Imagination E-Book

Rudolf Steiner

• Herausgeber: Rudolf Steiner Press
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

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').

Leseprobe

RUDOLF STEINER (1861–1925) called his spiritual philosophy ‘anthroposophy’, meaning ‘wisdom of the human being’. As a highly developed seer, he based his work on direct knowledge and perception of spiritual dimensions. He initiated a modern and universal ‘science of spirit’, accessible to anyone willing to exercise clear and unprejudiced thinking.

From his spiritual investigations Steiner provided suggestions for the renewal of many activities, including education (both general and special), agriculture, medicine, economics, architecture, science, philosophy, religion and the arts. Today there are thousands of schools, clinics, farms and other organizations involved in practical work based on his principles. His many published works feature his research into the spiritual nature of the human being, the evolution of the world and humanity, and methods of personal development. Steiner wrote some 30 books and delivered over 6000 lectures across Europe. In 1924 he founded the General Anthroposophical Society, which today has branches throughout the world.

IMAGINATION

Enhancing the Powers of Thinking

RUDOLF STEINER

Compiled and edited by Edward de Boer Translated by Matthew Barton

RUDOLF STEINER PRESS

Rudolf Steiner Press Hillside House, The Square Forest Row, RH18 5ES

www.rudolfsteinerpress.com

Published by Rudolf Steiner Press 2019

Originally published in German under the title Imagination, Bildekraft des Denkens by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Basel, in 2015

© Rudolf Steiner Verlag 2015 This translation © Rudolf Steiner Press 2019

All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. Inquiries should be addressed to the Publishers

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Print book ISBN: 978 1 85584 556 5 Ebook ISBN: 978 1 85584 502 2

Cover by Morgan Creative Typeset by DP Photosetting, Neath, West Glamorgan Printed and bound by 4Edge Ltd., Essex

Contents

Introduction

1. Imagination as Supersensible Cognition

2. The Rosicrucian Path of Schooling

3. Exercises to Develop Imagination

The Preparatory Stage of Sense-free Thinking

Developing Independent Pictorial Thinking

4. Understanding Imagination Through Inspiration and Intuition

5. Illusions, Hallucinations and Visions

6. Imaginative Perception as the Threshold to the Etheric World

7. Goethe’s Worldview

8. Exemplary Imaginations

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

Michael Imagination

Notes

Sources

Introduction

Imagination as living, pictorial thinking is a primary aspect of the anthroposophic path of schooling. Rudolf Steiner regards Imagination* as a foundational stage of supersensible cognition. In the basic works of anthroposophyKnowledge of the Higher Worlds(GA 10) andOccult Science, an Outline(GA 13) he systematically describes the major stages in this schooling. The exercises presented there in context form a methodological unity for developing supersensible consciousness.

In lectures from 1906/07, Steiner speaks about the Rosicrucian path of schooling, and its various steps or stages, in more detailed fashion. The schooling path starts withperceptive day consciousnessorenhanced wakefulness,as the prerequisite for all higher stages of cognition. Imaginative cognition is the next step leading toward the supersensible world, and is followed by the further stages of Inspiration and Intuition.

Rudolf Steiner states that the development of sense-free, logical thinking is the precondition for Imagination (and supersensible cognition altogether). This kind of active thinking, above and beyond the sensory perception of waking consciousness, leads to an experience of independent, pure thinking. The practice of sense-free thinking is therefore an important prelude to the faculty of Imagination, since schooling ourselves in vivid, powerful thinking brings inner clarity and assurance, enabling us to observe and comprehend each step of the thought process and thus give our imaginative experience a firm foundation.

Steiner describes and elaborates this schooling of thinking already in his epistemological texts.1 In his early accounts of the Rosicrucian path of schooling and later also inOccult Science,the development of sense-free thinking and rational engagement with spiritual science is referred to asstudy.This is followed by the development of an independent picture thinking, the capacity of Imagination.

