As the occult student has now acquired the faculty to exclude those illusions originating from the coloring of the supersensible world-phenomena with his own being, so must he now acquire the faculty of making ineffective the second source of illusions mentioned above.
Only after the meeting with his double, can he eliminate what comes from himself and thus he will be able to remove the second source of delusion when he has acquired the faculty for judging by the very nature of a fact seen in the supersensible world, whether it is a reality or an illusion. Now if the illusions were of precisely the same appearance as the realities, differentiation would be impossible. But this is not the case. Illusions of the supersensible world have in themselves qualities which distinguish them definitely from the realities, and the important thing is for the occult student to know by what qualities he may be able to recognize those realities.
Nothing seems more natural than that those ignorant of occult training should say: “How, then, is it at all possible to guard against delusions, since [pg 368] their sources are so numerous?” And further: “Can an occult student ever be safe from the possibility that all his so-called higher experiences may not turn out to be based on mere deception and self-deception (suggestion and auto-suggestion)?” Any one advancing these objections ignores the fact that all true occult training proceeds in such a manner as to remove those sources of delusion. In the first place, the occult student during his preparation, will have become possessed of enough knowledge about all that which may lead to delusion and self-delusion, that he will be in a position to protect himself against them. He has, in this respect, an opportunity, like that of no other human being, to render himself sober and capable of sound judgment for the journey of life. Everything he learns teaches him not to rely upon vague presentiments and premonitions. Training makes him as cautious as possible, and, in addition to this, all true training leads in the first place to concepts of the great cosmic events, to matters, therefore, which necessitate the exertion of the judgment, a process by which this faculty is at the same time rendered keener and more refined. But those who decline to occupy themselves with these remote subjects, and prefer keeping the revelations nearer at hand, might miss the strengthening of that sound power of judgment which gives certainty in distinguishing between illusion and reality. Yet even this is not the most important thing, but the exercises themselves, carried out through a systematic course of occult [pg 369] training. These must be so arranged that the consciousness of the student is enabled during meditation to scan minutely all that passes within his soul. In order to bring about imagination, the first thing to be done is to form a symbol. In this there are still elements taken from external observation; it is not only man who participates in their content, he himself does not produce them. Therefore he may deceive himself concerning them and assign their origin to wrong sources. But when the occult student proceeds to the exercises for inspiration, he drops this content from his consciousness and immerses himself only in the soul-activity which formed the symbol. Even here error is still possible: education and study etc., have induced a particular kind of soul-activity in man. He is unable to know everything about the origin of this activity. Now, however, the occult student removes this, his own soul-activity, from his consciousness; if then something remains, nothing adheres to it that cannot easily be reviewed; nothing can intrude itself in respect to its entire content that cannot easily be judged.
In his intuition, therefore, the occult student possesses something which shows him the pure, clear reality of the psycho-spiritual world. And if he applies this recognized test to all that meets his observation in the realm of psycho-spiritual realities, he will be well able to distinguish appearance from reality. He may also feel sure that the application of this law provides just as effectually against delusions in the spiritual world as does the knowledge [pg 370] in the physical world that an imaginary piece of red-hot iron cannot burn him.
It is obvious that this test applies only to our own experiences in the supersensible world, and not to communications made to us which we have to apprehend by means of our physical understanding and our healthy sense of truth. The occult student should exert himself to draw a distinct line of demarcation between the knowledge he acquires by the one means, and by the other. He should be ready on one the hand to accept communications made to him regarding the higher worlds, and should seek to understand them by using his powers of judgment. When, however, he is confronted by an “experience,” which he may so name because it is due to personal observation, he will first carefully test the same to ascertain whether it possesses exactly those characteristics which he has learned to recognize by means of infallible intuition.
The meeting with the Guardian of the Threshold being over, the occult student will have to face other new experiences, and the first thing that he will become aware of is the inner connection which exists between this Guardian of the Threshold and that soul-power we have already characterized, when describing the cleavage of personality, as being the seventh power to resolve itself into an independent entity. This seventh entity is, indeed, in certain respects no other than the double, or Guardian of the Threshold itself, and it lays a particular task upon [pg 371] the student. Namely, that which he is in his lower self and which now appears to him in the image, he must guide and lead by means of the new-born higher self. This will result in a sort of battle with this double, which will continually strive for the upper hand. Now to establish the right relationship to it, to allow it to do nothing except what takes place under the influence of the new-born ego, this is what strengthens and fortifies man's forces.
