Lecture VIII

Generally speaking, what remains, for example, after an impression of colour or of light is by no means an appearance of colour or light. Indeed, we can say that if it is colour or light, then it is illusion! It is a tone, of which one is quite certain that it has not been heard with the ear, that the ear has had no part in its reaching us. What remains can also be some other impression, but it is always different from the external impression. The occultist has to learn completely to overcome external impressions, for occultism is there for the blind, for example, who have never in their life seen an external object, never once had any external impression of light by means of the eye. Most of the ghostlike figures that people see are merely memory pictures of sense impressions that have been changed by the play of fancy. Occult experience is not dependent on whether a person can use some particular sense organ or not, it occurs quite independently of the sense organs.