The Stages of Higher Knowledge
GA 12
Translated by Steiner Online Library
3. Inspiration
[ 1 ] From the description of imagination, it has become clear how, through it, the initiate leaves the realm of external sensory experiences. This is the case to an even greater degree with inspiration. In inspiration, the imagination is based even less on what can be described as an external stimulus. Here, the individual must find within himself the power that enables him to form mental images of something. He must be inwardly active to a much greater degree than is the case with external cognition. In the latter, he simply surrenders to external impressions, and they give rise to mental images within him. This surrender is absent in inspiration. Now, colors are no longer provided by the eyes, nor sounds by the ears, and so on. The entire content of the imagination must, so to speak, be created through one’s own activity—that is, through purely spiritual-psychic processes. And into that which a person thus creates through the activity of their inner being, the revelation of the higher, real world must be imprinted. A peculiar contradiction seems to arise in such a description of the higher world of knowledge. Human beings are to be, in a certain sense, the creators of their own images; and yet, of course, these images must not be their own creations; rather, the processes of the higher world must express themselves through them, just as the processes of the lower world express themselves in the perceptions of the eyes, ears, and so on. But this is a contradiction that is bound to arise in the description of this kind of knowledge. For this is precisely what the initiate must master on the path to inspiration: that through his inner activity he brings about something that, in ordinary life, is imposed upon him from without. — Why do ideas not arise arbitrarily in ordinary life? Because in his thinking, the human being must orient himself toward external objects. All arbitrariness of the “I” falls away, because the objects say: this is how we are. The objects themselves dictate how they are to be imagined; the “I” has no say in the matter. Anyone who refuses to conform to the objects will simply imagine things incorrectly; and he would soon realize how little he could manage in the world with such imaginings. This necessary attitude of human beings toward the things of the external world in cognition can be described with the term “selfless.” Human beings must relate to things selflessly. And the external world is their teacher in this selflessness. It dispels all their illusions, all their fantasies, all their illogical judgments, and everything that is unsubjective by simply presenting its true image to their senses.
[ 2 ] If a person wishes to prepare himself for inspiration, he must develop his inner being to such an extent that this selflessness becomes second nature to him, even when there is no external compulsion to do so. He must learn to create from within, but in such a way that his “I” does not play the slightest arbitrary role in this creative process. The difficulties involved in attaining such selflessness become all the more apparent the more one considers which soul forces are particularly relevant to inspiration. — We distinguish between the three fundamental forces of soul life: imagination, feeling, and will. In ordinary sensory perception, ideas are stimulated by external objects. And through these externally stimulated representations, feeling and volition also take on their specific directions. For example, a person sees an object; this object arouses pleasure in him, and as a result, he desires the object in question. The pleasure resides in feeling; through this, the will is stirred, just as it itself has received its character from the representation. The ultimate cause of representation, feeling, and volition, however, is the external object. — Another case would be this. A person experiences an event. This causes him anxiety. He runs away from the scene of the event. Here, too, external events are the primary cause; they are perceived through the senses, become representations, the feeling of fear sets in; and the will—which is realized in the act of running away—is the consequence. In the case of inspiration, an external object in this form is absent. The senses do not come into play for perception. Therefore, they cannot be the stimuli of representations either. From this perspective, no influence is exerted on feeling and volition. — Yet it is precisely these two from which, as from fertile soil, ideas arise internally during inspiration, growing out of them, as it were. And true ideas grow when the soil is healthy; errors and delusions grow when it is unhealthy.
[ 3 ] Just as certainly as the inspirations that spring from healthy feelings and desires can be revelations of a higher world, so certainly do errors, delusions, and fantasies about a higher world spring from disordered feelings and desires.
