Lessons for the Participants of Cognitive-Cultic Work 1906–1924

GA 265a — 21 May 1923, Oslo

The Guardian of the Threshold

Reproduction of the content of a Michael School class held by Rudolf Steiner on May 21, 1923 in Kristiania (Oslo) [in Marie Steiner's notebook no. 1 dated “(Kristiania) 18, May 1923”] through notes by Nanna Thorne in the translation by Agnes Steineger and Karl Engquist in a letter dated November 20, 1966 from Karl Engqvist (Mölle, near Helsingborg) to Edwin Froböse (Dornach)

Dear Mr. Froböse! I was able to do the translation during a week's rest at a health resort (near Helsingborg). It is really, as you said, a historical document. Perhaps you could write me a postcard to confirm receipt? Best regards,
Karl Engqvist

More or less consciously, every esotericist has the urge to penetrate into the spiritual world. To achieve this, we have decided to take the esoteric path. This decision may be considered the most important one we have made in our lives. Everything else is small in comparison; for the work we do as esotericists, we do in the knowledge that it is not only for ourselves, but for humanity. It extends beyond time, into eternity. Higher knowledge is only attained through practice (training in the Norwegian text). That is why we have been given our exercises and mantras, which must be practiced as intensely and vividly as possible. Without this, one does not reach the goal. They form the gate through which the esotericist must pass if the spiritual world is to open to him.

Equally important as performing the exercises is developing the right attitude towards the spiritual world. We must become aware that everything around and within us we owe to the beings that live there, even our own life and the soul content that flows in during meditation. We must become aware that we are approaching these high, divine beings.

Therefore, the esotericist should approach these beings with deep reverence, and he should try to get a living feeling for who he is now meeting - he must learn to love what flows towards him from them.

Through one's thought life, one reaches connection with the world of the spirit when one handles one's thoughts differently than usual. When they become just as real to him as external things: during intense meditation, you notice that in the inner silence of the thought process, something much higher and more real than the things of the external world is revealed. Thoughts take on life, they themselves come to life. They are never shadowy and abstract: you hear a voice within you, unrecognized beings speak to you in the silence through your thoughts. One listens to an inner word, an inner language.

Meditation is the name given to this life of the soul in thought, which expands more and more into a life in the spirit. And it is the means to all supersensible knowledge.

There is another way to arrive at the inner word. Not only by searching within, but also by searching without.

Everything in the external world has been given a name. People have given names to all things, to every animal, every plant and every mineral. And the name is not just a label; behind the name there is something spiritual that is active. Even feelings and concepts have been given a name. Through the name, through the word, one person can come into more intimate contact with another. Through words, we get to know the soul life of another person, their thoughts and feelings.

But if you want to get to the “inner word” in this way, it is not enough to just get a superficial idea of the soul life of another person; you have to go deeper. And this can only be achieved if, while listening, [...] you get used to suppressing your own feelings and opinions, even if they are completely opposite to those of the other person. Only then will you hear the soul of the other person through the words – you have to listen in.

If you listen to the other person's soul through their words, then the occult organs in the astral body and later in the etheric body develop so that you are able to perceive voices and words from the spiritual world: they are not audible to the outer ear, but the ability to perceive the “inner word” is awakened to life.

In quiet moments, the inner voice speaks to the student, and the spiritual world reveals itself through it. The everyday noise must then be silenced so that it is quiet in the person. The words, the being with the other world, fill his entire soul, and spiritual truths are gradually revealed to him. A strong feeling of happiness accompanies this experience. It is as if an inner light is lit in him, and new life flows towards him from the divine world.

(The acquisition of the ability to perceive the inner word takes different lengths of time.) The ability to grasp the inner word takes a different amount of time to develop in different people; some experience it after a very short time, others only after a succession of years. One must patiently work and wait until this is achieved. Through the ancillary exercises and the special exercises, the ability is developed and this brings one the first step forward on the path to the spiritual world.

When meditation with the intense thought life is finished, one tries to create complete silence within oneself – to live in the soul element. Then, one day, when you have reached a certain point in your development, you feel as if you were surrounded by a great darkness, a void, an empty space, and at the same time you feel as if you were expanding more and more, indeed it is as if you were losing yourself in the dark infinity. You are seized by fear. But at that point, you should say to yourself, “I live,” so as not to slip away completely and lose yourself.

