122. Clairvoyance, Magic and Initiation

When you strengthen the world of thought by absorbing the power of love into it, you illuminate the spiritual and soul essence. What is unconscious in the darkness of sleep becomes conscious through light.

When you do this, you transfer the human self into the inner light – that is, from the ether into the astral. One already enters into relation with one's own being in the astral through the imagination. If one enlivens the memory by consciously bringing activity into the will, one connects with the spiritual world. One's inner being enters into the beings that live in the inner being of the light. These are the beings that have their sensory image in nature. In the earthly nature kingdoms, one discovers no real spiritual reality, but only a reflection of such. In extraterrestrial nature, the real spiritual beings are to be found. Earthly nature is the subject of inspiration.

In the pre-earthly life, the human being is initially quite removed from the earthly sphere; through his self, he feels the spiritual beings. Then the earth's nature begins to take effect on him; this withdraws him from the starry nature: he becomes attuned to the mere manifestation of the spiritual. The spiritual part of the moon is present in it as a real entity; it withdraws the spirit germ of the physical organism from the human being: this spirit germ becomes material through the powers of the moon - it passes over into the physical effects of the earth. Without the powers of the moon, all nature would be a mere reflection of the extra-terrestrial spiritual existence.

The spiritual-soul being is present in man. In sleep it is inwardly without light because it is so by its own nature; in waking it is alienated from itself because the body is its inner being. —

It is without light because it lives outside the light; and it is alienated because it lives in the body. When it enters the inner light in spirit (as spirit), then it is in its other being. The strange body gives the memories; the outside of the light gives the view of nature. What lives in sleep, the person has brought with him from the pre-earthly existence; it is lightless inside and foreign to itself - the body gives it light through the senses; through its remaining organization, it has its own nature.

Imagination is entering into the light. —

Intuition is union with the spirit.

Ideal magic: working in the spiritual. There is no effect within the sense world; this occurs when man becomes spirit. In mineral nature there is initially no spirituality; in vegetable nature there is only such a spirituality into which man is transferred after discarding his etheric body.

In ancient times, people still retained powers from their pre-earthly existence – ideal magic could still appear as real. —

If a person were to be unconscious during sleep, the secrets that people want to keep for themselves would be revealed to him - and real magic would work through him - which should only be limited to education in his own next life on earth. A person enters the spiritual world legitimately when he limits himself to revealing the secrets of nature with regard to clairvoyance and only uses the powers that can be absorbed by the consciousness of self with regard to magic. He must not want to reveal people's secrets; and he must not want to exert influence on people through the unconscious forces of nature. He may bring about enlightenment by teaching the secrets of nature; and he may indicate the ways by which people can truly belong to the spiritual world and truly work in it.

The initiate can know that after death, the human being still has his etheric body for a short time. He recognizes this etheric body by the fact that he can detach it from the physical body through the power of the soul developed in meditation - then he has his world of memory before him. But he also gets to know how the cosmic ether continually strives to dissolve this etheric body into itself if it is not held together by the physical body. If an experience is made in the etheric body, it is gone after 2-3 days if it is not entered into the physical body. As an initiate, one can have the most significant experiences; one does not retain them if one does not incorporate them into the physical body.

The initiate can also know that the human being then lives in the astral body - because he knows this through his self-awareness awakened in the spiritual -; he knows that in this astral body two essences fight each other - the human and the cosmic. He can also measure the time during which this lasts, because he sees the integrating astral body at work in the human body - through the time of childhood and youth - and that of holding on; in the post-mortal the connection between the astral body and the physical body must be dissolved in the post-earthly existence. One becomes familiar with the process of dissolving by observing the way in which one has dissolved from the spiritual when entering earthly life. One unites with it again – as an initiate one becomes acquainted with how the spiritual world comes to meet one – one becomes aware of how one prepares to receive it, and how it then enters into the soul – there the earthly selfhood is an obstacle to it.

During childhood and youth, the content of the astral body has been withdrawn from consciousness - it has poured into the physical body -; after death, full consciousness of what has connected with the astral body in external experience must arise again. - And the initiate knows the I and its connection with the physical body. The I must be completely adapted to it - it must have it as thought content -; for this the time that has passed since the external circumstances have changed completely was necessary - the I does not enter into the same circumstances; the next post-earthly life will then be longer or shorter, depending on whether the person has become more or less alien to the spiritual during their life on earth.

The soul gives itself the second teeth by pouring the liquefying human being into forms; in this way it acquires enough strength for itself to internalize the life of thought; for with sexual maturity it enters the outer world - shapes the ways of acting.

The physical human body is not from nature – it is from the spiritual world –; it is connected to nature through the soul – which integrates the earthly outside world. –

The etheric human body is from the cosmos – it is connected to the outside of the etheric cosmos through the spiritualized soul. The person who has become clairvoyant sees himself as luminous (etheric) and finds other luminous beings by penetrating not with his own but with another's luminosity (etheric); to do this, one must be inwardly absorbed in thought. —

The magician experiences himself as active in spirit and in interaction with the activity of other spirits.

A guru was sought as the one who regulated the content of the student's clairvoyance and told him how far he could go with his magic.

Take the place of: revealing the secrets of nature - because science sets the limits. - You cannot intrude into the soul secrets of another without permission if you stick to what is inherent in science as a method. -

Adhere to that which can be taken up into consciousness. — You do not overwhelm a person by imposing nature on them without them taking it up into their consciousness. But natural science only recognizes such natural effects. Plants are related to the cosmos in such a way that what becomes conscious to clairvoyance takes effect in them.

Animals are related to the cosmos in such a way that not natural laws but magic is active in them.

On the ordinary consciousness, light acts from the outside. On the clairvoyant consciousness, it acts from the inside.

On the ordinary consciousness, love acts from the inside.

On the clairvoyant from outside – the creative love in man, in the animal – the withdrawing love in the plant, in the mineral. <5>The light as shining in the mineral, in the plant as restraining itself in the animal, in man.