Theosophy
GA 9
Translated by Steiner Online Library
Preface to the 6th edition (1914)
Almost every time a new edition of this book became necessary, I carefully reviewed its contents. I have done so again this time. I have similar comments to make about this review as I did about the one for the third edition. I therefore let the “Preface to the Third Edition” precede the content of the book. — However, this time I have taken special care to make many details of the presentation even clearer than I was able to do for the previous editions. I know that much, very much, still needs to be done in this direction. But when describing the spiritual world, finding the right word, the right phrase to express a fact or an experience, depends on the paths that the soul takes. On these paths, when “the right moment comes,” the expression that one searches for in vain when trying to bring it about deliberately will emerge. I believe that in some places in this new edition, I have been able to do something important in relation to important details in the recognition of the spiritual world. Only now does some of it appear to me to be presented as it should be. I can say that this book has undergone something of what my soul has experienced since its first publication ten years ago, struggling for further knowledge of the spiritual world. Even though the structure, and indeed everything essential, of this edition is still completely consistent with the first, in many places in the book it will be apparent that I have treated it as a living entity to which I have given what I believe I have gained in ten years of spiritual research. If the book were to be a new edition of the old one and not a completely new one, the changes could naturally only be modest. I was also particularly keen to ensure, through individual “extensions and additions,” that any questions the reader might have in some places would find their answers in the book itself.
In turbulent times and with a turbulent soul, I write these sentences, which are to be preprinted in the sixth edition of the book. Its printing was completed up to page 1892 when the fateful event that is now being experienced by humanity broke over Europe. As I write this preface, it seems impossible to me not to hint at what is weighing on the soul in such times.
Berlin, September 7, 1914
Rudolf Steiner