1. First Steps towards Imaginative Knowledge

As earthly beings, between conception and death, in our true inner being we are fighters against the laws of nature. And if we really want to rise to self-knowledge, we have to examine that activity in the human being which works against death. Indeed, if we are to investigate thoroughly man's being—which is our intention in these lectures—we shall have to show how, through a man's earthly development, it comes about that his inner activities ultimately succumb to death—how death gains the victory over the hidden forces opposing it.