The Rudolf Steiner Archive

4. The Transformation of the Soul’s Powers in Initiation

[ 1 ] Today I intend to speak about an important concept in esoteric science: the connection between the microcosm and the macrocosm. Within esoteric science, there are various fundamental concepts that run like a thread through the entire esoteric movement. One such concept is that of the rhythmic number; another is that of the microcosm and macrocosm. The mystery of the number is expressed in the fact that certain phenomena follow one another in such a way that the seventh repetition can be regarded as the conclusion of an event, and the eighth as the beginning of a new one. This fact is reflected within the physical world in the relationship of the octave to the fundamental tone. For those who seek to penetrate occult realms, this principle becomes the foundation of a comprehensive worldview. It is not only sounds that are arranged according to the law of number, but also events in time. The events of the spiritual world are arranged in such a way that one finds a relationship similar to that in the rhythm of sound.

[ 2 ] Even more important is the relationship between the microcosm and the macrocosm. We find a sensory reflection of this at every turn. Let us consider the relationship between the whole plant and the seed: in the whole plant we see a macrocosm, in the seed a microcosm. In a certain sense, the forces distributed throughout the entire plant are concentrated in the seed as if in a single point. In a similar way, we can view the development of the individual human being from childhood to old age as a microcosm, and the development of a people as a macrocosm. Every nation has a childhood in which it absorbs important cultural elements. An example of this is the Romans, who absorbed Greek culture. A nation grows up and draws from within itself the forces for its further development. Therefore, it is important that the individual member of a nation undergoes what the entire nation undergoes. He relates to his nation as the seed relates to the plant. We find the relationship between microcosm and macrocosm most clearly in the human being, as he appears to us in the sensory world, and the cosmos. Just as he stands before us in the sensory world, he has drawn the forces of the universe into himself, just as the forces of the entire plant are drawn into the seed.

[ 3 ] We may now ask ourselves: Are these forces within the human being also distributed in some way throughout the macrocosm, just as the forces of the plant seed are distributed throughout the entire plant? Esoteric science alone can provide us with an answer to this question, for within earthly life, the human being comes to know only himself as a microcosm. But he does not live only in the microcosm; he also has a life in the universe.

[ 4 ] At first glance, it seems merely a claim that, in the experience of wakefulness and sleep, a person alternates between a life in the microcosm and a life in the macrocosm. When a person falls asleep, consciousness ceases to function, and emotions cease to exist for them. External science will strive in vain to find within the sleeping human being what constitutes his inner life in the waking state. Logically, however, it is impossible to think that a person’s soul life is destroyed upon falling asleep, and that it emerges anew from nothingness upon waking. External science will, in the not-too-distant future, admit that one can discern the soul life from external material facts just as little as one can understand the lungs by knowing the laws of oxygen. To this end, we study the lungs in their organic functions. In the same way, we recognize that there is nothing in the external laws of the physical life that we inhale upon waking and exhale upon falling asleep. For the occultist, falling asleep and waking up are nothing other than breathing. Every morning, the human being takes in the spiritual-soul aspect through spiritual breathing and exhales it again upon falling asleep. Where is this spiritual-soul aspect when the human being is in a state of sleep, just as the air in the room is the air he has exhaled? Occult science shows us that it is enveloped by the atmosphere of the spiritual world, just as we are enveloped by the atmospheric air, only that the latter extends a few miles outward, while the former fills the universe.

[ 5 ] If we consider the amount of air that a person has inhaled into their body, we can relate it to the entire atmosphere: the same amount that is in the human body after inhalation is returned to the atmosphere after exhalation. Thus, in the sense of occultism, one can say: after inhalation it is in the microcosm, after exhalation in the macrocosm. Likewise, the soul-spiritual life that is active within our body is in the microcosm from waking until falling asleep, and in the macrocosm from falling asleep until waking. Just as external physical science teaches us about the existence of the physical atmosphere, so occult science speaks of the spiritual macrocosm that receives our soul during sleep.

[ 6 ] Spiritual science is attained through spiritual methods: initiation. Daily experience reveals to us the life of our soul within the microcosm; we come to know life within the spiritual-soul macrocosm through initiation. This science must be discussed first if the transition from the microcosm to the macrocosm is to be understood. This science takes on special significance because through it we enter the spiritual world after death. Crossing the threshold of death merely signifies the soul’s final departure from the body. The method of initiation teaches intimate exercises of the soul. Just as we influence our physical surroundings in everyday life, so must we enable our soul to influence the macrocosm spiritually and psychically and to receive impressions from it. We must seek to free our spiritual and soul forces that are bound to physical life. Three soul forces are connected to the body in ordinary life, which are set free through initiation. The first force of the soul is the power of thought. We use it in ordinary life to form thoughts, to create mental images of the things surrounding us. Let us try to put ourselves in touch with the nature of this power of thought. What happens when we think and form mental images? Even physical science will admit that every time we form a thought relating to something sensory, a process of destruction takes place in our brain. We must destroy fine structures of the brain; fatigue demonstrates this sufficiently. What everyday thinking destroys is restored during sleep.

