For the inexperienced, the astral world is a confusing jumble. A person can experience all kinds of animal figures coming towards him, frightening human figures and the like. Some people tell of such experiences. They are really in a very deplorable state. Because they are ill, the astral world becomes visible in an irregular manner. If one begins to meditate and seriously train oneself, clairvoyance develops in the right way and then one knows what to expect in the astral world. However, when people enter the astral world with a diseased brain or something similar, terrible figures are seen coming towards them and throwing themselves upon them. These figures are, in reality, passions emanating from themselves, mirrored images from the astral world. In the astral world, everything is reversed, but they are unable to read the astral images and experience everything as if rushing toward them. Everything appears in images in the astral world. Erupting anger, for example, may appear as a picture of an attacking tiger. So it is with all these wild figures, because every desire and every passion becomes a demon. However, the untrained person does not know how to interpret these images and assumes them to be fantasised imaginations which they certainly are not. They are mirrored images.
Source (German): Rudolf Steiner – GA 94 – Kosmogonie – Leipzig, June 29, 1906 (page 135)
Translated by Nesta Carsten-Krüger
Previously posted on 7 October 2018
The great Rudolf Steiner Quotes Site 