The 16 Steps
A practical path of Ethical Individualism for expressing individual freedom.
The 16 Steps identify and organize the developmental path contained in The Philosophy of Freedom by Rudolf Steiner, presenting it in a more accessible and practical form. The first two Attitude Steps are drawn from the original Preface, The Goal of Knowledge, where they establish the attitudes from which individuality develops. They are followed by fourteen Freedom Steps, each drawn from one of the fourteen chapters of The Philosophy of Freedom and numbered 1–14 to preserve that correspondence.
An Ethical Individualist is someone who strives to cultivate individuality, develop free knowing, and realize free selfhood. The 16 Steps develop the fundamental human capacities that make individual freedom possible, empowering the individual to live freely.
Each of the 16 Steps describes a fundamental transformation from a less free state to a more free one. Each Step is further developed through twelve corresponding Practice Steps that bring that transformation into everyday thought and life. Together, the 16 Steps and their 192 Practice Steps reveal the path offered in The Philosophy of Freedom for anyone who genuinely seeks to walk it.
"That which you now seek with imperfect means, you will truly achieve if you walk the path given here—and much else besides.... Then a light would dawn."
— Rudolf Steiner, GA 240
Two Steps to Individuality
- Courageous Attitude
- Devotion to Truth
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FREEDOM
Seven Steps to Free Knowing
1 Questioned Action
2 Inquiring Urge
3 Focused Thinking
4 Corrected Perception
5 Accurate Conception
6 Authentic Ideation
7 Unifying Cognition
Seven Steps to Free Selfhood
8 Self-Knowledge
9 Self-Motivated
10 Self-Originated
11 Self-Purposed
12 Self-Principled
13 Self-Determined
14 Self-Emancipated
The 192 Practice Steps consist of:
- 24 Practices of Individuality
(The Goal of Knowledge) - 168 Practices of Freedom
(The Philosophy of Freedom)
Learn more at Steps to Freedom
