Guardian of the Threshold

The Dweller on the Threshold. Painting by Reginald W. Machell (ca. 1895)

Climbing often requires overcoming a fear threshold before taking the next step

The guardian of the threshold is a technical esoteric term and is related to the spiritual development of the individual and of humanity as a whole. The guardian of the threshold guards the threshold to the spiritual world.

Human development can be progressive, oriented towards spiritual values or ideals, or it can be regressive, directed by desires, passions and dependencies. Human beings repeatedly find themselves caught between these two forces. As long as they do not recognise and overcome the latter, they follow their lower self and cannot cross the boundary into the spiritual world. They must develop insight and discernment in order to cross the boundary.

The guardian of the threshold, a rather little-known concept, also encompasses events that every human being is familiar with in one form or another, whether it be overcoming the fear of taking the next step when climbing a difficult section of a mountain, or being confronted with something inevitable due to an external event such as a separation, a conflict, an illness or a death.

Many such threshold experiences are also conveyed in sacred writings, legends and myths.

Meaning and concept

In various spiritual movements such as Theosophy, the Rosicrucians, Archeosophy, Anthroposophy, but also in the Bhagavad Gita, it is assumed that there is not just one life, but that humans go through several lives or incarnations. The guardian of the threshold is therefore associated with the concept of karma (Sanskrit कर्म, IAST karma, English "action, activity, work"). Karma, in the sense of a universal law, encompasses the good and bad deeds and thoughts of a past life, which are stored in the human being and initially determine their life to a certain extent.

The guardian of the threshold is unredeemed karma. The realisation that humans must come to is that they themselves are the cause of their own destiny. On the one hand, the guardian of the threshold is a ghostly, terrifying, but also wise figure. On the other hand, it protects humans from gaining insight into the higher worlds prematurely and unprepared, as this can lead to their downfall.

The threshold as a symbol

In sacred buildings such as churches, a threshold or door symbolically and architecturally separates the profane or everyday space from the sacred or transcendent sacred space. By crossing the threshold, people are supposed to visualise the transition into a sacred world.

Culture and art

The novel Zanoni

The term "guardian of the threshold" also became known through the novel Zanoni by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803–1873), which is mentioned in theosophy and anthroposophy:

"Know, at least, that all of us – the highest and the wisest – who have, in sober truth, passed beyond the threshold, have had, as our first fearful task, to master and subdue its grisly and appalling guardian."

In Zanoni, the guardian appears as a sensually visible figure. According to Rudolf Steiner, the guardian of the threshold can be made visible through low-level magic using incense. He points out the danger of going astray if one encounters one's unredeemed karma in this form without sufficient preparation:

"However, if we have sufficiently prepared ourselves for higher perception, we no longer need such sense-perceptible props. On the other hand, if we confront our unredeemed karma without adequate preparation, we risk going badly astray."

The mystery play "The Guardian of the Threshold"

Rudolf Steiner's four mystery plays artistically explore the spiritual development of individual human beings. Various effects of fate are explicitly linked to past lives and the concepts of karma and reincarnation.

The guardian of the threshold, who is associated with the idea of karma, is portrayed in the third mystery drama of the same name. This mystery drama is entitled The Guardian of the Threshold.

The Guardian speaks in the 7th scene:

 "Thou must first part with many of those powers
Which thou hast won when in thine earthly frame.
Out of them all thou canst alone retain
That which by efforts, pure and spiritual,
Thou didst achieve, and which thou hast kept pure."
("Du mußt dich trennen erst von vielen Kräften,
Die du im Erdenleibe dir erworben.
Behalten kannst du doch von ihnen nur,
Was sich in geistig reinem Streben dir
Erschlossen und auch rein verblieben ist.")

These statements make it clear that insights into the soul-spiritual worlds depend on overcoming impure forces.

Astrology – Saturn as guardian of the threshold

The planet Saturn as guardian of the threshold in astrology

In astrology, the planet Saturn is associated with the guardian of the threshold. As Liz Greene describes it "Saturn symbolizes a psychic process as well as a quality or kind of experience." He represents pain, restriction and discipline and he symbolizes "the psychic process, natural to all human beings, by which an individual may utilise the experiences of pain, restriction, and discipline as a means for greater consciousness and fulfilment." She furthermore mentions that freedom through self-understanding may be achieved through him (Remark: Saturn/Guardian) alone.

