A Räuberleiter (German), literally a ‘robber’s ladder’, is where one person gives another person a leg up, as it were, to gain access to some restricted premises or to steal something. I like the idea of a robber’s ladder: an illicit way of reaching a higher level, one morally dubious non-expert giving another morally dubious non-expert a leg up to access something that ought to be out of reach. The spiritual experience really ought to be out of reach to alcoholics, but it isn’t. There’s no actual ladder to get there. There is only one alcoholic helping another. No external tools or devices, like ladders or jetpacks. Using oneself as the means to help another. The upward process of the steps is by means of the amateurish and questionable Räuberleiter. But what is gained is not stolen: it is actually the due inheritance; the realm of the spirit is where one always ought to have belonged.