Our sensory organs and nerves are designed to correspond with certain vibrations from the energies in the world around us. Our sensory instruments consist of particularly sensitive cells that react in various ways to influences from our surroundings. This results in what we know as the experiences of light, sound, taste, smell and touch. When we taste something sweet, sour, salty or bitter what happens is that the vibrations in the substances that form our tongue are changed according to whether they come into contact with substances whose vibrations or oscillations are of the frequency we call "sweet", or whether they come into contact with substances whose vibrations or oscillations are of the frequency we call "sour", "salty" and so on. By means of nerve impulses these vibrations are transmitted to the brain, which is so constructed as to be able to receive such "sensory images". When we can see, it is because we have within our organism – as a result of evolution through many incarnations – ingeniously constructed apparatuses with sensitive lenses that are all built up of organic matter, that is to say, living cells with day-consciousness on the physical plane. These cells react to the vibrations in the surrounding world that we call light waves; and through the nerves, which are also living cells, the brain receives "visual images". The sensory apparatuses and the nerves are constructed so as to be able to receive vibrations of a certain strength or frequency; but, if the energies that affect us are too powerful, the sensory apparatuses and nerves can be weakened or destroyed. We cannot endure looking directly at the sun because doing so would ruin our eyes. There are people who have become blind from trying to do so. If we experience explosions that are too violent then we can lose our hearing; chlorine gas can destroy our sense of smell, and our sense of touch can be destroyed by contact with fire or with merely something that is either too hot or too cold. But it is not only the senses directed towards the physical world that can be destroyed; the senses directed towards the psychic world can also endure only a certain amount of strain. We can also be careless in the psychic area, an area that people have much less knowledge of than the physical one, resulting in our psychic sensory faculty being overburdened.

People identify themselves with their physical organisms and believe that they are physical beings. But if we were nothing but physical beings we would be unable to experience anything. Take, for example, a camera! In itself it is nothing, but, in the hands of a proficient photographer who knows how to handle it and who understands how to place it correctly in relation to the surroundings, it becomes a purposeful, sensitive recording instrument. But the camera would be completely meaningless without the photographer's spirit or psyche, his capacity for thinking and his sense for photographic effect. The physical world is nothing but movements, oscillations or vibrations, and if this were all, no real life would exist, because one movement cannot experience another movement. There would be no experience of life. We do, however, experience a lot of movements in matter, space and time. This happens solely because, behind the above-mentioned movements, movement exists in the consciousness, that is to say, in a spiritual world. Behind the consciousness there is a fixed point or I that experiences and, on the basis of what it has absorbed from these experiences, creates new combinations of movement in consciousness, matter, time and space. The very way in which we experience "visual images" shows that we are spiritual beings, not just physical ones. We are spiritual beings who at present have the capacity to day-consciously experience through the vibrations of the physical world. What would be the point of a photograph if no one ever saw it or would see it in the future? It would be pointless. Only through the thinking observer does it gain meaning. There are, for example, plants that have cells on their leaves that are so sensitive to light that people have been able to experiment with them as a sort of "photographic paper". But this does not mean that the plant can see the physical world, for the plant has no day-consciousness in connection with the physical plane with which it could experience such images. It has no experiences in this field, and without this experience it cannot perceive. The light-sensitive cells are in this case the beginning of something that, in the distant future when the plant being passes into the animal kingdom and its consciousness begins to be woken to life on this plane, can develop into organs that are comparable with our eyes.

In fractions of seconds a great deal happens in a human being's consciousness when he or she perceives something. The organs of vision and the nerves receive a stimulus; this stimulus is converted into rays that become mental images. Our consciousness consists of an entire "file" of mental images. Every new visual image that becomes a mental image is instantaneously confronted with the mental or experiential images that make up the material of the "file" or the consciousness, and slips in as an enrichment of our "file", an expansion of our "spiritual space". Conversely we can send mental images from our consciousness to our brain cells, which, via the nervous pathways, can convert mental images into physical ones.

If the physical sensory organs and nerve cells are overtaxed or are exposed to vibrations that are far too powerful, they break down to a greater or lesser extent, and the organism is weakened. This is felt as pain, and one can get rid of pain through anaesthetisation. Anaesthetisation, however, does not mean that healing has taken place. It can be a blessing when the pressure is too great to bear. But one must remember that pain is like a bell ringing to warn us and is not something that should be suppressed by anaesthetics while one continues living one's life in a way that is perhaps the cause of the pain.