Then you will perceive a light in the silent darkness that comes from within yourself, and with this light you move into infinity. Suddenly it resounds from the great infinite, from the world word: “O man, know thyself.” Mighty, powerful, it resounds (the Norwegian “runger” is almost “tosen”, “thunder”) towards the esotericist.

(In four stages) This word is pronounced in four stages. To the esotericist, it is as if the sun rises in the morning, rises at noon, sets in the evening, and the moon rises and sets again. It becomes morning, and it becomes evening, it becomes midnight and morning again, and in each of these stages one hears a word resounding: O man, know thyself.

And yet the whole experience may last only a few moments, at most a minute or two. It is not the duration of time that matters, but the intensity of the contemplation. In those two minutes, the experience can be so intense when you hear these words that it is as if you are experiencing a whole day and [a whole] night with the rising and setting of the sun, the rising and setting of the moon.

The words come from the world of the spirit and are felt as overwhelming. They thunder (runger) at you. It is something similar to what the ancient Hebrews experienced when pronouncing the word Yahweh. It was as if the cosmos collapsed with a thunderous roar, so powerfully did the sound reverberate. They heard it as one short and one long syllable.

In the same way, the words: “O man, know thyself” will sound to us in short and long syllables. Then the words die away and it becomes very quiet.

But now a voice is heard (which the disciple now understands as coming from an angel), which the disciple now understands as coming from an angel:

"Thus sounds the world word.
You hear it with soul-strength.
You feel it with spirit-strength.

Again there is silence. The student feels himself anxiously and thoughtfully: ‘Who speaks so powerfully?’

The third verse is read.

O man, know thyself!
Thus sounds the world word.
Thou hearest it with the soul's might,
Thou feelest it with the spirit's power.
Who speaks so mightily?
Who speaks so intimately?
Does it work through the radiance of space
In the experience of your mind?
Does it resound through the weaving of the waves of time
In the stream of your life?
Is it you yourself who, in the feeling of space and in the experience of time, Creates the word, Feeling the word to be foreign to you in the spiritual emptiness of space, because you lose the power of thought
in the stream of the destruction of time.

The world of the spirit is close, one feels that, and a wish arises to come into possession of a measuring rod that can show one the greatness (the size) of the spiritual life in comparison to the smallness of everyday life.

We have such a measuring stick in our breath in relation to day and night.

We compare our own breathing with the cosmic breathing. The cosmos breathes us out over the course of a day. We awaken in the morning and live consciously in the physical world – an exhalation of the cosmos. [We fall asleep into the spiritual world – an inhalation – and awaken again in the morning.] A day and a night here is for the cosmos like for us a breath (is for the cosmos as one of our breaths is for us).

Let us consider more carefully what it actually means that our 24 hours are the same for the cosmos as a single breath is for us.

Normally, a person has 18 breaths per minute; children a little more, older people a little less, but on average it is 18 breaths per minute. In one hour it is 18 x 60 = 1080 and in the course of a day and a night 25,920 times. So a person breathes 25,920 times in 24 hours.

Now it is not only the breathing of man that is so much greater in the spiritual world in relation to the cosmic, [but] we have to think of everything magnified 25,920 times. - Small things that we hardly notice here, a small mistake, for example, that we almost overlook, takes on a different sound in the spiritual world. There it has a tremendous influence. Everything in our soul life takes on meaning by being magnified 25,920 times.

But not only the moral life of man has these great dimensions in the spiritual world, but also all the other impressions that the soul receives from things down here are magnified there to the corresponding degree. The impressions of beauty that people receive from all the beautiful things in nature, from flowers, clouds, the sea and mountains, however beautifully it is expressed here, cannot be compared to the impressions of beauty experienced there – they are so sublime, so majestic. Just as the physical breath relates to the soul-spiritual breath, so much more powerful and awe-inspiring is the spiritual world in relation to the physical.

Therefore, the cosmic or heavenly word - the word of the world that sounds to the disciple from the spiritual world and that he gets to know through meditation - is correspondingly greater than the words that people speak or have spoken with the ordinary breath. Before these spiritual-cosmic dimensions, he must figuratively speaking, take off his shoes.

