# Thought Robustness and Esoteric Soul Development

## GA 266III — 5 October 1913, Oslo

### Esoteric Lesson

Record A

As esotericists advance from stage to stage, various changes take place in our soul life. Today I want to talk about a weakness that is noticeable in esotericists compared to exotericists; that is, a weakness from the exotericist's point of view, but rather a strength from the esotericist's point of view. It is what I would call the robustness of thought formation. Let me give an example.

William Crookes thought a great deal during his life. He was perhaps the most significant figure in the field of spiritualism. He not only experimented, but also thought a great deal about things that arise in the supernatural life. One of his most interesting problems is probably that of the microscopic human being. He imagines a human being becoming smaller and smaller, a kind of homunculus. Finally, he is only as big as a beetle crawling around on a cabbage leaf. This cabbage leaf represents the world for him, and the edges of the leaf are like high mountains. They appear to him higher than the Himalayas appear to ordinary people. One has also imagined a person who lives very quickly, whose lifespan, which for today's humans is conservatively estimated at eighty years, only spans two months. Of course, such a person must have a completely different view of the world, since everything that ordinary people experience in a whole lifetime is compressed into two months. He does not even know the transition from one season to another. The growth of flowers appears to him as if someone today were conducting research on the geological development of the earth. The sun hardly seems to move from its place. One has also imagined a person who lives very slowly, whose lifespan is eighty thousand years. The course of the sun, which we can follow precisely in the sky, would appear to such a person as a fiery circle, something like when one swings a piece of glowing coal and sees a closed circle. Flowers sprout from the earth only to wither away again; a mushroom shoots up and disappears immediately.

Such images are of interest to esotericists because they show how far today's exoteric thinking can stray. Of the three soul forces, it is thinking that can stray the furthest. The esotericist cannot go along with this; he lacks the robustness to deal with such thinking.

Where does this come from? Because images such as those of microscopic and fast-moving humans do not lie in the necessity or the lawfulness of the world's existence. Certainly, the good gods were more concerned about human life than humans themselves; but they did not create him as a microscopic being, but as a macrocosmic human being, because only this could fit into the world as the gods had intended it to be. Now, it would be possible that Mr. William Crookes, if he had been able to become a god, would have created such a microscopic human being—but the good gods did not do so; they were too weak. But today's exotericist is strong. He paints a mental picture like that of the microscopic human being. He is stronger in his thinking than the next higher hierarchy, the angels or angeloi, of whom it is said in an ancient document: “And they veiled their faces!” Why do they do this? And from what? From the errors of human beings! Human beings were created by the gods as thinking beings, and the entire universe is arranged in this way because they were meant to be thinking beings. But if man believes that thinking can exist on its own, if he lets it wander, he must fall into error and lose his connection with universal thinking, the original source of thought. Then the angels veil their faces. These religious documents are profound; one must only understand them.

When today's theology speaks about ‘the Bible’, this has as much meaning in relation to reality as if European scholars who do not understand Chinese were to pass judgment on sacred Chinese manuscripts based on what they can see on the outside. Just as this has little value, so too does modern Bible research have little value for humanity.

That is why the exercises given to you, my dear sisters and brothers, contain such mental images as are contained in the great world plan. And an esotericist will reject mental images such as those of microscopic and fast or slow living human beings. They cause him pain; he perceives them as something unhealthy, as something that does not lie in the necessity of world existence. He will feel something like a burning sensation toward the microscopic human being; he will feel hot, as if everything were converging at a single point. On the other hand, when he tries to imagine something that wants to expand far out into the universe, for example, a human being who lives to be eighty thousand years old, he is overcome by a feeling of coldness, he freezes.

One can also have such a feeling of coldness toward various philosophers. With Anaxagoras, and to a lesser extent with Empedocles, one has an icy feeling. Leibniz, on the other hand, inspires a feeling of pleasant warmth; he is—if the expression is correctly understood—a pleasant philosopher.

One also has a burning, hot feeling when meditating on a point. This is also a good test of esoteric development. If I have no difficulty imagining a point as it is taught to schoolchildren today, then it is not yet right. But if the esotericist has difficulty, if he has a hot, burning feeling, this is proof that he is advanced in his training. All this vague thinking about the universe, such as questioning and pondering what was before Saturn, what was before God existed, etc., etc., must cause tremendous coldness in the esotericist. It is difficult for the esotericist to conceive of a point and a circle, or a point or a circle, but not so for the exotericist.

Such an image, taken from the course of the world, is also a bowl filled with oil in which a flame burns and shines.

The bowl stands firm, the oil is consumed. Anyone who imagines themselves in this picture will gain a true picture of the human being: the bowl is the solid, physical body; the oil that is consumed is the etheric body; the flame is the astral body and the shining light is the human I.

This human being is very different depending on the climate and location, and more than one usually thinks, humans grow together with the mysteries of their environment. There is a difference between a person traveling from Berlin to Sicily or here (Kristiania). One experiences something different when traveling north. There, the etheric body becomes larger and larger, especially in the eastern north, for example, Finland. In the south, on the other hand, the etheric body is more compressed. When someone travels south from here – Kristiania – their etheric body must contract. This can unleash powerful healing forces. Of course, it depends on whether the person being healed resists or not, and it also depends on the karma of both parties.

Record B

There are things that esotericists cannot do, things in which they are weak compared to exotericists. Tomorrow we will talk about things that esotericists need to learn. Esotericists can no longer allow their thoughts to wander around like exotericists. As an example of what this means, it is said: The exoteric thinks up a little human being, Crookes' little human being, who is as small as a beetle, a human being who lives only two months, but who in that time is a child, a man, and an old man. Compared to such imaginings, the gods are weak in their thinking; they can only think of a human being in the size and form that he is now. To think of the microcosmic human being as he is conceived, instead of the real macrocosmic human being, must cause the esotericist burning pain. The small, the compressed, must cause him pain; the large, the macrocosmic, on the other hand, must cause him fire.

The esotericist also educates his soul.


In this way, we can get an idea of where error and evil came into the world. Getting to know the etheric body happens through attention, through concentration, and getting to know the astral body happens through devotion of the soul, through meditation, through descending into one's soul, and the result is an expansion of memory.

A good meditation tool is to imagine a bowl of oil and a flame that glows and consumes the oil. This is a symbol for a mental image that corresponds to a natural possibility. The bowl is the physical body; the oil is the etheric body; the flame that burns and consumes the oil is the astral body; the glow of the flame is the ego.