How to Know Higher Worlds

1. Accessing Higher Worlds: An Open Path for All.

All we need to know is how to begin to develop these faculties for ourselves.

Dormant capacities. Within every individual lie dormant capacities to perceive higher, supersensible worlds—worlds of soul and spirit as real as the physical one. This knowledge is not exclusive to mystics or gnostics; it is an inherent potential waiting to be awakened. The path to this awakening is accessible to anyone who sincerely seeks it.

Esoteric schooling. Historically, this development has occurred through esoteric or mystery schooling, where those with higher faculties guide seekers. However, this schooling is not about forming a privileged class or arbitrarily withholding knowledge. It is a universal path, open to all who are willing to follow the appropriate steps, much like learning to write is open to anyone with the right teaching methods.

Sincere striving. If one's aspiration for higher knowledge is sincere and worthy, initiation will find them, regardless of external circumstances. A universal law dictates that knowledge cannot be withheld from a qualified seeker, nor imparted to one unqualified. The journey begins with the individual's inner resolve and readiness, not external connections or social standing.

2. Reverence and Humility: The Soul's Foundational Mood.

Only a person who has passed through the gate of humility can ascend to the heights of the spirit.

Fundamental mood. The journey to higher worlds begins with a fundamental mood of reverence and devotion to truth and knowledge. This attitude, often evident in childhood as a holy awe for revered figures, blossoms into a profound respect for spiritual realities. It is the seed from which esoteric understanding grows.

Counter-cultural challenge. Modern civilization, with its emphasis on criticism and judgment, often suppresses these feelings of reverence, awe, and wonder. To counteract this, seekers must vigorously cultivate this devotional mood inwardly, actively seeking out what inspires admiration and respect in all things and experiences. Every act of criticism drives away higher cognitive powers.

Inner strength. Cultivating reverence and devotion nourishes the soul, making it healthy and strong for cognitive activity. Just as rubbing a glass rod electrifies it, every feeling of true devotion produces an inner strength that inevitably leads to knowledge. This inner transformation is visible in the soul's aura, changing dark colors to luminous blue-red tones, signifying increased cognitive capacity.

3. Inner Peace and Self-Mastery: Cultivating the Higher Self.

As students of higher knowledge we must find the strength to view ourselves as we would view strangers.

Moments of peace. A crucial practice involves creating daily moments of inner peace and solitude to distinguish the essential from the inessential in one's experiences. During these times, one must observe one's own joys, sorrows, worries, and actions with the detached tranquility of an impartial judge, as if they belonged to another person. This perspective reveals new insights and separates trivialities from core truths.

Higher self awakening. This practice gradually awakens a "higher self" or "higher human being" within, which remains concealed until consciously aroused. As this higher life influences daily existence, one's entire being becomes more peaceful, confident, and self-guided, rather than being tossed about by external circumstances. This inner growth is essential for spiritual progress.

Control over impressions. The developing higher self enables greater control over external impressions. One learns to disarm hurtful words or overcome impatience by consciously recalling higher realizations. This self-mastery creates the necessary inner space for spiritual growth, preventing external forces from stunting the inner being and allowing the soul to choose how it receives the world.

4. Awakening Spiritual Senses: Focused Observation and Feeling.

The world around us is filled everywhere with the glory of God, but we have to experience the divine in our own souls before we can find it in our surroundings.

Active inner life. Beyond reverence, developing an active inner life is crucial. Instead of passively consuming sense impressions, one must allow experiences to linger, assimilating and digesting them with inner activity. This deep engagement nurtures cognitive capacities, transforming mere pleasure into a source of profound understanding.

Focused observation. The first step in illumination involves intensely focusing on natural processes:

• Growth and flourishing: Like watching a sunrise, evoking specific feelings.
• Withering and dying: Like watching the moon rise, evoking distinct feelings.
  By dwelling on these impressions in inner stillness, new kinds of feelings and thoughts arise, forming the organs of clairvoyant "seeing."

New feelings, astral plane. These cultivated feelings become forces that open the "soul world" or astral plane. Growth and decay are no longer vague facts but definite spiritual lines and figures, consistent across observers. This leads to perceiving things without physical existence, which remain occult to the uninitiated. Artistic sensitivity, coupled with an inward nature, is a promising precondition for this development.

5. Moral Transformation: The Core of True Perception.

For every single step that you take in seeking knowledge of hidden truths, you must take three steps in perfecting your character toward the good.

