posted August 15, 2012 03:28 AM            

Astral beings can also be “tasted” or “smelled.” — Only what constitutes in the actual sense the physical element of tone and sound is almost wholly lacking in the real imaginative world. In this connection absolute stillness prevails there. But instead, for the progressing spiritual observer, there is offered something quite different, comparable to tone and sound, to music and speech, in the sense world.

This higher element steps in when every tone and sound from the outer physical world is wholly hushed; indeed, when even the faintest inner soul echo from this sphere of the outer world is silenced. Then there occurs for the observer what may be called an understanding of the significance of the imaginative experiences.

If we were to compare what is now experienced with something in the physical world we could only come near to explaining the matter by referring to something that does not exist at all in that world. Let it be supposed possible to perceive the thoughts and feelings of a human being without hearing his words with the physical ear; such a perception might be comparable to a direct comprehension of the imaginative element referred to as “hearing” in the spiritual sense. What “speaks” are the color and light impressions. In lightings-up and dimmings-down, in the color metamorphosis of images are revealed harmonies and discords that unveil the feelings, representations, and thought life of soul and spirit beings. Just as tone becomes speech in physical man when thought is imprinted in it, so do harmonies and discords of the spirit world grow into manifestations that are definite thought entities.

To this end, darkness must fall upon that world if thought is to be revealed in its immediacy. The experience here is: The bright color-tones — red, yellow, and orange — are seen to fade away, and it is perceived how the higher world darkens through green to blue and violet; at the same time a waxing of inner will energy is experienced.

Full freedom with regard to space and time is experienced; there is a feeling of being in motion. Certain linear forms and shapes are experienced. These are not experienced as though seen to be drawn before one in any spatial expanse, but rather as though in continuous movement every single curve, every form, was followed by the ego. In fact, the ego is at once felt as the draughtsman and the drawing material.

Every linear direction, every shift in position, is at one and the same time an experience of this ego. The ego stirred to motion is recognised to be bound up with the world's creative forces.

The laws of the world are no longer something that the ego perceives outwardly, but a truly miraculous fabric that it is helping to weave. — Occult science designs all kinds of symbolic drawings and pictures. When these really correspond to fact and are not mere invented figures, they are based on the observer's experiences in higher worlds, which are to be viewed as described above." -Rudolf Steiner, The Stages of Higher Knowledge, Chapter Four: Inspiration and Intuition