psycho-spiritual organs have been formed out of a previously
unorganized psycho-spiritual being. But this which man thus creates for
himself is also the first thing to be perceived by him. The first
experience is therefore in a certain sense, a kind of "self-perception."
It belongs to the nature of spiritual training that the soul, through the
self training which it gives itself at this point of its development,
becomes fully conscious that the first thing it perceives in the world of
imaginative forms, which appear as a result of the exercises described, is
itself. It is true that these images make their appearance as a new world,
but the soul must recognize that they are, however, at first nothing but
the reflection of its own being, which has been strengthened by exercises.
And it must not only recognize this by correct reasoning, but must have
arrived at such a cultivation of the will that it is able at any time to
put away and obliterate the images from the consciousness.

The soul must be able to act with complete independence within these
images. This is part of true spiritual training at this stage. If it could
not do this, it would be in the same position, in the sphere of spiritual
experiences, as a soul in the physical world which, on looking at an
object, has its attention so arrested by it that it cannot look away. An
exception to this possibility of obliteration is formed by a group of
inner imaginative experiences which should _not_ be extinguished at this
stage of spiritual training. They correspond to the inmost kernel of the
soul's being, and the occult student recognizes in those images that which
forms the very essence of his being which passes through the various
repeated earth lives. At this point the knowledge of repeated earth lives
becomes an actual experience. In relation to everything else the
before-mentioned independence of experience must prevail. And only after
acquiring the faculty of obliterating experiences, is the spiritual outer
world really approached. What is obliterated returns in another form, and
is experienced as a spiritual outer reality. One feels that out of
something indefinite one grows psychically into something definite. From
this self-perception, one must then proceed to the observation of a
psycho-spiritual outer world. This comes to pass when we can order our
inner experience after the manner to be indicated in the following pages.

At first, the soul of the occult stud