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AtlXiaORIZEO T3EtA.2SrSI-AXI02SrS OF WORK-S
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AN OUTLINE OF
Occult Scilnce
RUDOM' STKINKR, Rn D
AulhoTiTfil 1 ranslatwn from the Fourth bdilion
J.f)N))ON
ifiK TiiKoscjrmcAi PimijsruNG society
RAN!) McNALLY & C'OMPANY
CHICAGO 1914 NEW YORR
x^x f, />v %Trt\
IX 'VTcsc.w o»* ci*>- NXA.W'ii X -Sijiki xrrckXvi^i *> j ma.'^
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-riZfiC. BLITZ’S C»K««ZZZX* ozr MM 3M A'V < « X, l«KA>< Zll*
•i'VfcCZiOX OVIbJBZ Z AJF IM t Xr «• f Af M ^ 'M
CONTENTvS
I r-i
to till. I^OUfiJt ItdltiOff VII
I Till*. ClI^I'ACIi.R Uh 1
IT Till N\rtiRi oi AIan 17
HI St.J^I I* ANi> J(J
IV Tm. liivoi.r i ion <ji’ rui, Worli> anu Ma\^ rxi
V Tm PlvRCiPllOK iih I IlOIIHK WoRI 1>S 4OO
(Cemex iniiTiK I nit i. it ton)
VI Till- Pj<ist-Nr AKn Piiiijki* B\t)iT irr>K oi^ rni-
WORT-I> VNI» Or^
Vff iJi i Ml . 1 j <»\i Tin*- I)o*M \i N, or (><<111 S( n xt I- j | t
AJ Ill's it:nu'ir< BoiU Thi Aii.tl World
'i'lu C'onisr <it iiniiutii 'riu* l^i me >
of Man ''I he f Si rtt ^rii# \t t ainTric*nl
<>tSn]j<tph\ iic ill T^nou C )I> e t *it i<m ol
S|ic( lal JilM nf^. au<1 !h iiiK m the SiMiitiial
Woiltl
^Hihof\ waf/x n
PREl'ACK TO 'riiC FOURTH EOITlOM
O NE vvhf> ui c’cjRi'ics to icpiosoTit, ctitnin
ir'iilts ol St if'-'liliL spnituc''! icscatcli c>^ ilio
k rd rtJco''dc'i u"! LItis OooJ , n>iist idl
be to fiod thwi ti.is 'ciiid of
in\ e.stigi'iti«:»i] IS zl ih<' ;>u'sf'ni liiiic abnosl uni-
veisjllv leojirded ab i’i'po.s<',ible Foi thiii'is me
lek'ittd m Lbe loll* j'fic^es about wbtch tliose
wlioaii* to-tlay < sUfiiit'd c vicl lIunkcMs risseit Ibat
uill piobablv lenunii alto^etlici mdet'stnm-
iible b> Inmiau nile]ltj:;encc ” ( )iic who tijovvs
aucl <Mn K'spect flu' leasoiii. winch prompt many a
seiumb ]M‘ivion t<j ntstrl thi;. imposbilnlit^'', would
inm make the alt<.m[)l a^i;am aiul jiL^ain to siu*\\
wlial iiiisundis 'stan<lu!'4‘' ja*' itab .iJ Ok' b<'tl»)in
<»t the behet iluit if i . not ic» liuiiuin know -
ledt-t' lo p( nt'liale inl<» fla* supeiphs sumI woilds
Foi U\o tlnii'*/, pn sent f h< inst Ks's ioi <*on-
Mtieiation I'nsf, nf> human lieiiip, v\i]l, on dt'cjxM
n‘fl<'<tiftn b<“ i(bK‘ in tin* ionj,* inn lo slmt Ins ey(‘s
lo flu iai'l llia 1 Ills most important <(ueblions as
to tlu' nit .111111^4 and sp'iidicance ol hie must icmam
imanswt led, il then* be no at tes.s lo bi^ht'i woiltls
Tlu‘f>i<*tie.illv we mav dt‘lii<U‘ oniselvt^s about
tins lat‘t and so j^et .iwa> lititn if, flu <l<‘pths oi
the bouJ-lite, howevet, will not toleiatt siit'h self-
delusion 'The peison w'ho will not listtm to what
VII
vni PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION
comes from these depths of the soul will natuiall^'
reject any account of supersensible worlds Tin re
are however people — and their numbci is in>l
small — who find it impossible to remain deai lo
the demands coming from the depths ol the soul
They must always be knocking at the gates winch,
m the opinion of others, bat the w’ay t(» wh.d is
"incomprehensible ”
Secondly, the statements of "exact thinkers" aie
on no account to be despised When* the}' h.ue
to be taken seriously, one •who occupies hiinsc*!!
•viuth them ■will thoroughly feel and apjiieciate this
seriousness The wntcr of this Ixjok wiaild not
like to be taken for one •who lightly dnsH gtiiils tlu*
enormous thought-labour which has bet'n ( d
on determining the limits of the hum, in ml< lit < t
This thought-labour cannot be put aside with a
few phrases about "academic wisdom" and the
like In many cases it has its souuh* in tnu*
striving after knowledge and in gonutne <lisc( ni-
ment Indeed, oven more tli.in tins must In
admitted, reasons have* been biought loiw.nd to
show that the knowledge* which is n g.toitnl
as scientific cannot iJcnetiaU* intfi suiieiseustble
worlds, and these reasons are in a (cihun \n/\e
irrefutable
Now it may appear stiangc t(» many pi'oph*
that the -writer of this book admits this ttecly,
and yet undertakes to make statements about
supersensible worlds. It seems indeed almost
PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION
IX
impossible that a pci son should admit in a certain
sense the reasons why knowledge of supci physical
•worlds IS uiiattnirial»lc, and should yet speak
about those woilds
And 'vet it is possible to take this attitude,
and at the same tune to undcistand that it
impi esses others as being n 'consistent Ft is not
given to t'voiy one tr> tnlei into the experiences
•we pass thiough when we a]>pi(jach supersensible
realms with the human intellect Then it turns
out that intellectual ])ioofs may certainly be
iiiefutable, and that fiotiviUisStamlnig this, they
need not lx* decisive W’llh legaid to reality
Instead of all soits ot theor<‘tical explanations, let
us now tiy to make this comprehensible by a
compaiison 'Hiat compaiisons aie not in them-
selvcss pi oofs IS ic'adtly admitted, but this dcjos not
pi event thi'ii oltcsi making intelligible what has
to bc‘ c*\piessed
Human uiidcs standing, as it woiks in cweiyday
life and in oKhiitiiy science, is actually so c'oii-
stitntc‘d that tl cannot p<‘iu‘trat<‘ into KU])er-
physKMl woilds 'rhis may 1 h‘ ])iovc'd beyond the
possibility ol dcMiKil Only this pioof can have
no mcii(‘ value .is ic'g.'uds ;i centam kind of soul-
life than the one attempting t<> .show that man’s
natural eye cannot with its visual faculty penetrate
to the smallest ec'lls of a living being, or to the
constitution c>f far-olf celc*stial bodies
Just as the assertion is true and demonstrable
X
PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION
that the ordinary power of seeing does not pene-
trate as far as the cells, so is the other asset lion
which maintains that ordinary knowledge cannot
penetrate into supersensible worlds And yet
the proof that the ordinary power of vision has
to stop short of the cells in no way cxchidt's
the investigation of cells Why should the pioot
that the ordinary power of cognition has to stop
short of supersensible worlds, decide anything
against the possibility of investigating thosi'
worlds?
One can be sensible ot the feeling which this
companson may evoke m many people One
can even enter into the feelings of othtns who
doubt if one who confronts the thought -labour
mentioned above with such a compair>*)ii, h.is
any idea whatever of the full stniousness <*t
that labour And yot the present w liter is not,
only fully convinced of that senousnc'ss, hut is
of opimon that that work of thought may be
numbered among the noblest .'ichi<‘M‘inents ot
humamty To show that the human powei ol
vision cannot reach the cells without llu* help
of instruments, would sm'ely he a useless undei-
taking, but in exact thinking, to becomt' conscious
of the nature of that thought is a necessary work
of the mind. That one who devotes himself to
such work does not notice that reality may retute
him, is only too natural. The preface to this
book can be no place for entenng into many
PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION
XI
refutatiOTivS of the former editionvS, put forth by
people who arc entirely devoid of appreciation
of what it stiives aftei, or who direct their un-
founded attacks against the personality of the
author; but it must none the less be emi>ha&ized
that depreciation in this Ijook of serious scientific
thought can be imputed to the author only by
one who wishes to shut himself off from the spirit
of what IS expressed in it
Man’s power of cognition may be augmented
and made more powerful, just as the eye's power
of vivSion may lie augmentt‘d Only the means
for strengthening the capacity of cognition are
entirely of a spiritual nature, they are inner
piocesses, belonging wholly to the soul. They
consist of what is desciibed in this book as medita-
tion anti concentration (contemplation) Ordinary
soul-hfe IS bound u]) with the bodily organs, the
stit'ngthenod soul-lite libi'iatt's itsell ftom these
Thcie are schools ol llitnight at the piestmt time to
which this asstTtion must tijipear (j[uitc simseless,
to which it must st'cm bast‘tl only on self-delusion
'lliose who think in this way will find it easy, from
their point ol view, to pitive that "all soul-life”
IS bound up with the iutvous .system One who
occupies the stan<l point from which this book has
been wntten can thoroughly understand such
proofs. Pie un<lerstands people who say that only
superficiality can assert that there may be some
kind of soul-hfe independent of the body; and
xn PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION
who are quite convinced that in such expenencCvS
of the soul there exists a connection with the life
of the nervous system, which the 'MilottantivSm of
occult science" merely fails to detect
Here certain quite compichcnsible habits ul
thought are in such sharp contradiction t<i wlitit,
has been described in this book, that tlK'U' is ns
yet no prospect of coming to an undeistanding
with many people It is heie that we come to
the point where the wish must asset t itself tlnit it
should no longer be a characteiistic of m<‘ntal
culture in our time at once to decry as faiustiil oi
visionary a method of lesearch which abruptly
deviates from its own But on the othci hand
it is also a fact at the picscnt time that a luim
ber of people can appreciate tbe stii)('ist nsible
method of research, as it is lepiosented in this
book: people who understand that the meaning
of life IS not revealed m general phrases about
the soul, self, and so on, but can only u'sult
from really entering into the fads of superphysi-
cal research
Not from lack of modesty, but witli .i sense of
^oyfxHL satisfaction, does the author of this book
keenly feel the necessity for this fotiith edition
after a comparatively short time. He is prevented
from immodestly emphasizing this by the feeling
that even this new edition falls far short of what
it should really be as an outline of a suiier-
sensible conception of the world. The whole
PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION xin
book has once more been revised for the new
edition, much supplementary matter has been
inserted at important points, and elucidations
have been attempted But in numerous passages
the author has realized how poor the means of
repiesentation accessible to him prove to be in
companson with what supei physical researcli
discovers Thus it was scarcely possible to do
more than point out the way in which to reach
conceptions of the events described in this book
as the Saturn, Sun, and Moon evolutions An
important aspect of this subject, has been bnefly
remodelled in this edition But expctienccs in
relation to such things diverge so widely fiom all
experiences m the realm of sense, that their
representation necessitates a continual striving
after expressions which may be, at least in some
measure, adequate One who is willing to enter
into the attempt at rciitesontation which has here
been made, will jicrhaps notice that in the case
of many things which cannot possibly be expressed
by more words, the endeavour has been made to
convey them by the fnanner of the description
This manner is, foi instance, different in the
account of the Saturn evolution from that used
for the Sun evolution, and so on.
Much complementary and additional matter
has been inserted in this edition in the part which
deals with “Perception of the Higher Worlds. “
The endeavour has been made to represent in a
XIV PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDTJ'ION
graphic way the kind of innei sotil-proccsscs by
which the power of cognition liberates itself fi (^ni
the limits which confine it in the wot Id of i>ens(* and
qualifies itself for expeneiicing the supeisensibl**
world The attempt has been made to show that
these experiences, though gained by eiitiioh
inner ways and methods, have yet a not ni('i<*Iy
subjective significance for the individual jjerson
who gams them The description attempts to
show that Within the soul its sex^aiatencss and
personal peculiarities are stripped away, and that
it attains to experiences which every hmnan being
has in the same way, who rightly woihs <mt his
development from his subjective expei i<‘ne<'s It,
IS only when “knowledge of siqiei sensible' woilds”
is thought of as bearing this charactei that il inav
be differentiated from old expeiiences ol nu'ith
subjective mysticism Of this mysticism it niav
be said that it is after all more ot k'ss a suliji'ctive
concern of the mystic The scientifu .spnitnal
training of the soul, however, as it is <l( ‘.<'nlt(‘d
here, {Jtnves after objective expenenees, the Until
of which, although rec^ognized iii an tnlnely
inward way, may yet, foi tliat vc'iv leason, be
found to be universally valid, 'riii'i again is a
point on which it is very chflieult to eonie to an
understanding with many of the haliits ot tlunight
of our tune
In conclusion, the authoi would like to observe
that it would be well if even the sympathetic
PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION
XV
reader of the book would take its statements
exactly as they stand At the present time there
IS a very pievaletit tendency to give this oi that
spiiitual movemenl an historical name, and to
many il is only such a name that seems to make
it valuable But, it may be asked, what would
the statements in this book gdin by being denom-
inated “Rosiciucian,” or anything <‘lse of the
kind^ What is of impoitance is that in thivS book
a glance into vsuperscnsible worlds is attempted
with the means which in oiii piescnt period of
evolution ate possible and suitable lor the hu-
man soul, and that irom thi.s point of view the
problems of human destiny and human existence
are consideied beyond the limits of birth and
death The ciuestion is not to find a name, but
to find truth
On the otliei hand, dcsignaticnis have also b€‘cn
used, with hostile nileiition, foi the conci‘ption of
tlu‘ univensi* ropiesent<‘(l in tins book Li^aving
out of account that those which weie inUMidcd to
stiikc and discredit tlu' authoi most heavily are
absurd find objectively untuie, those di^signations
an* stfimpcd as luiwfirthy by the fact that they
disparage a fully indcpemlent search for truth,
because the aggress(jrs do not judge it on its own
merits, but try to imxiose on others, as a judgment
of these investigations, enoneous ideas as to their
dependence on this or that tiadition, — ideas
which they have invented, or adopted from others
XVI
PREFACE TO THE FOl'RTir iJDITlON
Without reason However neecjsaiy these wmds
are m face of the many attacks on Lh«‘ amlioi, it
IS yet repugnant to him m this plac<* 1o enltn
further into the matter
Rluoli* SrUNF-R
June, igi3
AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE
CHAPTER I
The CiiAkAciEii of Occiili SciEiSiCE
A t the picbcnl tiiiic the “t.»cciilt bci-
ence” ate apt tf) arouse tlio iiiosL divcrj^eiit
leclingb Upon some people they work
bl.e a m<igic chaim, like the announcement of
something to which lhe\ k‘cl attracted by the
ini]ein>()st powers e)l llieir soul, to others there
IS 111 the wolds bomelhiiig repellent, calling foith
(‘onlenipt, derision, or a compassionate smile By
many, occult scienct' is looked upon as a lofty goal
ol human ciioit, the ciown (jf all other knowledge
and cognition, otheis, who aic devoting thein-
s(lv(‘s with the gieat(‘st cainc'slnc'ss and nohlc
love o{ liuth to that wduch appears to them tiue
science', deem <jecult science uu'ie idle dreaming
and liuitasy, in the same eaU'goiy with w'hat is
called su])eistition d'o some, occult scu'iice is
like* a light without which lile would bo valueless,
to othc'ts, it lepiesents a spmtual clanger, calcii-
latc'd to lc‘a<l tistiay immatuie minds and weak
souls, while bc'tween these two extremes is to be
found cweiy possible* intei mediate shailc* of opinion
Sttangc* feelings are awakened in one who has
attamocl a certain impartiality ol judgment m
2
AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT SCIENCE
regal d to occult science, its adheients and its
opponents, when he sees how people, undcmbti'illy
possessed of a genuine feeling tor ficcdom in luaiiy
matters, become intolerant when thew uu'ot w'lth
this particular line of thought And an unpie-
judiced observer will scaicely fail in thr^ ea'-e to
admit that what attracts main' adheu'iits ol
occult science — or occultism — is nothing hut tlu*
fatal craving for what is unknown and nivsteiious,
or even vague And he will alsfj be leady to own
that there is much cogency in the u'asons jiut
foiward against what is fantastic and visional y by
serious opponents of the cause in question In
fact, one who studies occult science will flo wah
not to lose sight of the fact that tlu* unpulst' bjwaid
the mysterious leads many pcojile on a v.uii < ha
after worthless and dangerous will-o’-the-wisps
Even though the occult scientist keeps a wati'h-
ful eye on all errors and vaganc‘S on the p4iit of
adherents of Ins views, and on all justifiii])l(*
antagonism, thcie aio yet usasous wlu< li lu*M
him back fiom the innnediatt* di'teme ot his own
efforts and aspiiations. 'riitsi^ usisons w ill heeome
apparent to any one entonng nu>ie cieeply into
occult science It would tluTefoie be supei-
fluous to discuss them here If they weie cited
before the threshold ot tins science liatl been
crossed, they would not suliice to convince one
who, held back by irresistible repugnance, lefuses
to cross that threshold. But to one who effects
THE CHARACTER OF OCCULT SCIENCE
3
an entiy, Hit' u'asons will soon manifest them-
selves fioni within, with unmistakable clearness
This much, howevei, implies that the reasons in
question ])oint ttj a certain attitude as the only
light one lor an ricctilt scientist He avoids, as
much as he possibly can, any kind of outward
defence oi conflict, and lets the cause speak tor
itself He simply puts forward occult science,
and in what it has to say about various matters
he shows ho\\ his knowledge is lelated to other
depaitnu'nts ol hie and science, what antagonism
it may eiieounter, and m what way reality wit-
ni'sses to the truth of his cognitions He knows
that an attempted vindication would, not merely
on account of current defective thinking but by
virtue of a certain inner necessity, lead into the
domain oi aitlul pci suasion, and he desires noth-
ing else t.han to let occult scicikc woik its own
way (iuiU‘ independently
The iirsi point in occult science is by no means
the advancing ol ajssertions oi opinions winch
aie to 1 k‘ proved, but the communication, ui a
puielv nauativ<‘ foim, of expeiienec's which are
to bt' inc't with 111 a woild olhei than the one that
IS to 1)1* sei'ii with physical eyes and touched with
physical hands. And further, it is an impoitant
point that tliiough this science the methods are
described by which man may verify for himself
the truth of such communications For one who
makes a senous study of genuine occult science
4
AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE
will soon find that thereby much becomes change ‘d
in the conceptions and ideas which an' lejimed
and rightly formed — m othei sphc'ies of life A
wholly new conception necebsarily anses also
about what has hitherto been called a “pio(»t
We come to see that in ceitain domains siu'li a
word loses its usual meaning, and that theie aie
other grounds foi insight and nndei standing Ilian
'‘proofs” of this kind
All occult science is born fiom two thoughts,
which may take root m any human ht'ing 'I'o
the occult scientist these thoughts express laets
which may bo experienced if the light nu'thods
foi the purpose are used But to many pc'ople
these same thoughts repicsenl highl> disj nit able
assertions, which may arouse fierce (•taiU'ntion,
even if they are not regarded as sonu'Lbing v\Imh
maybe “proved” impossible
These two thoughts are, Inst, that bc'hind the
visible world theic is anothei, the woild m\isibl<‘
which IS hidden irom the senses and fioni tliougbt
that IS fettened b}" those sens('s, ttnd secondly,
that it IS possible for man Uj jient'ttate into that
unseen woild by developing cerUnn tai'ulties
dormant within him
Some will say that tluTC is no sueli ha Men
world The world pel ceived by man tlirough his
senses is the only om* Its enigmas can be
solved out of itself Even if man is still veiy tar
from being able to answer all the questions of
THE CHARACTER OP OCCULT vSCIENCE 5
existencf, the tune wilJ cci tainly come when sense-
expcnence an<1 the science based upon it will be
£ible to give the answcis to all such questions
Otheib say that it cannot be asserted that there
IS no unseen woild behind the visible one, but that
human poweis ol perception aie not able to penc-
tiate into that world ''rhosc poweis have bound&
which tluy cannot pass Faith, with its urgent
cravings, may take refuge in such a world, but
true bciciice, based on ascertained faebs, can have
nothing to do with it
A third section looks upon it as a kind of pre-
sumption toi man to attempt to penetrate, by
his own cognitive clloitvS, into a domain with
regard to which he should give up all claim to
knowlcflge and be content with faith The adhei-
ents of this view feel it to be wiong lor weak
human beings to wish to Joice then way into a
■wf>i1<l which can belong only to religious life
It IS also allegiMl that a common knowledge ol
the facts ol the st'nse- woild is possible loi mankind,
but that m legaid to siqx'i sensible things it can
be meiely a qtieslion ol the individttars pcisonal
opinion, and that in these matters there can be
no possibility of a certainty uni v<‘t sally recognized
And many other asset tions are made on the subject
'The occult scientist has convmctsl himself
that a survey of the visible workl piopounds
enigmas to man whu'h can never be Sfdved out
of the facts of that world itself. Their solution
6
AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT SCTENCK
in this way will nevei be possible, howt*s"t‘i Kii
knowledge of those facts may athanie t'oi
visible facts plamlj’' point, through Uumi own
inner nature, to the existence ot a huhkn wmli]
One who does not see this clos(‘s his ties tf* ihi'
problems which obviously spinig ii]) <*\fi \\\]u !<•
out of the facts of the sense-uoild jh‘ u'liist'i
to see certain problems an<l enigmas, ami tlnu*
fore thinks that all questions can bc‘ ans\\(Med
through facts pertaining to the scMises I'he
questions which he is willing to ask are all eapaljk-
of being answered by the facts which he is con-
vinced will be discovered in the coiiise ol tunc
Every genuine occultist admits this But why
should one W’ho asks no questions c\pc(‘t answ(*ts
on certain subjects'* The occult >iicntist ,i\'.
