I. Anthroposophical Spiritual Science and the Great Questions of our Present Civilization

But that is how we see the world today! We observe it and create our picture of the realms of nature—the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms—only to find this picture soulless and spiritless. When we form a picture of the orbits and the movements of the heavenly bodies with the aid of calculations based on telescopic observations, we see a world empty of soul and spirit. The wise teachers of the mystery centers knew very well that it was possible to see the world in that way. But they transmitted such knowledge to their pupils only after the pupils had undergone the necessary preparations, after they had undergone a severe training of their will life. Then, they guided their pupils past the Guardian of the Threshold—but not until they were prepared. How was this preparation accomplished? Pupils had not only to endure great deprivations, but for many years they were also taught by their teachers to follow a moral path in strict obedience. At the same time, their will life was severely disciplined to strengthen their self-consciousness. And only after they had thus progressed from a dim self-consciousness to a more conscious one were they shown what lay ahead of them on the other side of the threshold: namely, the world as it appears to us in outer space according to the heliocentric system of the universe. At the same time, of course, they were also taught many other things that, to us, have merely become part of our general knowledge of the world.