The Rudolf Steiner Archive

19. The Relationship Between Occult Knowledge and Everyday Life

[ 1 ] Today I would like to say a few things that can be seen as a continuation of some questions that have come to mind for you in recent days. Today I would like to elaborate on a few points that may have been prompted by remarks made in the preceding days. So much has been said about the relationship between occultism and “theosophy,” between esotericism and theosophy, and so on, but nothing yet about the relationship between theosophy and everyday life. I already hinted eight days ago that I would like to say a few words specifically on this “topic.” And today, I would like to direct your attention not to lofty considerations, but rather to discuss how occult insights directly influence everyday life, and how, through the theosophical worldview, our gaze is not merely directed across vast expanses of time and space, but how, through the concepts of occultism, we can also gain a completely different understanding of the most mundane questions than would be possible without such concepts. We will then see how mistaken is the opinion we so often encounter—namely, that occultism is something impractical and utterly remote from ordinary everyday life.

[ 2 ] And there is another question we will touch on. The question is: How can someone who has not yet managed to gain insight into the higher worlds—which, however, will be the lot of every human being in the future—how can such a person, from the standpoint held by anyone with a normal education, become convinced that the theosophical teachings are true and that the aspirations of “Theosophy” are genuinely justified? The evidence need not be derived solely from occult observation; indeed, it cannot be derived from it until it has first been drawn from another realm—that of everyday life. This prepares us to gain conviction regarding the higher realms of existence as well. Whatever has ever taken place continues to take place even today in our everyday lives.

[ 3 ] If we trace human beings back to the earliest times of their origin, we find that they arose from a much finer, more spiritual substance than that of which they are composed today. In terms of form, modern human beings essentially consist of three bodies: the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body. The etheric body is a kind of archetype of the physical body. The astral body—the auric sheath that surrounds and permeates the human being—is the structure through which emotional life, instinctual and passionate life, and every thought find expression. Essentially, the entire human being has emerged over time from the astral body, which was initially undifferentiated. If we go back far enough, to the early primeval epochs of humanity, we find that the physical and etheric substance that permeates modern humans is dissolved within the original astral body of humanity, like a seed in the earth.

[ 4 ] Modern human beings are, so to speak, condensed from the fundamental astral substance. This process still takes place every day. When two people face each other, it is first and foremost their astral bodies that face each other—in love or hate, goodwill or displeasure, anger or kindness, repulsion or attraction. All of these are phenomena that take place between the astral bodies. Interaction between people is a continuous exchange of states and relationships of the astral bodies. When I stand face to face with another person, my physical body does not undergo any significant change, nor does my etheric body; however, my astral body certainly does. When a person says something hateful to me, the hate-filled currents enter my astral body and alter it. I must absorb what radiates from him into my own astral body, and this body then takes on entirely different qualities, depending on whether love, patience, or anger and impatience flow toward me from the other person.

[ 5 ] Something very similar takes place between the educator and the child. It makes a great difference whether an educator is loving or a narrow-minded egoist. The child’s astral body is different in appearance from that of an adult. The child’s astral body is light and bright; it appears to us as something virginal in comparison to the astral body as it develops over the course of a lifetime. What is the child’s astral body? It appears as an undifferentiated cloud of light that is only gradually taking shape. Very little has yet been imprinted upon it that would increasingly define it from within, so that all manner of things can still be born from it. It is shaped by the impressions the child absorbs from its surroundings. These impressions enter into it, color it, and transform it.

[ 6 ] Depending on the kinds of ideas the child absorbs—whether based on materialistic or idealistic perspectives—different forms flow into the child’s astral body and shape it. The soul then becomes increasingly filled with such ideas. If the child is treated without love, the echo of this lack of love manifests itself in the child’s astral body. The child then seals itself off from the outside world as if with a skin. All of this shows us that a continuous transformation of the astral body is indeed taking place and that interaction with other people has a major influence on this transformation.

[ 7 ] The child, then, still has an astral body that is uniform yet contains an infinite abundance of possibilities. Consider the astral body of a child standing before an idealistic educator who himself possesses a harmonious soul, gazes out into the world with devotion, and is receptive to its beauty and sublimity—an educator capable of creating within himself a reflection of the world’s beauty. Such an educator will also develop the ability to respond to the inclinations of the child’s soul. He then forms soft and receptive structures within the child and sends streams into them that are dissolved by the child’s own astral substance. An educator who is harmoniously formed within himself continuously sends harmonious streams to the child. The educator’s character traits then flow naturally into the child, and with them flows all the harmony of the world that the educator has drawn from the surroundings in the form of beauty. Whatever greatness the educator absorbs—as a noble person and keen observer—he or she sends into the child’s nature as an educator, thereby fostering the child’s harmonious development.

