The Four Stages of Esoteric Development and Inner Experience

GA 266II — 26 January 1912, Berlin

Esoteric Lesson

Record A

Esoteric development must be different at different times, otherwise successive incarnations would have no meaning. But certain things remain the same throughout all ages. For example, we find that Egyptian esotericists speak of:

the coming to the threshold of death,
the descent into the underworld,
the experience of the four elements,
the seeing of the sun at midnight,
the encounter with spiritual beings at close range. What this means cannot be explained in detail here, but the simplest aspects will now be discussed.

One of the sensations that esoteric life can bring us is that waking life seems to us as if it were actually only a dream life. This is not a mood that we can harbor within ourselves all the time, but it should never be our intention to allow certain esoteric moods that we experience at certain moments to extend over our entire life. If we did so, we would become incapable of fulfilling our duties in the outer world. Every esotericist should experience a mood of longing from time to time when they see the realms of nature around them, a longing to penetrate to what lies behind them, to what is true reality, to what we strive for, and in relation to which all ordinary sensory impressions have no more value than those from sleep. Anyone who wants to live in such esoteric moods all the time would have to retreat into a kind of monastic life. But that is not the esotericism that Rosicrucianism strives for. Anyone who wants to withdraw in this way must be aware that they are acquiring certain privileges in relation to their fellow human beings so that they can prepare themselves for several lives in the outer world, but that if everyone wanted to live like them, all progress in human development would be impossible.

Our exercises are designed to bring us into the spiritual world, but often we do not notice the progress we make because of our carelessness. This can lead to the feeling that we make very poor use of the powers of thinking, feeling, and willing that are poured into us, but that we could not possibly live in this way of thinking, feeling, and willing as we are; it would shatter and destroy us. The ancients called the feeling of standing before an experience that threatens to overwhelm us “coming to the threshold of death.” For then one feels that what one is now experiencing cannot be mastered either by one's thinking, feeling, or willing; one now feels what it is like to be dead. Most of you have probably had this experience many times. The fact that you are unaware of it is simply due to inattention. You will often have had the feeling during meditation that you were “away” for a moment, and then, coming to yourself, you think: I was asleep. If you take the trouble to examine what you experienced in such moments, you would realize that these were perhaps the most powerful experiences you have ever had.

Another experience is this. It does not necessarily have to come after the first. One may have the impression that this second experience was the first, because one slept through the first experience. One has the feeling of being stuck inside one's body, of carrying it with oneself. Just as one can distinguish the weight of a weight on each arm from the muscles of the arm, one learns to perceive one's arms themselves as weights that one carries around. Then you may feel that you are sitting bound in an underworld, not physically, but all the more so mentally. This is “going to the underworld.” In your exercises, you then feel completely paralyzed, followed by a feeling as if you were being poured over with lukewarm water.

You can also have the feeling that the bad thoughts we have are not just thoughts, but something real. If we have thought badly of someone, we see it as an arrow flying forward, which can hurt that person's soul more than a physically shot arrow could hurt their body. As soon as we realize what we are doing, we notice how the arrow flies back at us and burns us like fire, as if we were in the “flames of the underworld.” This is “walking through the elements.” It does not need to be seen as a vision; you can feel it in yourself, as if you had burns everywhere.

When we feel this way, we send out forces from our etheric body, but these can only go as far as the boundary of our aura. There, however, they encounter the forces of the cosmos, which are active everywhere in the vicinity. These forces reverse the etheric forces and direct them toward certain centers, where they bring the supersensible organs into being. It is like with the physical eyes: these were formed from indifferent organs by the light. As long as the light was working on them, one could not yet see; this only became possible when they were finished. In the same way, we can only use our higher organs after they have been built up within us in the manner described.

Record B

All esotericism, all esoteric striving is subject to change, to progress, that is, the form changes, but the essence of esotericism remains the same at all times. If this were not the case, the teaching of repeated earthly lives would have no meaning, that is, that human beings are led back to earth again and again so that they can gain experience and their souls can mature. The form in which human beings are introduced into the higher worlds [today] has had to become completely different. Modern humans, with their differentiated soul life, would find it difficult to endure what was once demanded of a student of the Egyptian mysteries. Their preparation took place over the course of a few weeks under the watchful eye of the priest. Violent means were used, for example, to arouse their deepest compassion and test their fearlessness; they were fully aware that their lives were at stake. It is different with people today. Although they are also under the guidance of a teacher, it is through the power of the exercises given to them and through their own work on their souls that they rise to the higher worlds.

