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Six Steps in Self-Development: The “Supplementary Exercises”

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The so-called supplementary exercises―intended for practice along with the “review exercises” and meditation―are integral to the path of inner development presented by Rudolf Steiner. Together, they form a means of experiencing the spiritual realm in full consciousness. Meditation enlivens thinking; the review exercises cultivate the will; and the supplementary exercises educate and balance the feeling life. Practiced conscientiously, this path of self-knowledge and development has the effect of opening a source of inner strength and psychological health that soon manifest in daily life.

In six stages, these exercises enable the practice of qualities we may summarize
When practiced regularly, they balance the possible harmful effects of meditative practice, bringing inner certainty and security to the soul. They are also of inestimable value in their own right, owing to their beneficial and wholesome effects on one’s daily life.

In this invaluable little book, the editor has gathered virtually all Steiner's statements on the “supplementary exercises,” supporting them with commentary and notes. With a chapter devoted to each exercise, the book describes each in detail and from various perspectives.

96 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 2010

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About the author

Rudolf Steiner

4,266 books1,070 followers
Author also wrote under the name Rudolph Steiner.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...


Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian occultist, social reformer, architect, esotericist, and claimed clairvoyant. Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century as a literary critic and published works including The Philosophy of Freedom. At the beginning of the twentieth century he founded an esoteric spiritual movement, anthroposophy, with roots in German idealist philosophy and theosophy. His teachings are influenced by Christian Gnosticism or neognosticism. Many of his ideas are pseudoscientific. He was also prone to pseudohistory.
In the first, more philosophically oriented phase of this movement, Steiner attempted to find a synthesis between science and spirituality. His philosophical work of these years, which he termed "spiritual science", sought to apply what he saw as the clarity of thinking characteristic of Western philosophy to spiritual questions,  differentiating this approach from what he considered to be vaguer approaches to mysticism. In a second phase, beginning around 1907, he began working collaboratively in a variety of artistic media, including drama, dance and architecture, culminating in the building of the Goetheanum, a cultural centre to house all the arts. In the third phase of his work, beginning after World War I, Steiner worked on various ostensibly applied projects, including Waldorf education, biodynamic agriculture, and anthroposophical medicine.
Steiner advocated a form of ethical individualism, to which he later brought a more explicitly spiritual approach. He based his epistemology on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's world view in which "thinking…is no more and no less an organ of perception than the eye or ear. Just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas." A consistent thread that runs through his work is the goal of demonstrating that there are no limits to human knowledge.

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100 reviews1 follower
July 28, 2023
Does not go into details how exactly the supplementary exercises should be performed, they are mainly just stated with very brief description. This book can be only taken as a brief introduction into developing conscious self that aims at connecting to spiritual growth.
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