Imaginative Life Tableau : The Spiritually-perceived Story of Our Life Between Birth and Death. Meditative Knowledge Out of Childhood Forces

Many will be familiar with the notion that a person at the point of death sees their life flash before them. Rudolf Steiner describes that when the spiritual bodies separate from the physical body, the etheric body of the dying person is revealed, giving a panoramic overview of their earthly life. This etheric body contains everything we have experienced in our consciousness and kept in memory. The etheric not only generates and sustains all life, but encompasses the life forces out of which we shape our existence.

Although the revelation of the life tableau belongs to the early period after death, it can also emerge as a result of meditation. Rudolf Steiner speaks of this – through the first level of spiritual experience known as ‘imagination’ – as a conscious self-perception of the soul, taking place in the world of images. Here we are confronted with the harrowing knowledge of our doppelgänger – but we also experience the cosmic forces of childhood that are present in all our life processes. These same forces are described in psychology as the ‘inner child’.

In this highly-original anthology of Steiner’s work we are led to a therapeutic, meditative approach that – through working with the imaginative life tableau – can strengthen and heal body, soul and spirit.

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.