XIV. The Nature of Initiation

GA 99/1907-06-06/p024 ·1907-06-06 · English HighHigh alignmentThis translation's paragraph count matches the German original — the locus maps cleanly to the same paragraph in DE.
Record: unknown. How this text was taken down (shorthand transcript, listeners' notes or manuscript) is not on record here. Unknown is not an assurance of a stenogram: check the edition's own notes before resting an argument on one word.

Study in the Rosicrucian sense is the ability to immerse oneself in a content of thought not taken from physical reality but from the higher worlds. This is called the life in pure thought. Modern philosophers for the most part deny this; they say that every thinking must have a certain vestige remaining from sense perception. This, however, is not the case, for no one, for example, can see a true circle; a circle must be seen in the mind; on the blackboard it is only a collection of tiny particles of chalk. One can only attain to a real circle if one leaves aside all examples, all actual things. Thus thinking in Mathematics is a super-sensible activity. But one must also learn to think supersensibly in other fields.

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Cite: GA 99/1907-06-06/p024 · edition English