Biker_Chick
New Member
Offline
Posts: 9
|
Howdy all, I was at a used book shop looking for some other stuff when I wandered into the small metaphysical section. This old book sorta jumped out at me so I bought it! It was written by Rudolf Steiner(1861-1925). Google up his name in Wikipedia, it contains some great info on him, including in the 'Steiner & Christianity' section where he had a inner encounter with the Christ being which changed his life. What an interesting heavy dude he was! I added some parts from his book 'An outline of Occult Science'. Geez! I'm not looking forward to the first part of my death if what he says is true!
********
"The first experiences after death are very different in still another respect from those during life. During the time of purification the human being, as it were, lives his life in reverse order. He passes again through all that he has experienced in life since his birth. He begins with the events which immediately preceded death and experiences everything in reverse order back to childhood. Thus everything passes spiritually before his eyes that has not arisen out of the spiritual nature of the ego during life, only he experiences all this now in reverse order. For example, a person who died in his sixtieth year and who in his fortieth year had done someone a bodily or soul injury in an outburst of anger will experience this event again when, in passing through his life's journey in reverse order after death, he reaches the time of his fortieth year. However, he now experiences not the satisfaction which he had in life from his attack upon the other person, but the pain which he gave him. From what has been said above, it is at the same time also possible to see that only a part of such an event can be experienced painfully after death. This part has arisen from passions of the ego which have their source only in the outer physical world. In fact, the ego not only damages the other person through the gratification of such a passion, but itself as well, only the damage to itself is not apparent during life. After death, however, this whole damaging world of passion becomes perceptible to it. And the ego then feels itself drawn to every being and every thing which has enkindled such a passion, in order that this passion may again be destroyed by the " consuming fire," in just the same way it was created. Only when the human being in his backward journey has reached the point of his birth have all the passions of this kind passed through the fire of purification, and, from now on, nothing hinders him from a complete surrender to the spiritual world. He enters upon a new stage of existence. Just as, at death, he threw off the physical body, then, soon after, his ether body, so now that part of the astral body falls away which can live only in the consciousness of the outer physical world. For supersensible perception there are, thus, three corpses : the physical, the etheric, and the astral corpse ; and the point of time when the latter is thrown off by the human being is at the end of the period of purification which is about a third of the time which elapsed between birth and death. The reason why this is so can only become clear later on, when we shall have considered the course of human life from the standpoint of occult science. By means of supersensible perception, astral corpses may be seen constantly in the world surrounding man, which are discarded by people who are passing over from the state of purification into a higher existence, just as for physical perception there are corpses in the world in which men dwell. After purification an entirely new state of consciousness begins for the ego. Whereas before death external images had to flow towards the ego, in order that the light of consciousness might fall upon them, now, as it were, a world flows from within and penetrates to the consciousness. The ego lives in this world also between birth and death. There, however, this world is clothed in the manifestations of the senses ; and only there where the ego, taking no heed of all sense-perceptions, perceives itself in its innermost sanctuary, is that, which otherwise appears veiled by the sense world, revealed in its real form. Just as before death the self-perception of the ego takes place in its inner being, so after death and after purification the spirit world in all its fullness is revealed from within. This revelation, in fact, takes place immediately after the stripping off of the ether body. But, like a darkening cloud, the world of desire, which is still turned towards the outer world, presents itself. It is as though dark demoniacal shadows, arising out of the passions " consuming themselves in fire," intermingled with a blissful world of spiritual experience. Indeed these passions are now not mere shadows, but actual entities. This becomes at once apparent when the ego is deprived of the physical organs and can thus perceive what is of a spiritual nature. These creatures appear like distortions and caricatures of all that the human being knew through sense-perception.
Supersensible perception has this to say about the world of the purifying fire : it is inhabited by beings whose appearance for the spiritual eye can be gruesome and painful, whose pleasure seems to be destruction and whose passion is bent upon a spiritual evil, in comparison with which the evil of the sense world is insignificant. The passions which human beings bring into this world appear to these creatures as food by means of which their power receives constant refreshment and strength. This picture, drawn from a world imperceptible to the physical senses, can appear less incredible if we for a moment observe a part of the animal world with unprejudiced eyes. For the spiritual eye, what is a cruel, prowling wolf ? What does it reveal to us through what our senses perceive? Nothing else than a soul that lives in desire and acts through desire. One can call the external form of the wolf an embodiment of these passions. And even if a person had no organs with which to perceive this form, he would still have to recognize the existence of a creature corresponding to it, if its passions were invisibly manifest in its actions ; if in fact a power, invisible to the eye, were prowling about, through which all those things could happen which happen through the visible wolf. The creatures of the purifying fire do not exist for sensible, but for supersensible consciousness only ; their activities, however, which consist in the destruction of the ego when it gives them this nourishment, are clearly revealed. These activities become clearly visible when what began as a normal pleasure increases to lack of moderation and excess. For, even what is perceptible to the senses would attract the ego only in so far as the pleasure has its source in its own nature. The animal is impelled to desire in the outer world only by means of the cravings of its three bodies. The human being has higher enjoyments, because a fourth member, the ego, is added to the three bodily members. But if the ego seeks for a gratification which serves to destroy its own nature, not to maintain and further it, then such craving can be neither the activity of its three bodies, nor that of its own nature ; it can only be the activity of beings who, in their true form, remain hidden from the senses. They can set to work on the higher nature of the ego and arouse in it passions which have no relationship to sense existence, but which can only be satisfied through it. Beings exist who are nourished by desires and passions which are worse than any animal passions, because they do not express themselves in the senses only, but seize upon the spiritual part and drag it down into the realm of the senses. The forms of such beings are, for supersensible perception, more hideous and gruesome than the forms of the wildest animals, in which are embodied only passions that originate in the sense world. The destructive forces of these beings exceed immeasurably all destructive fury which may exist in the visible animal world. Supersensible knowledge must, in this way, enlarge the human horizon to include a world of beings which, in a certain respect, stand lower than the visible world of destructive animals."
|