ans for
strengthening the capacity of cognition are entirely of a spiritual
nature; they are inner processes, belonging purely to the soul. They
consist of what is described in this book as meditation and concentration
(contemplation). Ordinary soul-life is bound up with the bodily
instrument; the strengthened soul-life liberates itself from it. There are
schools of thought at the present time to which this assertion must appear
quite senseless, to which it must seem based only upon self-delusion.
Those who think in this way will find it easy, from their point of view,
to prove that "all soul-life" is bound up with the nervous system. One who
holds the standpoint from which this book has been written, can thoroughly
understand such proofs. He understands people who say that only
superficiality can assert that there may be some kind of soul-life
independent of the body, and who are quite convinced that in such
experiences of the soul there exists a connection with the life of the
nervous system, which the "dilettantism of occult science" merely fails to
detect.

Here certain quite comprehensible habits of thought are in such sharp
contradiction to what has been described in this book, that there is as
yet no prospect of coming to an understanding with many people. It is here
that we come to the point where the desire must arise that it should no
longer be a characteristic of our present day culture to at once decry as
fanciful or visionary a method of research which differs from its own. But
on the other hand it is also a fact at the present time that a number of
people can appreciate the supersensible method of research, as it is
presented in this book, people who understand that the meaning of life is
not revealed in general phrases about the soul, self, and so on, but can
only result from really entering into the facts of superphysical research.

Not from lack of modesty, but with a sense of joyful satisfaction, does
the author of this book feel profoundly the necessity for this fourth
edition after a comparatively short time. The author is not prompted to
this statement by lack of modesty, for he is entirely too conscious of how
little even this new edition approaches that "outline of a supersensuous
world concept" which it is meant to be. The whole book has once more been
revised for the new edition, much supplementary matter has been inserted
at important points, and elucidations have been attempted. But in numerou