The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Second Lecture

[ 1 ] You will have noticed that the experiences of the souls described in The Awakening of the Soul take place at the boundary between the sensory world and the supersensory, spiritual worlds. It is of particular importance for Spiritual Science to take in this borderland with the soul’s eye, for it is only natural that, at first, everything the human soul can experience in the spiritual, supersensible world is, so to speak, an unknown land for all the faculties and for all the soul’s experiences in the sensory-physical world. When a person now familiarizes themselves with the spiritual world through the various methods we have learned—that is, when the soul learns to experience, observe, and perceive in the spiritual world outside the physical body—then for such a life, for such a sense of feeling in the spiritual world, it is necessary for the soul to develop very special abilities, very special powers. If the soul strives for clairvoyant consciousness within earthly existence, it is natural that the soul that has become clairvoyant—or the soul that wishes to become so—can dwell in the spiritual world outside its body and can also return to the physical body—for as an earthly human being, it must do so — and thus live once again as a human being—as a sensory being—must normally live within the sensory world as an earthly human being. One can therefore say: The soul that has become clairvoyant must be able to move lawfully within the spiritual world and must be able to cross the boundary again and again into the physical-sensory world and, if I may put it in trivial terms, behave there in the correct, appropriate manner. — Since the soul’s faculties must be different for the spiritual world and are different when this soul makes use of the physical senses and the rest of the physical body, the soul must, to a certain extent, acquire the mobility to feel its way in the spiritual world, to experience it with the corresponding faculties, and then, when it crosses the boundary, to experience the sensory world again with the corresponding abilities. Acquiring this ability, this flexibility, this capacity for transformation is by no means particularly easy; but in order to properly assess the difference between the spiritual and the physical-sensory world, it is precisely this border region between the two worlds that must be clearly grasped by the soul’s eye, the threshold itself must be clearly grasped, which the soul must cross if it wishes to penetrate from the physical-sensory world into the spiritual world. For we shall see in the most varied ways in the course of this lecture series: It can only be to the soul’s detriment to carry the customs of one world into the other when it must cross the threshold in one direction or the other.

[ 2 ] What makes the process of crossing this threshold particularly difficult, so to speak, is the presence within our world order of those beings who play a certain role in the experiences described in The Awakening of the Soul and the other dramas—beings whom we may refer to as Luciferic and Ahrimanic beings. For in order to attain the correct attitude toward the transition from one world to the other, it is necessary to know how to relate properly to these two types of beings, the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic. Now, it would at first be most convenient—and quite a few souls choose this convenient means of understanding for themselves, at least theoretically—to say: Well, Ahriman seems to be a dangerous fellow, and if he exerts his influence on the world and human action, then the simplest thing is to eradicate the impulses coming from Ahriman from the human soul. — This seems to be the most convenient solution, but it is just as sensible for the spiritual world as if someone were to try to restore balance on a scale by removing the weight on the side where the scale is tipping down, in order to restore equilibrium that way. These beings, whom we call Ahrimanic and Luciferic, are present in the world; they have their role within the world order, and they cannot be eradicated. It is not a matter of eradication at all, but rather that, just as the weights on two scales, the Ahrimanic and Luciferic forces must maintain a balance in their impulses toward human beings and other beings; they must counterbalance one another. One does not bring about the proper effectiveness of a type of force or being by eliminating it, but by placing oneself in the right relationship to it. And these beings, the Luciferic and Ahrimanic ones, are completely misunderstood if one simply says: These are harmful, evil beings. —The fact that these beings in a certain sense rebel against the general world order—which was already predetermined before they entered this world order—does not stem from the fact that these beings must engage in harmful activity under all circumstances, but from the fact that these beings, like the others we come to know as the legitimate beings within the higher worlds, have a specific sphere of activity within the whole of the world order. And the rebellion, the opposition to the world order, consists in their overstepping this sphere, in their exercising the powers they should exert within their rightful sphere beyond the bounds of that sphere. Let us consider Ahriman or the Ahrimanic beings from this point of view.

