The Rudolf Steiner Archive

36. The Initiation

[ 1 ] The word “initiation” belongs to the field of theosophy. When speaking of theosophy or spiritual science, one should not have the impression that one is dealing with something that belongs solely to modern times. Theosophy is as old as human thought itself—the human longing for something eternal, something enduring, which, as the supersensible, underlies all that is transitory. In the course of his existence, a person comes to know more and more about the things and beings around him, insofar as they make an impression on him or inhibit or promote his impulses of will. He arrives at a more or less clear understanding of these things through the forces that govern them; however, he cannot come to know what lies hidden behind the visible.

[ 2 ] The science of the spirit, then, rests on two firm pillars. They may seem like hypotheses to those who have not yet delved into the science of the spirit, but they are certain facts for those who immerse themselves more and more in it.

[ 3 ] The first pillar is the belief that behind everything the mind can designate as the visible world lies an invisible realm, and the second pillar is that human beings are capable of penetrating this world of the invisible and the hidden. Those who are completely captivated by materialistic views will regard such a quest as fanciful. The judgment of our contemporaries is that, in humanity’s childhood stage, people dreamed of something inexplicable behind appearances; because they could not comprehend it, they dreamed of gods and spirits! Modern man, however, has penetrated the laws of existence through science; he stands at the masculine stage of his existence and could no longer hold on to such childish views.

[ 4 ] It is certainly true that our admirable science has given us the opportunity to view everything pertaining to knowledge of the physical plane in a completely different way than our ancestors did. But if, in doing so, it seeks to dismiss our ancestors’ views on knowledge of the invisible—if, for example, it presents only the most complete possible understanding of the physical world as the ideal of natural science—then it is no longer true for us.

[ 5 ] Anyone who knows the laws of mechanics and looks, for example, at a watch will be able to say, based on these laws: “This is how the gears turn; this is how the entire mechanism of the watch moves.” He can explain the watch completely on his own. But does that mean we can say the watchmaker is superfluous? Even if we were ever able to explain the world entirely on its own, as if it were a watch, that would not render unnecessary what lies behind the world.

[ 6 ] Others say that it may well be that there is a supernatural realm beyond the sensory world, but that their understanding is limited; human nature is not such that it can penetrate the knowledge of this supernatural realm. Therefore, they need not concern themselves with it any further. All of this belongs to the realm of faith or opinion, and should remain where it belongs.

[ 7 ] Spiritual science, however, asserts the opposite. It states that it is possible for human beings to gain knowledge of these worlds, that they can develop the ability to penetrate the supersensible realm. However, not with the abilities and methods that the naturalistic researcher employs in his investigations; those cannot penetrate the realm of the supersensible. But there are latent powers within the human being that he can develop. When he develops them, something occurs for him that can be compared to the experience of a person born blind. It is a momentous event for a person born blind when the bleak darkness that has surrounded him until now ceases, when the world of light and colors emerges for him out of the darkness. A world that has always been around him but which he could not perceive—he can now perceive it. But it is an even more profound, more glorious, and more exalted event for a human being when, through inner awakening—through rebirth—inner spiritual senses are brought to light within him. Goethe certainly knew a thing or two about these matters; he says: There are many unrecognized, unacknowledged worlds around us—spiritual worlds—and no one today has the right to deny them simply because they cannot perceive them. That would be just as illogical as if a blind person were to deny the world of colors and light around him simply because he cannot perceive it.

[ 8 ] We can develop our ability to perceive the worlds around us. Goethe points this out, saying: “Our eyes were indifferent organs that could not yet see.” The moment the elemental forces of light conjured up the eyes, a new world of light and color opened up for human beings. This development is endless and continues on and on, and when human beings develop these non-sensory, these supersensory spiritual senses, new, unknown, and unrecognized worlds open up to them—worlds that have always been around them.

[ 9 ] Our contemporaries, however, are not inclined to acknowledge this. Spiritual science encounters a great deal of opposition; people say it deals with imaginary, fantastical subjects. The spiritual scientist is best able to understand to what extent it is justified that people today level this accusation against spiritual science. But it is necessary today to present this spiritual science to people. Humanity will come to recognize it; it just needs time to do so.