Whereas enhanced wakefulness focuses solely on our material, corporeal and sensory surroundings, Imagination leads us into the world of flowing, living pictures, and thus is a form of independent pictorial thinking no longer founded on merely representational or object awareness. The world of Imagination appears as a realm of soul and spirit in which everything is in continual movement.

Precisely here, in this world of pictures, it is important to be able to distinguish objective supersensible perceptions from visions and hallucinations. The latter have a subjective character and are either unconscious or subconscious in nature. By contrast, the faculty of Imagination developed through schooling is accomplished in full consciousness and inner freedom.

Consciously acquired imaginations enable us to have a clear, objective and universally accessible perception of the supersensible world, comparable roughly to a mathematical theorem. The supersensible world is first perceived and experienced in pictures. Yet if we are not only to perceive but also understand this mobile, continually changing world that presents itself to Imagination, we also need the ability to understand the inner significance of the pictures we perceive. Only the faculties of Inspiration and Intuition enable us to have such understanding. They are the next stages of supersensible consciousness and relate to Imagination roughly as the ability to read relates to the separate letters employed in script. In the same way that individual letters are compiled into a word when we write or read, so diverse imaginative perceptions are brought into a meaningful context by Inspiration. The stage of Intuition then leads us to an encounter with the realities, the living beings, behind the pictures.

Rudolf Steiner repeatedly gave exercises to help develop this faculty of Imagination. In his 1906 lectures, for example, he describes various exercises that he had previously mentioned in a series of articles in the periodical Lucifer-Gnosis,which were subsequently published in book form asKnowledge of the Higher Worlds.For instance he describes the ‘seed exercise’, and assigns it to Imagination. While the faculty of Imagination is not yetexplicitlymentioned as a stage of consciousness in the schooling bookKnowledge of the Higher Worlds,2 many of the detailed exercises described there do lead to imaginative perception.3

Another very primary, key exercise with imaginative character in the anthroposophic path of schooling is the ‘review of the day’. Here the student practises calling up vividly before his inner eye, in as much detail as possible, the experiences of a past day, or his whole life, or also particular important events. In this pictorial review, our experiences can be significantly deepened.

Occult Science, an Outlinethen describes the Rose Cross meditation as a fundamental exercise of Imagination, which can be further broadened and deepened into inspired and intuitive cognition. If we immerse ourselves meditatively in this symbol of human evolution, the thoughts and pictures we acquire in the process help us develop our independent pictorial thinking activity, and thus also imaginative consciousness.

The present compilation offers a survey of the diverse aspects of Imagination and imaginative cognition. The term leads us into a rich and far-reaching realm of anthroposophy. In fact we can say that anthroposophy itself is pictorial and imaginative in nature, and very often comes to expression in pictures. The idea of the metamorphosis of plants, which preoccupied Steiner when he edited Goethe’s scientific writings, is one already imbued by a pictorial quality. And many fundamental concepts in spiritual-science—for instance the evolution of the world and human being—were later formulated by Steiner in vivid, living pictures. Similarly, the verses, meditations, poetic and artistic works created by Steiner have this imaginative character and quality.

This selection is conceived as a stimulus for readers to practise, deepen and extend their own imaginative consciousness. The choice of texts draws on Steiner’s written works and the fundamental comments he made there on Imagination, with additional passages taken from his lectures and re-ordered thematically.

The first section is concerned with Imagination in general as a form of supersensible cognition. Its specific character as picturing perception that enables us to have access to the world of spirit, is presented here in the spiritual-scientific context. Light is also shed on how the living nature of imaginative consciousness leads us beyond our mundane thinking capacity and merely representational or object awareness. The next section goes on to locate Imagination within the Rosicrucian schooling path as one of its seven stages. Study is followed by the development of imaginative cognition as the first level of supersensible perception. Imagination is described as a distinct sphere of experience through which the spiritual pupil can enter the supersensible world. The third section shows how Imagination can be methodically developed: first by practising sense-free thinking as a prelude to Imagination, and then through specific exercises for progressive development of imaginative cognition as a form of independent picture thinking.

