[Occulte Wissenschaft und Kultur]
Translation from German by Robert Hutwohl[1]
“Half knowledge is a dangerous thing.”
There are many people for whom the very term “occult science” causes a secret shudder. Visions of witches and demons, ghosts, vampires and the like arise, and the “educated” imagine that they are only talking about things which the Enlightenment of our century has already relegated to the junk room of medieval superstition. But on closer inspection the matter appears less dangerous; for the word “occult” means as much as “hidden,” and it is the business of science, which deals with still hidden or unrecognized laws of nature, to investigate and learn about these laws and to shed light on facts whose causes are still obscure and are unfounded. All progress in culture rests on progress in understanding the laws of nature. If science were to confine itself to propagating only what is superficial and what is already well known among scholars, all deepening and higher development would come to an end.
There was a time when the most mundane phenomena of nature, such as thunder and lightning, for example, still belonged to the realm of the occult. A hundred years ago almost nothing was known about the nature of electricity, and even today very little is known about it; no educated person believed that meteors existed, and even the Academy of Sciences in Paris decreed that no stones could fall from the sky because there were no stones. Much of what everyone knows these days, such as, for example, the rotation of the earth, was then unknown even to the luminaries of science and “occult.” We laugh today at the foolish views of the scholars of yesteryear, and our successors will have ample opportunity to scoff at our foolishness, though they will not fail to admire the advances we have already made. The famous philosopher and physician Theophrastus Paracelsus said some four hundred years ago that what is rejected as superstition in one century may be the culmination of all knowledge in a century to come, and that, what is today the pride of science, perhaps tomorrow will be recognized as superstition.
Even today, despite all the advances in culture, the world is full of the most appalling scientific superstitions, because our academic science does not yet adequately explain the root cause of all life and existence, does not yet sufficiently know the essence of that from which arise all natural phenomena and all forces acting in nature and in man. Even today, legislation often goes against common sense, and the most unjust judgments are made because the free determination of the human will is still an unexplained riddle and one does not know the secret motives of his thinking and willing, the influences which affect and guide him. Religion, which should serve to guide man from the outside to the inside, often only serves to prevent him, by sticking rigidly to dead forms and letters, to penetrate one’s own inner self and to find the spirit of true religion in the religious systems, to feel and recognize it. And how desolate it looks in the field of medicine when the colorful curtain is pulled back which veils the truth! We see, for example, how thousands of physicians are searching for a remedy for tuberculosis, while the same physicians, ignorant of the causes of this disease, are busy inoculating thousands of the germs of it. The insane asylums and hospitals are overflowing with patients whose ailments are the result of inherited or acquired syphilitic diseases; but how seldom is there a scholar who recognizes and teaches the sacredness of sexual relations, and where are the people who are amenable to, or would welcome, such teaching? The fact that even today people who appear to be dead are often assumed to be dead and buried alive is a proven fact, despite denials by those involved (who have their own personal reasons for doing so) and despite the feeling that they are reluctant to believe it. Death is the separation of the soul from the body, and how could one tell if that separation had taken place if one knew nothing of the “soul”?
But it is not our intention to hold the dominant culture and fashion of today up to date with their register of sins, but we offer these few examples only to show that a deeper penetration into the, as yet unsolved mysteries of nature, is an urgent necessity and that the key to these mysteries lies in “occult science,” which is called “occult” because it is concerned with the study of things and spiritual powers, knowledge of which requires something more than mere external sensuous perception or inference from superficial, deceptive appearances.
The sea of human ignorance is still immense, and mountainous are the waves of follies which it throws, and which, spreading far and wide, bring ruin. The limited mind without the light of intuition easily goes astray. Conclusions based only on a perception of direct causes and not on a recognition of the hidden indirect root causes are often erroneous, and the adage “the more learned the more perverse” is not entirely without justification; for where the brain is overfed with learned stuff, the intuitive knowledge of truth is apt to be clouded. Needless to say, the misunderstanding of religious truths and the literal and perverse interpretation of Scriptures have already wreaked havoc in the world, and how many millions of lives have been lost as a result. Even in our time there is no lack of scholarly short-sightedness. The following report may serve as an example:[2]
“When in the 1970s phylloxera, brought from America, began to devastate the vineyards of France, the Austrian government, concerned about the fate of the flourishing domestic viticulture, sent experts to the areas affected by this disease to study the new disease. From there they brought vines with them so that they could leisurely observe the stages of development of the dangerous vermin at home. In the experimental garden of the k. k. Klosterneuburg school of viticulture near Vienna, a piece of the garden was enclosed by high walls and deep ditches, and phylloxera was cultivated there. Precautions were taken so that the workers did not drag the progeny along with their boots and clothes. Two years later, the area surrounding the experimental garden was infested with phylloxera, and the contagion spread from there. Many millions of Gulden of national wealth were destroyed and hundreds of thousands of winegrowers were set up. The gentlemen scholars had overlooked that among the many transformation stages of phylloxera, one also has wings, with the help of which it can infest the environment over walls and ditches.”
