2. Imagination

It is often said by those striving toward a higher development: I wish to perfect myself spiritually; I wish to develop the “higher man” within me; but I have no desire for the manifestations of the “astral world.” This is understandable when one takes into consideration the descriptions of the astral world found in books dealing with such things. There, to be sure, appearances and beings are spoken of that bring all sorts of dangers to men. It will be said that under the influence of such beings a man may easily suffer harm to his moral disposition and mental health. It will be brought home to the reader that in these regions the wall dividing “the good from the evil path” is as “a spider's web” in thickness, and that the plunge into immeasurable abysses, the fall into utter depravity, lies all too near.—It is, of course, impossible simply to contradict such assertions. Yet the standpoint taken in many cases as to treading the occult path is in no way a correct one. The only reasonable point of view is the one that says, rather, that no one should be deterred from traveling the way of higher knowledge because of dangers, but that in every case strict care must be taken to weather these dangers. It may happen that one who asks an occult teacher's guidance will be counselled to postpone actual training for a time, and first undergo certain experiences of ordinary life or learn things that can be learned in the physical world. It will then be the task of the occult teacher to give the seeker the right instructions for accumulating such experiences and learning such things. In most cases, by far, the occult teacher will be found to proceed in this way. If then the student now is sufficiently attentive to what happens to him, after he has come into contact with the occult teacher, he will be able to observe many things. He will find that henceforth things happen to him as if “by accident,” and that he can observe things that he would never have been exposed to without this link with the occult teacher. If the student does not notice this and becomes impatient, it is because he has not paid sufficient attention to what has happened to him. It is not to be believed that the influence of the teacher upon the student will show itself in distinctly visible “tricks of magic.” This influence is rather an intimate matter, and he who would explore its nature and essence without having first reached a certain stage of occult training will surely err. The student injures himself in every case in which he becomes impatient over the waiting time prescribed for him. His advance will be none the less rapid on this account. On the contrary, his progress would be slowed down if he were to begin too soon the training he often impatiently awaits.