When asked about the stages of his development, the Egyptian esotericist would have summarized them as follows:

1. Passing through the gate of death,
2. Descending into the underworld,
3. Passing through the elements,
4. Beholding the sun at midnight,
5. and thereby recognizing the spiritual powers and forces.

It is very difficult to describe these individual stages; they are based on experiences of the soul that everyone must go through. However, this does not mean that the sequence is always the same. It may be that one stage is missed, so that the second takes the place of the first. Everything that goes on in the soul is very delicate, very subtle. Man must accustom himself to paying attention to these intimate moods of his soul.

1. When he listens to what is going on in his soul, something will soon appear like a kind of envelopment, a lulling to sleep in relation to the outside world. He will say to himself: All you beautiful fields, all you lovely valleys, I have no desire for you. There is a longing within me for what lies behind! Such a mood is like a kind of sleep, like dying. One cannot think or feel as before. One cannot lift a finger; even the will is dead. All the limbs become heavy and useless. The soul is outside the body. It is as if the material world is sinking. One feels abandoned by God and the world.

Of course, this feeling can only be temporary. Otherwise we would become completely useless for our professional lives. However, our esoteric life today is organized in such a way that it is compatible with any profession. It is precisely when he has lived in such moods that man should be fresh and flexible for his outer life. Anyone who wanted to live their development to the full would have to withdraw as a monk and anticipate this special privilege in many future earthly lives.

Esotericists of all times have called this feeling of being enveloped by the outside world “passing through the gate of death.” It is really like a premonition of dying.

1. The second feeling, the descent into the underworld, arises in such a way that one is overcome by a shameful feeling of one's own worthlessness, of not making full use of the soul's abilities to which we are actually capable. The feeling we get is as if our body were something separate that we have to carry with us and that sometimes weighs us down like lead. For example, we have this sensation in our arms. We feel as if our body were something foreign. Then we suddenly feel as if we have been illuminated [moistened?],¹ as if we had been doused with lukewarm water.

2. And then a third feeling: that we realize that our thoughts are realities. In the past, we probably had one thought, then a second followed, and we believed that it had erased the first. Now, when we have an evil thought, we feel as if a deadly arrow has been shot at the person at whom the evil thought was directed. But this arrow comes back and strikes our own soul, burning it, and this burn mark remains throughout our entire life. Sooner or later, we have to make amends for it through our karma. The esotericist begins to see imaginatively, sees the fire that is ignited by his evil thoughts. Often it seems to him as if his own body is burning through brightly blazing flames. Esotericists of all times have called this: passing through the elements. Analogous to fire, there are also corresponding experiences on the other levels of the elemental world.

Many complain: “I'm not making any progress, I don't notice that I'm getting anywhere.” The teacher often sees that the student is tormenting himself unnecessarily. It is only a lack of attention that he pays to his innermost soul stirrings. We should live completely in our exercises, identify with the meditation material, banish everything else, every thought of the outside world, and then live for a few minutes in the after-effects. Through all these experiences, centers of power are formed that work within our astral body, but only to the extent of the aura. There they meet the forces that flow into us from the spiritual world, and this forms the organs of the astral body, the lotus flowers, which cause that when the purified astral body works into the etheric body, its configuration changes, making it independent of the physical body and capable of the further stages that lead to seeing the sun at midnight and becoming acquainted with the great spiritual world of the cosmos. This is then immense bliss.

Record C

We would like to extend the mood of meditation to our entire life. However, this is not possible because we would then become useless for physical life. If a person takes the privilege of devoting his entire life to meditation, i.e., leading the life of a monk or nun, he will be faced with the task in his next life of being active in practical life despite his perhaps increased spiritual powers.

Many complain that they are not making any progress, that they do not notice any changes in themselves, that they are not advancing. The teacher very often sees that the student is worrying unnecessarily; it is only a lack of attention that the student pays to the subtle movements of his soul. But this attention is absolutely necessary for progress.

People have always done esoteric exercises, in earlier times in the mysteries. In the ancient documents of the Rosicrucians, we also find the form of experiences indicated for those who wanted to develop, and there, as in all, especially in Egyptian mysteries, very specific experiences are mentioned.

1. On the threshold of death – or rather, the afterlife,
2. the descent into the underworld,
3. the passage through the elements.

