Fear

Aspects

• subconscious fear in the human soul, as fear of the unknown spirit, first of the three beasts and Guardian of the Threshold (1923-GA036, 1924-02-15-GA270)
• shame and fear:
  • The two conditions in present-day humans, in which in one case the Old Moon consciousness is still pres­ent and in the other case the new Future Jupiter consciousness is already pres­ent, are the feeling of shame and the feeling of fear. (1908-01-16-GA266)
    • shame (and blush): the blood is forced toward the periphery of the body <-> remnant of Old Moon consciousness
    • fear (upto fading): the blood streams toward the heart in order to find there a firm center <-> seed of Future Jupiter consciousness
  • see also 1909-08-30-GA266/1: two of Parzival's feelings after his time in solitude, two sayings of Christ, two principles of an esotericist (eg record B, p 450)
• fear management - beliefs like superstition and fear of disease under influence of authority of established powers (which will keep increasing)
  • "What happens in the human soul when people are told they carry 60,000 bacilli on their hands is far more terrible than generally acknowledged. .. The fear invoked by them is only just beginning, and leads, in health matters, to people succumbing to a really terrible belief in authority." (1911-01-05-GA127)
  • "to live in .. an epidemic .. and to take in nothing but the ubiquitous images of the disease, so that one is filled only with the fear of the disease. This is just as effective [to cultivate bacilli in the human soul]. ... If a person can only live in the images of fear of the disease, which are created all around him in the source of the epidemic, and falls asleep with a feeling of fear, then unconscious afterimages and imaginations are formed in the soul, which are imbued with fear. And it's a great tool for feeding and growing bacilli." (1914-05-05-GA154)

Inspirational quotes

1912-09-22-GA266

An esoteric [student of initiation and spiritual science] ... must consciously transform fear into reverence, piety, devotion and an ability to sacrifice.

Lecture coverage and references

1908-01-16-GA266

Today we want to speak in a somewhat more intimate way about the laws of the spiritual life as they unfold within the human being.

Those who are engaged in an esoteric training are, in a certain sense, waiting, are seekers. They are waiting for the day when a new world will open to them, a world other than the one they usually perceive. They are waiting for the day when they can say, "I see a new world: between all the things that I could perceive in space around me I see a profusion of spiritual beings that were hidden from me before."

In order to become very clear about this you need once again to call up before your soul the seven Conditions of Consciousness (CoC) that human beings in the course of evolution must pass through.

• The first state of consciousness that the human being had to pass through was a dull, dim degree of consciousness, in which the human beings felt them­selves to be one with the cosmos; this state or condition is called Old Saturn existence.
•  In the Old Sun existence the compass of consciousness decreased, but it became all the brighter.
• When human beings then lived through Old Moon existence, their consciousness was similar to what we experience as a last remnant in our dreams; it was a dim consciousness of picture.
• Here on the Earth we have bright day consciousness, which will remain when human beings on Future Jupiter raise themselves to picture-conscious­ness again so that we will have a bright consciousness of pictures.
• Human beings will then raise themselves to two additional, higher states, the inspired and the intuitive.

Thus our bright day consciousness stands between the dim picture-consciousness of the Old Moon and the bright picture-consciousness of Future Jupiter. And what the esotericist awaits, which will one day be revealed to him or her, is Future Jupiter consciousness.It will one day come upon each of you, one person earlier, another per­son later, depending upon ability, upon the degree of inner maturity.

However, Future Jupiter consciousness is already present in its initial seed-form in every human being. This future consciousness is already indi­cated in a very delicate way, but humans don't know how to interpret it.

The esoteric life consists to a large extent in pupils learning to inter­pret subtle processes in themselves and in their surroundings.

The Old Moon consciousness has not yet entirely disappeared, either, but is still present in its last remainder.

The two conditions in present-day humans, in which in one case the Old Moon consciousness is still pres­ent and in the other case the new Future Jupiter consciousness is already pres­ent, are the feeling of shame and the feeling of fear.

• In the feeling of shame, where the blood is forced toward the periphery of the body, a final remnant of Old Moon consciousness still lives.
• And in the feeling of fear, where the blood streams toward the heart in order to find there a firm center, the Future Jupiter consciousness is announced.

Thus normal day consciousness swings in two directions: ‘Normal’ between ‘Feeling of Shame’ and ‘Feeling of Fear’

[Old Moon - shame]

When we feel ashamed about something and our face turns red, we are experiencing something that recalls the Old Moon existence.

Picture humans on old Old Moon.They could not yet say "I" to themselves but rather lived in a dull, dim picture-consciousness entirely embedded in astral forces and beings, with which they felt themselves to be in har­mony. Imagine .. if one day the feeling were sud­denly to dawn on such a Old Moon-human: "I am an I”. I am different from others, I am an independent being and all the other surrounding beings are looking at me." From top to bottom the entire Old Moon-human would have been glowing with an incredible feeling of shame. Such a being would have sought to disappear, to be annihilated for shame, if it had been able to feel such a premature "I"-feeling. Thus we, too … when a feeling of shame overtakes us, would prefer to disappear, to shrink under the ground, to dissolve our "I"-ness.