Subsequent sections of the book concern the distinction between Imagination and other forms of supersensible perception, including erroneous or illusory ones. Section 4 looks at the connection between Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition as the three stages of supersensible cognition. And Section 5 describes a few of the risks and obstacles that can arise for esoteric pupils if they are unable to distinguish imaginations from subjective illusions or visions, as well as highlighting ways to avoid such risks.

Section 6 offers a survey of how Imagination leads us to perceive the world of living things, and opens a doorway to this world of formative forces, the etheric world.

At an early stage in his development, Steiner’s preoccupation with Goethe and the latter’s reflections on the metamorphosis of plants, led him to consider the sensory-supersensible nature of pictures gained through the imaginative faculty. In Section 7 we offer texts that illustrate the connections between Goethe’s worldview and imaginative consciousness as spiritual experience, as Steiner later developed it.

Finally, Section 8 compiles several texts that Steiner referred to explicitly as ‘Imaginations’. Besides artistic representation of spiritual perceptions, as in Goethe’s fairytale or Steiner’s mystery plays, these include meditative content such as the apocalyptic seals and the Michael Imagination. These texts can encourage further study, deeper contemplation, and schooling of our own pictorial thinking.

Edward de Boer

*Translator’s note: When used in the sense intended by Steiner, as a faculty of supersensible perception, we will distinguish this word by an initial capital. The same will apply to the faculties of Inspiration and Intuition. Confusion might be caused in places where the German word translated by ‘imagination’ (small i) is ‘Fantasie’, which should not be confused with the English word ‘fantasy’. Elsewhere, ‘imaginative’, and the plural form ‘imaginations’ will also have a small i, though these are likewise used to refer to the spiritual faculty of Imagination.

1. Imagination as Supersensible Cognition

‘Material cognition’ depends on us receiving sensory impressions of things and occurrences in our surroundings, and on a capacity for feeling and physiological sensitivity. An external impression that impinges on us is also called ‘sensation’. Thus in ‘material cognition’ we are concerned with these four elements: sensation, image, concept, I.

At the next higher level of cognition, external sensory impressions, ‘sensations’, fall away. An outer sense-perceptible object is no longer present, and so there remain only three of the original elements to which we are accustomed in ordinary perception: image, concept and I.

In an ordinary healthy person, perception creates no image or concept when no external object is present. The ‘I’ then remains inactive. Someone who creates pictures which supposedly correspond to sensory things when none are in fact present, lives in fantasy. But now the esoteric pupil acquires the capacity to form pictures in the absence of any sensory objects. Such outer things must now be replaced by something else. The pupil must be able to have pictures even when no sensory impression summons it. In place of ‘sensation’ must come something else. This isImagination.At this stage of development the esoteric pupil perceives pictures in exactly the same way as if a sense object were making an impression on him. These are as vivid and true as sensory images, and yet they do not come from the ‘material’ realm but from that of ‘soul’ and ‘spirit’. The senses are completely inactive in this process. It is evident that this capacity to have pictorial content without sensory impressions is one a person has to work to develop. This can be done through meditation, and through the exercises described inKnowledge of the Higher Worlds.Someone whose perceptions are confined to the sensory world only has within them pictures that have first entered them through the senses. By contrast, in Imagination we have a world of pictures that originate in a higher world. Very careful schooling is required to distinguish illusion from reality within this higher world of pictures.(The Stages of Higher Knowledge, 1905–1908)4

Healthy inner experience can teach us that an Imagination is not a merely subjective image but a pictorial rendering of an objective, spiritual content. This knowledge is acquired in a soul-spiritual way, just as, in healthy sense perception, we can distinguish illusions from objective perceptions.(Occult Science, an Outline, 1910)5

The pictures arising in Imagination have a vividness and wealth of content which far surpass our shadowy memory pictures of the sense world, and even the very colourful, diverse sense world itself. This too is only a shadow compared with the realm of Imagination.(The Stages of Higher Knowledge, 1905–1908)6