[ 7 ] Through the method of initiation, we attain a state in which we free the power of thought from the physical brain: nothing is destroyed in the process. We achieve this through meditation, concentration, and contemplation. These are specific processes within our soul that differ from ordinary soul life. The ideas and soul processes that fill us in ordinary life are not well suited to generating meditation in our soul; we must choose others for this purpose. To speak concretely, let me give an example. Imagine two glasses, one empty, the other half-full. Then imagine that we pour water from the half-full glass into the empty one, and now imagine that the half-full glass would become fuller and fuller in the process. The materialist finds such a thing foolish. But an image suitable for meditation is not something real in the physical sense, but rather something that forms mental images. Precisely because such an image does not refer to anything real, it diverts our attention from reality. It can, however, serve as a symbol—namely, for the soul process linked to the mystery of love. The process of love is like the half-full glass from which one pours into an empty one, yet which becomes fuller in the process. The soul does not become emptier; it becomes fuller to the extent that it gives. This is the meaning this symbol can hold.

[ 8 ] When we approach such a mental image by directing all our spiritual powers toward it, this is meditation. In doing so, we must forget everything else, including ourselves. Our entire inner life must be focused on it for a long time, say about fifteen minutes. It is not enough to perform such an exercise once or a few times; it must be repeated constantly. Depending on the individual’s disposition, it will become apparent that the inner life changes in the process. We notice that we thereby develop a power of thought that does not destroy the brain. Anyone who undergoes such a development will recognize that meditation does not cause fatigue and does not destroy the brain. This seems to be contradicted by the fact that beginners fall asleep during meditation. But this stems from the fact that, in the beginning, we are still attached to the external world and have not yet freed our thoughts from the brain. Once we have freed our powers of thought from the brain through repeated effort, and have achieved meditation without fatigue, a transformation takes place in our entire human life. Just as we were previously outside the body in sleep without consciousness, so are we now consciously. And just as we think of our ego as being within our skin in everyday life, so do we experience ourselves outside our body after meditation. The body becomes an object we look upon. But now we come to know it differently than in sleep. We come to know it as magnetic forces that bind us to our body. It is something into which we want to immerse ourselves. And we recognize that these are the same forces that draw us to our physical body every morning—the forces we brought with us from the spiritual world before birth, and which prompted us to seek out the currents of heredity in order to find a new body. Through this, we come to understand why we feel drawn to our parents and ancestors.

[ 9 ] We can single out one experience, a soul experience that is different from those we have during the transition from the microcosm to the macrocosm. When we look from the macrocosm toward the body, we say of all experiences: This is outside of us. — But once we have awakened the Paul experience within us, we have developed a soul element that is already external within us. When we are outside the body, we feel the Christ experience as an inner one. This can be called the first encounter with the Christ impulse in the macrocosm. Now we must discuss a second kind of initiatory forces. Just as we detach the power of thought, so too can we detach the power we use for linguistic expression. Materialistic science says that the motor speech organs have their center in the so-called Broca’s speech center. But it is not Broca’s center that formed language; rather, language formed it.

[ 10 ] The power of thought has a destructive effect, while language derived from the social environment has a constructive effect. Now we can detach this power, which builds up the Broca’s area. We achieve this by imbuing our meditation with emotional values. When I meditate: “Wisdom shines in the light”—this, too, does not reflect an external truth, but it has a deep meaning, a profound significance. When we imbue our feeling with it: “We want to live with all the light that wisdom shines”—then we feel how we grasp the power that is otherwise expressed in words and now lives in our soul. When we speak of the golden silence, this is what it refers to: We have within our soul a power that creates the word. — We can grasp it just as we grasp the power of thought. Then we overcome time, just as we overcome space by grasping the power of thought. What is a memory in everyday life extending back to childhood then expands to encompass prenatal life. This is the path to gaining experiences of life from the last death to our present birth, and at the same time the path to understanding the development of humanity. We gain insight into the forces that guide the evolution of human history.

[ 11 ] And we come to understand life from birth to death. When we cultivate the power of the silent word, we come to understand the spiritual foundation of earthly life. Here again we encounter a historical point, the Mystery of Golgotha. For this is the path along which we find the ascending and descending development of humanity and the point where Christ incarnates. As he is in his very own power, so is he recognized. Just as we connect with the Christ as he was on earth through the liberation of thought, so do we connect with the Mystery of Golgotha through the liberation of the word. A special light is thus shed on the first line of the Gospel of John.