We certainly have no objection to everyone learning about and making use of the achievements of modern science; but what culture needs for its progress is not so much adherence to traditional or new ideas as to their own thinking and insight, which cannot be learned from books, but is the result of a higher stage of human development. A mere “scholar” is a person who only knows what others have taught him, and there are still many more. He becomes wise only through his own insight, and occult science is based on wisdom, on his own inner knowledge of the truth. Intuition is the light of this inner, spiritual knowledge, illuminating the mind when it is ready to receive it, and without this illumination mind alone has not created a genius, great inventor, statesman, hero, or poet.
A well-known lawyer writes from Vienna: “It is not the mind which guides us in the decisive moments of our existence. The mind is sluggish and lame, it is a pedant that has been robbed of all power of flight by the guilt drill, a coarse, coarse mechanism. A lawyer who works only with his mind is a bad lawyer. The specific organ of the lawyer is instinct, that incomprehensible ability that reveals to us the unknown, explains the unspoken, allows us to guess the effects whose causes we do not know, and solves confusion before which reason despairs. What we lawyers do not recognize with instinct remains forever closed to reason, and at best the lagging reason can do the work of control.”
One’s own inward knowledge of truth is the main thing, the comparative mind being the touchstone to see whether the new knowledge is perfect and in agreement with what we already know for certain. An intuitive feeling that does not stand up to this test is of little value. It can be a mere play of the imagination or it can refer to things which the mind cannot comprehend.
Where does the inner enlightenment and its light, the intuition, come from? — It belongs to the inner, spiritual human being and is the result of the experiences he had in earlier incarnations. From these arises conscience; for it refers to what man knows with certainty because he has experienced it himself, while mere knowledge without personal experience has no basis for certainty. The inner spiritual man knows much more than what is known to the personal, material man. In fact, the understanding of all religious teachings is only based on the fact that what the individual person already knows inwardly, comes to consciousness of his personality through the teaching. The germs of knowledge grow in the mind of man, like the germs of plants in the soil. Where there is no seed there is no fruit. To see a truth on the outside, it must be carried inwardly in the heart, where it comes alive. That is why, as is well known, the best books are those that everyone believes they could have written themselves because they are “written from the heart.”
At its innermost is the core; the outer shell consists of the material with its achievements, sense perceptions and the mind. Man can be compared to a light enclosed in a glass sphere. The purer the glass, the more the light penetrates through the sphere. The individual spiritual man is the light; the outer, personal appearance, made up of many thought-forms, with their self-delusion and self-conceit, is the sphere. The freer the personality is from error and prejudice, the better the spiritual light can enlighten it. The external man is in direct connection with the phenomena of external nature; he perceives it through his senses and judges it with his mind; the spirit world is closed off to him. The spiritual person is in contact with the inner spiritual world and receives his impressions from it. If the outer man has become one with the inner man, then he will also have knowledge of it. The kingdom of the inner, spiritual man is the kingdom of wisdom; the realm of the outward man is that of speculation; the kingdom of the knowledge of truth is the kingdom of God in man, the mysteries of which are clear only to those who have come to this knowledge. This is referred to in the passage in the Bible where it is said that Jesus said to his disciples: “It is granted to you to know the mysteries of heaven, but it is not granted to them,” and elsewhere it says: “The Natural man hears nothing of the spirit of God, it is folly to him.” From the recognition of this spirit of truth “occult” knowledge arises, and therefore H. P. Blavatsky also taught that one first “becomes a Theosophist, that is, one must awaken to true self-awareness before one can become an “Occultist.” The life of most who call themselves “Theosophists” and “Occultists” is nothing but a dream. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s,” teaches the Bible. Healthy material common sense is sufficient for the study of the phenomena in nature and its forces; the true knowledge of divine powers requires the possession of them, and these are only attained by approaching the divine. Mere knowledge does not make man happy and does not raise him above animal nature. The material mind is born of the material and gravitates towards it; for everything tends towards its origin and in the end returns to it. One can be a great scholar, an astute observer, and a logician without any trace of humanity or an awareness of true human dignity. The intellect alone with its knowledge without the higher knowledge is better suited to bring people down, to increase their egoism and greed. Great scoundrels often have a great deal of shrewdness, cleverness, and common sense. Through mindless knowledge the realm of the intellectual expands, but it does not bring us nearer to the divine; an increase in knowledge, however useful, does not always serve to improve morale; yes it seems that many new inventions are only there to make it easier for people to cheat each other. Foodstuffs are adulterated and many goods are becoming worse from year to year; the whole world is chasing after appearances. Science advances in leaps and bounds, and morality lags behind.
