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THE WAY OF INITIATION
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
INITIATION AND ITS RESULTS
a sequel to the
"WAY OF INITIATION"
By
RUDOLF STEINER, Ph.D.
Translated from the German by Clifford Bax
CONTENTS
A FOREWORD
I. THE ASTRAL CENTERS (CHAKRAS)
II. THE CONSTITUTION OF THE ETHERIC BODY
III. DREAM LIFE
IV. THE THREE STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS
V. THE DISSOCIATION OF HUMAN PERSONALITY DURING INITIATION
VI. THE FIRST GUARDIAN OF THE THRESHOLD
VII. THE SECOND GUARDIAN OF THE THRESHOLD
SELECTED LIST OF OCCULT WORKS
In same clear print and rich binding as this book
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THE WAY OF INITIATION
OR
HOW TO ATTAIN KNOWLEDGE OF THE HIGHER WORLDS
BY RUDOLF STEINER, Ph.D.
FROM THE GERMAN
BY
~MAX GYSI~
WITH SOME BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES OF THE AUTHOR BY
~EDOUARD SCHURE~
FIRST AMERICANIZED EDITION
MACOY PUBLISHING AND MASONIC SUPPLY CO.
NEW YORK, U.S.A.
Copyright 1910
BY
MACOY PUBLISHING
AND
MASONIC SUPPLY CO.
45-47-49 JOHN ST.
New York, U.S.A.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
The Personality of Rudolf Steiner and His Development 7
I. The Superphysical World and Its Gnosis 33
II. How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds 50
III. The Path of Discipleship 65
IV. Probation 81
V. Enlightenment 93
VI. Initiation 117
VII. The Higher Education of the Soul 135
VIII. The Conditions of Discipleship 149
List of Occult and Kindred Books 165
Transcriber's Note: Words printed in bold are noted with tildes;
~bold~. There is no corresponding anchor for footnote number 5.
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.
(FOR THE ENGLISH EDITION.)
Being deeply interested in Dr. Steiner's work and teachings, and
desirous of sharing with my English-speaking friends the many
invaluable glimpses of Truth which are to be found therein, I decided
upon the translation of the present volume. It is due to the kind
co-operation of several friends who prefer to be anonymous that this
task has been accomplished, and I wish to express my hearty thanks for
the literary assistance rendered by them--also to thank Dr. Peipers of
Munich for permission to reproduce his excellent photograph of the
author.
The special value of this volume consists, I think, in the fact that
no advice is given and no statement made which is not based on the
personal experience of the author, who is, in the truest sense, both
a mystic and an occultist.
If the present volume should meet with a reception justifying a further
venture, we propose translating and issuing during the coming year a
further series of articles by Dr. Steiner in continuation of the same
subject, and a third volume will consist of the articles now appearing
in the pages of The Theosophist, entitled "The Education of Children."
MAX GYSI.
PUBLISHER'S NOTE.
While the pleasant German vernacular is still discernable in the text
of this work, we wish to state that it has been Americanized in
spelling, phraseology, and definition, to make plainer to the Western
mind the wonderful truths experienced by its distinguished author.
The readers, especially Occult, Theosophic, Masonic, and New Thought
students, we believe, will appreciate the clearness with which his
teachings lead to the simple rich Harmony of Life.
MACOY PUB. & MASONIC SUP. CO.
THE PERSONALITY OF RUDOLF STEINER AND HIS DEVELOPMENT
BY EDOUARD SCHURE[1]
Many of even the most cultivated men of our time have a very mistaken
idea of what is a true mystic and a true occultist. They know these two
forms of human mentality only by their imperfect or degenerate types,
of which recent times have afforded but too many examples. To the
intellectual man of the day, the mystic is a kind of fool and visionary
who takes his fancies for facts; the occultist is a dreamer or a
charlatan who abuses public credulity in order to boast of an imaginary
science and of pretended powers. Be it remarked, to begin with, that
this definition of mysticism, though deserved by some, would be as
unjust as erroneous if one sought to apply it to such personalities as
Joachim del Fiore of the thirteenth century, Jacob Boehme of the
sixteenth, or St. Martin, who is called "the unknown philosopher," of
the eighteenth century. No less unjust and false would be the current
definition of the occultist if one saw in it the slightest connection
with such earnest seekers as Paracelsus, Mesmer, or Fabre d'Olivet in
the past, as William Crookes, de Rochat, or Camille Flammarion in the
present. Think what we may of these bold investigators, it is
undeniable that they have opened out regions unknown to science, and
furnished the mind with new ideas.
[1] Translated by kind permission of the author from the
introduction to _Le Mystere Chretien et les Mysteres
Antiques_. Traduit de l'allemand par Edouard Schure,
Librairie academique, Perrin & Co., 1908, Paris.
No, these fanciful definitions can at most satisfy that scientific
dilettantism which hides its feebleness under a supercilious mask to
screen its indolence, or the worldly scepticism which ridicules all
that threatens to upset its indifference. But enough of these
superficial opinions. Let us study history, the sacred and profane
books of all nations, and the last results of experimental science; let
us subject all these facts to impartial criticism, inferring similar
effects from identical causes, and we shall be forced to give quite
another definition of the mystic and the occultist.
