XVII. The Relationship of Occultism to the Theosophical Movement
GA 90b/1905-10-22/p033
·1905-10-22
·
English
HighHigh alignmentThis translation's paragraph count matches the German original — the locus maps cleanly to the same paragraph in DE.
Record: listeners' notes. Written from listeners' notes, summaries, or memory rather than a shorthand transcript. The wording is the note-taker's as much as Steiner's: weigh a single striking phrase here far more cautiously than the same phrase in a stenographic volume, and do not rest an argument on one word. Evidence: «Frühe Vortragsreihen und Einzelvorträge für Mitglieder in Berlin 1905–1906 nach ausführlichen und z.T. fragmentarischen Mitschriften.» (Early lecture series and single lectures for members in Berlin 1905-1906, from detailed and in part fragmentary listeners' transcripts.). The publisher's description of the volume, as mirrored on AnthroWiki (GA 90b); the description calls them "Hörermitschriften", and the served text carries the note-taker's gap marker "[Lücke in der Mitschrift]". The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.
Thus the student of mystery wisdom developed the ability to look into the past; then the time comes when he can undertake the occult pilgrimage. He achieves this by means of a certain practice, through which he overcomes his personal self and thereby ceases to be the small, bound ego. Only then can he make the ascent into the universe. Once more he descends, taking the world power with him, into the sea of the past, in an ascending line. He can then gradually follow the path he has taken. Slowly and gradually, the human being learns to descend into the sea of his formative forces, and finally he arrives at a point near the origin. This must have been the experience of those human beings to whom the eye was first given to direct their gaze into the universe.
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