[ 4 ] The secret training therefore sets itself the task of showing people the means that enable them to transform their feelings and impulses of will into ones that are healthy and fruitful for inspiration. As in all aspects of the Esoteric School, this too involves an intimate regulation and shaping of the soul life. One must first acquire certain feelings that are known only to a limited extent in ordinary life. Some of these feelings will be briefly described here. Among the most important is a heightened sensitivity to “true” and “false,” to “right” and “wrong.” Certainly, the ordinary person also has similar feelings. But in the case of the initiate, these must be developed to a much higher degree. Suppose someone makes a logical error: another person recognizes this error and corrects it. Consider how great a role judgment and intellect play in such a correction, and how small a role the feeling of pleasure plays in the correct and displeasure in the incorrect. Mind you, it is by no means intended to claim that pleasure and, correspondingly, displeasure do not exist at all. But the degree to which they are present in ordinary life must be increased infinitely in the secret training. The student of the secret teachings must systematically direct his attention to his inner life: and he must bring it to the point where what is logically incorrect becomes a source of pain that is by no means inferior to physical pain; and conversely, what is “correct” must give him genuine joy or pleasure. Where, then, another person merely engages their intellect and power of judgment, the initiate must learn to experience the entire spectrum of feelings—from pain to enthusiasm, from agonizing tension to the ecstatic resolution that comes with possessing the truth. Indeed, he must learn to feel something akin to hatred toward that which the “normal” person experiences merely as a sober, cold “falsehood”; he must develop within himself a love for the truth that bears a wholly personal character—as personal and as warm as the feelings a lover has toward his beloved. — Certainly, even among our “educated” circles, people often speak of the “love of truth”; yet what is meant there is simply incomparable to what the secret student must undergo in quiet, inner soul work in this direction. He must patiently present this or that “truth,” this or that “falsehood,” to himself again and again on a trial basis; and he must devote himself to the matter, not merely to train his power of judgment—which soberly distinguishes between “true” and “false”—but he must also develop a very personal relationship to it all. — It is certainly true that, at the beginning of such training, a person may fall into what might be called “hypersensitivity.” An incorrect judgment they hear from those around them, an inconsistency, and so on, can cause them almost unbearable pain. — This must therefore be taken into account during the training. For if this were not done, it could indeed pose great dangers to the student’s emotional balance. If care is taken to ensure that the character remains steadfast, then storms may rage within the soul, yet the person will still have the strength to live in harmony with the outside world through their demeanor and gestures. A mistake is made in every case where the initiatory student is placed in opposition to the external world, so that he finds it unbearable or even wants to flee from it. The higher emotional world must not develop at the expense of steady action and work in the external world; therefore, the inner elevation of the emotional life must be accompanied by a strengthening of resilience against external impressions. Practical esoteric training therefore instructs the individual never to undertake the above-mentioned exercises for the cultivation of their emotional life without at the same time also developing in such a way that they can gain an understanding of what life demands of a person in terms of a sense of tolerance. At the same time, one must be able to feel the keenest pain within oneself when, for example, a person makes an incorrect judgment, and yet be completely tolerant toward that person, because the thought is just as vividly present in the soul: this person must judge in this way, and his judgment must be regarded as a fact. — It is true, however, that the inner life of the occultist will increasingly take on the form of a double life. Ever richer processes will unfold in his soul as he journeys through life; a second world will become ever more independent of what the outer world offers. But this double life will be precisely what bears fruit for genuine living practice. What results from this is quick-wittedness of judgment and precision in decision-making. Whereas someone unaccustomed to such training must wade through long chains of thought, tossed back and forth between decision and perplexity, the occultist will swiftly grasp life’s situations, quickly uncover connections hidden from the ordinary gaze, and so on. It often even requires a great deal of patience on his part to adapt to the slow pace at which another person might grasp something, whereas for him, this comprehension occurs in the blink of an eye.
[ 5 ] So far, we have spoken only of the qualities that the emotional life must possess so that inspiration can arise in the proper way. The other question is this: How do emotions become fruitful, so that they give birth, of their own accord, to genuine ideas that belong to the world of inspiration? To understand what esoteric science has to say in answer to this question, one must become acquainted with the fact that the human soul life always possesses a certain treasure trove of feelings that go beyond what is stimulated by sensory perceptions. Human beings feel, as it were, more than what things compel them to feel. However, in ordinary life, this excess is directed in a way that must be transformed into a different direction through esoteric training. Take, for example, a feeling of fear or anxiety. It is easy to see that in many cases, the fear or anxiety is greater than it would be if it were entirely proportionate to a corresponding external event. Now imagine: the student of the secret teachings works energetically on himself so that, in no situation he encounters, will he experience greater fear or anxiety than is truly justified by the corresponding external events. Now, a certain degree of fear or anxiety is always generated by the expenditure of soul-force. This soul-force is in fact lost precisely because fear or anxiety is generated. The secret student truly conserves this soul energy when he refrains from fear or anxiety—and other such emotions. And it remains available to him for something else. If he repeats such practices often, the soul forces continually saved up will form an inner treasure, and the initiate will soon experience that from such emotional savings the seeds of ideas will grow, which give expression to revelations of the higher life. Such things cannot be “proven” in the ordinary sense; one can only give the initiatory student the instruction: do this or that—and when he carries it out, he will already see that the unmistakable fruits set in.
