Publisher's Synopsis
Theosophy
An Introduction to the Supersensible Knowledge of the World and the Destination of Man
By Rudolf Steiner
Translated with the Permission of the Author
from the Third German Edition By E. D. S.
THIS book will give a description of some of the regions of the supersensible world. The reader who is willing to admit the existence of the sensible world only will regard this delineation as a mere unreal production of the imagination. He, however, who looks for paths that lead beyond this world of the senses will soon learn to understand that human life only gains in worth and significance through sight into another world. Such a man will not, as many fear, be estranged from the "real" world through this new power of vision. For only through it does he learn to stand fast and firm in this life. He learns to know the CAUSES of life, while without it he gropes like a blind man through their EFFECTS. Only through the understanding of the supersensible does the sensible "real" acquire meaning. One therefore becomes more, and not less, fit for life through this understanding. Only he who understands life can become a truly practical man.
The author of this book describes nothing to which he cannot bear witness from experience, that kind of experience which one has in these regions. Only that which in this sense has been personally experienced will be dealt with.
One cannot read this book as one is accustomed ordinarily to read books at the present day. In certain respects every page, and even many a sentence, will have to be WORKED OUT by the reader. This has been intentionally aimed at. For only in this way can the book become to the reader what it ought to become. He who merely reads it through will not have read it at all. Its truths must be experienced, lived. Only in this sense has theosophy any value.
