Imaginative consciousness (Anthroposophy)

Imagination can reproduce previous experience or even creatively apprehend and design visions of things anticipated in the future. The visionary capacity to imagine so far unrealized realities is held to be the key distinction between human and animal consciousness. The visionary capacity gives rise to prophecy and idealism.

In R Steiner's anthroposophic meditation, imagination is the second step of experience leading to direct knowledge or intuition.