Three Paths to Esoteric Development: Emotion, Will, and Thinking

GA 266III — 24 January 1914, Berlin

Esoteric Lesson

Record A

We distinguish between three parts of our soul life: the consciousness soul, the intellectual soul, and the sentient soul. These three parts cannot be completely equated with the powers of thinking, feeling, and willing, for thinking, feeling, and willing are inherent in each of the three parts of the soul.

People who are more emotional in nature are now turning to esotericism, especially those who are religious. Not all emotional people are religious, but those emotional people who are inclined toward esoteric development are usually religiously inclined. Such natures usually arrive very easily at general mental images of the spiritual world and also easily at imaginings. They are largely spared what makes it so difficult for other people to ascend into the spiritual worlds; their worries are taken away from them by an angelic being; they are carried over the threshold by their angel. Such people can experience many beautiful things in the spiritual world, and when they have something to tell us about it, we should listen carefully to what they have to say.

Then there are people who act out of their will, who come to esoteric development from an affective and emotional life – which does not necessarily mean that they are incapable of criticism and ridicule. Such people have an infinitely harder time than others; just when they are standing at the threshold, they are tormented by their emotions and affections so violently that it can lead to physical agony. In their meditation, they are tormented and hindered as if by devils. They want to enter the spiritual world, and they have a feeling that they cannot enter.

One cannot choose for oneself how one wants to be, whether one will belong to one path or another. But the third path can be chosen to a large extent by oneself, and that is the path of thinking. Nevertheless, this path is taken by very few. One hears people say: I cannot imagine, for example, how the moon developed. But that is only because of ourselves! A farmer, for example, would find it very easy to understand the development of Saturn, the sun, and the moon. When someone says, “I can't understand that,” it simply means, “I don't want to acknowledge it because I've never seen it before.” When we see a person of thirty years of age, we know that he must once have been a child—not because we have always seen that adults were once children, but because human beings could not be what they are if they had not gone through other stages of development. Even if we had never seen a child, we would still know that an adult must have been a child.

In our motto: Ex Deo nascimur; In Christo morimur, there is mention of God the Father who has his Son in Christ. It has been a profound thought of Christianity to express this relationship with the help of the relationship between father and son. For the father can remain without a son. It is a gift from the Father that he has brought forth his Son from himself. Among the various explanations that have been given of our Rosicrucian motto, this is one of the deepest that is possible to meditate upon.

Record B

People who become esotericists more out of their emotional nature actually have it easier than others. Their religious emotional life can lead them to strive for esotericism, because it is only those with a religiously inclined emotional nature who truly become esotericists. They can then relatively quickly come to see visions and enter the imaginative world; it is as if they are carried over the threshold by their angel, and this is their karma, to have it really easier than others. These natures can often help others a great deal by giving them pictures of what they see, and such pictures need not arouse envy, but one must recognize that they can be of great help.

Others strive for esotericism more from the will, which in our time is even more connected with the emotions. They can also enter the spiritual world, some even easily, but they have a harder time than emotional people. In their meditation, they are often driven as if by devils, and when they reach the threshold, they are tormented in the physical realm by their emotions and the awareness of their passions and their emotional nature.

The third path is through thinking. This is the safest path and will increasingly become the path for all people in the future, but it is actually still taken by relatively few because there are still many people who would prefer to enter the spiritual world quickly without taking the trouble to properly process everything that can be absorbed through thinking. This path takes longer than the others. But when a person finally reaches the threshold, even if it takes a long time, they have gained such a great and broad interest through understanding the spiritual laws that they can accept their karma with peace of mind because they have learned to empathize with humanity to such a high degree and know that their personal shortcomings will be compensated for in future lives. He can then come to a deeper understanding of the relationship between father [God] and son. The Father must be there before the Son can be there, but it is the free will of the Father to allow the Son to be there. Feeling at one with the Son, who is God in the human soul, he can then come to a deeper understanding of the saying E.D.N. - I.C.M. and will later also come to a realization of the P.S.S.R.