An Anthroposophic Understanding of Imitation Processes
Peter Selg Translated by Catherine E. Creeger

• “Because children’s ability to observe and perceive is unconscious,
  one does not notice how intensely and deeply the impressions coming
  from the surroundings enter their organization—not so much by way
  of various specific senses as through the general ‘sensory being’ of
  the child. It is generally known that the formation of the brain and of
  the nerves is completed by the change of teeth. During the first seven
  years, children’s nerve-and-sense organization, in its plasticity, could
  be likened to soft wax. During this time, not only do children receive
  the finest and most intimate impressions from the surroundings, but
  also, through the working of energy in the nerve-and-sense system,
  everything received unconsciously radiates and flows into the blood
  circulation, into the firmness and reliability of the breathing process,
  into the growth of the tissues, and into the formation of the muscles
  and skeleton. By means of the nerve-and-sense system, the body of
  children becomes like an imprint of the surroundings and, particularly,
  of the morality inherent in them.” —Rudolf Steiner
  (Waldorf Education and Anthroposophy 2, p. 68)

1. The Incarnation Process in the First Seven Years
2. The Imitation Process: “Like an Eye that Touches”
3. The “Other” as Active Opposite Counterpart
4. Education: The Challenge and the Approach

This book was originally published in German as Das Kind als Sinnes-Organ:
Zum anthroposophischen Verständnis der Nachahmungsprozesse 
(Verlag des Ita Wegman Instituts, Arlesheim, Switzerland, 2015).