[ Harmony or disharmony]

• Imagine how the Old Moon-beings were embedded in harmony with the forces and beings in their surroundings. If they were approached by a hostile being they did not think about it but knew instinctively how to avoid it. They acted there with a feeling that, if they had been conscious, they could have expressed somewhat in the following way: “I know that the order of the world is not arranged so that this wild animal will now tear me apart, but rather the harmony of the world is such that there must be means that will protect me from my enemy.” Thus Old Moon-humans felt themselves to be in complete, unmedi­ated harmony with the forces in the universe. And if an "I"-feeling had awakened in them it would have immediately destroyed this harmony.
• And as a matter of fact the "I"-feeling, when it began to permeate human beings on Earth, did increasingly create disharmony with their environment. A clairaudient hears the universe sounding in a mighty harmony and when he or she compares it with the sounds that come from individual human beings, then today there is a disharmony—with one person more, with another less, but there is a disharmony.

And your task, in your evolution, is increasingly to dissolve this disharmony into harmony. This disharmony arose through "I-ness," but it was instituted with wisdom by the spiritual powers who rule and guide the universe. Had human beings remained in harmony they would never have come to independence. Disharmony was instituted so that they could once again achieve harmony in freedom out of their own power. This self aware feeling for being an "I" had to evolve at first at the expense of inner harmony.

• When the time comes for Future Jupiter consciousness to light up and human beings again arrive at a harmonious relationship with the forces of the cosmos, then they will preserve their self-aware "I"-feeling into the new state of consciousness, so that they will be independent and yet also in harmony with the universe.

[Fear]

We have seen that the new Future Jupiter consciousness is announced in the feeling of fear. However, it is always the case that when a future condition begins to appear before its time, then it is premature and not in the right place.

• This will become clear to you with an example. If one takes a flower, whose species should bloom in August, and brings it to blossom in a hothouse in May, then in August, when it actually should blossom, it will no longer be able to unfold a blossom; its forces will be exhausted and it will no longer fit into the conditions for which it was intended. And also in May it will have to fall into ruin as soon as it is taken out of the hothouse, because it does not belong in the conditions of nature of this time of year.

It is exactly the same with the feeling of fear. It is not appropriate today and even far less in the future.

What hap­pens in the feeling of fear?

The blood is pressed toward the center of the human being, into the heart to form there a firm center in order to make the person strong against the external world. The innermost power of the "I" brings this about. This power of the "I," that works in the blood, must increasingly become more conscious and powerful.

On Future Jupiter, humans will guide their blood very consciously toward the center and be able to make themselves strong. However, what is unnatural and de­structive about this today is the feeling of fear that is connected to this flow of blood. In the future that must no longer be allowed to be the case; only the power of the "I," without fear, must be at work there.

[The future is not going to be .. ]

In the course of human evolution the external world around us will become increasingly hostile. Increasingly you must learn to set your inner power against the world pressing in on you. But in so doing, fear must disappear.

And especially for those who are undergoing an eso­teric training it is necessary, unavoidably necessary, that they free them­selves from all anxiety and feelings of fear.

Fear has a certain justifica­tion only when it makes us aware that we should make ourselves strong; but all of the unnatural feelings of fear that torture people must disap­pear completely.

What would happen if human beings still had feelings of anxiety and fear, and Future Jupiter consciousness arrived?

Then the exter­nal world would be set opposite the human being in a much more hos­tile and terrible way. A human being who does not cease to fear here will fall into one frightening horror after another there.

Already now this condition is being prepared in the external world. And this will be shown to humans even more clearly in that terrifying age that will descend under the regency of Oriphiel, concerning whom I spoke to you the last time.

By then humans must have learned to stand solidly!

Our present-day culture is itself creating the terrible mon­ster that will threaten people on Future Jupiter.

•  Just look at the gigantic machines that human technology constructs today with all its cunning! Human beings are creating in those machines the demons that will rage against them in the future. Everything that human beings create today in terms of technical apparatus and machines will in the future come to life and oppose them in a terrible and hostile way. All that is created out of a purely utilitarian principle, out of individual or collective egotism, is the enemy of humanity in the future. Today we ask much too much about the utility of what we do.
• If we really want to foster evolution, then we must not ask about utility but rather we must inquire whether something is beau­tiful and noble. Everything that people do today in order to satisfy their artistic needs, out of pure love of beauty, this too will come to life in the future, but it will contribute to the higher development of the human being.

But today it is terrible to see how many thousands of people are kept from knowing any other activity than those done for the sake of material utility; they are cut off from all that is beautiful and artistic all their lives. The most wonderful works of art should hang in the poorest elementary schools; that would bring boundless blessings to human evo­lution.

Human beings are themselves building their own future.

We can get an idea of what it will be like on Future Jupiter if we clearly understand that today there is nothing absolutely good and nothing absolutely evil. Today good and evil are mixed in every human being. A good person must always say that he or she has only a little bit more good than evil within, but is not at all wholly good.

On Future Jupiter, however, good and evil will no longer be mixed, but rather human beings will divide themselves into the entirely good and the entirely evil.

And

• all that we cultivate today in terms of the good and the beautiful serves to strengthen the good on Future Jupiter,
• and all that happens only from the point of view of ego­tism and utility strengthens the evil.

[Breathing exercises, the I, and training the heart muscle and blood flow control]

So that human beings in the future are a match for the evil powers, they must gain mastery of the most inner power of their "I"; they must be able consciously to regulate their blood so that it makes them strong in the face of evil but without any fear. The force that drives the blood inward they must have in hand.

But also that other ability, to allow the blood to flow from the heart to the periphery, must not be lost to them. For the Future Jupiter condition will in a certain way also signify the return to old Old Moon consciousness. Human beings will again come into harmony with the great laws of the universe and feel themselves to be one with them. They will once again acquire the ability to flow together with the spiritual powers of the world, but not as they did on the Old Moon, uncon­sciously and dimly. Rather on Future Jupiter they will always retain their clear day consciousness and self-conscious feeling for self and yet live in har­mony with the powers and the laws of the world. Disharmony will then be dissolved in harmony. And to be able to let themselves flow into the harmony of the universe they must consciously learn to let the inner power of their "I" radiate out from the heart. Thus they must be able to centralize the inner power of their blood when an enemy approaches them, and they must also be able to radiate them forth consciously. Only then will they be equal to future conditions.

