3. Anthroposophy: The Science of the Human Being

Imagination is the first step in penetrating the essence of the world as well as the essence of the human being. I have described how imagination can be cultivated through a kind of meditative life and a kind of concentration of the power of thought, in a completely healthy way that is the opposite of a pathological one. Now I would like to draw attention to what actually happens within a person when they strive for this imaginative level of knowledge. It is the case that through this meditative inner experience, through this methodically disciplined inner experience of concentrating thoughts and feelings, the soul forces are, as it were, gathered together, and they are permeated by consciousness more intensely than is otherwise the case. If we then observe what is actually growing when we meditate and concentrate in this way, we find that it is the same thing — only in its continuation — that has brought us to actual self-awareness in our ordinary experience, that has brought us to composure, to calm personality and which has brought us, if I may use the expression, to the actual egoity of the human being, to that in which the human being must find himself so that he can detach himself from the world in a level-headed way, so that he can come to self-awareness in the right way.