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Theosophy
GA 9

I-4. Body, Soul and Spirit

[ 1 ] Man can only come to a true understanding of himself when he grasps clearly the significance of thinking within his being. The brain is the bodily instrument for thinking. Just as man can only see colours with a properly constructed eye, so the suitably constructed brain serves him for thought. The whole body of man is so formed that it receives its crown in the organ of the spirit, the brain. The construction of the human brain can be understood only by considering it in relation to its task, which consists in being the bodily basis for the thinking spirit. This is borne out by a comparative survey of the animal world. Among the amphibians we find the brain small in comparison with the spinal cord; in mammals it is proportionately larger; in man it is largest in comparison with the rest of the body.

[ 2 ] Many prejudices are prevalent regarding such statements about thinking as are brought forward here. Many persons are inclined to undervalue thinking, and to place higher the “warm life of feeling” or “emotion.” Some, indeed, say it is not by “sober thinking,” but by warmth of feeling, by the immediate power of “the emotions,” that one raises oneself to higher knowledge. People who talk thus fear to blunt the feelings by clear thinking. This certainly does result from the ordinary thinking that is concerned only with matters of utility; but in the case of thoughts that lead to higher regions of existence, the opposite happens. There is no feeling and no enthusiasm to be compared with the sentiments of warmth, beauty and exaltation enkindled through the pure, crystal-clear thoughts which relate to higher worlds. For the highest feelings are as a matter of fact not those which come “of themselves,” but those which are achieved by energetic and persevering work in the realm of thought.

[ 3 ] The human body is so built as to be adapted to thinking. The same materials and forces which are present in the mineral kingdom are so combined in the human body that by means of this combination thought can manifest itself. This mineral construction, built up in accordance with its task, will be called in the following pages the physical body of man.

[ 4 ] This mineral structure which is organised with reference to the brain as its central point, comes into existence through propagation and reaches its fully developed form through growth. Propagation and growth man shares in common with plants and animals. Through propagation and growth what is living differentiates itself from the lifeless mineral. Life gives rise to life by means of the germ. Descendant follows forefather from one living generation to another. The forces through which a mineral originates are directed upon the substances of which it is composed. A quartz crystal is formed through the forces inherent in the silicon and oxygen which are combined in the crystal. The forces which shape an oak tree must be sought for in an indirect way in the germ in the mother and father plants. The form of the oak is preserved through propagation from forefather to descendant. There are inner determining conditions innate in all that is living. It was a crude view of Nature which held that lower animals, even fishes, could evolve out of mud. The form of the living passes itself on by means of heredity. How a living being develops depends on what father or mother it has sprung from, or in other words, on the species to which it belongs. The materials of which it is composed are continually changing; the species remains constant during life, and is transmitted to the descendants. Therefore the species is that which determines the combination of the materials. This force which determines species will be here called Life-force. Just as the mineral forces express themselves in the crystals, so the formative life-force expresses itself in the species or forms of plant and animal life.

[ 5 ] The mineral forces are perceived by man by means of his bodily senses; and he can only perceive that for which he has such senses. Without the eye there is no perception of light, without the ear no perception of sound. The lowest organisms have only one of the senses belonging to man: a kind of sense of touch. Nothing can be perceived by such organisms, in the way a human being perceives, except those mineral forces which make themselves known through the sense of touch. In proportion as the other senses are developed in the higher animals does their surrounding world, which man also perceives, become richer and more varied. It depends, therefore, on the organs of a being whether that which exists in the outer world exists also for the being itself, as perception, as sensation. What is present in the air as a certain motion becomes in man the sensation of hearing. Man does not perceive the manifestations of the life-force through the ordinary senses. He sees the colours of the plants; he smells their perfume; the life-force remains hidden from this form of observation. But the ordinary senses have just as little right to deny that there is a life-force as has the man born blind to deny that colours exist. Colours are there for the person born blind as soon as he has been operated upon; in the same way, the objects, the various species of plants and animals created by the life-force (not merely the individual plants and animals) are present to man as objects of perception as soon as the necessary organ unfolds within him. An entirely new world opens out to man through the unfolding of this organ. He now perceives, not merely the colours, the odours, etc., of the living beings, but the life itself of these beings. In each plant, in each animal, he perceives, besides the physical form, the life-filled spirit-form. In order to have a name for this spirit-form let it be called the ether-body, or life-body.1The author of this book, long after it was written, applied to what is here called etheric or life-body, the name “formative-force-body” (also cf. Das Reich, 4th book of the first year's issue.) He felt moved to give it this name, because he believes that one cannot do enough to prevent the misunderstanding due to confusing what is here meant by etheric body with the “vital force” of older natural science. In what concerns the rejection of this older concept of a vital force in the sense of modern natural science, the author shares in a certain respect the standpoint of those who are opposed to assuming such a vital force. For the purpose of assuming such a vital force was to explain the special mode of working in the organism of the inorganic forces. But that which works inorganically in the organism, does not work there in any other way than it does in the inorganic world. The laws of inorganic nature are in the organism no other than they are in the crystal, and so forth. But in the organism there is present something which is not inorganic: the formative life. The etheric body or formative-force-body lies at the base of this formative life. By assuming its existence, the rightful task of natural science is not interfered with: viz., to observe the workings of forces in inorganic nature and to follow the workings into the organic world: and further, to refuse to think of these operations within the organism as being modified by a special vital force. The spiritual investigator speaks of the etheric body in so far as there manifests in the organism something other than what shows itself in the lifeless. In spite of all this the author does not here feel impelled to replace the term “etheric body” by the other “formative-force-body,” since within the whole connected range of what is said here, any misunderstanding is excluded for everyone who really wants to see. Such a misunderstanding can only arise when the term is used in a development which cannot exhibit this connection. See also under Addendas 1, 2,& 3 p.26

To the investigator of spiritual life, this matter presents itself in the following manner. The ether-body is for him not merely a product of the materials and forces of the physical body, but a real independent entity which first calls forth these physical materials and forces into life. It is in accordance with spiritual science to say: a purely physical body, a crystal for example, has its form through the action of the physical formative forces innate in that which is lifeless. A living body has its form not through the action of these forces, because the moment life has departed from it and it is given over to the physical forces only, it falls to pieces. The ether-body is an organism which preserves the physical body every moment during life from dissolution. In order to see this body, to perceive it in another being, one requires the awakened “spiritual eye.” Without this, its existence can be accepted as a fact on logical grounds; but one can see it with the spiritual eye as one sees colour with the physical eye. Offence should not be taken at the expression “ether-body.” “Ether” here designates something different from the hypothetical ether of the physicist. It should be regarded simply as a name for what is described here. And just as the physical body of man in its construction is a kind of reflection of its purpose, so is this also the case with man's etheric body. Moreover, it can be understood only when considered in relation to the thinking spirit. The etheric body of man differs from that of plants and animals, through being organised to serve the purposes of the thinking spirit. Just as man belongs to the mineral world through his physical body, he belongs through his etheric body to the life-world. After death the physical body dissolves into the mineral world, the ether-body into the life-world. By the word “body” is denoted that which gives any kind of being “shape” or “form.” The term “body” must not be confused with a bodily form perceptible to the physical senses. Used in the sense implied in this book the term “body” can also be applied to such forms as soul and spirit may assume.

[ 6 ] In the life-body we still have something external to man. With the first stirrings of sensation the inner self responds to the stimuli of the outer world. You may trace ever so far what one is justified in calling the outer world, but you will not be able to find sensation. Rays of light stream into the eye, penetrating it till they reach the retina. There they call forth chemical processes (in the so-called visual-purple); the effect of these stimuli is passed on through the optic nerve to the brain where further physical processes arise. Could one observe these, one would simply see physical processes, just as elsewhere in the physical world. If I were able to observe the ether-body, I should see how the physical brain-process is at the same time a life-process. But the sensation of blue colour, which the recipient of the rays of light has, I can find nowhere in this manner. It arises only within the soul of the recipient. If, therefore, the being of this recipient consisted only of the physical body and the ether-body, sensation could not exist. The activity by which sensation becomes a fact differs essentially from the operations of the formative life-force. It is an activity by which an inner experience is called forth from these operations. Without this activity there would be a mere life-process, such as is to be observed in plants. If one pictures a man receiving impressions from all sides, one must think of him at the same time as the source of the above-mentioned soul-activity which flows out from him to all the directions from which he is receiving the impressions. In all directions soul-sensations arise in response to the physical impacts. This fountain of activity shall be called the sentient soul. This sentient soul is just as real as the physical body. If a man stands before me, and I disregard his sentient soul by thinking of him as merely a physical body, it is exactly as if I were to call up in my mind, instead of a painting—merely the canvas.

A similar statement has to be made in regard to perceiving the sentient soul, as was previously made in reference to the ether-body. The bodily organs are “blind” to it. And blind to it also is the organ by which life can be perceived as life. But just as the ether-body is seen by means of this organ, so through a still higher organ can the inner world of sensation become a special kind of supersensible perception. A man would then not only sense the impressions of the physical and life-world, but would behold the sensations themselves. Before a man with such an organ, the sensation world of another being is spread out like an external reality.

One must distinguish between experiencing one's own world of sensation, and looking at that of another person. Every man of course can look into his own world of sensation; only the seer with the opened “spiritual eye” can see another person's world of sensation. Unless a man be a seer, he knows the world of sensation only as an “inner” one, only as the peculiar hidden experiences of his own soul; with the opened “spiritual eye” there shines out before the outward-turned spiritual gaze what otherwise lives only in the inner being of another person.

[ 7 ] In order to prevent misunderstanding, it may be expressly stated here that the seer does not simply experience in himself what the other being has within him as content of his world of sensation. That being experiences the sensations in question from the point of view of his own inner being; the seer becomes aware of a manifestation of the world of sensation.

[ 8 ] The sentient soul depends, as regards its activity, on the ether-body. For it draws from it that which it will cause to gleam forth as sensation. And since the ether-body is the life within the physical body, therefore the sentient soul is also indirectly dependent on the latter. Only with properly functioning and well-constructed eyes are correct colour sensations possible. It is in this way that the nature of the body affects the sentient soul. The latter is thus determined and limited in its activity by the body. It lives within the limitations fixed for it by the nature of the body. The body accordingly is built up of mineral substances, is vitalised by the ether-body, and limits even the sentient soul. A man, therefore, who has the above-mentioned organ for “seeing” the sentient soul, knows it to be conditioned by the body. But the boundary of the sentient soul does not coincide with that of the physical body. It extends somewhat beyond the physical body. From this one sees that it proves itself to be greater than the physical body. Nevertheless the force through which its limits are set proceeds from the physical body. Thus between the physical body and the ether-body, on the one hand, and the sentient soul on the other, there inserts itself another distinct member of the human being. This is the soul-body or sentient body. One can express this in another way. One part of the ether-body is finer than the rest, and this finer part of the ether-body forms a unity with the sentient soul, whereas the coarser part forms a kind of unity with the physical body. Nevertheless, the sentient soul extends, as has been said, beyond the soul-body.

[ 9 ] What is here called sensation is only a part of the soul-being. (The expression sentient soul is chosen for the sake of simplicity.) Connected with sensations are the feelings of desire and aversion, impulses, instincts, passions. All these bear the same character of individual life as do the sensations, and are, like them, dependent on the bodily nature.

[ 10 ] Just as the sentient soul enters into mutual action and reaction with the body, so does it also in thinking, with the spirit. In the first place thinking serves the sentient soul. Man forms thoughts about his sensations. He thus enlightens himself regarding the outside world. The child that has burnt itself thinks it over, and reaches the thought “fire burns.” Nor does man follow blindly his impulses, instincts, passions; his thinking about them brings about the opportunity through which he can gratify them. What is called material civilisation moves entirely in this direction. It consists in the services which thinking renders to the sentient soul. An immeasurable amount of thought-power is directed to this end. It is thought-power that has built ships, railways, telegraphs, telephones; and by far the greatest proportion of all this serves only to satisfy the needs of sentient souls.

Thought-force permeates the sentient soul in a similar way to that in which the formative-life-force permeates the physical body. The formative-life-force connects the physical body with forefathers and descendants, and thus brings it under a system of laws with which the purely mineral body is in no way concerned. In the same way thought-force brings the soul under a system of laws to which it does not belong as mere sentient soul.

Through the sentient soul man is related to the animal. In animals, also, we observe the presence of sensations, impulses, instincts and passions. But the animal obeys these immediately. They do not, in its case, become interwoven with independent thoughts, transcending the immediate experiences.2See also under Addenda 4 This is also the case to a certain extent with undeveloped human beings. The mere sentient soul is therefore different from the evolved higher member of the soul which brings thinking into its service. This soul that is served by thought will be termed the intellectual soul. One could also call it the mind-soul.

[ 11 ] The intellectual soul permeates the sentient soul. He who has the organ for “seeing” the soul sees, therefore, the intellectual soul as a separate entity, in relation to the mere sentient soul.

[ 12 ] By thinking, man is led above and beyond his own personal life. He acquires something that extends beyond his soul. He comes to take for granted his conviction that the laws of thought are in conformity with the laws of the world. And he feels at home in the world because this conformity exists. This conformity is one of the weighty facts through which man learns to know his own nature. Man searches in his soul for truth; and through this truth it is not only the soul that speaks, but the things of the world. That which is recognised as truth by means of thought has an independent significance, which refers to the things of the world, and not merely to one's own soul. In my delight at the starry heavens I live in my own inner being; the thoughts which I form for myself about the paths of heavenly bodies have the same significance for the thinking of every other person as they have for mine. It would be absurd to speak of my delight were I not in existence; but it is not in the same way absurd to speak of my thoughts, even without reference to myself. For the truth which I think to-day was true also yesterday; will be true to-morrow, although I concern myself with it only to-day. If a piece of knowledge gives me joy, the joy has significance just so long as it lives in me; the truth of the knowledge has its significance quite independently of this joy. By grasping the truth the soul connects itself with something that carries its value in itself. And this value does not vanish with the feeling in the soul any more than it arose with it. What is really truth neither arises nor passes away: it has a significance which cannot be destroyed. This is not contradicted by the fact that certain human “truths” have a value which is transitory, inasmuch as they are recognised after a certain period as partial or complete errors. A man must say to himself that truth exists in itself, and that his conceptions are only transient forms of eternal truths. Even he who says, like Lessing, that he contents himself with the eternal striving towards truth because the full, pure truth can, after all, only exist for a God, does not deny the eternity of truth but establishes it by such an utterance. For only that which has an eternal significance in itself can call forth an eternal striving after it. Were truth not in itself independent, if it acquired its value and significance through the feelings of the human soul, then it could not be the one unique goal for all mankind. One concedes its independent being by the very fact that one sets oneself to strive after it.

