An Outline of Occult Science Part 3

Just as the thought of the creator of a house stands behind the physical laws which make it explicable, so too, behind what is affirmed, with perfect accuracy by physical science, stands that of which occult science treats. This comparison is of course often put forward when the justification for a spiritual background to the world is in question; and it may be considered a trivial one. But what is important in such matters is not familiarity with certain conceptions, but that the proper weight should be given them in establishing a fact. One may be prevented from doing this simply because contrary ideas have so much power over the judgment that this weight is not felt.

Dreaming is an intermediate state between sleeping and waking. What dream experiences offer to thoughtful observation is the many-coloured interweaving of a picture-world, which nevertheless conceals within itself some sort of law and order. At first this world seems to have an ebb and flow, often in confused succession. Man in his dream-life is set free from the laws of waking consciousness which bind him to sense-perception and the laws of reason. And yet dreams have some sort of mysterious law, attractive and fascinating to human speculation, and this is the deeper reason why the beautiful play of imagination lying at the root of artistic feeling is always apt to be compared to dreaming. We need only recall a few characteristic dreams to find this corroborated. A man dreams, for example, that he is driving off a dog that is attacking him. He wakes, and finds himself in the act of unconsciously pushing off part of the bedclothes which had been lying on an unaccustomed part of his body and which had therefore become oppressive. What is it that dream-life makes, in this instance, out of an incident perceptible to the senses? In the first place, it leaves in complete unconsciousness what the senses would perceive in the waking state. But it holds fast to something essential-namely, the fact that the man wishes to repel something; and round about this it weaves a metaphorical occurrence.

The pictures, as such, are echoes of waking life. There is something arbitrary in the way in which they are drawn from it. Every one feels that the same external cause may conjure up various dream-pictures. But they give symbolic expression to the feeling that one has something to ward off. The dream creates symbols; it is a symbolist. Inner experiences can also be transformed into such dream-symbols. A man dreams that a fire is crackling beside him; he sees flames in his dream. He wakes up feeling that he is too heavily covered and has become too warm. The feeling of too great warmth expresses itself symbolically in the picture. Quite dramatic experiences may be enacted in a dream. For example, some one dreams that he is standing on the edge of a precipice. He sees a child running toward it. The dream makes him experience all the tortures of the thought-if only the child will not be heedless and fall over into the abyss! He sees it fall, and hears the dull thud of the body below. He awakes, and perceives that an object which had been hanging on the wall of the room has become unfastened, and made a dull sound by its fall. This simple event is expressed in dream-life by one which unravels itself in exciting pictures.

For the present it is not at all necessary to engage in reflection as to the reason why, in the last example, the moment of the falling of a heavy object expresses itself in a series of events which seem to spread themselves over a certain length of time; it is only necessary to keep in view that the dream transforms into a picture that which would present itself to the waking sense-perception.

We see that the moment the senses cease their activity, creative power a.s.serts itself in man. It is the same creative power which is present in absolutely dreamless sleep, and at that time recuperates man's exhausted forces. For this dreamless sleep to take place, the astral body must be withdrawn from the etheric and physical bodies. During the dream-state it is so far separated from the physical body as to have no further connection with the organs of sense; but it still maintains a certain connection with the etheric body. The capacity for perceiving the experiences of the astral body by means of pictures is due to this connection which it maintains with the etheric body. The moment this connection also ceases, the pictures sink into the obscurity of unconsciousness and dreamless sleep has set in.

The arbitrary and often nonsensical element in dream-pictures arises from the fact that the astral body cannot, on account of its separation from the sense-organs of the physical body, relate its pictures to the correct objects and events of the outer environment. It is especially illuminating, in this matter, to examine a dream in which the ego is, as it were, split up; as, for example in the case of a person who dreams that he is a schoolboy and cannot answer the propounded question, while immediately afterward as the teacher, he himself answers it. The dreamer, being unable to make use of his physical organs of perception, is not able to connect both occurrences with himself, as the same individual.

Therefore, in order to recognize himself also as a permanent ego, man must first be equipped with outer organs of perception. Only when he has acquired the faculty of self-consciousness without the aid of such organs will the permanent ego also become perceptible to him outside his physical body. Clairvoyant consciousness has to acquire this faculty, and the method of doing so will be treated in detail later in this work.

