# Spiritual Dangers and the Balance of Inner Forces

## GA 266II — 25 May 1910, Hamburg

### Esoteric Lesson

Recording A

Prayer to the spirit of Wednesday:

> Great comprehensive spirit,  
> in your essence, knowledge is knowledge of the world ...

Last time, we saw how the symbols given to us in our meditations can and should affect us. Today, to bring these three esoteric hours full circle, let us talk about the wrong paths we can take as esotericists.

In ordinary, exoteric life, we have all kinds of labels for qualities that we know as good or evil. For the esotericist, these labels are often inadequate, one-sided, because every quality has two sides, a good and a bad, and maintaining the right balance must be one of the main tasks of the esotericist. They must constantly watch over themselves and be on their guard. Human qualities are such that, when they remain in the right balance, people can control them very well with their ego. However, if they allow any one of them to become too intense, the ego can fall under the control of that quality. This is not so dangerous for the exoteric person; he is constantly brought back into balance by the spirit of everyday life. But it is different for the esoteric person. A trait that he allows to gain control over him can lead him into all kinds of dangers; above all, something like this can already have an effect in his present life in the form of a physical illness. Let us clarify this with some examples.

Who among us is not familiar with mood swings and feelings of discontent? We have all been subject to them at some point. However, the esoteric person must try to fight against them with their ordinary ego. For if they allow these feelings to gain the upper hand, something very specific will happen to them. They will fall prey to the false spirit of heaviness. There really is such a spirit or spirits of heaviness. The spirit of heaviness itself belongs to the primal forces (spirits of personality), and it is the one that brings us back to our physical body in the morning when we wake up. This falls within its sphere of influence, and that is good and right for us. However, among these spirits there are some who exceed their sphere of activity and want to work in the realm of the spirits of form. It is these who take hold of the etheric body of the esotericist when he gives in to discontent, and work on him in such a way that he becomes completely hypochondriacal. In the physical realm, this then expresses itself in diseases of the digestive tract. This can also be said in exoteric lectures; in our esoteric lessons, we must always keep in mind that we are receiving direct messages from the Master, which he has intended specifically for esotericism.

Another characteristic that esotericists should be particularly wary of, and should constantly observe themselves to ensure that they do not fall prey to it, is vanity and arrogance. We are often not aware of how far we have already fallen into this trap, and must therefore pay particular attention to it. How many people believe that they want to help others out of “love for humanity.” But when you tell them that they can only achieve this through constant, diligent study, you realize that they do not really want to; they want to get started right away, without considering how much harm they can do by helping in the wrong way. But this is a very dangerous vanity, and all those people who want to make the masses happy and confused enthusiasts who preach their worldview with beautiful words and vague phrases, believing that they have a mission to fulfill, have fallen prey to it.

If the esotericist does not suppress this vanity, what happens then? He falls prey to the spirits of light, and not to the regular, good ones who are recruited from the ranks of the spirits of wisdom, but to those who work down into the realm of the spirits of movement. The good spirits of light have the task of guiding people in the evening as they fall asleep into the spiritual world, of guiding their entry into it so that they enter it unconsciously. If the esotericist wants to accelerate his development in an irregular manner and yet does not learn what he needs to know about the spiritual worlds, the other spirits of light take hold of him and influence his etheric body in such a way that the head region and the brain are affected in the physical body. Confusion, fanaticism, and finally the worst: insanity arise.

Those who fall prey to the spirit of heaviness harm only themselves, and such people should be helped by all means; for we should love not only humanity, but every single human being. But those who fall prey to the spirits of darkness can harm not only themselves but also humanity through their confused fanaticism. Therefore, we should examine ourselves again and again to see whether the reasons for our development are truly selfless, and we should never tire of learning; for the more we learn, the more naturally we will become humble.

We need not be afraid when we feel the spirit of heaviness in such a way that we wake up in the morning feeling broken and our limbs so heavy that we can hardly move them. This is a temporary stage and a sign that we have passed through the incorrect stage of hypochondria. And those who at certain times have the feeling that they can hardly keep their feet on the ground, that they must be floating, need not be alarmed, for they have passed through the stage of enthusiasm, and the phenomenon is only a regular one in development. The human soul is kept in balance by the spirit of gravity and the spirit of light, and the esotericist should always strive not to disturb this balance.

The reference to this balance is given to us by the Master of Wisdom in the prayer we say at the end, which contains all the wisdom of the world that will be revealed to us more and more:

> In the spirit lay the seed of my body ...

Record B

First, the spirit of the day is invoked: Mercury.

In esoteric life, phenomena appear that are of great significance to the esotericist. If we have allowed the preceding hours to work on us, it is necessary to receive this last one in order to connect them into a whole.

