The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Preface to the Third Edition

[ 1 ] My explanations, which were originally printed as individual essays under the title "How to gain knowledge of the higher worlds", are hereby published as a book. This volume will initially contain the first part; a subsequent volume will contain the continuation. This work on the development of man's grasp of the supersensible worlds should not be presented to the world in a new form without a few prefaces, which are hereby placed before it. The information it contains on the development of the human soul is intended to serve various needs. First of all, something should be given to those people who feel drawn to the results of spiritual research and who must raise the question: Yes, where do those who claim to be able to say something about the great mysteries of life get their knowledge from? Spiritual science says something about such riddles. Whoever wants to observe the facts that lead to these statements must ascend to supersensible knowledge. He must follow the path which this book attempts to describe. But it would be a mistake to believe that the messages of spiritual science are worthless for those who do not have the inclination or opportunity to walk this path themselves. In order to investigate the facts, one must have the ability to enter the supersensible worlds. But once they have been investigated and communicated, even those who do not perceive them themselves can gain a sufficient conviction of the truth of the information. A large part of them can easily be verified by applying sound judgment to them in a truly impartial way. One must not allow oneself to be disturbed in this impartiality by all kinds of prejudices, which are so numerous in human life. It will easily happen, for example, that someone finds that this or that is not compatible with certain scientific results of the present. In truth, there is no scientific result that contradicts spiritual research. But one can easily believe that this or that scientific judgment on the communications about the higher worlds is not correct if one does not consult the scientific results in an all-round and unbiased way. One will find that the more impartially one holds spiritual science together with the positive scientific achievements, the more beautifully the full correspondence can be recognized. - Another part of the spiritual-scientific communications will, however, more or less elude mere intellectual judgment. But it will not be difficult for those who realize that not only reason, but also healthy feeling can be a judge of truth, to gain a proper relationship to this part as well. And where this feeling does not allow itself to be driven by sympathy or antipathy for this or that opinion, but really allows the insights of the supersensible worlds to affect it impartially, then a corresponding judgment of feeling will also result. - And there are many other ways for those people who cannot and do not want to tread the path into the supersensible world to realize these insights. Such people can nevertheless feel the value of these insights for life, even if they only experience them from the messages of spiritual researchers. Not everyone can instantly become a man of insight, but the insights of the man of insight are a healthy nourishment for everyone. For anyone can apply them in life. And anyone who does so will soon realize what life can be with them in all areas and what it lacks if they are excluded. The knowledge of the supersensible worlds, correctly applied in life, does not prove to be impractical, but practical in the highest sense. Even if someone does not want to enter the higher path of knowledge himself, he can, if he has an inclination for the facts observed on it, ask: How does the observing person arrive at these facts? For those people who are interested in this question, this book wants to give a picture of what one has to do in order to really get to know the supersensible world. It wants to present the path into it in such a way that even those who do not walk it themselves can gain confidence in what someone who has walked it says. When one becomes aware of what the spiritual researcher does, one can also find this to be correct and say to oneself: the description of the path to the higher worlds makes such an impression on me that I can understand why the facts communicated seem plausible to me. Thus this book is intended to serve those who wish to strengthen and secure their sense of truth and their feeling of truth for the supersensible world. But it should also offer something to those who are seeking the path to supersensible knowledge themselves. Those persons will best test the truth of what is presented here who realize it in themselves. Whoever has such an intention will do well to tell himself again and again that more is necessary in the presentation of the development of the soul than such an acquaintance with the content as is often sought in other explanations. An intimate immersion in the description is necessary; one should make the assumption that one should not only understand one thing through what is said about it, but through much that is said about quite other things. In this way one will get the idea that not in one truth lies the essence, but in the harmony of all. Anyone who wants to do exercises must consider this very seriously. An exercise may be rightly understood and rightly performed; and yet it may work incorrectly unless the practitioner adds another exercise to it, which will bring the one-sidedness of the first to a harmony of the soul. He who reads this writing intimately, so that reading becomes like an inner experience, will not only acquaint himself with the contents, but will also have this feeling in one place and that in another; and thereby he will recognize what weight is due to one or the other for the development of the soul. He will also find out in what form he should try this or that exercise, according to his particular individuality. When, as here, descriptions of processes which are to be experienced come into consideration, it proves necessary to return to the content again and again; for one will convince oneself that one only brings some things to a satisfactory understanding for oneself when one has tried them and after the attempt notices certain subtleties of the matter which must have escaped one earlier.

[ 2 ] Even those readers who do not intend to follow the path that is laid out will find many useful things for their inner life in Scripture: Rules of life, hints on how to clear up this or that which seems puzzling and so on.

[ 3 ] And many a person who has this or that behind him through his life experience, who has undergone a life initiation in some respect, will be able to find a certain satisfaction when he finds clarified in context what he had in mind in detail; what he already knew without perhaps having brought this knowledge to a sufficient conception for himself.

Berlin, October 12, 1909
Rudolf Steiner