The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Preface to the Fifth Edition

[ 1 ] For this new edition of "Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?" ("How does one gain knowledge of the higher worlds?"), the account written down more than ten years ago has been worked through again in every detail. The need for such a reworking naturally arises with messages about soul experiences and soul paths of the kind given in this book. There can be no part of what is communicated with which the soul of the communicator does not remain intimately connected and which does not contain something that continues to work on this soul. It can hardly be otherwise than that this work of the soul is connected with a striving for increased clarity and distinctness of the representation given years ago. What I have endeavored to do for the book in this new edition has arisen from this striving. Although all the essential elements of the arguments, all the main points, have remained as they were, important changes have been made. I was able to do a lot for a more precise characterization in detail in many places. And this seemed important to me. If someone wants to apply what is communicated in the book to his own spiritual life, it is important that he is able to grasp the paths of the soul that are discussed in as precise a characterization as possible. Misunderstandings can attach themselves to the description of inner spiritual processes to a much greater extent than to the description of the facts of the physical world. The mobility of the life of the soul, the necessity of never losing sight of how different it is from all life in the physical world, and many other things, make such misunderstandings possible. In this new edition, I have paid attention to finding the places in the book where such misunderstandings can arise; and I have endeavored to work against their emergence in the drafting.

[ 2 ] When I wrote the essays of which the book is composed, many things had to be spoken about differently than at present because I had to point out the content of what I have published in the last ten years about facts of the knowledge of spiritual worlds differently then than I have to do now, after publication. In my "Secret Science", in "The Guidance of Man and Mankind", in "A Path to Self-Knowledge" and especially in "The Threshold of the Spiritual World", as well as in other of my writings, spiritual processes are described, the existence of which this book must have already indicated more than ten years ago, but in different words than seems correct at present. At that time I had to say of much that was not yet described in the book that it could be learned through "oral communication". At present, much of what was meant by such references has been published. However, it was these references that perhaps did not completely rule out erroneous opinions among readers. One could see something much more essential in the personal relationship to this or that teacher in those striving for spiritual training than should be seen. I hope that in this new edition I have succeeded in emphasizing more clearly, through the way in which some details are presented, how, for those who seek spiritual training in the sense of the present spiritual conditions, it depends much more on a completely immediate relationship to the objective spiritual world than on a relationship to the personality of a teacher. In the training of the spirit, too, the teacher will more and more assume the position of merely such an assistant as the teacher, according to the newer views, holds in some other branch of knowledge. I believe I have sufficiently pointed out that the teacher's authority and faith in him should play no other part in the training of the mind than is the case in any other branch of knowledge and life. It seems to me that it is very important that this relationship of the spiritual researcher to people who develop an interest in the results of his research should be judged more and more correctly. In this way, I believe I have improved the book where I was able to find the need for improvement after ten years.

[ 3 ] This first part will be followed by a second. This will contain further explanations about the constitution of the soul, which leads people to experience the higher worlds.

[ 4 ] The new edition of the book was ready in print when the great war that humanity is currently experiencing began. I have to write these preliminary remarks while my soul is deeply moved by the fateful events.

Berlin, September 7, 1914
Rudolf Steiner