One of the most important spiritual experiences Rudolf Steiner discusses in The Secrets of the Threshold (GA147), in connection with his Mystery Dramas, is the experience of the ‘has been.’ It occurs after the disciple has had many spiritual experiences outside the body, when the Guardian of the Threshold grants permission to cross from the elementary world into the objective spiritual world. Steiner describes how, in crossing the threshold, the disciple no longer experiences themselves as they normally would. They leave all experiences of the physical and elementary worlds behind and can carry beyond the threshold only the memory of the self. At this point, one experiences oneself only as a ‘past self’—a mere memory of oneself. One’s entire life activity rests on memories of the past; the present disappears. In this state, one experiences neither a present nor a future, only the past. Dr Steiner describes this as an experience of ultimate tragedy, in which the human soul begins to understand Lucifer spiritually: to be condemned to perceive the richness of the past and the nothingness of the present moment as a state of being. In crossing the threshold, the self becomes a diminished dot, a ‘has been’ surrounded by the objective spiritual world, which one can no longer ‘see’ as a reality, since one can only contemplate the past. After the unbearable experience of nothingness, in which one is reduced to a dot, one begins to ‘hear.’ One becomes a witness to a dialogue between one’s past self, the ‘has been,’ and the higher spiritual beings in the surrounding spiritual atmosphere. Through this dialogue—an exchange of living-words between one’s past self and the spiritual surroundings—a new self is reborn and empowered through spiritual listening. This is how one becomes oneself in clairvoyant consciousness beyond the threshold: by confronting the nothingness of existence and allowing oneself to be reborn through dialogue between one’s old self and the spiritual atmosphere.

I have added below the exact passage from Rudolf Steiner describing the spiritual experience of the ‘has been’ in crossing the threshold. Now my task as a biography worker, and the purpose of this article, is to question whether this experience has a correspondence in everyday life and human biography. Reflecting on my personal experiences over the past few years and carefully analysing Rudolf Steiner’s Mystery Dramas, particularly the masterful portrayal of this experience through the character of Johannes Thomasius, the answer is ‘yes, the experience of the ‘has been’ in the spiritual world has a correspondence in everyday life as well’. Whether one is initiated through life itself or outside the body after rigorous spiritual training is not important here, as this experience is the same. The only thing that stands in our way is that, on the physical plane, we are immediately confronted with our materialistic culture, which obscures the experience and makes it unnoticeable or irrelevant.

Rudolf Steiner teaches that, in the astral world, we experience many processes from the physical world in reverse. But we should clarify from the outset that this particular experience—the experience of the ‘has been’—is the same for the soul on both planes; only the passage of time differs. What may take minutes or hours during meditation outside the body in the astral world is experienced by the soul on Earth over months or years. Thus, in physical life, the experience of the ‘has been’ may take a few months, or up to three years or more, provided it is noticed.

When does this experience occur in everyday life? Normally, if spiritual development is synchronised with life itself, this experience starts unfolding around the 42nd birthday and continues into the second part of the 42-49 septenal. But, considering the various diversions in our karma over the last centuries, we may acknowledge that, for many people, this process happens when it happens—perhaps later in life—or it simply doesn’t happen. One thing we can all agree on is that, for the majority of people, it either goes completely unnoticed and catalogued under the title ‘over 40’, or placed on a psychological shelf under ‘depression’. Anthroposophy must recognise this as a spiritual process, outside the sphere of abnormal psychology. When life itself is synchronised with dedicated spiritual training, then everything that happens in life should be considered only from the spiritual point of view. We should never mistake an Initiation process for a psychological crisis, even if the two appear similar at first. A biography worker should be acquainted with the effects of spiritual development.

The experience of the ‘has been’ in everyday life starts in thinking, and it is a continuation of the spiritual development process. One day, perhaps around one’s 42nd birthday, one may notice a loss in one’s creative life: a complete disappearance. One can say to oneself: ‘Yesterday, I could create art, innovate, invent, write, come up with new ideas, be inspired, meditate or think anew. Today, the creative life behind my thinking, talents, skills or abilities is gone.’ Whether we talk about our profession or a hobby we pursued professionally, we notice that no inspiration or newness comes anymore. It is truly a creative crisis. We can still remember how we did things before, even copy others for inspiration; we can rearrange past ideas or past inspirations in a new way that looks new to others, but our creative work at this point is nothing but a rearrangement of the past, a collage made of old scraps. At this point, the self needs to admit: ‘Nothing new comes out of me. I am creatively dried out’.

