22. Thought Forms
Sit down in any café or beer house and observe the occupied tables around you. Eavesdrop on the conversations. Listen to what people have to say to each other. Go into families, observe your inner circle in the hours of rest when work is no longer pressing.
You will be dismayed to find the hollowness of all that people talk about when they cannot talk about their other occupations. You will feel the emptiness of thought, the stifling narrowness of the field of interests, as well as the frightening superficiality to the point of revulsion, as soon as you seriously concern yourself with keen observation. The few exceptions you encounter, whose words in the quiet hours of everyday life are permeated with a longing for spiritual perfection, will seem to you like lonely strangers in the midst of a fairground scene.
It is precisely in the so-called hours of rest that you can most easily recognize the true inside of the human being, after the outer support and the special field of his knowledge has fallen away with the pushing aside of his usual professional activity. What then remains is the actual human being. Look at him and listen to his words as a bystander. Very soon you will stop your observations because they become unbearable to you. Deep sadness comes over you when you realize how many people are not much different from the animals. Not quite so blunt, with a higher capacity for thought, but in the same gist. They go through life on earth as if they were wearing blinkers and only ever see the purely earthly things before them. They care for eating, drinking, more or less accumulating earthly values, strive for physical pleasures, and consider all reflection on things they cannot see a waste of time, which in their opinion they could use far better for “recreation”.
They cannot and will not understand that life on earth, with all its pleasures and joys, only receives the right meaning when one is to some extent familiar with the Ethereal World that belongs to it, knows the reciprocal effects that connect us with it and thus no longer has the feeling of being at the mercy of chance. They reject the ides far from them, in the error that if there really is an Ethereal World, it can only cause them inconvenience or even horror as soon as they concern themselves with it.
The thought that with the striving upward the whole life on earth receives its real value, that with it the most glorious warmth of life also pulsates through all earthly joys and pleasures, is foreign to them. This does not mean that the latter are pushed aside, but that those who long for purer and higher things and who earnestly seek them are given a glowing affirmation of life as the most beautiful reciprocal effect, which often ends in jubilant enthusiasm for everything that exists and presents itself.
Fools who pass this by! Cowards who will always be denied the glorious pleasures of a boldly advancing human being.
Rejoice that everything around you is alive, far out into seemingly immeasurable realms! Nothing is dead, nothing empty, as it seems. And everything works and weaves in the Law of Reciprocal Action, in the midst of which you as human beings stand to form and direct the threads anew, as starting points and as final goals. Mighty rulers, each of whom shapes his own kingdom, that it lifts him up or buries him underneath. Wake up! Use the force that has been given to you in full knowledge of the mighty events, so that you do not, as now, in stupidity, obstinacy or even in laziness, only beget harmful aberrations which overgrow what is healthy and good and finally cause the producer himself to totter and topple.
Even the immediate ethereal environment of the human being can contribute a great deal to lifting him up or pushing him down. This is the strange world of thought-forms, the vitality of which is only a small part of the giant network of the whole Creation. Their threads, however, not only go up into the World of Coarse Matter and further into the Ethereal Matter, but also down into the realm of darkness. Like a giant network of veins or nerve strands, everything is interwoven and intertwined, unbreakable, inseparable! Pay attention to this!
Those who are gifted are able to see a part of it here and there, but can only guess at much of it. Thus, some things have already come to the knowledge of mankind. They tried to build on this in order to obtain a complete picture. But not without leaving gaps and mistakes. Many researchers in the field of Ethereal Matter made leaps that caused them to lose logicality. Others filled in the gaps with fantastic creations that brought misrepresentations and distortions that had to shake the faith in the whole. The result was justified ridicule which, supported by the illogic of the so-called spiritual researchers, had to win the day.
If we are to speak of this, then first and foremost a thread must be drawn through the whole event in the work of Creation, which the observer can hold on to and can climb up. Many processes that are incomprehensible to him already find their starting point in the immediate surroundings. A glance into the world of thought-forms would teach him to understand many things that previously seemed inexplicable. In judging some cases, the justice system would also find that the actual perpetrators are quite different from those it accuses and would primarily hold them responsible. The key to this lies in the connection of the individual human being with the world of thought-forms, which stands next to earthly humanity. It is, however, a blessing for many that they wear the blindfold that does not allow them to see further than their earthly-bodily eye is capable of perceiving. The nature of the present thought-forms would terrify them. Paralyzing horror would settle upon many who now live unscrupulously in a naive or even careless manner. For every thought that is generated, like everything in the Ethereal World, immediately takes on a form that embodies and represents the actual meaning of the thought.
The Living Creative Power that flows through men, pulls together ethereal substance through the cohesive will of a finished thought and binds it into a form that expresses the will of this thought. Consequently, something real, living, which now attracts or allows itself to be attracted by similar things in this world of thought-forms by the Law of the Attraction of Homogenous Species, depending its own strength. Just as a thought is felt at the same time as it arises, weaker or stronger, so its ethereal form will also carry corresponding life within it. This world of thought is densely populated. Entire collection points have been formed through the mutual force of attraction, from which influences flow out on people through their collective force.
