Haeckel, the World's Mysteries, and Theosophy

First of all, there is a transition, familiar to everyone, between the external life of sensory perception and that life which does not die even in the deepest sleep. This transition is the chaos of dreams. Everyone is familiar with it, usually only as an echo of what they have experienced during the day. How could they possibly take in anything new in their sleep? The inner human being does not yet have any organs of perception. But something is there. Life is there. What has left the body during sleep remembers, and this memory arises in more or less confused images in the sleeping person. If you would like to learn more about these things, please refer to the essays “How to Gain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds.” Instead of chaos, order and harmony gradually begin to enter the realm of dreams. This is a sign that the human being is beginning to develop spiritually; and then he sees in his dreams not only the echoes of reality in a chaotic way, but also things that do not exist in ordinary life. Certainly, people who want to remain in the realm of the tangible, in the realm of the senses, will say: “Those are just dreams.” But if you thereby gain insight into the highest secrets of the world, it can actually be quite irrelevant to you whether you received them in a dream or in a sensory way. Consider whether Graham Bell invented the telephone in a dream. That would not matter today if the telephone had in any case become a significant and useful device. Clear and orderly dreaming is therefore the beginning.