The true mystic is a man who enters into full possession of his inner
life, and who, having become cognizant of his sub-consciousness, finds
in it, through concentrated meditation and steady discipline, new
faculties and enlightenment. These new faculties and this enlightenment
instruct him as to the innermost nature of his soul and his relations
with that impalpable element which underlies all, with that eternal and
supreme reality which religion calls God, and poetry the Divine. The
occultist, akin to the mystic, but differing from him as a younger from
an elder brother, is a man endowed with intuition and with synthesis,
who seeks to penetrate the hidden depths and foundations of Nature by
the methods of science and philosophy: that is to say, by observation
and reason, methods invariable in principle, but modified in
application by being adapted to the descending kingdoms of Spirit or
the ascending kingdoms of Nature, according to the vast hierarchy of
beings and the alchemy of the creative Word.
The mystic, then, is one who seeks for truth and the Divine directly
within himself, by a gradual detachment and a veritable birth of his
higher soul. If he attains it after prolonged effort, he plunges into
his own glowing centre. Then he immerses himself, and identifies
himself with that ocean of life which is the primordial Force.
The occultist, on the other hand, discovers, studies, and contemplates
this same Divine outpouring given forth in diverse portions, endowed
with force, and multiplied to infinity in Nature and in Humanity.
According to the profound saying of Paracelsus: _he sees in all beings
the letters of an alphabet, which, united in man, form the complete and
conscious Word of life_. The detailed analysis that he makes of them,
the syntheses that he constructs with them, are to him as so many
images and forecastings of this central Divine, of this Sun of Beauty,
of Truth and of Life, which he sees not, but which is reflected and
bursts upon his vision in countless mirrors.
The weapons of the mystic are concentration and inner vision; the
weapons of the occultist are intuition and synthesis. Each corresponds
to the other; they complete and presuppose each other.
These two human types are blended in the Adept, in the higher Initiate.
No doubt one or the other, and often both, are met with in the founders
of great religions and the loftiest philosophies. No doubt also they
are to be found again, in a less, but still very remarkable degree,
among a certain number of personages who have played a great part in
history as reformers, thinkers, poets, artists, statesmen.
Why, then, should these two types of mind, which represent the highest
human faculties, and were formerly the object of universal veneration,
usually appear to us now as merely deformed and travestied? Why have
they become obliterated? Why should they have fallen into such
discredit?
That is the result of a profound cause existing in an inevitable
necessity of human evolution.
During the last two thousand years, but especially since the sixteenth
century, humanity has achieved a tremendous work, namely, the conquest
of the globe and the constitution of experimental science, in what
concerns the material and visible world.
That this gigantic and herculean task should be successfully
accomplished, it was necessary that there should be a temporary eclipse
of man's transcendental faculties, so that his whole power of
observation might be concentrated on the outer world. These faculties,
however, have never been extinct or even inactive. They lay dormant in
the mass of men; they remained active in the elect, far from the gaze
of the vulgar.
Now, they are showing themselves openly under new forms. Before long
they will assume a leading and directing importance in human destinies.
I would add that at no period of history, whether among the nations of
the ancient Aryan cycle, or in the Semitic civilizations of Asia and
Africa--whether in the Graeco-Latin world, or in the middle ages and in
modern times, have these royal faculties, for which positivism would
substitute its dreary nomenclature, ever ceased to operate at the
beginning and in the background of all great human creations and of all
fruitful work. For how can we imagine a thinker, a poet, an inventor, a
hero, a master of science or of art, a genius of any kind, without a
mighty ray of those two master-faculties which make the mystic and the
occultist--the inner vision and the sovereign intuition.
* * * * *
Rudolf Steiner is both a mystic and an occultist. These two natures
appear in him in perfect harmony. One could not say which of the two
predominates over the other. In intermingling and blending, they have
become one homogeneous force. Hence a special development in which
outward events play but a secondary part.
Dr. Steiner was born in Upper Austria in 1861. His earliest years were
passed in a little town situated on the Leytha, on the borders of
Styria, the Carpathians, and Hungary. From childhood his character was
serious and concentrated. This was followed by a youth inwardly
illuminated by the most marvellous intuitions, a young manhood
encountering terrible trials, and a ripe age crowned by a mission which
he had dimly foreseen from his earliest years, but which was only
gradually formulated in the struggle for truth and life. This youth,
passed in a mountainous and secluded region, was happy in its way,
thanks to the exceptional faculties that he discovered in himself. He
was employed in a Catholic church as a choir boy. The poetry of the
worship, the profundity of the symbolism, had a mysterious attraction
for him; but, as he possessed the innate gift of _seeing souls_, one
thing terrified him. This was the secret unbelief of the priests,
entirely engrossed in the ritual and the material part of the service.