First and foremost, always on those who are inclined to towards the same, who therefore carry similar traits in themselves. These are thereby strengthened in their corresponding will and stimulated to ever renewed generation of similar entities, which enter the world of thought-forms with a similar effect.
But other people who do not have these peculiarities in themselves can also be harassed by them and gradually drawn into them, if these collection points receive undreamt-of strength through a constant influx of new ones. Protected from this are only those who possess the differing qualities in greater strength, whereby a connection with what is not similar becomes impossible.
Now, unfortunately, in the present time, it is only hatred, envy, envy, lechery, avarice, and all other evils which, through their greater number of followers, have the strongest gathering points of force in the world of thought-forms. Less so purity and love. For this reason the evil increases in extent with uncanny rapidity. In addition to this, these power-gathering points of the thought-forms in turn receive connections with the similar spheres of darkness. From there they are particularly kindled to ever greater efficacy, so that they are able to wreak havoc among humanity.
Blessed, therefore, shall be the hour when the thoughts of pure Divine Love shall again take a greater place among humanity, so that similarly strong gathering places may develop in the world of thought-forms, receive the supply from the more luminous spheres, and thereby not only give strengthening to those striving for the good, but also slowly have a purifying effect on darker minds.
But there is also another activity to be observed in this World of Ethereal Matter: Thought-forms are driven by the wishes of the producer towards certain persons to whom they can cling. If these thought-forms are pure and noble, they beautify the person to whom they apply, strengthen the protection of purity around him and, if the inner feelings are similar, can lift him even higher and strengthen him for ascent. Thoughts of impurity, however, must defile the person to whom they are directed, just as a physical body is defiled by the throwing up of excrement and mud. If a person so attacked is not firmly anchored inwardly with gathering points of the currents of light, it can happen to him that his intuitions become confused in time by this hurling of impure thoughts. This is possible because the adhesive impure thought-forms are able to attract similar things, whereby they, thus strengthened, gradually poison the thoughts of the person being encompassed.
It goes without saying that the main responsibility falls back on the person who generated the impure thoughts and sent them out to the person concerned through his wish or desire; for the thought-forms also remain connected with the producer, having a corresponding effect on him.
Therefore, all true seekers must be called out again and again: “Pay attention to the purity of your thoughts!” Use all your strength for this. You cannot imagine what you can produce with it. There is something mighty in it! You can work with it like strong fighters. Pioneers for the Light and thus for the liberation of your fellow human beings from the snares of the poisonous fields in the world of thought-forms.
If the blindfold were now removed from a person’s eyes so that he could look into the nearest ethereal surroundings, he would at first be startled to see a wild confusion which might frighten him. But only until he recognizes the force that lies within him, with which he is able to forge a clear path for himself like a sharp sword. Effortlessly, just by willing it. He sees the thought-forms in hundreds of thousands of different forms, all possible and often impossible for earthly eyes. But each one sharply defined, showing and living exactly that which was the actual will at the conception of the thought. Unadorned, devoid of all artificial disguise.
But in spite of the thousands of species, one immediately recognizes the essence of each thought-form, that is, one knows where they belong, in spite of their different forms. Just as one can distinguish a man from an animal by his face, or even recognize the different races of men by certain features of the face, so the thought-forms have quite definite expressions which clearly indicate whether the form belongs to hatred, to envy, to lechery, or to some other basic class. Each of these basic classes has its particular stamp that is impressed upon the individual thought-forms as the basis of the qualities they embody, no matter what external form these forms have assumed through the thought that generated them. Thus, despite the most gruesome and grotesque deformation of a form, it is immediately recognizable to which basic type it belongs. With this realization, the apparently wild confusion ceases to appear as such.
One sees the immutable order and strictness of the basic laws flowing through the whole of Creation, which, if one knows them and submits to their course, grant incalculable protection and bring great blessings. But anyone who opposes these laws will naturally be attacked and, if he is not overturned and crushed, will at least experience sharp abrasions which will reshape him through pain and bitter experiences, until he fits into the current of these laws and is no longer an obstacle. Only then can he be carried up with them.
These thought-forms do not only send their effects back to humanity, but they reach further; for, into the same Ethereal World of the immediate surroundings belongs also the greater part of Nature’s beings. Once one has come to terms with the fact that everything lives and therefore everything has a form, whether it appears earthly visible or not, it will not be a difficult step for him to imagine that forces of nature are also formed. To these belong the gnomes, elves, sylphs, mermaids, etc., earth-, air-, fire-, and water-beings, which have already been seen by many – in former times more than now. They are influenced by the thought-forms, which in turn bring about much salvation or disaster. And so it goes on. One thing interconnects with another, like the gears of an engine perfected to the highest art.
In the midst of all this mechanism, however, stands the human being! Equipped with the means to indicate the nature of the weavings that are to emerge from the workings of Creation, to adjust the gears in different directions. Be conscious of this immeasurable responsibility; for everything takes place only within the own circle of your earthly influence. Beyond that, according to the wise arrangement of the Creator, nothing happens, but it comes back to you. You are able to poison this world and the side beyond the earth through your desires, thoughts and wishes, or you are able to purify it and lift it up towards the Light. Therefore, become rulers of the destiny that leads upwards through the purity of your thoughts!