Fritz Riemann (1902–1979), psychoanalyst and astrologer, understands Saturn in the sense that it gives people reason to deal with necessities, by accepting the inevitable, especially death, and the fears associated with it, and thereby to gain maturity. According to him, the real meaning of Saturn lies in this:

"[...] it leads us to barriers of fear, which we can overcome precisely by accepting our fears; then the guardian of the threshold becomes our surest guide, turning necessity into a turning point."

Yoga Vidya's perspective

The guardian of the threshold in Yoga Vidya is also interpreted with reference to Saturn. Saturn is considered the last planet in our solar system. It often appears in times of severe trials and confronts us with negative karma that still needs to be worked through.

In honour of/to honour Saturn, Shani (Sanskrit शनि, IAST śani, English "Saturn"), the recitation of mantras is customary/common. Psychologically speaking, invoking the blessings of the Saturn deity (Shani Deva) through the hymn Shani Stotra is said to help "discipline the mind, practise renunciation and see the lessons of the divine even in suffering. The Shani Stotra also helps to transform the lower nature."

Bhagavad Gita - the battlefield

Arjuna and his charioteer Krishna (both on the left) face the enemy army

Bhagavad Gita (Sanskrit भगवद्गीता, IAST bhagavad gītā) translates as "Song of God". It is considered one of the most important sacred texts of the East. At the beginning of the story, two closely related clans, the Pandavas and the Kauravas, face each other on the battlefield of Kurukshetra (Sanskrit कुरुक्षेत्र, IAST kurukṣetra). Krishna offers to be the charioteer of the hero Arjuna and is given the task of driving between the two opposing camps. When Arjuna discovers his own relatives in the enemy camp, he sees no good in having to fight and kill them. He refuses to fight and, overcome with grief, throws away his weapons. Krishna, who represents the divine self, now begins to enlighten Arjuna about the meaning of life and death.

Krishna instructs Arjuna that he must fight from the standpoint of a higher view than the one he has been taught:

"But if thou dost not this battle for the right, then hast thou abandoned thy duty and virtue and thy glory, and sin shall be thy portion."

This conflict that arises for Arjuna, between conventional ideas about virtues and truly divine virtues, is called by Heinz Grill "one of the most beautiful episodes about the struggle between an astral guardian of the threshold and an ego."

Theosophy

Archangel Michael subduing the devil
Painting by Raffael (1483–1520)

According to theosophical belief, there is also a guardian of the threshold. This guardian is known to humans in many different forms. The following examples are described

• Cerberus, the hellhound who guards Hades, the entrance to the underworld,

• the Archangel Michael, who kills the dragon with his spiritual willpower,

• the snake that tempts Eve.

All these legends are interpreted as parables that represent a real reality, the knowledge of which is of utmost importance to the seeker of truth. The guardian of the threshold is "...nothing else but our own lower semi-animal, animal or perhaps brutish self, that combination of material and semi-material principles which form the lower ego, which the great majority of men blindly and lovingly hug and caress, because they love themselves. … but when …his self-consciousness begins to become centred in his higher self, the Dweller of the Threshold becomes objective to him and he may be terrified at its (his own) ugliness and deformity."

Rosicrucians

In Rosicrucian philosophy and their path of training, the encounter with the guardian of the threshold is a requirement that must be overcome before entering higher worlds. A very precise differentiation is made between other forces and the real guardian of the threshold, who is a figure created from one's own past bad deeds and thoughts, which must be transformed by the individual.

Max Heindel (1865–1919), founder of the Rosicrucian Fellowship, explains:

"The real "Dweller on the Threshold" is the composite elemental entity created on the invisible planes by all our untransmuted evil thoughts and acts during all the past period of our evolution. This "dweller" stands guard at the entrance to the invisible worlds and challenges our right to enter therein. This entity must be redeemed or transmuted eventually. We must generate poise and will power sufficient to face and command it before we can consciously enter the super-physical worlds."

