first prevents him from seeing with
the eyes of the spirit. He is not there for that purpose. He is what
his senses are, and his intellect is only the interpreter and judge of
them. The senses would ill fulfil their mission if they did not insist
upon the truth and infallibility of their evidence. An eye must, from
its own point of view, uphold the absolute reality of its perceptions.
The eye is right as far as it goes, and is not deprived of its due by
the eye of the spirit. The latter only allows us to see the things of
sense in a higher light. Nothing seen by the eye of sense is denied,
but a new brightness, hitherto unseen, radiates from what is seen. And
then we know that what we first saw was only a lower reality. We see
that still, but it is immersed in something higher, which is spirit.
It is now a question of whether we realise and feel what we see. One
who lives only in the sensations and feelings of the senses will look
upon impressions of higher things as a Fata Morgana, or mere play of
fancy. His feelings are entirely directed towards the things of sense.
He grasps emptiness when he tries to lay hold of spirit forms. They
withdraw from him when he gropes after them. They are just "mere"
thoughts. He thinks them, but does not live in them. They are images,
less real to him than fleeting dreams. They rise up like bubbles while
he is standing in his reality; they disappear before the massive,
solidly built reality of which his senses tell him.

It is otherwise with one whose perceptions and feelings with regard to
reality have changed. For him that reality has lost its absolute
stability and value. His senses and feelings need not become numbed,
but they begin to be doubtful of their absolute authority. They leave
room for something else. The world of the spirit begins to animate the
space left.

At this point a possibility comes in which may prove terrible. A man
may lose his sensations and feelings of outer reality without finding
any new reality opening up before him. He then feels himself as if
suspended in the void. He feels as if he were dead. The old values
have disappeared and no new ones have arisen in their place. The world
and man no longer exist for him. This, however, is by no means a mere
possibility. It happens at some time or other to every one who is
seeking for higher knowledge. He comes to a point at which the spirit
represents all life to him as death. He is then no longer in the
world,