Lecture VIII

Nevertheless this path has its difficulties. If you start from inner soul experiences and by means of occult development succeed in looking out from these inner soul experiences into the spiritual world, then the impressions of the spiritual world last for a comparatively long time. The consequence is that when by means of inner soul experiences alone someone succeeds in crossing the Threshold and entering the spiritual world, then he experiences spiritual vision and can as it were take time to look at the things before him; they do not pass quickly, they continue for a considerable length of time. Herein lies, we might say, the advantage, the convenience of starting from inner soul experiences. It has, however, the drawback already indicated, that one is quite unprotected and cannot recognise or estimate rightly Luciferic and Ahrimanic influences. It is, in fact, true to say that at no time are people less aware of Lucifer and the devil than when they set out on the occult path from the inner life of soul. The other starting-point has the drawback that the vision to which we attain, the Imaginations that present themselves, last only a very little while, they do not stay; so that we require to develop a certain presence of mind, if we want to catch them.