Q. Waldorf schools are famous for stressing imaginative thinking. Encouraging children to use their imaginations has to be good, doesn't it?

[SteinerBooks, 2009.]

According to Anthroposophical doctrine, "higher knowledge" is clairvoyance,

and imagination is the first stage of clairvoyance.

A. If we use the word "imagination" as most people understand it then, yes, imagination is a wonderful thing. But the underlying meaning of "imagination" is very different for Rudolf Steiner's followers. They think imagination, at its lowest level, is a type of thinking that may lead to clairvoyance; and they think Imagination, at its highest level, is actually a type of realized clairvoyance. When Waldorf schools stress imagination, they are — to one degree or another — endorsing Rudolf Steiner's teachings about clairvoyance.

Many of Rudolf Steiner's doctrines are so strange as to almost stagger the mind. But Waldorf teachers generally believe Steiner, and if you are interested in Waldorf education, you should come to terms with Waldorf beliefs. You may doubt that Waldorf teachers really believe in clairvoyance, for instance. But they do. [See "Clairvoyance - Do Waldorf Teachers Try to Use It?"]

Here are three passages adapted from THE BRIEF WALDORF / STEINER ENCYCLOPEDIA:

imagination - According to Steiner, this is the first level of non-rational spiritual insight; higher stages are inspiration and intuition. In Waldorf education, imagination is a precursor to, or proxy for, clairvoyance. The faculty of imagination, Anthroposophists believe, enables one to form true mental pictures containing, at least in incipient form, spiritual truth. (Inspiration enables one to highlight and accentuate the spiritual content of such images, while stripping out irrelevant mundane elements. Intuition enables one to fully grasp spiritual content, as gods do.) In stressing imagination, Waldorf teachers may not — usually — think they are evoking clairvoyant powers in their students, but they typically believe they are leading the students in a direction that may end in heightened emotional/spiritual sensitivity. In its heightened, disciplined form, Imagination as practiced by Anthroposophists is deemed the first stage of exact clairvoyance. Heightened Inspiration and Intuition are the second and third stages of exact clairvoyance. (The lower, ordinary forms of imagination, inspiration, and intuition are often denoted by the lower-case "i"; the higher, clairvoyant forms are often denoted by the upper-case "I".) In Waldorf belief, humanity as a whole will attain heightened powers of Imagination when we evolve to the Jupiter stage of evolution: Future Jupiter. Members of Waldorf faculties often believe that they are clairvoyant now, and Steiner said that they should attain clairvoyance whenever possible

inspiration - According to Steiner, this is the second level of non-rational spiritual insight; a precursor or subcategory of clairvoyance. Anthroposophists believe that inspiration falls between imagination (the first level of non-rational spiritual insight) and intuition (the third level). The power of imagination, Anthroposophists believe, enables one to form true mental pictures containing, at least in incipient form, spiritual truth. Inspiration enables one to highlight and accentuate the spiritual content of such images, while stripping out irrelevant mundane elements. Intuition enables one to fully grasp spiritual content or meaning, under the tutelage of the gods. In its ordinary form, Steiner taught, inspiration moves the heart and directs the soul, leading us in the direction of clairvoyance. In its heightened form, as practiced by Anthroposophists, Inspiration is considered to be a functional form of clairvoyance, falling between heightened Imagination (the first level of clairvoyance) and heightened Intuition (the third level of clairvoyance). Steiner said all humans will possess heightened Inspiration — "Venus consciousness" — when we reach the Future Venus stage of evolution.

intuition - According to Steiner, this is the third level of non-rational spiritual insight, rising above imagination and inspiration. The faculty of imagination, Anthroposophists believe, enables one to form true mental pictures containing, at least in incipient form, spiritual truth. Inspiration enables one to highlight and accentuate the spiritual content of such images, while stripping out irrelevant mundane elements. Intuition enables one to fully grasp spiritual content or meaning. In its ordinary form, Anthroposophists believe, intuition is a prompting of the heart or spirit containing deep, felt truth. In its heightened form, as sought by Anthroposophists, Intuition is the highest type of exact or reliable clairvoyance. As such, it is "Vulcan consciousness," the consciousness humankind will perfect during the Future Vulcan stage of evolution. 

Waldorf teachers almost never explain these concepts to students or to students' parents, and in stressing imagination they are, to some extent, encouraging the kind of imagination that most people find desirable. But they often also have these "deeper" meanings in mind.

o0O0o

For more information, see

"Spotlight on Anthroposophy"   (search for "imagination")

THE BRIEF WALDORF / STEINER ENCYCLOPEDIA  (scroll down to "imagination")

EXAMINING ANTHROPOSOPHY AND STEINER EDUCATION (EASE)  (see references to clairvoyance)