[ 8 ] Let us assume, on the other hand, that the educator approaches the child as a selfish, pedantic person, as someone with narrow-minded, stubborn ideas and concepts. These qualities give rise to formations in his own astral body that make him appear as if enclosed in a solid crust, turning him into a thoroughly rigid, sluggish entity. He then emits streams of rays that are tightly closed in on themselves, so that it is impossible for the child’s astral body to dissolve them. At most, they pierce the child’s astral body like an arrow, but they cannot be dissolved and simply pass right through it.

[ 9 ] Or consider something even more commonplace. Two people are talking to each other. It is quite easy to observe the effects their astral bodies have on one another as they speak to each other.

[ 10 ] Something new is always forming in the astral substance, in the astral realm. I will explain this to you in the following way. Through their thoughts, human beings are constantly building structures into the astral body. These take on the most diverse forms. The astral substance that remains unused between the individual formations is called an intermediate astral substance, in contrast to that which has taken shape as formations. This intermediate astral substance is constantly replenished from the astral substance of our surroundings; it constantly flows in and out and is constantly renewed. But the formations that a person has created through the nature of their feelings, thoughts, and volitional decisions remain fixed.

[ 11 ] Let us suppose, then, that two people are standing before us, engaged in an ordinary conversation. One of them has formed rigid, fixed concepts that have also created very solid structures within the astral substance. The other responds to him and tries to make something clear to him. What is the basis for making something clear to another person? It is based on the fact that he sends his own concept into the other person’s astral substance. This concept, this thought, then first flows into the other person’s astral substance. There, it must first dissolve through the intermediate substance and be recreated and reshaped in accordance with the forms that already exist.

[ 12 ] Let us now suppose that one person tries to explain something to another—for example, something related to reincarnation. The other person, however, has already formed a fixed notion about reincarnation. Let’s assume he is a prejudiced person and has formed the notion that reincarnation is something foolish and nonsensical. This thought has been floating in his astral substance. Now the first person’s thought arrives and dissolves into the other’s intermediate astral substance, but it would have to be able to transform itself into the thought forms already existing within him. However, this is not possible because his concept is too rigid, too fixed. He cannot transform the thought sent to him into his own thought form, and therefore he does not understand it.

[ 13 ] The more a person preserves the flexibility of concepts—so that they can always be dissolved from the intermediate substance surrounding them—the more understanding they will show toward others. This is why it is so difficult to convey theosophical life to academically educated people. The concepts acquired at the university give rise to rigid, fixed, self-contained structures that are not easily dissolved. Filled with such structures, the academic typically attends a theosophical lecture and is then unable to grasp theosophical life. It would be quite different if he were educated in such a way that, when considering any concept, he would say to himself: “Yes, it could possibly be different, for we have only a limited degree of experience, and some things we now consider correct will have to be corrected in the future.”—If he were to do that, then his soul would still be receptive.

[ 14 ] Let’s consider another case. One person feels reverence toward another. How does this reverence appear to an observer endowed with astral senses? Reverence means sending out thoughts that sink into the substance of the other person’s astral body and, as it were, absorb it. For when you have a thought of reverence, it is expressed by your own radiating this reverence as warmth toward the other person. This warmth radiating from you has its reflection in the astral world, which appears as a bluish color—the thought-form of reverence and devotion. The warm, reverent feeling creates a thought-form that has a bluish character.

[ 15 ] But what is it that appears bluish? You can see this when you look out into the infinite, dark expanse of space. It appears blue to you because of the luminous atmosphere. Likewise, [in the astral realm, through the thought of reverence], something that was previously dark and is now illuminated by the warm, bright feeling of reverence also appears to you in this bluish color. One envelops a dark space with the feeling of reverence, and the dark core then appears bluish, much like a blue core surrounded by light appears to you in a flame. So it is with the thought of reverence. It is an empty space permeated with warmth. When one sends the thought of reverence toward another, one thereby offers that person the opportunity to let their own being flow into this empty space. This is how the balance between the one who reveres and the one who is revered is established.