[ 13 ] And as it is with the true, so it is with the truly good. Moral goodness is independent of inclinations and passions, inasmuch as it does not allow itself to be commanded by, but commands them. Likes and dislikes, desire and loathing belong to the personal soul of man; duty stands higher than likes and dislikes. Duty may stand so high in the eyes of a man that he will sacrifice his life for its sake. And a man stands the higher the more he has ennobled his inclinations, his likes and dislikes, so that without compulsion or subjection they themselves obey what is recognised as duty. Moral goodness has, like truth, its eternal value in itself, and does not receive it from the sentient soul.

[ 14 ] By causing the self-existent true and good to come to life in his inner being, man raises himself above the mere sentient soul. The eternal spirit shines into it. A light is kindled in it which is imperishable. In so far as the soul lives in this light, it is a participant of the eternal. It unites therewith its own existence. What the soul carries within itself of the true and the good is immortal in it. Let us call that which shines forth in the soul as eternal the consciousness-soul.3Bewusstsein-Seele (consciousness-soul) may also, as indicated by Dr. Steiner, be translated “spiritual soul.” We can speak of consciousness even in connection with the lower soul-stirrings.

The most ordinary everyday sensation is a matter of consciousness. To this extent animals also have consciousness. By consciousness-soul is meant the kernel of human consciousness, the soul within the soul. The consciousness-soul is thus distinguished as a distinct member of the soul from the intellectual soul. This latter is still entangled in the sensations, the impulses, the passions, etc. Everyone knows how at first he counts as true that which he prefers in his feelings, and so on. Only that truth, however, is permanent which has freed itself from all flavour of such sympathy and antipathy of feeling. The truth is true, even if all personal feelings revolt against it. The part of the soul in which this truth lives will be called consciousness-soul.

[ 15 ] Thus three members have to be distinguished in the soul as in the body: sentient soul, intellectual soul, consciousness-soul. And just as the body works from below upwards with a limiting effect on the soul, so the spiritual works from above downwards into it, expanding it. For the more the soul fills itself with the true and the good, the wider and the more comprehensive becomes the eternal in it. To him who is able to “see” the soul, the radiance which proceeds from a human being because his eternal element is expanding, is just as much a reality as the light which streams out from a flame is real to the physical eye. For the “seer” the corporeal man counts as only part of the whole man. The physical body, as the coarsest structure, lies within others, which mutually interpenetrate both it and each other. The ether-body fills the physical body as a life-form; extending beyond this on all sides is to be perceived the soul-body (astral form). And beyond this, again, extends the sentient soul, then the intellectual soul which grows the larger the more it receives into itself of the true and the good. For this true and good cause the expansion of the intellectual soul. A man living only and entirely according to his inclinations, his likes and dislikes, would have an intellectual soul whose limits coincide with those of his sentient soul. These formations, in the midst of which the physical body appears as if in a cloud, may be called the human aura. The aura is that in regard to which the “being of man” becomes enriched, when it is seen as this book endeavours to present it.

[ 16 ] In the course of his development as a child, there comes the moment in the life of a man in which, for the first time, he feels himself to be an independent being distinct from the whole of the rest of the world. For finely strung natures it is a significant experience. The poet Jean Paul says in his autobiography: “I shall never forget the event which took place within me, hitherto narrated to no one, and of which I can give place and time, when I stood present at the birth of my self-consciousness. As a very small child I stood at the door of the house one morning, looking towards the wood pile on my left, when suddenly the inner vision, ‘I am an I’ came upon me like a flash of lightning from heaven and has remained shining ever since. In that moment my ego had seen itself for the first time and for ever. Any deception of memory is hardly to be conceived as possible here, for no narrations by outsiders could have introduced additions to an occurrence which took place in the holy of holies of a human being, and of which the novelty alone gave permanence to such everyday surroundings.” It is well known that little children say of themselves, “Charles is good,” “Mary wants to have this.” One feels it to be right that they speak of themselves as if of others, because they have not yet become conscious of their independent existence, because the consciousness of the self is not yet born in them. Through self-consciousness, man describes himself as an independent being, separate from all others, as “I.” In “I” man includes all that he experiences as a being with body and soul. Body and soul are the carriers of the ego or “I;” in them it acts. Just as the physical body has its centre in the brain, so has the soul its centre in the ego. Man is aroused to sensations by impacts from without; feelings manifest themselves as effects of the outer world; the will relates itself to the outside world in that it realises itself in external actions. The “I” as the essential being of man remains quite invisible. Excellently, therefore, does Jean Paul call a man's recognition of his ego an occurrence taking place only in his veiled holy of holies; for with his “I” man is quite alone. And this “I” is the man himself. That justifies him in regarding his ego as his true being. He may, therefore, describe his body and his soul as the “sheaths” or “veils” within which he lives; and he may describe them as bodily conditions through which he acts. In the course of his evolution he learns to regard these instruments ever more and more as servants of his ego. The little word “I” is a name which differs from all other names. Anyone who reflects in an appropriate manner on the nature of this name, will find that in so doing an avenue to the understanding of the human being in the deeper sense is revealed. Every other name can be applied to its corresponding object by all men in the same way. Everybody can call a table “table” or a chair “chair.” This is not so with the name “I.” No one can use it in referring to another person; each one can call only himself “I.” Never can the name “I” reach my ears from outside when it refers to me. Only from within, only through itself, can the human being refer to himself as “I.” When the human being therefore says “I” to himself, something begins to speak in him that has nothing to do with any one of the worlds from which the sheaths so far mentioned are taken. The “I” becomes ever more and more ruler of body and soul. This also expresses itself in the aura. The more the “I” is lord over body and soul, the more definitely organised, the more varied and the more richly coloured is the aura.

The effect of the “I” on the aura can be seen by the “seeing” person. The “I” itself is invisible even to him; this remains truly within the veiled “holy of holies.” But the “I” absorbs into itself the rays of the light which flashes up in a man as eternal light. As he gathers together the experiences of body and soul in the “I,” so too he causes the thoughts of truth and goodness to stream into the “I.” The phenomena of the senses reveal themselves to the “I” from the one side, the spirit reveals itself from the other. Body and soul yield themselves up to the “I” in order to serve it; but the “I” yields itself up to the spirit in order that the spirit may fill it to overflowing. The “I” lives in body and soul; but the spirit lives in the “I.” And what there is of spirit in the “I” is eternal. For the “I” receives its nature and significance from that with which it is bound up. In so far as it experiences itself in the physical body, it is subject to the laws of the mineral world; through its ether-body to the laws of propagation and growth; by virtue of the sentient and intellectual souls to the laws of the soul-world in so far as it receives the spiritual into itself it is subject to the laws of the spirit. That which the laws of mineral and of life construct, comes into being and vanishes; but the spirit has nothing to do with becoming and perishing.

[ 17 ] The “I” lives in the soul. Although the highest manifestation of the “I” belongs to the consciousness-soul, one must nevertheless say that this “I,” raying out from it, fills the whole of the soul, and through the soul exerts its action upon the body. And in the “I” the spirit is alive. The spirit sends its rays into the “I” and lives in it as in a “sheath” or veil, just as the “I” lives in its sheaths, the body and soul. The spirit develops the “I” from within, outwards; the mineral world develops it from without, inwards. The spirit forming an “I” and living as “I” will be called Spirit-self, because it manifests as the “I,” or ego, or “self” of man. The difference between the “Spirit-self” and the “consciousness-soul” can be made clear in the following way. The consciousness-soul is in touch with the self-existent truth which is independent of all antipathy and sympathy; the Spirit-self bears within it the same truth, but taken up into and enclosed by the “I,” individualised by the latter and absorbed into the independent being of the man. It is through the eternal truth becoming thus individualised and bound up into one being with the “I,” that the “I” itself attains to eternity.

[ 18 ] The Spirit-self is a revelation of the spiritual world within the “I,” just as from the other side sensations are a revelation of the physical world within the “I.” In what is red, green, light, dark, hard, soft, warm, cold, one recognises the revelations of the corporeal world; in what is true and good, the revelations of the spiritual world. In the same sense in which the revelation of the corporeal world is called sensation, let the revelation of the spiritual be called intuition.4See also underAddenda p.38-39. Even the most simple thought contains intuitions, for one cannot touch it with the hands or see it with the eyes; its revelation must be received from the spirit through the “I.” If an undeveloped and a developed man look at a plant, there lives in the “I” of the one something quite different from that which is in the “I” of the other. And yet the sensations of both are called forth by the same object. The difference lies in this, that the one can form far more perfect thoughts about the object than can the other. If objects revealed themselves through sensation alone, there could be no progress in spiritual development. Even the savage is affected by Nature; but the laws of Nature reveal themselves only to the thoughts, fructified by intuition, of the more highly developed man. The stimuli from the outer world are felt even by the child as incentives to the will; but the commandments of the morally good disclose themselves to him only in the course of his development, in proportion as he learns to live in the spirit and understand its revelations.

[ 19 ] Just as there could be no colour sensations without physical eyes, so there could be no intuitions without the higher thinking of the Spirit-self. And as little as sensation creates the plant on which the colour appears, does intuition create the spiritual realities about which it is merely giving information.

[ 20 ] The “I” of a man, which comes to life in the soul, draws into itself messages from above, from the spirit-world, through intuitions, just as through sensations it draws in messages from the physical world. And in so doing it fashions the spirit-world into the individualised life of its own soul, even as it does the physical world by means of the senses. The soul, or rather the “I” lighting up in it, opens its portals on two sides; towards the corporeal and towards the spiritual.

[ 21 ] Now just as the physical world can only give information about itself to the ego by building out of physical materials and forces a body in which the conscious soul can live and possess organs to perceive the corporeal world outside itself, so does the spirit-world build, with its spirit-substances and spirit-forces, a spirit-body in which the “I” can live and, through intuitions, perceive the spiritual. (It is evident that the expressions spirit-substance, spirit-body contain a contradiction, according to the literal meaning of the words. They are used only in order to direct attention to what, in the spiritual, corresponds to the physical body of man.)

[ 22 ] Just as within the physical world each human body is built up as a separate physical being, so is the spirit-body within the spirit-world. In the spirit-world there is an “inner” and an “outer” for man just as there is in the physical world. As man takes in the materials of the physical world around him and assimilates them in his physical body, so does he take up the spiritual from the spiritual environment and make it into his own. The spiritual is the eternal nourishment of man. And as man is born out of the physical world, so is he born out of the spirit through the eternal laws of the true and the good. He is separated from the spirit-world outside him, as he is separated from the whole physical world, as an independent being. This independent spiritual being will be called the Spirit-man.

[ 23 ] If we investigate the human physical body, we find the same materials and forces in it as are to be found outside it in the rest of the physical world. It is the same with the Spirit-man. In it pulsate the elements of the external spirit-world; in it the forces of the rest of the spirit-world are active. As within the physical skin a being is enclosed and limited which is alive and feels, so also is it in the spirit-world. The spiritual skin, which separates the Spirit-man from the homogeneous spirit-world, makes him an independent being within it, living a life within himself and perceiving intuitively the spiritual content of the world—let us call this “spiritual skin” (auric sheath) the spirit-sheath. Only it must be kept clearly in mind that the spiritual skin expands continually with advancing human evolution, so that the spiritual individuality of man (his auric sheath) is capable of enlargement to an unlimited extent.

[ 24 ] The Spirit-man lives within this spirit-sheath. It is built up by the spiritual life-force. In a similar way to that in which one speaks of an ether-body, one must therefore speak of an ether-spirit in reference to the Spirit-man. Let this ether-spirit be called Life-spirit. The spiritual being of man therefore is composed of three parts, Spirit-man, Life-spirit, and Spirit-self.

[ 25 ] For one who is a “seer” in the spiritual regions, this spiritual being of man is a perceptible reality as the higher, truly spiritual part of the aura. He “sees” the Spirit-man as Life-spirit within the spirit-sheath; and he “sees” how this “Life-spirit” grows continually larger, by taking in spiritual nourishment from the spiritual external world. Further, he sees how the spirit-sheath continually increases, widens out through what is brought into it, and how the Spirit-man becomes ever larger and larger. In so far as this “becoming larger” is “seen” spatially, it is of course, only a picture of the reality. In spite of this, man's soul is directed towards the corresponding spiritual reality in conceiving this picture. For the difference between the spiritual and the physical being of man is that the latter has a limited size while the former can grow to an unlimited extent. Whatever of spiritual nourishment is absorbed has an eternal value. The human aura is accordingly composed of two interpenetrating parts. Colour and form are given to the one by the physical existence of man, and to the other by his spiritual existence. The ego marks the separation between them in such wise that the physical, after its own manner, yields itself and builds up a body that allows a soul to live within it; and the “I” yields itself and allows to develop in it the spirit, which now for its part permeates the soul and gives it the goal in the spirit-world. Through the body the soul is enclosed in the physical; through the Spirit-man there grow wings for its movement in the spiritual world.