There was another peculiarity: no one, either then or later, allowed
himself to talk of any gross superstition in his presence, or to utter
any blasphemy, as if those calm and penetrating eyes compelled the
speaker to serious thought. In this child, almost always silent, there
grew up a quiet and inflexible will, to master things through
understanding. That was easier for him than for others, for he
possessed from the first that self-mastery, so rare even in the adult,
which gives the mastery over others. To this firm will was added a
warm, deep and almost painful sympathy; a kind of pitiful tenderness to
all beings and even to inanimate nature. It seemed to him that all
souls had in them something divine. But in what a stony crust is hidden
the shining gold! In what hard rock, in what dark gloom lay dormant the
precious essence! Vaguely as yet did this idea stir within him--he was
to develop it later--that the divine soul is present in all men, but in
a latent state. It is a sleeping captive that has to be _awakened from
enchantment_.
To the sight of this young thinker, human souls became transparent,
with their troubles, their desires, their paroxysms of hatred or of
love. And it was probably owing to the terrible things he saw, that he
spoke so little. And yet, what delights, unknown to the world, sprang
from this involuntary clairvoyance! Among the remarkable inner
revelations of this youth, I will instance only one which was extremely
characteristic.
The vast plains of Hungary, the wild Carpathian forests, the old
churches of those mountains in which the monstrance glows brightly as a
sun in the darkness of the sanctuary, were not there for nothing, but
they were helpful to meditation and contemplation.
At fifteen years of age, Steiner became acquainted with a herbalist at
that time staying in his country. The remarkable thing about this man
was that he knew not only the species, families, and life of plants in
their minutest details, but also their secret virtues. One would have
said that he had spent his life in conversing with the unconscious and
fluid soul of herbs and flowers. He had the gift of seeing the vital
principle of plants, their etheric body, and what Occultism calls the
elementals of the vegetable world. He talked of it as of a quite
ordinary and natural thing. The calm and coolly scientific tone of his
conversation still further excited the curiosity and admiration of the
youth. Later on, Steiner knew that this strange man was a messenger
from the Master, whom as yet he knew not, but who was to be his real
initiator, and who was already watching over him from afar.
What the curious, double-sighted botanist told him, young Steiner found
to be in accordance with the logic of things. That confirmed an inner
feeling of long standing, and which more and more forced itself on his
mind as the fundamental Law, and as the basis of the Great All. That is
to say: _the two-fold current which constitutes the very movement of
the world_, and which might be called _the flux and reflux of the
universal life_.
We are all witnesses and are conscious of the outward current of
_evolution_, which urges onward all beings of heaven and of earth--stars,
plants, animals and humanity--and causes them to move forward towards
an infinite future, without our perceiving the initial force which
impels them and makes them go on without pause or rest. But there is in
the universe _an inverse current_, which interposes itself and
perpetually breaks in on the other. It is that of _involution_, by
which the principles, forces, entities and souls which come from the
invisible world and the kingdom of the Eternal infiltrate and
ceaselessly intermingle with the visible reality. No evolution of
matter would be comprehensible without this occult and astral current,
which is the great propeller of life, with its hierarchy of powers.
Thus the Spirit, which contains the future in germ, _involves_ itself
in matter; thus matter, which receives the Spirit, _evolves_ towards
the future. While, then, we are moving on blindly towards the unknown
future, this future is approaching us consciously, infusing itself in
the current of the world and man who elaborate it. _Such is the
two-fold movement of time, the out-breathing and the in-breathing of
the soul of the world, which comes from the Eternal and returns
thither._
From the age of eighteen, young Steiner possessed the spontaneous
consciousness of this two-fold current--a consciousness which is the
condition of all spiritual vision. This vital axiom was forced upon him
by a direct and involuntary seeing of things. Thenceforth he had the
unmistakable sensation of occult powers which were working behind and
through him for his guidance. He gave heed to this force and obeyed its
admonitions, for he felt in profound accordance with it.
This kind of perception, however, formed a separate category in his
intellectual life. This class of truths seemed to him something so
profound, so mysterious, and so sacred, that he never imagined it
possible to express it in words. He fed his soul thereon, as from a
divine fountain, but to have scattered a drop of it beyond would have
seemed to him a profanation.
Beside this inner and contemplative life, his rational and philosophic
mind was powerfully developing. From sixteen to seventeen years of age,
Rudolf Steiner plunged deeply into the study of Kant, Fichte and
Schelling. When he came to Vienna some years after, he became an ardent
admirer of Hegel, whose transcendental idealism borders on Occultism;
but speculative philosophy did not satisfy him. His positive mind
demanded the solid basis of the sciences of observation. So he deeply
studied mathematics, chemistry, mineralogy, botany and zoology. "These
studies," he said "afford a surer basis for the construction of a
spiritual system of the universe than history and literature. The
latter, wanting in exact methods, would then throw no side-lights on
the vast domain of German science." Inquiring into everything, enamored
of high art, and an enthusiast for poetry, Steiner nevertheless did not
neglect literary studies. As a guide therein he found an excellent
professor in the person of Julius Schroeer, a distinguished scholar of
the school of the brothers Grimm, who strove to develop in his pupils
the art of oratory and of composition. To this distinguished man the
young student owed his great and refined literary culture. "In the
desert of prevailing materialism," says Steiner, "his house was to me
an oasis of idealism."