[ 16 ] If, on the other hand, you face another person with feelings of envy, then another thought form lives within you, which you direct toward that person. You then emit the red thought-form of selfishness, of self-love. This, in turn, encloses yet another thought-form, one that is filled with the idea of one’s own self—an idea that may have been generated by ambition. This thought-form does not express itself in an empty space, in a hollow structure, but in a completely filled form into which nothing more can enter. It is surrounded by a feeling of coldness and has the opposite thought-form—namely, a bluish circle all around it, with a red core in the center. The coldness of the blue color repels everything that tries to enter, and the vain red thought-form remains as it is. It accepts nothing. Thus does the envious person, who is incapable of reverence, stand before the other.

[ 17 ] You see, what takes place in our astral body is nothing other than the result of everyday life. Only those who are trained to do so can see what takes place in the astral body. But the effects of these processes in the astral body are constantly present in the physical realm, and everyone can see this for themselves through their own life experience. Everyone can conduct the following test by saying to themselves: I’ll leave it entirely open as to whether the occultist’s statements are true or false. But I want to examine them with an open mind. I can live as if these statements were true. I can then behave accordingly toward my fellow human beings, and if I do so carefully, I will see whether life confirms what the occultist says in every single case. And life will confirm this to you in every case. You will derive immense benefit from it.

[ 18 ] Anyone who thinks this through—and, for example, as an educator, immerses themselves not only in pedagogical concepts and ideas, and who does not act solely through what they say, but also through what they feel, sense, and think—who is imbued with the awareness that two astral bodies interact with one another and knows what takes place when these astral bodies face each other—such a person also knows that they have a duty to improve themselves more and more. To the extent that he improves, he also has a more positive influence on the child’s innate abilities. He does not stifle these abilities, but rather brings them to the fore.

[ 19 ] It means something entirely different from simply knowing that what is shown to us through the reverence of another person—one who is worthy of reverence—is a truth, a reality; it means something else entirely to experience it: when we send countless such thought-forms, enveloped in warmth, to other people, we grow through the greatness of the other person. This is something entirely different from merely grasping such things outwardly with the intellect, from merely knowing what they represent. Thus, in occultism, we learn to grasp life with greater seriousness; we learn to recognize that what is not tangible, what cannot be perceived by the senses, nevertheless has a reality. We learn to understand and appreciate the full scope and significance of our spiritual world.

[ 20 ] Some might say, “These are just schematic transformations.” No, they are not! We must be deeply imbued with a sense of the far-reaching consequences of our actions and the responsibility that life imposes upon us. It is the most ordinary, everyday life that can be influenced in this way by occultism. The person who knows what happens in the invisible world as a result of thoughts and feelings will eventually reach the point where it becomes just as important to him not to send a malicious thought toward another person as it is to him not to attack that person with gunshots. He knows that casting a thought of hatred at another person is just as harmful to the astral being as it is to the physical being to have a brick thrown at him.

[ 21 ] One can understand this very quickly; those who gather at meetings such as theosophical gatherings will feel and experience it. They then bring back from these gatherings a new source of life. They can tell themselves that for others there is a single reality, but for us there is a threefold one. The other person perceives realities only through the sensory world and thinks nothing of it when he says, “Thoughts are duty-free!”—But whoever has passed through the theosophical worldview can no longer say that thoughts are duty-free; rather, he is convinced that he is responsible for what he thinks and feels toward other people. You carry this sense of responsibility out into the world as the most beautiful fruit of the theosophical worldview. Even if we are still beginners, still experimenting, we are already working from the hidden, occult world into the visible one. We beautify and improve the world from the hidden realms of existence.

[ 22 ] That is one way we understand life. But there are others. Human beings do not live in the world solely as individuals; they also belong to a family, a tribe, a people—in other words, to a collective whole. In reality, they are defined as such only in terms of their physical and etheric bodies. I have already said that an astral body has fluid boundaries, that the intermediate substance is constantly inclined to absorb currents from the outside and to renew itself. But when we consider that we belong to a people, a tribe, or a family, the matter takes on yet another perspective.

[ 23 ] When we consider the astral body of an individual human being, we find that almost every person’s astral body differs from that of others in its basic coloration. It has a certain nuance that manifests outwardly as temperament. The temperament is thus expressed through a certain basic color. In this way, a person relates to their entire environment, as the character of the family, tribe, or people to which they belong is reflected in this basic color.

[ 24 ] As an occultist, one can make interesting observations there, for example, when revisiting a city that one may have seen ten years ago. When one observes the pristine astral bodies of the children, one finds that, in addition to their personal base color, they possess another base color. If, during the first visit, one had closely examined these pristine astral bodies of the children and compares them with those of the children who have been living in the city for ten years, one finds that their appearance has changed. There is something in human individuality that progresses in tandem with the development of the city, the tribe, or the people. This stems from the fact that the currents of a collective astral body—which surrounds me from the outside—are constantly interacting with my own, which lives within this collective astral body. This is why we also have a national temperament that is expressed in the collective astral body of the nation.