[ 26 ] In order to comprehend the whole man, one must think of him as put together out of the components above mentioned. The body builds itself up out of the world of physical matter in such wise that its construction is adapted to the requirements of the thinking ego. It is penetrated with life-force, and thereby becomes the etheric or life-body. As such it opens itself through the sense-organs towards the outer world and becomes the soul-body. This the sentient soul permeates and becomes a unity with it. The sentient soul does not merely receive the impacts of the outer world as sensations; it has its own inner life which it fertilises through thinking, on the one hand, as it does through sensations on the other. It thus becomes the intellectual soul. It is able to do this by opening itself to intuitions from above, as it does to sensations from below. Thus it becomes the consciousness-soul. This is possible for it because the spirit-world builds into it the organ of intuition, just as the physical body builds for it the sense-organs. As the senses transmit to the human organism sensations by means of the soul-body, so does the spirit transmit to it intuitions through the organ of intuition. The Spirit-self is thereby linked into a unity with the consciousness-soul, just as the physical body is with the sentient soul in the soul-body. Consciousness-soul and Spirit-self form a unity. In this unity the Spirit-man lives as Life-spirit, just as the etheric body forms the bodily basis for the soul-body. And as the physical body is enclosed in the physical skin, so is the Spirit-man in the spirit-sheath. The members of the whole man are therefore as follows:

  1. Physical body.
  2. Ether-body or life-body
  3. Soul-body
  4. Sentient soul
  5. Intellectual soul
  6. Consciousness-soul
  7. Spirit-self
  8. Life-spirit
  9. Spirit-man

[ 1 ] Soul-body (C) and sentient soul (D) are a unity in the earthly man; in the same way are consciousness-soul (F) and Spirit-self (G) a unity. Thus there come to be seven parts in the earthly man.5See also underAddenda p.42

  1. Physical body.
  2. Ether-body or life-body
  3. Sentient soul-body
  4. Intellectual soul
  5. Spirit-filled Consciousness-soul
  6. Life-spirit
  7. Spirit-man

[ 27 ] In the soul the “I” flashes forth, receives the impetus from the spirit and thereby becomes the bearer of the Spirit-man. Thus man participates in the “three worlds,” the physical, the soul, and the spiritual. He is rooted in the physical world through his physical body, ether-body, and soul-body and blossoms through the Spirit-self, Life-spirit, and Spirit-man up into the spiritual world. The stalk, however, which takes root in the one and blossoms in the other, is the soul itself.

[ 28 ] This arrangement of the members of man can be expressed in a simplified way, but one entirely consistent with the above. Although the human “I” lights up in the consciousness-soul it nevertheless penetrates the whole soul-being. The parts of this soul-being are not at all as distinctly separate as are the limbs of the body: they interpenetrate each other in a higher sense. If then one regards the intellectual soul and the consciousness-soul as the two sheaths of the “I” that belong together, with the “I” itself as their kernel, then one can divide man into physical body, life-body, astral body, and “I.” The expression astral body designates here what is formed by soul-body and sentient soul together. This expression is found in the older literature, and may be applied here in a somewhat broad sense to that in the constitution of man which lies beyond the sensibly perceptible. Although the sentient soul is in certain respects energised by the “I” it is still so intimately connected with the soul-body that, in thinking of both as united, a single expression is justified. When, now, the “I” saturates itself with the Spirit-self, then this Spirit-self makes its appearance in such wise that the astral body is worked over from within the soul. In the astral body there are primarily active the impulses, desires, and passions of man, in so far as they are felt by him; sense-perceptions are also active in it. Sense-perceptions arise through the soul-body as a member in man which comes to him from the external world. Impulses, desires, and passions, etc., arise in the sentient soul, in so far as it is energised from within, before this “inner” has yielded itself to the Spirit-self. If the “I” saturates itself with the Spirit-self, then the soul energises the astral body with this Spirit-self. This expresses itself in the illumination of the impulses, desires, and passions by what the “I” has received from the spirit. The “I” has then, through its participation in the spiritual world, become ruler in the world of impulses, desires, etc. To the extent to which it has become this the Spirit-self manifests in the astral body. And the astral body is thereby transmuted. The astral body itself then appears as a two-fold body—in part untransmuted and in part transmuted. Therefore the Spirit-self, as manifested in man, can be designated as the transmuted astral body.

A similar process takes place in a man when he receives the Life-spirit into his “I.” The life-body then becomes transmuted. It becomes penetrated with the Life-spirit. This manifests itself in such wise that the life-body becomes quite other than it was. For this reason one can also say that Life-spirit is the transmuted life-body. And if the “I” receives the Spirit-man, it thereby receives the necessary force with which to permeate the physical body. Naturally, that part of the physical body, thus transmuted, is not perceptible to the physical senses. For it is just that part of the physical body which has been spiritualised that has become the Spirit-man. The physical body is then present to the physical senses as physical, but in so far as this physical is spiritualised, it must be perceived by spiritual faculties of perception. To the external senses the physical, even when permeated by the spiritual, appears to be merely sensible.

Taking all this as basis, the following arrangement of the members of man may also be given:

  1. Physical body.
  2. Ether-body or life-body
  3. Astral body
  4. “I” as soul-kernel
  5. Spirit-self as transmuted astral body
  6. Life-spirit as transmuted life-body
  7. Spirit-man as transmuted physical body

IV. Leib, Seele und Geist

[ 1 ] Der Mensch kann sich in richtiger Art nur über sich aufklären, wenn er sich die Bedeutung des Denkens innerhalb seiner Wesenheit klarmacht. Das Gehirn ist das leibliche Werkzeug des Denkens. Wie der Mensch nur mit einem wohlgebildeten Auge Farben sehen kann, so dient ihm das entsprechend gebaute Gehirn zum Denken. Der ganze Leib des Menschen ist so gebildet, dass er in dem Geistesorgan, im Gehirn, seine Krönung findet. Man kann den Bau des menschlichen Gehirnes nur verstehen, wenn man es im Hinblick auf seine Aufgabe betrachtet. Diese besteht darin, die Leibesgrundlage des denkenden Geistes zu sein. Das zeigt ein vergleichender Überblick über die Tierwelt. Bei den Amphibien ist das Gehirn noch klein gegenüber dem Rückenmark; bei den Säugetieren wird es verhältnismäßig größer. Beim Menschen ist es am größten gegenüber dem ganzen übrigen Leib.

[ 2 ] Gegen solche Bemerkungen über das Denken, wie sie hier vorgebracht werden, herrscht manches Vorurteil. Manche Menschen sind geneigt, das Denken zu unterschätzen und das «innige Gefühlsleben», die «Empfindung», höher zu stellen. Ja man sagt wohl: nicht durch das «nüchterne Denken», sondern durch die Wärme des Gefühls, durch die unmittelbare Kraft der Empfindungen erhebe man sich zu den höheren Erkenntnissen. Menschen, die so sprechen, fürchten, durch klares Denken die Gefühle abzustumpfen. Beim alltäglichen Denken, das sich nur auf die Dinge der Nützlichkeit bezieht, ist das sicher der Fall. Aber bei den Gedanken, die in höhere Regionen des Daseins führen, tritt das Umgekehrte ein. Es gibt kein Gefühl und keinen Enthusiasmus, die sich mit den Empfindungen an Wärme, Schönheit und Gehobenheit vergleichen lassen, welche angefacht werden durch die reinen, kristallklaren Gedanken, die sich auf höhere Welten beziehen. Die höchsten Gefühle sind eben nicht diejenigen, die «von selbst» sich einstellen, sondern diejenigen, welche in energischer Gedankenarbeit errungen werden.

[ 3 ] Der Menschenleib hat einen dem Denken entsprechenden Bau. Dieselben Stoffe und Kräfte, die auch im Mineralreich vorhanden sind, finden sich im menschlichen Leib so gefügt, dass sich durch diese Zusammenfügung das Denken offenbaren kann. Dieser mineralische, in Gemäßheit seiner Aufgabe gebildete Bau soll für die folgende Betrachtung der physische Körper des Menschen heißen.

[ 4 ] Der auf das Gehirn, als seinen Mittelpunkt, hingeordnete mineralische Bau entsteht durch Fortpflanzung und erhält seine ausgebildete Gestalt durch Wachstum. Fortpflanzung und Wachstum hat der Mensch mit den Pflanzen und Tieren gemein. Durch Fortpflanzung und Wachstum unterscheidet sich das Lebendige von dem leblosen Mineral. Lebendiges entsteht aus Lebendigem durch den Keim. Der Nachkomme schließt sich an den Vorfahren in der Reihe des Lebendigen. Die Kräfte, durch die ein Mineral entsteht, sind auf die Stoffe selbst gerichtet, die es zusammensetzen. Ein Bergkristall bildet sich durch die dem Silizium und dem Sauerstoff innewohnenden Kräfte, die in ihm vereinigt sind. Die Kräfte, die einen Eichbaum gestalten, müssen wir auf dem Umwege durch den Keim in Mutter- und Vaterpflanze suchen. Und die Form der Eiche erhält sich bei der Fortpflanzung von den Vorfahren zu den Nachkommen. Es gibt innere, dem Lebenden angeborene Bedingungen. — Es war eine rohe Naturanschauung, die glaubte, dass niedere Tiere, selbst Fische, aus Schlamm sich bilden können. Die Form des Lebenden pflanzt sich durch Vererbung fort. Wie ein lebendes Wesen sich entwickelt, hängt davon ab, aus welchem Vater- oder Mutterwesen es entstanden ist, oder mit anderen Worten, welcher Art es angehört. Die Stoffe, aus denen es sich zusammensetzt, wechseln fortwährend; die Art bleibt während des Lebens bestehen und vererbt sich auf die Nachkommen. Die Art ist damit dasjenige, was die Zusammenfügung der Stoffe bestimmt. Diese artbildende Kraft soll Lebenskraft genannt werden. Wie sich die mineralischen Kräfte in den Kristallen ausdrücken, so die bildende Lebenskraft in den Arten oder Formen des pflanzlichen und tierischen Lebens.3

[ 5 ] Die mineralischen Kräfte nimmt der Mensch durch die leiblichen Sinne wahr. Und er kann nur dasjenige wahrnehmen, wofür er solche Sinne hat. Ohne das Auge gibt es keine Licht-, ohne das Ohr keine Schallwahrnehmung. Die niedersten Organismen haben von den bei den Menschen vorhandenen Sinnen nur eine Art Tastsinn. Für sie sind in der Art der menschlichen Wahrnehmung nur diejenigen mineralischen Kräfte vorhanden, die sich dem Tastsinn zu erkennen geben.4 In dem Maße, in dem bei den höheren Tieren die anderen Sinne entwickelt sind, ist für sie die Umwelt, die auch der Mensch wahrnimmt, reicher, mannigfaltiger. Es hängt also von den Organen eines Wesens ab, ob das, was in der Außenwelt vorhanden ist, auch für das Wesen selbst als Wahrnehmung, als Empfindung vorhanden ist Was in der Luft als eine gewisse Bewegung vorhanden ist, wird im Menschen zur Schallempfindung. — Die Äußerungen der Lebenskraft nimmt der Mensch durch die gewöhnlichen Sinne nicht wahr. Er sieht die Farben der Pflanze, er riecht ihren Duft; die Lebenskraft bleibt dieser Beobachtung verborgen. Aber sowenig der Blindgeborene mit Recht die Farben ableugnet, sowenig dürften die gewöhnlichen Sinne die Lebenskraft ableugnen. Die Farben sind für den Blindgeborenen da, sobald er operiert worden ist; ebenso sind für den Menschen die mannigfaltigen, durch die Lebenskraft geschaffenen Arten der Pflanzen und Tiere, nicht bloß die Individuen, auch als Wahrnehmung vorhanden, wenn sich ihm das Organ dafür erschließt. — Eine ganz neue Welt geht dem Menschen durch die Erschließung dieses Organs auf. Er nimmt nun nicht mehr bloß die Farben, Gerüche und so weiter der Lebewesen, sondern das Leben dieser Lebewesen selbst wahr. In jeder Pflanze, in jedem Tier empfindet er außer der physischen Gestalt noch die lebenerfüllte Geistgestalt. Um einen Ausdruck dafür zu haben, sei diese Geistgestalt der Ätherleib oder Lebensleib genannt. 5Der Verfasser dieses Buches hat lange Zeit nach Abfassung desselben (vgl. Zeitschrift «Das Reich», viertes Buch des ersten Jahrgangs [Januar 19171) dasjenige, was hier Äther- oder Lebensleib genannt wird, auch «Bilde-Kräfte-Leib» genannt. Zu dieser Namengebung fühlte er sich veranlasst, weil er glaubt, dass man nicht genug tun kann, um dem Missverständnis vorzubeugen, das hier mit Ätherleib Gemeinte zu verwechseln mit der «Lebenskraft» der älteren Naturwissenschaft. Wo es sich um Abweisung dieser älteren Vorstellung einer Lebenskraft im Sinne der modernen Naturwissenschaft handelt, steht der Verfasser in einem gewissen Sinne auf dem Standpunkt der Gegner einer solchen Kraft. Denn mit dieser wollte man die besondere Wirkungsweise der unorganischen Kräfte im Organismus erklären. Aber was im Organismus unorganisch wirkt, das wirkt da nicht anders als in dem Bereich der unorganischen Welt. Die Gesetze der unorganischen Natur sind im Organismus keine anderen als im Kristall usw. Aber im Organismus liegt eben etwas vor, was nicht unorganisch ist: das bildende Leben. Diesem liegt der Äther- oder Bilde-Kräfte-Leib zugrunde. Durch seine Annahme wird die berechtigte Aufgabe der Naturforschung nicht gestört: dasjenige, was sie über Kräftewirksamkeiten in der unorganischen Natur beobachtet, auch in die Organismenwelt hinein zu verfolgen. Und es abzulehnen, diese Wirksamkeit innerhalb des Organismus durch eine besondere Lebenskraft abgeändert zu denken, das sieht auch eine wahre Geisteswissenschaft als berechtigt an. Der Geistesforscher spricht vom Ätherleib insofern, als im Organismus sich noch anderes offenbart als im Leblosen. — Trotz alledem findet sich der Verfasser dieses Buches nicht veranlasst, hier den Namen «Ätherleib» durch den anderen «Bilde-Kräfte-Leib» zu ersetzen, da innerhalb des ganzen Zusammenhanges, der hier sich findet, für jeden, der sehen will, ein Missverständnis ausgeschlossen ist. Ein solches kann nur eintreten, wenn man den Namen in einer Ausführung gebraucht, die diesen Zusammenhang nicht zeigen kann. (Man vergleiche damit auch das am Schlusse dieses Buches unter «Einzelne Bemerkungen und Ergänzungen» Gesagte.) — Für den Erforscher des geistigen Lebens stellt sich diese Sache in der folgenden Art dar. Ihm ist der Ätherleib nicht etwa bloß ein Ergebnis der Stoffe und Kräfte des physischen Leibes, sondern eine selbständige, wirkliche Wesenheit, welche die genannten physischen Stoffe und Kräfte erst zum Leben aufruft. Im Sinne der Geisteswissenschaft spricht man, wenn man sagt: ein bloßer physischer Körper hat seine Gestalt — zum Beispiel ein Kristall durch die dem Leblosen innewohnenden physischen Gestaltungskräfte; ein lebendiger Körper hat seine Form nicht durch diese Kräfte, denn in dem Augenblicke, wo das Leben aus ihm gewichen ist und er nur den physischen Kräften überlassen ist, zerfällt er. Der Lebensleib ist eine Wesenheit, durch welche in jedem Augenblicke während des Lebens der physische Leib vor dem Zerfalle bewahrt wird. — Um diesen Lebensleib zu sehen, ihn an einem anderen Wesen wahrzunehmen, braucht man eben das erweckte geistige Auge. Ohne dieses kann man aus logischen Gründen seine Existenz annehmen; schauen kann man ihn aber mit dem geistigen Auge, wie man die Farbe mit dem physischen Auge schaut. — Man sollte sich an dem Ausdruck «Ätherleib» nicht stoßen. «Äther» bezeichnet hier etwas anderes als den hypothetischen Äther der Physik. Man nehme die Sache einfach als Bezeichnung für das hin, was hier beschrieben wird. Und wie der physische Menschenleib in seinem Bau ein Abbild seiner Aufgabe ist, so ist es auch des Menschen Ätherleib. Man versteht auch diesen nur, wenn man ihn im Hinblick auf den denkenden Geist betrachtet. Durch seine Hinordnung auf den denkenden Geist unterscheidet sich der Ätherleib des Menschen von demjenigen der Pflanzen und Tiere. — So wie der Mensch durch seinen physischen Leib der mineralischen, so gehört er durch seinen Ätherleib der Lebenswelt an. Nach dem Tode löst sich der physische Leib in der Mineralwelt, der Ätherleib in der Lebenswelt auf. Mit «Leib» soll bezeichnet werden, was einem Wesen von irgendeiner Art «Gestalt», «Forum» gibt. Man sollte den Ausdruck «Leib» nicht mit sinnlicher Körperform verwechseln. In dem in dieser Schrift gemeinten Sinne kann die Bezeichnung «Leib» auch für das gebraucht werden, was sich als Seelisches und Geistiges gestaltet.