Golden rule. A fundamental principle of esoteric science is that knowledge must never be sought for selfish gain, but for the ennoblement of humanity and world evolution. Every idea that becomes an ideal creates life forces, while self-serving ideas kill soul forces. This selfless orientation forms the moral foundation for all spiritual progress.

Honesty and self-knowledge. True progress requires absolute honesty with oneself, confronting one's mistakes, weaknesses, and shortcomings without excuse. Overcoming failings begins with seeing them truthfully. This self-knowledge is difficult due to the temptation of self-deception, but it is the only way to open doors to greater insight.

Overcoming negative traits. Esoteric students must actively combat traits like:

• Anger and irritation
• Fearfulness and superstition
• Prejudice, vanity, and ambition
• Curiosity and gossip
  These traits build walls in the soul world, paralyzing higher faculties and hindering the emergence of clairvoyance. Cultivating gentleness, tact, and quiet attention removes these obstacles, opening the soul's organs.

6. Chakras: The Soul's Evolving Sense Organs.

These "flowers" are the sense organs of the soul. Their rotation indicates that we are able to perceive the supersensible realm.

Soul organism. Esoteric training transforms the "soul organism"—a luminous, cloud-like body surrounding the physical form—from a confused mass into an orderly, shining structure. Within this organism are "lotus flowers" or chakras, spiritual sense organs located at specific points in the physical body, such as between the eyes, near the larynx, heart, solar plexus, and lower abdomen.

Specific chakra functions. In an undeveloped person, these lotus flowers are dark and still. Through esoteric practice, they intensify in light and begin to rotate, signifying the onset of clairvoyant perception. Each chakra enables distinct insights:

• Larynx (16 petals): Perceives thinking patterns and natural laws.
• Heart (12 petals): Cognizes mentality, character, and deeper forces in nature.
• Solar Plexus (10 petals): Reveals abilities, talents, and nature's role in the cosmos.

Conscious development. While some petals of these chakras developed in past evolutionary stages, the remaining petals are consciously formed through specific soul activities. For instance, the 16-petalled lotus flower develops through disciplined acquisition of ideas, well-reasoned decisions, meaningful speech, harmonious actions, balanced life organization, purposeful striving, and learning from life's experiences. Truthfulness and sincerity are constructive forces, while falsehoods destroy these delicate spiritual buds.

7. Conscious Control: Mastering Thoughts and Impressions.

We must make it a practice not to hear what we do not want to hear, no matter what turmoil is going on around us.

Thought discipline. Developing the 12-petalled lotus flower requires rigorous control over the sequence of thoughts, ensuring logical consistency and avoiding random musings. Illogical thoughts damage this organ, while striving for logical direction, even amidst external illogicality, perfects its form. This "control of thoughts" extends to actions, demanding stability and harmony.

Control of sense impressions. The 10-petalled lotus flower's development demands conscious mastery over sense impressions themselves. This means reaching a point where one only receives impressions intentionally focused upon, effectively creating a "soul armor" against unconscious influences. This prevents countless illusions and arbitrary spiritual fantasies that arise from unacknowledged sensory input.

Avoiding illusions. Many illusions stem from unconscious connections between sensory input and internal states, like a "premonition" caused by an unconsciously registered newspaper headline. To overcome this, one must:

• Choose specific thoughts and integrate only consciously chosen ideas.
• Combat antipathy by developing conscious relationships to things.
• Avoid mindless gazing and listening, focusing only on what is willed.
  This strict self-discipline ensures that perceptions of deeply hidden soul qualities are reliable and free from deception.

8. The Ether Body: A Bridge to Cosmic Rhythms.

The ether body is the subtle body that is seen by clairvoyants as a kind of double of the physical body.

Ether body, subtle structure. Beyond the soul body, clairvoyants perceive the "ether body," a delicate, finely organized structure about the same size and shape as the physical body, permeating it. Its basic color is unique, best compared to young peach blossoms. This body is characterized by constant movement and countless life-maintaining currents, normally independent of our will.

Conscious currents. Further esoteric development involves consciously producing currents and movements within the ether body, adding them to its natural, unconscious activities. This culminates in forming a complex, shining central organ near the physical heart, from which spiritual currents radiate in manifold colors and shapes, permeating the soul body and regulating the rotation of the lotus flowers.