[ 10 ] When we speak of the development of those innate human faculties and abilities that open up new worlds to us, we are dealing with people whom one might call “We-people” or “Man-people.”

[ 11 ] When we pick up books or newspaper articles that deal with these matters, they say: “We cannot know,” or: “One cannot know”; they regard the spiritual scientist as presumptuous when he says: “We can know.” But what is immodest? It is to want to decide something about which one knows nothing. It is logical to speak about and make decisions only regarding things about which one has some knowledge.

[ 12 ] The source from which spiritual science derives its teachings has already been indicated. It is drawn from those worlds that can be entered when a person develops their spiritual senses. The ordinary knowledge that a person possesses consists of a series of judgments and so on, which a person strings together, as it were, on a thread; and this thread continually slips from their grasp, continually leaving them. It also leaves them when a person falls asleep, when happiness and suffering, joy and pain—everything that surrounds them in daily life—fade away for them. But no person who possesses logic can say that this sum of pleasure and suffering, of pain and sorrow, and so on, disappears in the evening only to reappear anew in the morning. It endures beyond the state of sleep, and a person must ask himself: Where, then, is the human soul—that which we feel as our inner self, that which delights and moves us—where are these inner forces while we sleep, until the moment when they re-enter the person and become scouts for the world around us? Where is that which conjures up a world of dreams, of light, color, warmth, and cold? Where is that during sleep? There, human understanding slips away, and it also slips away when death occurs, when that mysterious hour arrives when a person leaves their physical body forever. Has the entire content of the soul—when a person no longer retains any physical organs—departed along with those physical organs? Here again is where awareness of the sensory world slips away from us. We might say: There must be all sorts of things beyond it, yet we who live in this world need not know what lies behind the gate of death, what sleep conceals; we are here to be active, to work in the visible world—why should we concern ourselves with the invisible? But if a person could fully unfold their activity within the sensory realm, then that might well hold true; then they could say: Let there be whatever lies beyond death! Yet knowledge of what lies beyond death is of the utmost importance for life. For the forces in the invisible realm constantly reach into the sensory world, and we can make use of them if we establish a connection with the supersensory world. A person who knows nothing of this world will, little by little—if they live in alienation—become weak and powerless in the sensory world as well, unable to grasp the insights of the supersensible world. Every object, every being in our surroundings is permeated by the supersensible world, and we behave weakly and powerlessly if we know nothing of this supersensible realm. Take, for example, a piece of iron: A supernatural magnetic force lies within it. If we know nothing of this force, we can only make partial use of this iron. And so supernatural forces and beings lie dormant everywhere within the physical world. Knowledge of the supernatural is necessary for human beings; it is not merely something that satisfies mere curiosity. Human beings need this knowledge for their creative work and labor in this world.

[ 13 ] This supersensory world can be attained by developing the powers and abilities that lie dormant within human beings. Spiritual science draws people’s attention to these powers and abilities and shows the way to develop them. Spiritual science is nothing new; there have always been initiates among humanity, and initiation is nothing more than the unlocking of these supersensory powers within the human being. Very few people, however, know that there have always been initiated individuals who were trained in schools of initiation or secret schools and were able to use the powers and abilities developed there to have the same kinds of experiences in the supersensible worlds as ordinary people have in the sensory world. Such people were always called initiates.

[ 14 ] Only those who had passed rigorous tests—in moral, intellectual, and spiritual terms—could be admitted to such a school, so that they would be capable of using, in the right way and for the benefit of their fellow human beings, those profound experiences that become accessible to a person once they have passed through the gates to the higher worlds. That is why a person had to pass tests; he could become a student only if he passed such tests. Of course, people imagine these trials differently than they actually are. Thus, a person can become initiated if they are capable of crossing the great mystery of the threshold that lies between the physical and the supernatural, and initiation is nothing other than what, in ordinary life, would be the operation of a person born blind, yet even greater and more powerful, for the initiate undergoes an operation on the senses that enable human beings to perceive the spiritual worlds. These senses are present in every human being in embryonic form; they merely need to be developed, and that is what is called initiation.

