Steiner Studies: Band 1 - 2020

Despite the fact that Rudolf Steiner was arguably a culturally very influential figure in Germany around the turn of the century, whose ideas impacted important areas of life such as education, ecology, and medicine, serious academic research concerning his work and influence has been almost non-existent during the roughly one hundred years since his death in 1925. Only recently, as the academic study of Esotericism has established itself as a serious academic discipline, Steiner and Anthroposophy have increasingly become the subject of serious academic study as well. To be mentioned here are the publications of Helmut Zander, Heiner Ullrich, Hartmut Traub, and others, but also the development of a Critical Edition of Steiner’s major works, launched in 2013 by the frommann-holzboog publishing house.

The STEINER STUDIES are designed to give a voice to this emerging field of academic study, as an international, peer-reviewed academic journal, dedicated to publishing critical research concerning Steiner and his influence on the humanities, sciences, and culture. Guided by the editorial principles of academic rigor and quality, critical thinking, and ideological independence, the journal invites and proliferates original research in this field. It is open to all researchers who, while they differ in perspective, approach, and methodology, are united in a commitment to high scholarly standards.

This paper undertakes a critical analysis of approaches to education that claim to foster for their students »ideas and predispositions toward global citizenship«. International education forms the ground and broad context for this discussion, while a specific focus is given to the question of how global citizenship might be understood and realized in the context of Waldorf education. Waldorf education has not received a significant degree of critical attention to date – either in relation to the field of international education or that of education for global citizenship. A typology developed by Oxley & Morris (2013), which clusters attributes and types of global citizenship into two main categories, is employed in this paper in order to undertake an initial analysis of how global citizenship might be theorized in the context of Waldorf education. Existing studies and research literature about Waldorf education provide the main sources for this analysis. An emphasis is given in this analysis to articulations of Waldorf education and a distinction is made between educational aims, approaches and experiences (as reported in the literature) and Waldorf schools. Waldorf education continues to grow and expand its international presence. The fact that many Waldorf schools indicate that they have the development of global citizenship as one of their educational aims invites a critical consideration – such as this – of how these aims relate to the wider global citizenship education discourse.

Visual experiences occurring during meditation are central to many different religious, contemplative, and esoteric traditions. This is also true for anthroposophy. In Rudolf Steiner’s work, meditative visual experiences, or ›imaginations‹ as they are often called, are understood as potential perceptions of a concrete spiritual reality. Hence imaginations form the bedrock of the anthroposophic project of cultural renewal based on spiritual perception. The imaginative consciousness is, however, many-faceted, and sometimes Steiner’s descriptions of it can be confusing and contradictory. This article gives an outline of a systematic account of the phenomenology of the imaginative consciousness in Steiner. It traces the development of the term, presents its different aspects, and tries to resolve some conflicting statements by introducing three different areas of imagination: sensory imagination, imagination in the in-between area, and supersensible imagination. This introduction lays the ground for a further systematic treatment of the concept of imagination in Steiner.