[ 6 ] Der Lebensleib ist noch etwas dem Menschen Äußerliches. Mit dem ersten Regen der Empfindung antwortet das Innere selbst auf die Reize der Außenwelt. Man mag dasjenige, was man Außenwelt zu nennen berechtigt ist, noch so weit verfolgen: die Empfindung wird man nicht finden können. — Die Lichtstrahlen dringen in das Auge; sie pflanzen sich innerhalb desselben bis zur Netzhaut fort. Da rufen sie chemische Vorgänge (im sogenannten Sehpurpur) hervor; die Wirkung dieser Reize setzt sich durch den Sehnerv bis zum Gehirn fort; dort entstehen weitere physische Vorgänge. Könnte man diese beobachten, so sähe man eben physische Vorgänge wie anderswo in der Außenwelt. Vermag ich den Lebensleib zu beobachten, so werde ich wahrnehmen, wie der physische Gehirnvorgang zugleich ein Lebensvorgang ist. Aber die Empfindung der blauen Farbe, die der Empfänger der Lichtstrahlen hat, kann ich auf diesem Wege nirgends finden. Sie ersteht erst innerhalb der Seele dieses Empfängers. Wäre also das Wesen dieses Empfängers mit dem physischen Körper und dem Ätherleib erschöpft, so könnte die Empfindung nicht dasein. Ganz wesentlich unterscheidet sich die Tätigkeit, durch welche die Empfindung zur Tatsache wird, von dem Wirken der Lebensbildekraft. Ein inneres Erlebnis wird durch jene Tätigkeit aus diesem Wirken hervorgelockt. Ohne diese Tätigkeit wäre ein bloßer Lebensvorgang da, wie man ihn auch an der Pflanze beobachtet. Man stelle sich den Menschen vor, wie er von allen Seiten Eindrücke empfängt. Man muss sich ihn zugleich nach allen Richtungen hin, woher er diese Eindrücke empfängt, als Quell der bezeichneten Tätigkeit denken. Nach allen Seiten hin antworten die Empfindungen auf die Eindrücke. Dieser Tätigkeitsquell soll Empfindungsseele heißen. Diese Empfindungsseele ist ebenso wirklich wie der physische Körper. Wenn ein Mensch vor mir steht und ich sehe von seiner Empfindungsseele ab, indem ich ihn mir bloß als physischen Leib vorstelle, so ist das gerade so, als wenn ich mir von einem Gemälde bloß die Leinwand vorstelle. Auch in bezug auf die Wahrnehmung der Empfindungsseele muss ähnliches gesagt werden wie vorher im Hinblick auf den Ätherleib. Die leiblichen Organe sind «blind» für sie. Und auch das Organ, von dem das Leben als Leben wahrgenommen werden kann, ist es. Aber so, wie durch dieses Organ der Ätherleib geschaut wird, so kann durch ein noch höheres Organ die innere Welt der Empfindungen zu einer besonderen Art übersinnlicher Wahrnehmungen werden. Der Mensch empfindet dann nicht nur die Eindrücke der physischen und der Lebenswelt, sondern er schaut die Empfindungen. Vor einem Menschen mit einem solchen Organ liegt die Welt der Empfindungen eines andern Wesens wie eine äußere Wirklichkeit da. Man muss unterscheiden zwischen dem Erleben der eigenen Empfindungswelt und dem Anschauen der Empfindungswelt eines andern Wesens. In seine eigene Empfindungswelt hineinschauen kann natürlich jeder Mensch; die Empfindungswelt eines andern Wesens schauen kann nur der Seher mit dem geöffneten «geistigen Auge». Ohne Seher zu sein, kennt der Mensch die Empfindungswelt nur als «innere», nur als die eigenen verborgenen Erlebnisse seiner Seele; mit dem geöffneten «geistigen Auge» leuchtet vor dem äußeren geistigen Anblick auf, was sonst nur «im Innern» des andern Wesens lebt.

[ 7 ] Um Missverständnissen vorzubeugen, sei hier ausdrücklich gesagt, dass der Seher nicht etwa in sich dasselbe erlebt, was das andere Wesen als seinen Inhalt der Empfindungswelt in sich hat. Dieses erlebt die Empfindungen von dem Gesichtspunkte seines Innern; der Seher nimmt eine Offenbarung, eine Äußerung der Empfindungswelt wahr.

[ 8 ] Die Empfindungsseele hängt in bezug auf ihre Wirkung vom Ätherleib ab. Denn aus ihm holt sie ja das hervor, was sie als Empfindung aufglänzen lassen soll. Und da der Ätherleib das Leben innerhalb des physischen Leibes ist, so ist die Empfindungsseele auch von diesem mittelbar abhängig. Nur bei richtig lebendem, wohl gebautem Auge sind entsprechende Farbenempfindungen möglich. Dadurch wirkt die Leiblichkeit auf die Empfindungsseele. Diese ist also durch den Leib in ihrer Wirksamkeit bestimmt und begrenzt. Sie lebt innerhalb der ihr durch die Leiblichkeit gezogenen Grenzen. — Der Leib wird also aus den mineralischen Stoffen auferbaut, durch den Ätherleib belebt, und er begrenzt selbst die Empfindungsseele. Wer also das obenerwähnte Organ zum «Schauen» der Empfindungsseele hat, der erkennt sie durch den Leib begrenzt. — Aber die Grenze der Empfindungsseele fällt nicht mit derjenigen des physischen Körpers zusammen. Diese Seele ragt über den physischen Leib hinaus. Man sieht daraus, dass sie sich mächtiger erweist, als er ist. Aber die Kraft, durch die ihr die Grenze gesetzt ist, geht von dem physischen Leibe aus. Damit stellt sich zwischen den physischen Leib und den Ätherleib einerseits und die Empfindungsseele andererseits noch ein besonderes Glied der menschlichen Wesenheit hin. Es ist der Seelenleib oder Empfindungsleib. Man kann auch sagen: ein Teil des Ätherleibes sei feiner als der übrige, und dieser feinere Teil des Ätherleibes bildet eine Einheit mit der Empfindungsseele, während der gröbere Teil eine Art Einheit mit dem physischen Leib bildet. Doch ragt, wie gesagt, die Empfindungsseele über den Seelenleib hinaus.

[ 9 ] Was hier Empfindung genannt wird, ist nur ein Teil des seelischen Wesens. (Der Ausdruck Empfindungsseele wird der Einfachheit halber gewählt.) An die Empfindungen schließen sich die Gefühle der Lust und Unlust, die Triebe, Instinkte, Leidenschaften. All das trägt denselben Charakter des Eigenlebens wie die Empfindungen und ist, wie sie, von der Leiblichkeit abhängig.

[ 10 ] Ebenso wie mit dem Leibe tritt die Empfindungsseele auch mit dem Denken, dem Geiste, in Wechselwirkung. Zunächst dient ihr das Denken. Der Mensch bildet sich Gedanken über seine Empfindungen. Dadurch klärt er sich über die Außenwelt auf. Das Kind, das sich verbrannt hat, denkt nach und gelangt zu dem Gedanken: «das Feuer brennt». Auch seinen Trieben, Instinkten und Leidenschaften folgt der Mensch nicht blindlings; sein Nachdenken führt die Gelegenheit herbei, durch die er sie befriedigen kann. Was man materielle Kultur nennt, bewegt sich durchaus in dieser Richtung. Sie besteht in den Diensten, die das Denken der Empfindungsseele leistet. Unermessliche Summen von Denkkräften werden auf dieses Ziel gerichtet. Denkkraft ist es, die Schiffe, Eisenbahnen, Telegraphen, Telephone gebaut hat; und alles das dient zum weitaus größten Teil zur Befriedigung von Bedürfnissen der Empfindungsseelen. In ähnlicher Art, wie die Lebensbildekraft den physischen Körper durchdringt, so durchdringt die Denkkraft die Empfindungsseele. Die Lebensbildekraft knüpft den physischen Körper an Vorfahren und Nachkommen und stellt ihn dadurch in eine Gesetzmäßigkeit hinein, die das bloß Mineralische nichts angeht. Ebenso stellt die Denkkraft die Seele in eine Gesetzmäßigkeit hinein, der sie als bloße Empfindungsseele nicht angehört. — Durch die Empfindungsseele ist der Mensch dem Tiere verwandt. Auch beim Tiere bemerken wir das Vorhandensein von Empfindungen, Trieben, Instinkten und Leidenschaften. Aber das Tier folgt diesen unmittelbar. Sie werden bei ihm nicht mit selbständigen, über das unmittelbare Erleben hinausgehenden Gedanken durchwoben.6 Auch beim unentwickelten Menschen ist das bis zu einem gewissen Grade der Fall. Die bloße Empfindungsseele ist daher verschieden von dem entwickelten höheren Seelengliede, welches das Denken in seinen Dienst stellt. Als Verstandesseele sei diese vom Denken bediente Seele bezeichnet. Man könnte sie auch die Gemütsseele oder das Gemüt nennen.

[ 11 ] Die Verstandesseele durchdringt die Empfindungsseele. Wer das Organ zum «Schauen» der Seele hat, sieht daher die Verstandesseele als eine besondere Wesenheit gegenüber der bloßen Empfindungsseele an.

[ 12 ] Durch das Denken wird der Mensch über das Eigenleben hinausgeführt. Er erwirbt sich etwas, das über seine Seele hinausreicht. Es ist für ihn eine selbstverständliche Überzeugung, dass die Denkgesetze in Übereinstimmung mit der Weltordnung sind. Er betrachtet sich deshalb als ein Einheimischer in der Welt, weil diese Übereinstimmung besteht. Diese Übereinstimmung ist eine der gewichtigen Tatsachen, durch die der Mensch seine eigene Wesenheit kennen lernt. In seiner Seele sucht der Mensch nach Wahrheit; und durch diese Wahrheit spricht sich nicht allein die Seele, sondern sprechen sich die Dinge der Welt aus. Was durch das Denken als Wahrheit erkannt wird, hat eine selbständige Bedeutung, die sich auf die Dinge der Welt bezieht, nicht bloß auf die eigene Seele. Mit meinem Entzücken über den Sternenhimmel lebe ich in mir; die Gedanken, die ich mir über die Bahnen der Himmelskörper bilde, haben für das Denken jedes anderen dieselbe Bedeutung wie für das Meinige. Es wäre sinnlos, von meinem Entzücken zu sprechen, wenn ich selbst nicht vorhanden wäre; aber es ist nicht in derselben Weise sinnlos, von meinen Gedanken auch ohne Beziehung auf mich zu sprechen. Denn die Wahrheit, die ich heute denke, war auch gestern wahr und wird morgen wahr sein, obschon ich mich nur heute mit ihr beschäftige. Macht eine Erkenntnis mir Freude, so ist diese Freude so lange von Bedeutung, als sie in mir lebt; die Wahrheit der Erkenntnis hat ihre Bedeutung ganz unabhängig von dieser Freude. In dem Ergreifen der Wahrheit verbindet sich die Seele mit etwas, das seinen Wert in sich selbst trägt. Und dieser Wert verschwindet nicht mit der Seelenempfindung, ebensowenig wie er mit dieser entstanden ist. Was wirklich Wahrheit ist, das entsteht nicht und vergeht nicht: das hat eine Bedeutung, die nicht vernichtet werden kann. — Dem widerspricht es nicht, dass einzelne menschliche «Wahrheiten» nur einen vorübergehenden Wert haben, weil sie in einer gewissen Zeit als teilweise oder ganze Irrtümer erkannt werden. Denn der Mensch muss sich sagen, dass die Wahrheit doch in sich selbst besteht, wenn auch seine Gedanken nur vergängliche Erscheinungsformen der ewigen Wahrheiten sind. Auch wer — wie Lessing — sagt, er begnüge sich mit dem ewigen Streben nach Wahrheit, da die volle, reine Wahrheit doch nur für einen Gott dasein könne, der leugnet nicht den Ewigkeitswert der Wahrheit, sondern er bestätigt ihn gerade durch solchen Ausspruch. Denn nur was eine ewige Bedeutung in sich selbst hat, kann ein ewiges Streben nach sich hervorrufen. Wäre die Wahrheit nicht in sich selbständig, erhielte sie ihren Wert und ihre Bedeutung durch die menschliche Seelenempfindung, dann könnte sie nicht ein einiges Ziel für alle Menschen sein. Indem man nach ihr streben will, gesteht man ihr ihre selbständige Wesenheit zu.