nothing else than that to him sm*li (pu'stionmg
IS natural, and must b<‘ Teg.iided as a wholh
justifiable expression of the human soul Scitnee
IS surely not to be confined wilhm limits wlmli
prohibit impartial inquiry
The opinion that thcic me h<»mids to Imtnmi
knowledge which it is mipossibh* to pass, (.om
pelling man to sb)]) shoit (*1 the woiM invisible,
IS thus met b> the occult scientist . lie says that
there can exist nt) manm‘i ot d<iuht that it is
impossible to penetrate int(» the unseen woiM
by means of the kind ot cognition hete meant
One who considers it the only kind can come to
no other opinion than that man is not permitted
THE CHARACTER OP OCCaLT SCIENCE 7
to pencil ate into a possibly cxislinji higher world
But the occult scientist goes on to say that it is
possible t<j develop a ditforcnt sort of cognition,
and that this leads into the unseen world Tf this
kind of cognition is held to be impossible, we
airiv(' at a point of view from which any mention
of an invisible woild appears as sheei nonsense
But to an unbiaSvSed ludgmcnt there can be no
basis for such an opinion as this, except that its
adheicnt is a stiangei to that other kind of cogni-
tion But how can a peison fonn an opinion
about a subjt'ci of which he declares himself
Ignorant^ Occult science* must in this case main-
tain the principle that people should spcalc only
ot what they know, and should not make asser-
tions about anything of which they arc ignorant
It can only tccognize eveiy man’s right to com-
municate his own experiences, not cvci> man’s
right to dedal e the impossibility of what he docs
not, or will not, know The occult scientist dis-
putes no one’s right to ignoie the invisible world,
but, tbi'u* can be no real icason why a pcivson
should dc'ciaic himst'lf an aiithonty not only on
what he may know but *ilso on things considonul
unknowable
To those* who say that it is piesutnption to
penetrate into unseen legions, the occult scientist
would meitdy point out that this tan bo done,
and that it is sinning against the taculties with
which man has been cnckiwed if he allows them
lO
AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT bCIENCiC
of things also ceases to ^leld him anything ol ti
vivifying nature
It IS by no means the case that only Iho inth-
vidual and his personal weal and woe are («tn-
cemed Through occult facience man gain-. lh<‘
conviction that fiom a highei standpoml the
weal and woe ol the individual au mtiniah'h
bound up with the weal or woe of the w hole wni Id
This IS a moans by wdiich man comes lo sec*
that he is inflicting an mjuiy on the uh<*k* woiM
and every being within it if he does not dtvM'lop
his own poweis in the right way li n man makes
his life dcvScdate losing touch with the mi* .eon,
he not oiil}' destioys in his inner sell som<*liiing,
the decay ol which may e\<'ntnall> dii\e him to
despair, but through his wt‘4iknc*ss he < on*.iilut(*s
a hmdiance to the evolution fit llu* w}n#I<* woild
in which he lives
Now man may delude himsell He mav \h*]i 1
to the beliel that theie is nothing iiiMsibh*, .md
that that wdiich is mamh'st to his seii'^es .m<l mte!
Icct contains eveijthmg uliuli tiUi [xissibK exist
But such an illusion is only po* siblt* on the sm lat e
of consciousness and not in its depths I'eelmg
and dCvSiic do not yield to this dilusivt belief.
They will be peipetiuilly ciacmg, m om* way ot
another, for that w'hicb i.s mvisibli And il
IS withheld, the> drive man into <loubt, into
uncertainty about hie, or even into despaii
Occult science, by making nianitest what is unseen,
THi£ dlARACTKfl (JF ()('CULT SCIENCE
1 1
lb ccilciildU »1 It) \ mic all h(»pclessncbs, uncer-
tainty, anti flcspaii,---cvejythuu^, m .short, which
weakens hie an>l iiiakcs it unfit for its ncce&saty
'-ei\i< e 111 tli<‘ nnivoiso
The bcnc'llcent ellect ol occult science is that
it not only .sati.sfies man’s thiist lor knowledge
but gu'cs btiength and stability to life The
souice whence the occult .scientist diaw'^s his
power ioi woik and his confidence m life is inex-
haustible Anv onc‘ wdio has once had recouise
to that iount will alw'ays, on revisiting it, go
loith with icnew<'d vigour
'Pheie aie iieople who will not hear anything
about oeenlt s('icnee, because they think they
<h.sct‘rri something unhealtliiul in what has just
been said These people are quite light as legards
the surface and outer aspect oi hie They do
not desue that to bo stuiitetl which hie ni its .so-
calU'd K'.dily oflei s They .sc ( weakness in man’s
tuining awciv honi uahtv an<l .seeking his weltare
ill an unsc‘en woild which to them is .synonymous
with what IS <‘hnneti<.'d and \i,sionaiy El as
<K‘eult .sc u'litists we do not destu* to lull into
inoibul dicMimng and weakiic'ss, w'e must admit
that siu'h objeetion.s aie paitially justilied For
thc‘y aie loun(h‘d upon .sound judgment, which
Uwls to a half tiuth mstea<l <ii a whole tiuth
merely bec‘ause it doc*s not penetiate to the roots
of things, but ic‘niaiu.s on the suilaee If occult
science were* calculated to wt'aken hie and estrange
I J
AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT SCIENCE
man from tiue reality, such objections woultl
certainly be strong enough to cut the gioun<l
from under the feet of those who lollow' this
spiritual line of life But even in i{‘t;ai<l to such
opinions as these, occult science would not be
taking the light course m defending Useli in tht‘
ordinary sense of the words Even in this case
it can only speak by means of wdiat it gives to
those who leally penetrate into its nu'anmg,
that IS, by the real foice and vitahtv whuh it
bestows It does not weaken life, but stiengtlu'us
it, because it equips man not only with the foices
of the manifest woild but with those oi the invis-
ible world of which the manifest is the elteet
Thus it does not imply an impoveiishm<*nt, but
an enrichment, of life The tiue oiinilt scientiid
does not stand aloof fiom the w’orld, but is a
lover of reality, because he does not desne to
enjoy the unseen m a i emote dieam-w'oild, but
finds his happiness m bringing the world evei
fresh supplies of force from the invisibl<‘ souiei s
whence this very woild is deiived, a ml iKnii which
it must be continually diawmg feitihzing jiovvct
Some people find many obstacles «m the path
of occult science, when they enter upon it One
of these is expressed in the fact that a person,
attempting to take the first steps, is smnetum's
discouraged because at th(‘ outset lie is inlmdutcd
to the details of the supersensible w'oild, in on lei
that he may, with entire patience ami devotion,
THE CHARACTER OP OCCULT vSCIENCE 13
become acquainted with them A senes of com-
munications made to him about the invisible
natuie of man, about ccTtain definite occurrences
in the kingdom of which death opens the poitals,
and about the evolutifin of man, the earth, and
the entile solar system Wliat he expected was
to enter the vSiipei sensible woild easily, at a bound
Now he IS hear<l to saj “Eveiythmg which I
am told to study is food ior my mind, but leaves
m> soul cold I am seeking the deepening of my
soul-hfc I want to find myself within T am
vSeekmg sfimething that will lift niy soul into
the sphere of the divine, leading it to its tiue
home, T do not want information about human
nature and world -processes ” People who talk
in this way have no idea that by such feelings they
arc bailing the door against what they are really
seeking For it is just when, with a free and
open mind, in sclf-suircn<lcr and patience, they
assimilate what they call “lueicly” food for the
intellect, it is then an<l then only that they will
find that for which their souls are athirst That
road leads the soul to union with the divine,
which bimgs the soul knowledge* ol the works
of the divine. 'I'he uplifting of the heart is the
result of learning to know about the creations of
the spint
On this account occult science must begin
by imparting the information which throws light
on the realms of the spintual world. So too in
34
AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT vSCIENCIi)
this book we shall begin with what can be unvi'ilcd
from unseen worlds through thi' nicth<«ls of oeeult
rcscaich That which is moital in man, and
that which is immortal, will be descnbetl in 1hc‘n
connection with the world of which he is a iiK'nibei
Then will follow a description of the mctliol
by which man is able to <levelop those* pow-'m
of cognition latent wnthin him, wdiich will lt\id
him into that world As much will be said about
the metbod.s as is at piesent possible in a work
of this kind It seems natuial U) think that
these methods siiould bo dealt with lii.st For
it seems as though the mam point would be to
acquaint man walh wdi^it may bung liii)', b\ nuans
of his own pow CIS, tothedesned \u w (;l the hi gins
world Manx m«iv sa^*', “f)! wliat use is it l<ii
me that oihtTs tell me what thes know almut
higher woilds'* I w'lsh to sec them loi ni_vs(]t
The fact of the matter is that foi leally fruitful
experience of the mysteries of the* luisei’n woiM,
previous knowledge ol coitani i.iets lu'longing to
that woild IS absolutely necessan Uhv' tin.', is
so will suffieiently appeal fioin wlnit follows
It IS a mistake to think that the tiiiths ot occult
science which aie imparted hv those* fpiahtlefl to
do so, before they speak about the inc'thods foi
penetrating into the spmtual world itself, can
be understood and grasped only by means of the
higher vision which results from developing cer-
tain powers latent in man 'I'his is not the case.
THE CHARACTER OP OCCULT SCIENCE 15
Pot mvesti^atiiig and discovering the mysteries
of a supersensible world, that higher sight is
essential No one is able to discover the facts
of the unseen world without the clairvoyance
which IS synonymous w’lth that higher vision
But if when discovered they aie related, every
one who apjilies to them the full range of his
ordinal y inU‘llcet and unpicjiidiced powers of
liidgincnt will bo able to understand them and
to rise to a high degice of conviction concerning
them One who maintains that the mystenes
arc incompiehensiblc to him, docs not do so
because he is not yet clairvoyant, but because
he has not yet succeeded m bringing into activity
those powers of cognition which may be possessed
by every one, even without clairvoyance
A new method of putting forward these matters
consists m so dc'senbing them, after they have
been claiivoyantly investigated, that they are
quite accessible to the faculty of judgment If
only pi'ople do n<^t vshiit themselves off by preju-
dice, thcie IS no obstacle to jiinving at a convic-
tion, even without higher vision It is true that
many will lind that the new method of present-
ment, as given in this book, is far from corre-
sponding to then customary ways of formmg an
opinion. But any objection due to this will soon
disappear if one takes the trouble to follow out
his customary methods to their final consequences
When, by an extended application of ordinary
AN outline op occult SCIENCE
x6
thought, a certain number of the higher in% stciics
have been assimilated and found intelligible, bv
any one, then the right moment has come foi tln'
methods ol occult lesearch to bo ap])lied to In-,
individual personality these uill gn c* him
to the unseen noild
Nr>r vnll any genuine scientist 1 k' able to hud
conti adiction, m spirit an<l tine ri'aln ' , bil\v(eii
his science, which is built upon the latts <<1 tin*
sense- v\ Olid, and the way in which occult n m i
carries on its researches The scientist uses <ci-
tain instruments and methods lie t^onstiuets
his instiunicnts by woiking upon what “natui< ”
gives him Occult science also uses an insti uiaent,
but in this case the instiununt is man hnnstll
And that instrument too naist fust be pit]>aioI
foi that higher rcseaich d'ho J.'ieultKs and
pow€‘rs given to man by natiiic at the outsit,
without his cooperation, must bo tiansfonned
into higher ones In this way nuui is ,ib!e to
make himself into an nistiumeut toj tite iiivt's
tigation of thc‘ unseen wot Id
CHAPTER II
Tnii Naiurf of Man
C ONSIDERING man in the light o£ occult
sncjict, wv c'lic at <jiice lemnidcd of its
gencial riiaractci istics It rests upon the
lecogiiilion of .1 hidden something behind that
which IS maiidc.st to (he outer senses and to the
intdloet bi ought to bear upon their perceptions
These senses aiul this inlellect can apprehend only
a pait of al] that Hncli occult science unveils as
the total human entity, and this part is what
occult f)CK‘nce calls the physical body In order
to thiow light on its conception of this body,
occult science at fiist diiccts attention to a
phenomenon which contronts all observers of life
like a gteat nddle, — the phenomenon of death, —
and in connection with it occult science points to
so-called maniniatc natuie, the mineral kingdom
ai(‘ thus u'feiied to facts which it devolves
on occult science 1,o explain, and to which an im-
poitaiit part of this woik must be devoted But
to lK‘gni with, onlv a few points will bo toucihed
upon, by way oi gu'ing tin idea c)t the bearings
of thc‘ subject
Within manifested nature the physical body, ac-
cording to occult science, is that part of man which
IS of tlic same' nature as the mineral kingdom
17
i8 AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE
On the other hand, that which distinguishes m.'tii
from minerals is considered as nol pjii
of the physical body From thc' occult
of view, what is of supiemc impoitauct ihc
fact that death separates from the human l-cing,
that which, dunng life, is of like nntuic Wilh
the mineral world Occult science points to tin
dead body as that pait of man whuh is tound
existing m the same way in the muieual king<lom
It lays strong emphasis on the fact that ui that
principle of human nature which it looks upon ns
the physical body, and which <l(‘a1h teditec's to a
corpse, the same materials an<i foires ai(‘ at. w’oik
as in the mineral realm, but no less emphasis is
laid on the fact that at death disintcgiation ot the
physical body sets in Occult sei<‘iKt‘ thou ton
says “It IS true that the same materials ami
forces are at work m the physical body as in Uic
mineral, but during life their activity is placed tit
the disposal of something higher 'riu'y aic left
to themselves only when death rn'i'ins 'riit'ji
they act, as m conformity with their own nature
they must, as decomposers of the plii'sical brulv “
Thus a sharp distinction must lx* draw'n lx twet n
the manifested and the hidden olenx'nts in nuan
For dunng life, that which is hidden fifjm view
has to wage perpetual war on the materials and
forces of the mineral world. This indicates the
point at which occult science steps in It has to
charactenze that which wages the wai filludcd
THIv NATURE OF MAN
19
to, -a pnncipJ*. which is hidden fiom sense-obser-
vation (’Liii volant sight, alone can reveal its
wtfilviii^s Flow man airnCvS at becoming aware
f*l this hi<Ul('n el(‘nient as plainly as his ordinary
t'\es see the phcncmiena of sense, will be described
11! a latc'i pait oi this book Results of clair-
\oAant • *bst'i va Lioi 1 wall be given now for the
K'asoii <!luady pointed out in the preceding pages,
that IS, that communications about the way in
which the highci sight is obtained ean only be of
value to the* student when he has first become
acfiuainted, in the form of a narrative, ivith the
r('suU.s of clairvoyant research For m this sphere
it IS finite possible to undei stand things which one
IS not yet able to obscive. Indeed, the right path
to higher vision stalls with understanding
Now although the hidden something which
wages war on the disintegiation of the physical
body Cfiii be observed only by the higher sight, it
IS iilainly vivSible in its elCects to the human faculty
of judgment which is limited to the manifested
wot Id, and these* t'ifeets ate expressed in the form
oi shape* in which mineial matciials and forces are
combined dm mg h f<‘ When death has intervened,
the {t>mi <lisapj>ears little by little, and the physi-
cal l)ody bc‘comcs pait of the rCvSt of the mineral
world. But the clairvoyant is able to observe,
as an independent principle of human nature, that
which, while life lasts, prevents the physical
materials and forces from pursuing their natural
20
AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT SCIENCE
course, which would lead to the dissolution of the
physical body He calls this independent principle
the ethenc or vital body
If misunderstandings are not to arise at thc^
outset, two things must be borne in mind in con-
nection with this account of a second principle of
human nature The word '‘ethenc” is used here
m a different sense from that of modem physics,
which designates as “ether” the medium by which
light is transmitted In occult science the use of
the word is limited to the sense given above It
denotes that which is accessible to higher sight,
and can be known to physical observation only
by its effects, that is, by its power of giving a
definite form or shape to the mineral matciuils and
forces present in the physical body. Again, tht‘
use of the word “body” must not be misunder-
stood It IS necessary to use the words of every-
day language in describing things on a higher
plane of existence, and these terms, when applied
to sense-observation, express only what is physical
The ethenc body has, of course, nothing of a
bodily nature in the physical sense, howcvei
ethereal we might imagine such a body to he
Directly the occultist comes to the mention of
this ethenc or vital body, he reaches the point at
which he is bound to encounter the opposition of
many contemporary opinions. The development
of the human mind has been such that the mention
of such a principle of human nature is necessarily
THE NATURE OF MAN
21
looked upon n,s urivscieiitific ''Phc materialistic
way of thinking has ai lived at the conclusion that
there is nothing to bo seen in 4I living body but a
combination ol physical substances and forces such
as are also found 111 the so-called inanimate body
of the mineral, the oiiK dilfercMice being that
they are more complicated in the living than in
the lifeless body Yet it is not very long since
othci views were held even by otficial science
It is evident to any one who studies the works
of many earnest men of science, produced during
the first half of the nineteenth century, that at
that time many a genuine investigator of nature
was conscious of some factor acting within the
living body other than in the lifeless mineral It
was termed ''vital force” It is tiue this vital
force is not represented as being what has been
above chaiactcrize<l as the vital body, but under-
lying the* conception was a dim idea oi the existence
of such a body ''I'lie vital foice was geneially
regarded as something which in a living body was
united with physical mattei and loices in the
same way as the force of a magnet unites itself
with iron Then came the time when vital force
was banished from the domain of science. Mere
physical and chemical causes were accounted all-
sufficient.
At the present moment, however, there is a
reaction in this respect in some scientific quarters.
