14. How Can We Know About Supernatural Worlds?

GA 69d/1913-03-09/p019 ·1913-03-09 · English MediumMedium alignmentSome paragraph re-numbering between this translation and the German original — the locus may slip by a paragraph or two.
Record: mixed sources. This volume draws on more than one kind of record (transcripts, notes, documents). Check the volume's own front matter before weighing a single passage. Evidence: «Im Anhang Notizen und Berichte von weiteren Vorträgen» (In the appendix, notes and reports of further lectures). Rudolf Steiner Verlag Gesamtverzeichnis 2022, volume subtitle. The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.

And here [occurs] an event [that has] a shocking [effect] because it is one of the first. It can [occur in a modified form], but it has always been [rightly called]: approaching the gates of death. The person feels as if what he has hitherto called his self, his soul, were struck by lightning, as if it were being taken away from him. Everything with which he felt connected, everything he was, has now been detached from him. His individuality becomes like a being outside himself; he stands opposite himself as he has hitherto stood opposite only a thing outside himself. This is easy to describe, but to experience it is one of the most harrowing things that can be experienced, for it is as if the ground were disappearing. Everything they have thought, felt, and sensed up to now is taken away [the person] takes away with them. This brings them – if the person has acquired the ability to remain upright, if they feel detached from everything – as if over an abyss, which intensifies a feeling that they had only to a small extent before [and] which they now have to get to know: the fear of the unknown.

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Cite: GA 69d/1913-03-09/p019 · edition English