The Toward Imagination lectures were given in 1916, when Europe was in the throes of the First World War. These seven lectures present Rudolf Steiner’s trenchant analysis of the malaise of our time. With wit and compassion he vividly confronts us with the dead end to which materialism has brought modern civilization.

Starting with a new look at the festival of Pentecost or Whitsun, Steiner shows how the chaos of his time — and ours — can be transcended by a shift of transformation of consciousness. Ranging over a wide variety of topics, he moves from a description of balance in life to a discussion of the twelve senses and their relationship to the cosmos, psychology, and art. In the process he reveals the central importance of the development of Imagination as an intuitive cognitive state.