It is sometimes conceded that the hypothesis of
22
AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT SCIENCE
something of the nature of a vital force” is
not pure nonsense Yet even the scientist whf)
concedes this much is not willing to make common
cause with the occultist with regard to the vihil
body As a rule, it serves no useful piiiposi' to
enter upon a discussion of such views fiom the
standpoint of occult science It should be iniu li
more the concern of the occultist to lecognize
that the materialistic way of thinking is a ni'cessary
concomitant phenomenon of the great advance ol
natural science in our day This advance is due
to the vast improvements in the instruments usecl
in sense-observation And it is in the very nature
of man to bring some of his faculties to t'l certain
degree of perfection at the expense oi oth(‘is
Exact sense-observation, which has been evolveil
to such an important extent by natural .sciene<‘,
was bound to leave in the background the cultiva-
tion of those human faculties which lead into the
hidden worlds But the time has come when this
cultivation is once more neccssaty, and recogni-
tion of the invisible will not be w’on by combating
opinions which are the logical outcome of a denial
of its existence, but lather by setting the invisible*
in the nght hght Then it will be recognized by
those for whom the “time has come ”
It was necessary to say this much, in order that
it might not be assumed that occult science is
ignorant of the standpoint of natural science when
mention is made of an “ethenc body,” which in
THE NATURE OP MAN
23
many ciicles must necessarily be considered as
puiely imaginary
The ethenc body is thus the second principle
ol human nature For the clairvoyant it possesses
a highei degiec of leahty than the physical body
A (lesciiption of how it is seen by the clairvoyant
can ]jo given only in a later part of this book, when
the sense in which such dcscnptions are to be
taken will become manifest For the present it
will be enough to say th<it the ethenc body inter-
penetrates the physical body in aU its parts, and
IS to be regarded as a kmd of architect of the latter
All the physical organs are maintained in their
form and shape by the currents and movements
of the ethenc body The physical heart is based
upon an ethenc heart, the physical brain upon an
ethenc brain, and so on The ethenc body is or-
ganized exactly like the physical, with this difEer-
enct‘, that in the ethenc body -the parts flow into
cjiie another in active movement, whereas in the
physical body they are separated from each other
Man has this ethenc body in common with all
plants, just as he has the physical body m com-
mon with minerals Everything living has its
ethcric body
The study of occult science proceeds upwards
from the ethenc body to another pnnciple of
human nature. I'o aid in the formation of an
idea of this pnnciple, it draws attention to the
phenomenon of sleep, just as in connection with
24
AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT SCIENCE
the ethenc body it drew attention to de.'illi All
human work, so far as the manifested \\otltl is
concerned, is dependent on activity duiing ^vakln^4
life But that activity i& possible only so long as
man is able to recuperate his exlh'iusted fotcc'.s Ia'
sleep Action and thought disappeai, pain and
pleasure fade away during sleep, and on man’s
reawaking, his conscious poweiwS ascend liom tlK‘
unconsciousness of sleep as though fioin hidden
mysterious sources of energy It is the .same
consciousness which sinks down into dim ilejiths
on falling asleep and ascends from them again
on reawaking
That which bnngs life up out of the state of
unconsciousness is, according to occult science,
the third principle of human natuie It is called
the astral body Just as the physical boily cannot
keep its form by means of the mineial substances
and forces it contains, but must, in oidci to keep
them together, be interpenetrated by the ctlienc
body, so it IS impossible for the foict's f)J the
ethenc body of themselves to be iir.idiatcd with
the hght of consciousness An ethenc hotly left
to its own resources would be in a pennanent
state of sleep ‘ An ethenc body awake is irra-
diated by an astral body The effect of this
astral bMy seems to sense-observation to dis-
appear when man falls avsleep, to clairvoyant
iWe may also say, it could only live the life of a plant in the
physical body
THE NATURE OF MAN
25
obborvation it is vStiU present, with the difference
that it aj)pOcirvS soj)aratcd from 01 drawn out of
the ethctic body vScnsc-observation has nothing
to do with the astral body itself, but only with
its cllocts in the manifested world, and these cease
to be visible duiing sleep In the same sense m
which man possesses his physical body m common
with minerals and his etheiic body in common with
plants, he rc‘sembles animals as regaids his astral
body
Plants are in a peimanent state of sleep One
who does not judge accurately in these matters may
easily make the mistake of attributing to plants
the same kind of consciousness as that of animals
and himian beings m the waking state; but this
assumption can only be due to an inaccurate
conception of consciousness In that case it is
said that if an exteinal stimulus is applied to a
plant, il lespomls by ceitain nuAi^ements, as would
an aniniitl 'rhe sensitiveness of some plants is
spoken of, tor example, ot thosc‘ which contract
th<Mi lt‘av(‘s when ceitain cxteinal things act upon
them But the (‘haraeU‘nstic mark of conscious-
nt'ss IS not that a being reacts in a certain way to
an impression, but that it experiences something
in its inner nature which adds a new element to
mere reaction Otherwise we should be able to
speak of the “consciousness” of a piece of iron
when It expands under the influence of heat.
Consciousness is present only when, through the
26 AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT SCIENCE
effect of heat, the being feels pam or pleasure
inwardly.
The fourth principle of being which occult science
attributes to man is one which he docs not shau*
m common with the rest of the manifested woilil.
It IS that which differentiates him from his fellow-
creatures, and makes him the crown of the ci cation
which belongs to him Occult science helps in
forming a conception of this further principle of
human nature by pointing out the existence of an
essential difference between the kinds of expenence
m waking life On the one hand, man is con-
stantly subjected to experiences which must of
necessity come and go; on the other, he has
experiences with which this is not the case "i'his
fact comes out with special force if human expi*-
nences are compared with those of animals An
animal expenences the influences of the outer w<jrld
with great regularity; under the influence of heat
and cold it becomes conscious of pain or pleasure,
and during certain regularly recurring bodily
processes it feels hunger and thirst The sum
total of man’s life is not exhausted by such expe-
riences; he IS able to develop desires and wislies
which go beyond these things In the case of an
animal it would always be possible, on going far
enough into the matter, to ascertain the cause —
either withm or without its body — which impelled
it to any given act or feeling. Tins is by no means
the case with man. He may engender wishes and
THE NATURE OF MAN
27
desires for which no adequate cause exists either
within or without his body A particular source
must be found for everything in this domain, and
according to occult science this source is the human
“I” or “ego” Therefore the ego is called the
fourth pnnciple of human nature
Were the astral body left to its own resources,
feelings of pleasure and pain, and sensations of
hunger and thirst, would alternate within it, but
there would be lacking the consciousness of a
lasting quality in all these feelings. It is not the
lasting element as such which is here designated
the ego, but that which is conscious of the lasting
element In this domain, conceptions must be
very exactly expressed if misunderstandings are
not to arise The becoming aware of that which
IS permanent, in exchange for that which is
changeable, constitutes the first dawning of the
feeling of the ego The sensation of hunger, for
instance, cannot give a creature the feehng of
having an ego Hunger sets in when the recurring
causes make themselves felt in the being con-
cerned, which then devours its food just because
these recurring conditions are present For the
ego-consciousness to arise, there must not only be
these recurring conditions, urging the being to
take food, but there must have been pleasure
denved from previous satisfaction of hunger, and
the consciousness of the pleasure must have
remained; so that not only the present experience
28 AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT SCIENCE
of launger but the past experience of pleasuic uiges
the being to take iiounshnient
Just as the physical body falls into decay if th('
ethenc body does not keep it together, and as
the ethenc body sinks into unconsciousness if not
irradiated by the astial body, so 'would the* astial
body again and again allow the past to bo lost in
oblivion unless the ego rescued the past by calling
it up into the present What death is to the
physical body and sleep to the ethenc, the powei
of forgetting is to the astral body We may put
this in another way, and say that life is the
special characteristic of the ethenc body, con-
sciousness that of the astral b(;dy, and memory
that of the ego
It is still easier to make the mi.stake ol attiibiit-
ing memory^ to an animal than that of attnbuting
' Explanations such as those given in this book regarding the faculty
of memory may very easily be misunderstood For one who observes
external events only would not at first sight notice the diffen nee 1 m twis ti
what happens m the animal, or even m the plant, vilun son« thing
appears in them resembling nicmoiy, and wh.it is here ch<(t.u u n/ni ,i .
actual recollection in man Of course, when an antni d h.is perforimd
an action for a third or fourth time it m.iy pc rform it in siu h a wa>
that the outer process gives the imptissKm that mintoiy and the
training associated with it are piesisit Nay, we may evi it extend our
conception of memory or of lecollcction .is far as do some naturalists
and their disciples, when thc'y s.iy that the chicken begins to pick up
gram as soon as it conies out of the shell, that it even knows the proper
movements of head and body for gaming its end It could not have
learned this in the eggshell, hence it must have done so through the
thousands and thousands of creatures from which it is desccncicd (so
says Hcnng, for example) We may call the phenomenon before us
something resembling memory, Init we shall never arrive at a real com-
prehension of human nature if we do not take into account tlutt very
distinctive element which shows itself m the human being as an inner
process, as an actual perception of earlier expenences at a later date,
not merely the workmg or eaiiier conditions in later ones In this
book It IS this perception of what is past that is called memory, not alone
THE NATURE OF MAN
29
consciousness to a plant It is so natural to think
of mcmoiy when a dog lecogmzcs its master, whom
perhaps it has not seen for some time , yet in reality
the recognition is not due to mem 01 y at all, but
to something quite different The dog feels a
certain attraction towaid its master which pro-
ceeds from the personality of the lattei This
gives the dog a senvsc of pleasure whenever its
master is present, and every time this happens
it is a cause of the repetition of the pleasure
But memory only exists m a being when he not
only feels his present experiences, but retains
those of the past A person might admit this,
and yet fall into the error of thinking the dog has
memory For it might be said that the dog
pines when its master leaves it, and therefore it
retains a remembrance of him This too is an
inaccurate opinion Living with its master has
made his presence a condition of well-being to the
dog, and it feels his absence much in the same way
in which it feels hunger. One who does not make
these distinctions will not arrive at a clear under-
standing of the true conditions of life
Memory and forgetfulness have for the ego much
the same significance that waking and sleeping
the reappearance (even though transformed) of what once existed, in a
later form Were we to use* the word memory for the corresponding
processes m the vegetable and ammni kingdoms, we should require to
use a different word in spt.iking of man In the description given here
the important thing is not the particular word used, but rather that in
attempting to unwrstand human beings this distmction ^ould be
recognized The apparently very intelligent actions of animals have
)u«t as httle to do with what is here called memory.
30
AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE
have for the astral body Just as sleep banislios
into nothingness the cares and troubles of the day,
so does forgetfulness draw a veil over the sad
experiences of life and efface part of the past
And 3ust as sleep is necessary foi the recupeiation
of the exhausted vital forces, so must a man blot
out from his memory certain poitions of his past
life if he is to face his new experiences frc‘cly and
without prejudice It is out of this very forget-
fulness that strength anses for the perception of
new facts Let us take the case of learning to
write All the details which a child has to go
through in this process are forgotten. What
remains is the ability to write How would a
person ever be able to wnte if each time he took
up his pen all his experiences in learning to write
rose up before his mind?
Now there are many different degrees of
memory Its simplest form is when a person
perceives an object and, after turning away from
it, retains its image in his mind He formed tlie
image while looking at the object A process
was then earned out between Ins astial body and
his ego The astral body lifted into consciousness
the outward impression of the object, but know-
ledge of the object would last only as long as the
thing itself was present, unless the ego absorbed
the knowledge into itself and made it its own
It IS at tins point that occult science draws the
dividing line between what belongs to the body and
THE NATURE OF MAN
31
what belongs to the soul It speaks of the astral
body as long as it is a question of the gaming of
knowledge from an object which is present But
what gives knowledge duration is known as soul
From this it can at once be seen how close is the
connection in man between the astral body and
that part of the soul which gives a lasting quality
to knowledge The two are, to a certain extent,
united into one principle of human nature Con-
sequently, this unity is often denoted the astral
body. When exact terms are desired, the astral
body IS called the $oid-bodyy and the soul, in so
far as it is umted with the latter, is called the
ienkent soul.
The ego rises to a higher stage of its being when
it centres its activity on what it has gained for
itself out of its knowledge of objective things It
IS by means of this activity that the ego detaches
itself more and moie from the objects of percep-
tion, in ordci to work within that which is its own
possession. The part of the soul on which this
work devolves is called the rational or intellectual
soul.* It IS the peculiarity of the sentient and
intellectual souls that they work with that which
they receive through sense-impressions of outward
‘The term “verstandoaseele” is sometimes translated by “ rational
soul " Prom a certain point of view one could prefer the term “in-
teQectual soul," because it expresses better the activity of the soul
than does "rational soul " In the latter one thinks of the knowledge
about a peroration, in intellectuality, of the actual possibihty of form-
ing this knowledge through mward activity In German the expression
"emotional soul ^ only oomades as it Should with the second member of
the soul when the mward activity u kept m view.
32
AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE
objects of which they retain the meinoiy I'lit*
soul IS then wholly surrenderc'd to soniethnij^
which IS really outside it Even what it has made
its own thiough memory, it has actually iecei\ <‘d
fiom without But it is able to go beyond all
this, and occult science can most easily gi\e an
idea of this by drawing attention to a sin i pit
fact, which, however, is of the greatest iinpt n tanet*
It is that 111 the whole lange of speech theu' is
but one name which is distinguished by its veiy
natuie irom all other names I'his is the nanu‘
“I” Every othei name can be applied by any
one to the thing oi 1 >eing to wliieh it belongs 'riie
word “I” as the designation of a being has a
meaning only when given to tliat boing by himself
Never can any outside voice call iis by the n.nne
of “I.” We can apply it only to oiii selves “1
am only an ‘F to myself, to every one elst' I am
a ‘you,’ and every one else is a ‘you’ to me.”
This fact is the outward exiirossion of a t!eepl>
significant truth I'he real esst'nce ol the ego is
independent of everything out sale it, and il is on
this account that its name cannot be applied to it
by any one else This is the reason why those
religious confessions which have consciously main-
tained their connection with occult science, speak
of the word “I” as the “unutterable name of
God.’’ For the fact above mentioned is exactly
what IS referred to when this expression is used
Nothing outward has access to that part of the
THE NATURE OP MAN
33
human soul of which we aic now speaking It
IS the “hid<1cn sanctUeiiy” of the soul Only a
being of like nature with the soul can win entrance
thcie “The divinity dwelling in man speaks
when the soul recognizes itself as an ego “ Just
as the sentient and intellectual souls dwell in the
outer world, so a third soul-principle is immersed
in the divine when the soul becomes conscious of
its own nature
In this connection a misunderstanding may
easily aiise, it may seem as though occult science
pronounced the ego to be one with God But it by
no means says that the ego is God, only that it is
of the same nature and essence as God Does
any one declare the drop of water taken from the
ocean to be the ocean, when he asserts that the
<lrop an<l the ocean are the same m essence or
.substance* I* li a comparison is needed, we may
s*.iy, “'rhi* I'go IS 1 elated to God as the diop of
water is to the ocean ” Man is able to find a
divine <.'U‘mt‘iit within him, because his original
es.sence is tienve<l diiectly fiom the divine Thus
man, thrtnigh the thiul principle of his soul,
attains to an inner knowledge of himself, just as
through his astral body he gains knowledge of
the outer world For this reason (iccult science
calls the third soul -principle the self-conscious
soul, and it hokls that the soul-part of man
consists of thxee principles, the sentient, intellec-
tual, and self-conscious souls, just as the bodily
34
AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE
part has three principles, the physical, etheiic,
and astral bodies.
The real nature of the ego is first levcaled in
the self-conscious soul. Through feeling 5ind
reason the soul loses itself in othei things, but
as the self-conscious soul it lays hold of its oimi
essence Thciefore this ego can only be peict'ivcd
through the self-conscious soul by a ceitain inner
activity The images of external objects aic
formed as those objects come and go, and the
images go on working in the intellect by virtue
of their own foicc But if the ego is to petceive
itself, it cannot mcioly surrender itself, it must
first, by inner acti\ity, diaw up its own being out
of its depths, in older to become conscious of it
A new activity of the ego begins with this self-
cognition, — with self-recollection Owing to this
activity, the perception of the ego in the self-
conscious soul possesses an entirely different mean-
ing for man from that conveyed by the observation
of all that reaches him through the thiee baddy
pnnciples and the two other soul-principles The
power which reveals the ego in tht‘ seU-conscious
soul is in fact the sfmie power which is manifested
ever 3 rwhere else in the world, only in the body
and the lower soul-pnnciples it does not come
forth directly, but is manifested little by little in
its effects The lowest manifestation is through
the physical body, thence a gradual ascent is
made to that which fills the intellectual soul
THE NATURE OF MAN
35
Indeed, we may say that with each ascending
step one of the veils falls away in which the hidden
centre is wrapped In that which fills the self-
conscious soul, tins hidden centre emerges unveiled
into the temple ol the soul Yet it shows itself
just hcie to be but a drop from the ocean of the
all-peivading Pnmordial Essence, and it is here
that man fust has to giasp it, — this Piimordial
Essence He must tccognizc it m himself before
he is able to find it in its manifestations
That which penetiatcs into the self-conscious
soul like a diop from the ocean is called by occult
vscience the spirit In this way is the self-conscious
soul united with the spirit, which is the hidden
principle in all manifested things If man wishes
to lay hold of the spirit in all manifestation,
he must do it in the same way in which he lays
hold of the ego in the self-conscious soul He
must extend to the visible world the activity which
has led him to the perception of his ego By this
means he evolves to yet highei planes of his being
He adds something new to the pnnciplcs of his
body and soul The first thing that happens is
that he himself conquers what lies hidden in his
lower soul-pnnciples, and this is effected through
the work which the ego carries on within the soul
How man is engaged in this work becomes evident
if we compare with a high-minded idealist one
who IS still given up to low desires and so-called
sensual pleasures. The latter becomes transmuted
36 AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT SCIENCE
into the former if he withdraws from certain lower
tendencies and turns to higher ones He theieby
works from his ego upon his soul so as to en-
noble and spiritualize it The ego has become
the master of that man’s soul-life. This may be
earned so far that no desire or wish can take root
in the soul unless the ego permits of its entrance
In this way the whole soul becomes a manifestation
of the ego, which previously only the self-conscious
sotd had been All civilized life and all spintual
effort really consist in the one work which has for
its object to make the ego the master Every
one now living is engaged in this work, whether
he wishes it or not, and whether or no he is con-
scious of the fact
Again, by this work human nature is diawn
upward to higher stages of being. Man develops
new principles of his nature These lie hidden
from him behind what is manifest If man is
able by working upon his soul to make his ego
master of it, so that the latter brings into mani-
festation what IS hidden, the work may extend
yet farther and may include the astral body In
that case the ego takes possession of the astral
body by unitmg itself with the hidden wisdom of
this astral principle. In occult science the astral
body which is thus conquered and transformed by
the ego is called the Spint-Self . (This is the same
as what is known as “Manas” in theosophical
literature, a term borrowed from the wisdom of
THE NATURE OP MAN
37
the East ) In the Spint-Sclf a higher principle is
added to human nature, one which is present as
though in the germ, and which in the course of
the work of the human being on itself comes forth
more and more
Man conquers his astral body by pushing
through to the hidden forces lying behind it; a
similar thing happens, at a later stage of develop-
ment, to the ethenc body but the woik on the
latter is more arduous, for what is hidden in the
ethenc body is enveloped in two veils, but what is
hidden in the astral body in only one ^ Occult
science gives an idea of the difference m the work
on the two bodies by pointing out certain changes
which may take place in man in the course of his
development Let us at first think of the way in
which certain soul-qualities of man develop when
the ego works upon the soul, how pleasures and
desires, joys and sorrows, may change We have
only to look back to our childliood What gave
us pleasure then, what caused us pain^ What
have we learned in addition to what we knew as
children? All this is but an expression of the
iNo hard and fast hue can be drawn between the changes which are
accomplished in the astral body through the activity of the ego and
those taking place m the ethenc body The one merges into the other
When a man learns something, ana thereby gams a certain capacity
for judgment, a change takes place in his astral body, but when this
judgment changes hi:, natural disposition, so that he habituates himself
tio/eei differently, in consequence of hts learning, from what he did
betote, this means a change in his ethenc body Everything that
becomes so much a man’s own that he can always recall it, is based on
the transformation of the ethenc body That which little by httle
becomes an abiding possession of the memory has its foundation m
the transmission to the ethenc body of the work of the astral body
38 AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT SCIENCE
way in which the ego has gained the masteiy ovei
the astral body, for it is this piineiplc which is
the vehicle of pleasure and pain, 30} an<l soiiow
Compared with these things, how little m the*
course of time do certain othet human (ju.ihties
change, for example, the temperament, the deepen
peculiarities ot the charactei, and like cjiudities
A passionate child will often letain ceil am tend-
encies to sudden anger duimg its development m
later life
This IS such a stnking fact that there aie
thinkers who entnely deny th(' possibility ot
changing the lundamcntal chaiacter 'Plu'y as-
sume that it IS stmicthing permanent tliioughout
life, and that it is merely a cpiestion ol its being
mamfestod in one way or another But sinh an
opinion IS due to defective observation To one
who IS capable of seeing such things, it is tw'ident
that even the character and tempci ament of a
person may be transformed under the influence of
his ego It is true that this chang<‘ is slow in
comparison with the change m the* ciuahtics bcloic
mentioned Wc may compau* tlu‘ lelation to
each other of the rates of change in the two
bodies to the movements ol the houi-hand and
minute-hand of a clock Now the forces which
bring about a change of character or temperament
belong to the hidden forces of the etlicnc body
They are of the same nature as the forces which
govern the kingdom of life, — the same, therefore,
THE NATURE OP MAN
39
as the forces of growth, nutrition, and generation
Further explanations in this work will throw the
right light on these things
Thus it IS not when man simply gives himself
up to pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, that
the ego IS working on the astral body, but when
the peculiarities of these qualities of the soul are
changed, and the work is extended in the same
way to the ethenc body, when the ego applies its
energies to changing the character or tempera-
ment ThivS change, too, is one m which every
person living is engaged, whether consciously or
not The most powerful incitement to this kind
of change m ordinary life is that given by religion
If the ego allows the impulses which flow from
religion to work upon it again and again, they
become a power within it which extends to the
ethenc body and changes it as lesser impulses in
life eflcct the transformation of the astral body
These lesser impulses, which come to man through
study, reflection, the ennobling of feeling, and so
on, are subject to the manifold changes of existence ,
but the religious feelings impress a certain stamp
of uniformity upon all thinking, feelmg, and
willing They diffuse an equal and single light
over the whole life of the soul
Man thinks and feels one thing to-day, another
to-morrow, the causes of which are of many dif-
ferent kinds; but one who, through his religious
convictions consistently held, has a glimpse of
40
AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE
something which pcisists thiough all changes,
will relate his thoughts and feelings of to-day, as
well as his experiences of to-moiiow, to that
fundamental feeling he possesses Thus tohgious
belief has the power of permeating the whole of
the soul-lifc Its influences mciease in stienglh
as time goes on because they aie cf»iistaiitly
repeated Hence they acquire the power ol
working upon the etheiic body.
