The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Popular Occultism XII

[ 1 ] It must be the completely free will of every human being to begin the occult higher development of the soul's powers. However, anyone who wishes to undergo higher spiritual development must also observe the necessary conditions and submit to them.

[ 2 ] Sleep is the starting point for considering the development of the spiritual senses. In a sleeping person, the physical and etheric bodies remain within the body, while the astral body and the “I” are outside of it. When a person begins to develop the ability to see in sleep, forces that previously ensured the restoration of the physical and etheric bodies are withdrawn from the body for a certain period of time. These forces must be replaced in some other way, lest a great danger arise for the physical and etheric bodies. For if this does not happen, their vital forces will greatly diminish, and amoral entities will take control of them. Consequently, it can happen that people develop astral clairvoyance but become immoral individuals. The duration of the preliminary exercises varies from person to person. It depends entirely on the stage of development the person is already at when they begin their training. For this reason, the teacher must first gain insight into the student’s inner state of soul. The preparatory period therefore often varies greatly.

[ 3 ] The following sentence is important: The more rhythm one has introduced into a being or a thing, the more one can leave it to its own devices. Thus, the student of the secret teachings must also instill a certain regularity, a rhythm, into his world of thought. To do this, it is necessary:

[ 4 ] First: Thought control—that is, the student must allow only those thoughts to enter his mind that he himself wishes to have. These exercises require a great deal of patience and perseverance. But even if one practices them for just five minutes a day, they are already significant for one’s inner life.

[ 5 ] Second: Initiative in one’s actions. These should be something that arises spontaneously from one’s own soul.

[ 6 ] Third: Inner serenity. This helps one develop a much deeper sense of compassion.

[ 7 ] Fourth: Seek and find the positive side in all things and events. This reminds me of the beautiful legend of Christ and the dead dog.

[ 8 ] Fifth: Impartiality and an open mind. One should always keep the door open to acknowledging new facts.

[ 9 ] Sixth: Inner balance and inner harmony.

[ 10 ] When a person develops all of these qualities within themselves, a rhythm is established in their inner life such that the astral body no longer needs to carry out regeneration during sleep. For through these exercises, a balance is established in the etheric body that enables it to protect and restore itself. Anyone who begins occult training without first cultivating these six qualities is in danger and is exposed to the most malevolent entities at night. But anyone who has practiced these six qualities for some time may begin to develop their astral senses, and they then begin to sleep with awareness. Their dreams are no longer random, but take on a regular pattern; the astral world unfolds before them. Now he has the ability to perceive everything spiritual in his surroundings as images. He develops a relationship with spiritual reality. This pictorial consciousness is called imagination. At first, the student attains imagination during sleep, but later he must be able to induce this state at any time of day. He learns to carry the experiences of sleep over into waking consciousness. But this ability is only valuable to the occultist when he can perceive the auras of living beings with full consciousness.

[ 11 ] The first stage, then, is imagination. Linked to it is the formation of the so-called lotus flowers, the sacred wheels, or—in Sanskrit—chakras, which are located at very specific points in the body. There are seven such astral organs. The first, the two-petaled lotus flower, is located in the area of the root of the nose; the second, the sixteen-petaled one, is situated at the level of the larynx; the third, the twelve-petaled one, at the level of the heart; the fourth, the eight- to ten-petaled one, near the navel; the fifth, the six-petaled one, is situated slightly lower; the sixth, the four-petaled one, which is connected with all that pertains to fertilization, is even lower; the seventh cannot be discussed so readily. These six organs have the same significance for the spiritual world as the physical senses do for the perception of the sensory world. An image representing this is the so-called swastika. Through the exercises mentioned, they first become brighter, then they begin to move. In modern humans, they are immobile; in the Atlanteans, they were still mobile; in the Lemurians, they moved very vigorously. But at that time, they rotated in the opposite direction than they do today in occultly developed individuals, where they rotate clockwise. An analogy to the dreamlike clairvoyant state of the Lemurians is the fact that even in today’s mediums with atavistic clairvoyance, the lotus flowers still rotate in the same direction as they once did in the Atlantean and Lemurian eras—namely, counterclockwise. The clairvoyance of mediums is unconscious and not controlled by thought, whereas that of the true clairvoyant is conscious and precisely monitored by thought. Mediumship is very dangerous, but sound esoteric training is entirely harmless. (See Appendix.)