[ 13 ] Und wie mit dem Wahren, so ist es mit dem wahrhaft Guten. Das Sittlich-Gute ist unabhängig von Neigungen und Leidenschaften, insofern es sich nicht von ihnen gebieten lässt, sondern ihnen gebietet. Gefallen und Missfallen, Begehren und Verabscheuen gehören der eigenen Seele des Menschen an; die Pflicht steht über Gefallen und Missfallen. So hoch kann dem Menschen die Pflicht stehen, dass er für sie das Leben opfert. Und der Mensch steht um so höher, je mehr er seine Neigungen, sein Gefallen und Missfallen dahin veredelt hat, dass sie ohne Zwang, ohne Unterwerfung durch sich selbst der erkannten Pflicht folgen. Das Sittlich-Gute hat ebenso wie die Wahrheit seinen Ewigkeitswert in sich und erhält ihn nicht durch die Empfindungsseele.

[ 14 ] Indem der Mensch das selbständige Wahre und Gute in seinem Innern aufleben lässt, erhebt er sich über die bloße Empfindungsseele. Der ewige Geist scheint in diese herein. Ein Licht geht in ihr auf, das unvergänglich ist. Sofern die Seele in diesem Lichte lebt, ist sie eines Ewigen teilhaftig. Sie verbindet mit ihm ihr eigenes Dasein. Was die Seele als Wahres und Gutes in sich trägt, ist unsterblich in ihr. — Das, was in der Seele als Ewiges aufleuchtet, sei hier Bewusstseinsseele genannt. — Von Bewusstsein kann man auch bei den niedrigeren Seelenregungen sprechen. Die alltäglichste Empfindung ist Gegenstand des Bewusstseins. Insofern kommt auch dem Tiere Bewusstsein zu. Der Kern des menschlichen Bewusstseins, also die Seele in der Seele, ist hier mit Bewusstseinsseele gemeint. Die Bewusstseinsseele wird hier noch als ein besonderes Glied der Seele von der Verstandesseele unterschieden. Diese letztere ist noch in die Empfindungen, in die Triebe, Affekte und so weiter verstrickt. Jeder Mensch weiß, wie ihm zunächst das als wahr gilt, was er in seinen Empfindungen und so weiter vorzieht. Erst diejenige Wahrheit aber ist die bleibende, die sich losgelöst hat von allem Beigeschmack solcher Sympathien und Antipathien der Empfindungen und so weiter. Die Wahrheit ist wahr, auch wenn sich alle persönlichen Gefühle gegen sie auflehnen. Derjenige Teil der Seele, in dem diese Wahrheit lebt, soll Bewusstseinsseele genannt werden.

[ 15 ] So hätte man, wie in dem Leib, auch in der Seele drei Glieder zu unterscheiden: die Empfindungsseele, die Verstandesseele und die Bewusstseinsseele. Und wie von unten herauf die Leiblichkeit auf die Seele begrenzend wirkt, so wirkt von oben herunter die Geistigkeit auf sie erweiternd. Denn je mehr sich die Seele von dem Wahren und Guten erfüllt, desto weiter und umfassender wird das Ewige in ihr. — Für denjenigen, der die Seele zu «schauen» vermag, ist der Glanz, der von dem Menschen ausgeht, weil sein Ewiges sich erweitert, eine eben solche Wirklichkeit, wie für das sinnliche Auge das Licht wirklich ist, das von einer Flamme ausstrahlt. Für den «Sehenden» gilt der leibliche Mensch nur als ein Teil des ganzen Menschen. Der Leib liegt als das gröbste Gebilde inmitten anderer, die ihn und sich selbst gegenseitig durchdringen. Als eine Lebensform erfüllt den physischen Körper der Ätherleib; an allen Seiten über diesen hinausragend erkennt man den Seelenleib (Astralgestalt). Und wieder über diesen hinausragend die Empfindungsseele, dann die Verstandesseele, die um so größer wird, je mehr sie von dem Wahren und Guten in sich aufnimmt. Denn dieses Wahre und Gute bewirkt die Erweiterung der Verstandesseele. Ein Mensch, der lediglich seinen Neigungen, seinem Gefallen und Missfallen leben würde, hätte eine Verstandesseele, deren Grenzen mit denen seiner Empfindungsseele zusammenfielen. Diese Gebilde, inmitten deren der physische Körper wie in einer Wolke erscheint, kann man die menschliche Aura nennen. Sie ist dasjenige, um das sich das «Wesen des Menschen» bereichert, wenn es in der Art geschaut wird, wie diese Schrift versucht, es darzustellen.

[ 16 ] Im Laufe der Kindheitsentwicklung tritt im Leben des Menschen der Augenblick ein, in dem er sich zum erstenmal als ein selbständiges Wesen gegenüber der ganzen übrigen Welt empfindet. Fein empfindenden Menschen ist das ein bedeutsames Erlebnis. Der Dichter Jean Paul erzählt in seiner Lebensbeschreibung: «Nie vergess' ich die noch keinem Menschen erzählte Erscheinung in mir, wo ich bei der Geburt meines Selbstbewusstseins stand, von der ich Ort und Zeit anzugeben weiß. An einem Vormittag stand ich als ein sehr junges Kind unter der Haustür und sah links nach der Holzlege, als auf einmal das innere Gesicht, ich bin ein Ich, wie ein Blitzstrahl vom Himmel auf mich fuhr und seitdem leuchtend stehenblieb: da hatte mein Ich zum erstenmal sich selber gesehen und auf ewig. Täuschungen des Erinnerns sind hier schwerlich denkbar, da kein fremdes Erzählen sich in eine bloß im verhangenen Allerheiligsten des Menschen vorgefallene Begebenheit, deren Neuheit allein so alltäglichen Nebenumständen das Bleiben gegeben, mit Zusätzen mengen konnte.» — Es ist bekannt, dass kleine Kinder von sich sagen: «Karl ist brav», «Marie will das haben». Man findet es angemessen, dass sie von sich so wie von andern reden, weil sie sich ihrer selbständigen Wesenheit noch nicht bewusst geworden sind, weil das Bewusstsein vom Selbst noch nicht in ihnen geboren ist.7 Durch das Selbstbewusstsein bezeichnet sich der Mensch als ein selbständiges, von allem übrigen abgeschlossenes Wesen, als «Ich». Im «Ich» fasst der Mensch alles zusammen, was er als leibliche und seelische Wesenheit erlebt. Leib und Seele sind die Träger des «Ich»; in ihnen wirkt es. Wie der physische Körper im Gehirn, so hat die Seele im «Ich» ihren Mittelpunkt. Zu Empfindungen wird der Mensch von außen angeregt; Gefühle machen sich geltend als Wirkungen der Außenwelt; der Wille bezieht sich auf die Außenwelt, denn er verwirklicht sich in äußeren Handlungen. Das «Ich» bleibt als die eigentliche Wesenheit des Menschen ganz unsichtbar. Treffend nennt daher Jean Paul das Gewahrwerden des «Ich» eine «bloß im verhangenen Allerheiligsten des Menschen vorgefallene Begebenheit». Denn mit seinem «Ich» ist der Mensch ganz allein. — Und dieses «Ich» ist der Mensch selbst. Das berechtigt ihn, dieses «Ich» als seine wahre Wesenheit anzusehen. Er darf deshalb seinen Leib und seine Seele als die «Hüllen» bezeichnen, innerhalb deren er lebt; und er darf sie als leibliche Bedingungen bezeichnen, durch die er wirkt. Im Laufe seiner Entwicklung lernt er diese Werkzeuge immer mehr als Diener seines «Ich» gebrauchen. Das Wörtchen «Ich», wie es zum Beispiel in der deutschen Sprache angewendet wird, ist ein Name, der sich von allen anderen Namen unterscheidet. Wer über die Natur dieses Namens in zutreffender Art nachdenkt, dem eröffnet sich damit zugleich der Zugang zur Erkenntnis der menschlichen Wesenheit im tieferen Sinne. Jeden andern Namen können alle Menschen in der gleichen Art auf das ihm entsprechende Ding anwenden. Den Tisch kann jeder «Tisch», den Stuhl jeder «Stuhl» nennen. Bei dem Namen «Ich» ist dies nicht der Fall. Es kann ihn keiner anwenden zur Bezeichnung eines andern; jeder kann nur sich selbst «Ich» nennen. Niemals kann der Name «Ich» von außen an mein Ohr dringen, wenn er die Bezeichnung für mich ist. Nur von innen heraus, nur durch sich selbst kann die Seele sich als «Ich» bezeichnen. Indem der Mensch also zu sich «Ich» sagt, beginnt in ihm etwas zu sprechen, was mit keiner der Welten etwas zu tun hat, aus denen die bisher genannten «Hüllen» entnommen sind. Das «Ich» wird immer mehr Herrscher über Leib und Seele. — Auch das kommt in der Aura zum Ausdrucke. Je mehr das Ich Herrscher ist über Leib und Seele, desto gegliederter, mannigfaltiger, farbenreicher ist die Aura. Die Wirkung des Ich auf die Aura kann der «Sehende» schauen. Das «Ich» selbst ist auch ihm unsichtbar: dieses ist wirklich indem «verhangenen Allerheiligsten des Menschen». — Aber das Ich nimmt in sich die Strahlen des Lichtes auf, das als ewiges Licht in dem Menschen aufleuchtet. Wie dieser die Erlebnisse des Leibes und der Seele in dem «Ich» zusammenfasst, so lässt er auch die Gedanken der Wahrheit und Güte in das «Ich» einfließen. Die Sinneserscheinungen offenbarten sich dem «Ich» von der einen, der Geist von der andern Seite. Leib und Seele geben sich dem «Ich» hin, um ihm zu dienen; das «Ich» aber gibt sich dem Geiste hin, dass er es erfülle. Das «Ich» lebt in Leib und Seele; der Geist aber lebt im «Ich». Und was vom Geiste im Ich ist, das ist ewig. Denn das Ich erhält Wesen und Bedeutung von dem, womit es verbunden ist. Insofern es im physischen Körper lebt, ist es den mineralischen Gesetzen, durch den Ätherleib ist es den Gesetzen der Fortpflanzung und des Wachstums, vermöge der Empfindungs- und Verstandesseele den Gesetzen der seelischen Welt unterworfen; insofern es das Geistige in sich aufnimmt, ist es den Gesetzen des Geistes unterworfen. Was die mineralischen, was die Lebensgesetze bilden, entsteht und vergeht; der Geist aber hat mit Entstehung und Untergang nichts zu tun.

[ 17 ] Das Ich lebt in der Seele. Wenn auch die höchste Äußerung des «Ich» der Bewusstseinsseele angehört, so muss man doch sagen, dass dieses «Ich» von da ausstrahlend die ganze Seele erfüllt und durch die Seele seine Wirkung auf den Leib äußert. Und in dem Ich ist der Geist lebendig. Es strahlt der Geist in das Ich und lebt in ihm als in seiner «Hülle», wie das Ich in Leib und Seele als seinen «Hüllen» lebt. Der Geist bildet das Ich von innen nach außen, die mineralische Welt von außen nach innen. Der ein «Ich» bildende und als «Ich» lebende Geist sei «Geistselbst» genannt, weil er als «Ich» oder «Selbst» des Menschen erscheint. Den Unterschied zwischen dem «Geistselbst» und der «Bewusstseinsseele» kann man sich in folgender Art klarmachen. Die Bewusstseinsseele berührt die von jeder Antipathie und Sympathie unabhängige, durch sich selbst bestehende Wahrheit; das Geistselbst trägt in sich dieselbe Wahrheit, aber aufgenommen und umschlossen durch das «Ich»; durch das letztere individualisiert und in die selbständige Wesenheit des Menschen übernommen. Dadurch, dass die ewige Wahrheit so verselbständigt und mit dem «Ich» zu einer Wesenheit verbunden wird, erlangt das «Ich» selbst die Ewigkeit.

[ 18 ] Das Geistselbst ist eine Offenbarung der geistigen Welt innerhalb des Ich, wie von der andern Seite her die Sinnesempfindung eine Offenbarung der physischen Welt innerhalb des Ich ist. In dem, was rot, grün, hell, dunkel, hart, weich, warm, kalt ist, erkennt man die Offenbarungen der körperlichen Welt; in dem, was wahr und gut ist, die Offenbarungen der geistigen Welt. In dem gleichen Sinne, wie die Offenbarung des Körperlichen Empfindung heißt, sei die Offenbarung des Geistigen Intuition genannt. Der einfachste Gedanke enthält schon Intuition, denn man kann ihn nicht mit Händen tasten, nicht mit Augen sehen: man muss seine Offenbarung aus dem Geiste durch das Ich empfangen. — Wenn ein unentwickelter und ein entwickelter Mensch eine Pflanze ansehen, so lebt in dem Ich des einen etwas ganz anderes als in dem des zweiten. Und doch sind die Empfindungen beider durch denselben Gegenstand hervorgerufen. Die Verschiedenheit liegt darin, dass der eine sich weit vollkommenere Gedanken über den Gegenstand machen kann als der andere. Offenbarten die Gegenstande sich allein durch die Empfindung, dann könnte es keinen Fortschritt in der geistigen Entwicklung geben. Die Natur empfindet auch der Wilde; die Naturgesetze offenbaren sich erst den von der Intuition befruchteten Gedanken des höher entwickelten Menschen. Die Reize der Außenwelt empfindet auch das Kind als Antrieb des Willens, die Gebote des sittlich Guten gehen ihm aber nur im Laufe der Entwicklung auf, indem es im Geiste leben und dessen Offenbarung verstehen lernt.

[ 19 ] Wie ohne das Auge keine Farbenempfindungen da wären, so ohne das höhere Denken des Geistselbst keine Intuitionen.8 Und sowenig die Empfindung die Pflanze schafft, an der die Farbe erscheint, sowenig schafft die Intuition das Geistige, von welchem sie vielmehr nur Kunde gibt.

[ 20 ] Durch die Intuitionen holt sich das Ich des Menschen, das in der Seele auflebt, die Botschaften von oben, von der Geisteswelt, wie es sich durch die Empfindungen die Botschaften aus der physischen Welt holt. Und dadurch macht es die Geisteswelt ebenso zum Eigenleben seiner Seele wie vermittels der Sinne die physische Welt. Die Seele, oder das in ihr aufleuchtende Ich, öffnet nach Zwei Seiten in seine Tore: nach der Seite des Körperlichen und nach derjenigen des Geistigen.