In a similar way docs the influence of tiiu' ait
affect man If, going beyond the outer ftnin,
colour, and tone of a wroik of ait, he penctiates
to its spiritual foundations wnth his imagination
and feeling, then the impulses thus received by
the ego actually icach the etheiie body When
this thought IS follow’ed out to its logical toiielu-
sion, the immense significance of art in <ill human
evolution may be estimated Only a few instances
are pointed out here of what induces the ego to
work upon the ethenc body There are m.iny
similar influences in human life which are not so
apparent at the first glance But these instances
are enough to show that there is yet another
pnnciple of man’s nature hidden within hmi, which
the ego IS making more and more manifest
Occult science denotes this second pnnciple of
the spint the “ Life-Spint ” (It is the same which
in current theosophical hteratuie is called Bud-
dhi, a term borrowed from Eastern wisdom.) Tlie
expression “Life-Spirit” is appropnate, Ix^causc
THE NATURE OF MAN
the same forces are at work within what it de-
notes as in the vital body, with the difference
that when they are manifesting in the latter the
ego is not active When, however, these poweis
express themselves as the Life-Spint, they aie
interpenetrated by the ego
Alan’s intellectual development, the ijunfication
and ennobling of his feelings and of the manifesta-
tions of his will, are the measure of the degree in
which he has transformed the astial body mto the
Spint-Self His religious experiences, as well as
many others, aic stamped upon the ethenc body,
making it into the Life-Spint. In the ordinary
course of life this happens more or less uncon-
sciously, so-called initiation, on the contrary,
consists in man’s being directed by occult science
to the means through which he may quite con-
sciously take in hand this work in the Spint-Self
and Life-Spint These means will be dealt with m
later paits of this book In the meantime it is
important to show that besides the soul and the
body, the spnit also is woiking within man It
will be seen later how tins spint belongs to the
eternal part of man, as contrasted with the perish-
able body
But the work of the ego on the astral and
ethenc bodies does not exhaust its activity, which
IS also extended to the physical body A slight
effect of the influence of the ego on the physical
body may be seen when certam expenences cause
42
AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE
a person to blush or turn pale In this case th<.‘
ego IS actually the occasion of a process in the
physical body Now if through the activity oi
the ego in man, changes occur influencing the
physical body, the ego is really united with th<'
hidden forces of the physical body, that is, iMth
the same forces which bung about its physical
processes Occult science says that duting such
activity the ego is working on the physical body
This expression must not be mivsundei stood It
must on no account be supposed that this wtii k is ()f
a grossly material nature What appears as gross
material in the physical body is merely the
manifested part of it, behind this are the hidden
forces of its being, which arc of a spiritual n.iture
When the ego puts forth its eneigies in tlu* manner
desenbed, it unites itself, not with the outer
material manifestation of the physical body, but
with the invisible forces which bring that body
into being and afterwards cause it to decay This
work of the ego on the physical body can only very
partially become clear to man’s consciousness in
ordinary life It can become fully clear only
when, under the influence of occult science, man
consciously takes the woik into his own hands
Then he becomes aware that there is a third spir-
itual principle within him It is that which occult
science calls the '‘Spint-Man,” as contrasted with
physical man. (In theosophical literature this
'‘Spmt-Man’* is known as AtmA.)
THE IviATURE OP MAN
+3
Aj^ain, with icgaul to the Spirit-Man, it is easy
to make a inistak(‘ In the physical body we see
man’s lowest pnnciple, and on this account find it
haul to teahjic that the work on that body should
be accomplivshod by the highest principle of the
htunan entity But just because the spiiit active
within the physical body is hidden under thiee
veils, the highest kind ol human effort is needed in
ordc'i to make the ego onc' with that which is
the hidden spnitual cneigy oi the body
Occult science, therefore, represents man as a
being composed of many pnnciples Those of
a bodily nature aie
the physical body,
the ethenc or vital body,
the astral liody.
The soul-ptmciples are
the sentient soul,
the intelk'ctual oi lational s(jul,
the self-conscious soul
It IS m the soul that the eg<j di buses its light
Of a spiritual nature *u(‘
the Spirit-Selt,
the Life-Spin t,
the Spint-Man
It follows from what was said above that the
sentient soul and the astral body are closely united
and in a certain senst‘ are one Similarly, the
self-conscious soul and the Spint-Self form a
whole, for in the self-conscious soul the spirit
44
AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT SCIENCIiJ
shines forth, and thence irradiates with its light
the other principles of human nature Hence
occult science also speaks of man’s organization
as follows The intellectual soul is called simply
the ego, because it partakes of the nature of the
ego, and in a ceitam sense is the ego, not yet
conscious of its spiritual nature We thus have
seven divisions of man:
(1) physical body,
(2) etheric or vital body;
(3) astral body,
(4) ego,
(5) Spint-Self,
(6) Life-Spint,
(7) Spint-Man
Even one accustomed to materialistic habits
of thought would not find in this sevenfcild organ-
ization of man the “fanciful magic” often attrib-
uted to it, if he would keep strictly to the meaning
of the above explanations, and not at once intro-
duce the idea of something magic into the matter.
Occult science speaks of these seven pnnciples of
man in exactly the same way, only from the
standpoint of a higher form of observation of the
world, as allusion is commonly made to the seven
colours that make up white light, or to the seven
notes of the scale (the octave being regarded as a
repetition of the keynote). As light appears m
seven colours, and sound in seven tones, so is the
unity of man’s nature manifested in the seven
THE NATURE OF MAN
45
pnnciples described No more superstition at-
taches to the number seven m the case of occult
science than when associated with the spectrum
or with the scale
On an occasion when these facts were put for-
ward verbally, it was objected that the statement
about the numbei seven docs not apply to colours,
since there are others beyond the red and violet
rays, invisible to the eye But even in this
respect the comparison with colours holds good,
for, m fact, the human being expands beyond the
physical body on the one side, and beyond the
Spint-Man on the other; only to the methods of
spintual observation of which occult science first
relates, these continuations of man are “spiritu-
ally’' invisible, just as the colours beyond red
and violet are physically invisible It was neces-
saiy to say this much, because the opinion so
easily arises that occult science docs not seriously
apply Itself to scientific thinking, but treats
matters as an amateur. But one who carefully
considers the meaning of the statements made by
occult saence will find that m reality it is never at
variance with genuine science, neither when it
brings forward the facts of natural science as
illustrations, nor when its statements are directly
connected with natural research.
CHAPTER HJ
Sleep and Death
T he nature of waking conscifnisness oann<»i
1)C iathomod without (4js(T\iiig llLit (‘(iiidi*
lion which man cxpciK‘n<‘cs <lunng sh*cp,
and the problem of life cannot be *ipi>ioach(‘<l
without studying death Any one failing 1o })<‘i-
ccivc the impoitanee (»! occult science may <listnist
the maimer in which it studies slc‘t‘p and death
Occult science* is, howc\ci, callable* oi a])preeiating
the motives ftom which such distiust arises
For theic is nothing iiieompieliensible in the*
assertion that man exists loi aetue, piiipost‘lul
life, that his acts depend on his de\oli<»n theu’lo,
and that absorption m such conditions as sleep
and death can result only from a taste for idle
dreaming, and can lead to nothing (‘Ist* than
vain imaginings.
The refusal to accept anything ot so fantastic
a nature may readily be regarded as the expres-
sion of a sound mind, while indulgence in such
“idle dreaming’' is accounted morbid, and a pur-
suit fit only for people in whom the joy and
ardour of life aie lacking, and who are incapable
of “real work’’ It would be wrong to set this
assertion aside at once as an injustice, for it con-
tains a certain gram of truth It is one quarter
46
SLEEP AND DEATH
47
truth, and must be completed by the remaining
thiee quarters belonging to it Now if we dis-
pute the one quarter Tvhich is right, with him who
recognizes that one quarter quite distinctly but
who docs not dream of the other three quarters,
we only rouse his suspicions For it must indeed
be unconditionally gi anted that the study of
that which lies hidden in sleep and death is morbid
if it leads to weakness or to estrangement from
real life No less must we admit that much of
that which has always called itself occult science
in the world, and which is even now practised
under that name, bears the impression of what is
unhealthy and hostile to life, but this certainly
does not spnng from genuine occultism
The real fact of the matter is this, that just as
a man cannot always be awake, neither is he
sufficiently equipped for the tictual conditions of
life in its entire lange without that which occult
science has to offer him F^ife continues during
sleep, and the foices which work and labour
during the waking fstatc draw their strength and
refre i ment from that which sleep gives them
It is thus with the things under our observation
in the manifested world The boundanes of the
world are wider than is the field of the latter
observation; and what man recognizes in the
visible must be supplemented and fertilized by
what he is able to know of the invisible world.
A man who did not continually renew his exhausted
48 AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE
forces by sleep, would bring his life to destruction,
and in the same way a view of the voild which
IS not fcitilizcd by a knowledge of the unseen,
must lead to a feeling of desolation
It IS similarly so with regaid to death Luing
creatures fall a piey to death in ordei that nt'W hie
may atise It is precisely occult scu'nce whieli
tin ows light on Goethe’ s bcaritiful phi ase “ Ni 1 1 u u ‘
invented Death in order to have mucli LiU* ”
Just as m the ordinary sense there ccmld bt* no
life without death, so can there be no real know-
ledge of the visible wrorld without insight into th<‘
invisible All discernment of the visible must
plunge again and again into the invisible in ordc'i
to develop. Thus it is evident that occult scii’nce
alone makes the life of revealed knowledge possi-
ble In its true form it never enfeebles hfe, but
strengthens it and ever renews its freshness and
health, when, left to its owm resources, it has
become weak and diseased.
When a man sinks into sleep the connection
between his principles changes, as described earlier
m this work The part of the sleejiing man
which lies upon his couch comprises the physical
and ethenc bodies, but not the astral body and
not the ego. It is because the ethenc body
remains bound to the physical body in sleep that
the life-activities continue. For the moment the
physical body is left to itself, it must of necessity
fall mto decay The thmgs that are extingui^ed
SLEEP AND DEATH
49
m sleep are ideas, pain, plca&itic, joy, gnef, the
ability to express conscious will, and similar
faculties of existence But the astral body is
the vehicle of all these things That the astral
body, with its joy and soirow, its realm of thought
and will, IS annihilated in sleep is an opinion
that cannot be entertained by an unbiassed judg-
ment, it exists still, but 111 another condition
In Older that the human ego and the astral body
may not only be endowed with pleasure and pain
and all the other things we have named, but also
have a ccmscious jjcrccption of them, it is neces-
sary that the astral body should be united with
the physical and ethenc bodies This is the
case during waking life, but not in sleep The
astral body has withdrawn itself from the other
bodies It has adopted another kind of existence
than that which it possesses while united with
the physical and ethenc bodies Now it is the
task of occult science to study this other kind of
existence in the astral brxiy Duiing sleep, the
astral body vanishes from observation in the outer
world and occult science must trace it m its hidden
life until it again takes possession of its physical
and ethenc bodies on awaking
As in all cases when knowledge of the hidden
things and events of life have to be dealt with,
clairvoyant observation is necessary for the dis-
covery of the real facts of the sleep state in its
true nature, but if that which may be discovered
so AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT SCIENCE
by this means has once been made clear, it is
comprehensible to really unprejudiced th<uif(ht
without further demonstration For (‘vcnts m
the unseen world show themselves by their elU'cts
in the world of manifestation If what is leveaUsl
by clairvoyant vision is an explanation of visible
C'vents, such a confiimation by life is the piool
which may rightly be demanded. Even one who
will not use the means to be givcMi l.'iter foi the
attainment of clairvoyant \'ision may have tlu*
following experience he may, in the first place,
take the statements of the clairvfiyant for grant<*d,
and then apply them to the matenal events with-
in his experience He will then fmd that life
thereby becomes clear and compiehensible, and
the more exact and minute his (jbservatKins of
ordinary life, the more readily will he come to
this conclusion
Even though the astral body dunng sleep
passes through no expenenccs, though it is nf>t
conscious of pleasuie, pain, and thf‘ like, it does
not remain inactive Rather is it the case that
active work is its function in the sleep state. For
it IS the astral body which strengthens and lecu-
perates man’s forcCvS, exhausted during waking life
As long as the astral body is united with the
physical and etheric bodies it is related to the
outer world through these two bodies. They
convey to it perceptions and representations.
Through the impressions which they receive from
SLEEP AND DEATH
St
thcir surroundings, it experiences pleasure and
pain Now the physical body can be preserved
in the form and shape suitable to the individual
only by means ol the human ethenc body But
this human form can be preserved only by an
otheric body which on its part receives corre-
sponding forces from the astral body The ethenc
body is the builder, the aichitcct, of the physical
body It can, however, build in the tiue sense
only when it leceives Irom the astral body the
impulse as to the manner in which it must build
In this latter are contained the models, accord-
ing to which the ethenc body gives the physical
body its form Dunng our waking hours these
models for the physical! body are not present in
the astral body, or, at least, only to a certain
extent For in waking life the soul replaces these
models with its own images When a person
directs his sense's upon his environment he thus
creates m his ideas pictures which arc copies of
the world around him These copies at first
disturb the piototypes which give the ethenc
body the impulse to preserve the physical body
Such ciisturbancc could not be present if a man,
by virtue of his own activity, could convey
to his astral body thovse pictures which would
give the nght impulse to the ethenc body Yet
this very disturbance plays an important part in
human life, and is able to express itself because the
models for the ethenc body do not OfiwaeinJikftCD*
Sa AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT SCIENCE
play m the waking state This fact is revealed by
"fatigue ” Now, during sleep, no external impies-
sions disturb the force of the astral body There-
fore in this condition it can expel fatigue The
work of the astral body during sleep consists m
removing fatigue, and it can accomplish this only
on leaving the physical and ethcric bodies Dur-
ing waking life the afjtral body d<ies its work
within the physical body, during sleep it works
on the latter fiom outside
For instance, just as the physical body has
need of the outci world, which is of like substance
with itself, for its supply of food, something of the
vsame kind takes place in the case of the astral
body Let us imagine a physical human body
removed fiom the surrounding world it would
die That shows that physical life is an impossi-
bility without the entire physical environment
In fact, the whole earth must be just as it is if
physical human bodies are to exist upon it. For,
m reality, the whole human body is only a part
of the earth, — indeed, in a wider sense, part of
the whole physical universe. In this respect it
is related in the same sense as, for example, th<‘
finger of a hand to the entire human body. Sepa-
rate the finger from the hand and it cannot remain
a finger* it withers away. Such would also be
the fate of the human body were it removed from
that body of which it is a member, — from the
conditions of life with which the earth provides
SLEEP AND DEATH
S3
it. Let it be raised above the surface of the eaith
but a sufficient number of miles and it will perish
as the finger perishes when cut off from the hand
If this fact is less apparent in the case of a man's
physical organism than in that of his finger and
his body, it is merely because the finger cannot
walk about on the body as man is able to do on
the earth, and because on that account the depend-
ence of the former is more obvious
In the same way that the physical body is
embedded in the physical world to which it
belongs, so does the astral body form a part of
its own world, only it is tom out of it in waking
life. We can form a clear idea of what happens
by having recourse to an analogy Imagine a
vessel filled with water No one drop is a sep-
arate thing in itself within that entire mass of
water. But let us take a little sponge and with
it suck up a single diop from the whole mass
of water Something of this kind happens to
the human astral body on awaking During
sleep it IS m a world resembling its own nature.
In a certain sense it forms part of it On awak-
ing, the physical and ethenc bodies suck it up
they absorb it; they contain the organs through
which it observes the outer world .Iti'" order
to achieve this observation it has tg leave its
owm world, tlTough it is in that world alone that
it can receive the models which it nefeds for the
etheric body.
$4
AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT vSCIENC'E
Just as food is supplied to the physical body
from its surroundings, so aie the pictures oi the
world sunounding the astral body piesented to
it during the state of sleep Theie, indt'cd, it
lives in the univcisc, beyond the physical an<l
etheric bodies in that same univeis<‘ out ol
which the whole man is born ''riie s<juiee ot
the images by means of wlneh man rcceivt's his
form is m this universe hie is linked in haimony
with it, and when hc' awakes he rises above the
surface ot this all-pcrvading haimony to attain
external peiceiDtion In sleep his astral liody
returns to the unu'crsal ]i«uni(jiiy He brings so
much {Strength from it to his bodies on awaking
that hc can once mote dispt^nse for a timi* with
sojourning m the realm of haimony. T'he astial
body returns dunng sleep to its home, anil, on
awaking, brings back into life freshly invigoiated
forces. That which the astral body thus gains,
and brings with it on waking, finds its outei
expression in the refreshment af fouled by sound
deep
Further exposituai of occult science will show
that this home of the astial body is more extensive
than that which belongs to the physical body in
the narrower sense of the physical environment.
Thus, while man as a physical being is a member
of this earth, his astral body belongs to worlds
m which other heavenly bodies besides our earth
are included. Dunng sleep, therefore, — this can
SLEEP AND DEATH
SS
be made clear, as we have said, only by further
explanations, — it enters a world to which other
stars than the eaith belong In lecognition of the
fact that man lives during sleep in a world of stars,
that is, in an astial world, occult science calls that
principle of man which has its real home in that
"astral” world and which, every time it returns
to the sleep state, draws renewed force from that
world, the "astral body ”
It should be superfluous to point out that a
misunderstanding might easily arise with regard
to these facts, in our time, however, when cer-
tain matenalistic modes of representation exist, it
becomes not altogether unnecessary In quar-
ters where such representation prevails it may,
of course, be said that such a thing as fatigue
can be scientifically investigated only in accord-
ance with physical conditions Even if the
learned are not yet unanimous with regard to
the physical cause of fatigue, one thing is quite
firmly established we mUvSt accept certain phys-
ical processes which lie at the root of this phe-
nomenon It would be well, however, if it were
recognized that occult science does not in any way
oppose this assertion It admits everything that
IS said m this connection, just as it is admitted
that for the physical erection of a house one
bnck must be laid upon another, and that when
the house is fiinished its form and construction
can be explained by purely mechanical laws.
AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENC'E
S6
But the thought of the ai’clntcct is lU'C'ossiPv
for the building of the house This eannot be*
discovered merely by examination ol pIijsKMl
laws
Just as the thought of the creator ot a house'
stands behind the physical laws which lual e it
explicable, so too, behind what is af fumed, with
perfect accuracy, by physical science <loes tluae
stand that of which occult science tieats Idiis
comparison is of course often put foiward wlit'n
the justification for a spiritual liackgiouiul to the
world IS in question, and it ma> be considert'cl
a tnvial one But what is important in such
matters is not famihaiity with cc'itain concep-
tions, but that the piopei weight should bt' given
them in establishing a fact. One may be pie-
vented from doing this simply because central y
ideas have so much power over the judgment
that this weight is not felt
Dreaming is an intermediate state between
sleeping and waking Wliat dicam t'xpciicnccs
offer to thoughtful observation is tlu* many-
coloured interweaving of a picture-world, which
nevertheless conceals within itself some sort of
law and order. At first this world seems to
have an ebb and flow, often in confused suc-
cession, Man in his dream-life is set free from
the laws of waking consciousness which bind him
to sense-perception and the laws of reason.
And yet dreams have some sort of mysterious
SLEEP AND DEATH
57
law, attractive and fascinating to human specula-
tion, and this is the deeper reason why the beau-
tiful play of imagination lying at the root of
artistic feeling is always apt to be compared to
dreaming We need only recall a few character-
istic dicams to find this corroborated A man
dreams, for example, that he is driving off a dog
that IS attacking him He wakes, and finds
himself in the act of unconsciously pushmg off
part of the bedclothes which had been lying on
an unaccustomed pait of his body and which had
therefore become oppressive What is it that
dream-life makes in this instance out of an inci-
dent perceptible to the senses^ In the first
place, it leaves in complete unconsciousness what
the senses would perceive in the waking state
But it holds fast something essential — namely,
the fact that the man wishes to repel something,
and round about this it weaves a metaphorical
occurrence
Tiic pictures, as such, aie echoes of waking
life Thcie IS something arbitrary in the way
111 which they are drawn from it. Every one feels
that with the same extenor cause the dream
might conjure up vanous pictures before him
But they give symbolic expression to the feeling
that the man has something to ward off The
dream creates symbols, it is a symbolist Inner
experiences can also be transformed into such
dream-symbols A man dreams that a fire is
58 AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE
crackling beside him, he sees flames in his dream
He wakes up feeling that he is too heavily coveied
and has become too w’-arm The feeling of tof)
great w'armth expresses itself symbolically in
the incturc Quite dramatic experiences may be
enacted in a dieani For example, some one
dreams that he is standing on the edge ol a
precipice He secs a child running towaid it
The dream makes him experience all the tor-
tures of the thfuight— if only the child will lUJt
be heedless and tall ovei into the abyss* He
sees it fall, and herns the dull thud of the body
below He aivrdvcs, and peiceivcs that an objr'ct
which had bton hanging on the wall of the room
has become unfastened, and made a riull sound
by its fall This simiile event is expitssed in
dream-life by one which unravels itself in exciting
pictures For the present it is not at all necessary
to engage in reflection as to the reason why, in
the last example, the moment of the falling of
a heavy object expresses itself in a series of
events which seem to spread themselves ovei a
certain length of time; it is only nt'cessary to
keep in view that the dream transforms into a
picture that which would present itself to the
waking sense-perception.
We see that the moment the senses cease their
activity, creative power asserts itself in man.
It is the same creative power which is present in
absolutely dreamless sleep, and then recuperates
SLEEP AND DEATH
S9
man’s exhausted lorces For this dreamless sleep
to take place, the astral body must be withdrawn
from the ethenc and physical bodies During
the dream-state it is so far separated trom the
physical body as to have no fuither connection
with the organs of sense, but it still maintains a
certain connection with the ethenc body The
capacity for perceiving the expenences of the
astral body by means of pictures is due to this
connection which it maintains with the ethenc
body The moment this connection also ceases,
the pictures sink into the obscunty of uncon-
sciousness and di eamless sleep has set m
The arbitral y and often nonsensical element
in dream-pictures anses from the fact that the
astral body cannot, on account of its separation
from the sense-organs of the physical body,
relate its pictuies to the coirect objects and
events of the outer environment It is espe-
cially illuminating, in this matter, to examine
a dream in vdiich the ego is, as it were, split up
Take, for example, the case of some one who
dreams that he is a schoolboy and cannot answer
the question put to him by his teacher, although
immediately afterwards the teacher answers it
himself The dreamer, being unable to make
use of his physical organs of perception, is not
able to connect both occurrences with himself,
as the same individual Therefore, if only to be
able to recognize himself as a permanent ego,
6o AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT SCIENCE
man must first be equipped with outer organs
of perception Only \vhen he had acquiied the
faculty of self-consciousness without the aid of
such organs would the permanent ego also become
perceptible to him outside his physical body.
Clairvoyant consciousness has to acquiie this
faculty, and the method of so doing wnll be
treated in detail later in this work
Even death takes place for no other cause
than a change in the connection of the principles
of man’s being And what is visible to clair-
voyant obsci ration with regard to death may
also be scon in its cficcts in the manifested
world, in this case also, an unbiassed judgment
will find the teachings of occult science confirmed
by observing external life The cxpiession of the
invisible in the visible is, however, less evident
with regard to these facts, and there is greater
difficulty m feeling the full importance of that
which in the events of outer life endorses the
statements of occult science in this domain.
These statements may be pronounced to be merely
fancy-pictures, even more readily than many
other things that have been dealt with in this
work, if we shut ourselves off from the knowledge
that everywhere in the visible is contained an
unmistakable foreshadowing of the invisible.
Whereas, on the approach of sleep, only the
astral body is released from its connection with
the ethenc and physical bodies, which still remain
SLEEP AND DEATH 6x
united to each other, at death the separation of
the physical from the ethenc body takes place
The physical body is abandoned to its own forces,
and must therefore become disintegrated as a
corpse At death the ethenc body finds itself
in a condition m which it has never been before
between the time of its birth and death, — with
the exception of certain abnoimal conditions to
be dealt with later That is to say, it is now
united to the astral body in the absence of the
physical body, for the ethenc and astral bodies
do not separate immediately after death they
are held together for a time by the agency of a
force, the presence of which can be easily under-
stood, for were this force not present the ethenc
body could not detach itself from the physical
body. It would remain bound to the latter, as
IS shown by sleep, when the astral body is not able
to rend asunder these two pnnciples of man's
being. This force comes into action at death
It releases the ethenc from the physical body,
so that the former remains united to the astral
body. Clairvoyant observation shows that this
connection vanes with different people after
death. The time of its duration is measured by
days. For the present, this period of time is
mentioned only for the sake of information
Subsequently, the astral body is also released
from the etheric body and goes on its way alone
During the union of the two bodies the mdividual
62
AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE
IS m a state which enables him to be awaie of
the experiences of his astral body As long as
the physical body is there, the work ol lein
forcing the wasted organs has to bo begun fnmi
without, directly the astral body is libeiat<‘d
from it When once the physical body is
arated, this work ceases Nevei theless, thi*
foice which was expended in this fashion, when
the man was asleep, continues alter death and
can now be applied to some other end Tt is
now used lor making the astial body’s own
experiences ]ieiecptible Dining his connection
with his physical Ixxly the oiitei woi Id enteis
the man’s consciousntss in images, tiilei the
body has been laid aside, that whieli is ex]u‘-
nenced by the astral body, when it is no Iong<‘i
connected by sense otgans with this outei physical
world, becomes percexititile At first it has no
new experiences Its connection with the etherie
body prevents it from expcncneing jinything new
Wliat, however, it doc's possess, is memory
of its past life. The ethenc body still being
present cau.scs that past life to tippear as a vivid
and comprehensive panoiama. That is man’s
first expencnce after death. He sees his life
from birth to death &prea<l out before him m a
senes of pictures While this life lasts, memory
is present only in the waking state, when man
IS united with his physical body, and it is present
only to the extent allowed by that body, but
SLEEP AND DEATH
63
nothing IS lost to the soul that has made an
impression on it during life Were the physical
body a perfect instrument for the purpose, it
would be possible, at any moment during life,
to conjure up the whole of the past before the
eyes of the soul At death theie is no longer
any obstacle to this As long as the ethenc
body remains, there exists a certain degree of
perfection of memory But this disappears ac-
cording to the degree in which the ethenc
body loses the form which it possessed while
united with the physical body, and which re-
sembles that body. This is the very reason why
the astral body separates, after a time, from the
ethenc body It can remain united with the lat-
ter only so long as the form of the ethenc body
corresponds with that of the physical body
Dunng the penod of life between biith and
death, separation of the ethenc body occurs
only in exceptional cases, and for no longer
than a brief space of time If, for example, a
man exposes one of his limbs to pressure, part of
his ethenc body may become separated from the
physical one We say on such an occasion that
the limb has “gone to sleep,” and the peculiar
sensation we feel results from the separation of
the etheric body. (Of course a matenalistic
manner of explanation may here again deny
the invisible behind the visible and say all that
anses merely from the physical disturbance
64 AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE
caused by the pressuic ) Clairvoyant vision can
sec in such a case how the coircspondinj? pait
of the ethcnc body is extruded from the ])h 3 *sical
limb Now if a man expciiences an unusual
shock, or something .similai, such a st'paiation
of the cthciic body from a laigc pait. o1 the
physical body may result, for a shfiit tune
That IS the case when a man for some leason
or other is suddenly brought face to face' with
death, — for example when di owning, or thictit-
ened by a fatal accident when mountaineering
What IS related by people who have had tiuch
experiences comes, in fact, vetv near the truth,
and can be ratified by clairvoyant obseivation.
They declare that in such moments tlu'ii whole
lives pass before their minds as though in a huge
memory-picture.
Out of the many examples which might here
be adduced, allusion will be made to one only,
because it originates from a man to whose mode
of thought everything that is here said about
such things must seem puie fancy.” Moriz
Benedict, the distinguished cnminal anthiopolo-
gist and an eminent invcstigatoi m nianv other
1 Aa a matter of fact, >t is always very profitable fur aii}r otic who is
taking up the study of occult !>ctpiicc to acquaint himbc'lf with the* state*
ments of those who regard this science as merely fane iful Sue h sUite-
mciits cannot be so easily branded as due to partiality on the part of
the observer Let cwcniltistb learn as much as (lossible from Ihrise who
regard their efforts as nonsense They need not be disturU'd if m this
respect their love is not reanrocated Occult observation assuredly
does not require such things tor the venfication of its results, nor are
these aUusioos intended as proofs but as illustrations
SLEEP AND "DEATH
6S
realms of natural science, relates in his Reimms-
cence^ an experience of his own, — to the effect
that he had once, when on the point of drowning
in a bath, seen his whole life pass before his mem-
ory as though m a single picture If other people
describe differently the pictures seen by them
under similai ciicumstances, and even in such a
way that they seem to have little to do with the
events of their past life, that does not contradict
what has been said, for the pictures which arise
in the quite abnormal condition of separation
from the physical body are sometimes at first
sight unintelligible m their relation to life Cor-
rect observation, however, would always recog-
nize this relationship
Neither is it an objection if, for example, some
one who was once on the point of drowming did
not experience what has been described, for it
must be borne in mind that this can happen only
when the ethenc body is really separated from the
physical body, — when, moreover, the former is
still united with the astral body If, through
the fnght, a loosening of the ethenc and astral
bodies also takes place, the expenence is not
forthcoming, because then complete unconscious-
ness ensues, as in dreamless sleep
Immediately after death the events of the past
appear as though compressed by the memory
into a picture After its separation from the
ethenc body, the astral body pursues its further
6
66 AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT SCIENCE
wanderings alone It is not difficult to realize
that everything continues to exist which by means
of its activity the astral body has made its own
during its sojourn in the physical body The
ego has to a certain extent elaborated the Spint-
Self, the Life-Spint, and the Spint-Man So
far as these are developed, they do not owe their
existence to the organs piesent in the difleicnt
bodies, but to the ego, and it is precisely the ego
which needs no outer organs for pciception; nor
does It require any such organs in order to retain
possession of what it has made one with itself
It might be objected “Why then is there no
perception diiiing sleep of the developed Spirit-
Self, Life-Spint, and Spint-IMan On this account
— because the ego is chained between biith and
death to the physical body. Even though, dur-
ing sleep, it IS out of the physical body with the
astral one, it nevertheless remains closely con-
nected with the physical body, for the activity
of the astral body is directed toward the physical
body On this account the ego is rclegiited to
the outer world of sense for its observations,
and cannot receive spiritual revelations in their
direct form. Not until death do these revela-
tions come within reach of the ego, because by
means of death the ego is freed from its connec-
tion with the physical and ethenc bodies. An-
other world may flash upon the consciousness
the moment it is withdrawn from the physical
SLEEP AND DEATH
67
world whicdi during life monopolizes its activity
Now there are reasons why even at this juncture
all connection with the outer physical world of
sense does not cease for man That is to say,
certain desires remain which sustain the connec-
tion There are desires which man creates just
because he is conscious of his ego as the fourth
principle of his being These desires and wishes,
springing from the existence of his three lower
bodies, can operate only in the external world,
and cease to operate when these bodies are cast
aside Hunger is caused by the external body,
as soon as that external body is no longer con-
nected with the ego, hunger ceases Now, had
the ego no further desires than those springing
from its own spiritual natuie, it might at death
draw full satisfaction from the spiritual world
into which it is transplanted But hfe has given
it other desires as well It has kindled m it a
longing for pleasures only to be enjoyed by means
of physical organs, although these pleasures them-
selves to not originate in the nature of those
organs It is not only the three bodies which
demand gratification from the physical world,
but the ego itself finds pleasures in that world,
for the enjoyment of which there exist no means
whatever in the spiritual world
During life the ego has two kinds of desires-
those that spring from the bodies and must
therefore be gratified within the bodies, but which
68
AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT SCIENCE
must also come to an end with their disintegration;
and those that arise from the vSpintual natuie of
the ego So long as the ego lives m the bodies,
those cravings are satisfied by means of the bodily
organs For in the manifestations of the bodily
organs the hidden spiritual element is at wotk,
and the senses receive something spiritual as well,
in everything of which they arc cognizant 'That
spiritual element is also present after <leath,
although m a different form Everything spir-
itual that the ego longs for while in the world of
sense, it still possesses ■vehen the senses arc no
longer there
Now if a third kind of wish were not added to
these two, death would mt'an only a transition
from desiies which may be satisfied thiough the
senses to such as are fulfilled by the revelation of
the spiritual world. The third kind of desire
IS that which is created by the ego dunng life m
the sense-world, because it finds pleasure in that
world, even when no spintual element is revealed
m it The humblest pleasures may be manifes-
tations of the spirit The satisfaction afforded
a starving creature by taking food is a manifesta-
tion of the spirit, for by taking the food some-
thing IS thereupon brought about without which,
in a certain sense, the spiritual nature could not
develop But the ego may go beyond the pleas-
ure, which in this case is the outcome of necessity.
It may even long for the delicious food quite
SLEEP AND DEATH 69
apart from the service rendered to the spmt by-
taking nourishment
It IS the same with othei things in the sense-
world Desires are created in this way which
would never have appeared in the sense-world
if the human ego had not been incorporated in
it Neither do such desires arise from the spir-
itual nature of the ego The ego must have
pleasures of the senses as long as it lives in the
body, even though it be for the very reason that
its own nature is spintual. For the spirit is
manifested in material things, and the ego is
enjoying nothing less than spirit when it sur-
renders itself to that element in the sense-world
which is irradiated by the light of the spirit
Moreover, it will contmue to enjoy this light
even when the senses are no longer the medium
through which the spiritual rays pass But
there is no fulfilment possible in the spiritual
world for desires in which the spirit is not living
even in the world of the senses
When death takes place, the possibility of
gratifying desires of this description is cut off.
Pleasure m good things to eat can be induced
only by the presence of the physical organs re-
quired for their consumption, — the palate, tongue,
and so on; but when man has laid aside his
physical body he no longer possesses these organs,
and if the ego still craves for that kind of pleas-
ure the craving must remain unsatisfied. So
70
AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE
long as the pleasure is stihscivicnt to the spir-
itual need, it is caused only by the firesenec of
the physical organs, but should it happen that
the ego has created the desire without seiving the
spint in so doing, he retains it after death in
the £01111 of a craving which thiists in vain for
gratificalioii We can foim an idea of what tlu‘
individual then experiences only by imagining
some one suffering from burning thirst in a region
where, far and wide, there is no water to be found
This IS the predicament of the ego alter death,
so long as it retains ungiatified desnes foi the
pleasuies of the outer worl< 1 , and has no organs
by means of which to satisfy them Of course
the burning thirst, sei\ing as a comparison fot
the condition of the ego after dc'ath, must be
thought of as enormously increased, and it must
be imagined as extending to all desires still exist-
ing, for which all possibility of gratification is
lacking
The next condition of the ego consists in freeing
itself from this bond of attraction to the outer
world With regard to this world, it has to
attain purification and liberation. It must be
cleansed of all wishes which it has created while
in the body, and which have no native nghts in
the spiritual world. As an object is caught and
burned up by fire, so the world of desire, described
above, is broken up and destroyed after death.
