Rudolf Steiner's foundational handbook for spiritual and personal development has grown more modern with time, though his methods remain clearly distinguishable from many current paths of inner work. First, Steiner's method is based on the clarity of thought normally associated with scientific research. Instead of denying clear thinking, his aim is to extend it beyond its present limitations. Second, Steiner recognizes--as do all genuine paths--that the way to spiritual experience is arduous and dangerous and calls for self-control in thought, word, and action. The human being comprises a unity, and we cannot develop knowledge without a corresponding development of feeling and will. br br Steiner predicted that humanity would begin to experience a longing for forms of experience that transcended intellectual, materialistic thinking. More than a hundred years after the first publication of this book, countless means are offered for achieving transcendental experience, including Eastern