The content of what is seen in spiritual perception can only be rendered in pictures (imaginations) through which speak inspirations originating in intuitively experienced spiritual realities. […] But in trying to present and describe imaginations from the world of spirit we cannot, in our era, merely offer these as such, for in doing so we would be presenting something that stood as a quite different content of consciousness from the knowledge of our current age, and with no connection to it. We need rather to fill contemporary awareness with what can be perceived by a different awareness, one able to see into the world of spirit. And then this world of spirit will be the content of our communications, flowing into the form of thoughts. By this means it becomes fully comprehensible to ordinary consciousness, to modern thinking, thus to minds that cannot as yet see into the world of spirit.

This comprehensibility will only be lacking if people themselves place hindrances in its way: when they internalize the preconceptions current in our time and founded on a falsely regarded science with its ‘limits to knowledge’.

In spiritual cognition everything is immersed in intimate soul experience—not only spiritual seeing itself but also the understanding that ordinary awareness, without spiritual vision, brings to bear on the fruits of seership.

Those who say, in a most superficial manner, that anyone who believes they have this understanding are prey to self-suggestion, have no inkling ofthisintimate subtlety.

In fact it is true to say that what comes to expression in mere concepts as truth or error in our understanding of the physical world, becomes lived experience in relation to the world of spirit.

If we allow our judgement to be even mildly affected by the sense that, because of the ordinary mind’s limitations, spiritual perceptions are beyond its reach, we in fact overlay our comprehension with this very sense and judgement, like a darkening cloud, and are then really unable to understand.

And yet to the unprejudiced mind, despite not having spiritual perception itself, the content of this perception is fully comprehensible if the seer can formulate it in thoughts. It is just as accessible as a painter’s picture is to a non-painter. And this understanding of the spirit world is not of an artistic and feeling kind as we may have before a work of art, but a thoroughly thought-imbued one, similar to the one we bring to bear on scientific enquiry.

But to make such understanding possible, the seer must really form visions into thoughts without these at the same time losing their imaginative character.(Occult Science, an Outline, 1910)7

My perceptions of the spirit, I am fully aware, are the fruits of my own capacities of vision. At every turn, in manifold details as well as the broadest surveys, I checked very rigorously as to whether each step on my further path of seeing was accompanied by full, considered awareness. Just as the mathematician passes from one thought to the next without any interference from unconscious motives or auto-suggestion and suchlike, so likewise I undertook to pass from objective Imagination to objective Imagination without anything living in the soul other than the spiritual content of clear and examined consciousness.(Occult Science, an Outline, 1910)8

Spiritual experiences first rise as pictures from the underdepths of the soul of the person who has prepared themselves for this. It is now a question of finding the right relationship to these images. They only have value for supersensible perception if we avoid taking them in isolation, at face value, but consider their whole context. The moment they are seen in isolation only, they have scarcely more value than ordinary dreams. They must announce themselves like the separate letters you have before you when reading. You do not attend to the distinct form of each letter but you read in the letters what is expressed through them. Just as a written text is not asking us to describe the forms of the letters, so these pictures, the contents of supersensible vision, are not asking us to focus on them alone. By their very nature they evoke a need to turn a blind eye to their pictorial character and instead direct the soul to what is expressed through them as supersensible occurrence or being.

It would be foolish to say that a written message bearing hitherto completely unknown tidings is merely composed of letters we have long been familiar with, and so must be known to us; nor can we say of the pictures of supersensible consciousness, either, that they only contain things borrowed from ordinary life. While that is true to a certain degree, real supersensible consciousness is not concerned with what is drawn in this way from ordinary life, but only with what the pictures of Imagination express.

But first the soul must prepare itself to see such pictures rising before its spiritual gaze, and in doing so must carefully develop a sense of looking beyond the images as such, and instead relating them in the right way to the supersensible world. It is true to say that real supersensible vision requires not only the capacity to perceive a world of inner pictures, but equally another faculty: one which we can compare withreadingin the sense world.