A vista IS then opened mto that world which
SLEEP AND DEATH
71
occiilt science calls the consuming fire” of the
spirit This fire seizes upon a desire which is of
the senses, but in which these are not an expression
of the spirit Revelations of this kind which occult
science is bound to make with regard to such events
may appear hopeless and terrible It may seem
a fearful thing that a hope, for the realization of
which sense-organs are required, should after
death be transformed into despair, and that a
wish that can be fulfilled only by the physical
world should be changed into torturing depriva-
tion. Yet we can hold such an opinion only
so long as we fail to realize that the wishes and
desires seized by the “consuming fire” after
death do not, in a higher sense, represent forces
beneficial to life but destructive of it
By means of these forces the ego binds itself
to the sense-world more closely than is neces-
sary, in order to draw from it all the experience
It requires For the sense-world is a mani-
festation of the hidden and spiritual world which
lies behind it, and the ego could never attain
spiritual happiness thiough the bodily senses,
which are the only form m which the spiritual
can be manifested, unless it utilized the senses
to seek the spiritual element in sense-experi-
ence Nevertheless, the ego loses sight of the
true spiritual reality m the physical world to
such an extent that it expenences sensual desires
irrespective of the needs of the spirit. If sense-
72
AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE
pleasure, as the expression of the spirit, ser\’'cs to
raise and develop the ego, any pleasure which is
not an expression of the spirit waips and impov-
erishes it No matter it this kind of desire finds
the means of its gratification m the outer woild,
its warping effect on the ego is in no way dimin-
ished, but it is not until aftei death that its
disastrous effects become apparent
For this reason a man may, by gratifying such
desires, create, dunng his life, new and vSiinilar
desires, wholly imaware that he is enveloping
himself in a “consuming fire” What becomes
visible to him after death is only what already
surrounded him during his life, and by thus
becoming visible it at once appeals in its salut.aiy
and beneficent effect A human being wlio loves
another is certainly not attracted merely by that
part of him which is perceptible to the ])hysical
senses — the only part which is cut off from
observation after death — but after dc‘ath, that
part of the dear one for the perception of which
physical organs were only the means, is the very
part which then becomes visible '‘rhe one thing,
in fact, which would prevent the man from
beholding his fnend clearly is the presence of
desires which can be satisfied only by means of
physical organs Unless these desires are extin-
guished, he can have no conscious perception of
his friend after death. When looked at in this
light, the terrible and hopeless character which
SLEEP AND DEATH
73
after-death experiences, according to the descrip-
tions given by occult science, might assume foi
man, becomes changed into one which is thoi-
oughly satisfying and consoling
Now the first after-death experiences differ
entirely m yet another respect from those of our
present life Durmg the time of purification
man lives, as it were, backwards He lives over
again the whole span of his life since his birth,
beginning with the events immediately preceding
his death, and reversing the order of his experi-
ences, he goes through them again until he reaches
back to childhood In this process he sees with
spiritually enlightened eyes all those things which
were not inspired by the spintual nature of the
ego, with the difference that he now experiences
these things in a reversed position
For instance, a man who died in his sixtieth
year, and who at the age of forty had, in an out-
burst of angcT, caused some one either physical
or mental pain, will go thiough this experience
again when, on the rt*tum journey oi existence
after death, he reaches that point in his fortieth
year, but he does not now experience the satis-
faction which his attack had afforded him durmg
life, instead, he experiences the pain which he
inflicted upon the other man It may at once
be seen, however, that whatever pain he feels
in the after-death experience is caused by a desire
of the ego arising only from the outer physical
74
AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE
world, that is to say, the ego does not, in fact,
injure only another by the indulgence of such a
desire, but he also injuies himself, though the*
injury to himself is not apparent during life
After death, however, the whole of the haim-
ful world of desires becomes visible to the ego,
who then feels attracted towaid every being oi
object which had kmdled the desire, in ordci that
this may be destroyed in the “consuming fire”
by the same means that created it When mrin,
on his return journey, reaches the moment of his
birth, then only have all such desires been purged
in the purifying flames, and henceforward nothing
remains to hinder him from devoting himself
entirely to the spiritual world He enters upon
a new phase of existence In the same way that
he laid aside at death his physical and, soon after,
his ethenc body, so does that part of his astral
body which responds only to the outer physical
world now fall to pieces
Occult science, therefore, recognizes three
corpses, — the physical, ethcnc, and astral The
period at which the last is cast off by man is
marked by the tune of punfication, which amounts
to about a third of the time which elapsed between
birth and death The reason why this is so can
only be explained later, when the course of hu-
man hfe is exammed from the standpoint of
occult science To clairvoyant observation, astral
corpses, which have been cast off by human
SLEEP AND DEATH
75
beings passing from the state of punhcation into
a higher existence, aie constantly visible in the
world surrounding man, in exactly tlic same way
that physical corpses in places inhabited by men,
are appaicnt to physical observation ^
Aftei purification an entirely new state of con-
sciousness begins for the ego Whereas, before
death, external images had to be bi ought before
it, for the light of consciousness to fall on them,
a world now streams, as it were, from within, and
penetrates to the consciousness The ego is
living ill this world also between biith and death,
only then this world is clothed in the manifesta-
tions of the senses It is only when the ego, freed
from all the ties of sense, turns inward to behold
its own ‘‘holy of holies” that his true innermost
nature, which had hitherto been obscured by the
senses, is revealed to him In the same way that
the ego is recognized inwardly before death, so,
after death and puiification, is the s’piiitual life
inwardly rcwc'aled to him in all its fulness This
revelation i eally takes place immediately the
etheric body is laid aside, but it is obscuied by
the dark cloud of desires turned toward the outer
world It IS as if a world of spiritual bliss were
invaded by black demoniacal phantoms, caused
by those desires which are being destroyed by
the “consuming fire” Indeed, those desires are
1 In current theosophical literature, the condition of the ego from
death to the end of purification is called “Kamaloca ”
76 AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT SCIENCE
not mere phantoms, but real entities, which
become apparent directly the ego is deprived of
physical organs, and is thus able to discern those
things which are of a spiritual nature These
entities have the appearance of distorted cari-
catures of the objects with which the individual
had formerly become acquainted through his
senses
Clairvoyant observation reports that this place
of purging fire is peopled by beings whose appear-
ance may well seem horrifying and painful to
spiritual vision, whose pleasure seems to consist
m destruction, and whose passions impel them
to evil-doing of such a description that the evil
of the physical world seems insignificant in com-
parison Whatever desires of the kind described
above are brought into that world by man, such
desires are looked upon by these beings as food,
by means of which their powers are continually
strengthened and invigorated
The picture thus sketched of a world imper-
ceptible to the senses may seem less incredible
if we look with an unprejudiced eye on part of
the animal world What is a fierce, devouring
wolf, from a spiritual point of view? What
does it reveal to us through that which our senses
perceive? Nothing else than a soul that lives
in desire, and acts by desire. The external form
of the wolf may be called an embodiment of
those desires; and if man had no organs with
SLEEP ANP DEATH
77
which to perceive that form, if its desires appeared
mvisibly in their effects, — if, therefore, a force
mvisible to the eye were prowling about, and
might be the cause of all that happened through
the visible wolf, — he would still be forced to
recognize the existence of a creature correspond-
ing to it Now the beings of the region of puri-
fying fire are not visible to the physical eye, but
to clairvoyant sight only, but their effects are
clearly apparent They bring about the destruc-
tion of the ego when it gives them nourishment.
These effects are clearly visible if what began
as a pleasure leads to excess and debauchery
For even what is perceptible to the senses would
attract the ego only in so far as the pleasure had
its root in the ego’s own nature. The animal is
prompted by desire for that m the outer world
which its three bodies crave. Man has higher
en303?inents, because to the three principles of
his bodily nature is added the fourth, the ego
But if the ego seeks a gratification which tends
not to the maintenance and development of its
nature but to its destruction, then such a craving
can be neither the effect of its three bodies, nor
that of its own nature, but can only be caused
by beings, in their true form concealed from the
senses, but able to approach furtively that higher
nature of the ego, and excite m it desires which,
though it is cut off from the senses, can still be
satisfied only by means of sense-organs.
78
AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE
For there are beings which feed on passions
and desires of a worse kind than those of an
animal nature, because they do not expend them-
selves on objects of the senses but seize upon the
spiritual element and drag it down to a sensual
level Therefore the forms of such beings are
more hideous, more horrible, to spitilual sight
than are the forms of the fiercest animals, in i\hieh
after all only passions rooted in the senses tin*
incarnated And the destructive forces ol thc'se
beings immeasurably surpass any destructive rage
existing in the animal world as perceived by the
senses Occult science must in this way enlarge*
man’s view so as to inelude a world of beings
standing, in a certain respect, lowei than the
visibly destructive animal w(jrld
When man, after death, has passed through t1 le
world of purification, he finds himself in a world
the contents of which are spiritual, and which
also creates in him longings which can be satisfic'd
only by spiritual things But even now man dis-
tinguishes between that which properly belongs
to his ego and that which forms the environment
of that ego — one might say, its spiritual outer
world Only whatever he becomes sensible of
in this environment, pours in upon him in the
same way that the consciousness of his own ego
poured in upon him dunng his sojourn in the body.
Whereas man’s environment in the life between
birth and death speaks to him through his bodily
SLEEP AND DEATH
79
organs, after all the bodies are laid aside the
language of his new environment penetrates
directly into the innermost sanctuaiy of the ego
Man’s whole environment is now filled with beings
of a like nature with his ego, for only an ego has
access to an ego Just as minerals, plants, and
animals surround man in the sense-world, and
compose it, so, after death, is he surrounded by a
world composed of beings of a spiritual nature
Yet he takes something with him into this
world which is not part of his environment
there, it is what the ego has experienced in the
world of the senses First of all, the sum of
these experiences appeared, as a comprehensive
memory-picture, immediately after death, while
the ethenc body was still united to the ego
The ethenc body itself is then, indeed, laid aside,
but something of the memory-picture remains
with the ego as an everlasting possession Just
as if an extiact or essence were made out of all
the events and expenences which a man en-
counters between birth and death, so might we
desenbe that which is left behind It is the
spintual product of life, its fruit This product
is spintual in nature It contains everything
spintual which is revealed through the senses,
yet this spintual treasure could not have been
gathered save by life in the sense-world
After death, the ego realizes that this spintual
fruit of the sense-world is its very own, its mner
8o AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT SCIENCE
world, with which it enters the world composed
of beings revealing themselves as only his own
ego can reveal itself in the inmost recesses of
his being As a plant seed, which is the essence
of the whole plant, grows only when buned in
another world, the earth, so now does that Which
the ego brings from the sense-world gradually'
unfold itself as a seed undei the influence of
the spiiitual environment in which it has bec‘n
planted Occult science can, of course, only jigi-
tray m pictures what happens in this “spirit -
world”, nevertheless those pictures may be such
as present themselves to the clairvoyant’s sight
as absolute reality, when he is following up the
invisible happenings, corresponding to those which
are visible to the physical eye Whatcvei
of that world can be described may be made
clear by comparisons with the external world,
for although it is of a purely spmtual nature,
it nevertheless resembles the physical world in
certain respects As, for instance, a colour ap-
pears in the latter world, when this or that
object stnkes the eye, so does a colour present
itself to the ego in the spint-world when another
being influences it But in this case, the colour
is produced in the same manner, as only the per-
ception of the ego can be affected dunng life
between birth and death. It is not as if the
light outside fell within upon the man, but as if
another bemg directly affected the ego, causing
SLEEP AND DEATH
8i
the latter to picture this influence in a colour-form
Thus do all beings in the spiritual environment
of the ego find expression m a world of coloured
rays As their origin is of a different kind, it
goes without saying that these colours of the
spiritual world are also of a somewhat different
character from physical colours A similar thing
IS true of other impressions received by man from
the world of sense But it is the sounds of the
spiritual world that most nearly resemble the
impressions of the sense-world, and the more
at home a man becomes in the spmtual world,
the more does he realize it as a life of self-deter-
mined motion, which may be compared with
the sounds, and the harmony of sounds, of the
physical world Only he does not feel the tones
as something approaching an organ from out-
side, but as a force streaming forth into the
outer world through his ego He feels the sound
just as in the sense-world he feels his own speech
or song, only that in the spiritual world he knows
these sounds streaming out from him are at the
same time the manifestations of other beings,
who are pourmg themselves into the world
through him.
A still higher manifestation takes place m
the spint-land when the sound becomes the
“spiritual word.” Then there streams through
the ego not only the pulsing life of another spirit-
ual being, but such a being itself communicates
7
82
AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT SCIENCE
its own inner nature to the ego, and then, when
the spiritual word streams through the ego, two
beings live m one another, without that separat-
ing element which every companionship m the
sense-world must carry with it And this is
really the nature of the communion of the ego
with other spiritual beings after death
There are three regions in the spiritual world,
which may be compared to the three divisions
of the physical sense-world The first region
IS in a certain respect the ‘‘solid land” of the
spiritual world, the second the ‘‘sphere of ocean
and nver,” and the third the “atmospheric
region ” That which assumes physical form on
earth, so as to be peiccivcd by physical organs,
IS, in accot dance with its spiritual nature, seen
in the first region of the spirit-world. There,
for instance, may be seen the force that fashions
the form of a crystal Only what is then revealed
IS the opposite of that ■which appears m the sense-
world In that world the space winch is filled by
a mass of rock appeals to spiritual sight as a
kind of hollow space, but round about this hol-
low IS seen the force which fashions the form of
the rock The colour of the rock in the sense-
world appears in the spiritual world as its com-
plementary colour; thus a red stone is green
when seen from the spint-world, a green stone
IS red, and so on Other qualities also appear
in their opposites. Just as stone, masses of
SLEEP AND DEATH 83
earth, and like materials make up the solid land
— the continental legion of the world of sense —
so do the structures described above compose
the solid land of the spiritual world
All that IS life m the sense-world belongs to
the ocean-region of the spiritual world To the
physical eye, life appears m its effects in plants,
animals, and men To spiritual vision, life is a
flowing substance, like oceans and rivers, diffused
through the spiiit-world A still better com-
parison IS that with the circulation of the blood
in the body, for wheieas seas and rivers are seen
to be irregularly distributed in the physical
world, a certain regularity in distribution of the
flowing life reigns in the spint-world, as m the
circulation of the blood This “flowing life” is
simultaneously heard as spiritual sound
The thud region of the spint-world is its
“atmosphere ” What is Icnown in the physical
world as “feeling” is also present there, perme-
ating everything like the air on the earth We
must imagine a rushing sea of feeling Pam
and SOI row, joy and rapture, flow through this
region, like wind and storms in the atmosphere
of the physical world Imagine a battle fought
on earth There confront one another not merely
human forms as seen by the physical eye,
but feelings opposed to feelings, passions to pas-
sions; pain fills the battlefield just as much as
do the forms of men. All that is seething there
84 AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT SCIENCE
of passion, pain, and the joy of victory is not
only perceptible in its effects as revealed to the
physical senses, it may be seen with the spiritual
senses as an atmospheric process in the spint-
world Such an event in the spiritual woild
IS like a thunderstorm in the physical, and the
perception of these events may be compared to
the hearing of words in the physical world For
this reason it is said that as the air envelops and
permeates earthly beings, so do “interweaving
spiritual words” pervade the beings and events
of the spint-world.
And yet further observations are possible of
this spint-world. What may be compared to
hght and heat m the physical world is there too
That which permeates everything m the spint-
world, as earthly things and beings are permeated
by heat, is the world of thought itself There,
however, thoughts must be regarded as living
and mdependent beings. What is understood
by man in the manifested world as thought is
but a ^adow of what lives as a thought-being in
the spint-world. Imagine thought, as it now
exists m man, raised out of him and as an active,
energetic bemg, endowed with an inner life of
its own, and you have a feeble illustration of that
which fills the fourth region of the spint-world.
In the physical world between birth and death
what man understands as thought is but the mani-
festation of the thought-world as it is able to
SLEEP AND DEATH
8S
moTild itself by means of the instruments afforded
by the bodies All such thoughts cherished by
man as carry with them an enrichment of the
physical world have their origin in this region.
By such thoughts are meant not only the ideas of
great inventors and men of gemus, but those
ideas found in every individual which he does not
owe solely to the external world, but through
which he, so to speak, transforms that world
So far as feelings and passions are concerned,
the cause of which lies in the outer world, these
feelings are perceptible m the third region of
the spint-world, but eveiything which so lives
in a man’s soul as to make him a creator, —
influencing, transforming, and fertilizing his en-
vironment, — in its original and intrinsic form is
manifest in the fourth division of the spint-world.
That which exists in the fifth region may be
compared to physical light In its archet3rpal
form it IS wisdom in mamfestation Beings who
diffuse wisdom throughout their surroundings,
as the sun pours light on physical beings, belong
to this realm. Whatever is illuminated by their
wisdean stands forth m its true meamng and
significance for the spintual world, just as the
colour of a physical object is seen when the
light falls upon it. There are still higher regions
of the spint-world, which will be desenbed later
in this work.
Into this world the ego is plunged after death,
86 AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE
together with the results it carries with it C)Ut ol
physical life And these results are still united
with that part of the astral body which is not
cast off at the end of the time of purification In
fact, only that part falls away which, in its desires
and wishes, turned after death toward physical
life The plunging of the ego into the spintual
world, with what it has acquired in the physic<i]
world, may be compared to the planting of a
gram of seed in the soil in which it can matuic
As the grain of seed draws substances and forces
from its surroundings in order that it may develop
into a new plant, so the condition of the ego,
when implanted in the spintual world, is one of
development and growth
There lies hidden in what is perceived bv an
organ, the force by which that same oigan was
formed The eye perceives light, but without
light there would be no eye Creatures spending
their lives in darkness do not develop organs ol
sight Thus the whole of man’s phyvSical body is
created out of the hidden forces of that of which
he becomes conscious through his bodily organs.
The physical body is built up by the forces of
the physical world, the ethenc body by those
of the life-world, and the astral body is formed
out of the astral world. Now when the ego is
transferred to the spint-world it is met by just
those forces which remain hidden to physical
perception
SLEEP AND DEATH
87
What appear to man s view in the first region
of the spirit -world are the spnitual beings that
arc always sui rounding him, and that have built
up his physical body Thas in the physical world
man perceives nothing but the manifestations
of those spiritual forces idiich have formed his
own physical body After death Jic is in the very
midst of these moulding foiccs, which, previously
hidden, now appecii to him in their true forms
In the same way, in the second region, he is in
the midvSt of the forces by which his etheiic body
was organized, and m the third legion there pour
in upon him the potencies out ol which his astral
body was formed The higher regions of the
spint-world also direct toward him those forces
from which he was built up for the life between
birth and death
These denizens of the spiritual world aie at
present wcaking in coopeiation with that which
man has brought with him as the product of his
last life, which now becomes a geim, and through
this cooperation man is first of all built up anew
as a spiritual being The physical and ethenc
bodies are still piesent in sleep, the astral body
and the ego are, it is true, outside them, but still
connected with them Whatever influences the
astral body and the ego receive, in such a state,
from the spiritual world, can serve only to recu-
perate the forces exhausted during the waking
state.
88 AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE
But when the physical and ethenc bodies have
been laid aside, and also, after the time of purifi-
cation, those parts of the astral body still bound by
their desires to the physical world, then every-
thing pouring m upon the ego from the spiritual
world IS not only a reforming but a reorganizing
force After a certain period, to be dealt with in
later chapters, the ego gathers round it an astial
body which will again be able to live in such an
ethenc and physical body as man possesses between
birth and death- The man may once more pass
through birth and renew his earthly existence, with
which, however, will be incorporated the results
of his ’former hfe Until the rebuilding of his
astral body, the man is a witness of his icconstruc-
tion. As the powers of the spirit-world arc not
manifested to him through external oigans, but
from withm outward, like his own ego in self-
consciousness, he IS able to observe that manifesta-
tion so long as his attention is not turned to an
outer world of perception. But from the moment
that the astral body is reconstituted, his attention
IS turned outwards the astral body once more
craves an outer ethenc and physical body It
IS thus turned away from the inner revelations.
For this reason there is now an intermediate
state, durmg which man is immersed in uncon-
sciousness. For consciousness can emerge again
in the physical world only when the necessary
organs for physical perception are formed
SLEEP AND DEATH
89
During this period, in which consciousness
illuminated by inner perception ceases, the new
ethenc body begins to link itself to the astral
and man can once again enter a physical body
In the linking together of these two bodies only
such an ego could consciously take part as had
of itself created the Life-Spint and Spint-Man
out of the creative forces hidden in the ethenc
and physical bodies Until the individual has
evolved as far as this, beings further advanced
than himself in evolution must guide this linkmg
together. The astral body is guided by such
beings as these to parents by whose means it
may be endowed with the appropnate ethenc
and physical bodies Before the attachment of
the ethenc body takes place, something of very
great importance happens to the man who is
about to reenter physical existence
In his former life he created disturbing forces,
which were revealed to him on the journey
retraced after death Let us again take an exam-
ple. He caused some one pain m an outburst
of anger in the fortieth year of his former life
After death, the other’s pain came before him
as a force which had interfered with the evolu-
tion of his ego It is similarly so with all such
events of his former life On his reentrance into
physical life these hindrances to his evolution
confront the ego anew. As, on the threshold of
death, a sort of memory-picture rose up before
90
AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE
the htiman ego, so does there now arise a vision
of the life approaching Again he sees a picture,
this time showing all the obstacles which he has
to clear away, if he is to advance m evolution
And what he thus sees becomes the starting-
point foi forces which he must bring with him
into his new life The picture of the pain he has
caused the other man becomes a force which
impels the ego, on entering life again, to make
amends for this pain Thus the previous life
has a determining effect on the new one The
deeds of the new life are in a certain way caused
by those of the former life This connection,
following a law, between an eailier and later
existence is to be looked upon as the ‘'Law of
Destiny'’, it has become usual to designate it
“Karma,” a term borrowed from onental wisdom
The building up of a new set of bodies, however,
is not the only task incumbent upon man between
death and a new birth While this building up
IS taking place, man lives outside the physical
world That world, however, continues to evolve
during this time The suiface of the earth changOvS
in comparatively short periods of time What
aspect did those regions which are now occupied by
Germany bear a few thousand years ago? When
man appears on earth in a new existence, the earth
rarely looks the same as it did at the time of his
last incarnation. During his absence from the
earth all sorts of changes have occuired. Now
SLEEP AND DEATH
91
hidden forces are also at work m this alteration
of the face of the earth, acting from that very
world m which man finds himself after death,
and he himself must cooperate with these forces
in the transformation of the earth He can do
so only under the direction of Higher Beings
until, by the ci cation of his Life-Spint and Spint-
Man, he has acquired a clear perception of the
connection between the spiiitual and its expres-
sion m the physical But he takes part in the
transformation of earthly conditions It may be
said that during the period between death and
a new birth, man so transforms the earth that its
conditions are in keeping with what he has evolved
in himself If we look at a given place on the
earth at a definite moment, and see it again
after a long lapse of time, under entirely changed
conditions, the forces which have wrought the
change have proceeded fiom those who aie now
dead And it is this kind of connection which
exists between them and the earth until the time
of rebirth
Clairvoyant obseivation sees in all physical
existence the manifestation of a hidden spiritual
element. '^I'o physical observation it is the hght
of the sun, climatic changes, and so on, that
effect the transformation of the earth, but to
clairvoyance it is the force of the dead that acts
in the ray of hght which falls on the plant from
the sun. The clairvoyant sees how human souls
92
AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT SCIENCE
hover about plants, how they change the surface
of the earth Not only on himself, not only on
the preparations for his own new earthly exist-
ence, IS man's attention bestowed after death, —
no, he is called upon then to work upon the outer
world, just as he is in life between the time of
his birth and death
Not only does the life of man affect the condi-
tions of the physical world from spint-land, but,
vice versa, activity during physical existence has
its effects in the spiritual world An example
may explain what happens in this respect. A bond
of love exists between mother and child This
love arises from a mutual attraction caused by
the forces of the sense-world. But in the course
of time It changes A spiritual tie gradually
grows out of the sense-bond, and this spiritual
tie is not created for the physical world only
but for the spint-world as well The same
applies to other ties Whatever is created in
the physical world by spiritual entities continues
to exist m the spiritual world Pnends who
were closely united in life belong to each other
m spint-land also, and when their bodies are
laid aside they are m much more intimate com-
munion than dunng physical life. For as spirits
they exist for each other in the same way as,
m the above description, spiritual beings reveal
themselves to others by mner manifestation; and
a tie created between two persons brings them
SLEEP AND DEATH
93
together again in a new life Thus in the truest
sense of the word we may speak of finding one
another again after death
What has once happened to a man between
birth and death and from then till a new birth,
repeats itself Man returns to earth again and
again when the fruit he has earned in a physical
life has ripened in the spirit -world It is not,
however, a case of repetition without beginning or
end; but man has once passed out of different
forms of existence into those which run their
course in the manner just described, and he
will again m the future pass into other forms
An outlook on these transition stages will be
gained when the evolution of the universe in
connection with man is subsequently dealt with
from the standpomt of occult science
The occurrences between death and a new
birth are of course still more concealed from
outer sense-observation than is the spiritual
foundation underlying mamfested hfe between
birth and death. This sense-observation can
see only the effects of that portion of the hidden
world where they impinge upon physical existence
With regard to this the question must arise
whether man, on entering this life at birth,
brings with him any results from the events de-
scribed by occult science as having taken place
between his last death and his birth If one
finds the shell of a snail m which there is no
94
AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT SCIENCE
trace of the animal he will, in spite of that, recog-
nize that this snailshell was formed by the activity
of an animal, and he cannot believe that the
shell constructed a form for itself, by means of
mere physical forces In the same way one
who studies a man during life, and finds some-
thing in him which cannot be due to this life, may
reasonably admit that it arises from what occult
science describes, if by so doing an explanatory
light is thrown on what is otheiwise inexplicable
Here, too, the unseen causes might appear
mtelligible to rational sense-observation from
their visible effects, and whoever observes life
vuth absolute impartiality will find that, with
every fresh observation, this appears moic and
more to be the truth The miportant ciucstion,
however, is how to find the right point of view
from which to observe the workings in life. Where,
for example, are the effects to be found of what
occult science describes as incidents of the time of
purification^ How are the effects of the expe-
rience which, according to occult investigations,
man undergoes in purely spiritual regions, man-
ifested after this time of purification?
