Occult Science E-Book

Rudolf Steiner

• Herausgeber: Rudolf Steiner Press
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Seitenzahl: 659

Beschreibung

Given his energetic involvement in practical initiatives and extensive lecturing, Rudolf Steiner had little time to write books. Of those he did write - belonging almost entirely to the earlier years of his work - four titles form an indispensable introduction to his later teaching: Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, Theosophy, The Philosophy of Freedom and Occult Science. The anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner is not a theoretical system, but the results of research based on direct observation. As Steiner's research was so vast and conducted over such a long period of time, no single book can be said to contain the whole of his spiritual teaching. However, of all his books Occult Science comes closest. Steiner even referred to it as 'an epitome of anthroposophical spiritual science'. The book sets out, in systematic order, the fundamental facts concerning the nature and constitution of the human being and, in chronological order, the history of the universe and man. Whereas the findings of natural science are derived from observations made through the senses, the findings of spiritual science, or anthroposophy, are 'occult' inasmuch as they derive from direct observation of realities which are hidden to everyday perception. And yet these elements of humanity and the universe form the foundation of the sense world. A substantial part of Occult Science is occupied by a description of the preliminary training which is necessary to make such spiritual observations. Although Occult Science is not all-inclusive, it is indispensable to any serious student seeking to master Rudolf Steiner's extraordinary philosophy.

Leseprobe

RUDOLF STEINER (1861–1925) called his spiritual philosophy ‘anthroposophy’, meaning ‘wisdom of the human being’. As a highly developed seer, he based his work on direct knowledge and perception of spiritual dimensions. He initiated a modern and universal ‘science of spirit’, accessible to anyone willing to exercise clear and unprejudiced thinking.

From his spiritual investigations Steiner provided suggestions for the renewal of many activities, including education (both general and special), agriculture, medicine, economics, architecture, science, philosophy, religion and the arts. Today there are thousands of schools, clinics, farms and other organizations involved in practical work based on his principles. His many published works feature his research into the spiritual nature of the human being, the evolution of the world and humanity, and methods of personal development. Steiner wrote some 30 books and delivered over 6000 lectures across Europe. In 1924 he founded the General Anthroposophical Society, which today has branches throughout the world.

OCCULT SCIENCE

AN OUTLINE

RUDOLF STEINER

RUDOLF STEINER PRESS

Translated by George and Mary Adams. Re-edited by Rudolf Steiner Press for this special edition to mark the 150th anniversary of Rudolf Steiner’s birth.

Rudolf Steiner PressHillside House, The SquareForest Row, RH18 5ES

www.rudolfsteinerpress.com

Published by Rudolf Steiner Press 2012

Fifth English edition

First published in English in 1962

Originally published in German under the title Die Geheimwissenschaft im Umriss (volume 13 in the Rudolf Steiner Gesamtausgabe or Collected Works) by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach. This authorized translation is based on the 29th edition, and is published by permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach

Translation © Rudolf Steiner Press 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978 1 85584 296 0

Cover by Andrew Morgan DesignTypeset by DP Photosetting, Neath, West Glamorgan

Contents

Publisher’s Note

Foreword by Matthew Barton

Preface to the 1925 edition

Preface to the 1920 edition

Preface to the 1913 edition

Preface to the 1909 edition (first)

1.  The Character of Occult Science

2.  The Nature of Humanity

3.  Sleep and Death

4.  Man and the Evolution of the World

5.  Knowledge of Higher Worlds. Concerning Initiation

6.  Present and Future Evolution of the World and of Mankind

7.  Details from the Domain of Spiritual Science

The Ether-body of Man. The Astral World. Man’s Life after Death. The Stages of Man’s Life. Higher Regions of the Spiritual World. The Members of Man’s Being. The State of Consciousness in Dreaming. The Way to Supersensible Cognition. The Observation of Particular Events and Beings.

Supplementary Notes

Notes

Translators’ Note

Synopsis

Further Reading

Publisher’s Note

To those unfamiliar with Steiner’s work, the title Occult Science might easily be misleading. In recent times, ‘occult’ has been appropriated as a term referring to potentially alarming or sinister practices in magic or mysticism, whereas in fact it originally meant nothing other than ‘hidden’. It is in this original sense that it is here intended, as a translation of the German Geheimwissenschaft: a science that explores and enquires into realities hidden within our manifest sensory world. Steiner’s project in this work is, ‘simply’, to disclose what underlies and permeates the world’s physical reality, which is initially hidden from our senses but can become known by enhancing and developing our powers of perception.

Foreword

In the wake of Darwin’s discoveries and evolutionary theories, the beginning of the twentieth century was a period in science of, among other things, increasing focus on the microscopic level of cellular and genetic research, with an emphasis on physical heredity and its implications. Thirty years after Gregor Mendel’s original work on plant heredity and evolution, three scientists working separately rediscovered and confirmed his results in 1900. At a similar, microscopic level, back in 1880 Robert Koch had established that disease is transmitted by bacteria, and in 1900 antibiotics were discovered. In 1905, Albert Einstein published his revolutionary paper on special relativity which, while preoccupied with such huge parameters as time and space, saw light as composed of a kind of particle (photon) and supported the further development of a micro-focus in nuclear physics and quantum mechanics.

In this context of scientific endeavour this book, Occult Science, seems at first to fly in the face of that whole general trend. Yet we can see that it too draws in a certain respect on Darwin’s efforts to contemplate long ages of time, although the picture of evolution that Steiner presents in these pages goes far beyond Darwin in the grandeur and tenor of its scope. That is not to say, however, that Steiner dismisses the microscopic scale of things, only that he wishes to compensate for this narrow focus by directing the reader’s gaze to the huge, macrocosmic scale as well. And he is at pains to complement exclusive consideration of the material world with renewed awareness of other, non-physical dimensions without which the former cannot be properly understood.

