‘Do what you wish or wish what you want?’ Michael Ende’s Fantastica and Rudolf Steiner’s Moral Imagination

In Ende's The Neverending Story, a boy named Bastian travels into the fantasy world of Fantastica which is being eaten up by 'Nothing' (Ende 1983, p.19). He saves this ailing world by giving a new name to its ruler, the Childlike Empress, and goes on to create a new Fantastica through stories and names of his own invention. By following the instruction to 'do what you wish' (p.189), Bastian must eventually find his way back into the real world through his wishes. Ende read and commented on Rudolf Steiner's philosophical writings, and The Neverending Story re-enacts Steiner's search for free will. Bastian's journey in Fantastica explores Steiner's idea of free will as an underlying principle. Existing scholarly interpretations of The Neverending Story vary greatly, but most commonly Bastian's journey is read as one of inner, psychological or spiritual development. But while psychological, didactic and religious readings can only give speculative interpretations of The Neverending Story, this article will source more definitively Ende's active use of Steiner and his philosophical concept.