Lecture VI

This is why such things are doubtful. It was for this very reason that I tried in A Road to Self Knowledge to indicate something individual that can at the same time be useful to every soul. For the same reason, the necessity also arose of showing how the ways of initiation are both manifold and varied. Without wishing to give any kind of explanation about what has been done, I should just like to point out the different ways in which the necessities are shown in the three figures who appear before our souls as Johannes Thomasius, Capesius and Strader in my mystery plays The Portal of Initiation, The Soul's Probation and The Guardian of the Threshold. You are here shown, as it were, three different aspects of the first stages on the path of initiation. You cannot say of any one of these that it is better or worse than the others; in each case you must admit that it is the outcome of individual karma. It can only be said that a soul such as Johannes or Capesius must necessarily follow the paths we have tried to indicate, not theoretically or pedantically, but in the actual, dramatic figures.