After publishing Theosophy in 1904, Rudolf Steiner continued working on a proposed enlarged and expanded version of that volume. But, in his own words in the 1925 preface to Occult Science, he quickly realized that the ‘facts of cosmic evolution’ were not yet sufficiently clear to him in their entirety. And so, instead, he went on ‘quietly working’ on what would eventually become this entirely new book, which was first published in 1909. In the space of these four or five intervening years therefore, we can assume that Steiner, as a scientist using the ‘macroscope’ of his own vision, continued his previous, painstaking research into supersensible realities, gradually expanding his perception of them into an extraordinary—and extraordinarily full—panorama of cosmic and human evolution. In the same preface he is quite explicit that while in many instances he resorted to an already existing vocabulary drawn from ancient sources, the perceptions he articulates are entirely his. Just as a great musician draws on a musical idiom and language that other composers have previously developed, yet makes it inimitably his own, so Steiner takes old conventions or terminologies and entirely renews them through his own meticulous enquiries and detailed perception. The analogy with music might easily lead us to suppose that this work is a mere product of creative fantasy. But nothing could be further from the truth—as we can understand if we consider how Steiner arrived at his insights through a long process of disciplined and rigorous self-schooling to strengthen and enhance his cognitive faculties and rid them of all tinge of personal predilection. This is, in fact, very similar to what any scientist aspires to in his chosen field.

What Steiner undertakes here, in fact, is breathtaking in both scope and difficulty. Not only ‘knocking at the doors which others say must be barred and bolted’, he penetrates with us into a vast array of interweaving phenomena extending through aeons of time. Whether or not we follow him into this domain is of course up to us, but he reiterates that the content of this ‘brief outline’ is intelligible to any unprejudiced reader and also that by exerting our thinking while reading it—which to read it we are obliged to do—we already take an initial step in disciplined spiritual schooling ourselves.

It is easy to overlook the magnitude of Steiner’s achievement in this book: investigating and—still harder, articulating—realities which can never, by definition, be confirmed through physical evidence alone. Steiner is of course compelled to use language rooted in the physical, sensory world, and thus words which can at best be awkward, clodhopping approximations. He does this without relinquishing a sober spirit of scientific enquiry, in a realm which almost all scientists of his day (and most in ours) would have regarded as inaccessible to science if not entirely illusory. In this sense, most of us, in Steiner’s own analogy, resemble putative beings who ‘perceive only ice’ without any means to identify the water it derives from. To develop his metaphor a little, such beings might presumably interminably examine, weigh and measure ice, and establish the laws and patterns at work in it without ever acknowledging its ‘past’ or ‘future’ conditions. Thus they would develop a thorough body of knowledge accurate within its own limitations but deprived of the broader, underlying picture that alone can make sense of the phenomena. If another such being came along and suggested the invisible existence of water, he might well be dismissed as crazy. Yet it is easy to see, in this analogy, that the one with more profound perception cannot therefore be accused of lack of scientific rigour.

This book is, indeed, aptly named. Steiner refuses to ‘set aside clear knowledge’ when it comes to non-physical realities—although, admittedly, the science he employs must inevitably be qualitatively different from that concerned solely with quantifiable physical phenomena. Retaining the integrity of thought with which natural science is imbued, Steiner emphasizes that our scientific instrument in this case is us ourselves, our own developing awareness. It requires our continual, objective and self-relativizing evaluation of ourselves, our own capacities of moral conduct, heartfelt interest and sensitivity to the potential truth of what may initially at least strike us only as ‘unaccountable feelings’. Living in the world of spirit, says Steiner, is a ‘delicate and unwonted experience’—and thus one might say that his project is simultaneously scientific and artistic, and bridges the gulf between these often so divided realms. The word Dichter (‘poet’) in German originally after all means someone who ‘condenses’ into words ineffable, inarticulate apprehensions. Yet still more than an extended poem—a great epic perhaps on the origin and future of the cosmos and our place within it—this work, with its great, changing sweep, its panoramas, intervals, harmonies, dynamics and dissonances, reminds me of a great symphony. It is currently ‘Mozart season’ on BBC radio. The extraordinary outpouring that flowed through this composer, as if he had found within him the very source of music itself, strikes me as a kind of foreshadowing, in musical terms, of the seemingly endless influx of the spiritual spheres into Steiner’s work in general, and this book in particular. As with Mozart, the achievement seems astounding.

While encyclopedic in breadth, the book is anything but schematic. The orders and hierarchies of beings and the successive stages of both past and future planetary and human evolution described here are both too complex and too vividly depicted to be assigned to dry intellectual categories. Every sentence seems to demand something of us, like a great piece of music that we can listen to on countless occasions without ever fully or ultimately grasping it. If we read this book at all, we cannot stand back in a detached manner but must follow it into the realms it guides us through. In other words, we only ‘understand’ it by beginning to change ourselves, however slightly or subtly.

In the same way, Steiner urges us not to think, as we easily might, that contemplation of huge cycles of time, vast evolutionary aeons, is irrelevant to our present concerns. These great sweeps of past time are where we have come from. Without them we would not be where and what we are, and within them lie the unfolding seeds of our future. Distancing ourselves a little from our own immediate concerns and sensing ourselves as part of the whole trajectory of evolution can act like a lungful of fresh air, a renewal that also connects us more deeply with the kingdoms of nature around us. We can only properly understand plant fertilization, to take one small example, when we know of successive planetary stages. How much more interesting is ice when we know the whole context of water’s fluctuating conditions!

Not schematic, then, but structured like a complex musical organism, we pass in this book from accounts of cosmic evolution to a description of stages on the path whereby such knowledge can be attained. Like the movements of a symphony, this has an inner reason and development of its own. The book itself mirrors stages in contemporary human spiritual development. Starting with study and imaginative cognition, we progress from there to faculties Steiner calls Inspiration and then Intuition, each of which represents a further advance into a more purely spiritual and ever more inwardly active realm—related successively to the human head, larynx and heart. And in this progressive, yet always non-schematic development, we find ourselves challenged— even at very early stages—to begin to balance the images which our logical thinking receives with the creative breath of our own moral activity, and ultimately unite these in the heart’s devotion to an ever-expanding world in which we can increasingly become co-creating, conscious beings.

