More Precious than Light

Book excerpt: Relationships are built through dialogue – through exploring heartfelt questions that lead to liberating personal insights. This book shows how such dialogue can transform relationships and build community. However, true meeting and healing conversations take effort. Encounter involves light and dark. Relationships bring out sympathy and antipathy. In an age of digital communications and internet-based encounters – when alienation and loneliness are very real issues – this new edition of Margarete van den Brink’s classic work is more vital than ever. The process of inner development – leading ultimately to the unification of the human self with its higher, spiritual being – involves a transformation in our everyday selves. In this act of initiation, the art of conversation plays a central role. The words which people speak to each other contain a force that can work in an invigorating and life-enhancing way. This force – which can be more precious than light itself – is the highest creative principle, the Word referred to in the Gospel of St John, which created everything that exists. Informed by the insights of anthroposophy, More Precious than Light indicates the path towards the spirit and the lost power of the Word, transforming relationships and building community. True encounter can only be fostered through making real connections with our fellow human beings.