Problems enough press upon every serious
and profound student of life m this domain. We
see one man bom m want and misery, endowed
only with inferior abihties, so that on account
of these facts, which are mcident to his birth,
he appears predestined to a miserable existence.
SLEEP AND DEATH
95
Another, from the first moment of his life, is
tended and cherished by loving hands and hearts,
brilliant talents are unfolded m him, his gifts
point to a successful and satisfactory career.
Two opposite views may l)e taken when met by
such questions as these The one will adhere
to what the senses perceive and what the tm-
derstanding, relyuig on these senses, is able
to comprehend 'I'his view will admit no prob-
lem m the fact that one man is born fortunate
and the othei unfortimatc Even if the word
“chance” is not used, there will be no question
of thinking that such things are bi ought about
through any law of cause and effect Also with
regard to talents and abilities, such a view will con-
sider them as “mhented” from parents, grand-
parents, and other ancestors It would refuse to
seek the causes in spiritual events which the
man himself met with before birth — apart from
the line of heredity from his ancestors — and by
means of which he formed his talents and abihties
Another view would find no satisfaction in
such an interpretation It would assert that
even m the manifested world nothing happens
in a definite place or in definite surroundings
without our having to presuppose causes for the
event in question Even though in many cases
such causes have not yet been investigated, they
are there. An Alpine flower does not grow in
the lowlands. Its nature has somethmg which
96 AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT SCIENCE
associates it with Alpine regions Just so must
there be something in a man which determines
his birth in a certain environment Causes
belonging to the physical world alone are not
sufficient to account for this To a more pro-
found thinker such an explanation would bo
much the same as if the fact of some one having
given another a blow should be attributed not
to the feelings of the former, but to the physical
mechanism of his hand
Just as unsatisfactory would any explanation
of abilities and talents solely by “heredity"
appear to such a view It is true one may say
“ See how certain talents are inherited in famihcs "
During two and a half centuries musical talents
were inherited by members of the Bach family
Eight mathematicians sprang from the Bernoulli
family, to some of whom quite different occupa-
tions were assigned in their childhood, but the
inherited talents always drove them to the family
vocation. It may be further pointed out how,
by an exact investigation of the line of anccstiy
of a personality, it can be shown that m one
way or another the gifts of this personality have
shown themselves in the forefathers, and only
represent the sum of inherited talents. Whoever
holds the latter of the two views above indicated
will be sure not to let such facts pass unnoticed,
but to htm they cannot mean the same as they
do to one who relies for his mterpretation on
SLEEP AND DEATH
97
hhe events ol the world of sense alone. The
tortner v ill point ont that inherited talents can of
themselves n(j moie combine into a complete per-
sonality than can the metal portions of a watch
fit themselves together And if it is objected that
the coopeiation ot the paients may doubtless pro-
duce the combination of talents, — that this takes,
as it weie, the place of the watchmaker, — he
will reply “Look impartially at what is new m
every child-personality, that which is absolutely
new that cannot come from the parents, for
the simple reason that it does not exist in them ”
Inaccurate thinking may create much confusion
in this domain Worst of all is it when those
who hold the second view are set down by the
supporteis of the fiist as opponents of what is,
aftei all, borne out by “ascertained facts “ But
it may well be that the latter have not the slight-
est intention of denying the truth or value of
those facts Poi instance, they see that a def-
inite mentiil aptitude or predisposition is “in-
herited” in a family, and that certain gifts
accumulated and combined m one descendant
result m a lemarkable personality They are
perfectly willing to acquiesce when it is said
that the most celebrated name seldom stands at
the top, but at the bottom, of a line of descent
But it should not be taken amiss if they are
compelled to form very different opinions on the
subject from those of people who are determined
8
98 AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE
to accept nothing but niateiial evidence To
the latter it may be said that it is true a man
shows the characteristics of his ancestois, foi
the “spint-soui” which enters upon physical
existence at birth draws its bodily substance
from that which heredity bestows on it But
this IS only to say that a being already possesses
in his own natuie the chai act eristics of the
medium into which he has descended
It IS no doubt a singular — a trivial— com-
parison, but the unprejudiced person will not
deny its validity if it is said that the fact that
a human being turns out to be imbued with tht‘
qualities of his forefathers proves the origin of
the personal qualities of the individual just as
httle as the fact that a man is wet because h(‘
has fallen into the watei proves something regard-
ing his inner nature And it may further be
said that if the most celebrated name stamls
at the bottom of a line of family descent, it
shows that the bearer of that name needed that
particular ancestry to build the body necessary
for the expression of his whole personality
But it is no proof that his actual personal qual-
ities were transmitted to him* such a statement
IS, on the contrary, opposed to sound logic If
personal gifts were inherited, they would be
found at the beginning of a line of descent,* and
'The assertion that a man’s personal talents, if governed purely
by the law of "heredity,” must show themselves at She beginning of
a hne of descent, not at its end, mi^ht of course easily be misunderstood
SLEEP AND DEATH
99
statting from that point be transmitted to the
descendants As, however, they stand at the
end, it is evident that they are not transmitted
Now it IS not to be denied that those who speak
of a spiiitual causal it y m life have contributed no
less to bringing about confusion of thought Far
too much generalizing and vague discussion comes
fiom this quarter I'o say that a man’s person-
ality IS a combination of inherited characteristics
may certainly be compaied with the assertion
that the metal parts of a watch have fitted them-
selves together It must also be admitted that,
with regard to many assertions about a spiritual
world, it IS as though some one said that the
metal parts of a watch cannot put themselves
together in such a way as to enable the hands to
move forward, some intelligence must therefore
be present to effect this forward movement In
face of such an assertion, he ceitamly builds on
a far better foundation who says “Oh> I care
nothing for your 'mystic’ beings who move the
hands on What I want to know is the mechanical
construction by means of which the forward move-
ment of the hands is achieved ” It is by no
It might be said, indeed, that they could not show themselves then,
for they must first be developed But this is no objection, for if we
wish to piove that something has been inherited from an ancestor,
we must show how that which was there before is repeated in a de-
scendant Now if it were demonstrated that something existed at
the beginning of a genealogical line which reappeared in its further
course, we might speak of heredity We cannot do so when something
appears at the end of it which was not there before The reversal of
the above proposition is only to ^ow that the bdief m heredity is
impossible
roo
AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE
jiieans a question ol merely knowing that behind
a niccliAiiis^m , !oi example a watch, theu* is ,111
intelligence (the watchmaken ) , it can onl^' 1 le < >1
importance to know the ideas in the watchinakci \
mind which preceded the construction ol the
watch These thoughts may be rcdiscovcie<l in
the mecliamsm
Mere dreaming and imagining about the siipc'i -
sensual only result m confusion, for they ate not
calculated to satisfy opponents The lattei tiie
light in saying that such gcneial allusions to supei-
physical beings arc not at all conducive to an
understanding of facts Of course, such oppo-
nents might also say the same of the exait state-
ments of occult science But, in that case, it may
be pointed out that the clfccts oi hidden spnit-
ual causes are seen in manifested life Lot us as-
sume for the moment that what occult scK‘net‘
asserts to be proved by observation is conect, -
that man has gone through a time (jf puiification
after death, and during this peiiod has exijcti-
enced m his soul how a certain deed ixuiormed
by him in a former life was a Inmlraiice to his
progressive evolution While he was undergoing
this expenence, the impulse arose in him to make
amends for that deed He bnngs this impulse
with him into a new life, and its presence pro-
duces a tendency in his nature which draws him
into conditions rendenng the amendment possi-
ble. Taking into consideration a number of such
SLEEP AND DEATH
lOI
impulses, we have the cause for a man’s being
boin into an enviionment corresponding to his
destiny
We may deal in the same way with another
assumption Ixst us again accept as correct the
assertion of occult science that the fiiiits of a
past life arc incoi pointed in man’s spiritual
gcim, and that the spint-land in which man
finds himseh, between death and a new life, is
the region in which these fiuits ripen, and are
tninsioimcd into talents and capabilities which will
appear in a new life and will form the personality
so that It appears as the efiect of what -was gained
in a former life It will become evident to any
one who accepts these hypotheses and, bearing
them in mind, surveys life impartially, that
while, by their means, all material facts may be
appreciated in their lull truth and significance,
at the same lime eveiything becomes intelli-
gible which, it mciely material facts were relied
upon, must iorever remain incomprehensible to
one w^hose fittention is fixed on the spiritual
world And, more important still, there will
vanish that illogical leasoning oi the kind indi-
cated above, tlnit because the most distinguished
name in a line ol descent stands at the end of
It, its bearer must hfivc inherited his gifts Life
becomes logically comprehensible through the
superscnsual facts ascertained by occult science
But yet another weighty objection may be
103
AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT SCIENCE
raised by the conscientious seeker after tiuth
who desires to find his way to facts and has no
experience of his own in the supci sensual woild
It may be urged that it is inadmissible to accept
the existence of facts, of any kind, simply bcciiuse
by means of them something may be explained
which IS otherwise unintelligible Such an obicc-
tion IS meaningless to one who knows the coiie-
sponding facts from supersensual experience, and
in later chapters of this book will be indicated
the path that may be followed in order to gam
knowledge not only of the spiritual facts herein
described, but also of the law of spiritual causa-
tion as a personal experience Any one, how-
ever, who IS not willing to enter upon this path
may find the above objection impoitant, and
what can be said against it is also of value to one
who IS resolved to follow the path indicated For
if it IS received in the right spirit, it is the very
best preliminary step that can be taken on this
path It IS perfectly true that one ought not to
accept a statement about which one is otheiwise
Ignorant merely because, by means of it, some-
thing otherwise inexplicable can be explained, but
in the case of alleged spiritual facts the matter is
different If the statements are accepted, the
intellectual consequence is not only that, by their
means, life becomes intelligible, but that through
admitting these hypotheses into the thought- world,
experiences of quite a new kind are induced.
SLEEP AND DEATH
103
Take the following case Something befalls a
man which causes him extremely painful sensa-
tions He may meet the situation in one of two
ways He may submit to the occurrence as
something aflLcctmg him painfully, and abandon
himself to the painful sensation, even becoming
absorbed in his grid , 01 he may meet it in another
way He may say “It is leally I myself who
in a foimer life set the toice m motion which has
brought me into contact with this thing I have
leally bi ought it on myselt “ He may then
awaken in himself all the feelings which such a
thought bnngs in its tram It goes without say-
ing that the thought must be entertained with
perfect seriousness, and with the utmost possible
force, if it is to have such consequences m the
life of sensation and feeling One who succeeds
in this will meet with an expeiience which may be
best illustiated by a comparison Let us suppose
that two men have each a stick of sealing wax
m his hand One begins reflecting about its
inner nature These reflections may perhaps be
very wise, but if the “inner nature” did not
show itself 111 any way, some one might easily
letort. “That is all imagination ” 'rhe other,
however, rubs the sealing wax with a woollen
rag, and then shows that it attracts small particles
There is an impoitant difference between the
thoughts which have passed through the first
man’s head and prompted his reflections, and
104 AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENC'E
those of the second The thoughts oi the first
man had no actual lesult, those of the second
have called out a hidden force, couvscquently
something real
The same thing happens with legard to the
thoughts of a man in whose mind the idea arises
that in a former life he has set going within him-
self the force which causes him to meet wath a
certain event The mere conception of this
stirs up strength within him which enablc's him
to face the event in quite a different manner from
that in which he would have met it without
entertaining such an idea It dawns upon him
that an event which he would otherwise have
looked upon as an accident was really a necessity,
and the perception will flash ujxm him “My
thought was the right one, for it had th{‘ pov'oi ol
revealing a truth to me “ If sucli inner piocesses
are repeated they will grow into a soiu ce of inwai cl
power and thus prove their tiuth by their fruit-
fulness, and little by little, this tiuth is lound to
be powerfully effective Such piocessc's have* a
salutary effect on body, soul, and spnit, nay,
they help life forward in cveiy wav. I'he man
becomes aware that m this manner he takes tlie
right position with regard to life’s continuity;
whereas, by taking into consideration only the
one life between birth and death, he is the victim
of a delusion
Such an entirely inward proof of spiritual
SLEEP AND DEATH
I os
causation can ot course be acquired only by each
(^ne for liiraseli, m his own inner life But it is m
every one’s x^ower to have it Those who have
not acquiied it certainly cannot judge of its con-
vincing force, but those who have acquired it
can scarcely have any further doubt in the matter
And theie is no leason for surprise that this should
be so It IS only natural that what is so wholly
boimd up with the constitution of man’s inmost
being and personality can be adequately proved
only by inner experience On the other hand, it
cannot be alleged that because such a matter
conesponds to inner experience it must therefore
be settled by every one for himself, and that it
IS no subject for occult science Certain it is
that every one must undergo the experience
for himself, just as each must see for himself the
pi oof of a mathematical problem But the path
by which such an experience may be gamed is
open to all, just as the method of proving a mathe-
matical problem is available for every one
It IS not to be denied that, apart, of course, from
clairvoyant observation, the only proof which
can hold its own against unprejudiced logic is the
one just cited of the power of right thinking to
engender force All other considerations are no
doubt very important, but in all of them there
will be something on which an opponent might
seize as a point of attack Surely one who has
acquired a fairly impartial way of looking at
xo6 AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT SCIENCE
things will find something m the possibility and
actual fact of man’s education, •which has thi*
power of logical proof that a spiiitual being is
struggling for existence within the sheath of the
body He will compare animals with man an<l
say to himself that at the birth of the formci
there appear certain definite qualities and capaci-
ties as something, decisive in itself, which plainly
shows how it has been designed by heicdity and
will evolve in the outei world We see how u
young chicken carries out life’s functions in the
appointed way from its birth, but by means of
education something comes into louch with man’s
inner life which is independent of any connection
with his heredity, and he may be in a pcjsition to
assimilate the effects of such external ninuences
The educator knows that such influences aie met
by forces coming from the man’s inner natiiie
If this IS not the case all inj'tiuction and training
are meaningless Theunpiejudiced educatoi finds
the boundary line between inherited talents and
those inner forces of the man himstdl which shine
through them and originate in formei lives, to be
very sharply marked It is tiue we cannot bring
forward such weighty proofs for things of this
kind as we can for certain i hysical facts, by means
of scales, but then these are just the intimate
things of life, and one who has the power to appre-
ciate such impalpable proofs will find them convinc-
ing — even more convincing than palpable reality.
vSLEEP AND DEATH
107
IJiat aiijinaib ma> l>c trained, and thus, to a
(riLaiii extent, acquiic c]ualities and capacities
by education, is no objection to him who is able
I0 see leahty, lor apait fiom the fact that transi-
tional sta£'C‘s aie niel with all ovei the world, the
lesults of tiamin^i' an animal b^’’ no means fade
awa^ with its individual existence, as is the case
with a man What is more, the fact has been
eniphasizcfl that J acuities acquired by domestic
animals through intercourse with man are trans-
mitted, that lb to say, continue in the species, not
111 the individual Darwin desciibes how dogs
fetch and cairy without having been taught to do
so, or without ha\ing seen it done Who would
make such an assertion with regard to human
education ^
Now theie are thinkers whose observations have
led them beyond the opinion that a man is built
by puiely inherited forces from without They
rise to the thought that a spiritual being, an
individuality, exists before life in the body, and
fashions it, but many of them find it impossible
to conceive that thcie arc repeated earthly lives,
and that the fruits of former lives are moulding
forces during the intermediate state between two
lives Let us take one instance from among the
ranks of these thinkers Immanuel Hermann
Fichte, son of the great Fichte, in his Anthropology
(p. 528) gives the observations which led him to
the following conclusion
io8 AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE
“Parents are not geiieratois ui the full sense ol
the word They supply oigani substance, and
not alone this, but also that intci mediate element
of the senses and mental nature which appeals
in temperament, colourij^g of character, definite
tendencies, and so on, the common souice of which
proves to be ‘imagination * in the wider sense
indicated by us In all these elements of pei-
sonality, the mingling and paiticular combination
of the souls of the parents is unmistakable, it is
therefoie a perfectly well-grounded assertion that
this combination is simply the lesult of procre-
ation, even if we regard procieation, as we must
do, as really a soul-proccss But the real ulti-
mate centre of the personality is lust what is
lacking here, for a dcepei and more seaiching
observation reveals the fact ti at even those
peculiarities of disposition are but a covciing and
an instrument for containing the individual’s
really spiritual and ideal capabilities, qualified to
aid these in their development or to hinder them,
but m no wise able to originate tht'm ’’ It is
further stated in the same work (p 532; "Every
individual preexists as regards the fundamental
form of his spirit, for no individual, liom a spiritual
point of view, resembles another, just as no species
of animal resembles another species.”