[ 21 ] Wie nun die physische Welt dem Ich nur dadurch von sich Kunde geben kann, dass sie aus ihren Stoffen und Kräften einen Körper aufbaut, in dem die bewusste Seele leben kann und innerhalb dessen diese Organe besitzt, um das Körperliche außer sich wahrzunehmen, so baut auch die geistige Welt mit ihren Geistesstoffen und ihren Geisteskräften einen Geistkörper auf, in dem das Ich leben und durch Intuitionen das Geistige wahrnehmen kann. (Es ist einleuchtend, dass die Ausdrücke Geiststoff, Geistkörper dem Wortsinne nach einen Widerspruch enthalten. Sie sollen nur gebraucht werden, um den Gedanken auf dasjenige hinzulenken, was im Geistigen dem physischen Leibe des Menschen entspricht.)

[ 22 ] Und ebenso wie innerhalb der physischen Welt der einzelne menschliche Körper als eine abgesonderte Wesenheit aufgebaut wird, so innerhalb der Geisteswelt der Geistkörper. Es gibt in der Geisteswelt für den Menschen ebenso ein Innen und Außen wie in der physischen Welt. Wie der Mensch aus der physischen Umwelt die Stoffe aufnimmt und sie in seinem physischen Leib verarbeitet, so nimmt er aus der geistigen Umwelt das Geistige auf und macht es zu dem Seinigen. Das Geistige ist die ewige Nahrung des Menschen. Und wie der Mensch aus der physischen Welt geboren ist, so wird er aus dem Geiste durch die ewigen Gesetze des Wahren und Guten geboren. Er ist von der außer ihm befindlichen Geisteswelt abgetrennt, wie er von der gesamten physischen Welt als ein selbständiges Wesen abgetrennt ist. Diese selbständige geistige Wesenheit sei «Geistmensch» genannt.

[ 23 ] Wenn wir den physischen Menschenkörper untersuchen, finden wir in ihm dieselben Stoffe und Kräfte, die außerhalb desselben in der übrigen physischen Welt vorhanden sind. So ist es auch mit dem Geistmenschen. In ihm pulsieren die Elemente der äußeren Geisteswelt, in ihm sind die Kräfte der übrigen Geisteswelt tätig. Wie in der physischen Haut ein Wesen in sich abgeschlossen wird, das lebend und empfindend ist, so auch in der Geisteswelt. Die geistige Haut, die den Geistmenschen von der einheitlichen Geisteswelt abschließt, ihn innerhalb derselben zu einem selbständigen Geisteswesen macht, das in sich lebt und intuitiv den Geistesinhalt der Welt wahrnimmt, diese «geistige Haut» sei Geisteshülle (aurische Hülle) genannt. Nur muss festgehalten werden, dass diese «geistige Haut» sich fortdauernd mit der fortschreitenden menschlichen Entwicklung ausdehnt, so dass die geistige Individualität des Menschen (seine aurische Hülle) einer unbegrenzten Vergrößerung fähig ist.

[ 24 ] Innerhalb dieser Geisteshülle lebt der Geistesmensch. Dieser wird durch die geistige Lebenskraft in demselben Sinne auferbaut, wie der physische Leib durch die physische Lebenskraft. In ähnlicher Weise, wie man von einem Ätherleib spricht, muss man daher von einem Äthergeist in bezug auf den Geistesmenschen sprechen. Dieser Äthergeist sei Lebensgeist genannt In drei Teile gliedert sich also die geistige Wesenheit des Menschen: in den Geistmenschen, den Lebensgeist und das Geistselbst.

[ 25 ] Für den in den geistigen Gebieten «Sehenden» ist diese geistige Wesenheit des Menschen als der höhere — eigentliche geistige — Teil der Aura eine wahrnehmbare Wirklichkeit. Er «schaut» innerhalb der Geisteshülle den Geistesmenschen als Lebensgeist; und «er schaut», wie sich dieser «Lebensgeist» fortwährend durch Aufnahme von Geistesnahrung aus der geistigen Außenwelt vergrößert. Und ferner sieht er, wie durch diese Aufnahme sich die Geisteshülle fortdauernd weitet, wie der Geistmensch immer größer und größer wird. Insofern dieses «Größerwerden» räumlich «geschaut» wird» ist es selbstverständlich nur ein Bild der Wirklichkeit. Dessen ungeachtet ist in der Vorstellung dieses Bildes die Menschenseele auf die entsprechende geistige Wirklichkeit hin gerichtet. Es ist der Unterschied der geistigen Wesenheit des Menschen von seiner physischen, dass die letztere eine begrenzte Größe hat, während die erstere unbegrenzt wachsen kann. Was an geistiger Nahrung aufgenommen wird, hat ja einen Ewigkeitswert. Aus zwei sich durchdringenden Teilen setzt sich deshalb die menschliche Aura zusammen. Dem einen gibt Färbung und Form das physische Dasein des Menschen, dem andern sein geistiges. Das Ich gibt die Trennung zwischen beiden, in der Art, dass sich das Physische in seiner Eigenart hingibt und einen Leib aufbaut, der eine Seele in sich aufleben lässt; und das Ich gibt sich wieder hin und lässt in sich den Geist aufleben, der nun seinerseits die Seele durchdringt und ihr das Ziel gibt in der Geisteswelt. Durch den Leib ist die Seele eingeschlossen im Physischen, durch den Geistesmenschen wachsen ihr die Flügel zur Bewegung in der geistigen Welt.

[ 26 ] Will man den ganzen Menschen erfassen, so muss man ihn aus den genannten Bestandteilen zusammengesetzt denken. Der Leib baut sich aus der physischen Stoffwelt auf, so dass dieser Bau auf das denkende Ich hingeordnet ist Er ist von Lebenskraft durchdrungen und wird dadurch zum Ätherleib oder Lebensleib. Als solcher schließt er sich in den Sinnesorganen nach außen auf und wird zum Seelenleib. Diesen durchdringt die Empfindungsseele und wird eine Einheit mit ihm. Die Empfindungsseele empfängt nicht bloß die Eindrücke der Außenwelt als Empfindungen; sie hat ihr eigenes Leben, das sich durch das Denken auf der andern Seite ebenso befruchtet wie durch die Empfindungen auf der einen. So wird sie zur Verstandesseele. Sie kann das dadurch, dass sie sich nach oben hin den Intuitionen erschließt wie nach unten hin den Empfindungen. Dadurch ist sie Bewusstseinsseele. Das ist ihr deshalb möglich, weil ihr die Geisteswelt das Intuitionsorgan hineinbildet, wie ihr der physische Leib die Sinnesorgane bildet. Wie die Sinne durch den Seelenleib die Empfindungen, so vermittelt ihr der Geist durch das Intuitionsorgan die Intuitionen. Der Geistmensch ist dadurch mit der Bewusstseinsseele in einer Einheit verbunden wie der physische Körper mit der Empfindungsseele im Seelenleib. Bewusstseinsseele und Geistselbst bilden eine Einheit. In dieser Einheit lebt der Geistesmensch als Lebensgeist, wie der Ätherleib für den Seelenleib die leibliche Lebensgrundlage bildet. Und wie der physische Körper in der physischen Haut sich abschließt, so der Geistmensch in der Geisteshülle. Es ergibt sich die Gliederung des ganzen Menschen in folgender Art:

  1. Physischer Körper
  2. Ätherleib oder Lebensleib
  3. Seelenleib
  4. Empfindungsseele
  5. Verstandesseele
  6. Bewusstseinsseele
  7. Geistselbst
  8. Lebensgeist
  9. Geistesmensch

Seelenleib (C) und Empfindungsseele (D) sind eine Einheit im irdischen Menschen; ebenso Bewusstseinsseele (F) und Geistselbst (G). — Dadurch ergeben sich sieben Teile des irdischen Menschen:

  1. Der physische Körper
  2. Der Äther- oder Lebensleib
  3. Der empfindende Seelenleib
  4. Die Verstandesseele
  5. Die geisterfüllte Bewusstseinsseele
  6. Der Lebensgeist
  7. Der Geistesmensch

[ 27 ] In der Seele blitzt das «Ich» auf, empfängt aus dem Geiste den Einschlag und wird dadurch zum Träger des Geistmenschen. Dadurch nimmt der Mensch an den «drei Welten» (der physischen, seelischen und geistigen) teil. Er wurzelt durch physischen Körper, Ätherleib und Seelenleib in der physischen Welt und blüht durch das Geistselbst, den Lebensgeist und Geistesmenschen in die geistige Welt hinauf. Der Stamm aber, der nach der einen Seite wurzelt, nach der andern blüht, das ist die Seele selbst.

[ 28 ] Man kann, durchaus im Einklange mit dieser Gliederung des Menschen, eine vereinfachte Form derselben geben. Obwohl das menschliche «Ich» in der Bewusstseinsseele aufleuchtet, so durchdringt es doch das ganze seelische Wesen. Die Teile dieses seelischen Wesens sind überhaupt nicht so scharf gesondert wie die Leibesglieder; sie durchdringen sich in einem höheren Sinne. Fasst man dann Verstandesseele und Bewusstseinsseele als die zwei zusammengehörigen Hüllen des Ich und dieses als den Kern derselben ins Auge, dann kann man den Menschen gliedern in: physischen Leib, Lebensleib, Astralleib und Ich. Mit dem Ausdruck Astralleib wird dabei hier das bezeichnet, was Seelenleib und Empfindungsseele zusammen sind. Der Ausdruck findet sich in der älteren Literatur und sei hier frei angewendet auf dasjenige in der menschlichen Wesenheit, was über das Sinnlich-Wahrnehmbare hinausliegt. Trotzdem die Empfindungsseele in gewisser Beziehung auch von dem Ich durchkraftet wird, hängt sie mit dem Seelenleib so eng zusammen, dass für beide, vereinigt gedacht, ein einziger Ausdruck berechtigt ist. Wenn nun das Ich sich mit dem Geistselbst durchdringt, so tritt dieses Geistselbst so auf, dass der Astralleib von dem Seelischen aus umgearbeitet wird. In dem Astralleib wirken zunächst des Menschen Triebe, Begierden, Leidenschaften, insofern diese empfunden werden; und es wirken in ihm die sinnlichen Wahrnehmungen. Die sinnlichen Wahrnehmungen entstehen durch den Seelenleib als ein Glied im Menschen, das ihm von der äußeren Welt zukommt. Die Triebe, Begierden, Leidenschaften und so weiter entstehen in der Empfindungsseele, insofern diese vom Innern durchkraftet wird, bevor dieses Innere sich dem Geistselbst hingegeben hat. Durchdringt sich das «Ich» mit dem Geistselbst, so durchkraftet die Seele den Astralleib wieder mit diesem Geistselbst Es drückt sich dies so aus, dass dann die Triebe, Begierden und Leidenschaften durchleuchtet sind von dem, was das Ich aus dem Geiste empfangen hat. Das Ich ist dann vermöge seines Anteiles an der geistigen Welt Herr geworden in der Welt der Triebe, Begierden und so weiter. In dem Maße, als es dies geworden ist, erscheint das Geistselbst im Astralleib. Und dieser selbst wird dadurch verwandelt. Der Astralleib erscheint dann selbst als zweigliedrige Wesenheit, als zum Teil unverwandelt, zum Teil verwandelt. Daher kann man das Geistselbst in seiner Offenbarung am Menschen als den verwandelten Astralleib bezeichnen. Ein ähnliches geht in dem Menschen vor, wenn er in sein Ich den Lebensgeist aufnimmt. Dann verwandelt sich der Lebensleib. Er wird durchdrungen von dem Lebensgeist. Dieser offenbart sich in der Art, dass der Lebensleib ein anderer wird. Daher kann man auch sagen, dass der Lebensgeist der verwandelte Lebensleib ist. Und nimmt das Ich den Geistesmenschen in sich auf, so erhält es dadurch die starke Kraft, den physischen Leib damit zu durchdringen. Es ist natürlich, dass dasjenige, was so von dem physischen Leibe verwandelt ist, nicht mit der physischen Sinnen wahrzunehmen ist. Es ist ja gerade das am physischen Leib Geistesmensch geworden, was vergeistigt ist. Es ist dann für die sinnliche Wahrnehmung als Sinnliches vorhanden; und insofern dieses Sinnliche vergeistigt ist, muss es vom geistigen Erkenntnisvermögen wahrgenommen werden. Den äußeren Sinnen erscheint eben auch das vom Geistigen durchdrungene Physische nur sinnlich. Mit Zugrundelegung von alledem kann man auch folgende Gliederung des Menschen geben:

  1. Physischer Leib
  2. Lebensleib
  3. Astralleib
  4. Ich als Seelenkern
  5. Geistselbst als verwandelter Astralleib
  6. Lebensgeist als verwandelter Lebensleib
  7. Geistesmensch als verwandelter physischer Leib. 9

IV. Body, soul and spirit

[ 1 ] Man can only enlighten himself in the right way if he realizes the significance of thinking within his being. The brain is the physical tool of thought. Just as man can only see colors with a well-trained eye, the correspondingly constructed brain serves him for thinking. The whole human body is formed in such a way that it finds its culmination in the spiritual organ, the brain. We can only understand the structure of the human brain if we look at it in terms of its task. This consists of being the physical basis of the thinking mind. This is shown by a comparative overview of the animal world. In amphibians, the brain is still small compared to the spinal cord; in mammals, it is relatively larger. In humans, it is the largest compared to the rest of the body.

[ 2 ] There is much prejudice against such remarks about thinking as are made here. Some people are inclined to underestimate thinking and to place the "intimate emotional life", the "sensation", higher. Indeed, they say that it is not through "sober thinking" but through the warmth of feeling, through the immediate power of sensation, that one rises to higher knowledge. People who speak in this way are afraid of blunting their feelings through clear thinking. This is certainly the case with everyday thinking, which only relates to things of utility. But with thoughts that lead to higher regions of existence, the opposite occurs. There is no feeling or enthusiasm that can compare with the sensations of warmth, beauty and exaltation that are kindled by the pure, crystal-clear thoughts that relate to higher worlds. The highest feelings are not those that arise "by themselves", but those that are achieved through energetic thought work.

[ 3 ] The human body has a structure that corresponds to thinking. The same substances and forces that are also present in the mineral kingdom are found in the human body in such a way that thinking can reveal itself through this combination. This mineral structure, formed in accordance with its task, shall be called the physical body of man for the following consideration.

