of the day's experience sinks down into the sea of unconsciousness.
Let us now consider how it would be if man were able to become conscious
during sleep, notwithstanding that all impressions of the senses were
completely obliterated, as they are in deep sleep. Now would any memory
remain to him of what had happened while he was awake. Would his soul find
itself in a state of vacuity? Would it be incapable of having any
experiences? This is a question that can only be answered if conditions
like or similar to those under discussion can actually be brought about.
If the soul is capable of experiencing anything, even when
sense-activities and recollection of such activities are lacking, then
that soul would, so far as the external world is concerned, be "asleep";
and yet the soul would not be sleeping but awake to a world of reality.

Now such a condition of consciousness can be attained if man makes these
psychic experiences possible toward which occult science guides him. And
everything that occult science tells us about those worlds beyond the
sensible, has been found through such a condition of consciousness.

In the foregoing parts of this book certain communications have been made
concerning the higher worlds; and in the following pages, as far as is
possible in a book of this kind, methods will be discussed whereby the
state of consciousness requisite for such investigations may be acquired.
This state of consciousness resembles that of sleep, in only one respect,
namely: that through it, all outward sense activity ceases, and also all
thoughts that might be aroused by the action of the senses, are
obliterated. But although the soul has no power to experience anything
consciously in sleep, yet it receives this power through this very state
of consciousness. And through it a capacity for experiencing is awakened
in the soul which in every day life can be awakened only through sense
impressions. The awakening of the soul to this higher state of
consciousness is called _Initiation_.

The methods of initiation lead man away from the state of ordinary
day-consciousness into such a soul activity as enables him to use his
spiritual organs of perception. Like germs these organs lie dormant in the
soul and must be developed. Now it may be that a person, at some
particular moment of his earthly life, makes the discovery that these
higher organs have developed within his soul without previous preparation.
It is a kind of in