Even death takes place for no other cause than a change in the connection of the principles of man's being. And what is visible to clairvoyant observation with regard to death may also be seen in its effects in the manifested world; in this case also, an unbiased judgment will find the teachings of occult science confirmed by observing external life. The expression of the invisible in the visible is, however, less evident with regard to these facts, and there is greater difficulty in feeling the full importance of that which in the events of outer life endorses the statements of occult science in this domain. These statements may be supposed to be mere pictures of fancy, even more readily than many other things that have been dealt with in this work, if we shut ourselves off from the knowledge that everywhere in the visible is contained an unmistakable foreshadowing of the invisible.

On the approach of sleep, only the astral body is released from its connection with the etheric and physical bodies, which still remain united, whereas at death the separation of the physical from the etheric body takes place. The physical body is abandoned to its own forces, and must therefore disintegrate as a corpse. At death the etheric body finds itself in a condition in which it has never been before during the time between birth and death,-with the exception of certain abnormal conditions to be dealt with later. That is to say, it is now united with the astral body in the absence of the physical body; for the etheric and astral bodies do not separate immediately after death: they are held together for a time by the agency of a force the presence of which can be easily understood; for were this force not present the etheric body could not detach itself from the physical body. It would remain bound to the latter, as is shown in the case of sleep, when the astral body is not able to rend asunder these two principles of man's being. This force comes into action at death. It releases the etheric from the physical body, so that the former remains united to the astral body. Clairvoyant observation shows that this connection varies with different people after death. The time of its duration is measured by days. For the present, this period of time is mentioned only for the sake of information.

Subsequently, the astral body is also released from the etheric body and goes on its way alone. During the union of the two bodies, the individual is in a state which enables him to be aware of the experiences of his astral body. As long as the physical body is there, the work of reinforcing the wasted organs has to be begun from without, as soon as the astral body is liberated from it. When once the physical body is separated, this work ceases. Nevertheless, the force which was expended in this way while the man was asleep, continues after death and can now be applied to some other end. It is now used for making the astral body's own experiences perceptible. During his connection with his physical body the outer world enters man's consciousness in images; after the body has been laid aside, that which is experienced by the astral body, when it is no longer connected with sense organs, with this outer physical world, becomes perceptible. At first it has no new experiences. Its connection with the etheric body prevents it from experiencing anything new.

What, however, it does possess, is _memory_ of its past life. The etheric body still being present causes that past life to appear as a vivid and comprehensive panorama. That is man's first experience after death. He sees his life from birth to death spread out before him in a series of pictures. Memory is only present in the waking state, when during life man is united with his physical body, and it is present only to the extent allowed by that body. Nothing is lost to the soul that has made an impression on it during life. Were the physical body a perfect instrument for the purpose, it would be possible, at any moment during life, to conjure up the whole of the past before the eyes of the soul. At death there is no longer any obstacle to this. As long as the etheric body remains, there exists a certain degree of perfection of memory. But this disappears according to the degree in which the etheric body loses the form which it possessed while united with the physical body, and which resembles that body. This is the very reason why the astral body separates, after a time, from the etheric body. It can remain united with the latter only so long as the form of the etheric body corresponds with that of the physical body.

During the period of life between birth and death, separation of the etheric body occurs only in exceptional cases, and for no longer than a brief s.p.a.ce of time. If, for example, a man exposes one of his limbs to pressure, part of his etheric body may become separated from the physical one. We say on such occasion that the limb has "gone to sleep," and the peculiar sensation we feel results from the separation of the etheric body. (Of course a materialistic manner of explanation may here again deny the invisible behind the visible and say: all this arises merely from the physical disturbance caused by the pressure.) Clairvoyant vision can see in such a case, how the corresponding part of the etheric body extends beyond the physical limb. Now if a man experiences an unusual shock, or something similar, such a separation of the etheric body from a large part of the physical body may result, for a short time. That is the case when a man, for some reason or other, is suddenly brought face to face with death,-for example when drowning, or threatened by a fatal accident when mountaineering. What is related by people who have had such experiences comes, in fact, very near the truth, and can be ratified by clairvoyant observation. They declare that in such moments their whole lives pa.s.s before their minds as though in a huge memory-picture.

