The Spirit in Human Evolution - Waldorf Research Institute

The Nature of Imitation
The actual nature of this kind of imitation is no simple mirroring, but a complex
process perhaps best characterized by a specific example. Let us observe a young child
whilst visiting Grandma, looking out of the window. A grey squirrel is coming down
from the garden fence and taking and burying hazelnuts that have been put out in a
small plastic cup. The child has already learned that we have to be quite still so as not to
distract the squirrel. After a while, she is absorbed in the activity going on outside on the
garden patio and is not at all aware of her own position balanced on Grandma’s knees.
We can observe that the child’s consciousness appears to be wholly with the squirrel,
and even the animal’s mood of nervous alertness is being experienced quite strongly
over the child’s whole muscle system. Even the breathing becomes irregular. Initially the
child may unconsciously imitate the twitching movements of the animal, the lips may
move as the squirrel sits up and nibbles at a nut, but the real process of imitation comes
later when the child plays at being a squirrel and hops about the living room burying
nuts under the cushions. Such is the transformative power of the imagination, that the
squirrel activity is turned into human activity. That which has been observed has been
turned into creative play.
Let us examine what has happened. Several vital things have occurred. The child
has observed something in its environment. (She was actually led to do so in the first
place by imitating the attentiveness and quiet mood of the loved adult.) In a completely
non-analytical way, the child has taken in something of the essence of “squirrel-ness.”
Furthermore, the movements and alert concentration of the animal have been assimilated
through both the sense of sight and also through the imitative response of the child’s
own micro-muscular movements, particularly of the larynx and chest. Thirdly, the child
has transformed these experiences into her own behavior in play, behavior which does
not literally copy the squirrel but which enhances or at least changes these experiences
though imagination. What the child has learned from this experience is something of
the essence of “squirrel-ness” or squirrel-like activity. The child has become, in some
small part, squirrel or has made this new experience a part of herself. Furthermore, the
experience has generated or freed creative energy in the form of play. So plastic is the
human child that such impressions have the power to be transformed into both faculty
and creative activity.
We can see from this example what an active two-way process perception really
is in the child. The child’s attention and focus of consciousness are outside herself, in
the garden with the squirrel, and yet the animal’s activity, its shape, its whole character,
is reflected and experienced throughout the child’s whole body, and not merely in the
brain. Transformed, this imitative perception is translated into creative activity and
remains a familiar, though unconscious, part of the fabric of memory. When the child
again encounters a squirrel, it is something of a joyous reunion. At another level, the
child will meet other situations, perhaps human behavior reminiscent of the mood and
quality associated with “squirrelness.”
Play and Wonder
From the earliest months of infancy the child reaches out to grasp the world. This
phase of childhood up to the start of school is characterized by an intensity of curiosity
and play and with it a metamorphosis in the quality of imitation.
Most young mammals also go through a similar phase of play and curiosity about
the world around them. Among the higher mammals, this phase can last several years.
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