[ 3 ] One can characterize Ahriman quite well by saying: In the broadest sense, Ahriman is the Lord of Death, the ruler of all the forces that are to bring about within the physical-sensory world that which must necessarily exist in this physical-sensory world as destruction, as the death of beings. —Death within the sensory world is one of the necessary mechanisms, for the beings would overgrow the sensory world if destruction and death were not present within it. The task of regulating this death in the appropriate manner from the spiritual world in accordance with the laws of nature fell to Ahriman; he is the Lord of the regulation of death. The realm that belongs to him in the most eminent sense is the mineral world. The mineral world is always dead; death is, so to speak, poured out over the entire mineral world. But just as our earthly world is, the mineral realm and mineral law are also poured into all other natural kingdoms. Plants, animals, and human beings, insofar as they belong to the natural kingdoms, are all permeated by the mineral, take in mineral substances—and thus also the mineral forces and laws—and are subject to the laws of the mineral kingdom, insofar as this belongs to the earthly being. Thus, what pertains to rightful death extends into these higher realms of Ahriman’s lawful dominion as well. In the external nature that surrounds us, Ahriman is the lawful lord of death, and insofar as he is this, he must be recognized not as an evil power, but as one thoroughly grounded in the general order of the world. We can only enter into a proper relationship with the sensory world if we show an interest in this sensory world that is appropriate to it, if this interest in the sensory world is regulated in such a way that we see the things of this sensory world as arising, that we do not desire them to such an extent that we demand an eternal existence for the sensory forms, but that we can do without them when they approach their natural death. To be able to take appropriate delight in the things of the sensory world, but not to cling to them in a way that would contradict the laws of decay and death: this is a right relationship of the human being to the sensory world. And for all this to be possible—for a human being to have a proper relationship to the sensory world, to becoming and passing away—he is permeated by the Ahrimanic forces; the Ahrimanic impulses are within him.

[ 4 ] But Ahriman can transcend his domain; above all, he can do so initially by encroaching upon human thought. A person who does not look into the spiritual world and has no understanding of it will not believe that Ahriman is encroaching upon human thought in a very real way. He does approach it! Insofar as this human thinking lives in the sensory world, it is bound to the brain, which must be subject to destruction according to the general order of the world. Here Ahriman must regulate this course of the human brain toward destruction. If he now oversteps his domain, he develops the tendency, the intention, to detach thinking from its mortal instrument, the brain, and to make it independent; to tear physical thinking—the thinking directed toward the sensory world—away from the physical brain, into whose stream of destruction this thinking should flow when the human being passes through the gate of death. Ahriman has the tendency, when he allows the human being to enter as a physical being into the current of death, to detach thinking from this current of destruction. He does this throughout the entire human life, always grasping this thinking with his claws and working on the human being in such a way that thinking seeks to tear itself away from destruction. Because Ahriman is active in human thinking in this way, and because people bound to the sensory world naturally perceive only the effects of spiritual beings, those whom Ahriman has in his grip in this manner feel the urge to tear thinking away from its embeddedness in the great world order. And this is what creates the materialistic mood; this is what causes people to want to apply their thinking only to the sensory world. Those people who are most possessed by Ahriman are those who do not want to believe in any spiritual world, for it is Ahriman who entices and seduces their thinking to remain in the sensory world.

[ 5 ] For the human soul, unless the person has become a practicing occultist, this initially has only one consequence: he becomes a crude, boorish materialist who wants to know nothing of the spiritual world. He is led astray in this way by Ahriman, though he is completely unaware of it. For Ahriman, however, the situation is such that by succeeding in tearing this thinking away from its foundation—which, as physical thinking, is bound to the brain—Ahriman uses this thinking to bring shadows and spectres out into the physical world, and these then permeate the physical world. With these shadows and spectres, Ahriman seeks continually to establish a special Ahrimanic realm. He is always lying in wait, seeking to tear away as much as possible from human thinking whenever that thinking seeks to enter the stream into which the human being flows upon passing through the gate of death—to hold back the thinking and to populate the physical world with shadows and phantoms formed from physical human thinking torn from its native soil. Viewed from an occult perspective, these shadows and phantoms flit about in the physical world, damaging the world order. They are the products that Ahriman brings about in this manner, as has been described. We have the right attitude toward Ahriman when we regard him in such a way that, when he allows his lawful impulses to enter our souls, we have a legitimate relationship with the sensory world. We must, however, remain vigilant so that he does not tempt us in the manner now indicated. More convenient, however, is the approach chosen by those who say: Well, then let us eradicate all Ahrimanic impulses from our souls. — But such an eradication achieves nothing other than causing the other side of the scale to sink even further. And whoever were truly to succeed in eradicating the Ahrimanic impulses from the soul through false theory would fall prey to the Luciferic impulse.

