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Rudolf Steiner developed exercises aimed at cultivating new cognitive faculties he believed would be appropriate to contemporary individual and cultural development. According to Steiner's view of history, in earlier periods people were capable of direct spiritual perceptions, or clairvoyance, but not yet of rational thought; more recently, rationality has been developed at the cost of spiritual perception, leading to the alienation characteristic of modernity. Steiner proposed that humanity now has the task of synthesizing the rational and contemplative/spiritual components of cognition, whereby spiritual perception would be awakened through intensifying thinking.〔 A central principle of Steiner's proposed path to spiritual development is that self-development - inner transformation - is a necessary part of the spiritual path: "for every step in spiritual perception, three steps are to be taken in moral development." According to the spiritual philosophy Steiner founded, anthroposophy, moral development:〔Peter Schneider, ''Einführung in die Waldorfpädogogik'', Klett-Cotta, 1982, ISBN 3-608-93006-X〕〔Johannes Hemleben, ''Rudolf Steiner: A documentary biography'', Henry Goulden Ltd, 1975, ISBN 0-904822-02-8, pp. 91-94 (German edition: Rowohlt Verlag, 1990, ISBN 3-499-50079-5)〕〔Lía Tummer, ''Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy for Beginners'', Writers and Readers Publishing, 2001, ISBN 0-86316-286-X, pp. 79-84〕 * reveals the extent to which a person has achieved control over his or her inner life; * ensures that he or she lives in harmony with the surrounding natural and social world; * correlates with his or her progress in spiritual development, the fruits of which are given in spiritual perception; and * guarantees the capacity to distinguish between true perceptions and illusions, or to distinguish in any perception between the influence of subjective elements and objective realities. ==Meditative path== Steiner described three stages of meditative progress: imaginative cognition, inspiration and intuition.〔Olav Hammer, ''Claiming Knowledge'', ISBN 90-04-13638-X, pp. 424ff〕 *In imaginative cognition, the meditant aims to achieve thinking independent of sensory perception through concentration on either visual forms of symbolic significance never encountered in the sensory world (e.g. a black cross with a circle of seven red roses superimposed upon it), metamorphoses (e.g. the growth cycle of a plant from seed to mature flower), or mantric verses spoken aloud or silently (e.g. verses for each week of the year intended to connect the meditant with the rhythms of nature). *In inspiration, the meditant seeks to eliminate all consciously chosen meditative content to open a receptive space in which objective spiritual content (impressions stemming from objective spiritual beings) may be encountered. The meditative activity established in imaginative cognition is set forth without concrete content. *The stage of intuition is achieved through practicing exercises of will (e.g. reviewing the sequence of the day's events in reverse order).〔Carlo Willmann, ''Waldorfpädogogik: Theologische und religionspädagogische Befunde'', Böhlau Verlag, 1998, ISBN 3-412-16700-2, pp. 11-14〕 At this stage, the meditant seeks unity with the creative forces of the cosmos without any loss of his or her individualized consciousness. This sequence of meditative stages has the ultimate goal of the meditant experiencing his or her own karma and previous incarnations, as well as the "Akashic record" of historical events.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Rudolf Steiner's exercises for spiritual development」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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