The
Programme
The
programme aims to –
• Provide a comprehensive, step-by-step
guide to exploring who we are as four-fold spiritual beings –
from our earliest years through to adulthood and old age, from
our temperament and soul qualities through to our earthly
personality and the work of the angels.
• Harness and strengthen our everyday gift of loving
remembrance and provide a practical introduction to
contemplation, concentration and meditation.
• Help clarify karmic paths of development and realise
connections between ourselves and others and the world we live
in.
• Provide over 70 practical experiments or
activities.
The approach
–
Each unit has a Programme
Presentation and Unit Notes describing a spiritual
explanation of, for example, memory, consciousness and
‘growing up’ and often contrast this with social/psychological
and scientific accounts. There are then one or more practical
activities and the unit is opened up for discussion via the
Conversation Forum’s message board and/or email
exchange. The programme as a whole hopes to explore how
‘it all fits together’ and the common threads that weave many
spiritual paths together.
A Workpack – accompanies
the programme building up with each session and
including:
• An introduction to Steiner’s important concept of the
mind.
• The four-fold
human being.
• The
significance of our earliest memory
• The transformation of our 12 physical
senses as a basis for extra-to-sensory perception
• A unique Personal Temperament Chart
• A unique Personal Soul Qualities
Chart
• A soul/spiritual
view of the human life cycle (in contrast to psychology’s
view)
• How to see inside
things
• A practical
guide to concentration and meditation
• A Personality Profile – and the
significance of trust, fear and habit.
• A unique Destiny Chart – The
Matrix
• How to harness
our Four Everyday Gifts –
- Memory
and The Gift of
Remembrance
- The Gift of
Temperament
- The Gift of
Conversation
- The Gift of Conscience
• How to explore human duality and work with the
angels
• Over 1000
trigger questions that help the user fill in “Memory Bubbles”
to create a personal biography.
Memory and thinking and
how we change are about experience – about activity. Reading
about it and reasoning it out is not the same as doing it.
This is a workbook, not a textbook. It’s about ‘soul work’. So
there are plenty of practical activities built into the
programme – we call them Games.
There are four types of Game:
These main
Games are intended to bring some doing into your study. These
are our basic tools.
You will find a number of “Tickling Trout” Games. A
”Tickling Trout” aims to observe the world as an expression of
thought and is a practical exercise in thinking, memory and
observation.
You’ll find a number of “Memory Bubbles” both within
some of the Games and at the end of each unit. These are used,
not so much for the memory itself (fascinating though they can
be) but to practice, develop and strengthen the process of
remembrance. The Memory Bubbles build up into a mini
biography.
You will also find some questions from the Personal
Pursuits game.
A whole evening, train or plane journey can be spent
simply using some of these questions. The questions might
appear light hearted or mundane or absurd – it’s the
remembrance that matters. Some may have a cathartic effect –
be careful.
All Games have been tried and tested during
the course of 30 years working with scores, actually hundreds,
of willing participants – adults and young people, from
prisoners and teachers to company employees and community
group activists. My sincere thanks to all those people – I
hope they agree they were willing.
How to use this
programme –
The programme
has its own storyline with a definite beginning, middle and
end, for the individual to follow but feel free to dip in and
out of it according to your interest. It can also be used as
an activity pack for group workshops, so facilitators may want
to pick and choose, adopt or adapt as appropriate. However, in
either case, if you jump ahead, bare in mind that each unit
builds upon the previous one – use the unit synopses if you
need to refer back for some clarification. Each unit contains
Tickling Trout strategically placed alongside the other text
but I suggest you come back to these after reading the rest of
the unit. The relevance of a Trout will then be clearer and
you won’t feel as if you’re being ‘sidetracked’. You might do
the same with the main Games – the Games should not be rushed
– but do read through them first, as part of the main text.
Finally, a few Games make use of a small glass prism – it
would be helpful for you to get hold of one at some point.
The ideas and activities in this book have been drawn
from or inspired by the work of Rudolf Steiner. Steiner had a
deep understanding of ancient, well-rooted transformational
paths. But he was a modern human being and sculptured a path
suited for our times. He walked this path through and beyond
to its highest reaches. His work will be our guide. This
programme offers just a simple peek into a little of what he
found. There’s a risk here. If ever my compression or
expression risks becoming superficial I can only hope that it
at least serves as a catalyst for your own study of Rudolf
Steiner’s work.
Why call the practical activities,
“Games”? The capital G is in memory of Goethe*, whose work had
such a profound influence on Rudolf Steiner, and âme comes
from ‘heart, soul or spirit’ of the matter. ‘Soul work’ is
serious business. Sometimes the effort required in playing a
Game can seem like we’re paddling upstream against the current
with a lot of obstacles in our way. But if we approach the âme
of each Game with a certain lightness of being, we’ll find the
way becomes easier and the current in our favour. They’re
Games of ‘hide and seek’ and we play by enlivening our
imagination and loving remembrance. The time of the human
being living and learning as a mere spectator is drawing to a
close. So many people are realising in so many ways, “We’re
involved in this”, as a player in the Game.
To join in and be involved
-
Please use the Contact
Us form to express your interest.
* Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was
a 18/19thc poet, dramatist, scientist, traveller, state
minister and author of Faust and many other works. When
editing Goethe’s natural scientific writings, Steiner
recognised that he had found a scientist who had been able to
perceive the spiritual in
nature.
