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An Outline of Occult Science by Rudolf Steiner

V. KNOWLEDGE OF THE HIGHER WORLDS

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What we have to consider is how by training, one may develop those organs of perception, lying dormant in the Soul. Those who do not feel themselves especially impelled toward doing something for their own development may easily say that man stands under the guidance of spiritual powers, that such guidance should therefore not be interfered with, and that the moment, deemed by those powers to be the right one for revealing another world to the soul, should be awaited in patience. Indeed, persons who are of this opinion are inclined to consider it a kind of presumption, or unjustifiable desire for any one to interfere with the wisdom of such spiritual guidance.

Those who think in this way will only change their opinion if some other mode of presenting the case makes a sufficiently strong impression upon them. If they were to say to themselves, "This wise guidance has endowed me with certain faculties, and it has done so, not that I should let them lie idle, but rather that I should use them. Indeed, the very wisdom of such guidance lies in the fact of its having placed in me the rudiments of those organs necessary for a higher state of consciousness. I can, therefore, rightly comprehend this guidance only when I regard it as my duty to do everything in my power that may serve to bring such rudimentary growths to their proper development." Should such thoughts make a sufficiently strong impression on the mind, scruples against training for the attainment of higher consciousness will disappear.

There is, it is true, another scruple which may arise in the mind with regard to such schooling. A person may say to himself: "This development of the inner faculties of the soul means an invasion of man's most hidden sanctuary. It involves a certain change of the entire human being: the method for such a change cannot be worked out by any ordinary procedure of thought, for the manner in which the higher worlds are attained can be known only to those to whom the path has become visible by reason of experience. If, therefore, I turn to such an one, I am allowing him to exercise his influence over the innermost sanctuary of my soul." Any one given to this attitude of mind will hardly find it reassuring if the methods for bringing about a higher state of consciousness are imparted to him in book form. For it is not a question of receiving communications either verbally or from some person who, having the knowledge, has set the same down in a book to which we have access. Now there are people possessing knowledge of the rules for developing the spiritual organs of perception who are of the opinion that these rules ought not to be entrusted to a book. These people, for the most part, consider the communication of certain truths relating to the spiritual world as forbidden. But this view must be characterized as in a certain sense out of date in view of the present stage of human evolution. It is true that the communication of the rules referred to can be made only up to a certain point. Yet what is imparted leads so far that one who applies it to his soul-life makes such progress in knowledge that he is able to go on by himself. This way then leads onward in a manner of which a true idea can be gained only through what has been previously experienced. From all these facts, scruples may arise concerning the path of spiritual knowledge.

These scruples however disappear when one clearly understands the essential nature of that course of development which is adapted to our age. Of this latter method of developing we shall speak here and other methods will be only briefly referred to.