When the creative crisis starts, a sort of depression begins in the emotional life. The disciple slowly loses interest in waking up in the morning, or even becomes anxious and desperate. We feel uncomfortable and irritated; we might even blame others for our own creative crisis. We perceive everything as old, and we might even push away people or experiences because we can’t notice the newness in anyone or anything. One of the most unpleasant realisations on the spiritual path at this step is noticing that meditation no longer brings anything new. We feel deserted by the spiritual world, which has stopped communicating. At this stage of the process, we can still have our entire emotional life intact, at times even exacerbated, especially when it comes to anger or depression. In the Mystery Dramas, Johannes Thomasius lost his appetite for painting and fell into a deep depression, tortured by remorse triggered by his old life.

After months or years, the nothingness conquers the feeling life as well. When we have exhausted anger and depression, we start feeling tired of having feelings. Every feeling becomes an effort that can no longer be supported by our soul. We observe that there are no forces left for our feeling life. A sort of dullness takes place, where one can say: ‘I am too tired to feel anything’. Even if you love someone and want to express it, while your mouth may say: ‘I love you’, the soul experiences only a remembrance: ‘I remember the love I had for you, but I cannot experience this love in the present’. The state of remembering with no present has conquered the feeling life. At this point, one might still express emotional reactions, but they come entirely from memories, not from the present life of the soul.

When, after a longer period, the crisis extends to the will, the disciple of life feels completely lame: ‘I can’t find the will to do anything anymore; I am completely useless.’ The exterior might even reflect or express this, because this state, unlike the other two, is immediately noticed by others. One might lose interest in life completely, to the extent that they can waste an entire day, if life allows it, or behave mechanically, demotivated and absent in their surroundings. They might give up or lose their job; they might break up with partners or disconnect from family and friends. This is the unbearable situation of the walking dead. Today looks like yesterday, which looks like the day before.

If, at this point in the process, one stays still, perhaps on a bench in the park, and simply observes, one might notice two streams: the exterior stream of time, which passes regardless, and the nothingness of time above it, deeper in the soul. This is where one feels like a dot while clearly perceiving the periphery continuously moving. One can experience: ‘What stands as me in the physical world is just a memory of myself. However, although I am starting to perceive the spiritual, I cannot find myself there either’. A new, living question arrives in the soul, perhaps the first truly new thing in a long time:

‘Where is I?’

The question is not ‘Who am I?’, but rather ‘Where is my I?’, although the self started to detach from you. One feels that while there must be the individuality who experiences all these, the self cannot be found anywhere. It is a strange experience. Luckily, the everyday earthy life covers it well. We often don’t have time to feel strange because we are too busy.

It is important to notice that, to have the entire experience described so far, life arranges itself so that one might say, ‘karma loosened up’. Someone who hasn’t had the experience yet might say: ‘I have kids. I can’t allow myself to be depressed or have any of the experience described above. This is only for lunatic Anthroposophists who wander in life mimicking Initiation.’ A person who speaks like that has no understanding of how Initiation affects real life at every step, or of the direct connection between everyday meditation and life events. If all people on the path were to gather in a room one day, they would all agree that the feeling of loneliness is always present, and that even if one is never truly alone physically, karma arranges itself in such a way that they can experience the sorrows of spiritual experiences hidden in plain sight. In my case, before things started, I was someone who could hardly go unnoticed socially. Three years later, I became completely invisible at work and in my personal life, thus hiding in plain sight. The spiritual world will put a veil over people and situations, and close and open different doors in life, so that one can live properly through the sorrows of Initiation. Let’s remember what Dr Steiner said: this is a necessary process. No one will initiate anyone by force, so if anyone chooses physical life over the esoteric, that’s OK, but one can’t expect to find happiness on the path of Initiation. Suffering, pain and sorrow are no one’s first choices, but we cannot evolve without them. I want to add one more point for further discussion: at the beginning of the path, the person doesn’t become better, but much worse. Not only are they not happier, healthier or healed, but they even become more immoral. This is because spiritual practice disturbs the beings of immorality within us and readjusts the relationship between corporealities. On this path, peace is conquered only in time, with effort and striving. Everyone must go through a process of spiritual maturation, which differs from what people experience in everyday life.