This matter of self-cognition is, in certain respects, different in the higher worlds from what it is in the physical sense-world. For whereas in the latter, self-cognition is only an inner experience, the newly born self immediately presents itself as an outward psycho-spiritual apparition. We see our new-born self before us like another being, yet we cannot perceive it in its entirety, for, whatever the stage to which we may have climbed on our journey to the supersensible worlds, there will always be still higher stages which will enable us to perceive more and more of our “higher self.” It can therefore only partially reveal itself to the student at any particular stage. Having once caught a glimpse of this higher self, man feels a tremendous temptation to look upon it in the same manner in which he is accustomed to regard the things of the physical sense-world. And yet this temptation is salutary; it is indeed necessary, if man's development is to proceed in the right manner. The student must here note what it is that appears as his double, as the Guardian of the Threshold, and place it by the side [pg 372] of the higher self, in order that he may rightly observe the disparity between what he is and what he is to become. But while thus engaged in observation he will find that the Guardian of the Threshold will assume quite a different aspect, for it will now reveal itself as a picture of all the obstacles which oppose the development of the higher ego, and he then becomes aware of what a load he drags about with him in his ordinary ego. And should the student's preparation not have rendered him strong enough to be able to say: “I will not remain at this point, but will persistently work my way upward toward the higher ego,” he will grow weak and will shrink back dismayed before the labor that lies before him. He has plunged into the psycho-spiritual world, but gives up working his way farther, and becomes a captive to that image which, as Guardian of the Threshold, now confronts the soul. And the remarkable thing here is that the person so situated will have no feeling of being a captive. He will, on the contrary, think he is going through quite a different experience, for the image called forth by the Guardian of the Threshold may be such as to awaken in the soul of the observer the impression that in the pictures which appear at this stage of development he has before him the whole universe in its entirety—the impression of having attained to the summit of all knowledge, and of there being, therefore, nothing left to strive after. Therefore, instead of feeling himself a captive, the student would believe himself rich beyond all measure, and in possession [pg 373] of all the secrets of the universe. Nor need this experience fill one with surprise, though it be the reverse of the facts, for we must remember that by the time these experiences are felt, we are already standing within the psycho-spiritual world, and that the special peculiarity of this world is that it reverses events—a fact which has already been alluded to in our consideration of life after death.
The image seen by the occult student at this stage of development shows him a different aspect from that in which the Guardian of the Threshold first revealed itself. In the double first mentioned, were to be seen all those qualities which, as the result of the influence of Lucifer, are possessed by man's ordinary ego. But in the course of human development, another power has, in consequence of Lucifer's influence, also been drawn into the human soul; this is known as the force of Ahriman. It is this force that, during his physical existence, prevents man from becoming aware of those psycho-spiritual beings which lie behind the surface of the external world. All that man's soul has become under the influence of this force, may be discerned in the image revealing itself during the experience just described. Those who have been sufficiently prepared for this experience will, when thus confronted, be able to assign to it its true meaning, and then another form will soon become visible—one we may describe as the “greater Guardian of the Threshold.” This one will tell the student not to rest content with the stage to which he has attained, but [pg 374] to work on energetically. It will call forth in him the consciousness that the world he has conquered will only become a truth, and not an illusion, if the work thus begun be continued in a corresponding manner. Those, however, who have gone through incorrect occult training and would approach this meeting unprepared, would then experience something in their souls when they come to the “greater Guardian of the Threshold,” which can only be described as a “feeling of inexpressible fright”, of “boundless fear.”
Just as the meeting with the “lesser Guardian” gives the occult student the opportunity of judging whether or not he is proof against delusions such as might arise through interweaving his own personality with the supersensible world, so too must he be able to prove from the experiences which finally lead to the “greater Guardian,” whether he is able to withstand those illusions which are to be traced to the second source mentioned farther back in this chapter. Should he be proof against the powerful illusion by which the world of images to which he has attained, is falsely displayed to him as a rich possession, when actually he is only a captive, then he is guarded also against the danger of mistaking appearance for reality during the further course of his development.