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An Outline of Occult Science by Rudolf Steiner

V. KNOWLEDGE OF THE HIGHER WORLDS

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This will suffice to show how necessary it is that no one should demand admission into the spiritual world before having learned to understand certain truths concerning it; learning them by means of his own judgment, as developed in this world of the physical senses. All that has been said in this book previous to the chapter concerning "Perception of the higher worlds," should have been assimilated by the student in the course of his regular development, by means of his ordinary judgment, before he has any desire to seek entrance himself into the supersensible worlds.

Where the training has been such as to pay little heed to firmness and surety of judgment, and to the life of feeling and character, it may happen that the student will approach the higher world before being possessed of the necessary inner capacities. The meeting with his double would in this case overwhelm him. But what might also happen is that the person introduced into the supersensible world then would be totally unable to recognize this world in its true form, for it would be impossible for him to differentiate between what he sees in the things, and what they really are. For this distinction becomes possible only when a person himself has beheld the image of his own being and becomes able to separate from his surroundings everything which proceeds from his inner being.

In respect to life in the world of physical sense, man's double becomes at once visible through the already mentioned feeling of shame when man nears the psycho-spiritual world, and in so doing, it also conceals the whole of that world. The double stands before the entrance as a "guardian," denying admission to all who are as yet unfit, and it is therefore designated in occult science as the "guardian of the threshold of the psycho-spiritual world." However, we may call it the "lesser guardian," for there is another, of whom we shall speak later.

And besides this meeting with his double on entering the supersensible world as here described, man encounters the Guardian of the Threshold when he passes the portals of physical death, and it gradually reveals itself during that psycho-spiritual development which takes place between death and a new birth. However, the encounter can in no wise crush us, for we then know of other worlds of which we are ignorant during the life between birth and death. A person entering the psycho-spiritual world without having encountered the Guardian of the Threshold would be liable to fall a prey to one delusion after another. For he would never be able to distinguish between that which he himself brings into that world and what really belongs to it. But correct training should lead the student into the domain of truth, not of error, and with such training the meeting must, at one time or another, inevitably take place, for it is the one indispensable precaution against the possibilities of deception and phantasm in the observation of supersensible worlds. It is one of the most indispensable precautions to be taken by every occult student, to work carefully upon himself in order not to become a visionary, subject to every possible deception and self-deception, suggestion and auto-suggestion. Wherever correct occult training is followed, the causes of such deceptions are destroyed at their source. It would of course be impossible to speak here exhaustively of the many details to be included in such precautions, and we can only indicate in general the underlying principles. The illusions to be taken into account arise from two sources. In part they proceed from the fact that our own soul-being colors reality. In the ordinary life of the physical sense-world, the danger arising from this source of deception is comparatively small, because here the outer world always obtrudes itself upon the observer in its own sharp outline, no matter how much the observer is inclined to color it according to his wishes and interests. As soon, however, as we enter the imaginative world, the images are changed by such wishes and interests, and we then have actually before us that which we ourselves have formed or, at any rate, helped to form. Now, since through this meeting with the Guardian of the Threshold the occult student becomes aware of everything within him, of that which he can take with him into the psycho-spiritual world, this source of delusion is removed, and the preparation which the occult student undergoes prior to his entering that world is in itself calculated to accustom him to exclude himself--even in matters appertaining to the physical world--when making his observations, thus allowing things and occurrences to speak for themselves. Any one who has sufficiently practiced these preparatory exercises may await this meeting with the Guardian of the Threshold in all tranquillity; by this meeting he will be definitely tested whether he is now really capable of putting aside his own being even when confronting the psycho-spiritual world.

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