The History of the Esoteric School 1904–1914, Volume Two

GA 265 — Hildesheim

The Mirror

From an instruction session without place or date.¹

When a person sees his reflection, he does not see himself in truth. For what he sees is not the truth about the person. Spiritually, the person is outside of his physical being. What he sees are the spiritually reflected rays that fall on him from the spiritual world. A person reflects spiritual light just as an object reflects sunlight. What a person sees of himself in the mirror is a reflection of his true being. Everything around us is a reflection of the spiritual world. In primeval times, before the so-called Fall of Man, man did not look outward as he does now. Then he saw inwardly, spiritually. This happened as follows: He breathed in a spiritual substance that was around him. Then he had within him what was previously outside: the spiritual substance. This was then reflected in him. For example, where the eye later developed, there was a small spiritual light, and so on. In this way he received inner knowledge. Outwardly he saw nothing. And so it was with all later senses. That was the paradise-like state of man. He lost this inner paradise through the influence of Lucifer. Only then did he begin to see himself as a physical being, from the outside, when his eyes were opened to the outside. And he was ashamed of this before God, in whom he had dwelt before. He was as if spiritually naked before the Deity.