the supersensible world are nothing but an
uncertain--nay, a dangerous--groping in the dark if we despise the method of
preparation which has been described. Therefore in this book the facts
concerning the supersensible processes of the earth's evolution will first
be given, before the path leading to the attainment of supersensible
knowledge is dealt with.

We have also, it is true, to take into account that the man who, by sheer
thinking, comes to accept what supersensible research has to impart, is by
no means in the same position as one who listens to the account of a
physical occurrence which he is unable to see. For thinking is in itself a
supersensible activity. Materialistic thinking cannot of itself lead to
supersensible phenomena. But if thought is directed to supersensible
matters through the accounts given of them by occult science, it grows by
its own activity into the supersensible world. What is more, one of the
very best ways of acquiring supersensible perception is to grow into the
higher worlds by meditation upon what has been communicated by occult
science. For such a mode of entry insures great clearness of perception.
For this reason such thinking is regarded by a certain school of occult
investigation as a most valuable first step to take in occult training.

It will be readily understood that it is impossible to mention in this
book all the details of the earth's evolution, as it has been spiritually
perceived by occultists, in order to illustrate the way in which the
supersensible world is reflected in the manifested. Nor was this what was
intended when it was said that the unseen may everywhere be demonstrated
by its manifest effects. It was meant rather that everything that man
encounters may, step by step, become clear and comprehensible if he brings
manifested events under the illumination of occult science. Only in a few
characteristic instances will reference be made in the following pages to
confirmations of the invisible by the manifest, in order to show how this
may be done everywhere in the course of practical life, if desired.

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Pursuing the evolution of the earth backward according to the above method
of scientific spiritual investigations we arrive at a spiritual condition
of our planet. But if we go farther back along this path of research we
find that everything spiritual had previously passed through a kind of
physical inc