2. The Position of Anthroposophy among the Sciences

If we approach mathematics in the right frame of mind, we come to see precisely in the mathematician's attitude when “mathematicising” the pattern for all that one requires for super-sensible perception. For mathematics is simply the first stage of super-sensible perception. The mathematical structures we “perceive” in space are super-sensible perceptions—though we, accustomed to “perceive” them, do not admit this. But one who knows the intrinsic nature of “mathematicising” knows that although the structure of space has no special interest at first for our eternal human nature, mathematical thinking has all the characteristics that one can ask of clairvoyance in the anthroposophical sense: freedom from nebulous mysticism and confused occultism, and the sole aim of attaining to the super-sensible worlds in an exact, scientific way.