10. Individual Spirit Beings and the Undivided Foundation of the World: Part 1

A week ago the case was presented here of the lady who left a social gathering and ran in front of some horses but then was prevented from jumping into a river and was carried back to the house from which she had fled. There she was brought together with the master of the house, because in some unclear, subconscious way she was in love with this man. In this case it may not be said that the spirit, which did not belong to this lady's consciousness, this spirit that pushed and led her, is an unconscious spirit or that it is an unconscious soul quality. Indeed, it is something extremely conscious. The consciousness of this demonic spirit that led the lady back to her unlawful lover, this demon is indeed much shrewder in its consciousness than the lady is in her muddle-headedness, that is to say her consciousness. When the human being in any way crosses the threshold of his consciousness, these spirits that become active and powerful are not unconscious spirits. Such spirits become consciously active and powerful in their own right. The expression, “unconscious spirit,” as the psychoanalysts use it, has no sense whatsoever. If I were to speak merely from my own viewpoint, I could just as well say that the whole illustrious company sitting here is my unconscious if I were unfamiliar with it. Just as little may we describe as unconscious the spiritual beings that surround us and that take hold of the personality under particular conditions, as was the situation in this case that I related a week ago. They are subconscious; they are not actually grasped by the consciousness that lives directly within us, but in themselves they are fully conscious.