Out of the many examples which might here be adduced, allusion will be made to one only, because it originates from a man whose mode of thought would make everything said here about such things seem pure fancy.(5) Moriz Benedict, the distinguished criminal anthropologist and eminent investigator in many other realms of natural science, relates in his _Reminiscences_ an experience of his own,-to the effect that once, when on the point of drowning in a bath he had seen his whole life pa.s.s before his memory as though in a single picture. If other people describe differently the pictures seen by them under similar circ.u.mstances, and even in such a way that they seem to have little to do with the events of their past life, that does not contradict what has been said; for the pictures which arise in the quiet abnormal condition during the separation from the physical body are sometimes at first sight, unintelligible in their relation to life. Correct observation, however, would always recognize this relationship.

Neither is it an objection if, for example, some one who was once on the point of drowning did not experience what has been described; for it must be borne in mind that this can happen only when the etheric body is really separated from the physical body,-when, moreover, the former is still united with the astral body. If, through the fright, a loosening of the etheric and astral bodies also takes place, the experience is not forthcoming, because then complete unconsciousness ensues, as in dreamless sleep.

Immediately after death the events of the past appear as though compressed by the memory into a picture. After its separation from the etheric body, the astral body pursues its further wanderings alone. It is not difficult to realize that everything continues to exist which, by means of its activity, the astral body has made its own during its sojourn in the physical body. The ego has to a certain extent elaborated the Spirit-Self, the Life-Spirit, and the Spirit-Man. As far as these are developed, they do not owe their existence to the organs present in the different bodies, but to the ego; and it is precisely this ego which needs no outer organs for perception; nor does it require any such organs in order to retain possession of what it has made one with itself. It might be objected: "Why then is there no perception during sleep of the developed Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit, and Spirit-Man?" For this reason that the ego is chained to the physical body between birth and death. Even though, during sleep, it is out of the physical body with the astral body it nevertheless remains closely connected with the physical body; for the activity of the astral body is directed toward the physical body. On this account the ego is relegated to the outer world of sense for its observations, and cannot receive spiritual revelations in their direct form. Not until death do these revelations come within reach of the ego, because by means of death the ego is freed from its connection with the physical and etheric bodies.

Another world may flash upon the consciousness the moment it is withdrawn from the physical world which during life monopolizes its activity.

Now there are reasons why even at this juncture all connection with the outer physical world of sense does not cease for man. That is to say, certain desires remain which sustain the connection. There are desires which man creates just because he is conscious of his ego as the fourth principle of his being. These desires and wishes, springing from the existence of his three lower bodies, can operate only in the external world, and cease to operate when these bodies are cast aside. Hunger is caused by the external body; as soon as that external body is no longer connected with the ego, hunger ceases. Now, had the ego no further desires than those springing from its own spiritual nature, it might at death draw full satisfaction from the spiritual world into which it is transplanted.

But life has given it other desires as well. It has kindled in it a longing for pleasures only to be enjoyed by means of physical organs, although these pleasures themselves do not originate in the nature of those organs. It is not only the three bodies which demand gratification from the physical world, but the ego itself finds pleasures in that world, for the enjoyment of which there exist no means whatever, in the spiritual world.

During life the ego has two kinds of desires: those that spring from the bodies and must therefore be gratified within the bodies, but which must also come to an end with their disintegration; and those that arise from the spiritual nature of the ego. As long as the ego lives in the bodies, those cravings are satisfied by means of the bodily organs. For in the manifestations of the bodily organs the hidden spiritual element is at work, and the senses receive something spiritual as well, in everything of which they are cognizant. That spiritual element is also present after death, although in a different form. Everything spiritual that the ego longs for while in the world of sense, it still possesses when the senses are no longer there.

Now if a third kind of wish were not added to these two, death would mean only a transition from desires which may be satisfied through the senses to such as are fulfilled by the revelation of the spiritual world. The third kind of desire is that which is created by the ego during life in the sense-world, because it finds pleasure in that world, even when no spiritual element is revealed in it. The humblest pleasures may be manifestations of the spirit. The satisfaction afforded a starving creature by taking food is a manifestation of the spirit, for by taking food something is thereupon brought about without which, in a certain sense, the spiritual nature could not develop. But the ego can go beyond the pleasure, which in this case is the outcome of necessity. It may even long for the delicious food quite apart from the service rendered to the spirit by taking nourishment.