[ 6 ] To a superficial reader of what has just been described, it might easily seem contradictory that, on the one hand, an enrichment of the emotional world is called for—in that feelings of pleasure, pain, and so on are to be aroused by what would otherwise evoke only intellectual judgment—and, on the other hand, there is talk of economies in feelings. This contradiction disappears immediately when one considers that the savings are to be made in those emotions that are stimulated by the external senses. Precisely what is saved here appears as an enrichment in relation to spiritual experiences. And it is entirely correct that feelings spared in this way from the world of sensory perception are not only freed up in the other realm, but also prove to be creative in that realm. They provide the material for the ideas through which the spiritual world reveals itself.
[ 7 ] However, it would not get us very far if we were to limit ourselves to such savings as those indicated above. Greater success requires more than that. One must provide the soul with an even greater treasure of emotion-generating power than is possible through this method. For example, one must tentatively expose oneself to certain external impressions and then completely deny oneself the emotions that arise in the so-called “normal” state. For example, one must confront an event that “normally” stirs the soul and completely forbid oneself this stirring. One can do this by actually confronting such an event or by simply using the imagination. The latter is even better for fruitful esoteric training. Since the student is initiated into imagination, either before his preparation for inspiration or simultaneously with it, he must actually be able to present an event to his soul imaginatively with the same intensity as if it were really there. — If, in the course of long inner work, the student repeatedly exposes himself to things and processes and refrains from having the corresponding “normal” feelings, then the fertile ground for inspiration is created within his soul. — Just as a side note, it should be mentioned here that anyone who describes such a training for inspiration can fully appreciate it when, from the standpoint of our current cultural context, certain objections are raised against such a description. And one can not only raise this or that objection, but can even smile knowingly and say: “Inspiration cannot, after all, be pedantically instilled; it is a natural gift of genius.” Yes, certainly, from the standpoint of our current cultural climate, it may seem quite comical when much is said about cultivating something that defies explanation; but this cultural climate is unaware of how little it is capable of thinking its own trains of thought through to their conclusion. If one were to ask a proponent of this modern mindset to believe that some highly evolved animal did not develop gradually but appeared “suddenly,” one would soon hear that the modern-minded person does not believe in such a “miracle.” Such a thing, they would say, is “superstition.” Well, in the realm of the life of the soul, however, such a modern, educated person—entirely in keeping with his own views—is afflicted by blatant superstition. For he refuses to consider that a more perfect soul must also have developed, that it could not have suddenly appeared as a gift of nature. Outwardly, of course, many a genius appears to have been born “out of nowhere,” to be there in an inexplicable way; yet this is how it appears only to materialistic superstition; the spiritual scientist knows that a genius-like disposition, which appears in a person’s life as if born out of nowhere, is simply the result of that person’s training toward inspiration in a previous earthly life. — In the theoretical realm, materialistic superstition is harmful; but it is far worse still in a practical realm such as this one. Since it assumes that geniuses must “fall from the sky” for all time to come, it pays no heed to such “occult nonsense” or such “fantastical mysticism” that speaks of preparation for inspiration. Consequently, however, the materialists’ superstition hinders the true progress of humanity. It does not ensure that the abilities lying dormant within people are developed.
[ 8 ] In reality, it is often those who call themselves progressives and free thinkers who are, in fact, the enemies of true progress. But this is—as I said—merely a side note, one that is necessary in light of the relationship between occult science and the current historical era.