These thoughts reach only far enough to allow
of a spiritual being within the physical body,
but as the forces shaping such a being are not
vSLBEP AND DEATH
lOQ
denved from causes existing in former lives, it
would be necessary that, each time a fresh per-
sonality appears, a spiritual being should come
forth from a Divine First Cause With this
hypothesis there would be no possibility of
t plaining the relationship which certainly exists
between the potentialities struggling out of man’s
innermost being, and that which is forcing its
way thither tiom his outer earthly environment
in the course of his life Man’s innermost being,
issuing in the case of each single peison from a
Divine First Cause, would find what confronts
him in earthly life quite strange and foreign
Only then could this not be the case — as, in fact,
it IS not — if there had already been a connection
between the innei man and the outer world, only
if the inner man were not now living m it for the
first tmie
The unprejudiced educator may undoubtedly
observe “T am bringing my pupil something
out of the results of earthly life, which is certainly
alien to his purely inherited qualities, but which
yet gives him the impression that the work, out
of which the results arise, had been done by him
in the past ” Only repeated hves on earth, m
conjunction with the facts set forth by occult
science as taking place m spiritual regions between
two earthly lives, — only this view can afford a satis-
factory explanation of present human life looked
at from every side. I say expresd.y ‘'j^resent”
no AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT vSClE.NCL
human life, for occult investigation shows that
the cycle of eaithly life ceitamly had a begintnng,
and that then man’s spiritual beiiig, which
entered a bodily frame, existed undci different
conditions In the following chaptcj we shall
go back to this piimeval condition oi humjr
existence When it has been shown, Irom the
reports of occult science how' human beings it-
ceived their present foim in connection with thi'
evolution ot the earth, it will also be possibh' to
indicate more precisely how the spiiitual gcim of
man’s being descends from supcrphysical woilds
into a bodily foim, and how the wSpiritual law of
causation, or “human destiny,” is developed
CHAPTER IV
The Evolution of the World and Man
F rom the ioiegomg observations it will be
seen that man’s being is built up of four
principles the physical body, the etheric
body, the astial body, and the vehicle of the ego
The ego works within the three other pnnciples,
and transforms them By means of this trans-
formation there arc formed, on a lower level, the
sentient soul, the lational oi intellectual soul, and
the self-conscious soul, on a higher level, the
Spint-Self, the Lile-Spint, and the Spint-Man
The relations existing between these human pnn-
ciples and the whole univeise aie of the most
vaned chaiactei, and the evolution of the pnn-
ciples IS bound up with that of the universe By
studying the latter evolution an insight is obtamed
into the deepei mysteiies of man’s being
It IS clear that human life is connected in the
most widely different directions with the environ-
ment or dwelling place in which it is developed
Physical science, through the facts presented to
it, has already been driven to the opimon that
the earth itself, man’s dwelling place m the widest
sense of the word, has undergone evolution.
Science points to foimer conditions of the earth’s
history when man, in his present form, did not
in
rT2 AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE
yet exist on our planet; it shows how man has
slowly and gradually evolved to his present
condition from primitive states of civilization
Physical science, therefore, comes also to the
conclusion that there is a connection between
man’s evolution and that of the heavenly body
on which he lives — the earth
Occult science traces this connection by means
of that knowledge which obtains its data from
observation quickened by spiritual organs of
perception It traces man backwards in his
course of development, and the fact becomes
evident to occult science that the real inner
spiritual being of man has progressed through a
senes of lives on this earth But occult icseaich
amves in this way at an epoch far back in the
remote past, when for the first time that inner
being of man made its entiy into “external life”
as at present understood It was in this first
earthly incarnation that the ego began to function
in the three bodies, — the astral body, ethcric
or vital body, and physical body, and it there-
upon earned over the results of that activity into
its next life
If in our investigation we proceed backwards,
in the manner indicated, as far as that epoch,
we shall discover that the ego lights upon a
condition of the earth in which the three bodies,
physical, ethenc, and astral, are already devel-
oped and bear a certain relation to each other.
EVOLUTION OF THE WORLD AND MAN 113
The ego is, for the first time, united with the
being composed of these three bodies , and hence-
forward takes part m the further evolution of
the three bodies Hitherto, up to the stage at
which that ego came into touch with them, they
had evolved without a human ego
Occult science must now go back still farther
in its researches if it is to answer the questions,
“How did the three bodies reach that stage of
evolution at which they weie able to receive an
ego withm them^” and “How did that ego itself
come into being and acquire the capaaty for
working within these bodies^”
It IS possible to answer these questions only
when the gradual development of the earth-
planet itself IS Studied fiom the occult pomt of
view By such investigation we arrive at a
beginning of the earth -planet That method of
examination which is based only on the facts of
the physical senses cannot anive at conclusions
concerning the beginning of the earth A cer-
tain point of view which avails itself of such
conclusions arrives at the result that everything
material on the earth was formed out of a prime-
val essence, or vapoui It is not the purpose
of this work to enter more fully into such con-
ceptions of our planet’s origin, for in occult
science the important matter is not merely to
inquire into the material processes of the earth’s
evolution, but first and foremost to discover the
9
114 AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT SCIENCE
spiritual causes lying behind what is matcnal
If we see before us a man raising his hand, wc
may consider his action in two diffeient ways
we may examine the mechanism of the aim and
of the rest of the organism, in order to describe
the process as it takes place from the purely
physical standpoint, or we may direct the spiritual
vision to what takes place in the man’s soul and
constitutes the inner motive of the raising of
the hand In this way the investigator, trained
in occult lescarch, sees spiritual processes behind
all the events of the physical sense-world In
his eyes all tian&foimations of the material part
of the earth -planet aie manifestations of spiritual
foiccs lying behind what is mateiial
But if occult observation of this kind goes
farther and farther back in the life of the eaith
it comes to that point in evolution at which
matenal things first came into being The ma-
terial element is evolved out of the spiritual
Up to this point the spiritual element was the
only one existing By occult investigation the
spiritual element is perceived, and the observer
can see how it becomes partly condensed, as it
were, into matter We have before us a process
which IS taking place — on a higher level — much
as though we were observing a lump of ice being
formed by artificial means in a vessel of water.
Just as we see the ice being condensed out of
what was previously only water, so may we,
EVOLliTlON OF THE WORLD AND MAN ii?
bj' means of occult observation, watch the
condensation, so to .speak, of material things,
processes, and beings, out of what was previously
entirely spiritual In this way the physical
eai th-plan<'t was evolved out of a cosmic essence,
and evoiything that is combined materially with
the earth-planet has been condensed out of
what was picviously umted with it spiritually
We must not, however, think that everything
spiiitual was at any one time changed into mate-
rial foim, but. 111 the latter we have before
us mciely the transmuted portions of what was
oiiginally spiritual Thus, even during the period
ol material evolution, it is always Spirit that is
really the leading and governing principle
It js obvious that the mode of thought which
lestiicts itself to the piocesses of physical sense —
and to w’-hat reason is able to infer from them —
cannot express an opinion about the spiritual
element of which we are speaking Let us
assume that a being might exist to whose senses
ice would be perceptible, but not the finer con-
dition of water, from which ice is detached by
refrigeration For such a being, water would
be non-existent, and could become visible only
when parts of it had been transformed into ice
In the same way, the spiritual element behind
earthly processes remains hidden from a man
who will admit the existence only of what his
physical senses can recognize And if, from
ir6 AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT SCIENCE
the physical facts he now perceives, he wishes
to draw correct conclusions about earlier con-
ditions of the earth-planet, he can get oiil\ so
far as that point m evolution at which what
was previously spiritual was pailially condensed
into material substance Such a method of
observation no more discoveis the spiiitual ele-
ment previously existing, than it perceives the
spiritual life which even now rules unseen behind
that which is material
Not until we come to the later chapters ol
this work can we deal with those methods by
which man acquires the faculty of looking back,
by means of occult perception, upon those eailicr
conditions of the earth which aie now tindoi
discussion For the present we shall merely
intimate that the facts concerning the ]inme\'al
past have not passed beyond the reach ol occult
research. If a being comes into coipoictil exist-
ence his material part perishes aftei physical
death But not thus do the spiritual forces, which
called the bodily part into being from out of them-
selves, “disappear “ I'hcy leave behind them
their traces, their exact copies, m the spiritual
foundations of the world And any one who
is able to raise his perceptive faculty through
the visible to the invisible world, attains at
length a level on which he may see before him
what may be compared to a vast spiritual pano-
rama, ^in which are recorded all the past events
KVOLLTTION OF THE WORLD AND MAN
of the woild’s liistoiv These imperishable traces
of eveiyllimj; Tieyoiicl the real in of matter are
called in occult science the “ Ak§,shic Records ”
Heic it must once more be repeated that
investigations oi the supersensible spheres can
be carried on only with the aid oi spiritual per-
ception, and consequently can be instituted only
in the sphere now under consideration, by reading
the AMshic Records above-mentioned Never-
theless, what was said earlier in this book in
a similar instance holds good here Super-
sensible facts are only to be investigated by
supersensible perceptions, but once investigated
and communicated by occult science, they may
be giasped by the ordinary powers of thought,
if these are honestly exercised without bias
In the following pages the various conditions of
the earth’s evolution, as given by occult science,
will be detailed The tiansformations of our
planet will be traced down to the conditions of
life in which wc now find it Any one who
surveys what comes befoic him at the present
time meiely thiough the evidence of his senses,
and then lends an car to what occult science has
to say on the subject, namely, how that which
now lies before him has been evolved from a
far distant past, will be able, if his thought is
genuinely unbiassed, to say to himself “In the
first place, what occult science reports is quite
logical; in the second place, I can, if I assume
iiS AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT SCfE.\('P
the reports of occult invostigdtioii to be coiicct,
understand how Ihmgs have become as Ihcv
now appear ” By “logical” is not meant, ot
course, in this connection, that eiiois might
not be made fiom a logical standpoint in some*
description given by occult research W c* ai c
here speaking ot “Jogic” as it is undei stood m
the ordinary life of the physical world
as a logical dcmonstiation is there accepted as
would be one of physical research, even though
a single investigator, iii a certain domain ot
facts, may make illogical statements, so also
IS it in occult science It may even happen
that an investigator who possesses the ]jow<m of
vision in supersensible spheres may make mistakes
in a reasoned presentment of them, and may
be corrected by another who has no siipei sensibk'
perception, but has, none the less, a ca])acit>
for sound thinking In reality, nothing of anv
weight can be said against the logical deductions
of occult science And it ought to be imnecessaiy
to insist that nothing can be adduced, on purely
logical grounds, against the facts themselves
In the domain of the physical world it can nevei
be proved by logic, but only by ocular demon-
stration, whether or no there is such an animal
as a whale, similarly, supersensible facts can be
known only through occult perception
But it cannot be sufficiently emphasized that
an obligation is laid upon the explorer of
EVOLUTION OP THE WORLD AND MAN 119
supeibensible legions, before he determines to ap-
proach the invisible worlds in his own conscious-
ness, to acquiie fiist of all the afoiementioned
logical facult3^, and this is none the less essential
if he admits that the woild manifest to Ins senses
will become comprehensible if he accepts the com-
munications of occult science as conect All expe-
riences in the supci sensible orld are nothing but
an unceitam — nay, a dangerous — gi oping in the
dark if we despise the method of pieparation
which has been described Therefoie in this
book the facts concerning the supersensible pioc-
esses of the earth's evolution will first be given,
before the path leading to the attainment of
supersensible knowledge is dealt with
We have also, it is true, to take into account
that the man who, by sheer thinking, comes to
accept what supersensible lescarch has to impait,
is by no means in the same position as one who
listens to the account of a physical occuiience
which he is unable to sec For thinking is in
itself a supersensible activity When relating
to the senses, it cannot of itself lead to super-
sensible happenings But if thought is directed
to supersensible matters through the accounts
given of them by occult science, it grows by its
own activity into the supersensible world What
IS more, one of the very best ways of acquiring
individual perception in supersensible spheres is
to grow into the higher worlds by meditation
120
AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE
upon what has been communicated by occult
science That is to say, such a mode of eiitiy
insures the greatest clearness ot results For this
reason such thifiking is regarded by a ceitain sec-
tion of occult investigators as the most valuable
first step to take in occult tiaining
It will be readily understood that it is impossible
to mention in this book all the details of the
earth’s evolution, as it has been spiiitually
perceived by occultists, in order to illustrate
the way in which the supersensible woild is
reflected in the manifested one Nor was this
what was intended when it was said that the
unseen may everywhere be demonstrated by its
manifested effects Rather was it meant that
everything that man encounteis may, stet^ by
step, become clear and comprehensible li he bungs
mamfested events into the illuiniiiation of occ’ult
science Only in a few characteristic instances
will reference be made in the following pages to
confirmations of the invisible by the niaiulcst, in
order to show that this may be done eveiy where
in the course of practical life, if desired
ill 4:
*
Following the evolution of the earth backward
by the method of occult research mentioned
above, we arrive at a spiritual condition (Pralaya)
of our planet But if we go farther back along
this path of research we find that that spiritual
substance had previously been in a kind of
EVOLUTION OF THE WORLD AND MAN x2i
physical incarnation Thus we come upon a bygone
physical planetaiy condition, which was aftei-
wards spiritualized, and subsequently tianstormed
into our earth by repeated materialization Our
earth is therefore pieseiited to us as the reia-
cai nation oi a veiy ancient planet But occult
science can go back still farthei , and then it
finds the whole process twicD repeated Oui
earth has, theiefore, passed through three previous
planetary states, between which he intermediate
states of spirituality The physical substance,
of course, proves to be finer and finci the farther
baek we follow the incarnations
Now man, in the form in which lie is at present
evolving, makes his first appearance during the
fourth of the planetaiy incarnations which have
been described, on the earth piopei And the
essential chaiacteiistic of his form is that it is
composed of four principles, the physical, cthenc,
and astral bodies and the ego But that foim
could not have appeared if it had not been pre-
pared by the preceding events of evolution The
method of pieparation was that, in the eailier
planetaiy incarnation, beings were evolved who
already had three of the prcvscnt four principles
of man. the physical, ethcnc, and astral bodies
These beings who, m a certain sense, may be called
man’s ancestors, had as yet no ego, but they
developed the three other principles and the
connection between them to such a point that
132
AN OUTLINE OP OCCULT SCIENCE
they became sufliciently matuie to receive an ego
Consequently, man’s ancestor attained to a ceitain
degree of maturity oi his three principles during
the earlier planet aiy incarnation
This state passed into spintuahty, and out oi
the spirituality was formed a new pLinctai y
condition, in which man’s matured ancestors were
contained, as it were, in embryo Because the
whole planet had passed through a piocess of
spiritualization and had appeared in a new loim,
it oftercd those embryos, with then physical, ethe-
nc, and astral bodies, which were contained within
it, not only the opportunity of again evolving up
to the level on which they had previously stood,
but the further possibility, aftei htiving amvod
at that level, of reaching out beyond themscivc's
through receiving the ego
The evolution of the eaith falls, theiefoie, into
two paits During the fust pciiod the earth
itself appears as a leincai nation of th(‘ previous
planetary state But that leciniing state is a
higher one than that of the pievious incarnation,
in consequence of the intei veiling period of spirit-
ualization And the eai t h c< mtains wi thin itself the
germs of man’s ancestors trelongmg to the earlier
planet These were fust developed up to the
level they had pieviously reached The attain-
ment of this level maiks the end of the fust period
But now, owing to its own higher stage ot evolu-
tion, the earth is able to carry the germs still
EVOLUTION OF THE WORLD AND MAN 123
higher, that is, to qualify them for receivmg the
ego The second period of the earth’s evolution
IS that of the development oi the ego in the phys-
ical, etheiic, and astral bodies
In the same way that man was thus canned a
stage farther by the evolution of the earth, this
had been the case dunng the earlier planetary
incarnations For man had in some measure
existed as early as the first of these Light is
therefoie thrown on the piesent constitution of
man if his evolution is followed back to the far-
remote past of the first of the planetary incarna-
tions mentioned above
In occult science the first of these is called
‘ ' Saturn’ ’ , the second is termed ‘ ‘ Sun ’ ’ , the third,
“Moon”, and the fourth is the earth It must
be distinctly understood that these occult terms
are not at first to be in any way associated with
the names used to designate the members of the
present solar system ^ In occult science Saturn,
* In different chaptcis ol this book it has. been shown how the woild
of humanity, and man himself, pass, in their progressive evolution,
through conditions which have been named Saturn, Sun, Moon, earth,
Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan The relationship has also been indicated
in which human evolution stands with regard to the celestial bodies
which exist besides the earth and which are called Saturn, Jupiter,
Mars, and so on Ihese latter planets are also passing through then
evolution in the natuial way At the present penod they have reached
such a stage that their plwsical portions aie seen as those bodies which
physical astronomy calls Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and so on Now when
the Saturn of the present day is observed by occultism it is seen to be,
in a certain sense, a reincarnation of the old Saturn It has come into
existence because of the presence of certain beings, who before the
separation of the Sun from the earth were unable, like the others, to
leave with the Sun The reason of this was that they had gained so
many qualities which are suitable for a Saturn existence, that their
place could not be where the qualities of the Sun were speaally
T 24 AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE
Sun, and Moon are merely names for bygone
forms of evolution through which the eaith has
passed In the course of the following account
it will be shown what relation these woilds of
remote antiquity bear to the celestial bodies com-
posing the present solar system
If the conditions of the four planetary incarna-
tions named are now to be described, they can
only be outlined briefly, foi the events, the beings,
and the destiny of those beings on Satin n. Sun,
and Moon arc in truth just as varied as they are
on the eaith itself Thei-efore only a few charac-
teristic details as to the pi evading conditions can
be selected lor dcsciiption, loi the purpose ol
illustrating the mannci in which th(' eailh’s con-
ditions have been evolved out ol its eaiher iorms
It must also be boine in mind, in this conned ion,
that those conditions aie seen to be mou* and
more different from present-day conditums the
farther back we go And yet they ate only to
be described, as to then main ehaiactenstics, by
unfo]tk<l I ot the T)i< ^ent, I , unu zntopuqK Hi oj
the presence of beings ])Osse‘^s< d f>l s wliu h < ii» only hv m itnn <1
on the fiitmc ]upitc! of tlu uliolei v<»Hih<#n A ^ ling pi t ipp< \nt\
for th<m on whuh thc> can tin ul\ ni niluipatiou thi lat< r
evolution
In the s<un( way Mars is a pltnctaiv ImmK on whuh <h'dl Ining'*
whose lunar c\olutK>n was siieh that linthei piogn s na ilu taitli
could bring them nothing Mars is a re me ai nation ot Ilu old Motm
at a higher stage The pn u ni Mereuiy is the dwelling plaet ot Imngs
who are beyond the evolution of the earth, but this is just because
they have developed certain qualitu's m a higher way thiin is possible
on the earth itself The pre ^emt V< uus is a i.uf»pluti< autuqiation of
the future Venus condition of a similar kind It i c r»nse'qiu utly jus-
tifiable to give to the conditions preceding and following the eaith the
names of then concsponding lepresentatives in ih< universe
EVOLUTION OP THE WORLD AND MAN 125
making use oi ideas boiio\\'ed iiom existing con-
diliojiwS ()1 Uie cvutJi If, toi instance, light, heat,
or the like ns mentioned in connection with these
earlier conditions, it must not be overlooked that
they are not exactly the same as what we now
term light and heat And yet such teiminology
IS accurate, for to the clairvoyant observci of
earlier stages of evolution something becomes
manifest out of which have come the light and
heat of the piesent time And one who follows
the desciiptions thus given by occult science will
be well able to intei , from the connection in which
these matters are placed, what ideas have to be
adopted m ordei to get characteristic images and
vSimiles of events enacted in a primeval past
Of course theie will be considerable difficulty
in ti eating of those planetary conditions which
I^receded the Moon incarnation For during the
latter, conditions prevailed which bore at any rate
some resemblance to eaithly conditions One at-
tempting to describe these conditions finds that
such resemblances to the present time form a
certain basis on which he may clearly represent
the observations he has made through clairvoy-
ance It IS another thing if the Saturn and
Sun evolutions are to be desenbed In that case,
what lies before clairvoyant observation is utterly
different from the objects and beings now belong-
ing to the sphere of human life. And this differ-
ence makes it exceedingly difficult to bnng the
X2b AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE
corresponding facts of piimeval times within the
the scope of clairvoyant consciousness
Yet as the present constitution of man cannot
be understood without going back to the Saturn
state, the description must nevertheless be given
And surely no one will misunderstand such a
description who keeps in view the existence of
the difficulty, and the fact that owing to it much
that IS said must be in the nature of a suggestion
or hint of the facts in question, lather than an
exact description of them
4 * *
■*
The physical body is the oldest of the present
four principles of man’s being It is also
…[truncated]