[ 25 ] Every nation and every other community has such an astral body, and this flows into the astral bodies of individual human beings. This is why a certain disharmony can arise between individual human beings and the mission of the entire nation. For not all lines of development in the world follow the same course. The more comprehensive very often outpaces that which is less comprehensive.

[ 26 ] Let us consider, for example, a people. A people is not a random collection of individuals thrown together in the world, nor is it something brought about by chance; rather, every people has its specific task in the course of human development. Anyone who views a people from a higher perspective can tell themselves that every people has a specific task and that their own people, too, are charged with fulfilling a specific task. They can say to themselves: I belong to this people, so I must serve the common task of the people alongside them, and I can serve it in this way because within me lives an astral quality that belongs to the entire people. This destiny of the people is clearly expressed on the astral plane; it is a specific thought, something that exists on planes higher than the astral plane. To study the thoughts of the world order, one must ascend beyond the astral plane to the mental plane.

[ 27 ] The fourth sub-race, for example, from which our race emerged, developed from a small group of people in Asia and evolved into the Hebrew-Greek-Latin race. This race had the task of fulfilling the first mission of Christianity from the perspective of the people. The purpose of this race was to spread Christianity in its initial phase throughout Europe and the neighboring regions. This is a concept rooted in the people.

[ 28 ] In earlier times, the comprehensive concept of reincarnation and karma prevailed. Then a shift occurred, and people were raised to believe that this one physical life was of importance. This is clearly evident in Greek art, which developed a sense of external form. therein lay the refinement of the physical plane for the external senses. Among the Roman people, the concept of law then emerged, which manifests itself directly on the physical plane. Christianity, finally, imbues this right with a moral code, so that a single earthly life acquires such importance that an entire eternity is made dependent upon it. This is a one-sided idea, but it was correct and necessary. The Catholic peoples took on the mission of spreading Christianity and carried it to northern Europe, through which the Germanic peoples received a new mission.

[ 29 ] We see, then, that a national ideal lives on throughout the entire nation, and every individual is part of that ideal. What was once developed in Greek art—in the realm of the plastic arts—as beautiful forms of the sensory world, what was established as law and later deepened into morality, we have, in our time, developed into technical life for the benefit of the citizens. Cities were founded; they grew and flourished, thereby giving rise to a distinct culture—the culture of the bourgeoisie. From this emerged a utilitarian morality, which provided the impetus for the development of a one-sided science that has likely reached its peak in our present age.

[ 30 ] Here we can recognize the workings of a devachanic principle. This is the overarching factor in these changes throughout the course of evolution, which shows us how a national idea operates. How this idea is expressed depends on the collective astral body of the people, on the national temperament. Art, for example, would have found expression in a completely different way among a people other than the Greeks.

[ 31 ] Although the collective consciousness lives within each individual, the individual does not merge into it. He also expresses his own personality alongside it. Here we see something quite remarkable and distinctive. At first, it is easier for a person to find their way into the world of thought of their people—into their devachanic destiny—than to achieve a balance between their own feelings and the feelings of that people. This is not so easy, especially for those who have already attained a certain level of higher education and refinement. At the lower stages of development, this balance of feelings between the individual and the people is more readily possible, because there is always a greater integration of individual sentiment into the general sentiment of the people. The lower the stage at which the individual stands, the more strongly the sentiment and thought of the people are expressed in him, in much the same way that an animal is an embodiment of the animal species.

[ 32 ] However, as a person develops, he elevates his own astral body; he becomes more differentiated and defined. And then it becomes possible for his astral body to take on a form of mentality that lies above the level of his people’s mentality. If one grasps what shines down from this higher level through reason or thought, one can easily embrace the ideals. Sometimes it also happens that the feelings of a person’s astral body are not as developed as their thoughts. The thoughts of a people can have such a powerful effect on the thoughts of an individual that they take hold of him before he has otherwise developed sufficiently.

[ 33 ] Individuals to whom this applies are idealists; they are the martyrs for the progress of a people. They are so because they themselves precede what their astral body actually is, because they devote their entire noble soul to that one ideal in a selfless manner. When such people then pass away, their undeveloped astral nature emerges with all the greater force; then that which was not part of the people’s ideal comes into play, for in the future they will be concerned only with their own development. When such a person—who was a great and noble idealist in life and who dedicated himself to the ideal of his people—has died, he is overwhelmed by the personal element still present within him. Then the base qualities of his astral body come fully to the fore. Now suppose such a human being has become a martyr. He has accomplished noble deeds but has been mistreated by his people, as such advanced souls are sometimes mistreated. Then, despite this, he will usually pursue his ideal boldly and courageously during his life, looking neither to the right nor to the left. But if he has been tortured or even killed because of his ideal, then thoughts of revenge arise immediately after his “death.” What remains in Kamaloka is what he had repressed as part of his personal self.