[ 6 ] This is particularly evident when people, out of a certain fear of entering into a proper relationship with the Ahrimanic forces, despise the sensory world, suppress the joy and proper relationship to the sensory world within themselves, and, in order not to become attached to the sensory world, destroy all interest in it. Then comes false asceticism. And this false asceticism provides the strongest leverage for the intervention of the erroneous Luciferic impulses. One could almost write the history of asceticism in such a way as to portray it as a constant temptation on the part of Lucifer. In false asceticism, the human being exposes himself to Lucifer’s temptations because, instead of balancing the scales by using the forces in a polarized way, he completely eradicates one side. Thus Ahriman has his full justification for every correct assessment of the human being in relation to the physical-sensory world. The mineral kingdom is, so to speak, the realm inherently belonging to Ahriman, the realm over which death is continually poured out; in the higher kingdoms of nature, Ahriman is the regulator of death, insofar as he intervenes lawfully in the course of processes and beings. That which we can observe as supersensible in the external world, we designate for certain reasons as spiritual; that which acts more soulfully within the human being, that which acts more inwardly within the human being, we designate as soulful. Ahriman is a more spiritual being; Lucifer is a more soul-related being. Ahriman is, so to speak, the lord of what takes place in outer nature; Lucifer approaches the inner being of the human being with his impulses.

[ 7 ] Now, there is, on the other hand, a legitimate task for Lucifer, one that is entirely in keeping with the general order of the world. This task of Lucifer is to tear human beings and everything spiritual in the world, in a certain sense, away from mere life and absorption in the physical-sensory realm. Imagine, if there were no Luciferic force in the world at all, then human beings would drift off into a dreamlike state in what flows in from the external world as perceptions, in what comes from the external world through the intellect. That would be a kind of drifting off of human and soul existence within this sensory world. But there are impulses that, while not seeking to tear these souls away from the sensory world—insofar as they are temporally bound to it—do seek to elevate the souls so that they may experience, feel, and take delight in something other than merely what this sensory world has to offer. We need only think of what humanity has sought in artistic development. Wherever a human being creates something in their life of mental images, feeling, and soul that is not crudely attached to the sensory world but rises above it, there is Lucifer as the power that tears them away from the sensory world. A large part of what lives as uplifting and liberating in the artistic development of humanity consists of Lucifer’s inspirations. We can designate something else as well as inspirations from Lucifer. Because Luciferic forces exist, human beings are able, through their thinking, not to remain stuck in a mere portrait-like reproduction of the physical-sensory world; they can rise above it through free thinking. They do this, for example, in their philosophizing. From this point of view, all philosophizing is an inspiration from Lucifer. One could virtually write a history of humanity’s philosophical development, insofar as it is not pure positivism—that is, it does not cling to the outwardly material—and one could say: The history of the development of philosophy is a continuous manifestation of Lucifer’s inspirations. For all creative work that rises above the sensory world is owed to the legitimate powers and activities of Lucifer.

[ 8 ] But now Lucifer, in turn, can overstep his bounds. Rebellion against the world order always stems from these beings overstepping their bounds. He oversteps them and has a constant tendency to do so by corrupting the soul’s emotional life. While Ahriman is more concerned with thinking, Lucifer is more concerned with feeling, with the life of emotion, passion, instinct, and desire. Everything that is emotionally perceptible in the physical-sensory world is what Lucifer rules over. And he has a tendency to detach this soul-feeling aspect, to peel it away from the physical-sensory world, to spiritualize it, and to establish a Luciferic realm on a special, one might say, isolated island of spiritual existence with all that he can snatch and capture of the soul-feeling aspect in the sensory world. While Ahriman seeks to hold back thinking within the physical-sensory world and casts it into the sensory world as shadows and phantoms, so that it is visible to elemental clairvoyance as flitting shadows, Lucifer does the opposite: he takes what is soul-feeling in the physical-sensory world, tears it out, and places it in a special Luciferic realm, which he establishes in contrast to the general world order as an isolated realm similar to his own nature.

