Today, with a view to the coming autumn, in which we can once again develop our powers of thinking, I would like to discuss something in relation to meditation. When we meditate, and also when we try to raise ourselves to pure thinking free of sense perception, there are several obstacles that we encounter, and naturally the very first thing that is necessary is that we recognise these obstacles. What often happens is that a person sits down and begins with meditation without really preparing himself for the fact that one is beginning something that should go beyond everyday life.

Where are we actually situated in everyday life in our time? This time is quite different from the time in which Rudolf Steiner lived, and therefore it is of course certainly important that we also become aware of these changes within ourselves. The greatest change of all is the development of the digital world around us. I do not know whether I am saying it correctly.

Electromagnetism is a field that is around us, but which is also active within us, which is also necessarily active within us. We cannot live at all without these electromagnetic effects within us. But it is of course clear that this is an invisible field, a collection of beings that we cannot behold, just as with normal consciousness, everyday consciousness I should say, we also cannot behold the world of the angels and higher hierarchies.

So we must actually feel ourselves, as human beings, to be placed between a higher spiritual world, which is invisible, and a lower sub-spiritual world, even a sub-physical world, which is also invisible. And it is obvious that one can be mistaken there, that it is not so easy to make the distinction. And I wanted to say something about that today, because when one studies how these relationships are, then we find, for instance, Rudolf Steiner’s lectures in Switzerland, St. Gallen, about the electronic double.

That is a being which joins us at birth and leaves us again at death. And Rudolf Steiner says that actually all illnesses come about through this. We cannot do without it; when one considers that for medical examinations we also register this electromagnetic field, for instance in the electrocardiogram, then it is clear that it belongs to us.

But now we live in a time in which this field, which is in and around us, is used for, how shall I say it, intelligence, apparent intelligence one might say, because this intelligence is not directed towards truth, but is directed towards a management of data, so that it appears intelligent. So if we feel ourselves between these two invisible levels, this is situated in the sub-natural. With our consciousness we are not even within the natural when we work with our devices, but we sink down into the sub-natural, and because this has become so strong in our time and our activity also often takes up so many hours per day, it is of course self-evident that when we then sit down for meditation, in which we choose the opposite direction, namely beyond the physical-sensory into the spiritual, then we actually see an almost impossible task before us and that we have to, we actually have to find a passage in order, out of this confusion of data into which we have been immersed, still to find the world of pure thoughts permeated by will.

When one meditates, one knows distraction. That was of course also the case in Rudolf Steiner’s time. Our soul has its own occupations, and it is not always so very willing to kindle wonder and reverence within itself in such a way that the elevation towards the higher is stronger than the sinking down towards the lower.

The soul does not always feel like doing that. So that is actually the first thing one should do when one sits down for meditation: to become conscious that one wills it and not that one does not will it. And if one does not will it, one either stops, better not of course, or one overcomes the not-willing and pulls oneself together in order to will after all.

For the will is infinitely important. If one wants to do a meditation and one wants to place a thought at the centre of consciousness, then that requires will. If one wants to remain with it, then that requires much more will.

And if the soul then actually does not will after all, then the forces that come from sub-nature are happily at work, full of joy in working, to make sure that it does not succeed. And then it can appear that it does succeed. Then one gains insight into an invisible world which is not supersensible, however, which is not even physical, but subsensible.

And it is clear that there is also a great confusion there with regard to knowledge. For I looked, for instance, in Eliphas Levi, in his book on the Dogma. In it he describes the spiritual level, but at the same time calls it magnetism.

So apparently for him the distinction between magnetism, which is sub-nature, and, for instance, the astral light, which is supernatural, did not become so clear. There are many examples of magic in his work, and it then becomes clear that this can take place in two entirely different worlds. So it is absolutely necessary for us to distinguish cognition in the electrical field and cognition in the magnetic field from cognition in the astral light and cognition in the etheric.

Of course, one cannot simply do that, because with ordinary consciousness one is within it, with one’s consciousness one is actually for the most part situated in sub-nature, and one must already draw from this a longing to want to recognise: how do I return to an everyday consciousness that is not connected with the device? It does not help if I switch it off, because the entire electromagnetic world is around us anyway; it only becomes somewhat stronger when we switch the device on, but switching it off does not actually help. How do I get so far that I can also really distinguish this when, for instance, I experience the force of magnetism when I meditate, and the force that is my pure force of will, which unites itself with pure thinking?

I therefore think, and this is also my experience, that one needs pure thinking more than ever in history, because only when one can live in pure ideas for a while can one be certain that one is not within the electromagnetic field. You can of course say: why, who proves that to me, you are simply saying it. No, one can learn to experience this.

When one does a spiritual exercise, one can learn to experience what actually happens when one raises oneself to the forms, independent forms of pure ideas. One only needs to take a paragraph from The Philosophy of Freedom or from other books by Rudolf Steiner and try to think it independently, thus not repeat it, but grasp the thought within it and then think the thought through. When one does this, one feels how a lightness enters into thinking which, although permeated by will, does not pull fully materially downwards.

It is a very great difference, and one feels the force between the eyebrows. There one feels the force, and not somewhere else first. If one does not think pure thoughts, but simply begins to meditate with a sentence or an image, what then happens is possibly that one does not get out of the electromagnetic field at all, and then the force of will remains, it does indeed become strong, but the purity of the content is not strong enough, and then one is nevertheless pulled downwards.

And then an immense force can enter into the soul which does not raise it above itself, but pulls it down below itself. But one has to experience that. I can say it, and perhaps it also sounds comprehensible in this way; if one has experience with meditation, then one knows these processes, but if one has experience with meditation and one is not alert to these processes, then perhaps one does not know them either.

So this time I would like to call upon the meditating spiritual pupils to begin a process of self-knowledge, namely, when one begins with meditation, to pay close attention that what one brings forth as thinking activity should go beyond ordinary soul life and then enter into a lightness, although it is strong in will; but if the strength of will works in such a way that one becomes very heavy and forceful, that one, for instance, also feels the heart pounding or notices that one is tensing one’s muscles, then one has taken the other path. Of course, in, what shall it be, 20 minutes, one cannot illuminate all the details, but I think that I have already illuminated something of it. We stand between two invisible fields and we are pulled downwards.

We can also, when we are active with the mobile phone in our hand, try for once to observe where our consciousness actually sits. Where does it actually sit? And when we then begin with meditation, we may perhaps become aware that there is also another direction of consciousness. That is what I wanted to say today, and perhaps further expansions and differentiations will be added in the near future.