An Outline of Occult Science

by Rudolf Steiner

The greater the patience brought to bear in performing these acts of repetition, the more effective becomes this image for the soul.[27]

Such a symbol as has just been described represents no external object or being evolved by nature, but for this very reason it possesses an awakening power for certain inner faculties. It is true, someone may raise the objection: certainly the “whole” as a symbol, does not exist in nature; yet all its details are borrowed from nature, the black color, the roses, etc. It can all be observed through the senses. He who is troubled by such objections, ought to consider that it is not the images of these sense perceptions that awaken the higher faculties of the soul, but that this result is produced purely by the manner in which these details are combined. And this combination does not then picture something that exists in the sense-world.

A symbol was chosen as an example to show the process of effective meditation of the soul. Many symbols of this kind are used in occult training and are built up according to varying methods. Certain sentences, formulæ, and single words can also be given as subjects for meditations, and in every case the means used will have the same object, namely: to detach the soul from sense-impressions and to stimulate it to an activity in which the impressions of the physical senses play no longer any part and in which the unfoldment of inner latent soul capacities becomes the essential.

There are, however, also meditations based exclusively upon feelings, sensations, etc., and these are especially effectual. Let us, for instance, take the feeling of joy. In the normal course of life the soul [pg 291] experiences pleasure when there exists an outer stimulus to pleasure. If a healthily constituted soul perceives some act performed by a person, indicative of the doer's goodness of heart, then the soul will assuredly feel pleasure and joy at such an act. But the soul is able to reflect upon such an act, and can say to itself that an act done from sheer kindness of heart is one in which the doer is following the interests of his fellow-creatures rather than his own, and such an act may be called ethically good. But the soul can lift itself above the perception of any particular case in the outer world which has given it joy or pleasure, and instead may arrive at a general concept of kindness. It can for instance, think of kindness coming into existence through one soul making the interests of others his own. And the soul can then experience joy over the ethical idea of kindness. Therefore, the joy is then not over this or that event of the sense-world, but it is the joy over the idea as such. If the student now tries for some time to let this joy come to life within his soul, then this is a meditation on a feeling, on a sensation. It is then not the idea which is the active principle in the awakening of the inner soul faculties, but the sustained dwelling upon that feeling within the soul which has not been caused by merely a single external impression.

Occult science being in a position to penetrate far deeper into the being of things than can be done by ordinary perception, the teacher will be able to indicate to the pupil feelings and sentiments which [pg 292] are still more powerful as awakening agents for the unfolding of the soul's faculties when used as subjects of meditation. Yet, necessary as this will be for the higher degrees of training, it should be remembered that energetic meditating upon subjects, such as kindness of heart may carry the student very far on his way.

Since the natures of human beings differ, special methods of training are effective for particular individuals. As to the duration of time to be devoted to meditation, we may remind the student that the greater the length of time during which he can meditate uninterruptedly, the stronger will be the effect. But every excess in these matters should be avoided. There is, however, a certain inner discretion, resulting from these exercises themselves which teaches the pupil to keep within due bounds in this regard. Those who pursue their studies in occult science under the personal guidance of a teacher will receive from him precise instruction and advice in these particulars. Nevertheless, it must be emphatically understood that only experienced occultists are in a position to impart such advice.

Such exercises in meditation will generally require practice for some time before the student can become aware of any result. What is essential to occult science is patience and perseverance. He who is unable to awaken these two qualities within himself and who cannot continually practice his exercises in quietude, so that patience and perseverance are always the predominant note in his soul-life, cannot [pg 293] attain very great progress. From what has been said above, the reader will have gathered that meditation is a means of acquiring knowledge of the higher worlds, but he will also see that not just any percept whatsoever, taken at random, is productive of this result, but only those of the kind before-mentioned.

The path here indicated leads in the first place to what is called imaginative knowledge, and this is the first step toward the higher knowledge. Knowledge, dependent upon sense-perceptions and upon the working up of such perceptions by reason, which is sense-bound, is, to use the occult term, known as “objective cognition.” Beyond this are higher degrees of knowledge, the imaginative stage being, as we have said, the first. Now the term “imaginative” can cause confusion in the minds of some, to whom “imagination” stands only for “imaginings”—that is concepts that lack reality. In occult science, however, “imaginative” cognition must be understood to be that kind of cognition which results from a supersensible state of consciousness of the soul. The things perceived in this state of consciousness are spiritual facts, and spiritual beings, to which the senses have no access, and—since this condition of the soul is caused by meditating upon symbols, or “imaginations”—the sphere to which this condition of higher consciousness belongs may be termed the imaginative world, and the knowledge relating to it, imaginative knowledge. “Imaginative” stands, therefore, in this sense, for that which [pg 294] is “actual” in a higher sense than are the facts and beings of physical sense-perception.

A very natural objection to the use of the symbolic pictures here characterized is that they arise from a dreamy thinking and an arbitrary imagination, and might therefore have doubtful consequences. But any such doubts are unjustified in regard to the symbols given by true occult schools. For these symbols are chosen in such a way that they can be looked at quite apart from their connection with outer sense reality, and their value is to be found exclusively in the power with which they work upon the soul when it turns its attention wholly away from the outer world, when it suppresses all sense-impressions and shuts out every thought to which it might be stimulated from without. The process of meditations is best demonstrated by comparison with sleep. In one respect it is like the state of sleep; in another, the exact opposite of it. It is a sleep which when compared to the day-consciousness, represents a higher state of being. The point is that by concentration on the given conception or image, the soul is obliged to call up much stronger forces out of its own depths than it uses in ordinary life or knowledge. Its inner activity is thereby enhanced. It becomes detached from the body, as it does in sleep; but instead of passing, as in the latter case, into unconsciousness, it experiences a world it did not know before. Although as regards detachment from the body this condition may be compared with sleep, yet it is such that, compared with ordinary [pg 295] waking consciousness, it may be characterized as a more intense waking state. By this means the soul learns to know itself in its true, inner, independent being. But in ordinary life, owing to the weaker development of its forces, it is only with the help of the body that the soul arrives at self-consciousness. Therefore it does not experience itself but merely sees itself in that image which—like a kind of reflection—is traced, by the physical body (or, properly speaking, by its processes).

These symbols built up in the manner above described are not as yet related to anything real in the spiritual world, but they serve to detach the human soul from sense-observations and from that instrument, the brain, to which the reason is at first fettered. This detachment is not effected until man is able to feel: “I am now perceiving something by means of powers for which neither my senses nor my brain serve as the instruments”; and the first thing man thus experiences is a liberation from the organs of sense. He is then able to say to himself: “My consciousness does not vanish when I cease to take cognizance of sense-perceptions and ordinary reasoned thought; I can lift myself out of those conditions and then feel myself as a being alongside of that which I was before”—and this is the first purely spiritual experience; the perception of a psycho-spiritual Ego-being. This has arisen as a new self out of that self which is linked to the physical senses and physical reason only.