As many Christian esotericists have discovered, many facts of the supersensible world may appear completely contradictory at first; but after a deeper and more comprehensive investigation, apparent conflicts are entirely reconciled and unified. Such is the case with various descriptions of the Lesser Guardian of the Threshold. Some describe the Guardian as a horrific spectral apparition; some describe the Guardian as a stern but benevolent instructor; while others describe a “double” or “doppelgänger” that is an ahrimanic being who takes subconscious possession of our negative and unredeemed karma. How is it possible to reconcile these three seemingly opposing descriptions?

In Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment (originally written in 1904‒5), Rudolf Steiner states: “the [Lesser] Guardian of the Threshold is an astral figure, revealing itself to the student’s awakened higher sight.” Moreover, it is a “truly terrible spectral being” and “[h]owever horrible the form assumed by the [Lesser] Guardian, it is only the effect of the student’s own past life … [to which the] student’s preparation must aim at enabling him to endure the terrible sight without a trace of timidity.”

It is abundantly clear from Steiner’s research and statements that the Lesser Guardian is initially encountered as a terrifying external apparition. He also states unequivocally that the Christian initiate who intends to consciously enter the superphysical realm in the correct way cannot avoid this fearful encounter with the Lesser Guardian. Nevertheless, the function of the Lesser Guardian is not just to instill gratuitous fear into the unwary initiate, but rather to wisely prevent the unprepared from prematurely and dangerously entering the superphysical realm.

Rudolf Steiner has even remarked that we all unconsciously encounter the Lesser Guardian each time we fall asleep. In fact, it is due to the Guardian’s protective intervention at the threshold of falling asleep that we lose consciousness since we cannot bear the naked sight of our karmically accumulated evil. In a lecture given on 31 August 1913 he stated:

Every night we stand unconsciously before the [Lesser] Guardian. Certainly he is a great benefactor of mankind in not allowing himself to be seen, for very few human beings could endure it … On that borderline the soul has the impulse to see itself as it really is … but this is unbearable. Before the event has become fully conscious, the soul―through its utter loathing―deadens, as it were, its awareness … obliterating its consciousness. (Published in Secrets of the Threshold, 1987)

By encountering the visibly-projected “dark side” or “shadow self” of their subconscious karmic accumulation, sincere Christian initiates are morally impelled to redeem and transform this shameful past-life baggage. By doing so, nascent supersensible perception will not be subconsciously distorted by a veil of invisible evil. It is only after the accumulated evil that comprises the Lesser Guardian’s astral form becomes increasingly redeemed that the hideous features slowly disappear from view and the Guardian begins to assume more and more the role of a benevolent guide and instructor. Should the Lesser Guardian not be redeemed, Steiner records the Guardian’s own stern admonition: “I must become a perfect and glorious being, or fall prey to corruption; and should this occur I would drag thee down with me into a dark and corrupt world” (Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment).

Once the fearful spectral apparition at the threshold has been sufficiently redeemed, the esoteric truth becomes clear that even from the first terrifying encounter, the Lesser Guardian is actually our own higher self veiled in our unredeemed karmic attire. As Rudolf Steiner revealed in the same lecture quoted above (31 August 1913):

There on the threshold our true ego is able to clothe itself in all our weaknesses, all our failings, everything that induces us to cling with our whole being either to the physical sense world or at least to the elemental world. (Published in Secrets of the Threshold, 1987)

Admittedly, there has been some unfortunate anthroposophical confusion regarding the Lesser Guardian by Rudolf Steiner occasionally referring to this figure as the “double” or “doppelgänger,” as in the following instances:

[T]he phenomenon known as the Guardian of the Threshold―the appearance of the lower double of man … It is a form that is sometimes repugnant and terrible, for it is the offspring of his good and bad desires and of his karma—it is their personification in the astral world … This form must be conquered by man before he can find the higher Self. (Lecture 01 June 1906 in Paris called “The Christian Mystery”)

