Imagination: Enhancing the Powers of Thinking

By Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Steiner differentiated clearly between the spiritual concept of Imagination and our everyday understanding of the word. As living, pictorial thinking, Imagination is a primary aspect of the contemporary path of inner schooling – the first of three levels of initiate knowledge and cognition. Imagination leads us into a world of flowing, living pictures: a realm of soul and spirit in which everything is in continual movement.

This anthology offers a survey of the diverse aspects of Imagination and imaginative cognition. As the thematically re-ordered texts reveal, Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual philosophy – anthroposophy – is itself often pictorial and imaginative in nature. Many of its fundamental concepts, such as the evolution of the world and the human being, were formulated by Steiner in vivid, living pictures. However, whilst imaginative perception leads us to the threshold of the spiritual world, we can also fall prey there to illusions, visions and hallucinations.

This volume, expertly assembled by Edward de Boer, draws on the entirety of Rudolf Steiner’s collected works – from his earliest writings to passages from his many lectures. It is conceived as a stimulus to readers to practise, deepen and extend their own imaginative consciousness. Steiner’s commentary on ‘exemplary Imaginations’, in particular, encourages further study, contemplation and schooling of our own pictorial thinking.

Chapters include ‘Imagination as Supersensible Cognition’; ‘The Rosicrucian Path of Schooling’; ‘Exercises to Develop Imagination’; ‘Understanding Imagination Through Inspiration and Intuition’; ‘Illusions, Hallucinations and Visions’; ‘Imaginative Perception as the Threshold to the Etheric World’; ‘Goethe’s Worldview’ and ‘Exemplary Imaginations’ (including commentary on ‘The Fairy-tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily’, The Mystery Plays; The Great Initiates; the ‘Apocalyptic Seals’; The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz and the ‘Michael Imagination’).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rudolf Steiner Press
• Release date: Apr 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9781855845022

Rudolf Steiner

During the last two decades of the nineteenth century the Austrian-born Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) became a respected and well-published scientific, literary, and philosophical scholar, particularly known for his work on Goethe's scientific writings. After the turn of the century, he began to develop his earlier philosophical principles into an approach to methodical research of psychological and spiritual phenomena. His multi-faceted genius has led to innovative and holistic approaches in medicine, science, education (Waldorf schools), special education, philosophy, religion, economics, agriculture, (Bio-Dynamic method), architecture, drama, the new art of eurythmy, and other fields. In 1924 he founded the General Anthroposophical Society, which today has branches throughout the world.