[ 9 ] One can gain a mental image of how Lucifer is able to approach human beings by contemplating in the eye of the soul a phenomenon of human life—one we will discuss in greater detail—namely, that phenomenon which is described as love in the broadest sense and which, in essence, forms the foundation of true ethical and moral life within the human world order. The following must be said about this love in the broadest sense: When this love appears in the physical-sensory world and works within human life, it is absolutely protected from any unjustified Luciferic interference if it appears in such a way that the human being loves the being they love for the sake of that being. — Is it not true that when any being—another human being or a being from other kingdoms of nature—meets us in the physical-sensory world, it meets us with certain qualities? If we possess a free receptivity, a capacity to be moved by these qualities, then they compel us to love; then we cannot help but love this being. We are moved by the being to love it. This love, where the cause of love lies not in the lover but in the beloved being—that is the kind, the form of love in the sensory world that is absolutely immune to any Luciferic influence. But now, if you consider human life, you will soon see that another kind of love also comes into play in human life—the kind of love where one loves because one possesses certain qualities that feel satisfied, delighted, and joyful when one can love this or that being. One loves then for one’s own sake; one loves because one is of a certain nature, and this particular nature finds its satisfaction in loving the other being. You see, this love, which one might call selfish love, must also be present. It must not be absent from humanity. For everything we can love in the spiritual world—the spiritual realities, everything within us that can live through love as a longing, as an urge upward into the spiritual world, to embrace the beings of the spiritual world, to recognize the spiritual world—naturally springs from a sensual love for the spiritual world. But this love for the spiritual—it must, not merely may, but must necessarily occur for our sake. We are beings who have our roots in the spiritual world. It is our duty to shape ourselves as perfectly as possible. For our sake, we must love the spiritual world so that we may bring as many forces as possible from the spiritual world into our own being. In spiritual love, this personal, individual element—one might say this egoistic element of love—is fully justified, for it snatches the human being away from the sensory world, leads them up into the spiritual world, and guides them to fulfill the necessary duty of making themselves ever more and more perfect.

[ 10 ] Now, Lucifer has a tendency to mix these two worlds together. Whenever human love—where a person loves in the physical-sensual world with a selfish tinge, for their own sake—occurs, it is because Lucifer wants to make sensual love resemble spiritual love. Then he can tear it away from the sensory world and lead it into his own special realm. So that all love that can be called selfish love—love that exists not for the sake of the beloved but for the sake of the lover—is exposed to Luciferic impulses. If one really takes to heart what has just been said, one comes to realize that, especially in the present day, in the materialistic culture of the present, there is every reason to point out these Luciferic temptations regarding life in love. For a large part of our present-day scientific, and especially medical, literature and outlook is permeated by this Luciferic conception of love. One would have to touch on somewhat sensitive areas, so to speak, if one wanted to speak more precisely. But the Luciferic element in love is virtually pampered by a large segment of our medical science when men—and here the male world is particularly favored—are told time and again that they must cultivate a certain aspect of love because it is necessary for their health, that is, for their own sake. Much advice is given in this vein, where certain experiences in love are recommended to men not for the sake of the beloved, but because the underlying assumption is: this is necessary for male life. When we encounter such statements, and no matter how much they appear to be cloaked in scientific authority, they are nothing other than inspirations from the Luciferic element in the world. And a large part of science is simply permeated by Luciferic views. And Lucifer finds the best recruits for his kingdom among those people who allow themselves to be given such advice, who can believe that it is necessary for the advancement of their own person to cultivate certain forms of love life. It is absolutely necessary to know such things. For it must be emphasized again and again, as I already said yesterday: The little people never sense the devil, whether in his Luciferic or Ahrimanic form, even if he were to have them by the scruff of the neck! — People do not realize that Lucifer is sitting right behind the necks of those who, as materialistic scientists, give advice such as that indicated. They deny him, of course, because they deny all spiritual worlds.