In ordinary outer life, it is the world itself that corrects the mistakes we have brought with us through our innate disposition; but in esoteric life, our qualities and dispositions take on a completely different meaning. Yes, it goes so far that the word that describes the [relevant] characteristic no longer even expresses the characteristic of that trait. We have been told that arrogance, vanity, and pride are dangerous; but if a person, without striving for balance, wants to completely detach these traits from themselves, they would lose their sense of self. Their ego dissolves, and they become a person without substance. On the other hand, the quality that could be called love is just as dangerous. People who are always inclined to give love and believe that they must help everyone fall into the other extreme of being constantly preoccupied with themselves and wrapped up in their own egos. When qualities manifest themselves, there are always two opposing forces at work.

If love were the highest thing in the world, there would be nothing at all; the opposing force must always bring about balance. Today, we want to point out the forces or beings that work within us and cause those peculiar states that every esotericist knows.

The first state is that of a feeling of unease, a feeling of unease that seems to arise without any reason, that finds a reason in every little thing and that can degenerate into such intensity that the whole nature of a person can appear transformed. In this case, we are dealing with beings that belong to the hierarchy of the primordial forces, which are healing beings when they remain in their own domain; but when they step outside their domain, into the hierarchy of the spirits of form, they work to our detriment. They are called “spirits of heaviness,” and they are the ones who help us wake up, pulling us down to the earthly realm. This often gives us that feeling of heaviness and sluggishness when we wake up. But if we add to this a feeling of discontent, then these spirits have a negative effect on us and make everything difficult and dark for us. They then act on the physical body and fill it with heaviness, so that one feels as if one is chained to the earth. If the ego does not resist this and does not sense the dangers that threaten it, then these spirits also dominate our ego; the person becomes powerless and falls into hypochondria. Everyone knows how difficult hypochondria is to cure. This illness always points to an effect from a previous life as an esoteric, because it cannot arise in one incarnation. When the spirits of heaviness have taken hold of us in this way, it manifests itself in illnesses of the lower abdomen and the digestive organs.

Now we must also familiarize ourselves with the spirits of light, which, when they remain in their own realm, are also active as healing forces, but when they step outside their realm and enter the realm of the spirits of movement, they bring harm to human beings. This is the case, for example, when a person imagines that he must help humanity if he wants to be completely absorbed in love, while he actually has the desire to rise higher without effort. Then these spirits of light come, penetrate the person, and lead him into fanaticism, so that all his mental images are transformed into untruths. The person thinks that he is a force for good, that he must improve the world. When one falls under the dominion of these spirits, the ego is so completely filled with itself that it can no longer see things outside itself in their proper relation, and finally the person falls into a state in which his body is influenced, and his brain is destroyed. But if he reacts against these forces, tries to understand that everything is only imagination, [if he believes] that he can help others and so on, if he tries much more to divert his energies from this activity of love and to suppress every desire for progress within himself, trusting that the right maturity will come at the right time: then these spirits act as healing forces and bring us step by step closer to the light. They are the ones who help us fall asleep at night and bring us to the light.

So we should always be on guard against these two forces; and when they show themselves in our feelings, we should immediately be alert and focus our attention on ourselves. If we are in a bad mood and have always fought vigilantly against it, then the moment will come when we feel our body as if it were broken, that it hurts us to the core, and that will be the proof to us that we have triumphed. And if we are inclined to fanaticism, as described here, and we have fought courageously against it, then a feeling comes over us as if we no longer have legs to stand on, as if our body is too light for the ground to hold it; and that is the proof that we have triumphed in the battle with the spirits of light.

These are the consequences of correctly performed exercises; and instead of making us fearful or disheartened, they should encourage us to go forward bravely. When we gradually learn to understand how we are always surrounded on all sides by forces that act upon us, we learn to live through the day with complete self-confidence and to establish a balance between all these influences. This will also help us to better understand the concluding words of our reflections, the first half of which represents the spirit of heaviness:

> In the spirit lay the seed of my body ...

and the second half represents the spirit of light:

> In my body lies the seed of the spirit ...

Record C

The fivefold spirit and where it works or where and how it expresses itself.

> 1. The spirit of truth  
> 2. The spirit of devotion  
> 3. The spirit of good will  
> 4. The spirit of heaviness  
> 5. The spirit of light

The realm of the primal forces is the realm of the spirit of heaviness. The primal forces or spirits of personality work in the physical body and are precisely what hold human beings to the earth. The activity of the spirit of heaviness as the spirit of form, that is, in the ego, is incorrect. When it works there, discord, disharmony, hysteria, and hypochondria arise. Heaviness is good in the body. The spirits of wisdom work correctly as spirits of light in the etheric body. They produce sound judgment; they work incorrectly as spirits of movement, where their effect as an incorrect effect manifests itself as confusion and enthusiasm, even in the physical body.

The Rosy Cross: Let us imagine the plant, the cross and the red rose; it is the blush of the plant. In this case, we must imagine the cross as white and the rose as green, in the opposite color.