The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Popular Occultism II

[ 1 ] Yesterday, we sought to elucidate the nature of the human being as it relates to the three bodies and the core of the being. We will now consider the human being’s ascent into the supersensible worlds. To do so, we must take a look at what are called the three worlds, and only after we have described the characteristics of these three worlds can we discuss karma, reincarnation, and so on. The physical world, which we perceive with our senses, is the first; this is the world inhabited by human beings. Then there is a second, the astral world, and then the third, the spiritual world, or Devachan. “Deva” means God, and “Chan” means realm or dwelling; thus, Devachan means “God’s realm.” Insofar as human beings are spiritual beings, they have a share in the spiritual world. There is no need to describe the physical world; everyone knows it well. The astral and Devachan worlds will be described in narrative form.

[ 2 ] The first thing one must realize is that the other worlds are not located elsewhere, but rather that they surround us just as the physical world does and permeate it. That is why, after death, a person does not journey to other places; rather, the nature of their perception and consciousness changes. Just as with a person born blind who has suddenly regained sight—who is not, after all, transported to another world, but rather has simply gained access to a new sense—so it is with a human being when he dies or is initiated. Then there is not a new, entirely different world around them; it is merely that their senses for the physical world are deactivated, whereas they now perceive what had previously eluded them, what had remained hidden from them until then.

[ 3 ] Let us first consider the astral world. This is the world in which a person finds themselves every night and also immediately after death. When they cease to open their senses to the physical world, their senses for this astral world can awaken. When a person becomes clairvoyant, they first find themselves in the astral world and perceive what has been described as the etheric body and the astral body. The astral world differs vastly from the physical world. Those who enter it are confronted with a bewildering array of phenomena. What one can perceive is so different that one must first get used to seeing in it. One will misread things if one tries to interpret them in the same way as in the physical world. Everything there is seen as in a mirror—inverted or reversed. The number 365 would be 563 in the astral world. This is particularly confusing at first. When dealing with matters of time, in the physical world one counts everything from the beginning toward the end. In the astral world, it is the other way around. A human life, for example, is not traced in the astral world from birth to death, but backward from the last moment of life. Here in the physical world, one first sees the egg and then the chick hatching from it; in the astral world, one first sees the chick and then the egg. The most important thing, however, is that in the astral world, all the images of our moral qualities—such as pleasure and displeasure, pain and joy, hatred and love—appear to be rushing toward us. The clairvoyant perceives them all streaming toward him.

[ 4 ] For someone inexperienced, this is a great confusion. They may find all sorts of animal figures approaching them, as well as terrifying human figures, and so on. There are people who recount such experiences. They are truly in a very unfortunate situation if, due to an illness, the astral world has become visible to them in an irregular way. When one begins to meditate seriously and train oneself, clairvoyance develops in a regular manner, and then one knows what the astral world is all about. For those other people, however, the view into the astral world has opened irregularly due to a brain disease or something similar. The terrifying figures they see approaching them, pouncing on them, are in truth their own passions, emanating from within them and appearing as reflections in the astral world. Because everything is reversed in the astral world and they do not understand how to interpret it, everything seems to be rushing toward them. Everything appears as an image. A sudden outburst of rage, for example, can manifest as the image of a tiger attacking them. So it is with all these wild figures. For every desire, every passion becomes a demon. The untrained person, however, does not know what to make of this and regards what they see as a figment of the imagination, a fantasy—yet that is by no means the case. It is an image, a reflection.

[ 5 ] Why is it that some people have to go through this today? It’s because of our materialistic age. Let’s take a look back at the 13th and 14th centuries and picture a German city of that time. Everything there was shaped by the aesthetic sensibility of the people of that era. Back then, every house—indeed, every door lock, every key—expressed something special; every object had its own character and was crafted with love. Those who created them did so out of a feeling that still resonates with us today. Things are quite different in our time. In a modern city, what we see does not speak to our feelings; nothing moves us—at most, the items displayed in stores, such as books and so on, catch our attention. Nothing sacred, nothing religious is evident in the outside world anymore. Back then, there were still very few books, but in those few one could find nourishment for the soul. Consider what people read today: things that stir up sensation and sensuality. Even if the soul no longer receives anything from the outside, it still carries deep within itself a longing for the religious. It locks this longing deep within itself. This is not to say, however, that we long for a return to the Middle Ages. In people who no longer hear anything at all about the higher worlds, but who feel a vivid longing for them deep within, this religious yearning can suddenly break through, so that it manifests as religious passion in the astral world, as I indicated above. For everything that exists in the physical world as—as one might say—real reality, appears in the astral world in images. In the astral world, you do not see pain or joy directly, but rather you see pain as a dark-colored figure, and joy, in contrast, as a bright, yellow, friendly figure. You gradually learn to understand these images. There is absolutely nothing arbitrary or indeterminate about this perception; rather, you very soon learn how pain and joy of a certain kind always appear as images of a certain kind.

[ 6 ] Therefore, on the astral plane, the student only gradually learns to read and becomes familiar with the images. Bright images always point to something on the sympathetic side, while dark images and colors always point to something on the antipathetic side. Visual perception: that is the essence of the astral world. Goethe, who was able to see astral visions to a certain degree, characterizes this quality of the astral world very beautifully at the end of his Faust: “All that is transitory is but a parable...”