We must also go through all these feelings, but they do not need to occur in this particular order. In the past, these feelings and the associated exercises were practiced much more intensively, but today, because the soul life has become more differentiated, people would no longer be able to endure them.

The first experience: Crossing the threshold of death. This is noticeable in all mystics in the following way. The person momentarily falls into a state of mental absence. Their limbs become heavy and useless. Their soul is outside their body. They feel abandoned by God and humanity, and the material world sinks away during those moments when we see what appears to be a concealment of the real world, and we feel a strong longing for that true world. We can do nothing with our will, our feelings, or our thoughts. We must feel this strongly, but we must not remain too strongly in this feeling, because the physical world is our school, where we must undergo our spiritual and physical development. The feeling of actual death can occur for a few seconds. The main thing is to be aware of what is happening to you.

The second feeling, the descent into the underworld, occurs in such a way that one is overcome by a shameful feeling of one's own worthlessness, that one is not making the full use of the abilities of the soul that have been given to one, which one should actually be making, and which one would also be capable of. The feeling you get is as if your body is something separate from you that you have to carry around with you and that sometimes weighs you down like lead, for example your arms. You get the feeling that something foreign has entered your body, and you sometimes feel as if you have been doused with lukewarm water.

The third feeling is passing through the elements. One experiences the reality of thoughts and knows that they are things. When one has sent someone bad thoughts, one usually reassures oneself that it was just a thought. In reality, however, this is worse than shooting deadly arrows on the physical plane. You will then experience in imaginative images how this thought arrow springs back and how a flame touches your soul, imprinting it with brands, so to speak, which you must make up for in your karma.

There are corresponding experiences on the other levels of the elemental world as well.

We should live completely in the exercises given to us, then linger for a few moments in the after-effects of meditation, knowing that we are and live in the after-effects. Through all these experiences, centers of strength are formed that work within our astral body, but only to the extent of the aura. There they meet forces that flow into us from outside, from the spiritual world, and this forms the organs of the astral body, the lotus flowers, which cause the purified astral body to work into the etheric body, changing its configuration and making it independent of the physical body. This enables the human being to take further steps, to see the midnight sun and to become more familiar with the great spiritual world of the cosmos. This is then immense bliss.

Record D All of this must also be experienced by the student of esotericism today. These experiences do not need to be undergone in this particular order. In the past, the exercises that led to these emotional experiences were practiced much more intensively, and the emotional experiences occurred with such eminent strength that today, when the soul life has become so much more differentiated, human beings would no longer be able to endure them.

Threshold of death
Descent into the underworld
Passage through the elements

We would often like to extend the mood of meditation to our entire life. However, this is not possible because we would then become useless for physical life. If a person takes the privilege of devoting his entire life to meditation, that is, to leading a kind of monastic or monk's life, he will be faced with the task in his next life of being active in practical life, perhaps with increased spiritual powers.

People have always practiced esoteric exercises, in earlier times in the mysteries. In the ancient documents of the Rosicrucians, we find the form of experiences indicated for those who want to develop their soul abilities, and there—as in the ancient Egyptian and indeed all ancient mysteries—there is always talk of very specific experiences that the human soul must go through. It has always been said that the soul is led to the threshold of death. It must descend into the elements; it must pass through the elements.

The first experience, crossing the threshold of death, was experienced in the ancient mysteries in such a way that the person momentarily felt the absence of their spirit from their body. They felt their limbs become heavy and lifeless, as if they were a corpse. Their body became useless, like a dead body. They felt that their soul and spirit were no longer working within the body, but outside it. The entire material world in which he lives, perceives, and experiences with his body disappears from him and is no longer there. But the true world, the world of reality, is hidden from him. Thus, in these moments of death, man is like abandoned by God and man, by the spiritual world and the physical world. He feels completely, utterly abandoned! And a strong longing for that true world rises up in his soul! But he feels that he cannot enter this true world with the soul abilities he has used up to now. He cannot do anything with his thinking, his feeling, his will.

