Every spiritual practice, every exercise of consciousness, all meditation-indeed, every moment of true awareness-we do with the "gentle will," even if we are unaware of it initially and cannot fully activate it yet. In the course of practice, however, the gentle will begins to shine, and we gradually gain the ability to access it in our ordinary, daily activities, allowing our lives to become infinitely richer, meaningful, and creative. The gentle will is relaxed, receptive, expressive, creative, soft, light, and playful. It is not rigid or cramped. We use the gentle will in artistic activities such as playing a musical instrument, writing a poem, or painting a picture. It is the original will of the human being, the will of the "I." The gentle will is not the determined, useful, goal-oriented, egoistic, working will of Sisyphus, who will never be able to roll his boulder up the mountain. The gentle will is free of me-feeling and egoism. In this way, it differs from the "hard will," which works through egoism. Today, however, all life is governed by the principle of usefulness, utility, comfort, and efficiency-the hard will of egoism. This approach has brought the world to the brink of catastrophe, regardless of what technocrats say or think about it. Georg Kuhlewind writes in this book that the only hope he sees of avoiding destruction is a change in human consciousness; the "hard will" must become the "gentle will." To this end, he provides exercises through which we may transform the hard will into the gentle will.

'Wilt thou be made whole?' is the question Jesus addresses to the paralyzed man who had waited in vain for years at the pool of Bethesda. Finally he says, 'Take up your bed and walk.' This thoughtful book asks what power within ourselves Jesus's call can awaken, that can help make us whole and healthy. Kuhlewind presents meditations to help the reader think about Jesus's various psychological and physical healing in the Bible. These exercises lead us to a new, deeper understanding of the healing process, and how we might heal ourselves.

This is a short guide to meditation through practical exercises. Step by step, a carefully selected series of concentration exercises, sentence meditations, visualisations and perceptual meditations guide the reader along, leading them into a full experience of both the 'I' (or Self) and to an understanding of human attention. Georg Kuhlewind has based this book on over thirty years of experience and teaching of meditation.

I believe that our central problem is that we do not know what or who a human being really is. We lack this knowledge because we have no valid picture of the human WORD, no image of human language, of words in general. This is why we have such trouble with words, why we hit upon the right word so rarely. Everything we do to, for, and against each other is speech of some kind, or ought to be. Yet we are interested in anything but words, these very words by means of which we do everything else. Because we don't know what words are we don't know what humans are. -Georg Khlewind How much practical time do we usually devote to the general art of being human? This practical guide to the self-healing of consciousness-it is both a spiritual psychology and a contemporary manual of the inner life-begins by laying out very clearly the unhealthy, unfree nature of today's consciousness. Methodical self-observation leads to discovering the key to the liberating consciousness from its habitual blind spots and automatisms: the realization of the universal primacy of cognition and the universal availability of its ground, the free attention. Through attention, a person who practices the author's exercises begins to expand the range of his or her possibilities of understanding and doing. The exercises-based on the Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path and Rudolf Steiner's cognitive spiritual path-lead to a new life in which superconscious intuitions gradually take the place of superconscious formations. This new life is a universal human life of improvisatory, living thinking: a life of presence, pure joy, which is health for human beings.

'While working on this book the following happened to me: As I checked in at the airport in Hamburg a young couple was in front of me, and the mother had a three-to-four-month old baby in her arms. All of a sudden the baby turned round, looked me straight in the eye, and I was deeply shaken; for that was not the look of a baby but of a very self-aware adult, a wise one, and he appeared to see right through me...' Who are the 'star children'? In recent years there has been much written about 'gifted' children with special abilities ('indigo children', 'crystal children', etc.). Such children, it is said, are coming to earth to help humanity in its development. Based on extensive research, Georg Kuhlewind confirms that this new generation has been incarnating among us for the past couple of decades. This event, he states, is one of the most important of our age. Unlike many other contributors to this debate, Kuhlewind gives us the necessary background with which to follow experientially what he has to say. He takes us consciously, scientifically, into the realm from which we all enter the world as babies, 'trailing clouds of glory...'. We all possess the tools he describes for taking this path: our thoughts, our heart forces and our willpower. By using these faculties with our full attention, by focusing our attentiveness and eliminating everything else, we can enter the realm of the spirit where laws differing from those on earth prevail. The author aids us on this path by closing each chapter with themes for contemplation and meditation. Star Children is a compelling addition to the literature on the theme of 'special' children, and offers a unique perspective based on spiritual-scientific discipline and research.

The goal of this study is not any particular content, but a process, a method, an event: the cultivation of the experience of living, intuitive thinking such as we experience it with every new understanding. This unique contribution to the practice of anthroposophy will be of interest to beginning students, as well as to longtime students who wish to revitalize their approach to the path opened up by Rudolf Steiner.