Those then who strive for inner development must begin already today to get these forces gradually more and more under their control. They do this by learning consciously to inhale and exhale.

• When humans inhale, then the forces of the "I" become active, the forces that connect them with the powers of the universe, the forces that radiate outward from the heart.
• And when human beings exhale, and when they hold their breath, then those forces of the "I" become active, which push toward the middle point, toward the heart, and create for them there a solid center.

Thus pupils are learning already today, when they consciously carry out their breathing exercises in this sense, gradually to become master of the forces of their "I."

However, no one should believe that he or she is allowed independently to undertake such exer­cises, if he or she has not yet received any instructions for them. Everyone will receive them at the proper time. However, even for those who are not yet doing any exercises, it is never too early to familiarize oneself with the meaning of these exercises and to acquire an under­standing for them. Later these exercises will be all the more fruitful. Thus, my sisters and brothers, you should always get more understand­ing even for the subtle processes within yourselves and in the entire uni­verse, and gradually grow into future periods of human evolution.

1908-01-26-GA266

record A - translation from rsarchive

What we aspire to in esoteric life is the attainment of a different, higher state of consciousness than is the one we are in now. We are looking to reach a state that would only occur — with the ordinary course of things — on Future Jupiter. In a different way, of course, this condition occurs in the occult pupil, who undergoes the development in advance, than in the Future Jupiter Man. Future Jupiter Man will have a very different physical body than we possess today.

There are states in everyday consciousness in all people reminiscent of the Old Moon's state and others in which the state of Future Jupiter protrudes.

When the pubic blush kicks us in the face, we repeat a piece of the Old Moon condition. Why is this? On Old Moon, we didn't have blood yet. But we know that blood is the expression of our self. On Old moon, all the forces that work in our blood today were outside ours. There was not yet a feeling of me in us. If we blush out of shame, we would like to say: Oh I wouldn't be, I soak into the Earth. In doing so, we are pushing the blood outwards, as it were, passing our self off.

Another condition that points to Future Jupiter is the one that occurs when we feel fright, fear by fading. What is happening?

We push our blood for the heart to strengthen our self. We do this instinctively to make ourselves strong, to avert a danger from us. On Future Jupiter, the heart will become an arbitrary muscle — at will we can amplify our self. For in fact, on Future Jupiter, events and beings will confront us in which we have absolutely necessity to strengthen our self-consciousness. But we must seek to reach a state where we protect our self in exactly the same way as with the feeling of anxiety, without having a sense of anxiety.

[breathing exercises]

If we take a deep breath and hold our breath, we recap a piece an Old Moon condition.

If, on the other hand, we leave our breath outside, we have a piece of Future Jupiter's state in it.

This is related to whether the secret student gets exercises in which he has to hold his breath, because in a way he has to go through the Old Moon state, or whether he gets exercises in which he has to leave his breath outside, because he can thus reach the Future Jupiter state. Everyone has to be treated individually.

We know that the flow of humanity is already splitting in two parts, the one that passes into the good, the moral, and the other that ends into the chilling, evil. Such conditions are already starting to take place, the germs are already present.

So everything that is today in machines, instruments in the world and set in motion, on which Jupiter becomes terrible, horrifying demons. Anything that serves only the principle of usefulness will once become such terrible powers. Paralyzed, this can become when we transform the usefulness apparatus into those that, in addition to its usefulness, proclaim above all the beauty, the divine. It is very good that we know this. Otherwise, such powers would tear the Earth apart.

We also see how enormously important it is that in the education of the child we surround the same thing with artistic impressions. Art frees up. Even the locomotive must once be converted into a machine that is beautiful.

Our feelings of fear and anxiety are food for other evil beings. We do not have to give rise to such ideas. Because on Future Jupiter, such demons are surrounded us in far greater numbers than they are now.

But for whom there is nothing to fear in this respect, who, like a clever man, keeps his shell pure, so that no flies can accumulate around the dirt.

[less coherent unclear passage follows]

The astral plan is actually a wisdom region; [Also the world of the physical]. It was only by having selfishness descended into them with the individual I that disorder has entered them.

A certain piece now in the cosmos has descend on the physical plan at this point in time, as it were as a premature birth. These are the comets. In them we still find the laws of wisdom. Therefore, the wonderful tracks in which they measure the celestial space. And a clash with our Earth's body can therefore only be assumed by materialistic astronomy.

The secret pupil must all know these things — for without knowing he would not get any further; He will one day have to understand this.

Man receives the Old Moon consciousness on Future Jupiter to Earth consciousness. He approaches spiritualization.

record A - alternate translation

What we are striving for in the esoteric life is the achievement of another state of consciousness higher than the one in which we presently find ourselves. We are seeking to achieve a state that would only arrive on Future Jupiter in the ordinary course of events. Admittedly, this state arrives in a different way in esoteric pupils who go through this evolution before­hand. The human being on Future Jupiter will have an entirely different phys­ical body than the one we possess today.

In the everyday consciousness of all humans there are conditions that recall the Old Moon condition, and others into which the Future Jupiter condition extends. When our faces become red with shame, then we are repeat­ing part of the Old Moon condition. In what way? On the Old Moon we did not yet have blood. We know, however, that blood is the expression of our "I." Now, on old Old Moon, all the forces that work today in our blood were located outside of us. There was not yet any feeling for our "I" within us. When we turn red with shame, we would really like to say, "Oh, if only I didn't exist, if I could sink into the earth." With this we force our blood outward, as it were, pushing ourself away.