The student of esotericism has all these experiences today as well. He must also feel, experience intensely, how his thinking, which serves him in his experiences on the physical plane, is dull and useless for his striving toward the spiritual, how a different kind of thinking must be acquired; he must experience how his feelings are permeated with egoism, how he is repelled by the spiritual world with these feelings, and how his will is a power hidden from him that he must find. All these experiences must be lived through intensely. The complete worthlessness of thinking, feeling, and willing, which serve us in the physical world, must repeatedly become an experience of the soul looking out from the physical body for the soul to experience the spiritual world. However, the awareness must also arise that this physical world does have its value, that it is our school of learning, and that it is only through the correct recognition of the value of the physical world that we can undergo spiritual development at all. The student must know that he must learn to regard the physical world and his physical body as instruments, as tools for the development of his soul and spirit, and that he can truly experience himself outside of them in his true nature, just as a worker feels himself outside of his tools when he uses them. This feeling can go as far as the actual death of the physical body—it can last for seconds. However, it is of the utmost importance that one also notices what is actually happening to oneself.

Then the second experience occurs; this is also an emotional and cognitive experience: the descent into the underworld. Here, the human being learns to withdraw even further from himself. Previously, he looked at his physicality. Now he also looks at his soul being from outside. And then a feeling of immense shame arises in him. He is ashamed of his own worthlessness before the spiritual world. He learns to recognize that the abilities of his soul are gifts from the gods. And he realizes that he has not made use of these gifts from the gods as he should have according to the intention of the gods. He feels that all his egoisms in emotions, drives, and passions have taken his soul far away from the world of the gods. (He looks down into a world of beings who have a close relationship with humans but are of a sub-sensual nature, and when we look within ourselves and perceive ourselves through our instincts, drives, etc., we must sense a sub-sensual nature among them. Our instincts, etc., are the effects of these beings.) And if until then he had felt his body as if it were distant from him, now that which his soul needed for its egoism, which it had wrested from the world of the gods, also becomes distant from him. In the experience of death, he often feels his body becoming like lead; now it is as if something foreign had entered this body; he feels this particularly strongly in his arms and hands, for example. And the feeling of shame pours over him again and again like a fall of lukewarm water. When the human being, perhaps over a long period of time, has learned to look into the underworld, which is his own soul world, where all the demonic beings weave and exist, when he has experienced the feeling of shame intensely, then the third experience occurs: passing through the elements.

At this stage, the insights that are necessary to find the way into the spiritual world without danger emerge in the human soul. First, the person experiences the reality of thoughts. He learns to recognize that thoughts are beings, living beings. In ordinary life, when we send someone bad thoughts—thoughts of hatred, envy, or unkindness—it does not seem so bad. We think they are only thoughts. Now the human being learns to recognize that such thoughts are worse than shooting deadly arrows on the physical plane. One then experiences in imaginative images how these arrows are thrown back and strike us ourselves. They touch our soul like a flame and leave their mark. And the person learns to recognize that they must take such marks into their karma and make amends for them themselves. On the other stages of our soul world, for feeling and for willing, there are corresponding experiences in the elemental world. (Human beings learn to recognize the truth of the words: “World thoughts live in my thinking. World forces weave in my feeling. World beings work in my willing.”)

During meditation, the soul must live completely in the given exercises, then it must linger for a few moments in the after-effects of meditation, knowing that it is and lives in this after-effect. Through all these experiences, centers of strength are formed which work within our astral body up to the extent of the aura. There, at the periphery of the aura, they meet forces that flow into us from outside, from the spiritual world, and through this outward working from our own center and the inward working from outside, the organs of the astral body, the so-called lotus flowers, are formed. are formed, which then cause the purified astral body to work into the etheric body, changing its configuration and making it independent of the physical body. This enables the human being to take further steps. First, he experiences “seeing the sun at midnight” and then becomes acquainted with the great soul world of the cosmos and the spiritual world that he finds beyond the cosmos, in the sphere of the zodiacal forces. And this expansion into these worlds is connected with immense bliss.

Record E

The ancient initiates always had a training that was similar to ours to a certain extent in terms of the experiences the student went through. It was faster back then than it is now; it could be completed in a few weeks. Now it is self-initiation. One can often do the same exercise throughout one's whole life, always more intensively, and always have new experiences. It is important to pay close attention to the very subtle experiences one has in one's soul; very few of those present will never have had such experiences. But they are often so weak, so subtle, that one does not notice them. Yet they indicate the progress the student is making. In “How to Know Higher Worlds,” many exercises are given through which one can slowly and safely, without danger, enable oneself to have experiences in the higher world. But now means are given here to advance even more quickly. The experiences in the ancient mysteries were: 1. Stepping to the threshold before the gate of death. 2. Descending into the underworld. 3. The trials of fire, water, earth, and air. 4. Beholding the midnight sun and encountering, as reality, the spiritual beings hidden behind all that is material and phenomenal. [...]