g the supersensible
world as here described, man encounters the Guardian of the Threshold when
he passes the portals of physical death, and it gradually reveals itself
during that psycho-spiritual development which takes place between death
and a new birth. However, the encounter can in no wise crush us, for we
then know of other worlds of which we are ignorant during the life between
birth and death. A person entering the psycho-spiritual world without
having encountered the Guardian of the Threshold would be liable to fall a
prey to one delusion after another. For he would never be able to
distinguish between that which he himself brings into that world and what
really belongs to it. But correct training should lead the student into
the domain of truth, not of error, and with such training the meeting
must, at one time or another, inevitably take place, for it is the one
indispensable precaution against the possibilities of deception and
phantasm in the observation of supersensible worlds. It is one of the most
indispensable precautions to be taken by every occult student, to work
carefully upon himself in order not to become a visionary, subject to
every possible deception and self-deception, suggestion and
auto-suggestion. Wherever correct occult training is followed, the causes
of such deceptions are destroyed at their source. It would of course be
impossible to speak here exhaustively of the many details to be included
in such precautions, and we can only indicate in general the underlying
principles. The illusions to be taken into account arise from two sources.
In part they proceed from the fact that our own soul-being colors reality.
In the ordinary life of the physical sense-world, the danger arising from
this source of deception is comparatively small, because here the outer
world always obtrudes itself upon the observer in its own sharp outline,
no matter how much the observer is inclined to color it according to his
wishes and interests. As soon, however, as we enter the imaginative world,
the images are changed by such wishes and interests, and we then have
actually before us that which we ourselves have formed or, at any rate,
helped to form. Now, since through this meeting with the Guardian of the
Threshold the occult student becomes aware of everything within him, of
that which he can take with him into the psycho-spiritual world, this
source of delusion is removed, and the preparation which the occult
st