Even as the blind man looks upon a new world as soon as he has undergone a successful operation, so can man, through the developing of higher organs, perceive worlds quite different from those which he observed at first with his ordinary senses. Now whether or not it is possible to operate on one who is bodily blind depends on the conditions of the organs; but those higher organs by which one may penetrate into the upper worlds, exist in embryo in every human being. Anyone can develop them, who has the patience, endurance and energy to make use of those methods which are described in my two books entitled “The Way of Initiation” and “Initiation and Its Results.”[1] Theosophy does not speak of limitations to man’s knowledge through his organism; but says, on the contrary, that he is surrounded by worlds for which he has the organs of perception. It indicates the means by which to extend the temporary limits. It also occupies itself with the investigation of the vital, or etheric body, and to what in the following may be called the yet higher principles of human nature. It admits that only the physical body can be accessible to the investigation of the bodily senses, and that from this standpoint one can at most only chance on something higher by a train of reasoning. But it gives information as to how one can open up for oneself a world in which these higher principles of human nature appear before the observer, just as the colors and light of objects appear before the blind-born person after his operation. For those who have developed the higher organs of perception, the etheric or vital body is an object of actual observation, and not a theory resulting from intellectual activity or a train of reasoning. Man has this etheric, or vital body, in common with the plants and animals. It causes the matter and forces of the physical body to form themselves into the manifestations of growth, of reproduction, of the internal motions of the fluids, etc. It is also the builder and sculptor of the physical body, its inhabitant and its architect. The physical body can therefore also be called an image or expression of this vital body. Both are approximately the same in man as regards form and size, yet they are by no means quite alike. But the etheric body in animals and still more in plants, differs considerably from the physical body with regard to its shape and dimension.