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

Rudolf Steiner described a group of six spiritual exercises in many different places in his writings, each time in a fresh way. He gives a brief outline of them at one point in his book  How To Know Higher Worlds . He also describes them over the course of a few pages in his book  Outline of Esoteric Science . And he describes them in detail over several pages in a book called  Esoteric Development , in the chapter called General Requirements/Guidance in Esoteric Training. Aside from those classic locations, Steiner commented on the six exercises in many other places throughout his works.In Six Steps in Self-Development, an incredibly convenient book, the editors gather into one 75-page paperback virtually everything Steiner said about the six exercises, including comments of his I had never before seen, though I'm acquainted with a great deal of Steiner's writings and lectures. For those who wish to understand as precisely as possible what Steiner intended by the six exercises, Six Steps in Self-Development is a tremendous help, particularly because it affords one the means to compare various descriptions Steiner gave. When compared, the various descriptions sometimes clarify each other. Also, new details emerge in each description Steiner gives, further illuminating what Steiner had in mind.The book gives each of the six exercises its own section. For example, in the section about the thought exercise, just about everything Steiner said about that exercise is gathered. Giving each exercise its own section seems like the right way for the editors/compilers to have gone about it. That format however means that the editors necessarily had to split up into six parts some of the descriptions Steiner wrote about the exercises.In each of the three books I mentioned above in my first paragraph, there comes a point where Steiner explains all six exercises together, as an undivided whole. He doesn't give each exercise in its own separate chapter. And it's essential to see how Steiner weaves the six as a single fabric.But even though Six Steps in Self-Development divides the six exercises into separate chapters (and that was probably the best arrangement, given the book's purpose), it too is essential and extremely useful for the serious practitioner, because it so conveniently gathers everything Steiner said on the subject. Ideally, one should get Six Steps in Self-Development AND also read the unsegmented form of the descriptions to be found in the books mentioned in the first paragraph of this review.

fantastic book