Only at the end of the book, in fact, is a vital key made explicit that has been implicitly present throughout and in a certain sense unlocks all that has gone before. Like the world itself, this book contains enormous wisdom; yet its final emphasis is not on wisdom but on the conscious transformation of wisdom in our inmost being to become all-comprehending love. Reading Occult Science can become a transformative step on our path towards that distant goal.

Matthew Barton

January 2011

Prefaces

Preface to the 1925 Edition

Fifteen years having now elapsed since the first publication of this book, it may be suitable for me to say something more about the spiritual circumstances and my own state of mind when it originated. It had been my intention that its main content should form part of a new and enlarged version of my Theosophy, published several years before. But this did not prove possible. At the time when Theosophy was written the subject matter of the present volume could not be brought into an equally finished form. In my imaginative perceptions I beheld the spiritual life and being of individual man and was able to describe this clearly. The facts of cosmic evolution were not present to me to the same extent. I was indeed aware of them in many details, but the picture as a whole was lacking.

I therefore resolved to make no appreciable change in the main content of the earlier volume. In the new edition as in the first, the book Theosophy should describe the essential features of the life of individual man as I had seen it in the spirit. Meanwhile I would quietly be working at a new and independent publication, Occult Science—an Outline.

My feeling at that time was that the contents of this book must be presented in scientific thought-forms—that is, in forms of thought akin to those of natural science, duly developed and adapted to the description of what is spiritual. How strongly I felt this ‘scientific’ obligation in all that I wrote at that time in the field of spiritual knowledge will be evident from the Preface to the First Edition (1909), here reproduced. But the world of the spirit as revealed to spiritual sight can only partly be described in thought-forms of this kind. What is revealed cannot be fully contained in mere forms of thought. This will be known to anyone who has had experience of such revelation. Adapted as they are to the exposition of what is seen by the outer senses, the thoughts of our everyday consciousness are inadequate fully to expound what is seen and experienced in the spirit. The latter can only be conveyed in picture-form, that is, in imaginations, through which inspirations speak, which in their turn proceed from spiritual reality of being, experienced in Intuition. (Concerning ‘Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition’, the necessary explanations will be found both in the present volume and in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment.)

Today however, one who sets out to tell of the spiritual world in imaginations cannot rest content with such pictorial descriptions. He would be foisting onto the civilization of our time the outcome of a state of consciousness quite unrelated to existing forms of knowledge. It is to the normal consciousness of the present age that he must bring home the truths which can indeed only be discovered by a higher consciousness—one that sees into the spiritual world. The subject matter of his exposition, namely the realities of the world of spirit, will then be cast into forms of thought which the prevailing consciousness of our time—scientifically thoughtful and wide awake, though unable yet to see into the spiritual world—can understand.

An inability to understand will at most be due to hindrances that are self-imposed. The reader may have fixed in his mind some definition of the inherent limitations of human knowledge, due to a mistaken generalization of the limits of natural science. Spiritual cognition is a delicate and tender process in the human soul, and this is true not only of the actual ‘seeing’ in the spirit, but of the active understanding with which the normal ‘non-seeing’ consciousness of our time can come to meet the results of seership. People with half-formed notions who allege autosuggestion in this regard have little idea of the real depth and intimacy of such understanding. For the scientific understanding of the physical world there may be truth or error in our theories and concepts. For the spiritual world, it is no longer a merely theoretic issue; it is a matter of living experience. When a person’s judgement is tinged however slightly by the dogmatic assertion that the ordinary (not yet clairvoyant) consciousness—through its inherent limitations—cannot really understand what is experienced by the seer, this mistaken judgement becomes a cloud of darkness in his feeling-life and does in fact obscure his understanding.

To an open mind however, though not yet ‘seeing’ in the spirit, what is experienced by the seer is comprehensible to a very full extent if once the seer has cast it into forms of thought. It is no less intelligible than is a finished work of art to the non-artist. Nor is this understanding confined to the realm of aesthetic feeling as in the latter instance; it lives in full clarity of thought, even as in the scientific understanding of nature.

To make such understanding possible, however, the seer must have contrived to express what he has seen in genuine forms of thought without thereby depriving it of its ‘imaginative’ character.

Such were my reflections while working at the subject matter of my Occult Science, and with these premises in mind by 1909 I felt able to achieve a book bringing the outcome of my spiritual researches, up to a point, into adequate forms of thought—a book moreover which should be intelligible to any thoughtful reader who did not himself impose unnecessary hindrances to understanding.

While saying this retrospectively today I must however admit that in the year 1909 the publication of this book appeared to me a venture of some temerity. For I was only too well aware that the professional scientists above all, and the vast number of others who in their judgement follow the ‘scientific’ authority, would be incapable of the necessary openness of mind. Yet I was equally aware that at the very time when the prevailing consciousness of mankind was farthest remote from the world of spirit, communications from that world would be answering to an urgent need. I counted on there also being many people feeling so weighed down by the prevailing estrangement from the living spirit that with sincere longing they would welcome true communications from the spiritual world. This expectation was amply confirmed during the years that followed. The books Theosophy and Occult Science have been widely read, though they count not a little on the reader’s good will. For it must be admitted they are not written in an easy style. I purposely refrained from writing a ‘popular’ account, so-called. I wrote in such a way as to make it necessary to exert one’s thinking while entering into the content of these books. In so doing, I gave them a specific character. The very reading of them is an initial step in spiritual training, inasmuch as the necessary effort of quiet thought and contemplation strengthens the powers of the soul, making them capable of drawing nearer to the spiritual world.