But this was not yet the Master whom he sought. Amidst these varied
studies and deep meditations, he could as yet discern the building of
the universe but in a fragmentary way; his inborn intuition prevented
any doubt of the divine origin of things and of a spiritual Beyond. A
distinctive mark of this extraordinary man was that he never knew any
of those crises of doubt and despair which usually accompany the
transition to a definite conviction in the life of mystics and of
thinkers. Nevertheless, he felt that the central light which illumines
and penetrates the whole was still lacking in him. He had reached young
manhood, with its terrible problems. What was he going to do with his
life? The sphinx of destiny was facing him. How should he solve its
problem?
It was at the age of nineteen that the aspirant to the mysteries met
with his guide--the Master--so long anticipated.
It is an undoubted fact, admitted by occult tradition and confirmed by
experience, that those who seek the higher truth from an impersonal
motive find a master to initiate them at the right moment: that is to
say, when they are ripe for its reception. "Knock, and it shall be
opened to you," said Jesus. That is true with regard to everything, but
above all with regard to truth. Only, the desire must be ardent as a
flame, in a soul pure as crystal.
The Master of Rudolf Steiner was one of those men of power who live,
unknown to the world, under cover of some civil state, to carry out a
mission unsuspected by any but their fellows in the Brotherhood of
self-sacrificing Masters. They take no ostensible part in human events.
To remain unknown is the condition of their power, but their action is
only the more efficacious. For they inspire, prepare and direct those
who will act in the sight of all. In the present instance the Master
had no difficulty in completing the first and spontaneous initiation of
his disciple. He had only, so to speak, to point out to him his own
nature, to arm him with his needful weapons. Clearly did he show him
the connection between the official and the secret sciences; between
the religious and the spiritual forces which are now contending for the
guidance of humanity; the antiquity of the occult tradition which holds
the hidden threads of history, which mingles them, separates, and
re-unites them in the course of ages.
Swiftly he made him clear the successive stages of inner discipline, in
order to attain conscious and intelligent clairvoyance. In a few months
the disciple learned from oral teaching the depth and incomparable
splendor of the esoteric synthesis. Rudolf Steiner had already sketched
for himself his intellectual mission: "To re-unite Science and
Religion. To bring back God into Science, and Nature into Religion.
Thus to re-fertilize both Art and Life." But how to set about this vast
and daring undertaking? How conquer, or rather, how tame and transform
the great enemy, the materialistic science of the day, which is like a
terrible dragon covered with its carapace and couched on its huge
treasure? How master this dragon of modern science and yoke it to the
car of spiritual truth? And, above all, how conquer the bull of public
opinion?
Rudolf Steiner's Master was not in the least like himself. He had not
that extreme and feminine sensibility which, though not excluding
energy, makes every contact an emotion and instantly turns the
suffering of others into a personal pain. He was masculine in spirit, a
born ruler of men, looking only at the species, and for whom
individuals hardly existed. He spared not himself, and he did not spare
others. His will was like a ball which, once shot from the cannon's
mouth, goes straight to its mark, sweeping off everything in its way.
To the anxious questioning of his disciple he replied in substance:
"If thou wouldst fight the enemy, begin by understanding him. Thou wilt
conquer the dragon only by penetrating his skin. As to the bull, thou
must seize him by the horns. It is in the extremity of distress that
thou wilt find thy weapons and thy brothers in the fight. I have shown
thee who thou art, now go--and _be_ thyself!"
Rudolf Steiner knew the language of the Masters well enough to
understand the rough path that he was thus commanded to tread; but he
also understood that this was the only way to attain the end. He
obeyed, and set forth.
* * * * *
From 1880 the life of Rudolf Steiner becomes divided into three quite
distinct periods: from twenty to thirty years of age (1881-1891), the
Viennese period, a time of study and of preparation; from thirty to
forty (1891-1901), the Weimar period, a time of struggle and combat;
from forty to forty-six (1901-1907), the Berlin period, a time of
action and of organization, in which his thought crystallized into a
living work.
I pass rapidly over the Vienna period, in which Steiner took the degree
of Doctor of Philosophy. He afterwards wrote a series of scientific
articles on zoology, geology, and the theory of colors, in which
theosophical ideas appear in an idealist clothing. While acting as
tutor in several families, with the same conscientious devotion that he
gave to everything, he conducted as chief editor a weekly Viennese
paper, the _Deutsche Wochenschrift_. His friendship with the Austrian
poetess, Marie Eugenie delle Grazie, cast, as it were, into this period
of heavy work a warm ray of sunshine, with a smile of grace and poetry.
In 1890 Steiner was summoned to collaborate in the archives of Goethe
and Schiller at Weimar, to superintend the re-editing of Goethe's
scientific works. Shortly after, he published two important works,
_Truth and Science_ and _The Philosophy of Liberty_. "The occult powers
that guided me," he says, "forced me to introduce spiritualistic ideas
imperceptibly into the current literature of the time." But in these
various tasks he was but studying his ground while trying his strength.