It is the same with other things in the sense-world. Desires are created in this way which would never have appeared in the sense-world if the human ego had not been incorporated in it. Neither do such desires arise from the spiritual nature of the ego. The ego must have pleasures of the senses as long as it lives in the body, even though it be for the very reason that its own nature is spiritual. For the spirit manifests in material things, and the ego is enjoying nothing less than spirit when it surrenders itself to that element in the sense-world which is irradiated by the light of the spirit. Moreover, it will continue to enjoy this light even when the senses are no longer the medium through which the spiritual rays pa.s.s. But there is no fulfillment possible in the spiritual world for desires in which the spirit is not living even in the world of the senses.

When death takes place, the possibility of gratifying desires of this description is cut off. Pleasure in good things to eat can be induced only by the presence of the physical organs required for their consumption,-the palate, tongue, and so forth; but when man has laid aside his physical body he no longer possesses these organs. If, however, the ego still craves that kind of pleasure the craving must remain unsatisfied. As long as this pleasure corresponds to the spiritual need, it is caused only by the presence of the physical organs; but should it happen that the ego has created the desire without serving the spirit in so doing, it retains it after death in the form of a craving which thirsts in vain for gratification. We can form an idea of what man then experiences only by imagining some one suffering from burning thirst in a region where, far and wide, there is no water to be found. This is the predicament of the ego after death, as long as it retains ungratified desires for the pleasures of the outer world, and has no organs by means of which to satisfy them. Of course the burning thirst, serving as a comparison for the condition of the ego after death, must be thought of as enormously increased, and it must be imagined as extending to all desires still existing, for which all possibility of gratification is lacking.

The next condition of the ego consists in freeing itself from this bond of attraction to the outer world. With regard to this world, it has to attain purification and liberation. It must be cleansed of all wishes which it has created while in the body, and which have no native rights in the spiritual world. As an object is caught and burned up by fire, so is the world of desire, described above, broken up and destroyed after death. A vista is then opened into that world which occult science calls the "consuming fire" of the spirit. This fire seizes upon desires of a sensual nature which however are not rooted in the spirit. Revelations of this kind which occult science is bound to make with regard to such events may appear hopeless and terrible. It may seem a fearful thing that a hope for the realization of which sense-organs are required, should after death be transformed into despair, and that a wish that can be fulfilled only by the physical world should be changed into torturing deprivation. Yet we can hold such an opinion only as long as we fail to realize that the wishes and desires seized by the "consuming fire" after death do not, in a higher sense, represent forces beneficial to life but destructive to it.

By means of these forces the ego binds itself to the sense-world more closely than is necessary, in order to draw from it all the experience it requires. For the sense-world is a manifestation of the hidden and spiritual world which lies behind it; and the ego could never attain spiritual happiness through the bodily senses, which are the only form in which the spiritual can be manifested, unless it utilized the senses to seek the spiritual element in sense-experience. Nevertheless, the ego loses sight of the true spiritual reality in the physical world to such an extent that it experiences sensual desires irrespective of the needs of the spirit. If sense pleasure, as the expression of the spirit, serves to raise and develop the ego, any pleasure which is not an expression of the spirit warps and impoverishes it. Even though such a desire finds the means of its gratification in the sense-world, still its destructive effect upon the ego is thereby in no way diminished; but it is not until after death that its disastrous effects become apparent.

For this reason a man may, by gratifying such desires, create, during his life, new and similar desires, wholly unaware that he is enveloping himself in a "consuming fire." What becomes visible to him after death is only what already surrounded him during his life, and by thus becoming visible it at once appears in its salutary and beneficent effect. A human being who loves another is certainly not attracted merely by that part of him which is perceptible to the physical senses-the only part which is cut off from observation after death-but after death, just that part of the dear one then becomes visible for the perception of which the physical organs were only the means. The one thing, in fact, which would prevent a man from beholding his friend clearly is the presence of desires which can be satisfied only by means of physical organs. Unless these desires are extinguished, he can have no conscious perception of his friend after death. When looked at in this light, the terrible and hopeless character which after-death experiences might a.s.sume for man, according to the descriptions given by occult science, becomes changed into one which is thoroughly satisfying and consoling.

