Strengthening the Will: The Review Exercises

The so-called `review exercises' - to be carried out alongside the `supplementary exercises' and meditation - are integral to the path of personal development and knowledge presented by Rudolf Steiner. Together they form a means of experiencing the spiritual realm in full consciousness. Meditation enlivens thinking, the supplementary exercises educate and balance feeling, whilst the review exercises cultivate the will by penetrating it with powers of consciousness. Conscientiously practised, this path of self-knowledge and development has the effect of opening a source of inner strength and psychological health that soon make themselves felt in daily life.

The review exercises bring the experiences of our daily lives to full awareness. By directing our attentive gaze to what has happened - whether in a single day or in whole phases of life - we kindle light in our will. Undertaking such a review backwards, in reverse sequence, or from an `external perspective', requires a huge inner effort as we establish distance between ourselves and our daily experiences.

In this essential handbook the editor has drawn together virtually all Rudolf Steiner's statements on the review exercises, supporting them with commentary and notes. Described from different perspectives and approaches, there are a surprising range of suggestions for carrying them out. Individual chapters focus on reviewing the day (transforming the power of memory); reviewing events in your life (awakening the higher self); reviewing the other's perspective (awakening social impulses); exercises in thinking backwards (illuminating the will); review exercises to comprehend karmic connections; review exercises and kamaloka; and the relationship of review exercises and education.