Aestimatio and Imaginatio: Overcoming Personal Interest

GA 266I — 15 May 1908, Berlin

Esoteric Lesson

Record A

Human beings now face the world in such a way that they perceive the physical. This perception is called “Aestimatio.” Through “Aestimatio,” they gain interest in the physical world. And it is this interest that binds them to the physical world. One can grow beyond this by recognizing the spiritual behind the things of the sensory world. At an earlier stage of consciousness, humans did not yet have “aestimatio” for the physical; at that time they still possessed “imaginatio,” and even earlier ‘incantatio’ or “inspiratio.” Now, humans usually only have “aestimatio” during the day; they only have “imaginatio” at night. During the day, human beings are actually unproductive. In the past, human beings were much more productive. The spiritual human being created the physical body out of itself. Now human beings are only productive at night when they are asleep.

We must ask ourselves: What actually happens during the day when human beings consciously face the physical world?

Consciousness arises when the astral body and the ego destroy the etheric body and the physical body during the day. It is a process as if the nerve strands were torn to pieces when the astral body and the ego become conscious of the physical environment.

The astral body and the ego have a destructive effect on the etheric body and the physical body. This causes fatigue in the human body. The influx of the physical world acts like a poison in the human organism; it has a destructive effect.

What happens during the night? During the night, the ego and the astral body absorb the forces of the spiritual world and pour them into the etheric body and the physical body. They surround the physical body with images that have a healing effect on it. When a person first becomes aware of the spiritual world, the first thing they see is their own physical body. This image of the physical body has a healing effect on them. In this way, during the night, the astral body and the ego also have an energizing, healing effect on the human being through true images from the spiritual world. These flow into the torn nerve strands and the destroyed organism.

Thus, at night, forces flow in from the spiritual world that remove fatigue from the body.

Fatigue mainly arises from interest in things. If you look at something without interest, it does not cause fatigue. Let us say, for example, that a person takes particular pleasure in a good meal. This gives him an interest in the food because it appeals to his taste buds. It has a completely different effect on people when they are aware of their connection to the cosmos, that they are now at a stage where they have a physical body and need food. If they enjoy food out of this feeling, it has a completely different effect on their organism than if they consume it solely out of a desire for pleasure. Humans must learn to recognize the spiritual through the physical; then they lose interest in the physical.

The “Aestimatio” is the stage that humans must face as the lowest point of their development. He must grow beyond it into the “Imaginatio” that he had earlier.

But if he becomes attached to the physical world through interest, he descends to the lowest stage and loses the possibility of ascending.

It is very important for human beings to learn to occupy themselves with things that lie beyond the physical, with mental images and concepts that are supersensible. The exercises are given for this purpose. The longer and more patiently the student practises certain mental images, the better he learns to overcome his interest and rise to the “Imaginatio”. Then, instead of merely absorbing from the outside, the person becomes productive. He then radiates something from within himself into the world. It is rightly said that the human being has the sun and moon within himself. When he looks at things without interest, he himself radiates a spiritual light upon them; he becomes the sun that illuminates things. They reflect his light back to him. The environment that reflects his light back becomes the moon.

Correct mental images have a healing effect on people, while false mental images make them ill. If you trace any illness back to its source, you will find a false mental image. The individual is not responsible for this, but humanity in general.

Interest should not be focused solely on external things. It also has a destructive effect where people rush from one sensation to the next, where they crave constant variety. This makes people ill. Even where people are thirsty for higher knowledge out of interest, this is very hindering to human progress. It makes them ossified. People must not become indifferent to their environment. They must retain their feelings and concern for the environment. It is often said that compassion can also spring from selfishness. This is often the case. Many kinds of compassion spring only from selfishness, because one does not want to see others suffer. But even this is necessary. Before people have reached a higher level, it is better that they sometimes help others out of selfish compassion than not at all. However, we must learn to develop a compassion that is above selfishness, that helps our fellow human beings because it is our duty to help.

Record B

In Rosicrucian terms, the direction of the senses of modern humanity is called “Aestimatio.” This is a focusing of the senses solely on the impressions and influences of the external world. In earlier ages (Atlantis), instead of ‘Aestimatio’ there was “Imaginatio.” Now we allow everything to affect us only from the outside, whereas in earlier times images arose within us. The entire esoteric training consists solely of working toward and awaiting the moment when we will regain “Imaginatio” alongside “Aestimatio.”

We must work toward this moment with constant, subtle, patient effort, not by rushing forward tumultuously. We should not hope for success from ever new exercises. Only through patient repetition of the same exercise over and over again, year after year, only through this repetition do we achieve—if at all—our goal, in subtle work, in secret (just as every small seed of life can only develop in silence and secrecy), not through stormy and impatient rushing forward. By doing so, we destroy at most the delicate, barely forming seeds within ourselves.

In waking consciousness, I and the astral body exert a destructive influence on the entire organism. Modern science has already abandoned the view that the life of thought is based solely on vibrations of atoms in the brain; It has discovered that thought activity has a destructive effect on the nervous substance. It is not a jumble of individual atoms in the nerve strands, but a flood along the nerve strands. The destruction is caused by the personal interest, sympathy, and antipathy we feel toward things in the outer world. During sleep, the destruction is repaired by the astral body imaginatively picturing the healthy, whole state, whereby the nerves are rebuilt properly. When we have developed to the point where we no longer approach things with personal interest, but do everything out of pure duty and imagine the spiritual beings behind things, then no destruction of the organism occurs; then we have reached the state that the Rosicrucians call “Imaginatio.”

In spiritual development, man first sees himself in the astral. Through this imaginative seeing of himself, he involuntarily works on himself in waking consciousness, which he otherwise only did in sleep. - Disinterest should not lead to indifference, but to equanimity. If, in other cases, man felt compassion and then helped in order to no longer suffer with others, this was done out of selfishness. But people should help in order to alleviate need and misery. If people eat only because eating gives them pleasure, this is personal interest. People must eat; but only in order to be able to fill the place they occupy in the world as well as possible, they must keep their bodies healthy and strong, creating in them the most useful tool possible. Thus eating becomes a duty.

When we approach things with personal interest, we only want something for ourselves personally. Desires and cravings, passions and instincts are at work within us, and this has a destructive effect. But when we strive to work, act, and think for everything outside ourselves, we develop solar forces within us. The sun sends its rays to the moon, and the moon reflects them back. In the same way, we should radiate the solar forces we have developed within ourselves to the things and beings around us; then they will shine back at us, so that everything around us becomes light and clear and bright, and there is nothing ugly, evil, or base for us anymore, but we see only the beautiful, the good, and the high in everything.