An unhealthy life of thought and feeling will not fail to obstruct the path to higher knowledge. Clear, calm thinking, with stability of feeling and emotion, form here the basis of all work. Nothing should be further removed from the student than an inclination toward a fantastical, excitable life, toward nervousness, exaggeration, and fanaticism.

Rudolf Steiner, How to Know Higher Worlds [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher]

Hermetic quote Steiner Higher Worlds clear calm thinking stability feeling emotion basis of all work

Consider also:

  1. Still hankering after mass, Adela said, “It sounds to me more like undifferentiated sex force,” and ignored Hugh’s murmur, “There isn’t much fun in that.”
  2. “Deeply hidden characteristics in other souls can be perceived by this organ, but their truth depends on the attainment of immunity from the above-mentioned illusions. For this purpose it is necessary that the student should control and dominate everything that seeks to influence him from outside. He should reach the point of really receiving no impressions beyond those he wishes to receive. This can only be achieved by the development of a powerful inner life; by an effort of the will he only allows such things to impress him to which his attention is directed, and he actually evades all impressions to which he does not voluntarily respond. If he sees something it is because he wills to see it, and if he does not voluntarily take notice of something it is actually non-existent for him.”
  3. “All of the theological teachings regarding the Life after Death – heavens and hells – contain some truth, but none contain all the truth.”
  4. “Jesse had nothing to reveal, no secrets to tell. He would never break, as other people break, and cry out by their openness the intimacy of love.”
  5. “The initiate chooses to set foot on a new path; but the path itself was already there in some form – what is new is the fact that this particular initiate is now walking on it. Initiation is the beginning of something new, and it is the conservation and renewal of something already established.”