VII. Details from the Realm of Spiritual Science

The question may be asked whether inner meditation and the other means described of attaining supersensible cognition permit only a general observation of man between death and a new birth or of other spiritual processes, or whether they permit the observation of quite definite processes and beings, for example, of some particular deceased person. The answer to this must be: Whoever acquires by the described means the faculty of observing the spiritual world, may also reach the point of observing detailed occurrences within it. He makes himself capable of coming in contact with human beings dwelling in the world of spirit between death and a new birth. One must, however, pay heed to the fact that this must happen, in the sense of spiritual science, only after one has gone through the regular training in supersensible cognition. Only then is one able, in regard to special events and beings, to distinguish between delusion and reality. Whoever wishes to observe details without the proper training may fall a victim to many deceptions. Even the most elementary achievement, namely, the understanding of the way in which such impressions of special supersensible facts are to be interpreted is not possible without an advanced spiritual training. The training that leads into the higher worlds for the observation of what is described in this book leads also to the ability to follow the life of an individual human being after death. It also leads to the observation and understanding of all special beings of the world of soul and spirit who influence from hidden worlds the outer manifested world. Nevertheless, correct observation of details is only possible upon the basis of cognition of the general, great cosmic and human facts of the spiritual world that concern every human being. Whoever desires the one without desiring the other goes astray. It belongs to the experiences that must be undergone in regard to the observation of the spiritual world that the admission into the realms of supersensible existence for which one longs at the very first is granted only when the student has striven on solemn and difficult paths, leading to problems of general knowledge, for that which gives information about the meaning of life. If he has trodden these paths with a pure and unegotistical urge for knowledge, then only is he mature enough to observe details, the observation of which would have been previously only a satisfying of egotistical longings, even though he had persuaded himself that it was only his love of someone who is dead, for example, that had made him strive for an insight into the spiritual world. The insight into the special is only possible for him who, from sincere interest for general spiritual-scientific knowledge, has gained the possibility of accepting also the special without any egotistical desire like an objective scientific truth.