[ 4 ] The mineral structure, which is directed towards the brain as its center, arises through reproduction and receives its developed form through growth. Human beings have reproduction and growth in common with plants and animals. Reproduction and growth distinguish the living from the lifeless mineral. Living things arise from living things through the germ. The descendant joins the ancestor in the line of the living. The forces by which a mineral is formed are directed towards the substances themselves that compose it. A rock crystal is formed by the forces inherent in silicon and oxygen, which are united in it. The forces that form an oak tree must be sought in a roundabout way through the germ in the mother and father plant. And the form of the oak tree is maintained during reproduction from the ancestors to the offspring. There are inner conditions innate to the living. - It was a crude view of nature that believed that lower animals, even fish, could form from mud. The form of the living reproduces itself through heredity. How a living being develops depends on which father or mother being it originated from, or in other words, which species it belongs to. The substances of which it is composed are constantly changing; the species persists throughout life and is passed on to the offspring. The species is thus that which determines the composition of the substances. This species-forming force should be called life force. Just as the mineral forces express themselves in crystals, so the formative life force expresses itself in the species or forms of plant and animal life.3

[ 5 ] Man perceives the mineral forces through the bodily senses. And he can only perceive that for which he has such senses. Without the eye there is no perception of light, without the ear there is no perception of sound. The lowest organisms have only one kind of sense of touch among the senses present in humans. For them, only those mineral forces are present in the type of human perception that reveal themselves to the sense of touch.4 To the extent that the other senses are developed in the higher animals, the environment that humans also perceive is richer and more varied for them. It therefore depends on the organs of a being whether what is present in the outside world is also present for the being itself as perception, as sensation What is present in the air as a certain movement becomes a sound sensation in humans. - Man does not perceive the manifestations of the life force through the ordinary senses. He sees the colors of the plant, he smells its fragrance; the life force remains hidden from this observation. But just as little as the person born blind rightly denies the colors, so little should the ordinary senses deny the life force. The colors are there for the person born blind as soon as he has been operated on; in the same way, the manifold species of plants and animals created by the life force, not just the individuals, are also available to man as perception when the organ for them opens up to him. - A whole new world opens up to man through the development of this organ. He no longer merely perceives the colors, smells and so on of living beings, but the life of these living beings themselves. In every plant, in every animal, he perceives not only the physical form but also the life-filled spiritual form. In order to have an expression for this, this spiritual form is called the etheric body or life body. 5The author of this book also called what is here called the etheric or life body the "image-forces-body" long after it was written (see the journal "Das Reich", fourth book of the first volume [January 19171]). He felt compelled to give it this name because he believes that not enough can be done to prevent the misunderstanding of confusing what is meant here by the etheric body with the "life force" of the older natural science. Where it is a question of rejecting this older concept of a life force in the sense of modern natural science, the author is in a certain sense on the standpoint of the opponents of such a force. For they wanted to use it to explain the special mode of action of the inorganic forces in the organism. But what works inorganically in the organism works there no differently than in the realm of the inorganic world. The laws of inorganic nature are no different in the organism than in the crystal, etc. But there is something in the organism that is not inorganic: the formative life. This is based on the etheric or formative forces body. Its acceptance does not interfere with the legitimate task of natural research: to pursue into the world of organisms that which it observes about the effects of forces in inorganic nature. And to reject the idea that this activity within the organism is modified by a special life force is also seen as justified by a true spiritual science. The spiritual scientist speaks of the etheric body insofar as something else is revealed in the organism than in the inanimate. - Despite all this, the author of this book does not feel compelled to replace the name "etheric body" with the other "image-forces-body", since within the whole context that is found here, a misunderstanding is impossible for anyone who wants to see. Such a misunderstanding can only occur if the name is used in a way that cannot show this connection. (Compare with this also what is said at the end of this book under "Individual Remarks and Additions".) - For the investigator of spiritual life this matter presents itself in the following way. For him, the etheric body is not merely a result of the substances and forces of the physical body, but an independent, real entity that first calls the aforementioned physical substances and forces to life. One speaks in the sense of spiritual science when one says: a mere physical body has its form - for example, a crystal - through the physical formative forces inherent in the lifeless; a living body does not have its form through these forces, for the moment life has departed from it and it is left only to the physical forces, it disintegrates. The life body is an entity through which the physical body is preserved from disintegration at every moment during life. - In order to see this life body, to perceive it in another being, one needs the awakened spiritual eye. Without it, one can assume its existence for logical reasons; but one can see it with the spiritual eye, just as one sees the color with the physical eye. - One should not be offended by the expression "etheric body". "Ether" here refers to something other than the hypothetical ether of physics. Simply take it as a term for what is described here. And just as the structure of the physical human body is a reflection of its task, so too is the human etheric body. This too can only be understood if it is viewed in relation to the thinking spirit. The etheric body of the human being differs from that of plants and animals in its relationship to the thinking spirit. - Just as man belongs to the mineral world through his physical body, he belongs to the living world through his etheric body. After death, the physical body dissolves into the mineral world, the etheric body into the living world. The term "body" should be used to describe what gives a being of any kind "form", "forum". One should not confuse the term "body" with sensual body form. In the sense intended in this text, the term "body" can also be used for that which is formed as soul and spirit.

[ 6 ] The living body is still something external to man. With the first rain of sensation, the inner self responds to the stimuli of the outer world. No matter how far we pursue what we are entitled to call the external world, we will not be able to find the sensation. - The rays of light penetrate the eye; they propagate within it to the retina. There they cause chemical processes (in the so-called visual purple); the effect of these stimuli continues through the optic nerve to the brain, where further physical processes occur. If one could observe these, one would see physical processes as elsewhere in the outside world. If I am able to observe the living body, I will perceive how the physical brain process is also a life process. But the sensation of the blue color, which the receiver of the light rays has, I cannot find anywhere in this way. It only arises within the soul of this receiver. So if the being of this receiver were exhausted with the physical body and the etheric body, the sensation could not exist. The activity through which the sensation becomes a fact is quite essentially different from the working of the life-forming power. An inner experience is elicited from this working through this activity. Without this activity there would be a mere life process, as is also observed in the plant. Imagine the human being receiving impressions from all sides. At the same time he must be thought of as the source of the described activity in all directions from which he receives these impressions. The sensations respond to the impressions in all directions. This source of activity is called the intuitive soul. This sentient soul is just as real as the physical body. If a person stands before me and I look away from his sensory soul by imagining him merely as a physical body, it is just as if I imagine only the canvas of a painting. The same must be said with regard to the perception of the sentient soul as before with regard to the etheric body. The bodily organs are "blind" to it. And so is the organ by which life can be perceived as life. But just as the etheric body is seen through this organ, so the inner world of sensations can become a special kind of supersensible perception through an even higher organ. The human being then not only feels the impressions of the physical and living world, but also sees the sensations. Before a person with such an organ, the world of the sensations of another being lies there like an external reality. A distinction must be made between experiencing one's own world of sensations and seeing the world of sensations of another being. Every human being can of course look into his own world of sensations; only the seer with an open "spiritual eye" can see the world of sensations of another being. Without being a seer, man only knows the world of sensations as "inner", only as his own hidden experiences of his soul; with the opened "spiritual eye", what otherwise only lives "inside" the other being shines out before the outer spiritual sight.

[ 7 ] In order to avoid misunderstandings, it should be expressly stated here that the seer does not experience in himself the same thing that the other being has in himself as the content of his sensory world. The latter experiences the sensations from the point of view of its inner being; the seer perceives a revelation, an expression of the world of sensations.

[ 8 ] The sensory soul depends on the etheric body for its effect. For it is from the etheric body that it draws forth that which it is to let shine forth as sensation. And since the etheric body is the life within the physical body, the intuitive soul is also indirectly dependent on it. Corresponding color sensations are only possible with a properly living, well-constructed eye. This is how the physical body affects the sensory soul. It is therefore determined and limited in its effectiveness by the body. It lives within the limits imposed on it by the body. - The body is thus built up from the mineral substances, animated by the etheric body, and it itself limits the intuitive soul. So whoever has the above-mentioned organ for "seeing" the intuitive soul recognizes it as limited by the body. - But the boundary of the intuitive soul does not coincide with that of the physical body. This soul protrudes beyond the physical body. You can see from this that it proves to be more powerful than it is. But the power that sets its limit emanates from the physical body. Thus, between the physical body and the etheric body on the one hand and the sentient soul on the other, there is a special member of the human being. It is the soul body or consciousness body. It can also be said that one part of the etheric body is finer than the rest, and this finer part of the etheric body forms a unity with the intuitive soul, while the coarser part forms a kind of unity with the physical body. But, as I said, the sensory soul rises above the soul body.

[ 9 ] What is called sensation here is only a part of the soul's being. (The term sentient soul is chosen for the sake of simplicity.) The feelings of pleasure and displeasure, the drives, instincts, passions are connected to the sensations. All this has the same character of independent life as the sensations and is, like them, dependent on the physical body.

[ 10 ] Just as with the body, the sensory soul also interacts with thinking, the spirit. Thinking serves it first. The human being forms thoughts about his sensations. In this way he enlightens himself about the outside world. A child who has burned himself thinks and comes to the conclusion that "the fire is burning". Man does not blindly follow his drives, instincts and passions either; his reflection brings about the opportunity through which he can satisfy them. What is called material culture certainly moves in this direction. It consists in the services which thought renders to the emotional soul. Immeasurable sums of thinking power are directed towards this goal. It is the power of thought that has built ships, railroads, telegraphs, telephones; and all this serves for the most part to satisfy the needs of the sentient soul. In the same way that the life-forming power permeates the physical body, the thinking power permeates the sentient soul. The life-forming power links the physical body to ancestors and descendants and thereby places it in a lawfulness that has nothing to do with the merely mineral. In the same way, the thinking power places the soul in a lawfulness to which it does not belong as a mere sentient soul. - Through the sentient soul man is related to the animal. In animals, too, we notice the presence of sensations, drives, instincts and passions. But the animal follows these directly. They are not interwoven with independent thoughts that go beyond the immediate experience.6 This is also the case to a certain extent in the undeveloped human being. The mere sentient soul is therefore different from the developed higher soul, which puts thinking at its service. This soul served by thinking is called the mind soul. It could also be called the emotional soul or the mind.

[ 11 ] The mind soul permeates the sensory soul. Those who have the organ for "seeing" the soul therefore regard the mind soul as a special entity compared to the mere sensory soul.

[ 12 ] Thinking leads man beyond his own life. He acquires something that reaches beyond his soul. It is a self-evident conviction for him that the laws of thought are in accordance with the world order. He therefore regards himself as a native of the world because this agreement exists. This agreement is one of the important facts through which man comes to know his own nature. In his soul, man searches for truth; and through this truth not only the soul speaks itself, but the things of the world speak themselves. What is recognized as truth through thinking has an independent meaning that relates to the things of the world, not just to one's own soul. With my delight in the starry sky, I live within myself; the thoughts I form about the orbits of the heavenly bodies have the same meaning for everyone else's thinking as they do for mine. It would be pointless to speak of my rapture if I myself were not present; but it is not pointless in the same way to speak of my thoughts without reference to myself. For the truth that I think today was also true yesterday and will be true tomorrow, even though I only deal with it today. If a realization gives me joy, this joy is important as long as it lives in me; the truth of the realization has its meaning quite independently of this joy. In grasping the truth, the soul connects with something that carries its value in itself. And this value does not disappear with the soul's perception, just as little as it is created with it. What is really truth does not come into being and does not fade away: it has a meaning that cannot be destroyed. - This is not contradicted by the fact that individual human "truths" only have a temporary value because they are recognized as partial or complete errors in a certain period of time. For man must tell himself that truth exists in himself after all, even if his thoughts are only transient manifestations of eternal truths. Even those who - like Lessing - say that they are content with the eternal pursuit of truth, since the full, pure truth can only exist for a God, do not deny the eternal value of truth, but rather confirm it precisely through such a statement. For only that which has an eternal meaning in itself can evoke an eternal striving for itself. If truth were not independent in itself, if it received its value and meaning through the human feeling of the soul, then it could not be a common goal for all people. By striving for it, we concede its independent nature.

[ 13 ] And as with the true, so it is with the truly good. The moral good is independent of inclinations and passions insofar as it does not allow itself to be commanded by them, but commands them. Pleasure and displeasure, desire and abhorrence belong to man's own soul; duty stands above pleasure and displeasure. Duty can be so important to man that he will sacrifice his life for it. And man stands all the higher, the more he has refined his inclinations, his pleasures and displeasures so that they follow the recognized duty without compulsion, without subjugation by himself. The moral good, like truth, has its eternal value in itself and does not receive it through the emotional soul.

[ 14 ] By allowing the independent true and good to come to life within him, man rises above the mere emotional soul. The eternal spirit shines into it. A light arises in it that is imperishable. Insofar as the soul lives in this light, it shares in an eternal being. It connects its own existence with it. What the soul carries within itself as true and good is immortal in it - that which shines forth in the soul as eternal is called the consciousness soul here. - One can also speak of consciousness in the lower emotions of the soul. The most everyday sensation is the object of consciousness. In this respect, animals also have consciousness. The core of human consciousness, i.e. the soul within the soul, is referred to here as the consciousness soul. The consciousness soul is distinguished here as a special member of the soul from the intellectual soul. The latter is still entangled in the sensations, instincts, affects and so on. Every human being knows that what he prefers in his feelings and so on is initially considered true. But only that truth is the lasting truth which has detached itself from all the taint of such sympathies and antipathies of feelings and so on. The truth is true, even if all personal feelings rebel against it. That part of the soul in which this truth lives shall be called the consciousness soul.

[ 15 ] Thus, as in the body, one would have to distinguish three members in the soul: the soul of sensation, the soul of understanding and the soul of consciousness. And just as physicality has a limiting effect on the soul from below, spirituality has an expanding effect on it from above. For the more the soul is filled with what is true and good, the wider and more comprehensive the eternal in it becomes - For the one who is able to "see" the soul, the radiance that emanates from the human being, because his eternal expands, is just such a reality as the light that radiates from a flame is real for the sensual eye. For the "sighted", the physical human being is only a part of the whole human being. The body lies as the coarsest structure in the midst of others, which interpenetrate it and themselves. The etheric body fills the physical body as a life form; the soul body (astral form) can be recognized as projecting beyond it on all sides. And again projecting beyond this is the sentient soul, then the intellectual soul, which becomes all the greater the more it absorbs of what is true and good. For this true and good causes the expansion of the intellectual soul. A man who would live only according to his inclinations, his likes and dislikes, would have an intellectual soul whose boundaries would coincide with those of his emotional soul. These formations, in the midst of which the physical body appears as if in a cloud, can be called the human aura. It is that which enriches the "essence of man" when it is seen in the way that this writing attempts to portray it.

