PREFACE BY THE TRANSLATOR

This work was originally published in German as Was ist Meditation? - Eine grundlegende Erörterung zur geisteswissesschaftlichen Bewusstseinserweiterung in a second edition in 1986 by Gideon Spicker Publishing in Dornach, Switzerland; the titles given here to the chapters are not from the original but from the translator. 

In the Foreword below a short survey is made by the author of the theory and practice of meditation in both the East and its offshoots in the West. To bring this overview up to date remains a task to be done, in doing so, some subjects for research spring immediately to mind: mindfulness with its Buddhistic roots and advocate the Dalai Lama and his admiring associate the anthroposophist Arthur Zajonc, writer of many books related to meditation and secondly the Australian biologist Jeremy Wright, who with his book Freedom has claimed in numerous ads online to have achieved the greatest breakthrough in human evolution by finally solving the "human condition" by lifting and thereby liberating it from instinct to intellect. Depending on the outcome of this research, it may already be stated as a provisional hypothesis that nothing has in that intervening period been brought forward that nullifies the bold claim developed here, namely to introduce a new and truly modern type of meditative theory and practice suited to and developed out of the consciousness, i.e. the Zeitgeist of our age, and if it has, please notify me. [Update: In the intervening time I have come across the notable work of Jesaiah Ben-Aharon such as Cognitive Yoga - Making Yourselves a New Etheric Body and Individuality, which has received very contradictory reviews from anthroposophists, and his recently published book The Twilight and  Resurrection of Humanity - The History of the Michaelic Movement since the Death of Rudolf Steiner - An Esoteric Study, which lay claim to presenting just such a modern meditational theory and practice. I suspend any form of judgment on the merit of these works until I have thoroughly studied them.]   

Now that the working translation has been finished on November 9, 2019),  the idea is to ultimately publish it with an updated Preface and, if it sells, to use the profits to set up of a model oasis of humanity on a biodynamically farmed estate as a prelude to establishing more of them. This could then offer a perspective on a Threefold World Peace Union, as originally suggested in part by Rudolf Steiner, taken up by Albert Steffen and further developed ideally by Herbert Witzenmann and as such proposed in my Preface to his book The Virtues - Season of the Soul.