Now the first after-death experiences differ entirely in yet another respect from those during life. During the time of purification man lives, as it were, backwards. He lives over again the whole span of his life since birth; beginning with the events immediately preceding his death, and reversing the order of his experiences, he goes through them again until he reaches back to childhood. In this process he sees with spiritually enlightened eyes all those things which were not inspired by the spiritual nature of the ego, with the difference that he now experiences these things in reverse order.

For instance, a man who died in his sixtieth year, and who at the age of forty had, in an outburst of anger, caused some one either physical or mental pain, will go through this experience again when, on the return journey of existence after death, he reaches that point in his fortieth year; but now he does not experience the satisfaction which his attack had afforded him during life; instead, he experiences the pain which he inflicted upon the other man. It may at once be seen, however, that whatever pain he feels in the after-death experience is caused by a desire of the ego arising only from the outer physical world; in reality the ego does not only injure another by the indulgence of such a desire, but it also injures itself; although the injury to itself is not apparent during life.

After death, however, the whole of the harmful world of desires becomes visible to the ego, which then feels attracted toward every being or object which had kindled the desire, in order that this may be destroyed in the "consuming fire" by the same means that created it. When man, on his return journey, reaches the moment of his birth, then only have all such desires been purged in the purifying flames, and henceforth nothing remains to hinder him from devoting himself entirely to the spiritual world. He enters upon a new phase of existence. In the same way that he laid aside his physical body at death and, soon afterward, his etheric body, so does that part of his astral body dissolve which can only live in the consciousness of the outer physical world.

Occult science, therefore, recognizes three corpses,-the physical, etheric, and astral. The period at which the last is cast off by man is marked by the time of purification, which amounts to about one third of the time elapsed between birth and death. The reason why this is so can only be explained later, when the course of human life is examined from the standpoint of occult science. To clairvoyant observation, astral corpses, which have been cast off by human beings pa.s.sing from the state of purification into a higher existence, are constantly visible in the world surrounding man, in exactly the same way that physical corpses, in places inhabited by men, are apparent to physical observation.(6)

After purification an entirely new state of consciousness begins for the ego. Whereas before death the outer perceptions must flow to the ego, in order that upon these perceptions the light of consciousness might be able to fall, so now in like manner from within, streams a world which attains consciousness. The ego is living in this world also between birth and death; only then this world is clothed in the manifestations of the senses. It is only when the ego, freed from all the ties of sense, turns inward to behold its own "holy of holies," that its true innermost nature, which had hitherto been obscured by the senses, is revealed to it. In the same way that the ego is recognized inwardly before death, so, after death and purification, is the spiritual life inwardly revealed to it in all its fulness. This revelation really takes place immediately after the etheric body is laid aside; but it is obscured by the dark cloud of desires turned toward the outer world. It is as though a world of spiritual bliss were invaded by black demoniacal phantoms, caused by those desires which are being destroyed by the "consuming fire." Indeed, these desires are not mere phantoms, but real ent.i.ties, which become apparent immediately after the ego is deprived of physical organs, and is thus able to discern those things which are of a spiritual nature. These ent.i.ties have the appearance of distorted caricatures of the objects with which the individual had formerly become acquainted through his senses.

Clairvoyant observation shows that this place of purging fire is peopled by beings whose appearance may well seem horrifying and painful to spiritual vision, whose pleasure seems to consist in destruction, and whose pa.s.sions impel them to evil-doing of such a description that the evil of the physical world seems insignificant in comparison. Whatever desires of the kind described above are brought into that world by man, are looked upon by these beings as food, by means of which their powers are continually strengthened and invigorated.

The picture thus sketched of a world imperceptible to the senses may seem less incredible if we look with an unprejudiced eye on part of the animal world. What is a fierce, devouring wolf, from a spiritual point of view?

