Chapter III

It became clearer and clearer to me how, through going forward beyond the customary abstract thoughts to these spiritual perceptions – which, however, the calmness and luminousness of the thought serve to confirm – man lives himself into a reality from which customary consciousness bars him out. This customary state has on one side the living quality of the sense-perception; on the other the abstractness of thought-conceiving. The spiritual vision perceives spirit as the senses perceive nature; but it does not stand apart in thought from the spiritual perception as the customary state of consciousness stands in its thoughts apart from the sense-perceptions. Spiritual vision thinks while it experiences spirit, and experiences while it sets to thinking the awakened spirituality of man.