Consciousness Studies is a gift--a program of inner work that treats the whole human being.
-Anonymous
I visited Rudolf Steiner College last September and sat in on a morning lecture of Dennis'--After just an hour and a half, I knew I wanted the whole experience.
-Donna Nett '00-'01
Consciousness Studies is the first year of a life-long schooling. It is orientation year. From then on, spiritual life is differentiated, complex, and whole. Do it while it lasts--it won't last indefinitely!
Jeff Barnum '94-'95
I grew up in a 'counter-culture' environment (Bay area 60's and 70's). In addition to being disenchanted with mainstream 'culture' in general, I have been dissatisfied with most western institutions. I decided to study botany because it was presumably about understanding life and being close to nature (I'd take a coffin over an office job any day). But, in the midst of the fascinating aspects of learning taxonomy and ecology, I kept coming back to the thought that something is missing and that I am not evolving personally or working creatively by devoting my life to this path. In addition to these observations I have an inclination for spiritual exploration, for seeking throughout life for meaning and the 'big picture'. Consciousness Studies helped fill this space in my life by providing a point of convergence for my inner and outer work--science and spirituality--and by providing a framework for promoting cultural and social change of the kind that is needed today.
-Bruce Hoffman '00-'01
Consciousness Studies has given me a much more profound insight into the way people behave and communicate with each other. It has given me tools for solving personal questions, and although it is not always easy to use the tools, they are there for me to apply when I get into difficult situations. Consciousness Studies is a process in which you learn to use tools for working on your own personality, your inner life, interaction with others and natural phenomena, all under the guidance of a great teacher.
-Rose Dijkstra van Driesten '98-'99
I look with a different eye at the personal and social problems around me, and I feel I have tools to work on those in a very practical way. My work as a musician is inspired by the experience of archetypes and developmental pictures given during Consciousness Studies from many different perspectives. It has constituted the beginning of a regular inner practice that I was long yearning for. Within anthroposophy I had come to know so many exercises, and I needed some governing principle, someone to give ideas on how to start and what could be right for me. Consciousness Studies is a program in which phenomenological schooling of the senses is carefully geared towards the inner life, following the principle of 'know thyself', and in which students are given exercises for the schooling of the imagination, using alchemical wisdom and archetypes.
-Merijn van Driesten '98-'99
Consciousness Studies is like looking at an optical illusion--a drawing that can be seen equally in two ways--and learning to keep one's attention on the activity of staying 'between' the two perceptions, not allowing attentiveness to 'rest' in either one.
-Linda Sussman '99-'00
Consciousness Studies is a doorway. You can stand at the door and look in, or you can make the choice to pass through. If you do, everything dissolves into darkness and light. Do the work. It can be the greatest gift you could do for yourself. It gives you the chance or opportunity to, as they say in the writing world, "don't just tell us, but show us in pictures", an opportunity to drop into a year-long metaphor...seeing in new ways from unlimited points of view.
Rudolf Steiner spoke about how the mood of meditation must be such that "we are about to dip into reality, to grasp something real. Devoted attention to little things, indeed to the least thing, is what it comes down to." It is a paradox: my life is larger and then again smaller--it is a mystery. I feel immense gratitude for Consciousness Studies.
-Paula Sullivan '98-'99
It has changed my whole outlook on life, especially on healing. So much of what I gained from Consciousness Studies has made me approach my own healing (and I hope, ultimately, that of others) in a very profound way. There are all these possibilities that I didn't see before.
-Kari Olson '94-'95
Now that I have had a few days in class, I can see I am in the right place and am excited to learn from Dennis. Specifically I don't quite know why I am excited--it's just that the right buttons are being pushed.
-Jessica Geoffroy '00-'01
I met Dennis and felt like he had something special to teach. I wanted to touch base with education that would nourish me as a student.
-Phoebe Bass '00-'01
This course offers one the opportunity to develop a more conscious dialogue between inner and outer worlds through meditative practice, artistic activities, scientific explorations, and lecture/discussion sessions.
-Kathryn King '99-'00
Consciousness Studies an opening of the soul to the twelve senses of life and a continual question for the rest of one's life.
-Anonymous