Archeosophy

According to the teachings of Archeosophy, ascension to the higher worlds is accompanied by an encounter with the guardian of the threshold (Italian: "Guardiano della soglia"). This encounter with the guardian is described as the most threatening and important experience for those who, in accordance with the esoteric teachings of Greek mythology, strive to perform "initiation tasks" known as the Labours of Hercules. The Labours of Hercules are understood to be twelve extremely difficult tasks that were imposed as penance.

According to the founder of archeosophy, Tommaso Palamidessi (1915–1983), there is not only a small and a large guardian of the threshold: "In fact, although there are these two fundamental guardians, there are as many guardians as there are cosmic planes, that is, as many transitions from one world to another."

Gospels

Illustration of the temptation of Christ - Matthew Chapter 4, Luke Chapter 4-6

The guardian of the threshold is not explicitly named in the Gospels. From a spiritual point of view, the image of Jesus on the mountain and his temptation by the devil, as described in the Synoptic Gospels, is equated with the encounter with the guardian of the threshold:

…the promise of all external realities, the desire to cling to these outer realities, the temptation to remain attached to matter: in short, the temptation to remain with the guardian of the threshold and not to pass beyond him appears to us in the great Imaginative picture of Christ Jesus standing on the mountain, with the Tempter beside Him…[...]

Although not explicitly mentioned by Rudolf Steiner, this is likely to refer to verses 8–11 in chapter 4 of the Gospel of Matthew:

"Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me." 10 Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’[e]” 11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him."

The temptation by the adversary is also mentioned in the Gospel according to Mark (Mark 1:12–15) and in the Gospel according to Luke (Luke 4:5–8).

Spiritual view of Rudolf Steiner and Heinz Grill

"In the higher region of the astral plane, the [image of the] sphinx needs to be cast into the abyss before you are able to move ahead."

In spiritual research, a distinction is made between two guardians of the threshold – the "Little Guardian of the Threshold" and the "Great Guardian of the Threshold". Human beings encounter these two figures, which cannot be perceived with the physical senses, within their development on a spiritual path of training.

A spiritual path of training involves working on the so-called soul forces: thinking, feeling, and will. These three soul forces are normally intertwined or exist in a very specific relationship. Through targeted exercises, these forces are to be structured and isolated, so that pure thinking develops from thought, sensation rests in pure feeling, and will responds in pure action.

Heinz Grill describes this process with an image:

"Just as a painter can recognise both red and blue in a shade of violet, so the practitioner soon recognises the various mixed shades in his consciousness and learns to separate thinking from feeling and feeling in turn from will."

The lesser guardian of the threshold

At a certain point in the structuring or separation of the three soul forces, an encounter with the lesser guardian of the threshold takes place. According to Rudolf Steiner, this occurs "when the connecting threads between willing, thinking and feeling within the finer (…) bodies begin to loosen."

The figure of the lesser guardian is not an external person or entity, but rather is inherent in every human being, only initially hidden within each individual, submerged in the body. With progressive development, it detaches itself more from the body and takes on a body-free, metaphysically visible form. This is called the awakening or the encounter with the guardian of the threshold.

The threshold, which the guardian watches over, is the one between the visible world and the invisible or supernatural world. According to Heinz Grill, the lesser guardian forms the "gateway to the realm of souls, to the realm of the dead or to the realm of the astral heavens." However, humans cannot simply pass through this threshold.

They need a certain spiritual maturity and moral character for these gates to be opened to them. The threshold is not arbitrary, but a "natural safety precaution", since access to the spiritual worlds without proper preparation leads to hopeless fear and "the consequence would be a fall into the abysmal depths of evil."

The lesser guardian is described as an astral reality consisting of soul substances and being-like, elemental forces. These include a wide variety of feelings, sympathies and antipathies of the mind, tendencies of the senses, drives and subconscious thought patterns. This astral substance acts like a strategic field and determines the individual nature of a destiny. The lesser guardian is also synonymous with karma: "The guardian, however, is not the true nature of the human being, but rather their dual nature or their karmic figure, that form which must be overcome and transformed in life."