So distant was the goal that he did not dream of being able to reach it
as yet. To travel round the world in a sailing vessel, to cross the
Atlantic, the Pacific and the Indian Ocean, in order to return to a
European port, would have seemed easier to him. While awaiting the
events that would allow him to equip his ship and to launch it on the
open sea, he came into touch with two illustrious personalities who
helped to determine his intellectual position in the contemporary
world.
These two persons were the celebrated philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche,
and the no less famous naturalist, Ernst Haeckel.
Rudolf Steiner had just written an impartial treatise on the author of
_Zarathustra_. In consequence of this, Nietzsche's sister begged
the sympathetic critic to come and see her at Naumburg, where her
unhappy brother was slowly dying. Madame Foerster took the visitor to
the door of the apartment where Nietzsche was lying on a couch in a
comatose condition, inert, stupified. To Steiner there was something
very significant in this melancholy sight. In it he saw the final act
in the tragedy of the would-be superman.
Nietzsche, the author of _Beyond Good and Evil_, had not, like the
realists of Bismarckian imperialism, renounced idealism, for he was
naturally intuitive; but in his individualistic pride he sought to cut
off the spiritual world from the universe, and the divine from human
consciousness. Instead of placing the superman, of whom he had a poetic
vision, in the spiritual kingdom, which is his true sphere, he strove
to force him into the material world, which alone was real in his eyes.
Hence, in that splendid intellect arose a chaos of ideas and a wild
struggle which finally brought on softening of the brain. To explain
this particular case, it is needless to bring in atavism or the theory
of degeneracy. The frenzied combat of ideas and of contradictory
sentiments, of which this brain was the battlefield, was enough.
Steiner had done justice to all the genius that marked the innovating
ideas of Nietzsche, but this victim of pride, self-destroyed by
negation, was to him none the less a tragic instance of the ruin of a
mighty intellect which madly destroys itself in breaking away from
spiritual intelligence.
Madame Foerster did her utmost to enrol Dr. Steiner under her brother's
flag. For this she used all her skill, making repeated offers to the
young publicist to become editor and commentator of Nietzsche's works.
Steiner withstood her insistence as best he could, and ended by taking
himself off altogether, for which Madame Foerster never forgave him.
She did not know that Rudolf Steiner bore within him the consciousness
of a work no less great and more valuable than that of her brother.
Nietzsche had been merely an interesting episode in the life of the
esoteric thinker on the threshold of his battlefield. His meeting with
the celebrated naturalist, Ernst Haeckel, on the contrary, marks a most
important phase in the development of his thought. Was not the
successor of Darwin apparently the most formidable adversary of the
spiritualism of this young initiate, of that philosophy which to him
was the very essence of his being and the breath of his thought?
Indeed, since the broken link between man and animal has been
re-joined, since man can no longer believe in a special and
supernatural origin, he has begun altogether to doubt his divine origin
and destiny. He no longer sees himself as anything but one phenomenon
among so many phenomena, a passing form amidst so many forms, a frail
and chance link in a blind evolution. Steiner, then, is right in
saying: "The mentality deduced from natural sciences is the greatest
power of modern times." On the other hand, he knew that this system
merely reproduces a succession of external forms among living beings,
and not the inner and acting forces of life. He knew it from personal
initiation, and a deeper and vaster view of the universe. So also he
could exclaim with more assurance than most of our timid spiritualists
and startled theologians: "Is the human soul then to rise on the wings
of enthusiasm to the summits of the True, the Beautiful and the Good,
only to be swept away into nothingness, like a bubble of the brain?"
Yes, Haeckel was the Adversary. It was materialism in arms, the dragon
with all his scales, his claws, and his teeth.
Steiner's desire to understand this man, and to do him justice as to
all that was great in him, to fathom his theory so far as it was
logical and plausible, was only the more intense. In this fact one sees
all the loyalty and all the greatness of his comprehensive mind.
The materialistic conclusions of Haeckel could have no influence on his
own ideas which came to him from a different science; but he had a
presentment that in the indisputable discoveries of the naturalist he
should find the surest basis of an evolutionary spiritualism and a
rational theosophy.
He began, then, to study eagerly the _History of Natural Creation_. In
it Haeckel gives a fascinating picture of the evolution of species,
from the amoeba to man. In it he shows the successive growth of organs,
and the physiological process by which living beings have raised
themselves to organisms more and more complex and more and more
perfect. But in this stupendous transformation, which implies millions
and millions of years, he never explains the initial force of this
universal ascent, nor the series of special impulses which cause beings
to rise step by step. To these primordial questions, Haeckel has never
been able to reply except by admitting spontaneous generation,[2] which
is tantamount to a miracle as great as the creation of man by God from
a clod of earth. To a theosophist like Steiner, on the other hand, the
cosmic force which elaborates the world comprises in its spheres,
fitted one into another, the myriads of souls which crystallize and
incarnate ceaselessly in all beings. He, who saw the _underside_ of
creation, could but recognize and admire the extent of the all-round
gaze with which Haeckel surveyed his _above_. It was in vain that the
naturalist would deny the divine Author of the universal scheme: he
proved it in spite of himself, in so well describing His work. As to
the theosophist, he greeted, in the surging of species and in the
breath which urges them onward--Man in the making, the very thought of
God, the visible expression of the planetary Word.[3]
[2] A speech delivered in Paris, 28th August 1878. See also
Haeckel's _History of Natural Creation_, 13th lecture.