[ 15 ] The elementary knowledge imparted in Theosophy is merely the foundation for a much, much higher level of knowledge. Even this elementary knowledge of Theosophy today is of a kind that, until recently, was not permitted to be shared with wider circles. For it is not without danger for a person to approach this knowledge, although these dangers are often misjudged and exaggerated. It is the faculties that lie dormant in every soul that must be developed: we call them thinking, feeling, and willing. Every soul possesses these faculties. It is a fact that through these ordinary faculties of thinking, feeling, and willing—if a person develops them in the right way—he becomes capable of opening up a whole host of worlds.

[ 16 ] If a person possesses the patience and energy to devote himself to training, these three abilities can be developed to enable ever higher levels of perception and ever deeper penetration into the spiritual worlds. Once a person has advanced to a certain level, only then are the bearers of true spiritual knowledge able to make him an initiate.

[ 17 ] We distinguish between preliminary stages and the actual initiation. However, there is another aspect involved that justifies keeping this knowledge secret from the general public for the time being. In a sense, it still remains a mystery insofar as, to those who are not yet familiar with it—to those who have not yet penetrated it—what theosophy reveals initially appears strangely paradoxical; one must not associate anything magical with it. However, there is another aspect to it that justifies keeping this knowledge secret from the general public for the time being. Even what is communicated gives the impression of being fantastical and strange, so that many consider it immature; this is well known to the spiritual scientist and cannot be otherwise. But when a person ascends to the sources that underlie everything that exists here in the sensory world, their judgment about the world and life is so radically transformed that one can say it must appear utterly unbelievable and paradoxical to the average person, so that they cannot make sense of it.

[ 18 ] Human beings must first be prepared slowly and gradually to be able to bear the truth, and a large part of esoteric training consists in learning to bear the great, all-encompassing truths. Initiation is granted to those who have been prepared and developed to bear these truths. The time must come when a greater number of people, for their own salvation and further development, must be given the opportunity to attain this initiation.

[ 19 ] So we speak first of all of preliminary training. During this training, the development of thinking, feeling, and willing must take place. The former is easily neglected. There is often an eagerness to be able to glimpse into the supersensible worlds. Yet those who are meant to make such knowledge accessible to people must first insist that a firm, secure way of thinking be developed—a way of thinking that is free from sensuousness. What is thinking free from sensuousness? If we recall how much of our thinking is built upon sensuousness: We see the world around us; we take in its impressions through our senses. An idea remains within a person; a memory of it lingers, and then we reflect on it; if we set aside everything in our thinking that is a reminiscence of external impressions—that is, if we disregard what has been sparked by the external world—then so little remains that a philosopher says: “It is impossible for a human being to develop a mode of thinking that is not kindled by the external world.” Plato had a curious inscription placed above his Temple of Truth: “Let no one who is unfamiliar with geometry enter here.” This is not to be taken literally, but rather understood to mean that, while one does not necessarily need to study geometry to penetrate the supersensible world—which is not what Plato intended with this inscription—one must think in the same way one must think in geometry if one wishes to penetrate the higher worlds. A child, when learning that 2 × 3 = 6 using beans or by counting on their fingers, learns the truth that 2 × 3 = 6. But it is not necessary for a person to learn thinking based on numbers only in this way. If one uses imagined points instead of beans, that is much more useful. It is necessary to arrive at this truth through inner intuition and thus attain intuition free from the senses. A circle, for example, is constructed through thinking free from the senses. A circle that I draw on the blackboard is a series of chalk mounds; when I look at it under a microscope, it is not a circle—the senses cannot provide that; it must be present in inner intuition. One must seek the circle in non-sensory intuition.

