all who will enter its Golden Gateways.

The Way of Peace. It's realization and attainment.

The Heavenly Life. How to attain its supreme happiness
in this life, on this earth here and now.

Any of the above in either style of binding as follows :

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A SELECTED ASSORTMENT OF BOOKS.

Historical, Fraternal, Symbolical, Mystic, Astrologio,

Occult, Psychic, Spiritualistic, Optimistic, Philosophic,

Masonic, New Thought, Etc.

Delivered to any address on receipt of price, or if desired for
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Altar in the Wilderness, The. In seven chapters — The Golden
Age, The Exile, Life in Death, The Conflict The Wilderness,
Illumination, The Temple, — representing the Seven Spiritual Ages
of Man. Ethelbert Johnson. Cloth, No. 24231, .50. Paper,

No. 24235 25

Ancient Mystic Oriental Masonry. Its teachings, Rules,
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day. Dr. R. Swinburne Clymer. Cloth, No. 22086 1.50

Ben Hur, a Tale of Christ The Great Christian Drama. Gen.
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Book of the Master, The* A clue to the mysterious religion of
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Brotherhood. Nature's Law. Burcham Harding. No, 22176 .50

Constructive Psychology. The Constructive Principle of
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Culture of Concentration. Occult Powers and their acquire-
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Discovery of the Soul, The. Throwing light on the path of
progressive man, leading through mysticism to the discovery of
those unused powers within the soul, which duly appropriated
give expression to the Divine in Man. Floyd B. Wilson '

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Egypt the Cradle of Ancient Masonry. Comprising a his-
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Antiquity of Masonry, the result of many years of personal investi-
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Egyptian Symbols, A Comparison with those of theHebrews.
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to the Symbols of Color and to the Symbols of the Bible. A clear,
concise exposition of a most interest ing subject, by Frederick Portal
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No. 22381 1.00

Harmonies of Evolution. This work marks out a new path in
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rather than to mystify and to illustrate and elucidate the correlation
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463 pgs. No. 22716 2.00

Hermes and Plato. The mysteries of Egypt and of Eleusis.
Edouard Share. No. 22856 1.00

History of Initiation* In Twelve Lectures: General Introduc-
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Mysteries, Initiation in Persia, Initiation in Greece, Ceremonies of
Initiation into the Mysteries of Bacchus, the Celtic Mysteries, Cere-
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Mysteries, Doctrines and Morality, History of Initiation in America,
comprising the Rites, Ceremonies and Doctrines of all the Secret
and Mysterious Institutions of the Ancient World. Rev. George
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History of the Knights Templar. C. G. Addison. A con-
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tian principles that the world has ever known ; no such zeal, no
such ardor has ever been recorded ; no such battles have been
fought in ancient or modern times; no such persecutions, martyr-
dom and suffering for any cause as that endured by the Crusad-
ers, out of which has grown our beautiful system of Templarism.
The work is also a record of the various events in connection
with the order from those strenuous times to the present day, con-

taining the proceedings of Triennial Encampments down to and
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Initiation, The Way of. or how to attain knowledge of the
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Initiation and its Results. Rudolf Steiner, PL D. (Now in
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In Tune with the Infinite. Ralph Waldo Trine. Bound in
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Josephus. The authentic works and life of this great Jewish his-
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Kingdom of Love, The. Henry Frank. Beautifully ex-
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Koran, The. Commonly called the Alkoran of Mohammed (the
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Kirshna and Orpheus, the Great Initiates of the East and West
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Last Great Initiate, Jesus the. Edouard Schure. The Essenes,
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Life and Writings of Dr. Rob't. Fludd, the English
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Lost Word Found, The. " The most compelling bit of literature
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Man Limitless* a A study of the possibilities of man when acting
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Man of Mount Moriah 9 The* From Symbolism and Prophecy
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Mastery of Mind in the Making of a Man, The. A

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Messianic Expectation and Modern Judaism. Solomon
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Morals and Dogma, Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite from the
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Myrtle*BaIdwin. A novel of great interest, especially to the
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Mystical Life of Ours, This. Ralph Waldo Trine.
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Occult Science in India, and among the Ancients, with an
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Occultist's Travels, An. Willy Reichel Cloth.

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Paths to Power. "The struggling will gain strength — the
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Philosophy of Fire, The. "There is nothing new under the
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trations in colors and tinted border designs, 6x9. Deckel edge,

No. 23936, 125. Watered Silk, No. 23940 2.00

Limp Leather, No. 23937 2.00

Sacred Mysteries* Freemasonry in times anterior to the Temple
of Solomon. Relics of the Mayas and Quiches 11,500 years ago,
their relation to the Sacred Mysteries of Egypt, Greece, Chaldea
and India. Augustus Le Plongeon. No. 23956 2.50

Sermon on the Mount, and other Extracts from the New
Testament A verbatim translation from the Greek with notes on
the Mystical or Arcane Sense. James M. Pryse. Cloth.
No. 24076 60

Servant in the House, The. A beautiful and uplifting drama
of Brotherly Love. Charles Rann Kennedy. No. 23966,.. . L25

Signs and Symbols. Dr. George Oliver. Illustrated and explained
in a series of twelve lectures on Freemasonry. No. 23986. 1.50

Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses, The. The wonderful
arts of the old wise Hebrews, taken from the Mosaic books of the
Kabbalah and the Talmud, for the good of mankind. 100 pgs.
Paper, No. 24040 75

Story of the Other Wise Man, The. A beautiful nar-
rative. Henry Van Dyke. Exquisitely printed and bound. Cloth,
No. 23961, .50. and Limp Leather. No. 23962 1.00

Spirit of Freemasonry. Comprising lectures on the State of
Freemasonry in the Eighteenth Century, the Design, Rites, Cere-
monies and Institutions of the Ancients, Nature of the Lodge,
Furniture, Apparel and Jewels of Masons, Temple at Jerusalem
Geometry, Master Masons Order, Secrecy of Masons, Charity,
Brotherly Love, Occupations, and a Corollary ; followed by an
Appendix containing Charges, Addresses and Orations on various
Masonic occasions. William Hutchinson. With copious notes,
critical and explanatory, of great value, by the Rev. George Oliver.

No. 24021 1.50

Swedenborg Rite, and the Great Masonic Leaders of the
Eighteenth Century. The Masonic career of Swedenborg and
his followers, and the relation between the symbolic system of
Swedenborgianism and modern Freemasonry. Samuel BeswicL

No. 24051....... ...:: .: 1.00

Symbol of Glory, showing the Object and End of Freemasonry
in a valedictory and thirteen lectures : Masonic Science, Poetry
and Philosophy, Knowledge, Doctrines, Circle and Parallel Mean-
ing, Great Lights, and Masonic Ladder, Theological Virtues and
Masonry, Clouded Canopy and Ladder Symbols, Application,
Blazing Star, Symbol of Glory, etc. Rev. George Oliver. 298 pgs.,
cloth, black and gold stamps. No. 24061 1.50

Symbolism of Freemasonry. Illustrating and Explaining its
Science and Philosophy, its Legends, Myths and Symbols. Mackey.
360pgs.. No.24071 1.50

Temple, The* Its Ministry and Services at the Time of Jesus
Christ. Rev. Dr. Eidersheim. 308 pgs. No. 24201 1.50

Through Silence to Realization. This work embodies a
system of instruction for mental growth and attainment of ideals.
Floyd B. Wilson. 5!/ 2 x7!/2. No.24241 1.00

Voice of the Silence, and Other Chosen Fragments from the
Book of the Golden Precepts for the Daily Use of Lanoos. B. P.
Blavatsky. Cloth. No. 24266, .50. Leather. No. 24267 .75

Condensed List of New

Books, etc., Regularly in Stock, for

Sale, Exchange or Circulating Library

Use. May be Exchanged if not

Found to be What is Wanted.

Order By Number.

22001

2201 1
22021
22024
22036
22006
2423I

24235
22051
22055
22041
2208l
22056
22060
22071
23726
22086
221 10
22096
22091
22I0I
22146
22016
22017
22018
22019
22020

A. A. S. R., Book of the. McClenachan 3.00

Adoptive Rite, revised, enlarged. Macoy 1.00

Ahiman Rezon, General. Sickels 2.00

Morocco binding, gilt edges 3.50

Akin's Manual of the Lodge . . . . 1.25

All These Things Addea. Allen 1.00

Altar in the Wilderness. Johnson. Cloth 50

Paper 25

Amaranth Odes < .20

Paper 15

Amaranth Ritual, revised, enlarged. Macoy.. 1.00
Ancient Const. Reprint 1723. Music Anderson 1.00

Ancient Mysteries and Modern Masonry 1.00

Paper. Rev. Charles H. Vail 50

Annotated Constitutions. Simons 1.00

An Occulist's Travels. Reichel. Cloth 1.00

Ancient Mystic Oriental Masonry. Clymer. . . . 1.50
Ancient Order of Hurcules (Burlesque), 6 copies 5.00

Ante Room Talks, Bloomer, 1.00

Antiquities of Freemasonry. Oliver 1.50

Antiquities of the Orient Unveiled, Redding. .. 1.50
Arcane Schools-Hist. of Fmsy. John Yorker. . . 4.75
As a Man Thinketh. /. Allen. Cloth, 4j4x7# . .50

Leather 75

Watered Silk 75

Special Gift Edition 75

Paper 15

22076 Ben Kar. Wallace 1.50

22141 Bible Testimony to Theosophical Truths 10

22175 Biography of Mrs. Babington 25

22191 Birthdays, Their Significance. ColvUle. 50

22195 Paper 40

22001 Book of A. A. S. R. McClenachan 3.00

22146 Book of I. O. O. F. Forms 1.00

22151 Book of the Chapter. Mackey, 1.60

22166 Book of the Master. Adams. Cloth 1.25

22176 Brotherhood. Harding 50

22186 Brotherhood of Healers. /. Macbeth. Cloth. . .50

22161 Brother of Third Degree. Carver, 1.50

22067 Buechners Fraternal Register, vest pock, leather. .60

22181 Busbee's Digest, I. O. O. F 4.00

221 5 1 Chapter, Book of the, Mackey, Cloth 1.60

22221 Chapter Music. Ilsley 15

22230 Charges of a Mason. Chase 15

22201 Christmas, Easter and Burial Services, K. T 45

22202 Leather. Rev. Cornelius L. Twing 75

22204 Morocco 1.
…[truncated]

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