may produce a
certain degree of pride, which refuses to place confidence in a teacher.
Now it can happen that a certain degree of soul development may remain
hidden up to a certain age and only then reveal itself. But such schooling
may be just the very means needed to call it forth. Should the person hold
aloof from such training, it may happen that the power will remain dormant
during that particular Life, and will only reappear in a later
incarnation.

The rising to a supersensible state of consciousness can only proceed from
ordinary waking day-consciousness. It is in this consciousness that the
soul lives prior to its ascent, and schooling will furnish the means to
lead it out of this consciousness. The first steps which the schooling
here under consideration prescribes, are such as can still be
characterized as actions of the ordinary day-consciousness. It is just
those quiet acts of the soul which are the most effective steps. This
requires that the soul should give itself up to definite perceptions and
these perceptions are such as are able by their very nature to exercise an
awakening influence upon certain hidden faculties of the inner nature of
man.

They thereby differ from those perceptions of waking day-life, whose
purpose is to portray external objects. The more faithfully they present
these things, the truer they are. It is, indeed, in accordance with their
nature that they should be true in this sense, but this is not the mission
of those perceptions which the soul is to consider, when in pursuit of
spiritual training; and they are therefore so formed as not to present
anything external, having rather within themselves the power to act upon
the soul. The best percepts for the purpose are the emblematic or symbolic
ones. Yet other percepts may be used. For it does not depend at all on
what the percepts contain, but solely on the fact that the soul puts forth
all its powers in order not to have anything in the consciousness except
the one percept in question. Whereas, in ordinary life, its forces are
divided among many things and perceptions change rapidly, the important
point in spiritual training is the concentration of the whole inner life
upon one single perception. And this perception must be voluntarily
brought to the centre of one's consciousness. Symbolic perceptions are
better than those which reflect outer objects or events, because the
latter are related to the outer world, and the soul has to