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An Outline of Occult Science by Rudolf Steiner

FOOTNOTES

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4 No hard and fast line can be drawn between the changes which are accomplished in the astral body through the activity of the ego and those taking place in the etheric body. The one merges into the other. When a man learns something, and thereby gains a certain capacity for judgment, a change takes place in his astral body; but when this judgment changes his natural disposition, so that he habituates himself to _feel_ differently, in consequence of his learning, from what he did before, this means a change in his etheric body. Everything that becomes so much a man's own that he can always recall it, is based on the transformation of the etheric body. That which little by little becomes an abiding possession of the memory has its foundation in the transmission to the etheric body of the work of the astral body.

5 As a matter of fact, it is always very profitable for any one who is taking up the study of occult science to acquaint himself with the statements of those who regard this science as merely fanciful. Such statements cannot be so easily branded as due to partiality on the part of the observer. Let occultists learn as much as possible from those who regard their efforts as nonsense. They need not be disturbed if in this respect their love is not reciprocated. Occult observation assuredly does not require such things for the verification of its results, nor are these allusions intended as proofs but as illustrations.

6 In current theosophical literature, the condition of the ego from death to the end of purification is called "Kamaloca."

7 The assertion that a man's personal talents, if governed purely by the law of "heredity," must show themselves at the beginning of a line of descent, not at its end, might of course easily be misunderstood. It might be said, indeed, that they could not show themselves then, for they must first be developed. But this is no objection; for if we wish to prove that something has been inherited from an ancestor, we must show how that which was there formerly is repeated in a descendant. Now if it were demonstrated that something existed at the beginning of a genealogical line which reappeared in its further course, we might speak of heredity. We cannot do so when something appears at the end of it which was not there before. The reversal of the above proposition is only to show that the belief in heredity is impossible.

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