[ 20 ] Such thinking, free from sensuality, exists in all areas, even if it is denied by some people—for example, regarding the living beings around us. Goethe proved this. In his Weltanschauung (Worldview), he says: Just as a person can construct a triangle, so too can he construct a plant; he calls this the “primordial plant.” The primordial plant is a spiritual being, and Goethe says: With this plant in mind, one can trace all plants in their becoming, growing, and flourishing. People do not easily understand what Goethe means by this. Schiller was once with him at a lecture given by the naturalist Batsch. The topic was botany. As they were leaving, Schiller said to Goethe that it was strange how fragmented people’s view of the world was; no one pointed out the great unifying bond. Goethe, who by then had already developed his theory of morphology, replied that there could be a different way of looking at things, and sketched his “primordial plant” for Schiller. Schiller remarked that it was merely an idea, and Goethe replied to him quite sadly: “But then I have my idea before my inner eye.”

[ 21 ] He realized that this was not merely an idea. What he had grasped in the primordial plant was not merely a thought; rather, he realized that the plants had been created from the spiritual worlds in the image of this primordial plant. The human spirit has grasped here how the plants came into being. This is a living penetration into the world of non-sensory thought. We have within us a source from which the entire sensory world has sprung, and we can bring this source to life. But we can do so only if we possess the strong power to allow the spirit to emerge from within us. Human beings can also shape the unfolding of history and the course of human development from within themselves.

[ 22 ] There have been thinkers of this kind. — People believed they were dreamers—Hegel, for example, in his Philosophy of History. That is a purely ideal history of humanity. I do not intend to endorse every detail in it, but the principle holds true; this mindset underlies the work. There is a kind of mathematics of history, and anyone who allows themselves to be inspired and stimulated by it will see that it is possible to speak of an inner mathematics even in relation to history.

[ 23 ] Yet none of this is necessary for people today; however, in all secret schools, thinking free from sensory influences in all areas was required at the first level. Elementary theosophy provides this. When it speaks of the various aspects of human nature—which we do not see—as it describes human development, these are images drawn from spiritual experience. A person must immerse themselves in this with their entire thinking. This happens so that a person may learn to free their thinking from the senses. Initiation is necessary for exploring the supersensory worlds, but it is not necessary for understanding them; ordinary human logic is all that is required there. What theosophy offers in terms of thinking free from sensuality is accessible to every simple mind, even the most uneducated.

[ 24 ] And we should not underestimate what is given to us in theoretical theosophy. The student who approaches the higher worlds is told: First, familiarize yourself with what is communicated by those who know about human beings, their development, their past, and their future. You must become thoroughly acquainted with this. Why is this? Because only those who have trained their thinking in these areas can be protected from certain dangers associated with supersensory knowledge. When a person enters these invisible worlds, they experience feelings that someone who has not had this experience does not know at all. They feel, deep within their soul, as if they were standing on a sheet of ice. The ice is melting away on all sides, and they foresee: Now the ice has melted; now you have water beneath your feet. This is how a person feels, for everything they have recognized up to this point—their sensory experiences—turn out to be a sum of illusions; they melt away like ice that has turned to water. A person realizes that all the ideas he has previously derived from his senses are not the true ones; he feels as if he has lost his footing. Admittedly, there is a certain difference here; the analogy is imperfect, as all analogies are. Nothing out of the ordinary happens in the external world when the initiate goes through this, but something all the more powerful is taking place within the person. It is not what we see and hear that changes, but rather the entire set of ideas we have formed about it up to this point—these sink into the indeterminate. It is as if everything we have hitherto regarded as truth were no longer truth.

[ 25 ] This is further heightened by a certain impression. When a person crosses the threshold of the higher worlds—the threshold that separates the physical from the supersensory—they perceive something entirely new. Things and experiences they could never have imagined before come to meet them. This cannot be compared to anything a person perceives in the sensory world. But there is one thing that remains the same in both worlds and in all worlds that are within a person’s reach: that is thinking—the kind of thinking a person acquires when they think free from sensory influences. They need this kind of thinking up there to distinguish illusions from reality and deceptions from truth. Here in the physical world, erroneous thinking is corrected by the things themselves; if someone were to turn the wrong crank on a machine, the machine would not function properly or would come to a standstill. In the higher worlds, however, we are solely the beings who must set our own firm course. There, we cannot distinguish between illusion and reality, or between deception and truth, unless we can set this fixed direction for ourselves through our trained thinking; if we are unable to do so, then we cannot find our way in these higher worlds. What will guide us safely are our thoughts, for they are the same, both here in the physical world and there in the spiritual worlds.