What does it reveal to us through that which our senses perceive? Nothing else than a soul that lives in desires, and acts by desire. The external form of the wolf may be called an embodiment of those desires; and if man had no organs with which to perceive that form, if its desires appeared invisibly in their effects,-if, therefore, a force invisible to the eye were prowling about, and might be the cause of all that happened through the visible wolf,-he would still be forced to recognize the existence of a creature corresponding to it. Now the beings of the region of purifying fire are not visible to the physical eye, but to clairvoyant sight only; but their effects are clearly apparent. They bring about the destruction of the ego when it gives them nourishment. These effects are clearly visible if what began as a pleasure leads to excess and debauchery.

For even what is perceptible to the senses would attract the ego only in so far as the pleasure had its root in the ego's own nature. The animal is prompted by desire for that in the outer world which its three bodies crave. Man has higher enjoyments, because to the three principles of his bodily nature is added the fourth, the ego. But if the ego seeks a gratification which does not tend toward the maintenance and development of its nature but to its destruction, then such a craving can be neither the effect of its three bodies, nor that of its own nature, but can only be caused by beings, concealed from the senses in their true form, but able furtively to approach that higher nature of the ego, and excite in it desires which, though it is cut off from the senses, can still be satisfied only by means of sense-organs.

For there are beings which feed on pa.s.sions and desires of a worse kind than those of an animal nature, because they do not expend themselves on objects of the senses but seize upon the spiritual element and drag it down to a sensual level. Therefore the forms of such beings are more hideous, more horrible, to spiritual sight than are the forms of the fiercest animals, in which after all only pa.s.sions rooted in the senses are incarnated. And the destructive forces of these beings immeasurably surpa.s.s any destructive rage existing in the animal world as perceived by the senses. Occult science must in this way enlarge man's view so as to include a world of beings standing, in a certain respect, lower than the visibly destructive animal world.

When man has pa.s.sed through the world of purification after death, he finds himself in a world the contents of which are spiritual, and which also creates in him longings which can be satisfied only by spiritual things. But even now man distinguishes between that which properly belongs to his ego and what forms the environment of that ego-one might say, its spiritual outer world. Only that, of which he becomes sensible in this environment, pours in upon him in the same way that the perception of his own ego poured in upon him during his sojourn in the body. Whereas man's environment in the life between birth and death speaks to him through his bodily organs, after death when all the bodies are laid aside the language of his new environment penetrates directly into the innermost sanctuary of the ego. Man's whole environment is now filled with beings of a like nature with his ego, for only an ego has access to an ego. Just as minerals, plants, and animals surround man in the sense-world, and compose it, so, after death, is he surrounded by a world composed of beings of a spiritual nature.

Yet he takes something with him into this world which is not part of his environment there; it is what the ego has experienced in the world of the senses. First of all, the sum of these experiences appeared, as a comprehensive memory-picture, immediately after death, while the etheric body was still united to the ego. The etheric body itself is then, indeed, laid aside, but something of the memory-picture remains with the ego as an everlasting possession. Just as though an extract or essence were made out of all the events and experiences which a man encounters between birth and death, so might we describe that which is left behind. It is the spiritual product of life, its fruit. This product is of a spiritual nature. It contains everything spiritual which is revealed through the senses, yet this spiritual treasure could not have been gathered save by life in the sense-world.

This spiritual fruit of the sense-world becomes after death the ego's own inner world. With it the ego enters a world, which consists of beings who reveal themselves in the same and only manner in which man in his innermost depths, can become conscious of his own ego. As a plant seed, which is the essence of the whole plant, grows only when buried in another world, the earth, so now that which the ego brings from the sense-world gradually unfolds itself as a seed under the influence of the spiritual environment in which it has been planted. Occult science can, of course, only portray in pictures what happens in this "spirit-world;" still those pictures present themselves as absolute reality to the clairvoyant's sight, when he investigates invisible happenings, corresponding to those which are visible to the physical eye. Whatever of that world can be described, may be visualized by comparison with the world of the senses for although it is of a purely spiritual nature, it nevertheless resembles the physical world in certain respects. Just as, for instance, in the physical world, a color appears when some object impresses the eye, so in the spirit-world a color appears to the ego when a being acts upon it. But this latter phenomenon is perceived in the same manner as the ego can be perceived inwardly between birth and death. It is not as though the light outside fell within upon the man, but as though another being directly affected the ego, causing the latter to picture this influence in a colour-form.

