Rudolf Steiner’s Six Basic Exercises: thinking, will, feeling, positivity, open-mindedness, and balance

Two related lists that are not exactly the same

There is a terminological trap in Steiner’s writings. In How to Gain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds we find a list of “six qualities”: control of thought, control of action, perseverance, tolerance, faith or trust, and inner balance. Steiner connects these qualities with the development of the “twelve-petalled lotus flower” in the region of the heart. [3]

Elsewhere, especially in Occult Science and in esoteric lessons, we find the sequence now usually meant by the six basic or subsidiary exercises: control of thought, initiative of will, equanimity of feeling, positivity, open-mindedness, and finally the harmonizing of the first five. [1][2][4]

The lists clearly overlap, but they are not literally identical. If they are merged without explanation, readers may assume that Steiner always taught one single, unchanged six-step method. It is more accurate to speak of several related formulations serving a broader purpose: stabilizing thinking, willing, and feeling before more demanding esoteric practice.

Thinking: a pencil and five minutes

The first exercise is almost deliberately boring. Choose a simple object — a pencil is a common example — and for several minutes think only about it. The thoughts should unfold meaningfully: what it is made of, how it was produced, what it is for, how it is used. When the mind wanders, bring it back to the object. [1][4]

The aim is not an empty mind. Steiner is really asking for the opposite: to generate a sequence of thoughts deliberately, rather than letting thoughts come and go according to accidental associations.

In one esoteric lesson he even says that an uninteresting object may be more useful because sustaining attention on it requires greater effort. [4] This is a small but important detail. The exercise is not a test of intelligence or imagination, but a question: can I determine the direction of my own thinking for a few minutes?

Will: an action with no external reason

The second exercise moves from thought into action. A person chooses a small act and performs it at a predetermined time simply because they consciously decided to do so. Steiner’s examples are deliberately trivial. In one presentation he even suggests moving a chair at a particular hour. [5]

The point lies in the absence of practical necessity. If I drink because I am thirsty, the body supplies the impulse. If I answer the phone, an external event supplies it. If at 3:20 p.m. I perform some small action only because I decided on it the previous day, the exercise isolates initiative of will.

This does not prove metaphysical “free will.” It is a more modest exercise: creating a small interval between decision and automatic reaction, and testing whether an intention actually becomes an action.

Feeling: balance is not numbness

The third exercise is often misunderstood as emotional suppression. Steiner’s texts are more specific. A person should experience joy and sorrow, but should not be completely governed by automatic swings between euphoria and despair. [2][4][5]

In the 1907 esoteric lesson the formulation is especially clear: the point is not to cease feeling pleasure or suffering, but not to be ruled by them. [4]

That distinction matters. Equanimity is not emotional insensitivity. It is the idea that one can notice and take a feeling seriously without letting it immediately seize control of action, judgment, or the whole state of consciousness.

Steiner understands this practice as preparation for esoteric work. A contemporary reader can also understand it more simply as an exercise in responsiveness rather than reactivity, but it would be too strong to turn that analogy into a clinical psychological method without additional evidence.

Positivity: the teeth of a dead dog

The fourth exercise is perhaps the most memorable because of a somewhat grotesque image. Steiner retells a legend in which Christ and his companions encounter a decomposing dead dog. The others see mainly what is repellent, while Christ notices the animal’s beautiful teeth. [1][2]

The key is what the story does not mean. Steiner explicitly says that positivity is not uncritical thinking. The corpse does not stop decaying because its teeth are beautiful. The bad need not be called good, the false true, or the ugly beautiful. [1]

The exercise asks for something harder: that a negative feature not close the entire field of perception. One can see decay and beautiful teeth. Critical judgment and the capacity to notice value are not necessarily opposites.

In modern language it is tempting to call this “positive thinking,” but that phrase can mislead. Steiner’s version is not “think only positive thoughts,” but rather: do not allow the negative to prevent you from perceiving what is also genuinely good or valuable.

Open-mindedness: the possibility that my old ideas are not the final word

The fifth exercise appears in different translations as open-mindedness, impartiality, receptivity, or trust toward new experience. The basic attitude is readiness for the possibility that something new may not fit our present beliefs. [1][2]

This is not an instruction to believe every unusual claim. On the contrary, the exercise loses its meaning if openness is confused with gullibility. A person may demand evidence, compare explanations, and reject poor arguments, yet still avoid dismissing something only because it does not fit old categories.

Steiner treats this as an important quality of the esoteric student. In modern language we might speak of willingness to revise one’s model of the world. That is a useful analogy, but it remains an analogy; Steiner himself places it inside his spiritual-epistemological project.

The sixth exercise: harmony

After the first five comes something unusual: the sixth exercise is not quite another capacity of the same kind. Steiner says that the first five should be brought into harmony and practiced in different combinations. [2]

This makes sense even within the system itself. Strong thinking without openness can become rigidity. Will without balance can become compulsion. Positivity without critical thought can slide into denial. Openness without will and judgment can become passive receptivity to everything.

The sixth exercise therefore acts as a corrective to one-sidedness. The aim is not to become excellent only at concentration or only at emotional balance, but to bring thinking, willing, and feeling into a more stable relationship.

One month for each exercise?

Modern instructions often say that the first exercise should be practiced for a month, then the second added, and so on. There is support for this in Steiner’s esoteric lessons: he speaks of a month or longer for an individual exercise and of moving on once the practice has become sufficiently established. [4]

But his instructions are not phrased identically in every source. For that reason, “six months, one month per exercise” should not be presented as the one and only authentic protocol. It is safer to say that Steiner expects sustained, repeated training, not a quick one-off performance.

This also helps explain why Anthroposophical communities still use these practices today as ongoing foundational exercises rather than as a program one simply “finishes.” The Anthroposophical Society in America, for example, continues to present the six basic exercises as foundational practices of inner development. [7]

What their esoteric context means

If all of Steiner’s esoteric vocabulary is removed, the exercises can sound strikingly contemporary: attention, initiative, emotional balance, noticing what is positive, openness, and integration. Historically, however, it would be misleading to pretend that this was their whole original purpose.

Steiner connects them with the development of “spiritual organs,” “lotus flowers,” etheric and astral bodies, and safer preparation for perception of “higher worlds.” [2][3][6] These are claims within his Anthroposophical cosmology, not findings of modern anatomy or neuroscience.

The article therefore needs neither uncritical acceptance nor mockery. Historically we can say: Steiner understood these exercises as practical and moral preparation for an esoteric path. A contemporary person can practice them without that metaphysical framework, but doing so is a reinterpretation of their function, not evidence that Steiner had already discovered modern executive-function training or mindfulness.

An exercise in inner freedom

What is most striking about the six exercises is their smallness. One does not have to change religion, job, or lifestyle. One has to stay with a pencil for five minutes. Perform an unnecessary act at a chosen time. Notice a feeling without immediately following it. Find something genuinely good in something unpleasant. Allow a new fact to alter an old opinion. Then try to do all of this together.

Steiner saw these small acts as preparation for a much more ambitious spiritual cognition. Even if one does not accept his metaphysics, the exercises still pose a practical question very directly:

How much of our thinking, acting, and reacting do we actually choose — and how much simply happens to us?