Inner word, cosmic harmony. An esoteric training that begins by stabilizing a temporary center in the head, then transfers it to the larynx, and finally to the heart, leads to the gift of the "inner word." This allows one to perceive the inmost essence of things as spiritually audible tones and words. These currents harmonize with cosmic laws, enabling a new understanding of spiritual teachings and a participation in the life of the cosmos.

9. Unbroken Consciousness: Transcending Sleep.

Then, we will live in as real a world when our body is asleep as when we are awake.

Dream life transformation. A significant indicator of spiritual progress is the transformation of dream life. Dreams lose their muddled, random character, becoming orderly, lawful, and coherent, akin to waking thoughts. Their content shifts from mere echoes of daily life to images arising from a previously unknown spiritual world, revealing higher realities.

Deep sleep experiences. As development continues, the state of deep, dreamless sleep also transforms. Complete unconsciousness is interrupted by isolated, conscious experiences, best described as a kind of "hearing" of perceptible tones and words. These experiences illuminate daily reflections and reveal the spiritual causes behind physical effects, making the world resonate with hidden meaning.

Continuity of consciousness. The ultimate goal is to achieve "continuity of consciousness," where perception and experience are no longer interrupted by sleep. The newly awakened higher soul can function fully even when the physical body rests, allowing one to live in a real spiritual world while asleep and transpose this consciousness into waking life, perceiving both physical and spiritual realities simultaneously.

10. The Guardian of the Threshold: Confronting Your Karma.

My ghostly form is spun, so to speak, from the account book of your life.

Two guardians. The ascent to higher worlds involves encounters with two "guardians of the threshold." The lesser guardian appears when the connection between willing, thinking, and feeling in the subtle bodies begins to loosen. This being is a horrid, ghostly form, a visible manifestation of one's own past actions, feelings, and thoughts—the accumulated karma.

Revelation of past actions. The guardian reveals that it is the embodiment of all good and bad deeds from past lives, which previously determined one's destiny unconsciously. Now, these aspects separate from the personality, becoming an independent, perceptible form. The seeker must bear this awful sight without fear, taking on the conscious responsibility for transforming and beautifying this being.

Personal character. This encounter signifies that the hidden wisdom that once guided one's destiny has withdrawn, placing the work of self-transformation into the individual's hands. The guardian's appearance changes with every right or wrong thought and action, becoming radiantly beautiful only when all wrongs are amended and the self is purified, ready to reunite with the transformed being.

11. Initiation's Ultimate Goal: Selfless World Service.

Now you must join yourself to the whole, so that you may bring with you into the supersensible realm not only yourself, but also all else that exists in the sensible world.

Greater guardian. After recognizing and beginning to transform the lesser guardian, a magnificent form of light, the "greater guardian of the threshold," appears. This meeting occurs when the physical organs of thinking, feeling, and willing have separated from each other and the physical body, now regulated by higher consciousness from supersensible realms.

Renouncing personal salvation. The greater guardian announces that the seeker has earned citizenship in the supersensible world but refuses entry to its highest regions until all liberated powers are used for the deliverance of fellow beings in the sense world. It is a demand to join the whole, to bring not just oneself, but all of sensible creation into the supersensible realm.

White path. This presents a profound choice: the "black path" of premature, egotistic ascent into supersensible bliss, or the "white path" of selfless dedication to humanity's liberation. True esoteric teachers guide towards the white path, emphasizing selfless dedication and sacrifice above all, for their task is the evolution and liberation of all beings, not merely individual salvation.

12. Spiritual Growth Enriches, Not Escapes, Earthly Life.

Indeed, only through insight into the supersensible worlds do we realize the value of the sense-perceptible world.

Earthly value. Initiation reveals that the visible, sense-perceptible world is the fertile soil and living medium for a higher world. Without experiences in the physical realm, one would be powerless in the invisible worlds, as the tools and faculties for supersensible existence can only be developed here. This insight deepens appreciation for earthly life, rather than fostering an escape from it.

Dual nature. Human beings possess a dual nature: mortal and immortal. The mortal being, derived from a dying old world, is in its final stages, while the immortal being is just beginning. Our task is to harvest fruits for the immortal from the mortal world, transforming perishable elements into seeds of immortality.

Transformation of Earth. The ultimate purpose of seeking higher knowledge is not to evade earthly tasks but to transform the Earth by implanting spiritual revelations into it. True work on Earth requires sharing in the creative forces of the spiritual world. This realization should be the sole motivation for ascending to higher worlds, ensuring that spiritual development leads to greater productivity and effectiveness in practical life.

Last updated: January 3, 2026