Overcoming Doubt, Superstition, and Personality Illusion

GA 266II — 27 February 1910, Cologne

Esoteric Lesson

Doubt, superstition, illusion of personality

Through learning, we must find our way in life. We should enter life without prejudiced views. If we examine everything that science, art, and the various worldviews offer us according to the state of today's science, we will find three threatening forces on our path, namely doubt, superstition, and the illusion of personality. Do not avoid them, but investigate for yourselves, for we must not close our minds to modern science, neither to its inventions nor to its research. It is even our duty to take them into account, although in our theosophical circle we receive a completely different teaching, which is ridiculed and mocked by science. Science cannot accept it from its point of view, precisely because it knows only matter and its research relates only to material, physical things of existence. But precisely because we do justice to science, we should allow doubt to arise in us about what we have learned here; we should not be afraid to doubt, so that we may come to inner clarity through ourselves. In this way, we struggle out of our own consciousness toward occult teachings.

And what is meant by the defeat of superstition? We call superstition the fetish that the African sees and worships in his idol, in a piece of wood. But he does not think of anything spiritual behind it, and as long as that is the case, it is superstition. We can also speak of superstition when we see how modern scholars construct their fetish in their hypotheses of atoms and molecules, which, if one does not admit the spiritual behind them, remain nothing but hypothetical matter. But we should not allow this kind of superstition to arise in ourselves.

A third factor adds to doubt and superstition. This is the illusion of personality. These three forces, which rise and fall within the human being, seek to dominate him. But if we have struggled through vigorous doubt to recognize the truth, and through superstition to believe in the spirit that lies behind all matter, then we will also be able to overcome the illusion about our personality. However, this is often the most difficult thing to do. Even if we sometimes think we feel inwardly free and believe we are unprejudiced toward events in the world and toward individual human beings, this all too often merely reflects the illusion of our personality.

One thing, however, must be pointed out. Do not carry our teaching into social gatherings of other kinds; speak about our teaching only where you come together for that purpose. Do not carry it out in order to argue with outsiders; nor should you speak about it at your meals, for these are times for light conversation. It is best to avoid such gatherings where only the usual gossip of the day is discussed. However, if you must attend them because your position in life or other considerations compel you to do so, you will attend them in a completely different spirit than before, not out of inner joy, but as a duty, so that you do not offend anyone by your behavior. I am not saying this to give you a moral lecture, for I forbid absolutely nothing, but I must tell you this nonetheless.