[ 7 ] However, the astral plane contains not only the reflections of the physical world, but also beings that humans can never encounter on the physical plane. Our spirit has descended to the physical plane and has, so to speak, clothed itself in flesh, enveloped itself in it. On the astral plane, however, one also finds beings who have never clothed themselves in flesh. These beings flit constantly among our physical forms, though the average person does not perceive them. They are therefore not a figment of the imagination, nor a fairy tale. Anyone who consciously experiences the astral world perceives them. And yet other beings surround human beings—namely, their own thoughts. Let us imagine the effect of a thought. For example, a thought first arises in the soul: “This person is a bad person.”—This thought takes shape in the astral world. Every thought that emanates from you takes shape there. Thoughts are realities on the astral plane. Every thought we send out into the world takes on astral substance, just as a child in the womb takes on physical matter. So when we have a thought, it envelops itself in astral matter and condenses into specific forms. There are beings for whom human thoughts provide a welcome opportunity to incarnate, to acquire an astral body. These entities have a craving to materialize astral forms. This important fact points to the responsibility we bear in life. Consider a room where men are sitting around having a drink at dusk. What are their thoughts? They talk simply out of a desire to communicate; their thoughts are devoid of any value. Such a room is subsequently populated in a very peculiar way, as observed by a clairvoyant. The lust for idle chatter—the compulsion to talk that does not stem from the intention to share something noble with others—gives truly evil entities the opportunity to incarnate, and they then engage in all sorts of horrific deeds because they incarnate in such great numbers.

[ 8 ] In occultism, it is said: On the physical plane, a lie is simply a lie, but on the astral plane, it is murder. This is how it works: When you tell a story, you create a corresponding thoughtform. But the fact being described also radiates a thoughtform. If your thought-form corresponds to the other—if it aligns with it—then the two forms converge on the astral plane and reinforce each other. In doing so, you have strengthened the life of that being. But in the case of a falsehood, the thought-form emanating from your statement does not correspond to the one emanating from the thing itself. The forms collide and destroy one another. Thus, untruth—the lie—has a life-destroying and deadly effect on others. To speak of morality in the occult sense means not only to preach it but to justify it through facts from the higher worlds. Schopenhauer rightly said: “It is easy to preach morality; it is difficult to justify it.”

[ 9 ] A person’s brief stay in the astral world takes place during sleep. When a person sleeps, what happens to them? Their physical and etheric bodies remain in bed, while the astral body and the “I” step out. The clairvoyant sees the astral body actively at work during the night. During the day, a person expends their physical energy through work and other activities. That is why they become tired. This energy must be replenished. And the astral body performs this work during the night. But what does it do during the day? That is when it perceives the physical world. If, during sleep, the astral body has left the physical and etheric bodies, then a person sees and hears nothing. For it is through the astral body that a person perceives. The eye, the ear, and all the sense organs are merely the instruments of the perceiving astral body. For example, it transforms all vibrations in the air into auditory sensations. During the night, the human being is spared this work; instead, he regenerates new forces for the physical body and, above all, for the etheric body. He must leave the physical body in order to perform this work of restoring balance. When a person has many dreams, this work is, so to speak, interrupted. Therefore, restless dreams are harmful to health.

[ 10 ] What changes take place during sleep in someone who is gradually becoming clairvoyant? For such a person, the night becomes something entirely different. The ordinary person loses consciousness upon falling asleep, only to regain it upon waking. He cannot perceive what is happening in the astral realm because he lacks the necessary organs. For the clairvoyant, the night becomes something entirely different. He does not lose consciousness like the ordinary person. The untrained person experiences the astral world in a chaotic manner through dreams. For the trained person, its manifestations become regular. At first, these will be fleeting perceptions, ebbing and flowing, yet forming in a regular pattern. Let’s suppose a person falls asleep, and a dreamlike image—a brownish-red figure—rises up, one with human but distorted features, which gradually begins to resemble those of a friend. The person wakes up and asks himself: What is that? “But my friend is in New York,” he thinks—and dismisses the image as pure imagination. Some time later, he learns that his friend was in danger—perhaps involved in an accident—which, however, ended happily. He investigates, and it becomes clear to him that the nocturnal impression came at the very moment his friend was in that danger. Visually, this event had presented itself to his soul.

[ 11 ] Clairvoyance can begin with experiences like these. The recurring visions then become more and more frequent, and this new world takes on an ever clearer form. The inner world of human beings is no longer hidden from the clairvoyant. When you become clairvoyant, you will see a person’s aura—the image of their inner life that surrounds them. People’s souls will lie open before your eyes. Just as you see a person’s skin color and hands, you will then have before you the images of their inner life.

[ 12 ] So far, I have spoken only of images. Do only images rise and fall? Is the astral world silent? Indeed, that is how it is at first for the clairvoyant. This astral world is, at first, a silent one. But there comes a time when these images begin to sound, and voices from the spiritual world can be heard. Pythagoras speaks of the music of the spheres. This was no mere fantasy on his part: the path a star takes becomes a sound to the clairvoyant. Goethe, too, knew of this. In Faust it says:

The sun resounds in the ancient way
in a song of rivalry among the celestial spheres,
and its predetermined journey
it completes with a thunderous roar ...

[ 13 ] and further:

With a sound that resonates in the ears of the spirit
the new day is already dawning ...

[ 14 ] Of course, scholars say that Goethe meant this figuratively. But after a certain stage of development, the clairvoyant begins to hear sounds. Goethe is referring to the spiritual essence of the sun. And when the ancients named the stars, the names they gave them referred to the spirit of the planets. What we see as the sun is only the physical body of the sun, and Goethe knew very well that there is a solar spirit. When the clairvoyant first perceives sounds after a certain period of time, he later perceives the “inner word.” The gift of hearing the inner word is called inspiration, just as the gift of perceiving images from the astral world is called imagination. In imagination, one sees; in inspiration, one hears. When Jakob Böhme and Paracelsus spoke of inspiration, they meant this gift. And this is also why we say that the religious texts are inspired. Those who wrote them were inspired—that is, initiates—who possessed the inner word. When a person develops the ability to see, the astral world opens up to them. Through inner hearing, the Devachan world—the spiritual world—opens up to them.