1. First Steps towards Imaginative Knowledge

In the view of the general level of human consciousness which has been reached at this moment in history, such a path would no longer be possible. Anyone speaking of super-sensible knowledge to-day is therefore naturally expected to say at once how this knowledge is to be acquired. At the same time everyone must be left free to decide, in accordance with his own way of life, his attitude to those exercises for body, soul and spirit, through which certain forces within man are developed. These forces look beyond the laws of nature, beyond the present moment, into the true being of the world, and therewith into the true being of man himself. Hence the obvious course for our studies is to begin with at least a few preliminary remarks about the way by which a man to-day can acquire knowledge of the super-sensible.