For man’s life in the physical-sensory world, the Doppelgänger’s effect is such that he becomes immediately invisible through the feeling of shame characterized when man approaches the world of soul and spirit. As a result of this, he conceals the entire latter world also. Like a “guardian” he stands there before that world, in order to deny entrance to those who are not truly capable of entering. He may therefore be called the “guardian of the threshold that lies before the world of soul and spirit.” (Outline of Esoteric Science; Chapter 5: Initiation)

The confusion arises because in other instances Steiner has described a different “double” or “doppelgänger” that exists covertly and insidiously within the human psyche well below the level of conscious awareness. Upon investigation, it is quite obvious that this double is not the same as the Lesser Guardian. In describing this other double in a lecture given on 30 August 1913, Rudolf Steiner stated:

When Ahriman has the chance to make these [subconscious] parts of the soul independent and give them human shape, they confront us in the elemental world as our Doppelgänger or double. We have to be aware that everything changes as soon as we leave our physical body and enter the elemental world … In terms of substance, the double is a large part of the etheric body. We retain part of that body, but another part of it separates off and becomes objective. We look at it and see that it is part of ourselves, to which Ahriman has given our own shape. (Published in Secrets of the Threshold, 1987)

From this description we can see that this other double is an etheric formation, whereas the Lesser Guardian appears as an astral apparition. Moreover, this other double has been unlawfully externalized by Ahriman, whereas the Lesser Guardian has been objectified by our higher self. In addition, though the Lesser Guardian initially appears horrific, his motives are helpful and instructive. The Ahrimanic double, however, is a harmful influence and according to Steiner’s research:

Diseases that come spontaneously from within, not those caused by external injuries, do not come from the soul but from this [ahrimanic] being who is the originator of all organic diseases that arise spontaneously from within. (From a lecture given on 16 November 1917 and published in Secret Brotherhoods and the Mystery of the Human Double, 2004)

Rather astoundingly as well, Steiner’s research has revealed that the electrical activity of our nervous system is not a natural incorporation, but rather an Ahrimanic intrusion. As stated in the same lecture as above:

But the scientists are wrong if they believe that the nervous force which provides the foundation for our inner world of pictures and thinking has anything to do with the electrical currents that course along our nerves. Those electrical currents are the forces that are introduced into our being by the [ahrimanic] being I have been describing. They do not belong to our being at all. There are electrical currents in us, but they are of a purely ahrimanic nature. (Ibid)

And just to make the issue of objectified supersensible figures even more complicated, it appears that under certain circumstances Lucifer can also manifest an externalized “shadow-being” by detaching a part of the etheric body and filling it with the unresolved subconscious karma of childhood and adolescence. To this detached illegitimate entity Rudolf Steiner has given the term, “the Spirit of Youth.” In his own words:

We have to say of a great deal of the karma of our youthful years that it cannot be resolved in this incarnation … Unresolved karma of this kind and the looking back at one’s younger self as though at someone else are both inwardly experienced. Lucifer finds entry here; he can take away a substantial part of the etheric body and, as it were, ensoul it with the unresolved karma. It becomes a shadow-being under Lucifer’s influence … the Spirit of [his] Youth. (From a lecture given on 30 August 1913 and published in Secrets of the Threshold, 1987)

In the same way that the Ahrimanic double is the root cause of spontaneous organic disease in the physical body, the Luciferic shadow-being  is “the originator of all neuro-psychological and neurotic diseases, all diseases which are not really diseases at all but merely, as one says, nervous diseases, hysterical diseases and so on” (From a lecture given on 16 November 1917 and published in Secret Brotherhoods and the Mystery of the Human Double, 2004).

From the foregoing we can conclude how important it is for the Christian esotericist to have a clear and comprehensive understanding of the various objectified figures of his or her own nature―both lawful and illegitimate― that are encountered in the superphysical world. Particularly, as Rudolf Steiner has indicated, our physical and psychological health in the future will depend on this spiritual scientific knowledge.