[ 11 ] Thus we see how, on the one hand, the great and sublime—which sustains and elevates human development—depends on Lucifer. Humanity must understand how to keep the impulses that come from Lucifer within their proper spheres. Wherever Lucifer appears as the guardian of beautiful appearances, as the guardian of artistic impulses, there great and sublime, powerful things arise in humanity through Luciferic activity. But there is also a dark side to Luciferic activity. Luzifer strives everywhere to tear the soul-feeling realm away from the sensory realm, to make it independent, to permeate it with egoism and egotism. Thus, elements of self-will and similar factors arise in the soul-feeling realm, so that in free creation, human beings form all manner of ideas about the world—one might say, at will. How many people philosophize, so to speak, off the cuff, without caring whether their philosophizing fits into the general, necessary course of the world order. These philosophizing eccentrics are truly widespread in the world; they fall in love with their own opinions, and they do not balance the Luciferic element with the Ahrimanic one, which must constantly ask whether what is acquired through thought within the physical-sensory world also fits into the laws of that world. And so one sees these people running through the world with their opinions, which are nothing but a form of fanaticism that does not conform to the general world order. All fanaticism, all the confusion of self-willed opinions, all eccentric opinions, all false, fanatical idealisms—they all stem from the dark side of the Luciferic impulses. But the Luciferic and Ahrimanic elements confront us most particularly in their significance for the borderland or the threshold between the sensory and the supersensory when one considers clairvoyant consciousness.

[ 12 ] Once the human soul has set out to do what enables it to look into the spiritual world and gain insights into it, it must take on, in a very special way, the task that is otherwise performed by the subconscious regulators of the soul’s life. The general order of nature ensures that in ordinary life, human beings do not carry the customs and laws of one realm into the other, for this general order of nature would be thrown completely out of balance if the worlds were to be mixed up. We have just emphasized that, for the spiritual world, love must develop in such a way that the human being must, above all, unfold through the permeation of inner strength in relation to his or her self; that the human being must develop the urge to perfect himself or herself. He or she must keep an eye on oneself when developing love for the spiritual world. If they transfer these same kinds of impulses—which can lead them to the most sublime in the spiritual world—into the physical realm, they can lead to the most abominable things. There are people who, in their outward physical experience, in what they do all day long, are not particularly interested in the spiritual world at all. In our time, so they say, such people are not all that rare. But nature does not allow for a policy of burying one’s head in the sand. Does it not follow that this policy of burying one’s head in the sand consists of the bird sticking its head in the sand and then believing that the things it does not see do not exist? Materialistically minded people believe the spiritual world does not exist because they do not see it. They are true ostriches. But in one’s own soul, in the depths of one’s own soul, the urge toward the spiritual world is not absent simply because people deny it or numb themselves to it. It is there. In every human soul there is a living impulse, a living love for the spiritual world, even in materialistic souls. People merely render themselves spiritually powerless in the face of this urge. Now there is a law that states: if something is suppressed on one side through numbing, it emerges on the opposite side. The consequence of this is that the egoistic impulse breaks into the sensual impulses. It drives the kind of love from the spiritual world—the kind that is rightfully meant only for that world—into the sensual impulses, passions, desires, and so on, and there these sensual impulses become perverted. The perversions of the sensual drives, all the abominable abnormalities of the sensual drives, are the antithesis of what high virtues in the spiritual world would be, if the forces that are then poured into the physical world were used in the spiritual world. One must reflect on the fact that what is expressed in despicable drives in the sensory world, if it were used in the spiritual world, could accomplish the most sublime things in the spiritual world. This is immensely significant.

[ 13 ] Here, too, you can see how the sublime turns into the abominable when the boundary between the physical-sensory and the supersensory world is not properly observed and respected. Clairvoyant consciousness must now develop in such a way that the clairvoyant soul can live in the supersensible worlds in accordance with the laws of those worlds, and that it must also be able to return to life in the physical body without allowing itself to be led astray in the normal physical-sensory world by the laws of the supersensible worlds.

