{"id":4244,"date":"2018-05-02T10:47:47","date_gmt":"2018-05-02T14:47:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anthroposophy.ca\/?p=4244"},"modified":"2025-01-19T16:29:11","modified_gmt":"2025-01-19T21:29:11","slug":"introduction-to-exercises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anthroposophy.ca\/en\/introduction-to-exercises\/","title":{"rendered":"Introduction to Exercises"},"content":{"rendered":"

In April 1922, Walter Johannes Stein asked Rudolf Steiner: “What will remain of your work thousands of years from now?” \u00a0He replied: “Nothing but The Philosophy of Freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rudolf Steiner wrote and spoke repeatedly throughout his life about the importance of the Philosophy of Freedom.\u00a0 For example, in the introduction to Occult Science he wrote, \u201c\u2026The path leading through acquaintanceship with spiritual-scientific truths to sense-free thinking is completely reliable.\u00a0 But there is another even more dependable and, above all, more exact, though for some people it may prove more difficult.\u00a0 It is described in my books, The Theory of Knowledge Based on the Goethean World Conception and The Philosophy of Freedom.\u00a0These books point out what human thought achieves when thinking becomes absorbed in self-activity instead of working on impressions of the physical sense world\u2026. A person who allows these books to work upon his entire being is already experiencing the spiritual world, although he perceives it only as a world of thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Philosophy of Freedom is a treasure map.\u00a0In general, we can work with the map in two ways.\u00a0 Firstly, we can study the map.\u00a0 We can read it, make notes, meet in study groups to discuss and deepen our understanding.\u00a0This first approach to the work is a necessary and essential precursor to the second approach, which is to set out to find the treasure, to tread the path of knowledge.<\/p>\n

The following exercises came about through a conversation with the Philosophy of Freedom.\u00a0 The ever present question for me as I read the text was, \u201cWhat guidance for the path of knowledge is implicit in these words?\u201d\u00a0 I tested and refined the individual exercises personally and through the work of an Exercise Advisory Group, whose members generously gave of their time, working with the exercises and providing feedback.\u00a0 The group exercises evolved through trial and error and were especially a collective effort.<\/p>\n

The Individual exercises can help us\u2026<\/p>\n

* bring thinking to life, through an intensification of will activity<\/em><\/p>\n

* discover the rich sources of our lives of feeling<\/em><\/p>\n

* actively commence the process of becoming free, through moral imaginative thinking.<\/em><\/u><\/p>\n

View or print the PoF Individual Exercises<\/a><\/p>\n

Surprisingly \u2013 because of the acute efforts which the individual exercises can require \u2013 they become strikingly fruitful when we take them up in groups.\u00a0 Working together with the exercises we can get to know each other with a depth which is typically reserved for our closest friends. \u00a0We grow to understand \u2013 with awe and reverence \u2013 how our colleagues think, what they feel, how they struggle with ethical questions.<\/p>\n

View or print the PoF Individual & Group Exercises<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n

Please bear in mind that these Individual Exercises remain experiments.\u00a0 You may wish to modify them or simply to employ them as inspirations for creating your own exercises.\u00a0 That goes for the Group Exercises as well.\u00a0 You might consider taking them up in a study group; then after a few sessions decide to work differently, to experiment with new forms. \u00a0The exercises also lend themselves to weekend work in the form of a conference.\u00a0 Indeed, we worked with many of these exercises over the course of two weekend conferences in Toronto in 2015 and 2016.<\/p>\n

Background and History of this Initiative<\/a><\/p>\n

When we set out to observe our thinking, we discover a realm of experience which differs from all other forms of consciousness in life, a realm which Steiner characterizes in chapter three of the Philosophy of Freedom as a kind of \u201cexceptional state\u201d.\u00a0 In this exceptional state we encounter in the living mobility of thinking an activity which comes into being through our own efforts and is at the same time a universal, objective process.\u00a0 Through it, we gain strength and certainty for new beginnings, for exploring ourselves and exploring the world.<\/p>\n

On the one hand, the process is simple\u2026 First, we observe something.\u00a0 Then we think about it.\u00a0 Then we observe the thinking we have done.\u00a0 The thing to observe at the outset can be whatever we choose, for example:<\/p>\n