Another condition, which points to Future Jupiter, is the one that enters when we feel dread or fear as we pale. What is happening here? We force blood toward the heart in order to strengthen our "I." We do this instinctively to make us strong to turn a danger away from us. On Future Jupiter the heart will become a voluntary muscle —we will be able to strengthen our heart as much as we want. For, as a matter of fact, on Future Jupiter incidents and beings will come to meet us for which we will def­initely need to strengthen our "I." However, we must seek to reach a state in which we protect our "I" in exactly the same way as with a feel­ing of fear, but without having a feeling of fear.

When we inhale deeply and hold our breath we are recapitulating a part of the Old Moon condition. On the other hand, when we leave our breath outside we have in that action a part of the Future Jupiter condition.

This is connected with the question of whether the esoteric pupils receive exercises in which they must hold their breath because they must go through the Old Moon condition in a certain way, or whether they receive exercises in which they must leave their breath outside because in that way they can achieve the Future Jupiter condition. Everyone is treated here individually.

We know that already now the stream of humankind is splitting into two parts, one that leads to the good, the moral, and the other that leads to what is horrible and evil. Such conditions are already creating a path for themselves; the seeds are already present.

Thus all that is present in the world today in terms of machines and instruments and is set in motion will evolve into terrible, horrifying demons. All that merely serves the principle of utility will one day strengthen into such terrible powers. This can be stopped if we transform the utilitarian apparatus into something that also proclaims beauty and the divine above all, in addition to its utility. It is very good for us to know this. Otherwise pow­ers of that sort will one day tear the Earth apart. We see also how incred­ibly important it is that we surround children with artistic impressions during their education. Art makes one free. Even locomotives must one day be transformed into machines that are beautiful. Our feelings of fear and anxiety are nourishment for other evil beings. We must not allow thoughts of that kind to arise in us. For on Future Jupiter demons of that sort will surround us in much greater numbers. But there is nothing to fear in this regard for those who, like a clever person, keep their spiritual sheaths pure so that no flies can gather around the filth.

The astral plane is actually a region of wisdom [also the world of the physical] . Disorder only entered through the descent of individual "I"s with their egotism. Now, a certain part of the cosmos came down to the physical plane at this point in time, so to speak, as a premature birth. This part is the comets. We still find in them the laws of wisdom in action. Hence the wonderful paths along which they span celestial space. And for this reason only a materialistic astronomer could assume a collision with the Earth was their cause.

Esoteric pupils must know all these things—for without knowledge they could not progress further; one day they must understand this.

On Future Jupiter the human being will receive Old Moon consciousness in addition to Earth consciousness. Humankind is progressing toward spiritualization.

record B

There are three states of consciousness dimmer than our clear, waking day consciousness, and three higher states of consciousness, which nor­mally would be reached on Future Jupiter, Future Venus and Vulcan. Initiates reach these states on Earth (the three dimmer are from Old Saturn, Old Sun and Old Old Moon). The Old Moon consciousness appears in the individual experi­ences of humans atavistically in the feeling of shame—and, looking to the future, the Future Jupiter consciousness appears in terror and fear.

On Old Moon the blood forces, the forces of the "I"-feeling, were still outside the human being.

Only through the fact that the blood with its forces entered into humans is the "I"-feeling entirely in humans. The feeling of shame is the wish to hide oneself from other people, the desire to sink out of sight, the desire to disappear. In so doing one drives the blood, so to speak, out of oneself, that is, as much as one can, to the surface of the body—hence, blushing with shame.

On Future Jupiter the "I"-feeling is much more powerfully developed than here on the Earth. The opposites, good and evil, a good "I" and an evil "I", are much stronger there, a state for which the Earth in the future will show preparatory evolution. There we will be confronted by demons much more evil than today, and we will need the entire power of the "I" to withstand them and to work for the good in battle with them.

A similar process of marshalling one's forces occurs already today when danger appears; only now fear and terror are usually associated with it. The blood retreats to the heart, hence we become pale. This col­lection of blood, this concentration of the "I" at the "I"-center, is a Future Jupiter phenomenon, which will be merely a gathering together with­out a feeling of fear. We must learn this "gathering together" in danger without a feeling of fear.

In our evolution we ascend from the Earth again to the heights of the earlier Old Moon state of consciousness and the Future Jupiter state of conscious­ness, now connected to the clear Earth state of consciousness.

For this reason, on the path of evolution an attempt is made to prepare the way for this Future Jupiter state now through breath exercises.

• By holding one's breath with one's lungs full, the blood is driven outward to some extent; it is the Old Moon state, which together with the Earth state produces the Future Jupiter condition.
• By holding one's breath with one's lungs empty the blood is, so to speak, driven back; this condition is connected with a feeling of fear (when one cannot get enough air); only this process must be practiced without any feeling of fear. This exercise goes directly toward the Future Jupiter condition.

Which of the two exercises must be undertaken depends upon the individuality of the pupil.

Wisdom rules on the astral plane, also on the physical plane; when there were still no individual "I"s present, wisdom and order ruled. Disorder and confusion appeared only when human beings with their individual "I"s began to work independently on the Earth.

Now, there are beings or figures in the astral world who were con­densed out of the spiritual—the astral world—actually sooner than corresponds to the normal plan, into physical existence. They are, how­ever, still entirely guided by astral wisdom. Such beings or figures are the comets.