Misunderstandings were soon evoked by the chosen title, ‘Occult Science’. A would-be science, people said, cannot in the nature of the case be ‘occult’ or ‘secret’. Surely a rather thoughtless objection, for no one will deliberately publish what he desires to be secretive about or to keep obscure. The entire book is evidence that far from being claimed as a special ‘secret’, what is here presented is to be made accessible to human understanding like any other science. Speaking of ‘natural science’ we mean the science of nature. ‘Occult science’ is the science of what takes its course in realms that are ‘occult’ inasmuch as they are discerned, not in external nature—nature as seen by the outer senses—but in directions to which the soul of man becomes attentive when he turns his inner life towards the spirit. It is ‘occult science’ as against ‘natural science’.

Of my clairvoyant researches into the world of spirit it has often been alleged that they are a rehash, howsoever modified, of ideas about the spiritual world which have prevailed from time to time, above all in earlier epochs of human history. In the course of my reading I was said to have absorbed these things into the subconscious mind and then reproduced them in the fond belief that they were the outcome of my own independent seership. Gnostic doctrines, oriental fables and wisdom teachings were alleged to be the real source of my descriptions. But these surmises too were the outcome of no very deeply penetrating thought. My knowledge of the spiritual—of this I am fully conscious—springs from my own spiritual vision. At every stage—both in the details and in synthesis and broad review—I have subjected myself to stringent tests, making sure that wide-awake control accompanies each further step in spiritual vision and research. Just as a mathematician proceeds from thought to thought—where the unconscious mind, autosuggestion and the like can play no part at all—so must the consciousness of the seer move on from one objective imagination to another. Nothing affects the soul in this process save the objective spiritual content, experienced in full awareness.

It is by healthy inner experience that one knows a spiritual ‘imagination’ to be no mere subjective picture but the expression of a spiritual reality in picture-form. Just as in sensory perception anyone sound in mind and body can discriminate between mere fancies and the perception of real facts, so a like power of discernment can be attained by spiritual means.

So then I had before me the results of conscious spiritual vision. They were things ‘seen’, living in my consciousness, to begin with without any names. To communicate them some terminology was needed, and it was only then—so as to put into words what had been wordless to begin with—that I looked for suitable expressions in the traditional literature. These too I used quite freely. In the way I apply them, scarcely one of them coincides exactly with its connotation in the source from which I took it. Only after the spiritual content was known to me from my own researches did I thus look for the way to express it. As to whatever I might formerly have read—with the clear consciousness and control referred to above, I was able to eliminate such things completely while engaged on supersensible research.

But the critics then found echoes of traditional ideas in the terms I used. Paying little heed to the real trend and content of my descriptions, they focused their attention on the words. If I spoke of ‘lotus flowers’ in the human astral body, they took it as proof that I was reproducing Indian doctrines in which this term occurs. Nay, the term ‘astral body’ itself only showed that I had been dipping into medieval writings. And if I used the terms Angeloi, Archangeloi and so on, I was merely reviving the ideas of Christian Gnosticism. Time and again I found myself confronted with comments of this kind.

I take the present opportunity of mentioning this too. Occult Science—an Outline, now to be published in a new edition, is after all an epitome of anthroposophical spiritual science as a whole, and is pre-eminently exposed to the same kinds of misunderstanding.

Since the imaginations described in this book first grew into a total picture in my mind and spirit, I have unceasingly developed the researches of conscious seership into the being of individual man, the history of mankind, the nature and evolution of the cosmos. The outline as presented 15 years ago has in no way been shaken. Inserted in its proper place and context, everything that I have since been able to adduce becomes a further elaboration of the original picture.

Rudolf Steiner

Goetheanum, Dornach

Switzerland

10 January 1925

Preface to the 1920 Edition

For this edition I have almost entirely rewritten the opening chapter on the character of occult science. I think there will now be less cause for misunderstanding. How often have I heard it said: While other branches of learning offer scientific proofs, this pretended science merely declares that such and such are the findings of occult science. It is a natural objection. The proof of supersensible knowledge can never be as tangible and compelling as with things seen and experienced by the outer senses. It is a misconception none the less, and in the altered version I have tried to bring this out more clearly than I appear to have succeeded in doing in the earlier editions.

For the rest, I have introduced changes and additions, trying to make the explanations clearer and more cogent. In many parts of the book, the oft-repeated experience of the spiritual realities described convinced me of the need to modify the forms of expression in which I try to clothe them, and I have done my best to make the necessary changes.

Rudolf Steiner

Berlin, May 1920

Preface to the 1913 Edition

One who sets out to present results of spiritual science such as this book contains must reckon with the certain fact that in wide circles they will be held to be impossible. For in these pages many things are put forward which in our time—supposedly on good philosophic and scientific grounds—are pronounced inaccessible to man’s intelligence.

The author can appreciate the weighty reasons leading so many serious thinkers to this conclusion. Therefore again and again he would renew the attempt to show up the misunderstandings underlying the all too categorical belief that human cognition can never reach into the supersensible worlds.

Two things come into question here. The first is as follows. On deeper reflection no human soul can lastingly ignore the fact that the most vital questions about the purpose and meaning of life must be forever unanswered if there is really no way of access to supersensible worlds. Theoretically we may deceive ourselves about it, but in our heart of hearts we do not share the deception. Those who refuse to listen to the voice of their inmost soul will naturally reject teachings about the supersensible worlds. But there are people—and not a few—who can no longer turn a deaf ear in this direction. They will forever be knocking at the doors which—as the others say—must remain barred and bolted, denying access to things ‘beyond human comprehension’.

But there is also the second aspect. The ‘good philosophic and scientific grounds’ above-mentioned are in no way to be underrated, and those who hold to them in earnest deserve to be taken seriously. The writer would not like to be counted among those who lightly disregard the stupendous mental efforts that have been made to define the boundaries to which the human intellect is subject. These efforts cannot be dismissed with a few derogatory phrases. Seen at their best, they have their source in a real striving for knowledge and are worked out with genuine discernment. Nay, more than this. The reasons that have been adduced to show that the kind of knowledge accepted nowadays as scientific cannot reach into the supersensible are genuine and in a sense irrefutable.