Thus do all things in the spiritual environment of the ego find expression in a world of coloured rays. As their origin is of a different kind, it goes without saying that these colours of the spiritual world are also of a somewhat different character from physical colours. A similar thing is true of other impressions received by man in the world of sense. But it is the sounds of the spiritual world that most nearly resemble the impressions of the sense-world; and the more at home a man becomes in the spiritual world, the more he realizes it as a life of self-determined motion, which may be compared with the sounds, and the harmony of sounds, of the physical world. Only he does not feel the tones as something approaching an organ from outside, but as a force streaming forth into the outer world through his ego. He feels the sound just as in the sense-world he feels his own speech or song, only he knows that in the spiritual world these sounds, streaming out from him, are at the same time the manifestations of other beings, who are pouring themselves into the world through him.

A still higher manifestation takes place in the spirit-land when the sound becomes the "spiritual word." Then there streams through the ego not only the pulsing life of another spiritual being, but such a being itself communicates its own inner nature to the ego; and then, when the spiritual word streams through the ego, two beings live in one another, without that separating element which every companionship in the sense-world must carry with it. And this is really the nature of the communion of the ego with other spiritual beings after death.

There are three regions in the spiritual world, which may be compared to the three divisions of the physical sense-world. The first region is in a certain respect the "solid land" of the spiritual world, the second the "sphere of ocean and river," and the third the "atmospheric region." That which a.s.sumes physical form on earth, so that it can be perceived by physical organs, in accordance with its spiritual nature, is to be seen in the first region of the spirit-world. There, for instance, may be seen the force that fashions the form of a crystal. Only what is there revealed is the opposite of that which appears in the sense-world. In that world the s.p.a.ce which is filled by a ma.s.s of rock appears to spiritual sight as a kind of hollow s.p.a.ce; but round about this hollow is seen the force which fashions the form of the rock. The colour of the rock in the sense-world appears in the spiritual world as its complementary colour; thus a red stone is green when seen from the spirit-world, a green stone is red, and so on. Other qualities also appear in their opposites. Just as stone, ma.s.ses of earth, and like materials make up the solid land-the continental region of the world of sense-so do the structures described above compose the solid land of the spiritual world.

All that is life in the sense-world belongs to the ocean-region of the spiritual world. To the physical eye, life appears in its effects in plants, animals, and men. To spiritual vision, life is a flowing substance, like oceans and rivers, diffused through the spirit-world. A still better comparison is that of the circulation of the blood in the body; for whereas seas and rivers are seen to be irregularly distributed in the physical world, a certain regularity in distribution of the flowing life reigns in the spirit-world, as in the circulation of the blood. This "flowing life" is simultaneously heard as spiritual sound.

The third region of the spirit-world is its "atmosphere." What is known in the physical world as "feeling" is also present there, permeating everything like the air on the earth. We must imagine a rushing sea of feeling. Pain and sorrow, joy and rapture, flow through this region, like wind and storms in the atmosphere of the physical world. Imagine a battle fought on earth. There confront one another not merely human forms, as seen by the physical eye, but feelings opposed to feelings, pa.s.sions to pa.s.sions; pain fills the battlefield just as much as do the forms of men.

All that is seething there of pa.s.sion, pain, and the joy of victory is not only perceptible in its effects as revealed to the physical senses; it may be seen with the spiritual senses as an atmospheric process in the spirit-world. Such an event in the spiritual world is like a thunderstorm in the physical, and the perception of these events may be compared to the hearing of words in the physical world. For this reason it is said that as the air envelops and permeates earthly things, so do "interweaving spiritual words" pervade the beings and events of the spirit-world.

And still further observations are possible in this spirit-world. What may be compared to light and heat in the physical world is there too. That which permeates everything in the spirit-world, as earthly things and beings are permeated by heat, is the world of thought itself. There, however, thoughts must be regarded as living and independent beings. What is understood by man in the manifested world as thought is but a shadow of what lives as a thought-being in the spirit-world. Imagine thought, as it now exists in man, raised out of him and as an active, energetic being, endowed with an inner life of its own, and you have a feeble ill.u.s.tration of that which fills the fourth region of the spirit-world. In the physical world between birth and death what man understands as thought is but the manifestation of the thought-world as it is able to mould itself by means of the instruments afforded by the bodies. All such thoughts cherished by man, that carry with them an enrichment of the physical world have their origin in this region. By such thoughts are meant not only the ideas of great inventors and men of genius; but those ideas found in every individual which he does not owe solely to the external world, but through which he, so to speak, transforms that world.

