The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Preface (1913)

[ 1 ] Whoever undertakes to present results of the humanities of the kind recorded in this book must above all reckon with the fact that this kind is currently regarded as impossible in the widest circles. After all, the following explanations say things that are claimed to be "probably undecidable for human intelligence at all" by what is considered strict thinking in our time. Anyone who knows and appreciates the reasons that lead some serious personalities to assert such impossibilities would like to try again and again to show the misunderstandings on which the belief is based that human cognition is denied penetration into the supersensible worlds.

[ 2 ] Because there are two things. Firstly, in the long run, no human soul will be able to close itself off from the fact that its most important questions about the meaning and significance of life would have to remain unanswered if there were no access to supersensible worlds. Theoretically, one can deceive oneself about this fact, but the depths of the soul's life do not go along with this self-deception. - Anyone who does not want to listen to these depths of the soul will naturally reject explanations about the supersensible worlds. But there are people, whose number is truly not small, who cannot possibly remain deaf to the demands of these depths. They must always knock at the gates which, in the opinion of others, close the "incomprehensible".

[ 3 ] Secondly, the arguments of "strict thinking" are by no means to be disregarded. Anyone who engages with them will, where they are to be taken seriously, certainly sympathize with this seriousness. The author of this book does not wish to be seen as someone who light-heartedly ignores the enormous amount of thought that has gone into determining the limits of the human intellect. This work of thought cannot be dismissed with a few phrases about "school wisdom" and the like. As it appears in many cases, it has its source in a true struggle for knowledge and in genuine ingenuity. - Indeed, it should be admitted even more: reasons have been put forward for the fact that the knowledge which is currently considered scientific cannot penetrate into the supersensible worlds, and these reasons are in a certain sense irrefutable.

[ 4 ] Because this is readily admitted by the writer of this book himself, it may seem quite strange to some that he now undertakes to make statements that refer to supersensible worlds. After all, it seems almost impossible that someone could accept the reasons for the unknowability of the supersensible worlds in a certain sense and still speak of these supersensible worlds.

[ 5 ] And yet one can behave in this way. And at the same time, we can understand that this behavior is perceived as contradictory. Not everyone accepts the experiences that one has when one approaches the supernatural realm with the human mind. It turns out that the evidence of this understanding can be irrefutable and that, despite its irrefutability, it need not be decisive for reality. Instead of all theoretical arguments, an attempt is made here to bring about an understanding through a comparison. It is readily admitted that comparisons themselves are not conclusive; however, this does not prevent them from often making comprehensible what is to be expressed.

[ 6 ] Human cognition, as it works in everyday life and in ordinary science, is really so constituted that it cannot penetrate into the supersensible worlds. This is irrefutably provable; but this proof can have no other value for a certain kind of soul-life than that which someone would undertake to show that the natural eye of man cannot penetrate with its vision to the small cells of a living being or to the constitution of distant celestial bodies. As correct and provable as the assertion is that ordinary sight does not penetrate to the cells, so correct and provable is the other assertion that ordinary cognition cannot penetrate into the supersensible worlds. And yet the proof that ordinary vision must stop at the cells does not decide anything against the exploration of the cells. Why should the proof that ordinary cognition must stop at the supersensible worlds decide anything against the exploration of these worlds?

[ 7 ] You can feel the emotion that some people must have when making this comparison. One can even sympathize if one doubts that someone who confronts this work with such a comparison even suspects the full seriousness of the thought work mentioned. And yet the person who writes this is not only imbued with this seriousness, but is of the opinion that this work of thought is one of the noblest achievements of mankind. To prove that human vision cannot reach the cells without armament would, however, be an unnecessary beginning; to become aware of the nature of this thinking through rigorous thinking is necessary intellectual work. It is all too understandable that those who devote themselves to such work do not realize that reality can disprove them. As little space as there may be in the preliminary remarks to this book to go into some of the "refutations" of the first editions by personalities who lack all understanding for what they are striving for or who direct their untrue attacks at the person of the author, it must be emphasized that only those who want to close their minds to the spirit of the explanations can suspect an underestimation of serious scientific thinking in the book.