It is good for the esotericist to live into this consciousness in advance, otherwise he would be completely overwhelmed when he consciously experiences the spiritual worlds. He should try to live into this difference as much as possible, even when meditating on the cosmic words:

O man, know thyself.

The experiences discussed here are all on this side of the threshold, but they serve to a high degree to strengthen the esotericist so that he can stand firm when he is to cross the threshold and the immense dimensions of the spiritual world open up to him.

Before this happens, however, he meets the Guardian, who does not let anyone in without certain conditions.

First and foremost, he demands that one leave one's faults, evil desires and passions behind on this side of the threshold: they cannot be taken into the higher worlds.

But who, then, will be allowed in?

If the Guardian were to demand that the esotericist should be free of all faults, he would be asking the impossible. For no one is free of faults. The faults are there. Every person is full [...] of ill-wishes and desires and succumbs to passions. If someone imagines otherwise (if someone imagines that he does not have them), then, if not sooner, he will recognize something completely different before the guardian. There he will see all his faults in their ugliness. Courage and fearlessness are needed to see the truth about oneself. The Guardian forces man to self-knowledge and does not let the disciple in before he admits his faults. This must be. At least to himself he must admit his faults (own) that he is steeped in selfishness and full of evil desires and many other faults. A true, Christian admission that this is so is the first condition the Guardian makes before admitting the esotericist.

But he demands more. Full of faults as he is, the esotericist must not take his evil desires and wishes into the spiritual world. Every time the esoteric meditates, he comes into contact with the higher worlds. But then he must not take his lower nature with him; he pollutes the other world if he weaves personal, selfish thoughts into his meditation, and the result is that it is felt as dark and empty. He can then neither give, hear nor experience anything after meditation. The spiritual world remains closed as long as the esotericist cannot stop brooding over himself and his selfish desires during meditation. During the few minutes of meditation, he should rise above everyday life and detach himself from his lower self, instead devoting himself entirely to the spiritual. If he cannot do this, the spiritual world will remain dark and empty for him despite all meditation. Everything is amplified 25,000 times there; therefore, nothing disharmonious may be allowed in, and for this reason the guardian stands to make sure that the lower self remains this side of the threshold.

The Dweller also takes from the esotericist everything that he has absorbed through his mind and intelligence. All thoughts that revolve around the physical are of no significance in the other world; completely different faculties are needed there. Only thoughts that have helped one to achieve greater and greater self-knowledge may be allowed to enter through the gate. But no one achieves self-knowledge only through the help of the sense organs and intellectual thinking. Spiritual powers must first have sent their light and strength to the esotericist, and the esotericist must have developed an honest will if he is to meet the guardian and have him teach him to cross the threshold.

The second verse is read (“First recognize the earnest...”

First recognize the earnest guardian
Who stands before the gates of the spirit world,
Denying entry to your sensory power
And the power of your mind,
Because in the weaving of your senses
And in the forming of thoughts,
From the space of their own nature,
From the times of their own power,
The truth of their own being,
You must first conquer with strength.

When the guardian allows the esotericist to see and hear in the spiritual world, he feels intensely: “I live.”

It is something quite different from the feeling he has when he says the same words. This too is magnified more than 25,000 times. And what he perceives and sees in the spiritual world is so sublime, so majestic that our mind could never have conceived it. Through it all resounds: “O man, know thyself!”

There are esotericists who believe that they do not want to concern themselves with becoming clairvoyant because there are so many difficulties and dangers associated with it. They recoil. Yes, it is true, there are countless dangers and difficulties that every esotericist encounters before he becomes clairvoyant, and also after he has received [clairvoyance]. Lucifer and Ahriman are always trying to get power over people, but never as strongly (powerfully) as after the attainment of higher knowledge. One must not blind oneself to this and for this reason refrain from doing everything to attain this ability; that is the absolute duty of an esoteric. The development of humanity has now reached the point where basically every person should consciously strive to go the occult way. The spiritual world is now so close to human consciousness, if only people would make an effort to remove the last veil. But if they fail to do so, the development will fail and people will be drowned in everything that pulls them away from the spiritual, in materialism, worship of mammon, self-interest and so on. Therefore, a small number of people must in any case absorb spiritual science, the spiritual, and follow the esoteric path.