[3] This is how Dr. Steiner himself describes the famous
German naturalist: "Haeckel's personality is captivating. It
is the most complete contrast to the _tone_ of his writings.
If Haeckel had but made a slight study of the philosophy of
which he speaks, not even as a dilettante, but like a child,
he would have drawn the most lofty spiritual conclusions from
his phylogenetic studies. Haeckel's doctrine is grand, but
Haeckel himself is the worst of commentators on his doctrine.
It is not by showing our contemporaries the weak points in
Haeckel's doctrine that we can promote intellectual progress,
but by pointing out to them the grandeur of his phylogenetic
thought." Steiner has developed these ideas in two works:
_Welt und Lebensanschauungen im 19ten Jahrhundert_ (Theories
of the Universe and of Life in the Nineteenth Century), and
_Haeckel und seine Gegner_ (Haeckel and his Opponents).
While thus pursuing his studies, Rudolf Steiner recalled the saying of
his Master: "To conquer the dragon, his skin must be penetrated." While
stealing within the carapace of present-day materialism, he had seized
his weapons. Henceforth he was ready for the combat. He needed but a
field of action to give battle, and a powerful aid to uphold him
therein. He was to find his field in the Theosophical Society, and his
aid in a remarkable woman.
In 1897 Rudolf Steiner went to Berlin to conduct a literary magazine
and to give lectures there.
On his arrival, he found there a branch of the Theosophical Society.
The German branch of this Society was always noted for its great
independence, which is natural in a country of transcendental
philosophy and of fastidious criticism. It had already made a
considerable contribution to occult literature through the interesting
periodical, _The Sphinx_, conducted by Dr. Huebbe-Schleiden, and Dr.
Carl du Prel's book--_Philosophie der Mystik_. But, the leaders having
retired, it was almost over with the group. Great discussions and petty
wranglings divided the theosophists beyond the Rhine. Should Rudolf
Steiner enter the Theosophical Society? This question forced itself
urgently upon him, and it was of the utmost gravity, both for himself
and for his cause.
Through his first Master, through the brotherhood with which he was
associated, and by his own innermost nature, Steiner belongs to another
school of Occultism, I mean to the esoteric Christianity of the West,
and most especially to the Rosicrucian initiation.
After mature consideration he resolved to join the Theosophical Society
of which he became a member in 1902. He did not, however, enter it as a
pupil of the Eastern tradition, but as an initiate of Rosicrucian
esotericism who gladly recognized the profound depth of the Hindu
Wisdom and offered it a brotherly hand to make a magnetic link between
the two. He understood that the two traditions were not meant to
contend with each other, but to act in concert, with complete
independence, and thus to work for the common good of civilization. The
Hindu tradition, in fact, contains the greatest treasure of occult
science as regards cosmogony and the prehistoric periods of humanity,
while the tradition of Christian and Western esotericism looks from its
immeasurable height upon the far-off future and the final destinies of
our race. For the past contains and prepares the future, as the future
issues from the past and completes it.
Rudolf Steiner was assisted in his work by a powerful recruit and one
of inestimable value in the propagandist work that he was about to
undertake.
Mlle. Marie von Sivers, a Russian by birth, and of an unusually varied
cosmopolitan education (she writes and speaks Russian, French, German,
and English equally well), had herself also reached Theosophy by other
roads, after long seeking for the truth which illumines all because it
illumines the very depths of our own being. The extreme refinement of
her aristocratic nature, at once modest and proud, her great and
delicate sensitiveness, the extent and balance of her intelligence, her
artistic and mental endowments, all made her wonderfully fitted for the
part of an agent and an apostle. The Oriental theosophy had attracted
and delighted her without altogether convincing her. The lectures of
Dr. Steiner gave her the light which convinces by casting its beams on
all sides, as from a transplendent centre. Independent and free, she,
like many Russians in good society, sought for some ideal work to which
she could devote all her energies. She had found it. Dr. Steiner having
been appointed General Secretary of the German Section of the
Theosophical Society, Mlle. Marie von Sivers became his assistant. From
that time, in spreading the work throughout Germany and the adjacent
countries, she displayed a real genius for organization, maintained
with unwearied activity.
As for Rudolf Steiner, he had already given ample proof of his profound
thought and his eloquence. He knew himself, and he was master of
himself. But such faith, such devotion must have increased his energy a
hundredfold, and given wings to his words. His writings on esoteric
questions followed one another in rapid succession.[4]
[4] _Die Mystik, im Aufgange des neuzeitlichen Geisteslebens_
(1901); _Das Christentum als mystische Tatsache_ (1902);
_Theosophie_ (1904). He is now preparing an important book,
which will no doubt be his chief work, and which is to be
called _Geheimwissenschaft_ (Occult Science).