When nothingness extends over the entire soul, life becomes unbearable. One makes a great effort to do the smallest things because one can’t find any motivation to do anything. This is the moment when we need to really push, to really squeeze the will. Even things like waking up in the morning or going out are hard and require a lot of effort. Life, as we knew it, has lost its meaning. Knowing Anthroposophy and knowing that this is a necessary spiritual process that only leads to development can be consoling sometimes, but doesn’t really make things easier. Patience, faith, and training the will in simple things are the only things that work.

There is a danger in being completely caught by fear. This is where faith in Christ, our destiny, and karma are tested. When nothingness takes over your soul, you can still call for Christ and surrender yourself to Him. But I can assure everyone that this step is not easy, no matter how religious one was before. I heard a religious person in whom I recognised this experience saying: ‘I am ashamed to admit, but now I many times doubt that Christ exists’. One should not be ashamed of this experience because it is genuine. Even the most devoted Christians that the entire Christianity venerates today had it at some point. Before becoming Paul, Saul doubted that Christ was the Christ. His experience of recognition is what led humanity to the Second Coming. It is not always a question of​ Christ’s existence, but of your connection with Him. One feels deserted by Christ. The old relationship with Christ in the old self becomes a memory and nothing else. ‘He once came to me, but He doesn’t anymore’. This experience also calls for finding Christ anew. The ‘contract’ with Christ must be renewed; a new covenant must be made. If you are a devoted Anthroposophist, you might need to find Anthroposophy anew as well.

​If we don’t fall at any of these steps, a moment comes when all fears and anxieties disappear, even if the situation has not yet changed. When fear disappears, one gets inspired again. Slowly, new life forces, new ideas come forth. The first changes one experiences are in meditation and dreams. Then, one’s talents come back anew. Life changes completely. When the soul truly wakes up from this set of lethargic experiences, he is surrounded by a completely different reality than the one at the beginning of this experience.

The entire experience can take years. In these years, one learns to undress themselves of all characteristics and habits that are no longer useful because they no longer create learning. They are not evolutive. The old self becomes nothing but an old snake skin. In these years, one can still give many things from one’s old self, and this can be very useful for many people. However, the experience really provokes and transforms one’s spiritual authenticity.

‘It’s a brand new day’.

I recognise you

I AM

Alexandra Vasilache

***

Rudolf Steiner on the experience of the ‘has been’ (29.08.1913, GA147):

“However, everything that happens in the spiritual world stamps itself upon the physical World. Whether you see a stone, a plant, a cloud, or lightning—behind all these stand spiritual beings and spiritual processes. Furthermore, behind the physical events of your destiny stand spiritual beings and spiritual processes. What are they? Inspirations! They are brought about by a conversation in the spiritual world. The cosmic Word is active as the inspirer of human destiny! This is of great significance for your spiritual perception on meeting your other self. You no longer think then of your human personality within its ordinary limits alone, for you extend yourself—and this must include your other self—to cover your entire destiny. You are only then a truly whole human being when—in just the same way that you say, “This finger is part of myself and belongs on the physical plane to my ego”—you also say, “It is part of myself to bang my thumb or take a painful fall, for all these things are inspired by my other self.”

However, we must bear in mind just how we meet this other self on crossing the threshold into the realm of spirit. Again and again we must recollect and make clear to ourselves that in all we have learned, observed and experienced in the physical world and even in the elemental world, there is nothing in them similar to the characteristics of the spiritual world where thoughts are living beings. If we were to enter the spirit realm only with what we have discovered in the physical and elemental worlds, then we would be confronting nothingness. What indeed can we bring into this realm? Let us consider the question carefully. The soul must become accustomed not to perceive or think or feel or will in the spirit realm as it does in the physical or in the elemental worlds. All of that must be left behind. However, it must remember what it perceived, thought, felt, willed in the physical world. Just as we carry into later periods of life the memories of earlier times, so must we carry over into the spirit realm out of the physical plane everything that has been strengthened and invigorated in our soul. We must enter the spiritual world with a soul that recollects the physical world. Then we have to endure a certain experience that can be described in the following way: Imagine a moment in your ordinary earth life when all your sense perception suddenly stops; when you can no longer see nor hear, no longer are able, to think or feel or desire anything new. Every kind of life activity stops. You would know only what you remember. In exactly this situation you find yourself, when you rise into the spiritual world with clairvoyant consciousness. There is nothing there at first that will provide new perceptions. Your understanding comes only through remembering; your existence depends on what has remained to you of your memories. Your soul is aware that it can say of itself, “You now are only what you once were; your existence consists of your past; present and future have no meaning for you; your being is made up of what you have been.” One could perhaps say all this easily enough—but to see oneself as nothing but memory, with no perception of the present moment, to speak of one’s being as a mere ‘has been,’ is a remarkable experience.

