3. Initiation-Knowledge—New and Old

Now some physical substances have the peculiarity that they loosen the ego and the astral body without putting the person to sleep. Even ordinary alcohol has this effect under certain circumstances. If then a somewhat irregular connection between the etheric body and the organ of speech or the organ of thought is still present, then under certain circumstances the human being can speak or write in such a way that he is loosened with his ego or astral body, and then that which resonates in the etheric body writes, and this can certainly be something much more significant than what the human being speaks or writes when he is present with ego and astral body. One must not, of course, carry these things to practical measures; one must not, of course, claim that someone can become a good poet by indulging in opium in this or that way, but on the other hand these things are quite in accordance with reality. In this way one enters into quite dangerous chapters of human life. And for very many phenomena in the world it is necessary, really necessary, to know these connections. You cannot understand the achievements of some people if you do not know under what influence of a substantial kind - purely external material - they have created something. It is possible, for example, with Nietzsche, as well as with Coleridge, in some of their works at least, to really interpret each individual manner of expression as the progress of the etheric body in an independent way.