But what is worse than the misuse of scientific knowledge is the misuse made of the ignorance of spiritual things today, which inevitably leads us into a period of “black magic” and perdition. The great movement of Enlightenment, which permeates the world today, has not only brought light into many areas of darkness, but also great dangers. The addiction to the miraculous and the supernatural attracts thousands of people and leads them to play a wicked game with sacred things. The introduction of vivisection of humans to satisfy scientific curiosity may only be a matter of time, but the even worse psychological experiments, by which man is deprived of reason and free will, are beginning to become more fashionable. New sects are formed, which take up part of the Theosophical teachings and build systems upon them, laying a mountain of error on a small basis of truth; they believe they can harness divine powers for their egoistic ends, and the more their systems fuel self-delusion, the more they attract the crowd. Self-deceived swindlers and unscrupulous people posing as adepts and spiritual leaders reap a bounty by promising people to teach them the mysteries of occultism for real money. Also every warning is in vain; for the craving for wonders is like a plague which kills almost everyone it touches; most would like to possess magical powers, to use them for their personal gain, and neither the teachers nor their disciples know the devilish influences which he draws who touches the holy with unclean hands and abases the sublime. “Half a knowledge is a dangerous bing.” Children are not given dynamite or fire to play with, and the mysteries of magic were rightly formerly communicated only to the initiated who had stood the test of unselfishness; for the occult powers hidden in man are intended only for the inner man who has come to the consciousness of higher existence and is raised above personal self-delusion. The first step on the way to Adeptship is inward purification; few want to take this step. You can’t take the second step without the first. Anyone who tries this will surely fall; for one cannot serve the divine and the devil at the same time.
What our culture needs is neither overflowing with mindless scholarly stuff and fantasies, neither dead materialism, nor empty idealism, nor fanaticism, but refinement and spiritualization and finally the realization of the highest ideal of humanity, which every human being secretly carries within himself, although not everyone is aware of it. This is the great occult secret which no one can learn from books; because everyone can only reach its revelation through their own spiritual development.
No one can attain true self-knowledge of anything which is not himself, or that which does not belong to his own being. According to the teachings of the sages, the original human being was an ethereal, paradisiacal being without knowledge of his own. He had to descend into the material realm and take on a material body in order to learn the laws of the material, experience their effects on himself, and master their powers. Through these experiences and his intellectual development, man becomes master of the material world. But now the time has come for the spiritual development of mankind. Above the material is the spiritual world, and in order to get to know the laws of the same and the spiritual powers, forms of consciousness and intelligences inherent in it, to become master of the spiritual world and to dominate it, the material human being needs spiritualization, that is, a spiritual body with spiritual organs, spiritual senses and powers. But this can only be achieved through spiritual rebirth, which is spoken of in all religious systems. Without these there is no true occult science and magic. Through this inner rebirth man attains a higher level of existence; he thereby becomes a being with higher powers, closer to his divine ideal; but whoever, without having attained the necessary maturity, associates himself with the inhabitants of the dark regions or surrenders to them, he becomes possessed by them and they mock him.
Notes:
[1] Occult Knowledge and Culture [Occulte Wissenschaft und Kultur. Franz Hartmann, M.D. Neue Lotusblüten 1, no. 1-2 (January-February 1908), 19-36.] {This was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than fixing minor typos. Translation from the German by Robert Hütwohl, ©2025}
[2] “Vegetables. Forward.”