ON WHY THE SCRIPTURES DO NOT SPEAK PLAINLY BUT ARE CLOAKED IN MYSTERY.
The reason for the mystery cloak seems to me to be the following: what we discover, what we independently retrieve from mystery (from Sōd), is inborn in us and shall therefore accompany us forever in our souls. But most of what we are dogmatically taught, we merely retain in our minds and if it is not truly apprehended (that is, spiritually apprehended in its essence), it shall be necessarily obliterated together with our brains and body. Hence, the latter kind of learning—as useful for purely utilitarian purposes as it may be—is, by itself, of no use for the spiritual evolution of the soul.
“. . . The way in which spiritual facts are presented abstractly at the present time may be seen in such a diagram as I have made, but this in itself is unfruitful. I had to put it before you because we also need such a diagram, but fundamentally it is of no use to one who wishes to progress upon the truly spiritual path. If you describe the whole world, up to the highest spiritual facts, by means of such diagrams, this only has meaning for your present incarnation. In the next you must learn another diagram. This can only be thought by using the brain; it is only adapted for the brain. But as the brain disintegrates at death, the whole schematic presentation then falls to pieces. On the other hand, if you comprehend—at first in pictures of fantasy—that which really happens, what we have described as the consecutive pictures of the seals seen by spiritual vision, that is something which is not bound up with your physical brain, and which you retain because it does not originate from physical thinking, but from facts seen clairvoyantly. Therefore one must take care not to mistake for spiritual wisdom that which is striven for after the pattern of physical comprehension, which would also schematize the higher worlds. This is a description by means of the ordinary physical intellect. Of course, the physical intellect must play a part; on this account it is even useful to present such a diagram, and we may now carry it a step further.”—Rudolf Steiner, The Apocalypse of St. John, Lecture 10.
ON WHY THE SCRIPTURES DO NOT SPEAK PLAINLY BUT ARE CLOAKED IN MYSTERY.
The reason for the mystery cloak seems to me to be the following: what we discover, what we independently retrieve from mystery (from Sōd), is inborn in us and shall therefore accompany us forever in our souls. But most of what we are dogmatically taught, we merely retain in our minds and if it is not truly apprehended (that is, spiritually apprehended in its essence), it shall be necessarily obliterated together with our brains and body. Hence, the latter kind of learning—as useful for purely utilitarian purposes as it may be—is, by itself, of no use for the spiritual evolution of the soul.
“. . . The way in which spiritual facts are presented abstractly at the present time may be seen in such a diagram as I have made, but this in itself is unfruitful. I had to put it before you because we also need such a diagram, but fundamentally it is of no use to one who wishes to progress upon the truly spiritual path. If you describe the whole world, up to the highest spiritual facts, by means of such diagrams, this only has meaning for your present incarnation. In the next you must learn another diagram. This can only be thought by using the brain; it is only adapted for the brain. But as the brain disintegrates at death, the whole schematic presentation then falls to pieces. On the other hand, if you comprehend—at first in pictures of fantasy—that which really happens, what we have described as the consecutive pictures of the seals seen by spiritual vision, that is something which is not bound up with your physical brain, and which you retain because it does not originate from physical thinking, but from facts seen clairvoyantly. Therefore one must take care not to mistake for spiritual wisdom that which is striven for after the pattern of physical comprehension, which would also schematize the higher worlds. This is a description by means of the ordinary physical intellect. Of course, the physical intellect must play a part; on this account it is even useful to present such a diagram, and we may now carry it a step further.”—Rudolf Steiner, The Apocalypse of St. John, Lecture 10.