6. Experiences of Initiation in the Northern Mysteries

The fact is there are not objects in the Elementary World such as are found in the physical world, but in the Elementary World we find as realities what in the physical world are merely qualities. We perceive something there that we feel we cannot approach. The feeling might be described as follows: I have before me something—either an entity or an object of the Elementary World—which I can observe only by going round it; it has an inner and an outer side. Such an entity of the Elementary World is called ‘earth’. Then too there are things and entities which may be described as ‘liquid’ or ‘fluid’. In the Elementary World we can see through them, we can penetrate into them, we have a sensation similar to the sensation in the physical world of dipping the hand into water. We can plunge into them, whereas what is called ‘earth’ is something that offers resistance, like a hard object. The second state is described in the Elementary World as ‘water’. Whenever mention is made of ‘earth’ and ‘water’ in books on spiritual science, this is what is meant; physical water is only an external simile for what is seen at this stage of development. ‘Water’ is something that pours through the Elementary World, not, of course, perceptible to the physical senses, but intelligible to the higher senses, to the faculty of spiritual perception, of the Initiate.