e conditions here described must be fulfilled, because supersensible
experience is built upon the foundation on which the student stands in his
ordinary soul-life, before he enters the supersensible world. In a
two-fold way, all supersensible experience is dependent upon the soul's
point of departure before entering that world. One who is not intent, from
the outset, on making sound powers of judgment the foundation of his
spiritual training will develop supersensible capacities which perceive
the spiritual world inaccurately and incorrectly. To a certain extent his
spiritual organs of perception will develop in the wrong way. And just as
a man with a defective or diseased eye cannot see correctly in the
sense-world, so it is not possible to have true perceptions with spiritual
organs which are not built upon the foundation of sound powers of
judgment. One who starts from an immoral state of soul rises into the
spiritual worlds with his spiritual vision stupified and clouded. In
regard to supersensible worlds he is like a person in the sense-world who
makes observations in a state of lethargy. The latter, however, will not
be able to make any statements of consequence, whereas the spiritual
observer, even in his stupefaction, is more awake than a person in the
ordinary state of consciousness, and the results of his observations will
therefore be erroneous in regard to the spiritual world.

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The highest possibilities of imaginative cognition can be realized by
supporting the aforesaid meditations by that which one might call
"sense-free" thinking. Now when we formulate an idea based upon
observations made in the physical sense-world, our thought is not free
from sense-impressions. Yet it is not as though man could formulate only
such ideas: human thought need not become void and meaningless simply
because it is not filled with observations derived through the channels of
the senses. The most direct and the safest way for the occult student to
acquire this "sense-free" thinking, is to make the facts of the higher
worlds presented by occult science, the subject of his thoughts. These
facts cannot be observed by means of the physical senses; nevertheless,
the student will find that he will be able to grasp them--if only he has
enough patience and perseverance. No one can explore higher worlds, or
make his own observations therein, without having been trained. But it is