He delivered lectures in Berlin, Leipzig, Cassel, Munich, Stuttgart,
Vienna, Budapest, etc. All his books are of a high standard. He is
equally skilled in the deduction of ideas in philosophical order, and
in rigorous analysis of scientific facts. And when he so chooses, he
can give a poetical form to his thought, in original and striking
imagery. But his whole self is shown only by his presence and his
speech, private or public. The characteristic of his eloquence is a
singular force, always gentle in expression, resulting undoubtedly from
perfect serenity of soul combined with wonderful clearness of mind.
Added to this at times is an inner and mysterious vibration which makes
itself felt by the listener from the very first words. Never a word
that could shock or jar. From argument to argument, from analogy to
analogy, he leads you on from the known to the unknown. Whether
following up the comparative development of the earth and of man,
according to occult tradition, through the Lemurian, Atlantean, Asiatic
and European periods; whether explaining the physiological and psychic
constitution of man as he now is; whether enumerating the stages of
Rosicrucian initiation, or commenting on the Gospel of St. John and the
Apocalypse, or applying his root-ideas to mythology, history and
literature, that which dominates and guides his discourse is ever this
power of synthesis, which co-ordinates facts under one ruling idea and
gathers them together in one harmonious vision. And it is ever this
inward and contagious fervor, this secret music of the soul, which is,
as it were, a subtle melody in harmony with the Universal Soul.
Such, at least, is what I felt on first meeting him and listening to
him two years ago. I could not better describe this undefinable feeling
than by recalling the saying of a poet-friend to whom I was showing the
portrait of the German theosophist. Standing before those deep and
clear-seeing eyes, before that countenance, hollowed by inward
struggles, moulded by a lofty spirit which has proved its balance on
the heights and its calm in the depths, my friend exclaimed: "Behold a
master of himself and of life!"
THE WAY OF INITIATION
I
THE SUPERPHYSICAL WORLD AND ITS GNOSIS
In this practical age and because of the many various claims of the
day, it is but natural that people, who hear of transcendentalism
should at once ask the question: "How may we for ourselves know the
truth of such statements?" Indeed, it is noticeable, as a
characteristic of the majority, that they will accept nothing on faith,
or mere "authority," but wish rather to rely entirely upon their own
judgment. Therefore, when a mystic undertakes to explain something of
the superphysical nature of man, and of the destiny of the human soul
and spirit before birth and after death, he is at once confronted with
that fundamental demand. Such doctrine, they seem to think is important
only when you have shown them the way by which they may convince
themselves of its truth.
[5] Translated from _Lusifer-Gnosis_ (May to Dec. 1904), a
theosophical magazine, published by M. Altmann, Leipzig, and
edited by Dr. Rudolph Steiner (17 Motzstrasse, Berlin, W.).
This translation appeared first in the _Theosophist_ (October
1907-June 1908), a magazine of Brotherhood, of Comparative
Religion, Philosophy and Science, and of Occultism. Edited by
Annie Besant, President of the Theosophical Society, Adyar,
Madras.
This critical inquiry is quite justified; and no true mystic or
occultist will dispute its fairness, yet it is unfortunate that with
many who make the demand, there exists a feeling of skepticism or
antagonism toward the mystic or any attempt on his part to explain
anything occult. This feeling becomes especially marked when the mystic
intimates how the truths which he has described may be attained. For
they say, "Whatever is true may be demonstrated; therefore, prove to us
what you assert." They demand that the truth must be something clear
and simple, something which an ordinary intellect may comprehend.
"Surely," they add, "this knowledge cannot be the possession of a
chosen few, to whom it is given by a special revelation." And in this
way the real messenger of transcendental truth is frequently confronted
with people who reject him, because--unlike the scientist, for example,
he can produce no proofs for his assertions, of such a nature as they
are able to understand. Again, there are those who cautiously reject
any information pertaining to the superphysical because to them it does
not seem reasonable. Thereupon they partially satisfy themselves, by
claiming that we cannot know anything of what lies beyond birth or
death, or of anything which cannot be perceived through our five
ordinary physical senses.
These are but a few of the arguments and criticisms with which to-day
the messenger of a spiritual philosophy is confronted; but they are
similar to all those which compose the key-note of our time, and he who
puts himself at the service of a spiritual movement must recognize this
condition quite clearly.
For his own part, the mystic is aware that his knowledge rests upon
superphysical facts; which to him are just as tangible, for example, as
those that form the foundation of the experiences and observations
described by a traveller in Africa or any strange land. To the mystic
applies what Annie Besant has said in her manual, "Death and After?"
"A seasoned African explorer would care but little for the
criticisms passed on his report by persons who had never been
there; he might tell what he saw, describe the animals whose habits
he had studied, sketch the country he had traversed, sum up its
products and its characteristics. If he was contradicted, laughed
at, set right, by untravelled critics, he would be neither ruffled
nor distressed, but would merely leave them alone. Ignorance cannot
convince knowledge by repeated asseveration of its nescience. The
opinion of a hundred persons on a subject of which they are wholly
ignorant is of no more weight than the opinion of one such person.
