14. How Can We Know About Supernatural Worlds?

The spiritual world is always there, but it is so unknown to man that at that moment he faces it as if it were nothingness. That creates fear. However, no one should believe that they will be harmed if they proceed in the manner described; it is part of self-education that they are simultaneously strengthened and empowered to endure it, and at the same time they are fortified to endure it. Usually they are protected from it. We speak of a “guardian of the threshold.” But what is not present in consciousness is not therefore absent from the soul. The soul is a dual entity. In its depths, there is often something quite different from what it knows. For example, we may consciously hate a human being, and that hatred may be a cover for love. Because we do not live out our love, we numb ourselves. Not only are there two souls in Faust's nature, but every human soul is actually one that has two. Now, the following emerges for the soul connoisseur: when a person is in ordinary life, they seek to achieve stability and certainty by suppressing the subconscious, namely fear. For the spiritual researcher, nothing else arises but what is always in the background. It is always there. When this is overcome, the person enters the spiritual world. But when it rises up and yet does not become conscious, when it only knocks, as it were, but the person bridges it over —.