[ 12 ] Then a third force becomes active through meditation. It affects not only the brain and the larynx, but also the blood circulation and the heart. Acting in a subtle form, we feel it when we blush or turn pale. Here, a soul force intervenes in the pulsation of the blood and reaches as far as the heart. This soul force can be drawn out of the pulsation of the blood and become an independent soul force. This happens through meditation, where the will unites with the meditation. We meditate: Wisdom shines forth in the light. — But we resolve to connect our will to it in such a way that we wish to go along with this radiant wisdom in the evolution of humanity. When we arrive at such a meditation of the will, we achieve that the forces of the will flow into the soul. These forces can be grasped and drawn out of the blood—though they cannot be drawn out entirely—and then they form a clairvoyant power through which we transcend our Earth. We learn to recognize our Earth as a reincarnated planet that will incarnate anew, and we humans along with it. Thus we grow through the spiritual-soul world into the macrocosm. In a certain sense, we experience how life between death and birth must be the opposite of life in an incarnation. For what the human being experiences there after ‘death,’ freed from the body, is what the Initiate experiences. Let us take the main characteristic of what has been presented to us in the bodiless state. It is the same experience as in the life after death. Living in the microcosm, we perceive through the physical organs of the senses. After death, we look upon the body as the initiate does. There, one cannot perceive what the sense organs perceive. The initiate can recognize life between death and new birth because he has already found the transition from the microcosm to the macrocosm here.

[ 13 ] In ordinary human language, we cannot speak with the dead. But once we have liberated the power of language, we can recognize how we are connected to the dead. By liberating the power of thought, we can speak with those who are between death and rebirth.

[ 14 ] Let me give an example: A seer was able to speak with a deceased person. He had been an excellent man, but he had cared for his family only in a material sense. He had no religious or anthroposophical beliefs. The seer was able to learn the following from the man: “I know that I lived with my family, with my loved ones, and they were my sunshine. They are still alive now, I know that, but I can only see them up to the point when I left the earth. No connection can be established with them. — Conditions are complicated after death.” The seer was able to see the following: The woman still showed in her being something like the consequences of her husband’s influence. The man could see these effects, but not as one sees a person, rather as in a mirror: There is indeed a seeing there, but it is as if one were seeing only an image in a mirror. This has a eerie effect, because one cannot really see the person as he is. Just as we see the physical in the life of the senses, so must we later be able to see the soul. But just as we do not see a candle in a dark room if it is not burning, so here too is perception dimmed, darkened. Yet a connection is still possible between the dead and the living on earth if the latter are imbued with spiritual life. This is the basis of the kindness we can show the dead. Someone has passed through the gate of death with whom we share common interests: we can read to them. We imagine that they are before us; we read to them softly; we can also send them thoughts. But they receive an impression only when we send them ideas and concepts imbued with spiritual life. The task of anthroposophy will be understood when we realize that we must bridge the chasm that separates us from the dead.

[ 15 ] Even a soul that has been opposed to anthroposophy can find such readings beneficial. In our inner life, two aspects must be distinguished: what is consciously experienced, and the depths of the soul, which, like the depths of the sea, are expressed only in the waves on the surface. Thus we may find, for example, that of two brothers, one becomes an anthroposophist while the other becomes an opponent of anthroposophy. This can only be a fact of the external world. The inner process is this: a deep longing for the religious is present, and one merely seeks to numb oneself by rejecting anthroposophy. The conscious idea is merely an opiate to forget what is happening in the depths. Death removes all of that, and we then hunger precisely for what we unconsciously longed for. That is why reading anthroposophical writings aloud is such a blessing. Gradually, the awareness of the connection with the dead emerges. But even before we have this feeling, we risk nothing more than that the dead person will not hear us when we read to them. Thus we see that through the living grasp of the anthroposophical teaching, the dead and the living, the microcosm and the macrocosm, come into connection.

[ 16 ] This also occurs in another realm. When the seer observes those who are asleep, he sees: some souls pass through the gate of sleep who never have spiritual interests, and others who absorb spiritual thoughts during the day. — Here a difference becomes apparent: the sleeping souls are like seeds in a field. Famine would ensue in the spiritual world if no spiritual thoughts were carried over. The dead are nourished by the spiritual and anthroposophical ideas brought with them by those falling asleep. If we do not carry spiritual concepts upward as we fall asleep, we deprive the dead of nourishment. By reading aloud, we give them spiritual stimulation; with the spiritual ideas we carry upward as we fall asleep, we give the dead nourishment.

[ 17 ] Through what a person creates within their soul, they become a bridge from the microcosm to the macrocosm. What we take in is like a seed. I would like to describe the living, not merely theoretical, mission of anthroposophy in this way: Theory transforms into the elixir of life; immortality becomes an experience. Just as the seed guarantees the next seed, so we develop spiritual and soul forces that guarantee a return in a future earthly life. We do not merely understand; we experience immortality within us. Thus, from the moment our hair turns gray, we experience what passes through the gate of death. In this sense, anthroposophy will become an elixir of life, just as blood courses through our physical body. Only then will anthroposophy be what it is meant to be. When we learn to recognize this and wish to summarize it in a fundamental feeling—the fundamental feeling that the human soul is connected to the spiritual world just as our physical body is connected to the physical world—then the human being experiences:

They speak to the human spirit
The beings in the vastness of space,
They transform over the course of time.
Through experience, the human soul
From the boundless expanse of space
And undeterred by the passage of time
Enters the realm of eternity.