Theosophy (Translated): Introduction to the supersensible knowledge of the world and human destiny

By Rudolf Steiner and David De Angelis

In this book we want to give a description of some parts of the supersensible world. Whoever wants to admit only the sensory world will consider this description a vacuous product of the imagination. But whoever wishes to seek the paths that lead out of the world of the senses will soon come to understand that human life acquires value and meaning only if one penetrates with one's eyes into another world. This penetration does not distract man, as many fear, from "real" life. It is only in this way that he learns to stand firm and secure in life. He learns to know its causes, while, if he ignores them, he gropes like a blind man through its effects. Only through knowledge of the supersensible world does the sensible "reality" acquire meaning. Therefore, this knowledge increases, not diminishes, our capacity for life. Only he who understands life can become a truly "practical" man.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stargatebook
• Release date: Oct 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9791220852388

Rudolf Steiner

Nineteenth and early twentieth century philosopher.

Book preview

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION

In this book we intend to give a description of some parts of the supersensible world. He who wishes to admit only the sensory world will regard this description as an empty product of imagination. But he who seeks the paths that lead out of the world of the senses will soon come to understand that human life acquires value and meaning only if one penetrates with the eye into another world. This penetration does not distract man, as many fear, from real life. For it is only in this way that he learns to stand firm and secure in life. He learns to know the causes, but if he ignores the causes, he gropes like a blind man through the effects. Only through the knowledge of the supersensible world does sensory reality acquire meaning. Therefore this knowledge increases, not diminishes, our capacity for life. Only he who understands life can become a truly practical man.

The author of this book does not describe anything that he cannot testify to from his own experience, from the kind of experience that can be had in this field. Therefore he will only expound things that, in this sense, he has experienced himself.

The way we read in our time does not apply to this book. In a way, every page, often even a few sentences, must be conquered with effort. This has been consciously aimed at. For only in this way can the book become for the reader what it has to be for him. He who merely skims through it will not have read it at all. The truths contained in the book must be experienced. Spiritual science is effective only in this sense.

The book cannot be judged by the standards of ordinary science, if the point of view for such a judgment is not inferred from the book itself. If, however, the critic adopts this point of view, he will see that this exposition is never at variance with true scientific methods. The author knows that he has not wished, even with a single word, to conflict with his scientific conscientiousness.

Those who wish to seek the truths expounded here by other means will find them in my Philosophy of Freedom. In different ways the two books tend towards the same end. The other is not necessary for the understanding of the one, although, of course, it can be useful.

Those who seek in this book the ultimate truths will perhaps set it aside, unsatisfied. Of the whole domain of spiritual science, the author has proposed to expound here, indeed, the fundamental truths.

It is certainly inherent in the nature of man to ask for an answer at once to the questions about the beginning and end of the world, about the purpose of existence, and about the essence of God. But he who does not want to give words and concepts for the intellect, but true knowledge for life, knows that in a book containing the first elements of spiritual knowledge it is not permissible for him to say things that belong to the higher steps of wisdom. Only after having understood these first elements is one able to see how questions of a higher order are to be asked. In another book of mine which is connected with this one, The Occult Science, you will find further communications about the field here treated.

Whoever in our time publishes an exposition of supersensible facts should be clear about two things. First of all, that our epoch needs to cultivate supersensible knowledge; and secondly, that spiritual life today is full of representations and feelings which may make such a description appear to many even as a wild reverie and dream. Our age is in need of supersensible knowledge, for all that man learns in the ordinary way about the world and life raises in him a quantity of questions which can only be answered by supersensible truths. But we must not deceive ourselves: what can be learned in the current cultural currents about the foundations of existence is not, for the deeply feeling soul, an answer, but rather a series of questions about the great enigmas of the world and of life. For a time, one may have the impression of possessing a solution of the riddles of life in the results of rigorously scientific facts and in the deductions of some of the modern thinkers. But if the soul descends to those depths to which it must reach, if it really understands itself, what at first may have seemed to it a solution, will appear to it only as a spur to the true question. And an answer to such a question must not only be directed towards satisfying a human curiosity, but on it depends the inner calm and harmony of the soul's life. The attainment of such an answer not only satisfies the thirst for knowledge, but makes man more valuable to his work and brings him up to the tasks of life, whereas the lack of a solution to those problems paralyses him in the soul and ultimately in the body. Supersensible knowledge is not only something for our theoretical needs, but it is also something for the true praxis of life. Precisely because of the character of modern spiritual life, spiritual knowledge is an indispensable cognitive field of our age.

On the other hand, it is a fact, that many nowadays reject with the utmost energy that which they most need. The power of many opinions based on certain scientific experiences is so great for some people that they cannot but consider the contents of a book like this as madness. He who expounds supersensible knowledge can confront these things without any illusion.

One will certainly be easily tempted to demand irrefragable evidence from him. But one does not reflect that, by such a demand, one falls into an error. For, certainly without realizing it, one demands not the evidence inherent in things, but that which one wants or can recognize. The author of this book knows that it contains nothing inadmissible to those who stand on the ground of modern natural science. He also knows that it is possible to comply with all the requirements of this science and, therefore, to find well founded the representation of the supersensible world, as it is presented here. Indeed, a strictly scientific way of thinking should feel at ease in this representation. And he who thinks thus will, in the face of certain discussions, have a feeling which can be characterized by these profoundly true words of Goethe: A false doctrine cannot be refuted, because it rests on the conviction that the false is true. Arguments are useless in the face of those who wish to admit only those proofs which conform to their own way of thinking. He who knows the true nature of what it is to prove," clearly realizes that the human soul finds truth by other means than those of argument.