The direction of their path in space is apparently threatening, for example, for the Earth, but they are diverted into directions that apparently contradict physical laws, and the danger passes. They fol­low wise astral laws.

Through the creation and formation of ideas that lead to a higher level, from forms of beauty - like cathedrals, musical compositions and so forth - good demons are formed on Future Jupiter, and the founda­tional [?] ideas will take on form in the physical nature that then unfolds. But those efforts and forms that serve only utility will create evil, wicked demons there and lead to ugly forms. If the principle of pure utility were to gain the upper hand here on Earth, then destruc­tion would come over the Earth and it would not attain its goal. "Useful" things are necessary. One can work against this doom only if one adds the principle of beauty to the principle of utility when form­ing tools, machines, bridges, etc., or if high, noble thoughts of some kind—perhaps in symbols—comes to expression in their formation.

1911-01-05-GA127

We must especially beware of attending too much in any era to what emerges as authority. As long as we lack spiritual insight, this can seriously mislead us. This is particularly true in one area of human culture: the field of materialistic medicine. Here we can discern the decisive influence of authority, and the ever increasing claim to authority, which is in fact far, far more dreadful than any kind of medieval tyranny.

We find ourselves in the very midst of this tendency, which will keep increasing. People may mock the ghosts of medieval superstition, but we can ask if anything much has changed. Has this fear of ghosts faded? Aren’t people actually far more afraid of ghosts than they were back then?

What happens in the human soul when people are told they carry 60,000 bacilli on their hands is far more terrible than generally acknowledged.

In America statistics have been calculated about how many such bacilli can be found on a man’s moustache. At least the ghosts of medieval times were, one might say, decent ghosts; but modern bacilli-ghosts are too minuscule to grapple with.

The fear invoked by them is only just beginning, and leads, in health matters, to people succumbing to a really terrible belief in authority.

1912-09-22-GA266

In sensory life a man is aware of his three soul forces — thinking, feeling and willing — through which the soul works; sentient, intellectual, and consciousness souls. These three soul members seem to mingle when one goes into higher worlds, and yet they're separate. This seems contradictory. But one should know that the three soul members are never completely separate, although each seems to exist by itself.

All of a Man's desires, passions and drives surge in his sentient soul. But a Man had to have something as a counterpole for his egoity. The powers who led human evolution saw this, and so they placed fear in Man's sentient soul. A Man had to have fear, otherwise he would have grabbed everything in sight and his egoity would have become too strong.

Ancient pedagogues were well aware of this, and the telling of fairy tales and ghost stories were part of the education. Children aren't told ghost stories in school today, but this is necessary for a child's soul to a certain extent so that amazement is aroused in it, because reverence for something unknown develops from this. A child who was never told about something unknown and great can never feel devotion in later life.

An esoteric must consciously transform fear into reverence, piety, devotion and an ability to sacrifice.

When one goes into spiritual worlds, fear must be transformed into reverence; that's why it's good to cultivate it on the physical plane.

But if the feeling of fear in Man is exaggerated and the I isn't strong enough to keep the fear from taking hold of not only the soul but also of the physical body, violent rages can arise, among other things. This can always be ascribed to a weak I. People who have these are afraid of water and other things that don't hang together. This is a wrong working in of spiritual forces upon the soul and body.

1914-05-05-GA154

quote

From this follows that it is of some consequence how we enter sleep with our ego and astral body. Materialists will not care much about what happens in sleep to their I and astral body, which they never mention anyway. However, those who understand these things will know that the organs that are not part of the blood and nervous system and do not manifest in our conscious existence are dependent on those aspects of our ego and astral body that are active in sleep.

Let me illustrate this with an obvious example. As we know, people today are haunted by a fear we can compare with the medieval fear of ghosts. It is the fear of germs. Objectively, both states of fear are the same. Both fit their respective age: People of the Middle Ages held a certain belief in the spiritual world; therefore quite naturally they had a fear of spiritual beings. The modern age has lost this belief in the spiritual world; it believes in material things. It therefore has a fear of material beings, be they ever so small. Objectively speaking, the greatest difference we might find between the two periods is that ghosts are at any rate sizable and respectable. The tiny germs, on the other hand, are nothing much to write home about as far as frightening people is concerned. Now of course I do not mean to imply by this that we should encourage germs, and that it is good to have as many as possible. That is certainly not the implication. Still, germs certainly exist and ghosts existed also, especially as far as those people who held a real belief in the spiritual world are concerned. Thus, they do not even differ in terms of reality.

However, the important point we want to make today is that germs can become dangerous only if they are allowed to flourish. Germs should not be allowed to flourish. Even materialists will agree with this statement, but they will no longer agree with us if we proceed further and, from the standpoint of proper spiritual science, speak about the most favorable conditions for germs. Germs flourish most intensively when we take nothing but materialistic thoughts into sleep with us. There is no better way to encourage them to flourish than to enter sleep with only materialistic ideas, and then to work from the spiritual world with the ego and the astral body on those organs that are not part of the blood and the nervous system. The only other method that is just as good is to live in the center of an epidemic or endemic illness and to think of nothing but the sickness all around, filled only with a fear of getting sick. That would be equally effective. If fear of the illness is the only thing created in such a place and one goes to sleep at night with that thought, it produces afterimages, Imaginations impregnated with fear. That is a good method of cultivating and nurturing germs. If this fear can be reduced even a little by, for example, active love and, while tending the sick, forgetting for a time that one might also be infected, the conditions are less favorable for the germs.

