You begin with a whole when you set up a system of concepts, like a pie. Then you slice the pie up into several pieces. Different systems slice the pie up differently, so conceptual systems can't always fit into other systems easily.

I haven't found it helpful to bring other systems into POF, but found it to be unhelpful. The big exception has been Steiner's later 12 world-outlook theory which works well.

What works well for me is explaining POF with other parts of POF.

I don't know what Steiner means by "inspiration" so I don't know about it.

Link to lecture: For Western civilization, the path leading into the spiritual worlds is that of Imagination.

This lecture seems to imply in the first paragraph that the Eastern path is through inspiration and the Western scientific path is through imagination.

It sounds like they all come together in pure thinking, an integration or unity occurs.

Just to make sure you know, if you are logged in your comments appear immediately, if not, they first have to be screened so appear later.

The below quote is from the Wilson introduction. He points out Steiner's later definitions, in this case imagination and intuition, are not always the same as his POF definitions. To bring his later work into POF can be a barrior to understanding POF. His later work is about his clairvoyant perception that he was born with, POF is about intuitive thinking.

IMAGINATION means the faculty and process of creating mental pictures. The word is the same as the German Imagination, but I have also used it for the German Phantasie, because the word “fantasy” suggests something altogether too far from reality, whereas “imagination” can mean something not only the product of our own consciousness, but also a step towards the realization of something new. Thus the title given to Chapter 12, Moral Imagination (for Moralische Phantasie), seemed to me to be correct, and I have kept it. It describes the process of taking an abstract idea, or concept, and creating a vivid mental picture of how it can be applied in a particular circumstance, so that it may become the motive for a moral deed.
In later writings Steiner describes how this ordinary faculty of imagining, or making mental pictures, can be developed to the point where it becomes the faculty of actually perceiving the creative ideas behind the phenomena of nature. In these later writings “Imagination” becomes a special term to indicate this level of perception, but in this book the meaning remains near to the ordinary usage. However, the gateway to such higher levels of perception is opened through the path of experience here set forth.

INTUITION is again the same as the German word, and means the faculty and process of grasping concepts, in particular the immediate apprehension of a thought without reasoning. This is the normal English usage, though Steiner uses the term in an exact way, as follows (see Chapter 5):
In contrast to the content of the percept which is given to us from without, the content of thinking appears inwardly. The form in which this first makes its appearance we will call intuition. Intuition is for thinking what observation is for the percept.
Later in the book he gives another definition (see Chapter 9):
The following was added in 1918 and confuses POF--
Intuition is the conscious experience — in pure spirit — of a purely spiritual content. Only through an intuition can the essence of thinking be grasped.
From this it is not difficult to see how again, in later writings, Steiner could describe a stage of perception still higher than that called “Imagination”, the stage of “Intuition” in which one immediately apprehends the reality of other spiritual beings. Although this book deals only with the spiritual content of pure thinking, intuition at this level is also a step towards a higher level of perceiving reality.

Was this the result of a definite path of training exercises or was it the culmination of your journey of life exploring many things, inside anthroposophy and outside?

I was just wondering if you can credit any specific thing, such as a spiritual practice, as being fruitful.

For myself, I have noticed a dramatic improvement in intuition and imagination in my life, which I credit to the study and creative expression of The Philosophy of Freedom.