2 18 fl The Secret Lije fe Nature
to solve the dichotomy between modern science and the ancient wis-
dom, or gnosis, one must clearly become clairvoyant, whether through
exercise in meditation or through a sudden leap.
And there's the rub: the void. To become a true initiate one must
learn to deal with the void. Of this "most terrible trial before initia-
tion,'' the initiate Ouspensky, Russian devotee of Gurdjieff, is explicit:
"Nothing exists.A little miserable soul feels itself suspended in an infi-
nite void. Then even this void disappears! There is only infinity."
Already in his Ertium Organum Ouspensky noted that nitrous oxide
stimulates the mystical consciousness in an extraordinary way. "Depth
beyond depth of truth seems revealed to the inhaler." And he quotes
one inhaler: "No words may express the surpassing certainty that one
is realizing the primordial Adamic surprise of life."
Steiner, writing before Ouspensky, premises his solution to the void
by remarking that one does not find much recorded in philosophical
literature about people either experiencing this terror facing an infi-
nite abyss or overcoming the fear. He then gives his remedy: one must- be able to face the terror, the fear of the fathomless void, the endless
emptiness: one must be capable of experiencing an environment com-
pletely saturated with fear and terror yet at the same time be able to
overcome these feelings through the inner firmness and certainly of
one's own being.
Steiner posits two helpful ways: either through an understanding of
the Gospels or by penetrating the spiritual worlds "with true, authen-
tic anthroposophy," the latter, in his lexicon, leading to the former.
A person, says Steiner, who truly understands the Gospels-not in
the way modern theologians speak about them but rather through ab-
sorbing the very deepest of what can be experienced inwardly of the
Gospels-"takes something with him or her into the abyss that ex-
pands as if from a single point and completely fills the void with a feel-
ing of courage.... If when we must face the terrifying void we take
either the Gospels or anthroposophy with us we cannot get lost or
plunge into the infinite abyss."
To enter higher worlds, Steiner's advice is simple: "Only through an
intensified sense of self-surrender. - can a human being work towards the