These issues are not raised in anthroposophy merely to play on human egotism, but to describe the facts of the spiritual world. This concrete case demonstrates that in real life we cannot avoid dealing with the spiritual world, because it is the basis for our actions between going to sleep and waking up. If people were given thoughts that lead them away from materialism and spur them on to active love out of the spirit, it would serve the future of humanity better. Then infinitely more productive work could be achieved than through all the preparations now being developed by materialistic science against germs. In the course of this century, the insight has to spread more and more widely that the spiritual world is by no means irrelevant to our physical life, but is of essential importance to it because we are in the spiritual world between going to sleep and waking up, and continue to affect the physical body from there. Even if this is not immediately obvious, it is nevertheless true.

Now, we will have to get used to the fact that the direct healing powers of spiritual science have to work through the human community if we are to see these matters in the right light.

What does it mean that some individual here or there enters the spiritual world in sleep with thoughts turned toward the realm of the spirit, while all around other people nourish and nurture the germ world with their materialistic thoughts, materialistic feelings, and with fears, which are always connected with materialism? What is the real nature of germs?

Well, here we come to a subject essential for human life. When we see the air around us filled with different species of birds and the water filled with fishes, when we observe the life forms that creep along the earth and others frolicking on it and revealing themselves to our senses, we are looking at beings we can correctly describe as creatures of the developing Godhead in one form or another, even if they are occasionally harmful. But in the case of germ-like creatures resident and active in other living beings, in plants, animals, or humans, we are dealing with creations of Ahriman. To understand the existence of such creatures correctly we must know that they express spiritual facts, namely the relationship between human beings and Ahriman. This relationship is established through a materialistic attitude and purely egotistical states of fear. We see the conditions allowing the existence of such parasitic beings correctly if we realize that they are a symptom of Ahriman intervening in the world.

Clearly, then, it is not a matter of indifference whether we take materialistic or spiritual ideas with us into the spiritual world when we fall asleep. As soon as we realize this, we can no longer claim it is irrelevant whether or not we know of the spirit in this world. We have to start at a specific point if we really want to understand the great importance of spiritual scientific research for our life between birth and death.

It will become increasingly clear to us how this earthly life is connected with spiritual life. We rely on nature, which is on a lower level than we are, for our nourishment. For some time after death, the dead derive their nourishment from the ideas and the unconscious emotions that we here on earth take into sleep with us. Those who have died perceive a tremendous difference between people who in their waking life are filled only with materialistic feelings and ideas and also take them into sleep, and others who are wholly filled with spiritual ideas while awake and who continue to be filled with them in sleep. The two types of people are as different in their effect on the dead as a barren region where no food can grow, where people would starve, and a fruitful area that offers nourishment in abundance. For many years after death, the dead draw a vitality from the souls sleeping here on earth filled with spiritual content, a vitality that is similar, only transposed into the spiritual realm, to what we draw in our physical life from the beings of the kingdoms of nature below us. We literally turn ourselves into fruitful pastures for the dead when we fill ourselves with the ideas of spiritual science. And we turn ourselves into barren ground and starve the dead if we take only materialistic ideas and attitudes into sleep.

It is not out of the enthusiasm that leads to the establishment of many other associations and societies that we speak of spiritual science in these times. Rather, the urge to speak about it comes out of necessity and the heartfelt realization that in the twentieth century people will need it. Regardless of outer circumstances, those who fully understand how much the world needs spiritual science cannot help but talk about its results and share it with their fellow human beings. The power of the words at our disposal seems much too weak to meet the necessity of making spiritual science ever more available to those who would otherwise sink deeper and deeper into materialism.

other version of this same passage

The point is, and this is the point I want to emphasize today, that bacilli can only become dangerous if they are cultivated. Don't breed them. Obviously, the materialists also give us the right not to breed bacilli. But if we go further and tell, on the basis of a real spiritual science, how they breed best, the materialists will no longer agree with us.

Bacillus is most cultivated when a person brings nothing but materialistic feelings with him to sleep. There is nothing we can do to breed them better than to pass into the state of sleep with only materialistic imagery, and from there, from the spiritual world, the self, and the astral body, we can return to the organs of the physical body—that which is outside the nervous system and the blood. There is no better way to feed germs than sleeping with a materialistic feeling.

This also means that there is at least one more way to do it, which is just as good as the previous one.

And this is to live in the epicenter of an epidemic or epidemic, and to take in nothing but the ubiquitous images of the disease, so that one is filled only with the fear of the disease. This is just as effective.

If a person can only live in the images of fear of the disease, which are created (abspielen) all around him in the source of the epidemic, and falls asleep with a feeling of fear, then unconscious afterimages and imaginations are formed in the soul, which are imbued with fear. And it's a great tool for feeding and growing bacilli.

If, on the other hand, we can calm fear with acting love, with the help of which the patient can forget for a while about the possibility of infection in the conditions of care, then we will also weaken the breeding power of the bacilli.

1923-GA036

title: The Human Soul in Courage and Fear

This, however, provides just the experience that is needed with regard to the spirit. One cannot expect other than to find the spirit when, through one's own activity, nature, as it were, melts away; that is, when one experiences oneself ever more strongly in proportion to one's feeling this melting away.

If one fills the soul with something that afterward proves to be like a dream in its illusory character, and one experiences the illusory in its true nature, then one becomes stronger in one's own experience of self. In confronting a dream, one's thinking corrects the belief one has in the dream's reality while dreaming. Concerning the activity of fantasy, this correction is not needed because one did not have this belief. Concerning the meditative soul activity, to which one devotes oneself for spirit-knowledge, one cannot be satisfied with mere thought correction. One must correct by experiencing. One must first create the illusory thinking with one's activity and then extinguish it by a different, equally strong, activity.