[ 26 ] Only when the student has overcome this preliminary stage is he truly ready to cross the threshold that leads into the higher worlds, which he cannot see without the supersensible organs of perception he has developed. Here, too, we must describe a realm that is entirely unknown to many: feelings must be developed by rising from mere thinking and concepts to what is called imagination or imagery. Through this imagination, true feeling is cultivated, so that we can look through things to their eternal, imperishable essence, in the sense that Goethe says: “Everything transitory is but a parable.” We accustom ourselves to viewing things in this way—as parables for the eternal—when we become students.

[ 27 ] Today, we hear the magic word “evolution” spoken everywhere. People talk about how human beings—once inferior creatures—have risen, becoming more and more perfect, and have evolved from a lower form of life into their present form. These are abstract ideas being put forward. Anyone who truly wishes to penetrate the evolution of the world and of humankind must learn to transform their concepts into images. Only in this way can one penetrate the veil; this is what we must learn. The teacher makes clear to the student what is meant by this through a dialogue that, while never actually spoken, is nonetheless part of the student’s development over months, sometimes years: Look at the plant—it stretches its roots into the earth; from the earth rise stems, leaves, and finally blossoms and calyxes. The corolla rises toward the sun; within it rests the fruit-bearing organ. By stretching its calyx toward the sun’s rays, its innermost being is drawn forth, enabling it to produce new seeds and thus new plants. The plant owes its maturation to the kiss of the sun’s rays, allowing it to bring forth something similar. Now compare the human being to the plant, but in such a way that you compare the human head to the plant’s root. What the plant stretches out purely and chastely toward the sun’s rays—its reproductive organ—the human being bashfully conceals and stretches toward the earth. Human beings are the transformed plant; they turn their head—which represents the plant’s root—freely out into the cosmos to absorb those forces, just as the plant absorbs them when it receives the power from the sunbeam to produce seeds. This helps us understand a saying by the great Plato: The world soul is crucified on the cross of the world body. The world soul develops through living beings; it lives in plants, animals, and human beings. —- These are its bodies, the kingdoms of nature. We find this symbolically represented in the cross. The three kingdoms are depicted in the downward-pointing beam: the plant, with its roots embedded in the earth; the upper beam represents humanity, which extends freely into the cosmos what is the root in the plant; and in the middle is the animal, the crossbeam corresponding to the animal’s horizontal posture. This is the deepest meaning of the cross in all religions. This was made clear to the student. Humanity has ascended from the plant. Look at the plant—why is it allowed to stretch freely toward the sun’s rays? The entire substance of the plant is chaste, free from desire; yet it lacks the consciousness through which it can perceive as humans do. It sleeps, just as humans do at night. Humanity has acquired this consciousness—which it now possesses—by permeating the pure, chaste plant substance with passion and desire. The plant substance has become flesh within humanity. In this substantial form that has become flesh, humanity lives in waking consciousness. Now look into the future: by then, humanity will have been transformed. He will have purified the impure, lustful fleshly substance; human nature will once again be pure and chaste. Then the lower organs of desire will have fallen away; he will be endowed with higher organs and a higher consciousness, and he will extend his pure, chaste reproductive organs toward the spiritual sunbeam of the holy lance of love. Anyone who can look into the course of world-becoming knows this: There are organs in the human body that will fall away, that will be severed, and others that will be developed higher and higher—organs that, pure and chaste and endowed with a higher consciousness, will bring forth beings similar to humankind. This real ideal, which stands before the human being as a student as something that will truly be attained by all of humanity, offers a different conception of development than abstract concepts. When we turn our gaze upward toward this real ideal, which is called the Holy Grail, when we survey this development, then we do not merely follow such a development with our thoughts, not merely with our intellect, but our feelings are swept along as well. Shivers run through the one who thus follows the course of human development, and what we then feel is something that passes through the soul like a breath. Then we develop inner organs in our soul, and new worlds appear to us—through such intimate inner processes, the spiritual organs are awakened. Just as thinking was developed before, so now feeling is developed.