[ 14 ] Let us assume that a soul is unable to do this; in that case, the following may occur. We shall see that, during the transition across the border region from one world to the other, the soul learns—particularly through its encounter with the Guardian of the Threshold—how to behave properly. But let us suppose that a soul—and this can certainly happen—had made itself clairvoyant, had become clairvoyant through some circumstances, and had not properly undergone the encounter with the Keeper of the Threshold. Then such a soul can see into the supersensible worlds with clairvoyance and even make perceptions, but it may happen to her, when she then returns to the physical-sensory world—having not actually been in the spiritual world in the proper way—that she has “snacked” in the spiritual world. There are numerous such “snackers” of the spiritual world, and one can truly say that snacking in the supersensible world is far more serious than snacking in the physical-sensory world. One can thus snack in the spiritual world; then it very often happens that one carries over into the sensory world what one has experienced there; but then it becomes condensed, then it is drawn together. So that such a clairvoyant, who does not behave according to the laws of the general world order, returns to the physical-sensory world and brings with them the condensed images and impressions of the supersensory worlds, but does not merely see and think within the physical-sensory world; rather, while living in his physical body, he has before him the aftereffects of the spiritual world in images that look very much like sensory ones, except that they do not correspond to reality—they are illusions, hallucinations, and daydreams.

[ 15 ] In the spiritual world, those who are able to see clearly will never confuse reality with fantasy. It is indeed the case that Schopenhauer’s philosophy, insofar as it makes a mistake, refutes itself. It also refutes itself in the sensory world with regard to its main error, namely that our entire surroundings are merely our mental images. If one pushes this proposition to its limits, it is refuted, because life itself already teaches us to distinguish between a red-hot iron at nine hundred degrees—which is a real perception—and the imagined iron at nine hundred degrees, which does not hurt. If one lives in the real world with the appropriate faculties, life itself already provides the distinction between reality and fantasy. Even Kant’s statement, with which Kant approached the so-called proofs of God—that a hundred imagined thalers are worth just as much as a hundred real ones—is refuted by life. Certainly, a hundred imagined thalers contain just as many pennies as a hundred real ones, but there is still a difference between the two that stands out very clearly in the face of life. And I would advise anyone who considers this statement to be correct to pay the hundred thalers they owe with imaginary thalers; then they will surely notice the difference. Just as it is for the physical-sensory world when one truly stands within it and observes its laws, so it is also for the supersensory worlds. If one merely dabbles, then one is not immune to confusing illusion with reality; then the images become denser, and one takes what is merely meant to be an image for reality. And what one carries within oneself from such dabbling in the spiritual world is, in particular, a prey that Ahriman can pounce upon. From what he draws from ordinary human thought, he gains only airy shadows; but, to put it simply, he gains quite substantial shadows and spectres when he squeezes out of human physical individualities, as best he can, the false delusional images that have arisen through snacking in the spiritual world. And thus, in an Ahrimanic manner, the physical-sensory world is permeated with spiritual shadows and phantoms that are in grave conflict with the general order of the world.

[ 16 ] Here, then, we see how the Ahrimanic principle can intervene in a very particular way when it oversteps its bounds and works against the general order of the world; how, in particular, this Ahrimanic principle can become evil through the reversal of its proper activity. There is no such thing as absolute evil. All evil arises from the fact that something which is good in some way is used in the world in a different way; thereby it is turned into evil. In a similar way, the Luciferic principle, which can give rise to such sublime and magnificent things, can become dangerous—significantly dangerous—precisely for the soul that has become clairvoyant. And this happens in the reverse case. Now we have considered the case where a soul partakes of the spiritual world—that is, perceives within it—and, when it returns to the physical-sensory world, does not say to itself: Now you must not make use of this life of imagination that is suited to the spiritual world—then it is exposed to the Ahrimanic influence in the physical-sensory world. But the opposite can occur; the human soul can carry into the spiritual world that which belongs only to the physical-sensory world, and that is the mode of sensation, feeling, and emotion that the soul must necessarily develop to a certain degree in the physical-sensory world. All that which the soul develops in the physical-sensory world in terms of passions and so on must not be carried into the spiritual world, unless it is to succumb in a significant way to the temptations and enticements of Lucifer.