When the clairvoyant soul has penetrated so far and endured this experience, then for the first time the human being will begin to have a true understanding for the being whose name has now been mentioned so often, for Lucifer. The human soul, in passing out into the spirit realm, realizes for a moment, “You are only a being of the past.” Lucifer is the one who has become in the cosmic order forevermore such a being of the past, a mere has-been, a remnant of earth epochs that have died away, of what cosmic epochs had brought to his soul. And Lucifer’s life—because the other divine-spiritual beings of normal earth evolution have condemned him to the past—consists in fighting with the aid of his past to gain a present and future. Thus Lucifer stands before the clairvoyant vision, preserving in his life and soul the divine spiritual glories of world creation, yet condemned to realize, “They were once yours.” And now this eternal struggle begins: fighting to add present and future to his past in the cosmic order. To perceive the macrocosmic resemblance of Lucifer to the microcosmic nature of the human soul as it crosses the threshold between the elemental and the spiritual worlds is to perceive the profound tragedy of this figure of Lucifer. And then we begin to divine something of the great cosmic secrets resting deep in the womb of existence, where not only one being struggles with another but even an epoch of time confronts another in battle, as they evolve into beings. A true picture of the world begins to take shape, pouring deep earnestness and dignity into the soul. Here we will sense something that can be called the breath of Eternal Necessities, such as those experienced in the World Midnight—where lightnings flash into existence, illumining even the figure of Lucifer, but they: … die on recognition, and dying shape themselves to scripts of fate, forever actively engraved in souls. The human soul itself, as it grows into life in the spiritual worlds, has a moment where it is a mere “has-been” and confronts nothingness; it is a single point in the universe, experiencing itself only as a point.

But then this point becomes a spectator and begins to observe something else. Our human soul, become microscopic, has at first no content—just as a single dot has none, but now it finds itself belonging as a third entity to two others. The first to make its appearance is what lives in our memory. This is like an external world which we look back on, saying, “All that is my past.” At first, without really knowing it, we ourselves stand there next to this past existence that we have brought across the threshold into the spiritual world, providing it with a life as thought-being. If then we have a feeling of utter calmness in our soul, whatever we have brought there as our past begins a spirit conversation with the living thought-beings around it. We can observe—like an objective spectator, standing nearby, though at the same time a mere dot—the other two beginning their conversation. Whatever we have brought with us in the way of thought content unfolds a spirit conversation in cosmic language with a spiritual, living thought-being of that realm; there we listen to what our own past discusses with the living spiritual being. At first we are like nothing at all, but then, even as a nothing, we are born through listening to our own past converse with the spiritual beings of the spirit realm. Listening begins to fill us with new inward contents. We learn now to recognize ourselves when we are like a single point and feel ourselves as such, listening to the conversation of our own past with a living spiritual being. And the more we take in of this spirit conversation between our own past and the future, the more we actually become we ourselves become a spirit being. In this process in the spiritual world we find ourselves within a triad. One member of the triad is our own past being, which we have carried up into the spiritual world; we have won it for ourselves in so far as it was able beforehand to reveal its spirituality in the sense world, and then across the threshold to perceive itself as our past life. The second member of the triad is the whole spiritual environment; the third member is our self. This is the threefoldness of the spiritual world: Within the triad, through the antithesis of past life and living spiritual being, the third, the middle part, the mere point-like part, develops itself and becomes—through listening to the spirit conversation of the other two—more and more filled out: a being that is developing itself within the spiritual world. In that world we thus “become” ourselves in clairvoyant consciousness.”

Art: Liane Collot d’Herbois, Maria Sophia