Just as in the body, eye and ear develop as organs of perception, as senses for bodily processes, so does a man develop in himself soul and spiritual organs of perception through which the soul and spiritual worlds are opened to him. For those who do not have such higher senses, these worlds are dark and silent, just as the bodily world is dark and silent for a being without eyes and ears.

The loss of the Goetheanum affected Steiner's health seriously. Early spiritual experiences
When he was nine years old Steiner thought he saw the spirit of an aunt who had died in a far-off town asking him to help her; at the time of the vision neither he nor his family knew of the woman's death. Steiner continued speaking regularly to the members of the Theosophical Society becoming the head of its newly constituted German section in 1902 without ever formally joining the society.

” A consistent thread that runs from his earliest philosophical phase through his later spiritual orientation is the goal of demonstrating that there are no essential limits to human knowledge. In the third phase of his work beginning after World War I Steiner worked to establish various practical endeavors including Waldorf education biodynamic agriculture and anthroposophical medicine. Just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds so thinking perceives ideas.