In this act of extinguishing, another activity awakens, the spirit-knowing activity. For if the extinguishing is real, then the force for it must come from an entirely different direction than from nature. With the experienced illusion one has dispersed what nature can give; what inwardly arises during the dispersion is no longer nature.

With this activity something is needed that does not come into consideration in the study of nature: inner courage. With it one must take hold of what inwardly arises.

In the study of nature one needs to hold nothing inwardly. One lets oneself be held by what is external. Inner courage is not needed here. One forgets it. This forgetting then causes anxiety when the spiritual is to enter the sphere of knowledge. Fear is felt because one might grope in a void if one no longer could hold onto nature.

This fear meets one at the threshold to spirit knowledge. And fear causes one to recoil from this knowledge. One now becomes creative in recoiling instead of in pressing forward. One does not allow the spirit to shape creative knowledge in oneself; one invents for oneself a sham logic for disputing the justification of spirit knowledge. Every possible sham reason is brought forward to spare one from acknowledging the spiritual, because one retreats trembling in fear of it.

Instead of spirit knowledge, then, there arises out of the creative force that which now appears in the soul when it draws back from nature, the enemy of spirit knowledge: first, as doubt concerning all knowledge that extends beyond nature; and then, as the fear grows, as an anti-logic that would banish all spirit knowledge to the realm of the fantastic.

Whoever has learned to move cognitively in the spirit often sees in the refutations of this knowledge its strongest evidence; for it becomes clear to him how in the soul, step by step, the refuter chokes down his fear of the spirit, and how in choking it he creates this sham logic. With such a refuter there is no point in arguing, for the fear befalling him arises in the subconscious. The consciousness tries to rescue itself from this fear. It feels at first that should this anxiety arise, it would inundate the whole inner experience with weakness. It is true, the soul cannot escape from this weakness, for one feels it rising up from within. If one ran away it would follow one everywhere. He who proceeds further in the knowledge of nature and, in his dedication to it feels obliged to preserve his own self, never escapes from this fear if he cannot acknowledge the spirit. Fear will accompany him, unless he is willing to give up the knowledge of nature along with spirit knowledge. He must somehow rid himself of this fear in his pursuit of the science of nature. In reality he cannot do so. The fear is produced in the subconscious during the study of nature. It continually attempts to rise up out of the subconscious into consciousness. Therefore one refutes in the thought world what one cannot remove from the reality of soul experience.

And this refutation is an illusory layer of thought covering the subconscious fear. The refuter has not found the courage to come to grips with the illusory, just as in the meditative life he has to obliterate illusion in order to attain spiritual reality. For this reason he interposes the false arguments of his refutation into that region of the life of the soul that now arises. They soothe his consciousness; he ceases to feel the fear that, all the same, remains in his subconscious.

The denial of the spiritual world is a desire to run away from one's own soul. This, however, represents an impossibility. One must remain with oneself. And because one may run away but not escape from oneself, one takes care that in running one loses sight of oneself. It is the same with the entire human being in the soul realm, however, as it is with the eye with a cataract. The eye can then no longer see. It is darkened within itself.

So, too, the denier of spirit knowledge darkens his soul. He causes its darkening through sham reasoning born of fear. He avoids healthy clarification of the soul; he creates for himself an unhealthy soul darkening. The denial of spirit knowledge has its origin in a cataract affliction of the soul.

Thus one is ultimately led to the inner spiritual strength of the soul when one is willing to see the justification of spirit knowledge. And the way to such a knowledge can be had only through the strengthening of the soul. The meditative activity, preparing the soul for spirit knowledge, is a gradual conquest of the soul's “fear of the void.” This void, however, is only a “void of nature,” in which the “fullness of the spirit” can manifest itself if one wishes to take hold of it. Nor does the soul enter this “fullness of the spirit” with the arbitrariness it has when acting through the body in natural life; the soul enters this fullness at the moment when the spirit reveals to the soul the creative will, before which the arbitrariness, existing only in natural life, dissolves in the same way as nature herself dissolves.

1924-02-15-GA270

These, my dear friends, are the three greatest enemies of knowledge for contemporary humanity. The human being of today is afraid of the spirit's creativity. Fear sits deep in his soul. And he would like to conjure it away. So he dresses his fear in all kinds of pseudo-logical arguments by which he tries to refute spiritual revelations.

You will hear, my dear friends, from this or that side arguments against spiritual knowledge. It is sometimes dressed in clever, sometimes in sly, sometimes in foolish logical rules. Never, however, are the logical rules the reason why spiritual knowledge is refuted. Rather is it the spirit of fear that lives and works deep into humanity's inner life which, when it rises to the head, translates into logical reasons. It is fear!

But it is not sufficient to say: I am not afraid. Everyone can of course say that. We must first comprehend the nature and the seat of this fear. We must tell ourselves that we were born and educated according to the present time, in which the Ahrimanic side has installed spirits of fear, and that we are tainted by these spirits. And conjuring them away doesn't mean that they really go. We must find the ways and the means — and this School will provide guidance — to bravery and knowledge against those spirits of fear which reside as monsters in our will. For it is not what often leads people to knowledge nowadays — or what they say does — that can provide true knowledge, but rather only courage, the inner courage of soul which provides the strength and the capacity to follow the path that leads to true, real, light-filled spiritual knowledge.

And the second beast, which creeps into the human soul from the spirit of the times to become an enemy of knowledge, this beast lurks everywhere we go — in most of the literary works of the day, in most of the art galleries, in most sculpture and art in general and music. It wreaks its havoc in the schools and in society. In order to avoid having to confess its fear of the spirit, it resorts to mocking spiritual knowledge.

