This seminal work asserts that free spiritual activity--understood as the human ability to think and act independently of one's physical nature--is the most appropriate path today for inner development and true self-knowledge. This is not simply a volume of philosophy, but also a friendly guide to practice and the experience of living thinking. Rudolf Steiner provides a step-by-step account of how we can come to experience living, intuitive thinking, the conscious experience of pure spirit. Since this book was written more than a century ago, many have tried to discover the kind of new thinking that can help us better understand the spiritual, ecological, social, political, and philosophical issues that face us. Steiner showed a path that leads from ordinary thinking to the level of pure spiritual activity--true inner freedom.