Lecture VII

Such things are therefore entirely in accord with the spiritual content of the events as they are historically presented. When the ancient initiate experienced his initiation it is true that he was in a higher world while he was outside his body; he was not in the ordinary sense-perceptible world. We may say that while he was outside his body he was at one with the realities of a higher plane. While he was free of his body in the spiritual world, returning later to his body, what had he experienced? It was memory. He had to speak in such a way that he could say, “I remember my experiences when I was free of my body, in the same way as in ordinary life one can remember what one experienced yesterday or the day before.” He could bear witness to them. As far as these initiates are concerned it did not amount to much more than that they bore in their souls the secrets of the spiritual worlds in the same way that the human soul retains in memory what it experienced yesterday. And as the soul is united with what it retains as memory, so the initiates were united with the secrets of the spiritual world that they carried within themselves.