Heart Thinking

The concepts of “thinking with the heart,” or EQ (“emotional intelligence”), are often used today, usually in contrast to intellectual thought. When Rudolf Steiner used the phrase “heart thinking,” however, he meant it in a very specific sense. 

Drawn primarily from his lectures, the compiled texts in this anthology illuminate his perspective―that heart thinking is intimately related to the spiritual faculty of Inspiration. The heart, he says, can become a new organ of thinking through the practice of exercises that work toward the transformation of feeling, shedding its personal and subjective character.

The exercise sequences presented here call for two fundamental gestures. First, renunciation, extending from extinguishing images engendered in meditation through inner silence to conscious suppression of sensory perception. 

The second gesture involves the development of new feelings toward natural phenomena, as well as toward the reports of spiritual-scientific research. By practicing these methods we can attain thinking that is in harmony with the true nature and reality of what we seek to know.

Rudolf Steiner’s texts are collected together by Martina Maria Sam, who contributes a lucid introduction and notes.

This volume is a translation from German of the book Herzdenken: Über inspiratives Erkennen (Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 2014).

Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) was born in the small village of Kraljevec, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now in Croatia), where he grew up. As a young man, he lived in Weimar and Berlin, where he became a well-published scientific, literary, and philosophical scholar, known especially for his work with Goethe's scientific writings. At the beginning of the twentieth century, he began to develop his early philosophical principles into an approach to systematic research into psychological and spiritual phenomena. Formally beginning his spiritual teaching career under the auspices of the Theosophical Society, Steiner came to use the term Anthroposophy (and spiritual science) for his philosophy, spiritual research, and findings. The influence of Steiner's multifaceted genius has led to innovative and holistic approaches in medicine, various therapies, philosophy, religious renewal, Waldorf education, education for special needs, threefold economics, biodynamic agriculture, Goethean science, architecture, and the arts of drama, speech, and eurythmy. In 1924, Rudolf Steiner founded the General Anthroposophical Society, which today has branches throughout the world. He died in Dornach, Switzerland.

Matthew Barton is a translator, editor, teacher, and poet, and taught kindergarten for many years at the Bristol Waldorf School. His first collection of poems was Learning To Row (1999). He has won numerous prizes for his work, including an Arts Council Writer's Award and a Hawthornden Fellowship.