[ 28 ] If the student has the energy to keep going further and further, so that he experiences the world as images within himself, then he ascends to the world of the spiritual, the astral world. This is the preparation for crossing the threshold.

[ 29 ] Then the will is developed through what is known as the occult scripture. The imagery found throughout the Book of Revelation and the Gospel of John belongs to the occult scripture. When we immerse ourselves in it, we train our will to enter the spiritual worlds. The first seal is one that brings to mind the initial and final states of our earthly existence. We are introduced to the state of the Earth when its temperature was much higher than it is today. Even then, human beings were connected to the Earth; even then, they were united with the Earth’s body in a different form. This is expressed in the figure of the man whose feet stand in a river of metal. They consist of liquid metal. Just as other spiritual beings once created humanity in fire, so will be humanity’s final state. The Earth will once again be fire, and humanity will be able to create with the power of fire. This is symbolized by the fiery sword that emerges from the mouth. In these images, everything has deep significance—every symbol, every number. Such a seal refers to the profound mysteries of existence. When a person familiarizes himself with this text, he penetrates the spiritual essence that lies behind the phenomena of our existence. Thus, the human will becomes one with the will of nature; magical forces flow out from the human being into the cosmos, his will penetrates every being, he feels at one with the entire cosmos, and he merges with the entire cosmos. He gradually becomes one with the forces of the beings around us. When a person patiently makes his way through the occult text, his will—by penetrating the entire cosmos—becomes not only willing, but seeing and, above all, hearing. Then what Goethe expresses when he speaks of the spiritual worlds becomes truth; there he speaks of the way the will is developed, just as described. Then it is true:

The sun resounds as it always has
In the spheres of the brotherhood, a contest of song,
And its prescribed journey
It completes with a thunderous roar.

[ 30 ] Those who wanted to understand this have sought mystery in these words, but they are drawn from reality. The spiritual sun resounds for those who have developed the spiritual ear—that is, those who possess a developed will and have expanded it to spiritual hearing, which stands higher than astral vision. And in the words, “Resounding, the young day is already born for spiritual ears,” even the expression “spiritual ears” is true. This is not a mythical image; it is truer than is generally assumed.

[ 31 ] Today we talked about the principle of initiation; tomorrow we’ll discuss its so-called dangers.

[ 32 ] The absorption of the individual into the whole can only be achieved through patient, determined progress. Spiritual science reveals, step by step, the sublime goal that human beings can attain. Human beings should not merely reflect on their inner selves; that is mere rhetoric. They must merge with the universe, with the cosmos, for it contains our “I.”

[ 33 ] By patiently attuning ourselves to the beings around us, we develop our inner selves in such a way that we learn to embrace the entire cosmos with love.

[ 34 ] Then we may come to know our higher self. We were born in the womb of the world; we must connect with the mysteries of the world’s womb and come to know them. In the harmony between the inner and outer worlds, in the balance between the life we feel as our deepest self and what we recognize as the highest beyond ourselves, we can find bliss, insight, and peace. Initiation is something that does not merely reach into the innermost being of a person, but extends far out into the world. You must bring every step into harmony with the beings who, apart from yourself, belong to you. It is not by looking inward, but by detaching yourself from your egoistic self that you attain a higher level of being. As a guiding principle, as a motto for every initiate, Goethe’s words apply, which state that a person can create harmony only when he breaks free from his own ego. Only then can he find his own center, when he brings his inner and outer worlds into harmony.

For all power strives forward into the vastness
To live and act here and there
Yet from every side, the current of the world
Restrains and hinders us, sweeping us away.
In this inner storm and outer strife
The spirit hears a word that is hard to understand:
From the power that binds all beings,
The person who overcomes himself is set free.