IX. Errors of Spiritual Research

This is a more difficult task than is usually believed, because it requires something that is, so to speak, extremely difficult for ordinary consciousness to understand. It is necessary [that which] is called in spiritual research “the encounter with the Guardian of the Threshold”. The threshold here refers to that which demarcates the realm of the sense world from the spiritual world. What is this “Guardian of the Threshold” if we start from ordinary life and its relationship to truth? Because basically, this Guardian of the Threshold is the sum of those forces and powers that prevent people from true self-knowledge in their ordinary lives and that lead them to this self-knowledge if they want to become a spiritual researcher. But in everyday life, self-knowledge is not an easy thing, and precisely because the human soul clings to what it has formed from its experiences, from everything it encounters. And this is precisely how the various points of view arise, the struggles of opinions, where materialism and spiritualism, realism and idealism, and many other points of view, which people advocate with devotion, but which make it impossible for people to understand each other, especially with regard to the most important things.