This karmic figure is characterised as a ghostly form that reveals itself to the spiritual disciple. This terrifying figure has been formed from the good and bad deeds of past lives and, according to Rudolf Steiner, expresses itself as follows:

"I myself, if I am not to fall into corruption, must become a perfect and glorious being. For, were I to fall, I would drag you down with me into a dark, corrupted world."

The great guardian of the threshold

After encountering the "Lesser Guardian of the Threshold," from a spiritual perspective, one encounters the "Great Guardian of the Threshold," who is described as having completely different characteristics. In contrast to the ghostly appearance of the lesser guardian, the great guardian appears as a sublime figure of light. It generally marks the transition from the soul world after death to the spiritual world.

According to Rudolf Steiner, through the encounter with the second guardian of the threshold, the soul „freed in this way from all sensory bonds" acquires the "right of citizenship in the supersensible world," from where the soul may now work.

Heinz Grill interprets the great guardian as "the living spirit of God, as Christ himself, as the creative ego, as the highest guardian figure who watches over preservation and dissolution, over progress and regression, over a path upwards and a path downwards."

The relationship between the lesser and the great guardians of the threshold

From a spiritual perspective, these two guardians – the lower self of the human being and their divine, emerging self – face each other in a mutual exchange and struggle.

The encounter with the guardian is experienced by the individual as very challenging, as described in the Bhagavad Gita:

"The awakening of the threshold always leads people to despondency and despair, which they must overcome through wisdom and purposeful action."

But if the spirit-striving person approaches the threshold very well prepared, "our experiences at the threshold are then accompanied by a premonition of that bliss which will be the keynote of our newly awakened life."

The significance of the guardian of the threshold for humanity

On the one hand, an encounter with the guardian of the threshold takes place when the individual consciously strives for spiritual development and trains their soul forces in the sense of a structuring into thinking, feeling and willing. On the other hand, spiritual research relating to the current, so-called fifth post-Atlantean cultural epoch reports that the whole of humanity in its development must go through a certain process of separation of the soul forces – "that a trinity must arise from the chaotic unity," as Rudolf Steiner puts it — and must develop an understanding of this.

"In inner experience, though not in outer consciousness, humanity is passing through the region that can also be called a region of the guardian of the threshold."

Also according to current spiritual research, the vast majority of people are on the threshold:

In any case, individual human beings today are moving ever closer to a threshold to the spiritual world. This threshold, however, does not let them pass as easily as one might think.

According to Heinz Grill, this threshold that humanity is approaching is reflected in the fact that today, from a spiritual perspective, people want to enter into creative activity, research wisdom themselves and to implement ideals, that means they want to cross the threshold.

However, crossing the line is opposed by the guardian, as humans must first dissolve their attachments and karmic entanglements.

Furthermore, they must develop the ability to distinguish between what are truly lasting spiritual values and what, in contrast, are still immature ideas, such as a false concept of God or love, or attachments.

By distinguishing between attachment and karma on the one hand, and lasting values or ideals on the other, so between the forces of the lesser guardian and the greater guardian, people can align themselves towards union with the greater guardian.

This formulation by Heinz Grill says that this is the highest work: It [Remark:The threshold] demands the utmost all of the forces of thinking, feeling and willing, and therefore, for the coming year, a daily, persevering and indispensable effort for truth, differentiation and goal realisation is required. A day without this effort throws the human being back into isolation and lack of relationship.

Forward-looking hypothesis

In summary, it can be said that a person who schools themselves spiritually will encounter the lesser guardian of the threshold at a precisely calculated moment of wisdom. Crossing the threshold and gaining insight into the world of the soul are associated with the high demand of taking full responsibility for one's own actions and thoughts and completely transforming the karmic figure with discipline and perseverance. The lesser guardian of the threshold represents the karma that must be overcome, while the great guardian of the threshold, as a figure of light, points more to the future and represents the divine-spiritual aspect of the human being as a potential to be developed.

From a spiritual point of view, the whole of humanity today stands at the threshold between the earthly and the spiritual world. In order to overcome this and gain orientation, an exact distinction must be developed between that which is transient and insignificant on one hand and that which is of higher value with a lasting character on the other.