Of the various prefaces that Steiner dictated for this fundamental work of his in a succession of reprints with modifications and additions, only the Preface to the third edition is given here.

From the others, it appears that, for some fifteen years, the book stood like a living being before the author, who continued to bring to it tirelessly all that he had gained in his supersensible investigation, always feeling the need, after having given a scientific-spiritual description, to bring it to greater clarity. The discovery of the exact word, of the turn of phrase suitable for expressing a fact, an experience, depend on the paths trodden by the soul. On these paths the expression, which remained unobtainable when it was sought, presents itself when the hour has come. After 1918, the author considered that he no longer had to change anything substantial".

On the genesis of the book, as well as on how to read it, anyone can usefully consult chapter XXXIII of Steiner's autobiography (La mia vita, F.lli Bocca Editori), where it is said, among other things, that "a rightly composed anthroposophical book must be an awakening of spiritual life in the reader, not a sum of communications. Reading it should not be a

simple reading, but a living experience, accompanied by inner events, tensions and solutions. I know well, Rudolf Steiner continues, how far what I have given in books is from arousing by its own inner power such an experience in the souls who read them. But I also know how much I have struggled, page by page, to reach as far as I could in this direction. My style is not kept in fashion to let my subjective feelings seep into the periods. As I write, I cushion what rises from intimate warmth and deep feeling, in a dry, mathematical style. But this style alone can be an awakener; for the reader must arouse the warmth and feeling in himself; he cannot let them, in a state of damped consciousness, be simply decanted into him by the author.

INTRODUCTION

When, in the autumn of the year 1813, Johann Gottlieb Fichte expounded his Doctrine as the mature fruit of a life wholly devoted to the service of truth, he immediately said at the outset the following words: This doctrine presupposes an entirely new inner sense, by which a new world opens up which, for the ordinary man, does not exist. And then he used a simile to show how elusive his doctrine must be for those who wish to judge it by the representations of the ordinary senses: Imagine a world of the born blind, to whom, therefore, things and their relations are known only by what is revealed by touch. Go and speak to them about colors and other conditions that exist only by virtue of light and sight. You will be talking in vain, and it will be fortunate if they tell you so, for then you will not be slow in recognising your error, and, unless you can open their eyes, you will cease your useless discourse.

Now, he who speaks to men of those things to which Fichte here alludes, too often finds himself in a condition analogous to that of the seer in the midst of born blind men. But these are the things which refer to man's true nature and supreme aims. And he who believes it necessary to cease useless speech should despair of humanity. On the contrary, one should not doubt for a moment the possibility of opening the eyes of everyone who cooperates with his good will.

Based on this premise, have spoken and written all those who have felt that they have developed the organ of inner perception capable of recognizing the true nature of man, hidden to the outer senses. Therefore, from the earliest times, there has always been talk of an occult wisdom.

He who has grasped something of it feels that he possesses it with the same certainty that the man endowed with sound eyesight has regarding the representation of colours. Therefore this occult wisdom needs no proof for him. And he knows, too, that for those who, like himself, have the organ of higher perception open, it needs no proof. Men endowed with this higher sense can talk to one another just as one who has visited America can talk to one who, though he has not been there, is able to form an idea of it, because, when he has an opportunity, he will see for himself the things described by the other.

But he who observes the supersensible world must not speak only to those who, like him, investigate the spiritual world. He must address his words to all men. For he has to report about things that concern everyone; indeed, he knows that, without knowledge of them, no one can be man in the true sense of the word. And he speaks to all men, because he knows that there are different degrees of understanding of what he has to say. He knows that even men who are still far from the time when the possibility of spiritual investigations of their own will be opened to them, can understand him. For the feeling and understanding of truth are in every man.

And to this understanding, which can be kindled in every healthy soul, he first of all turns. He also knows that in this understanding is contained a force which little by little must lead to the higher steps of knowledge. That feeling which perhaps at first sees nothing of what is exposed to it is itself the magician who will open the spiritual eye. It germinates in the darkness. The soul does not see; but, through this feeling, it is seized by the power of truth; and then, little by little, the truth approaches the soul and opens to it the higher sense." For some it will take longer, for others less; but whoever has patience and constancy will reach the goal.

If not every blind person born can be operated upon, every sipiritual eye can be opened; it is only a matter of time.

Erudition and scientific culture are not necessary conditions for the opening of this superior sense. It can be opened as much in the simple man as in the learned. On the contrary, what in our time is mostly considered as the only science, can often be more of a hindrance than a help. For, by its nature, this science admits as reality only that which falls under the ordinary senses. And however great its merits may be in the recognition of this truth, it creates, when it declares valid for all human knowledge what is necessary and salutary for its own domain, a number of preconceptions which preclude access to higher truths.

It is often objected to what has been said here that insurmountable barriers are placed in the way of human knowledge, and that therefore all knowledge which does not take account of these barriers must be rejected. And it is perhaps considered immodest to make assertions concerning things which, according to the conviction of many, are beyond the range of