Research into the life, soul and spirit in nature always necessitates specific methods. Anthroposophical spiritual science tries to observe the sense world in ways that make these dimensions of existence discernible.

Picture-forming methods, developed at Rudolf Steiner’s suggestion, are an aid to pursuing a science of living things. They meet today’s need for high-quality foods from biodynamic cultivation and complementary medical therapies. In addition, scientific procedures that enable a phenomenon to be observed as a pictorial expression of the subject of investigation in its specific context can be characterised as picture-forming.

The common principle of this research procedure – chiefly copper chloride crystallisation, drop pictures, chromatographs and the circular chromatography – involves adding a sample to a system whose innate instability enables it to be affected by slight causes (non-equilibrium system) and reflects this effect in changes to a picture-forming process. The form thus created is then assessed in relation to the subject of research (see Character, results and limitations).

Picture-forming methods are not to be confused with so-called picture-producing procedures for visualising data. They do not produce quantitative results nor do they identify individual substances, but rather they serve, among other things, to characterise the quality of foods (e.g. distinguishing between conventional, organic and biodynamic cultivation methods) or water, and can be used in anthroposophical medical diagnoses.