Evidence is strengthened by many consenting witnesses, testifying
each to his knowledge of a fact, but nothing multiplied a thousand
times remains nothing."
Here is expressed the mystic's view of his own situation. He hears the
objections which are raised on every side, yet he knows that for
himself he has no need to dispute them. He realizes that his certain
knowledge is being criticized by those who have not had his experience,
that he is in the position of a mathematician who has discovered a
truth which can lose no value though a thousand voices are raised in
opposition.
Then again will arise the objection of the skeptics: "Mathematical
truths may be proven to anyone," they will say, "and though perhaps you
have really found something, we shall accept it only when we have
learned of its truth through our own investigation." Such then have
reason to consider themselves to be in the right, because it is clear
to them that anyone who acquires the necessary knowledge can prove a
mathematical truth, while the experiences professed by the mystic if
true depend upon the special faculties of a few elect mystics, in whom
they assume they are expected to blindly believe.
For him, who rightly considers this objection, all justification for
the doubt immediately vanishes; and mystics can here use the very
logical reasoning of the skeptics themselves, by emphasizing the truth
that the way to Higher Knowledge is open to anyone who will acquire for
himself the faculties by which he may prove the spiritual truths herein
claimed. The mystic asserts nothing which his opponents would not also
be compelled to assert, if they did but fully comprehend their own
statements. They, however, in making an assertion, often formulate a
claim which constitutes a direct contradiction of that assertion.
Skeptics are seldom willing to acquire the necessary faculties to test
the assertions of the mystic, but prefer to judge him offhand, without
regard to their own lack of qualification. The sincere mystic says to
them: "I do not claim to be 'chosen' in the sense that you mean. I have
merely developed within myself, some of man's additional senses in
order to acquire the faculties through which it is possible to speak of
glimpses into superphysical regions." These senses are dormant within
you and every other person, until they are developed, (as is necessary
with the usual senses and faculties more noticeable in the growth of a
child). Yet his opponents answer: "You must prove your truths to us as
we now are!" This at once appears a difficult task, for they have not
complied with the necessity of developing the dormant powers within
them, they are still unwilling to do so, and yet they insist that he
shall give them proofs; nor do they see that this is exactly as if a
peasant at his plough should demand of the mathematician the proof of a
complicated problem, without his undergoing the trouble of learning
mathematics.
This mixed mental condition appears to be so general and its solution
so simple that one almost hesitates to speak of it. And yet it
indicates a delusion under which millions of people continue living at
the present time. When explained to them they always agree in theory,
since it is quite as plain as, that two and two make four; yet in
practice they continually act in contradiction. The mistake has grown
to be second nature with many; they indulge it without realizing that
they do so without desiring to be convinced of its error; just as they
set themselves against other laws which they should and would at all
times recognize as embodying a principle of the simplest nature, if
they but gave it an unbiased consideration. It matters not whether the
mystic of to-day moves among thinking artisans, or in a more educated
circle, wherever he goes he meets with the same prejudice, the same
self-contradiction. One finds it in popular lectures, in the newspapers
and magazines, and even in the more learned works or treatises.
Here we must recognize quite clearly that we are dealing with a
consensus of opinion that amounts to a sign of the times, which we may
not simply pronounce as incompetent, nor deal with as possibly a
correct but unjust criticism. We must understand that this prejudice
against the higher truths, lies deep in the very being of our age. We
must understand clearly that the great successes, the immense advance
marking our time, necessarily encourages this condition. The nineteenth
century especially had in the above respect a dark side to its
wonderful excellences. Its greatness rests upon discoveries in the
external world, and conquest of natural forces for technical and
industrial purposes. These successes could have been attained only by
the employment of the mind directed toward material results.
The civilization of the present day is the result of the training of
our senses, and of that part of our mind which is occupied with the
world of sense. Almost every step we take in the busy marts of to-day
shows us how much we owe to this kind of training. And it is under the
influence of these blessings of civilization that the habits of
thought, prevalent among our fellow-men, have been developed. They
continue to abide by the senses and the mind, because it is by means of
these that they have grown great. People were taught to train
themselves to admit nothing as true except those things that were
presented to them by the senses or the intellect. And nothing is more
apt to claim for itself the only valid testimony, the only absolute
authority, than the mind or the senses. If a man has acquired by means
of them a certain degree of culture, he thenceforth accustoms himself
to submit everything to their consideration, everything to their
criticism. And again in another sphere, in the domain of Social Life,
we find a similar trait. The man of the nineteenth century insisted, in
the fullest sense of the word, upon the absolute freedom of
personality, and repudiated any authority in the Social Commonwealth.
He endeavored to construct the community in such a way that the full
independence, the self-chosen vocation of each individual, should,
without interference, be assured. In this way it became habitual for
him to consider everything from the standpoint of the average
individual.