In so far as feelings and pa.s.sions are concerned, the cause of which lies in the outer world, these feelings are perceptible in the third region of the spirit-world; but everything which so lives in a man's soul as to make him a creator,-influencing, transforming and fertilizing his environment,-is manifest in its original and intrinsic form in the fourth division of the spirit-world.

That which exists in the fifth region may be compared to physical light.

In its archetypal form it is wisdom in manifestation. Beings who diffuse wisdom throughout their surroundings, as the sun pours light on physical beings, belong to this realm. Whatever is illuminated by their wisdom stands forth in its true meaning and significance for the spiritual world, just as the colour of a physical object is seen when the light falls upon it. There are still higher regions of the spirit-world, which will be described later in this work.

Into this world the ego is plunged after death, together with the results it carries with it out of physical life. And these results are still united with that part of the astral body which is not cast off at the end of the time of purification. In fact, only that part falls away which, in its desires and wishes, turned, after death, toward physical life. The plunging of the ego into the spiritual world, with what it has acquired in the physical world, may be compared to the planting of a grain of seed in the soil in which it can mature. As the grain of seed draws substances and forces from its surroundings in order that it may develop into a new plant, so the condition of the ego, when implanted in the spiritual world, is one of development and growth.

Hidden within that which is perceived by an organ, there lies the force whereby that same organ was formed. The eye perceives light; but without light there would be no eye. Creatures spending their lives in darkness do not develop organs of sight. Thus the whole of man's physical body is created out of the hidden forces of that of which he becomes conscious through his bodily organs. The physical body is built up by the forces of the physical world, the etheric body by those of the life-world, and the astral body is formed out of the astral world. Now when the ego is transferred to the spirit-world it is met by just those forces which remain hidden to physical perception.

What appear to man's view in the first region of the spirit-world are the spiritual beings that are always surrounding him, and that have built up his physical body. Thus in the physical world man perceives nothing but the manifestations of those spiritual forces which have formed his own physical body. After death he is in the very midst of these moulding forces, which, previously hidden, now appear to him in their true forms.

In the same way, in the second region, he is in the midst of the forces by which his etheric body was organized, and in the third region there pour in upon him the potencies out of which his astral body was formed. The higher regions of the spirit-world also direct toward him those forces from which he was built in the life between birth and death.

These denizens of the spiritual world are at present working in co-operation with that which man has brought with him as the product of his last life, which now becomes a germ; and through this co-operation man is, first of all, built up anew as a spiritual being. The physical and etheric bodies are still joined in sleep; the astral body and the ego are, it is true, outside them, but still connected with them. Whatever influences the astral body and the ego receive, in such a state, from the spiritual world, can serve only to recuperate the forces exhausted during the waking state.

But when the physical and etheric bodies have been laid aside, and, after the time of purification, also those parts of the astral body still bound by their desires to the physical world, then everything pouring in upon the ego from the spiritual world is not only a reforming but a reorganizing force. After a certain period, to be dealt with in later chapters, the ego again gathers round it an astral body which will be able to live in such an etheric and physical body as man possesses between birth and death. A man can once more pa.s.s through birth and renew his earthly existence, in which, however, will be incorporated the results of his former life. Until the rebuilding of his astral body, man is a witness of his reconstruction. As the powers of the spirit-world are not manifested to him through external organs, but from within outward, like his own ego in self-consciousness, he is able to observe that manifestation as long as his attention is not turned to an outer world of perception. But from the moment that the astral body is reconst.i.tuted, his attention is turned outward; the astral body once more craves an outer etheric and physical body. It is thus turned away from the inner revelations. For this reason there is now an intermediate state, during which man is immersed in unconsciousness. Consciousness can emerge again in the physical world only when the necessary organs for physical perception are formed.