[ 9 ] Now, the soul forces—which, through the characteristic withdrawal of “normal” feelings, are stored up as a treasure within the student—would certainly, even without any outside assistance, transform into inspirations. And the secret student would experience true images rising within his soul, representing experiences in higher worlds. The process would begin with the simplest experiences of supersensory phenomena, and gradually more complex and higher realities would come to light if the student continued to live inwardly in the direction indicated. — In reality, however, such secret training would be quite impractical today, and it is therefore probably not carried out anywhere where people go about their work seriously. For if the student were to develop everything “from within himself” in this way—whatever inspiration might provide—he would most certainly end up spinning out of himself everything that has ever been said, for example, about the nature of the human being, about human life after death, about the evolution of the human race and the planets, and so on. But such a student would, of course, need immeasurably long periods of time to do so. It would be like, for example, someone trying to spin the entire field of geometry out of their own mind, without regard for what people before them have already accomplished in this field. Certainly, “in theory” such a thing is entirely possible. To carry it out in practice, however, would be folly. In the esoteric sciences, too, one does not proceed in this way; rather, one allows a teacher to impart those things that have been attained for humanity by inspired predecessors. This tradition must currently serve as the foundation for one’s own inspiration. What is offered today in the relevant literature and in lectures, etc., from the field of the esoteric sciences can certainly serve as such a foundation for inspiration. These include, for example, the teachings on the various fundamental parts of the human being (physical body, etheric body, astral body, etc.), insights into life after death up to a new incarnation, and then, for example, everything that has been published under the title From the Akashic Records. For when it comes to inspiration, one must firmly hold to the view that it is needed to discover and experience the higher truths for oneself, but not to understand them. Without inspiration, one cannot initially discover what is communicated under the title “From the Akashic Records.” But once one receives it through communication, one can comprehend it through ordinary logical judgment. No one should claim that there are things asserted there that cannot be logically grasped without inspiration. One does not find them incomprehensible because one is not inspired, but only because one is unwilling to think deeply enough. — Thus, when such truths are communicated, they arouse inspiration in the soul through their own power. One need only try, if one wishes to partake in such inspiration, not to receive these insights in a sober and rational manner, but to allow oneself to be carried away by the soaring momentum of the ideas into every possible emotional experience. And how could one fail to do so! Can one’s feelings remain dull when one lets the overwhelming processes in the spirit pass before one’s eyes—such as how the Earth developed from the Moon, the Sun, and Saturn—or when one penetrates the infinite depths of human nature through an understanding of one’s etheric and astral bodies, and so on? One might almost say: it is bad enough for someone who can experience such structures of thought with detachment. For if one did not experience them with detachment, but instead lived through all the emotional tensions and releases made possible by them—all the surges and crises, all the advances and setbacks, all the catastrophes and revelations—then the fertile ground for inspiration itself would be prepared within one. However, one will only truly be able to develop the necessary emotional life in response to such messages from a higher world by engaging in exercises of the kind indicated above. To anyone who directs all their emotional powers toward the external world of sensory perception, the narratives from a higher world will appear as “dry concepts,” as “gray theory.” Such a person will never be able to understand why another’s heart warms when hearing the teachings of esoteric science, while he himself remains “cold to the very core.” He will even say, “But that’s all just for the mind; it’s intellectual. I want something for the soul.” Yet he does not realize that it is his own fault that his heart remains cold.
[ 10 ] Many still underestimate the power of what is hidden in these messages from a higher world alone. And in connection with this, they overestimate all sorts of other exercises and procedures. “Yes,” they say, “what good does it do me if others tell me what higher worlds are like? I’d like to see for myself.” Such people usually lack the patience to immerse themselves again and again in such accounts from higher worlds. If they did, they would see what a powerful spark these “mere stories” hold and how truly one’s own inspiration is stimulated when one receives the inspirations of others. — Certainly, other exercises must be added to “learning” if the student wishes to make rapid progress in experiencing the higher worlds; yet no one should underestimate the boundless significance of “learning” in particular. And in any case, no one can be given hope that they will make rapid progress in the higher worlds through any exercises unless they also bring themselves to immerse themselves ceaselessly in the Communications, which—in a purely narrative form—are presented by those who are called to do so, describing the events and beings of the higher worlds. — Because such communications are currently being presented in literature and lectures, etc., and because the first hints are also being given regarding the exercises that lead to knowledge of the higher worlds (for example, the descriptions in “How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?” are precisely such initial hints), one can now learn something of what was once communicated only in strictly closed secret schools. As has often been mentioned, such publication stems from the circumstances of our time and must take place. However, it must also be emphasized time and again that, while this does make it easier to acquire esoteric knowledge, it still cannot completely replace the sure guidance of an experienced esoteric teacher.
[ 11 ] Knowledge gained through inspiration leads human beings to experience the processes in the invisible worlds—for example, the evolution of humankind, that of the Earth, and its planetary incarnations; but if, within these higher worlds, not merely processes but beings are to be considered, then intuition must come into play as a mode of knowledge. What takes place through such beings is perceived in image through imagination, and in terms of laws and relationships through inspiration; if one wishes to encounter the beings themselves, then intuition is required. — How inspiration fits into the world of imaginations, how it permeates the latter as a “spiritual music” and thereby becomes the means of expression for the beings to be recognized through intuition—this will be discussed later. Then intuition itself will also be discussed. Here it suffices to point out that what is referred to as “intuition” in esoteric science has nothing to do with what the word “intuition” is often used to mean in popular parlance today. In popular usage, the term is used to describe a more or less uncertain “hunch” in contrast to a clear, logically derived intellectual or rational insight. In esoteric science, “intuition” is not something unclear or uncertain, but rather a lofty form of knowledge, full of the clearest clarity and the most unquestionable certainty.