This mockery is not always openly expressed, because people are not conscious of what is within them. But I would say that only a thin wall, the thickness of a spiderweb, separates what is in people's consciousness and what is in their hearts wanting to mock true spiritual knowledge. And when the mockery is open, it is only when the more or less conscious impertinence of modern man is able to suppress the fear. But basically, everyone today is vaccinated against the spirit's revelations. And the mockery is manifested in the most unusual ways.

The third beast is lazy thinking, the kind of thinking that would make the whole world a movie, because then no one is required to think — everything is reeled out and all one has to do is follow what is reeled out. Even science would like to follow the world's phenomena with passive thinking. Man is too lazy and comfortable to activate his thinking. Humanity's thinking nowadays can be compared to someone who wants to pick something up from the floor and stands there with his hands in his pockets and thinks he can pick the thing up that way. But he cannot. And existence cannot be comprehended by thinking with its hands in its pockets. We must move our arms and hands if we want to grasp something from the floor. We must activate our thinking if we want to grasp the spirit.

[Guardian of the Threshold]

• The Guardian of the Threshold characterizes the first beast, which lurks as fear in your will, as a beast with a crooked back and a bony face and scrawny body. This beast, with its dull blue skin, is verily what rises from the abyss and stands alongside the Guardian of the Threshold for today's humanity. And the Guardian of the Threshold makes it quite clear to the humanity of today that this beast is actually in you! It rises from out of the yawning abyss which lies in front of the knowledge fields, and reflects what lurks in your will as an enemy of knowledge.
• And the second beast, which is connected to the desire to mock the spiritual world, is characterized by the Guardian of the Threshold in a similar way. It emerges alongside the other monster, but its whole attitude is one of weakness and sleepiness. With this sleepy posture and gray-greenish body, it bares its teeth in a warped face. And this baring of teeth is meant to indicate laughter, but lies, because to mock is to lie. So it grins at us as the reflection of the beast that lives in our own feeling and, as the enemy of knowledge, hinders our search for knowledge.
• And the Guardian of the Threshold characterizes the third beast, which will not approach the world in spirit, as emerging from the abyss with cloven muzzle, dull glassy eyes, slouching posture and dirty-red form. Such is the doubt which speaks through the cloven muzzle and doubt in the power of spirit-light which expresses itself in the dirty-red form. This is the third of the knowledge enemies that lurks in us. They make us earthbound.

If we approach spirit-knowledge accompanied by them, ignoring the Guardian of the Threshold's warning, we encounter the yawning abyss. One cannot pass over it earthbound, nor with fear nor mockery, nor with doubt. One can pass over it by grasping in thought the spirituality of being, by experiencing in feeling the soul of being, by strengthening the activity of being in the will. Then the spirit, the soul and the activity of being give us wings of release from the weight of earth. Then we can cross over the abyss.

The steps of prejudice are threefold and will cast us into the abyss if we fail to acquire courage, fire and creative knowledge. If, however, we do acquire creative knowledge in thinking and we want to activate thinking, if we do not wish to approach the spirit in dreamy lassitude, but receive the spirit with inner heartfelt fire, and when we have the courage to really grasp the spirit as spirit, not merely letting it approach us as a materialistic picture, then will the wings grow which will carry us over the abyss, where every human heart that is honest with itself today desires to go.

Discussion

Note [1] - Commentary on fear and evil

The main trigger and reason of existence for this topic page is given in the lecture ...

Study of spiritual scientific topics (as per the 'Related pages' below) show that mankind is facing a future with an increase of evil, violence, death. One can only be filled with fear when considering sketches of the times ahead, such as the rise of Black magic in the world, the Future Oriphiel age, the 'great conflict between east and west' (WWIII - see Nostradamus#2.1 - War between the West and Asia and World catastrophy), and the War of all against all.

Rudolf Steiner describes how, starting today, but definitely in the next millenia and the sixth cultural age, a bifurcation will take place whereby humanity will be split into two streams of good and evil .. something which will become a reality in the next great Sixth epoch and part of the kingdoms of nature in the next planetary stage of evolution Future Jupiter.

The challenge of humanity to face in this fifth and Current Postatlantean epoch is to face and come to grips with evil, the flipside of the Human I as a two-sided sword .. which is also why the epoch will end with the War of all against all, a culmination of this egoity (I vs I).

In all this, what is not said is how humanity is to face this. Manicheism is sketched as an answer, to face evil with the purest good. The Sermon on the Mount speaks of 'love your ennemies' and 'turn the other cheak' (wikipedia page). However, today Man is filled with fear, fear for one's life and loosing everything in the face of evil. From our world today, one is puzzled and may wonder how Man should or will be able to face those times and the fierce future realities ahead.

One can imagine that future innate knowledge of previous incarnations will be a major change factor: only when one stands above physical incarnate life, can one choose for one's ideals, virtues, and the good based on human will, in the face of death.

There is a telling anecdote on this site, see: [[Manicheism#[2] - About one day in Montsegur, 16 March 1244]], on how the Cathars (persecuted Manichaeans), completely exhausted and taken prisoner with death awaiting them, sang with heads straight in the face of death .. "They were sacrificing themselves for a future Christian life of freedom and love, in the trust that in a future life .. their inquisitors shall also partake of that life"

The lecture in GA266 provides the missing piece of the puzzle to 'make the connection' for the above.

Related pages

• Evil
• Virtues
• Manicheism
• Sacrifice