People may think it strange that the author should admit all this and yet venture to put forward statements concerning supersensible worlds. It seems almost absurd that one should make however qualified an admission that there are valid reasons for asserting that supersensible worlds are beyond our ken, and yet go on to speak and write about these worlds.

Yet it is possible to do this while understanding full well how contradictory it may appear. Not everyone can realize the experiences one undergoes when drawing near the realm of the supersensible with intellectual reflection. For it emerges then that intellectual proofs, however cogent, however irrefutable, are not necessarily decisive as to what is real and what is not. In place of theoretical explanations we may here use a comparison. Comparisons, admittedly, have not the force of proof, but they are helpful in explaining.

In the form in which it works in everyday life, also in ordinary science, human cognition cannot penetrate into the supersensible worlds. This can be cogently proved, and yet there is a level of experience for which the proof has no more real value than if one set out to prove that the unaided eye cannot see the microscopic cells of living organisms or the detailed appearance of far-off heavenly bodies. That our unaided vision cannot reach to the living cells is true and demonstrable, and so it is that our ordinary faculties of cognition cannot reach into the supersensible worlds. Yet the proof that man’s unaided sight falls short of the microscopic cells does not preclude their scientific investigation. Must then the proof that his ordinary faculties of cognition cannot reach into the supersensible worlds of necessity preclude the investigation of these worlds?

We can imagine the feelings this comparison will arouse in many people. Nay, we can sympathize if doubt is felt, whether the one who has recourse to it has any inkling of all the painstaking and searching thought that has gone into these questions. And yet the present author not only realizes it to the full but counts it among the noblest achievements of mankind. To demonstrate that human vision unaided by optical instruments cannot see the microscopic cells would be superfluous; to become aware of the nature and scope of human thought by dint of thought itself is an essential task. It is only too understandable if people who have given their lives to this task fail to perceive that the real facts may yet be contrary to their findings. Whereas this preface is certainly not the place to deal with would-be ‘refutations’ of the first edition by people void of sympathy or understanding—people who even direct their unfounded attacks against the author personally—it must be emphasized all the more strongly that serious philosophic thought, whatever its conclusions, is nowhere belittled in these pages. Any such tendency can only be imputed by those deliberately blind to the spirit in which the book is written.

Human cognition can be strengthened and enhanced, just as the range of vision of the eye can be. But the ways and means of strengthening the power of cognition are purely spiritual. Inner activities, entirely within the soul—they are described in this book as meditation and concentration, or contemplation. Man’s ordinary life of mind and soul is tied to the bodily organs; when duly strengthened and enhanced it becomes free of them. There are prevailing schools of thought to which this very claim will seem nonsensical—a mere outcome of delusion. From their own point of view, they will prove without difficulty that all our mental and psychological life is bound up with the nervous system. The author from his standpoint can appreciate these proofs. He knows how plausible it is to maintain that it is utterly superficial to speak of any life of soul being independent of the body. Those who maintain this will no doubt be convinced that in the inner experiences, alleged to be free of the body, there is still a connection with the nervous system—a hidden connection which the would-be occultist with his ‘amateurish’ science only fails to discern.

Such are the prevalent habits of thought for which due allowance must be made. They are so diametrically opposed to the main contents of this book that there is generally little prospect of any mutual understanding. In this respect one cannot help wishing for a change of heart in the intellectual and spiritual life of our time. People are far too ready to stigmatize a scientific quest or school of thought as visionary and fantastic merely because they find it radically different from their own. On the other hand there are undoubtedly many who in our time appreciate the kind of supersensible research presented in this book. They realize that the deeper meaning of life will be revealed not by vague references to the soul, to the ‘true self’ or the like, but by a study of the genuine results of supersensible research. With due humility, the author is profoundly glad to find a new edition called for after a relatively short interval of time. He realizes only too clearly how far this edition too will fall short of the essential aim—to be the outline of a world-conception founded on supersensible knowledge. For this edition the entire contents have been worked through again; further elucidations have been attempted and supplementary passages inserted at important points. Often however the author has been painfully aware of the inadequacy, the excessive rigidity of the only available means of presenting the revelations of supersensible research. Thus it was hardly possible to do more than suggest a way of reaching some idea, some mental picture of what this book has to relate concerning Saturn, Sun and Moon evolutions. One aspect of this chapter has been briefly recast in the new edition. The real experience of cosmic evolution differs so widely from all our experiences in the realm of sense-perceptible nature that the description involves a constant struggle to find passably adequate forms of expression. A sympathetic study of this chapter may reveal that the effort has been made to convey by the quality and style of the description what is impossible to express in mere prosaic words. A different style has been used for Saturn evolution, a different style for Sun evolution, and so on.

Amplifications and additions to which the author attaches some importance will be found in the second part, dealing with ‘Knowledge of Higher Worlds’—the way to its attainment. As clear as possible an account has been attempted of what the human soul must do and undergo so as to liberate the powers of cognition from the confines of the sense-world and fit them for the experience of supersensible worlds.

Acquired though it is and must be by inner ways and means—by the inner activity of each one who gains it—the experience has a more than subjective significance. In our descriptions we have tried to make this clear. He who eliminates in his own soul the personal peculiarities that separate him from the world reaches a common realm of experience—a realm which other men are reaching when they too transform their subjective inner life in the true pathway of spiritual development. Only if thus conceived is the real knowledge of supersensible worlds distinguishable from subjective mysticism and the like. The latter might to some extent be said to be the mystic’s merely personal concern. The inner spiritual-scientific training here intended aims at objective experiences, the truth of which has to be recognized, no doubt, in an intimate and inner way by everyone who has them; yet in this very process they are seen to be universally valid. Here once again it is admittedly difficult to come to terms with habits of thought widely prevalent in our time.