And this will be even clearer to us when we remember what the spiritual powers have done for us even before we entered this incarnation. How they have accepted us all at the Michael School in the spiritual world. Michael himself has placed the longing for it within us and given us the opportunity for higher knowledge. We have been chosen for this, so it must be felt as a duty to do everything to achieve it. It should not be felt like a duty, no, far from it, it should rather be felt as a grace so great that we should be filled with the deepest gratitude.

We do not have the right to hold back because of the dangers and difficulties. Lucifer is certainly trying to make the esotericists fanatics and fantasists in order to conquer them for his kingdom, and tempts the esotericists to egoism in all its forms. It is particularly easy to succumb to vanity, ambition and pride.

We also succumb to Ahriman. He tries to turn us into materialists and wants the esoteric knowledge we receive in esoteric practice to become rigid and fossilized into dogmas. He also wants to turn us into a sect. And at the same time, he tries to increase our interest in physical things, so that our thoughts revolve essentially around them and we become lethargic and indifferent to our exercises. And if someone achieves a little clairvoyance, [Ahriman] does everything to awaken false ideas and illusions. This must be clear to every esotericist.

But just as Lucifer and Ahriman fight to gain power over the esotericist and prevent occult development, it is equally certain that good powers always surround the esotericist and are ready to give him strength to resist these enemies in all temptations. But fearlessness and good will are the best allies, and there Michael-Christ is ready to help, so that the evil forces must retreat.

When the esoteric meditates and returns to everyday life, when he has to go among people again, feel their coldness, their selfishness - and his own selfishness - he will notice that meditation has given him a new strength that will become an armor for him during the day: He will more easily become aware of temptations and will more easily overcome difficulties, both within himself and around him. And whatever happens, he must never forget that all esotericists receive a special power from the hierarchies that work to give people a conscious connection with the spiritual world. We must never completely leave this out of our consciousness, it should lie in us like an underground. But there we will never lose heart either, and we will experience that power is sent to us to overcome difficulties and dangers.

Through trust in these powers and through meditation, we will come into ever stronger contact with them. But this connection can also be strengthened by studying nature and the cosmos; by recognizing the laws, essences and forces that operate there, and gradually sensing the spiritual forces that are the driving ones. Here one learns to understand the language of the hierarchies, God's language – thoughts of the cosmos are hidden in it.

In the beginning, it is not easy to understand this language. To say that everything in nature is an expression of divinity is quite easy. But to understand what thoughts and what is hidden behind nature and the cosmos, that is, to fully understand this language, is only learned through occult experiences in the spiritual world. But then it also becomes a living language that makes it clear what thoughts underlie the mineral, the plant, the animal and one's own physical body. Then one understands that a divine power has created all this and has led the soul and the mind of man into the physical world in order to develop strength through life in matter, in order to work out from his own conscious ego an ever stronger connection with the hierarchies and the spiritual worlds.

If the esotericist is to experience this, then he must not escape the duty that the esoteric school imposes on its students to develop clairvoyance; this is the surest way to get a living connection with the higher world.

Every esoteric lesson is meant to help with this. It should be the case that every time we gather for an esoteric lesson, we then have the feeling that we have caught a glimpse, if only for a moment, of the spiritual world, and thus a sacred mood that gives new strength to take on the difficulties of life again.

This mood will then follow us further, in that it will become the determining factor for the thoughts, feelings and actions that life imposes on us.

It is true that no esoteric has the right to give to those outside the school what he learns in an esoteric hour, and the mantras are only for the esoterics, but the fruit of what has been learned should shine over his whole life and show everyone that he draws from an invisible power.

If the esoteric becomes the guiding principle for his life, the light on his path through life, then he has received and experienced the esoteric hour in the right way.

The first verse is read (“I entered this...”).

I entered this world of the senses,
My heritage of thinking with me leading,
A God's power has me introduced.
The death, he stands at the way end.
I want to feel the Christ's being.
It wakes in material dying spirit birth.
In the spirit I find the world so
And recognize me in the world becoming.

Ex Deo Nascimur In Christo Morimur Per] Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus