| Concept and Working Modus
- The third step, following movement and the soul experience in observing nature, is the schooling of thinking. For this purpose we will use a chapter from the book “Extending Practical Medicine” written jointly by Steiner and Wegman. After a short plenary introduction, the work takes place in the same small groups as for the Goetheanistic studies. Using this text, a path of schooling in thought is taken that has four stages:
- Thorough reading of the text, numbering the paragraphs, working through what has been said, written. Connections that remain incomprehensible or give rise to questions are written down if they cannot be satisfactorily answered in the time available.
- The train of thought will be followed from the first paragraph through to the last: How does one thought join with the next? Where does the train of thought apparently break off, in order to be taken up again at another place? Where do new thoughts start and – perhaps with apparently no connection – stand in relation to the first and second thoughts? What is the thread running through? Are we in a position to be able to reproduce the train of thought, developed by Steiner, ourselves?
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- Whilst the first and second steps have more to do with the way in which the content is brought as forms of thought, in the third step the emphasis is comprehending the composition of the chapter as a whole: How are the beginning and end related to each other? In the course of the paragraphs, do various important points reveal themselves or does the whole move towards a climax, which is all-important? Does one thought develop out of another in a more sculptural style of directing thought or is it a more inspirational style where one thought does not directly join onto the next, but rather is in a loose illuminating association, ie a complementing form? In this third step, which is to do with a deeper, artistic grasping of the way in which the inner and outer structure of the chapter is built up, the possibility arises of unlocking the text in a much more intimate way as a work of art, a composition. Through this, it may then be possible to come to further deeper understanding of the content in the text and thought relationships.
- The highest stage of grasping in thought and understanding is then the attempt to penetrate to the essential that means the being of what is written. Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual-scientific research rests upon supersensible experiences, which he was able to translate into clear concepts and thought connections. With that he could also put them into words, making them reproducible and comprehensible for present day people. We want to take the reverse path: Going from the written text, to the effectiveness of the thought; from there to the artistic revelation and in the end to the being of what is recognized and said.
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