In conclusion, the author ventures to express the wish that friendly readers too should take what is here set forth on its own merits. There is a frequent tendency to give a school of thought some venerable name, failing which its value is somehow depreciated. But it may surely be asked: As to the real contents of this book, what do they gain by being called ‘Rosicrucian’ or given any other label? The essential thing is that with the means that are possible and proper to the human soul in the present epoch insight be gained into the spiritual worlds, and that the riddles of man’s destiny and of his life beyond the frontiers of birth and death be thereby penetrated. What matters is the quest of truth, rather than a quest that claims some ancient title.

On the other hand, the world-conception presented in this book has been given names and labels by opponents, and with unfriendly intention. Apart from the fact that some of these descriptions—meant to discredit the author—are manifestly absurd and untrue, surely an independent quest of truth deserves to be judged on its merits. It is unworthy to insinuate that it be set aside for its alleged dependence on whatsoever cult or school of thought. Nor does it matter much whether this dependence is the critic’s own surmise or he is carelessly repeating an unfounded rumour. Necessary as these few words were, the author has no wish—in the present context—to answer sundry charges and attacks in detail.

Rudolf Steiner

Written in June, 1913

Preface to the First Edition1

In publishing a work of this kind at the present time one must be resigned from the outset to every kind of criticism. A reader, for example, versed in the accepted theories, can be heard commenting on the way scientific themes have here been treated: ‘It is amazing that such absurdities can be put forward in our time. The author betrays utter ignorance of the most elementary notions. He writes of “heat” or “warmth” as though untouched by the whole trend of modern physics. Such vagaries do not even deserve to be called amateurish.’ More in this vein can be imagined: ‘One need only read a few pages to discard the book—according to one’s temperament, with a smile or with indignation—shelving it with other literary curiosities such as turn up from time to time.’

What then will the author say to these damning criticisms? Will he not, from his own standpoint, have to regard his critics as without discernment or even lacking the good will for an intelligent judgement? The answer is, No—not necessarily. He is well aware that those who condemn his work will often be men of high intelligence, competent scientists and anxious to judge fairly. Knowing well the reasons for these adverse judgements, he can put himself in the critic’s place. He must here be permitted a few personal observations which would be out of place save in so far as they relate to his resolve to write the book at all. For it would have no raison d’être if merely personal and subjective. The contents of this book must be accessible to every human mind; also the manner of presentation should as far as possible be free of personal colouring. The following remarks on the author’s life and work are therefore only meant to show how he could come to write this book while understanding only too well the apparent grounds of adverse judgement. Even these remarks would be superfluous if it were possible to show in detail that the contents are after all in harmony with the known facts of science. But this would need several volumes, far more than can be done under present circumstances.

The author would certainly never have ventured to publish what is here said about ‘heat’ or ‘warmth’, for example, if he were not conversant with the commonly accepted view. In his student days, some 30 years ago, he made a thorough study of physics. Concerning the phenomena of heat, the so-called ‘mechanical theory of heat’ was in the forefront at that time, and this engaged his keen attention. He studied the historical development of all the explanations and lines of thought associated with such names as J.R. Mayer, Helmholtz, Clausius and Joule. This has enabled him also to keep abreast of subsequent developments. If he were not in this position, he would not have felt justified in writing about warmth or heat as in this book. For he has made it his principle only to speak or write of any subject from the aspect of spiritual science where he would also be qualified to give an adequate account of the accepted scientific knowledge. He does not mean that every writer should be subject to the same restriction. A person may naturally feel impelled to communicate what he arrives at by his own judgement and feeling for the truth, even if ignorant of what contemporary science has to say. But for his own part the author is resolved to adhere to the principle above-mentioned. Thus he would never have written the few sentences this book contains about the human glandular and nervous systems were he not also in a position to describe them in contemporary scientific terms.

Therefore however plausible the verdict that to speak of heat or warmth as in this book argues an utter ignorance of physics, the fact is that the author feels justified in writing as he has done precisely because he has kept abreast of present-day research and would refrain from writing if he had not. No doubt this too may be mistaken for lack of scientific modesty. Yet it must be avowed, if only to forestall even worse misunderstandings.

Equally devastating criticisms might easily be voiced from a philosophic standpoint. One can imagine such a reader’s question: ‘Has the author been asleep to all the work that has been and is still being done in fundamental theory of knowledge? Has he never even heard of Kant, who proved how inadmissible it is to make such statements as are here contained? ... To a trained mind this uncritical and amateurish stuff is quite intolerable—a sheer waste of time.’

Here once again and at the risk of fresh misunderstanding, the author has to introduce a more personal note. He began studying Kant at the age of 16, and believes himself to be up-to-date also in this respect—qualified to judge from a Kantian standpoint what is put forward in this volume. Here, too, he would have had good reason to leave the book unwritten were he not fully aware how easily, how plausibly it can be judged to be naive by the accepted standards of criticism. One can feel justified in putting forward what this book contains precisely because one is well aware that the Kantian boundaries of knowledge are here overstepped. One can be equally well aware that Herbart would have found in it a ‘naive realism’ of which the concepts had not been properly worked over, or that the pragmatic school of William James, Schiller and others would judge it to be trespassing beyond the bounds of those genuine conceptions that man is really able to assimilate, to make effective and to verify in action.2

In spite of all this—nay even because of it—one could feel justified in writing the book. The author himself has written critically and historically of these and other trends of thought in his philosophic works: The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe’s World-Conception, Truth and Science, The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, Goethe’s Conception of the World, Nineteenth-century Philosophic Views of Life and of the World, Riddles of Philosophy.