[ 34 ] A people that treats its idealists in this way creates evil forces in Kamaloka that rebound upon the people themselves. Russia has created such evil forces for itself. For years, it has mistreated certain noble individuals with the knout. The lower forces within these individuals are now active in Kamaloka as enemies of what lives in Russia, as enemies of those for whom they sacrificed themselves in life. It could be seen that such martyrs, who had recently passed away, were now fighting on the side of the Japanese against their own people. This is a fact that becomes understandable to us when we look into the deeper forces of the soul’s life. The events of the future become clear to us when we view them from this perspective.

[ 35 ] We live as members of Germanic peoples, surrounded by Slavic peoples to the east and Anglo-American peoples to the west. Both the American and Slavic peoples are rising races that are destined to fulfill their purpose in the future—races that are only at the beginning of their national consciousness. The fundamental character of the Slavic peoples is expressed in their spiritual disposition. Try to understand Slavic culture, and you will find that it tends toward a spiritual culture, that something spiritual is emerging there. These Slavic peoples first had to contend with the tribes to the east—the Chinese and the Japanese. These are remnants of earlier Atlantean peoples, just as all Mongols are remnants of late Atlantean culture. They possess astral bodies that themselves already tend toward spirituality. The Slavic peoples have had to contend with them.

[ 36 ] In America, we have something similar. Materialism there has been taken to extremes and has become deeply ingrained in all aspects of the people’s worldview. In recent times, this has led to a tendency to view the spirit itself in material terms. While among the Slavic peoples there emerge individual figures, such as Tolstoy, who—beautiful and great, drawing from the spiritual soul—attempt to stimulate development, the American people strive to grasp the soul and the spirit in a material way. Hence, we find among them a strongly materialistic form of spiritualism and spiritualism. They seek the spirit in exactly the same way that they seek physical truths. But it is precisely in the nature of this seeking that the difference lies. If you try to see the spiritual with your eyes, it becomes psychological, and this psychological aspect has developed strongly in America.

[ 37 ] The American peoples must come to terms with another ethnic element that originates from Atlantis and is endowed with psychic faculties. This ethnic element lives among the Negro peoples. The way in which these two peoples are growing together is characteristic. The psychic must engage with the psychic, the spiritual with the spiritual. Thus, we have a spiritual national consciousness in the East and a psychic one in the West.

[ 38 ] We have experienced science and art on the outer plane; now the spirit must also be lifted up again. This can happen in two ways: either through the spiritual path or through the psychological path. The spiritual path is progress; the psychological path is regression.

[ 39 ] You can see how the world becomes comprehensible here when we view it from an occult perspective. Again, there is no need to say that we cannot convince ourselves of these things. One need only consider what is actually happening. One will gradually be led to this conviction by comparing the psychological worldview and psychological research with the occult worldview. If we try to understand the occult worldview, then the world of phenomena will also become increasingly comprehensible to us. Such an occult-spiritual worldview leaves no gaps in our understanding of the world. From this, we will then gain faith in the occult world of which the occultists speak, and through this faith we cultivate within ourselves an element that will elevate us to a higher plane. This is not blind faith, but faith born of experimentation. With every new experience, this faith grows stronger and more justified, ever firmer and more certain. And when faith has generated this certainty within itself, it also generates the capacity for knowledge. One has always tested things before ascending to knowledge. Anyone who wants knowledge before seeking it is like one who wanted the fruit before the seed. Knowledge must be acquired by ourselves. If we already knew, we would not need to seek. What researchers lack in certainty and assurance must be supplemented by the certainty and assurance of faith. Thus they must work together, and thus they will ultimately, in unity, produce what must present itself to us as a unified whole: the fruit of experience, knowledge.

[ 40 ] Let us listen to the occultists and say neither yes nor no to what they say. But let us regard it as the foundation of our own lives and our way of life; if we regard it as though their research were useful guides for our lives, then we will find that they will be our guides through life and ultimately lead us to an inner knowledge and a life that flows through us; then we will find that they will be trusted guides for us in our quest for fulfillment and a harmonious life within ourselves.