ncarnations, this can only take place through intuitive
cognition.

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Cognition through inspiration and intuition is attainable only by means of
psycho-spiritual exercises, and they resemble those meditations practiced
for the attainment of imagination which have already been described.
While, however, in exercises for the development of the imagination, a
connection is set up with impressions belonging to the world of the
physical senses, such connections gradually cease in the case of exercises
for inspiration. In order to understand more clearly what must be done,
let us recall once more the symbol of the "rosy cross." When we meditate
on this we have before us a picture, of which the component parts have
been taken from the world of the senses: there is the black colour of the
cross, the roses, etc., and yet the combination of those various parts
into the "rosy cross" is not derived from the world of the senses. If the
student now endeavours to banish from his consciousness both the black
cross and the red roses, as pictures of sense-realities, only retaining in
his soul that spiritual activity which has been used in putting these
parts together, he will then have a means for a meditation that will
gradually lead him on to inspiration. He should put the question to
himself somewhat in the following manner: "What have I done inwardly to
construct that symbol from cross and rose? What I did (an act of my own
soul), I will retain within my hold; but the picture itself I will allow
to fade away out of my consciousness. I shall then be able to feel within
me all that my soul did in order to produce the picture, though I no
longer recall the picture itself. I will now live wholly within my own
activity that created the picture. I will not meditate upon a picture, but
upon the powers of my own soul which are capable of creating pictures."

Such meditations must now be practised with various other symbols. This
leads then to cognition through inspiration. Here is another example, that
of meditating upon the growth and subsequent withering of a plant. Let the
picture of a slowly growing plant arise in the soul, as it sprouts from
the seed, unfolds leaf after leaf, then blossoms and fruits; then again as
it begins to wither on to its complete dissolution. By the help of
meditations on such a symbol as this, the student gradually attains a
feeling concerning growth and de