Other criticisms are imaginable. A reader of the author’s earlier writings—for example his work on nineteenth-century philosophies or his short essay on ‘Haeckel and his Opponents’—might well be saying: ‘How can one and the same man be the author of these works and of the book Theosophy (published in 1904) or of the present volume? How can he take up the cudgels for Haeckel and then offend so grossly against the straightforward monism, the philosophic outcome of Haeckel’s researches? One could well understand the writer of this Occult Science attacking all that Haeckel stood for; that he defended him and even dedicated to him one of his main works3 appears preposterously inconsistent. Haeckel would have declined the dedication in no uncertain terms, had he known that the same author would one day produce the unwieldy dualism of the present work.’

Yet in the author’s view one can appreciate Haeckel without having to stigmatize as nonsense whatever is not the direct outcome of his range of thought and his assumptions. We do justice to Haeckel by entering into the spirit of his scientific work, not by attacking him—as has been done— with every weapon that comes to hand. Least of all does the author hold any brief for those of Haeckel’s adversaries against whom he defended the great naturalist in his essay on ‘Haeckel and his Opponents’. If then he goes beyond Haeckel’s assumptions and places the spiritual view side by side with Haeckel’s purely naturalistic view of the universe, this surely does not rank him with Haeckel’s opponents. Anyone who takes sufficient trouble will perceive that there is no insuperable contradiction between the author’s present work and his former writings.

The author can also put himself in the place of the kind of critic who without more ado will discard the whole book as an outpouring of wild fancy. This attitude is answered in the book itself, where it is pointed out that reasoned thinking can and must be the touchstone of all that is here presented. Only those who will apply to the contents of this book the test of reason—even as they would to a description of natural-scientific facts—will be in a position to decide.

A word may also be addressed to those already predisposed to give the book a sympathetic hearing. (They will find most of what is relevant in the introductory chapter.) Although the book concerns researches beyond the reach of the sense-bound intellect, nothing is here presented which cannot be grasped with open-minded thought and with the healthy feeling for the truth possessed by everyone who will apply these gifts of human nature. The author frankly confesses: he would like readers who will not accept what is here presented on blind faith, but rather put it to the test of their own insight and experience of life.4 He desires careful readers—readers who will allow only what is sound and reasonable. This book would not be valid if relying on blind faith; it is of value only inasmuch as it can pass the test of open-minded thinking. Credulity too easily mistakes folly and superstition for the truth. People who are content with vague belief in the supersensible may criticize this book for its excessive appeal to the life of thought. But in these matters the scrupulous and conscientious form of presentation is no less essential than the substance. In the field of occult science irresponsible charlatanism and the highest truths, genuine knowledge and mere superstition are often separated by a thin dividing line, and it is all too easy to mistake the one for the other.

Readers already conversant with supersensible realities will no doubt recognize the author’s care to keep within the bounds of what can and should be communicated at the present time. They will be well aware that there are aspects of supersensible knowledge for which a different form of communication is required, if not a later period of time should be awaited.

Rudolf Steiner

December 1909

1. The Character of Occult Science

An ancient term—‘occult science’—is applied to the contents of this book. The term is likely to evoke the most contrary feelings among the people of our time. To many it will be downright repugnant, calling forth derision, a supercilious smile, even contempt. A way of thought—they will opine— which thus describes itself must surely rest on idle dreams and the mere arbitrary play of fancy. Its claim to be a science can only be a blind, behind which is the wish to revive all manner of superstitions, justly eschewed by those who are familiar with the scientific spirit, the quest of genuine knowledge. Others are differently affected. They feel that what is signified by this term will bring them something unattainable in any other way, something to which they are drawn—according to their disposition—by a deep inner longing for knowledge or a refined curiosity of soul. Between these two sharply divergent opinions there are a multitude of intermediate views, implying conditional rejection or acceptance of the diverse things which people think of when they hear the term ‘occult science’.

For some people, undeniably, it has a magic ring because it bids fair to satisfy their craving for information, inaccessible by straightforward methods, about something ‘beyond our ken’—something mysterious, nay perhaps vague and confused. For there are those who do not want to meet the deepest longings of the soul with anything that is capable of being clearly known. In their conviction, beyond what is knowable there must be something more in the world that eludes our knowledge. It is a strange contradiction, which they fail to notice. Precisely where the deepest yearning for knowledge is concerned, they would set aside clear knowledge and want to cherish what is incapable of discovery by natural and sound research. Whoever speaks of ‘occult science’ will do well to bear in mind the likelihood of misunderstandings due to the efforts of such champions, who in reality desire not a true science but the reverse.

The contents of this book are addressed to readers who will not let their openness of mind be impaired because, for a variety of reasons, a word tends to awaken prejudices. Of knowledge claiming to be ‘occult’ in the sense of secret—accessible only to a few, by special favour or good fortune—there will be no mention here. The reader will do justice to our use of the term ‘occult science’ if he considers what Goethe had in mind when he spoke of the ‘manifest secrets’ in the phenomena of nature. Whatever remains ‘secret’, that is to say unmanifest in these phenomena when we apprehend them only with the outer senses and with the intellect that is bound to the outer senses, will here be treated as the subject matter of a supersensible way of knowledge.1