The human being is a being that is undergoing a period of accelerated evolution. The colossal advance of technology and science, which in the course of a relatively short time has made it possible to expand the individual's physical space, that is to say, its conquering of time and space, has not been supported by a corresponding development of the individual's consciousness or spiritual space. For this reason the individual is therefore subject to violent disharmony. He has insufficient knowledge to be able to "keep up" mentally and morally with the tremendous speed that has become an ideal in our times. He feels that there is something wrong and this affects his nerves. His nerves are damaged and his mental images become disordered. A jumble of various images arises, resulting in highly illogical imagery. When someone gets an incorrect image of what he sees and experiences in his consciousness, his experience of life becomes so imperfect that he becomes not only physically ill but is also, in many cases, mentally ill. The tremendous speed that has become the order of the day forces such a mass of mental images onto people in such a short time that the vibrations are beyond what their nerves can normally register. At the same time one uses tobacco, alcohol and other artificial stimulants in an attempt to "keep up the pace", and one does not get sufficient rest or sleep during which the broken nerves can be repaired. The upshot is bound to be a shock. But such a shock is only a warning that one is about to get too far out into a spiritual "quagmire" and that one must come back to something in life that can support one and hold one up. The only thing that can really help is to find the cause of the "bad nerves" and then begin to create quite new causes that can gradually give rise to new effects. Medical science can in many cases help a sick person to get started, but it can only patch up the effects of which the person himself is the cause. It cannot remove the cause of the bad nerves. The individual must do that himself. But there is an aid to self-help for the individual, at any rate for the individual who is open and receptive to new impulses. This aid is spiritual science, through which he can learn about his own physical and mental structure.

Formerly most people with shattered nerves were able to get help through the consolation of religion, through belief and suggestion. But for most people of our time religions are a "lost horizon". People that believe blindly – from primitive people with their worshipping of fetishes and other forms of primitive religion to people of today who are followers of the great world religions – feel a living godhead or gods behind everything in the universe. It is not something they have invented; it is an effect of their religious instinct. But as the intelligence develops, the religious instinct and other instincts degenerate. A large part of humanity has drifted from the abstract world of the primitive human into a world of concrete, materialistic ideas that weaken its interest in the abstract to such a degree that it believes that physical matter is the only reality. It vaguely senses the existence of the abstract – just as the plant senses the existence of the physical world – but it cannot explain it. New mental images have entered the individual's consciousness, but mainly images that form isolated mental spheres, which often match people's own desires very well; or they are isolated because they are based only on aspects of matter – for example, weights and measures, thoughts of speed, volume and wavelength – that cannot be perceived directly as being connected with other mental spheres. This is all excellent when it is combined with the spiritual principles and laws, but isolated from these realities they result in a bewildering perception of life that one believes is based on logic because it is based on what is tangible. But it is a "local" kind of logic, which in many cases serves only to justify a morality that actually belongs to the animal kingdom and the jungle, and which, when combined with human intelligence, becomes a kind of "devil-consciousness". Man has laws against killing and has, at the same time, atom and hydrogen bombs. They punish murderers during times of peace, and honour them during war. They have legislation that forbids theft, fraud and enriching oneself at the expense of others, yet at the same time a mass of these crimes flourish in the business world in a camouflaged form, crimes that are regarded as necessary for the maintenance of society. Militarism, capitalism and dictatorship each maintain such situations in various parts of the globe. Narrow-minded, mental images with a strong touch of intelligence that dominate the consciousness of so many people today cause them to act on the basis of a morality that in a narrow materialistic perspective sounds like the following: "One lives only once, so one should enjoy life and elbow one's way forward to the good things of life, even if this has to be at the expense of others, because every man is for himself". The result is a civilised hell where the "devil" wages a war of all against all. For this reason one person after another suffers mental shipwreck.

In the long run man's nerves cannot bear the accelerated competitive speed or total war in all its variations from "cold" war to "hot" war. When people have sought extensively to anaesthetise themselves with alcohol, tobacco and drugs, which only deaden and do not heal, the nerves disintegrate and nervous breakdown occurs. "The alarm bell is ringing", but this does not mean that all is now lost. It rings to show the individual that he cannot go further along his chosen path. He must change course. His narrow-minded, mental images with a strong touch of intelligence are very insufficient in areas that cannot be taken in or embraced by the intelligence alone. As soon as one is concerned with something beyond physical matter, the intelligence is inadequate. It is an insufficient view, not least when it has to do with shattered nerves. What has the part of mankind that has a strong touch of intelligence lost? It has lost contact with the surrounding world in two senses: its contact with its neighbour, and its contact with God. A basis for life is necessary in order not to suffer mental shipwreck. Since the instinct that once formed the basis for people's natural and living relationship to the universe and the Godhead has degenerated, another combination of energies must lead people further. The individual must have a science of the mental world and its laws and of his own mental structure. He must connect his intelligence with a living feeling or neighbourly love, and this combination will lead people to the intuitive experience of the connection between all living beings who "live and move and have their being" in the universal organism of the Godhead. This comprehensive view can give the seeker a new basis for life. If people work with themselves and open themselves, instead of closing themselves in fear or bitterness, it can give them such spiritual power that they no longer fear afraid of anyone or anything, neither life nor death. We cannot endure being deprived of the light or the sun that has created our eyes. If the sun were extinguished at this moment, all physical life on Earth would be over. Nor can we do without the divine spiritual solar power that vibrates throughout the universe and is the fundamental force behind all physical phenomena. Even now our nerves and our organism are ready to correspond with this force, to pass it on as neighbourly love and as the display of creative ability for the benefit of the whole. The intention of man's life is that he gradually become a spiritual sun that promotes vitality and sends its light out to all sides in the form of intellectualised feeling, and in so doing benefits and gives joy to everyone and everything.