[ 17 ] This is part of what has been attempted to be portrayed in the ninth image of The Awakening of the Soul in the state of mind and soul of Mary. It would be entirely wrong for anyone to expect, at this point, a tumultuous, dramatically turbulent agitation, such as one finds in an external physical drama. If Mary’s mind were such that it could experience stirring passions, stirring impulses, and emotions at that moment upon receiving the memories from the devachanic world and the Egyptian era, then Mary’s soul would be tossed back and forth on the waves of passion. A soul that cannot receive the impulses of the spiritual world in inner peace, in absolute serenity, in a state of being beyond all external physical drama—such a soul suffers a fate in the spiritual world that I can only describe in the following pictorial manner. Imagine a being made of rubber flying back and forth in a room enclosed on all sides; it would fly toward one wall but be immediately thrown back, fly toward the other wall but be thrown back again, and thus fly back and forth, caught in a tumultuous motion on the waves of a life of passion. This is indeed what happens to a soul that carries the mode of sensation, the mode of feeling and emotion of the sensory-physical world into the spiritual world. But then something else occurs. It is not pleasant to be tossed back and forth like rubber in a worldly prison. Therefore, in such a case, the soul—as a clairvoyant soul—practices a particularly ostrich-like policy; namely, it numbs itself to this tossing back and forth, clouding its consciousness so that it takes no notice of it. Then it believes it is not being tossed back and forth. This makes it all the easier for Lucifer to approach, because consciousness is clouded; he lures the soul out and leads it to his isolated realm. There the soul can then receive its spiritual impressions, but they are purely Luciferic impressions, because they are received within his isolated realm.

[ 18 ] Because self-knowledge is difficult in this regard and it is extremely hard for the soul to gain clarity about certain traits, and because people also have an urge to enter the spiritual world as quickly as possible, it is not at all surprising that people tell themselves: I am already mature; I will surely be able to control my passions. — Of course, that is easier said than done. In particular, there are traits where self-control is in a very poor state. Vanity, ambition, and similar things are so deeply ingrained in the human soul that the self-confession: “You are vain and ambitious; you have a lust for power!”—is not so easy, and one usually deceives oneself when one reflects on these very things. But these are the worst of the emotions. If one carries these into the spiritual world, one becomes the easiest prey for Lucifer. And because, when one notices that one is being tossed back and forth, one does not readily admit to oneself: “This comes from ambition, from vanity”—one simply seeks out the gloom of the soul; and there Lucifer carries one off into his realm. Then one may indeed have impressions, but they do not correspond to the world order that had already been laid out before Lucifer intervened; rather, they are spiritual impressions of a purely Luciferic nature. One can have the strangest impressions; one will regard them as absolutely true facts. One can tell people about all manner of incarnations of this or that being, and these may be purely Luciferic inspirations and the like.

[ 19 ] In order to achieve the right balance in Maria’s awakening, Maria had to be portrayed—at the very moment when the spiritual world was about to descend upon her with such force—in a way that would, in essence, seem quite absurd to a person who, let’s say, were a snotty little critic from our own time. For such a petty critic might say: The Egyptian scene has just taken place, and then this Mary sits there as if she had just come from breakfast, experiencing these events in a way that lacks any dramatic life. — And yet, anything else would be untrue at this stage of development. What is true at this stage is solely that serenity, as the rays, the light of the spiritual, stream in. Thus we see that it depends on the soul’s mood, which must have come to terms within itself with all the emotions and passions that have significance only for the physical-sensory world, if the soul is to cross the threshold into the spiritual world in the right way and not experience in the spiritual world the necessary consequence of the lingering sensory mode of perception.

[ 20 ] Ahriman is a more spiritual being; whatever he develops in the way of unlawful activity, of unlawful creative activity, flows, so to speak, into the general sensory world. Lucifer is a more soul-oriented being; whatever he seeks to extract from the sensory world in terms of sentient soul elements, he wishes to incorporate into his own Luciferic realm, in which he seeks to secure for every human being—in accordance with the egoism implanted in beings—the greatest possible degree of arbitrary independence, so to speak. One can see from this that when judging such entities as Ahriman and Lucifer, it is not a matter of simply labeling them as good or evil, but rather of understanding what their lawful activity is, what their true realm is, and where their unlawful activity begins—where they cross their boundary. For by crossing their own boundaries, they entice human beings to unlawfully cross the boundary into the other world with the faculties and laws of one world. The images in The Awakening of the Soul deal in particular with the experiences of crossing back and forth across the boundary between the physical-sensory and the supersensory world. Today I wanted to begin by describing some of what must be taken into account regarding the border region between the sensory and supersensory worlds. Tomorrow we will continue with this reflection.