The first step (in developing spiritual senses and organs of activity) is to direct the soul’s attention toward certain processes in the world around us.

These processes are life.

Rudolf Steiner, in How To Know Higher Worlds

Imaginative exercises based on the preparatory exercises given by Steiner in How to Know Higher Worlds, using painting, drawing and meditation exercises.

This online course provides an artistic entry into his preparatory exercises for the development of spiritual faculties.working with polarities and the counter images of sunrise and moonrise, growing plant and dying plant. This is a path for the schooling of the soul for higher development and it uses two motifs from Steiner’s Nine Training Sketches for the Artist to guide us on this path. 

Through exploration of counter-images and seeming contradictions of polarities, we can strengthen both our imaginative faculties and our life forces. 

You don’t have to be an experienced artist to find this course enriching but you do need some knowledge of Steiner’s meditative path and be open to new ways of seeing the world.

Background information

With the increasing, encroaching of AI-generated images filling our screens, through film, tv and internet, the essential creativity that lives deep in the soul of every human being is under threat. AI-generated art is not creative. It does not arise out of human creativity but out of machines. Further, it undermines the very essence of what it means to be human.

In the face of this attack on our human-ness, we need to bring a counter-impulse by strengthening our capacity to work with imaginations that arise out of human spirituality and the spiritual in nature.

By working artistically and contemplatively with colour and the formative forces of life, we can nurture our uniquely human capacities to create, to think and to think creatively, We can counter this dehumanising force, 

We need to  enliven our imaginative faculties to counter the life-destroying forces bombarding us.

Who is it for?

• For artists, art therapists and Waldorf teachers looking to find a path of soul/spiritual development through the arts.
• For anyone seeking a non-intellectual pathway into Steiner’s meditative path.
• For participants in the 2nd year of Art as a Path of Schooling for the Soul.

To get the most out of this course, it is anticipated participants will work on their own between the fortnightly sessions.

Recommended: familiarity with basic watercolour wet on wet, wet-on-dry or veiling skills (you can use pastel if preferred, but watercolour painting is recommended). 

Background reading: Steiner’s How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation

When is it?

3PM-5PM AEST Saturdays, 14th June-23rd August 2025
Seven fortnightly classes plus recording

Cost

300 AUD/190 USD
$310 AUD for PD certificate (requires 70% attendance and all exercises submitted to Padlet).

Video recording available for three months included in the fee.

How to join the workshop

The payment options, Zoom link, and list of materials will be sent after booking.

For more information

This course is a Painted Space Studio course. It is also a core component of Art as a Path of Schooling for the Soul.

Contact

^{Feature image: Counter Colours, Counter Forces exercise by Fiona Campbell}