Editor's Preface

The Swedish esoterician Henry T. Laurency published in his life-time the books The Philosopher's Stone and The Knowledge of Reality. After the author's decease, The Henry T. Laurency Publishing Foundation continues the publishing of his unprinted works. Of these, the greater part was published in Swedish in five volumes under the collective name of Knowledge of Life in the years 1986-1995. After the present volume, The Way of Man, remains Diary. For a complete account of all works of Laurency published hitherto, thus besides books in Swedish also booklets and translations into English, Finnish, and German, the reader is referred to the actual literature list published most recently by The Publishing Foundation. Translations into French are proceeding, and The Philosopher's Stone as well as The Way of Man are planned to be published in a near future.

The present work, The Way of Man, was at the beginning a very hugh mass of short texts, apparently unconnected, gathered together into 18 sections. From the notes left by the author it was clear that he had managed to collect all the materials he had intended for his work but that the compilation of the materials to form a continuous text remained to be done according to instructions he had left: "The contents of this third volume of the Problems of Reality is made up of aphorisms gathered together under special principal chapters, determined by consciousness in the different material worlds of the solar system, but otherwise in a state of disorder. These aphorisms seek, in constantly new formulations, come about during some ten years, restate existing facts and ideas. The editor may choose between merely attempting to collect the various formulations that belong together or trying to work the aphorisms of differing contents into summarizing sentences. The method last mentioned was the one used when writing PS and KR, and that is why those two books took years merely to formulate." I began studying the materials in 1972, and in 1982 I made a first experimental compilation of some part of it. In 1988 I began working in earnest on the whole work, of which a first first compilation was presented to the Board of Directors of the Publishing Foundation in 1992. I was far from satisfied with my work, however, and so I decided to work it all over once more. This revision was finished in 1995 but displayed certain shortcomings remaining. When I started translating the work into English this caused me to see ambiguities in the Swedish text in a new light, so I decided to complete the translation before making the second and final revision. I relate this as an explanation to the many friends of Laurency in Sweden and abroad who have patiently waited for the book during many years and have, quite reasonably, wondered "why it takes so long a time". I also want to use this opportunity to express my personal, heartfelt thank to all of you have in many different ways supported me in this difficult but joyous work. Without your efficient assistance I perhaps would not have made it; in any case it would have been much more difficult.

On the face of it, The Way of Man perhaps is more direct, easier to read than the two first published books by Laurency. To reach the best possible understanding of the work, however, the reader should study both The Knowledge of Reality and The Philosopher's Stone in depth. When in his texts Laurency speaks about the "recorder" he refers to himself.

Some notes on the language of the English translation of The Way of Man

Since Swedish and English are cognate languages, and moreover the Swedish and Englishspeaking nations share in many respects a common cultural heritage, the translation has not presented any major obstacles. However, there are some points in the choice of certain words that should be explained to enable the reader to understand the text perfectly. These points should also be considered whenever this translation is used for translation into further languages, as will undoubtedly happen.

The first point comes to the fore in the title of the work: THE WAY OF MAN already. The use of the word "man" here of couse has reference to the human individual irrespective of sex and warrants no preference for the male. The original title uses the Swedish gender-neutral word for "human individual", manniska, which actually is a feminine noun and always referred to as "she" (I think the Swedish language is unique in this respect.). I can just deplore the fact that English, as well as the Romance languages, has no handy gender-neutral word for the human individual, such as the German Mensch, Dutch mens, Russian cheloviek, Finnish ihminen, Hungarian ember, Arabic insan, or Chinese ren. Perhaps the future evolution of the English language will yield such a word, but as I dare not be the innovator; I have to merely adapt to the usage.

The second point bears upon the use of the word "realize" and its derivative, "realization". Once again, the English language here evinces a vagueness, which has no correspondence in other languages I know. Because the word "realize" has two principal, rather different meanings, which must be clearly kept apart when reading The Way of Man. The first meaning, which is by far the most common, is: "be fully aware of, conceive of as real; understand clearly" ("I realized that what she said was true.") The second meaning is: "convert into actuality, achieve" ("I shall soon realize my dreams."). In the Swedish original there are two quite different verbs to denote these two activities, namely "inse" and "forverkliga"; and the same is true of many other languages: German "einsehen" and "verwirklichen", Dutch "beseffen" and "verwezenlijken", French "se rendre compte" and "realiser" (the use of "realiser" in the first meaning is considered substandard French), Russian "osoznat" and "osushchestvlyat", Serbo-Croat uvideti" and "ostvariti", Finnish "oivaltaa" and "toteuttaa", etc. Now, since Henry T. Laurency often emphasizes that mere understanding "realization", first sense) is not enough, that we must also work actively to actualize our potentials, "realize" them (second sense), the importance of clearly distinguishing these two meanings of "realize" is evident. In the two paragraphs 5.47.5 and 7.4.3 the word "realize" occurs twice and in the two different meanings, so I refer the reader to those paragraphs if (s)he wants some practical illustration of this problem.

Therefore, to forestall any risk of misunderstanding, I now present a list of all places where "realize" or "realization" is used in the second sense, that is: "to make real, to effect in real life" in the WM, and so all other occurrences of "realize" or "realization" must be understood in the other sense. The composite word "self-realization" is not accounted for in the list below, since it is always used unambigiously in the second sense.

This list covers Sections One through Eight only; it will be completed later:

1.5.8, 1.7.4, 1.17.10, 1.36.7, 1.38.14, 1.38.16, 1.44.7, 1.51.4 (twice), 1.52.6, 1.52.7 (realize and realization), 1.53.5, 1.62.4, 1.67.9, 1.67.13 (thrice); 2.5.1; 3.4.4, 3.5.2, 3.20.2, 3.20.5 (realize twice and realization), 3.28.5, 3.38.4, 3.42.9, 3.45.9; 4.4.5, 4.17.7, 5.12.9 (realize and realization), 5.36.4, 5.42.3, 5.46.6, 5.47.5 (only the second occurrence of "realize"!), 5.52.6; 6.30.11 (realization and realize); 7.4.3 (only the second occurrence of "realize"!), 7.4.4; 8.3.11, 8.10.19, 8.17.6 (realize twice), 8.18.3.

Skovde, Sweden, February 1999

Lars Adelskogh