[ 8 ] Man's cognition can be strengthened, strengthened, just as the eye's vision can be strengthened. But the means of strengthening cognition are of a spiritual nature; they are inner, purely spiritual processes. They consist in what is described in this book as meditation, concentration (contemplation). The ordinary life of the soul is bound to the tools of the body; the enlightened life of the soul frees itself from them. There are schools of thought in the present for which such an assertion must appear quite nonsensical, for which it must be based only on self-deception. Such schools of thought will find it easy from their point of view to prove how "all soul life" is bound to the nervous system. Those who stand on the point of view from which this book is written will certainly understand such proofs. He understands the people who say that only superficiality can claim that one can have any soul life independent of the body. Those who are completely convinced that there is a connection with the nervous life for such soul experiences, which "spiritual-scientific dilettantism" just does not see through.

[ 9 ] Here, certain - quite understandable - habits of thought are so abruptly opposed to what is described in this book that an understanding with many is currently still quite hopeless. Here we are at the point where the wish must assert itself that it should no longer be in keeping with contemporary intellectual life to immediately denounce a line of research as fantasy, dreaming, etc., which differs sharply from one's own. - On the other hand, however, there is already the fact that a number of people have an understanding for the supersensible way of research, as it is also presented in this book. People who realize that the meaning of life is not revealed in general phrases about the soul, the self, etc., but can only emerge by really entering into the results of supersensible research. Not out of immodesty, but in joyful satisfaction, the author of this book deeply feels the necessity of this fourth edition after a relatively short time.

[ 10 ] To emphasize this in immodesty, the author feels all too clearly how little the new edition corresponds to what it should actually be as an "outline of a supersensible world view". For the new edition, the whole thing was worked through once again, many additions were made in important places, clarifications were sought. However, the author realized in many places how brittle the means of presentation available to him proved to be compared to what supersensible research shows. Thus hardly more than one way could be shown to arrive at the ideas given in the book for the development of Saturn, the sun and the moon. An important aspect in this field has also been dealt with briefly in this edition. However, the experiences with regard to such things differ so much from all experiences in the sensory field that the presentation requires a continuous struggle for an expression that seems only somewhat adequate. Whoever is willing to enter into the attempt at description made here will perhaps notice that much that is impossible to say in dry words is achieved through the manner of description. This is different, for example, in the case of Saturn, and different in the case of the sun, etc. development.

[ 11 ] In the new edition, the second part of the book, which deals with the "Knowledge of the Higher Worlds", underwent many additions and extensions that seemed important to the author of the book. The aim was to illustrate the nature of the inner processes of the soul through which cognition frees itself from the limitations of the sensory world and makes itself suitable for experiencing the supersensible world. An attempt was made to show that this experience, although it is acquired through entirely inner means and ways, does not have a merely subjective meaning for the individual person who acquires it. It should emerge from the description that within the soul its individuality and personal particularity is stripped away and an experience is achieved that every human being has in the same way, who brings about the development out of his subjective experiences in the right way. Only when the "knowledge of the supersensible worlds" is conceived with this character is it possible to distinguish it from all experiences of merely subjective mysticism, etc. Of such mysticism it can be said that it is more or less a subjective matter of the mystic. The spiritual-scientific training of the soul, as it is meant here, however, strives for such objective experiences, the truth of which is recognized completely inwardly, but which are nevertheless seen through in their universal validity for this very reason. - This is another point where it is quite difficult to come to an understanding with some of the habits of thought of our time.<

[ 12 ] In conclusion, the author of this book would like to make the remark that even well-meaning people may accept these statements for what they are due to their own content. Today there is often an effort to give this or that school of thought this or that old name. This makes it seem valuable to some. However, it may be asked: what should the explanations in this book gain by calling them "Rosicrucian" or something similar? What matters is that an insight into the supersensible worlds is attempted here with the means that are possible and appropriate to the soul's present period of development, and that from this point of view the riddles of human destiny and human existence are considered beyond the boundaries of birth and death. It should not be a quest that bears this or that old name, but a quest for truth.

[ 13 ] On the other hand, terms have also been used in opposition to the worldview presented in the book. Apart from the fact that those with which the author has been most severely targeted and discredited are absurd and objectively untrue, such terms are characterized in their unworthiness by the fact that they disparage a completely independent striving for truth by not judging it from within themselves, but by wanting to impose on others as a judgment the dependence on this or that direction that they have invented or gratuitously adopted and carried on. As necessary as these words are in view of some of the attacks against the author, he is nevertheless reluctant to go into the matter further here.

Written in June 1913
Rudolf Steiner