Needless to say, for anyone who will admit as science only what is manifest to the senses and to the intellect that serves them, what is here named ‘occult science’ can be no science. Such a person however, if willing to understand his own position, should candidly admit that his categorical rejection of any kind of ‘occult science’ springs not from reasoned insight but from an ipse dixit, due to his own individual feeling. To see that it is so, he need only reflect how sciences arise and what is their significance in human life. How a pursuit comes to be a science cannot in the nature of the case be ascertained from the subject matter to which it is devoted, but only by recognizing the mode of action of the human soul while engaged in scientific endeavour. What is the attitude and activity of the soul in the elaboration of a science?—this is the thing we must observe. If one is used to apply this mode of activity only where sense-data are concerned, one easily slides into the idea that sense-data are the essential factor. One misses the real point, which is that a certain inner attitude of the human soul has been applied to the revelations of the senses. For we can go beyond the self-imposed limitation. Apart from the special case to which it is here applied, we can envisage the character of scientific activity as such. Such is the underlying idea when in this book the knowledge of non-sensible world-contents is spoken of as ‘scientific’. The human mind here sets to work at these world-contents, as in the other case it does at the world-contents given to natural science. Occult science seeks to free the scientific method and spirit of research, which in its own domain holds fast to the sequence and relationship of sense-perceptible events, from this restricted application, while maintaining the same essential attitude and mode of thought. Thus it would speak of the non-sensible in the same spirit in which natural science speaks of the sensible. While natural science, in the employment of scientific thought and method of research, stops short within the sense-perceptible, occult science would like to regard the work of the human soul on nature as a form of self-education, and apply the faculties thus educated in the soul to the realms of the non-sensible. Such is its method and procedure. It does not speak of sense-phenomena as such, but of the non-sensible world-contents in the same mood as does the natural scientist of those accessible to sense perception. It preserves the essential bearing which the soul maintains in scientific procedure—i.e. the very element whereby alone our knowledge of nature becomes a science. Hence it may justly call itself a science.

Whoever ponders on the significance of natural science in human life will find that its significance is by no means exhausted in the acquisition of so much detailed knowledge about nature. The detailed items of knowledge can, in effect, only lead to an experience of what the human soul is not. The soul is living, not in the finished propositions about nature, but in the process of scientific knowledge concerning nature. In working upon nature the soul experiences her own conscious life and being, and what is livingly acquired in this activity is something more than so much information about nature. It is an evolution of the self that is experienced in building up our scientific knowledge of nature. It is this gain in self-development which occult science seeks to activate in realms that lie beyond mere nature. Far from misjudging natural science, the occultist thus values it even more than does the scientist himself. He knows that he can found no science without the integrity of thought with which natural science is imbued. And what is more, he knows that this integrity, once gained by really penetrating into the spirit of natural-scientific thinking, can by the requisite inner strength be maintained for other realms of being.

One thing, admittedly, can make one hesitate at this point. In contemplating nature the soul is guided by the object of her study in a far higher degree than in the contemplation of non-sensible world-contents. The purely inner incentive whereby the essence of the scientific way of thought is maintained must be far stronger in the latter case. Many people—unconsciously—imagine that it can only be maintained by holding to the leading-strings of natural phenomena. Hence they incline to decide ex cathedra that as soon as these leading-strings are left behind the scientific endeavour of the mind and soul will needs be groping in the dark. Such people have never consciously faced the question: What is the essence of scientific procedure? They usually base their judgement on the inevitable aberrations that occur when scientific thinking has not been adequately strengthened by working at the phenomena of nature, and the soul nevertheless sets out to contemplate the non-sensible or supersensible domains of the world. Needless to say, much unscientific talk concerning these world-contents arises in this way. The reason is, however, not that the subject must in the nature of the case be outside the pale of science; it is only that in the given instance there has not been adequate self-discipline through the scientific study of nature.

With due regard to what has just been said, those who would speak of occult science must indeed have a watchful eye for all the vagaries that arise when the ‘manifest secrets’ of the world are treated in an unscientific spirit. It would however be unfruitful if we were to deal with all these aberrations at the very outset of our exposition. In prejudiced minds, no doubt these aberrations bring discredit on any form of research into occult science. Their very existence—and they are only too numerous—is taken to justify the conclusion that the whole effort is fallacious. Yet as a rule the rejection of occult science by scientists or scientifically minded critics is only due, in the last resort, to the aforesaid ex cathedra decision. The reference to aberrations is but a pretext, howsoever unconscious. Lengthy initial argument with such opponents will therefore not be very fruitful. After all, they can observe with perfect justice that on the face of it there is no telling whether in seeing how others are caught up in error we ourselves are standing on the requisite firm ground. Therefore the claimant to occult science can do no other than simply bring forward what he has to say. Others alone can judge if he is right—though it must be added, only those others who will refrain from ex cathedra pronouncements and enter with open mind into the tenor of his communications about the ‘manifest secrets’ of the world. It will then be for him to show how what he brings forward is related to the existing achievements of life and knowledge. He must meet possible objections, and point out where the external, sense-perceptible realities of life confirm his statements. Nor should he ever speak or write in such terms as to rely on eloquence or on the arts of persuasion rather than on the pure content of his descriptions.

One often hears it objected that works on occult science do not prove what they adduce; they merely make their statements and declare: ‘This is what occult science teaches.’ It would be a misunderstanding to think that anything put forward in these pages was intended in this spirit. Our purpose is different; it is to encourage what is developed in the human soul through the knowledge of nature to go on evolving, as indeed it can do by its own inherent power. We then point out that through this evolution the soul will encounter supersensible realities. The premise is that every reader able to adopt this course is bound to meet with these realities. There is however an important difference the moment we enter the spiritual-scientific realm as compared with natural-scientific study. In natural science the facts lie spread out before us within the sense-perceptible world. The scientist who describes them regards his own activity of mind and soul as something that recedes into the background over against the given sequence and relationship of the pure facts of the sense-world. The spiritual scientist, on the other hand, puts the activity of the soul into the foreground and cannot but do so, for the reader will only reach the facts when by appropriate methods he makes this activity of soul his own. In natural science, the facts—however little understood—are there for man’s perception even without the soul’s activity. Not so the facts of spiritual science. They only enter the realm of man’s perception by dint of the soul’s activity. Thus the exponent of spiritual science has to presume that the reader is looking for the facts together with him. This will determine the character of his descriptions. He will narrate the discovery of the facts; and yet the style of his narration will be dominated not by any idiosyncrasies of his own but by the purely scientific spirit, trained and developed through natural science. Hence he will also be obliged to speak of the means and methods whereby man rises to a contemplation of the non-sensible—that is to say, the supersensible.