[ 16 ] In the course of childhood development, the moment occurs in a person's life when he feels himself for the first time as an independent being in relation to the rest of the world. This is a significant experience for finely sensitive people. The poet Jean Paul recounts in his biography: "I shall never forget the phenomenon in me, which I have never told anyone about, where I stood at the birth of my self-consciousness, of which I know the time and place. One morning, as a very young child, I was standing under the front door, looking to the left at the woodpile, when suddenly the inner face, I am an I, came down on me like a flash of lightning from the sky and remained shining ever since: my I had seen itself for the first time and forever. Deceptions of memory are hardly conceivable here, since no strange narrative could be mixed with additions into an event that occurred only in the veiled sanctum of the human being, the novelty of which alone was given to such everyday circumstances." - It is well known that small children say of themselves: "Karl is good", "Marie wants this". It is appropriate that they speak of themselves as they do of others, because they have not yet become aware of their independent being, because the consciousness of the self has not yet been born in them.7 Through self-consciousness, the human being describes himself as an independent being, separate from everything else, as an "I". In the "I", man summarizes everything that he experiences as a physical and spiritual being. Body and soul are the carriers of the "I"; it works in them. Like the physical body in the brain, the soul has its center in the "I". The human being is stimulated by external sensations; feelings assert themselves as effects of the external world; the will relates to the external world, for it is realized in external actions. The "I" remains completely invisible as the actual essence of man. Jean Paul therefore aptly describes the realization of the "I" as an "event that merely occurred in the veiled sanctum of man". For man is completely alone with his "I". - And this "I" is man himself. This entitles him to regard this "I" as his true essence. He may therefore describe his body and his soul as the "shells" within which he lives; and he may describe them as bodily conditions through which he works. In the course of his development he learns to use these tools more and more as servants of his "I". The word "I", as it is used in the German language, for example, is a name that differs from all other names. Anyone who thinks about the nature of this name in the right way will also gain access to knowledge of the human being in a deeper sense. All people can apply every other name in the same way to the corresponding thing. Anyone can call a table "table", anyone can call a chair "chair". This is not the case with the name "I". No one can use it to designate another; everyone can only call themselves "I". The name "I" can never reach my ear from the outside if it is the name for me. Only from within, only through itself can the soul call itself "I". By saying "I" to himself, a person begins to speak something within himself that has nothing to do with any of the worlds from which the previously mentioned "shells" are taken. The "I" becomes more and more the ruler of body and soul. - This is also expressed in the aura. The more the ego is ruler over body and soul, the more structured, varied and colorful the aura is. The "seer" can see the effect of the ego on the aura. The "I" itself is also invisible to him: this is really in the "veiled holy of holies of man". - But the "I" absorbs the rays of light that shine as eternal light in the human being. Just as the latter summarizes the experiences of the body and the soul in the "I", he also allows the thoughts of truth and goodness to flow into the "I". The sensory phenomena revealed themselves to the "I" from one side, the spirit from the other. Body and soul give themselves to the "I" in order to serve it; the "I", however, gives itself to the spirit so that it may fulfill it. The "I" lives in body and soul; but the spirit lives in the "I". And what is of the spirit in the 'I' is eternal. For the 'I' receives its essence and meaning from that with which it is connected. In so far as it lives in the physical body, it is subject to the mineral laws; through the etheric body it is subject to the laws of reproduction and growth; through the soul of feeling and understanding it is subject to the laws of the spiritual world; in so far as it receives the spiritual into itself, it is subject to the laws of the spirit. What is formed by the mineral laws, what is formed by the laws of life, comes into being and perishes; the spirit, however, has nothing to do with formation and destruction.

[ 17 ] The I lives in the soul. Even if the highest expression of the "I" belongs to the consciousness soul, it must be said that this "I" radiates from there and fills the whole soul and expresses its effect on the body through the soul. And the spirit is alive in the ego. The spirit radiates into the 'I' and lives in it as its 'shell', just as the 'I' lives in the body and soul as its 'shells'. The spirit forms the ego from the inside out, the mineral world from the outside in. The spirit that forms an "I" and lives as an "I" is called the "spirit self" because it appears as the "I" or "self" of the human being. The difference between the "spirit self" and the "consciousness soul" can be explained as follows. The consciousness soul touches the truth independent of all antipathy and sympathy, existing through itself; the spirit self bears within itself the same truth, but absorbed and enclosed by the "I"; individualized by the latter and taken over into the independent being of man. By thus making the eternal truth independent and combining it with the "I" to form an entity, the "I" itself attains eternity.

[ 18 ] The spirit self is a revelation of the spiritual world within the ego, just as, from the other side, sensory perception is a revelation of the physical world within the ego. In that which is red, green, light, dark, hard, soft, warm, cold, one recognizes the revelations of the physical world; in that which is true and good, the revelations of the spiritual world. In the same sense that the revelation of the physical is called sensation, the revelation of the spiritual is called intuition. The simplest thought already contains intuition, for one cannot feel it with one's hands or see it with one's eyes: one must receive its revelation from the spirit through the ego. - When an undeveloped and a developed person look at a plant, something quite different lives in the ego of the former than in that of the latter. And yet the sensations of both are caused by the same object. The difference lies in the fact that the one can form far more perfect thoughts about the object than the other. If the objects revealed themselves through sensation alone, there could be no progress in spiritual development. Nature is also perceived by the savage; the laws of nature only reveal themselves to the thoughts of the more highly developed man, fertilized by intuition. The child also perceives the stimuli of the outside world as a drive of the will, but the commandments of the morally good are only revealed to it in the course of its development by learning to live in the spirit and understand its revelation.

[ 19 ] As without the eye there would be no color sensations, so without the higher thinking of the spirit-self there would be no intuitions.8 And as little as sensation creates the plant on which the color appears, so little does intuition create the spiritual, of which it rather only gives information.

[ 20 ] Through the intuitions, the ego of man, which lives in the soul, gets the messages from above, from the spiritual world, just as it gets the messages from the physical world through the sensations. And in this way it makes the spiritual world as much a part of the life of its soul as the physical world through the senses. The soul, or the I that lights up in it, opens its doors on two sides: on the side of the physical and on the side of the spiritual.

[ 21 ] Just as the physical world can only make itself known to the I by building a body out of its substances and powers, in which the conscious soul can live and within which it possesses organs to perceive the physical outside itself, so the spiritual world with its spiritual substances and its spiritual powers also builds a spiritual body in which the I can live and perceive the spiritual through intuitions. (It is obvious that the expressions spiritual substance and spiritual body literally contain a contradiction. They should only be used to direct the thought towards that which corresponds to the physical body of the human being in the spiritual realm.

[ 22 ] And just as the individual human body is constructed as a separate entity within the physical world, so is the spiritual body within the spiritual world. There is an inside and outside for the human being in the spiritual world just as there is in the physical world. Just as man absorbs the substances from the physical environment and processes them in his physical body, so he absorbs the spiritual from the spiritual environment and makes it his own. The spiritual is man's eternal nourishment. And just as man is born from the physical world, so he is born from the spirit through the eternal laws of truth and goodness. He is separated from the spiritual world outside him, just as he is separated from the entire physical world as an independent being. This independent spiritual entity is called a "spirit man".

[ 23 ] When we examine the physical human body, we find in it the same substances and forces that are present outside it in the rest of the physical world. It is the same with the spirit man. The elements of the outer spiritual world pulsate in him, the forces of the rest of the spiritual world are active in him. Just as the physical skin contains a being that is alive and sentient, so too does the spiritual world. The spiritual skin that separates the spiritual man from the unified spiritual world, making him an independent spiritual being within it, which lives within itself and intuitively perceives the spiritual content of the world, this "spiritual skin" is called the spiritual sheath (auric sheath). However, it must be noted that this "spiritual skin" continues to expand as human development progresses, so that the spiritual individuality of man (his auric sheath) is capable of unlimited expansion.

[ 24 ] Within this spiritual shell lives the spiritual man. This is built up by the spiritual life force in the same way as the physical body is built up by the physical life force. In a similar way as one speaks of an etheric body, one must therefore speak of an etheric spirit in relation to the spiritual man. This etheric spirit is called the spirit of life The spiritual essence of man is thus divided into three parts: the spirit man, the spirit of life and the spirit self.

[ 25 ] For those who "see" in the spiritual realms, this spiritual entity of man is a perceptible reality as the higher - actual spiritual - part of the aura. He "sees" within the spiritual shell the spiritual man as a spirit of life; and "he sees" how this "spirit of life" continually enlarges itself through the intake of spiritual nourishment from the spiritual outside world. And furthermore, he sees how the spirit shell is constantly expanding as a result of this intake, how the spirit man is getting bigger and bigger. Insofar as this "growing larger" is "seen" spatially, it is of course only an image of reality. Nevertheless, in the conception of this image, the human soul is directed towards the corresponding spiritual reality. The difference between man's spiritual being and his physical being is that the latter has a limited size, while the former can grow indefinitely. What is taken in as spiritual nourishment has an eternal value. The human aura is therefore composed of two interpenetrating parts. One is given color and form by the physical existence of the human being, the other by his spiritual existence. The ego provides the separation between the two, in such a way that the physical surrenders itself in its own nature and builds up a body that brings a soul to life in itself; and the ego surrenders itself again and brings the spirit to life in itself, which in turn now permeates the soul and gives it its goal in the spiritual world. Through the body the soul is enclosed in the physical, through the spirit man it grows the wings to move in the spiritual world.

[ 26 ] If you want to grasp the whole human being, you have to think of it as being composed of the aforementioned components. The body is built up from the physical world of matter, so that this structure is ordered towards the thinking I. It is permeated by life force and thus becomes the etheric body or life body. As such it opens up outwards in the sense organs and becomes the soul body. The sentient soul penetrates it and becomes one with it. The sentient soul does not merely receive the impressions of the external world as sensations; it has its own life, which is fertilized by the thinking on the other side as well as by the sensations on the one. Thus it becomes an intellectual soul. It can do this by opening itself upwards to the intuitions as well as downwards to the sensations. This makes it a consciousness soul. This is possible because the spiritual world forms the organ of intuition into it, just as the physical body forms the sense organs. Just as the senses convey the sensations through the soul body, so the spirit conveys the intuitions through the organ of intuition. The spirit man is thus united with the consciousness soul in the same way as the physical body is united with the sensory soul in the soul body. Consciousness soul and spirit self form a unity. The spirit man lives in this unity as the spirit of life, just as the etheric body forms the physical basis of life for the soul body. And just as the physical body is enclosed in the physical skin, so the spirit man is enclosed in the spirit shell. The whole human being is structured in the following way:

  1. Physical body
  2. Etheric body or life body
  3. Soul body
  4. Sentientient soul
  5. Mind soul
  6. Consciousness soul
  7. Spirit self
  8. Life spirit
  9. Spirit person

The soul body (C) and the sentient soul (D) are a unity in the earthly human being; likewise the consciousness soul (F) and the spirit self (G). - This results in seven parts of the earthly human being:

  1. The physical body
  2. The etheric or vital body
  3. The sentient soul body
  4. The mind soul
  5. The spirit-filled consciousness soul
  6. The spirit of life
  7. The spirit man

[ 27 ] The "I" flashes forth in the soul, receives the impact from the spirit and thereby becomes the bearer of the spirit man. In this way, the human being participates in the "three worlds" (the physical, mental and spiritual). He takes root in the physical world through the physical body, etheric body and soul body and blossoms into the spiritual world through the spirit self, the spirit of life and the spirit man. But the stem that takes root on one side and blossoms on the other is the soul itself.

[ 28 ] In agreement with this division of the human being, a simplified form of it can be given. Although the human "I" lights up in the consciousness soul, it nevertheless permeates the entire soul being. The parts of this spiritual being are not at all as sharply separated as the members of the body; they interpenetrate each other in a higher sense. If we then consider the mind soul and the consciousness soul as the two related shells of the ego and the latter as the core of the former, then we can divide the human being into: physical body, life body, astral body and ego. The term astral body is used here to describe what the soul body and the sentient soul are together. The term can be found in the older literature and is used here freely to refer to that part of the human being which lies beyond the sensually perceptible. In spite of the fact that the sensory soul is in a certain respect also permeated by the ego, it is so closely connected with the soul body that a single expression is justified for both when they are considered together. When the ego interpenetrates with the spirit self, this spirit self appears in such a way that the astral body is reworked from the soul body. The human being's instincts, desires and passions, insofar as they are felt, first work in the astral body, and sensory perceptions work in it. The sensual perceptions arise through the soul body as a part of the human being that comes to him from the outer world. The instincts, desires, passions and so on arise in the sensory soul, insofar as it is penetrated by the inner self before this inner self has surrendered to the spirit self. If the "I" penetrates itself with the spirit-self, the soul penetrates the astral body again with this spirit-self. This is expressed in such a way that the drives, desires and passions are then illuminated by what the I has received from the spirit. The ego has then become master of the world of instincts, desires and so on by virtue of its share in the spiritual world. To the extent that it has become this, the spirit self appears in the astral body. And this itself is thereby transformed. The astral body itself then appears as a two-part entity, partly untransformed, partly transformed. Therefore the spirit self in its manifestation in the human being can be described as the transformed astral body. Something similar happens in the human being when he absorbs the life spirit into his ego. Then the life body is transformed. It is permeated by the spirit of life. This reveals itself in such a way that the life body becomes a different one. Therefore one can also say that the life spirit is the transformed life body. And if the ego absorbs the spirit-man into itself, it thereby receives the strong power to penetrate the physical body with it. It is natural that what is thus transformed by the physical body cannot be perceived with the physical senses. It is precisely that which has become spiritual in the physical body which is spiritualized. It is then present for sensory perception as something sensual; and insofar as this sensual is spiritualized, it must be perceived by the spiritual faculty of cognition. To the outer senses, the physical that is permeated by the spiritual also appears only sensually. On the basis of all this, the following classification of the human being can also be given:

  1. Physical body
  2. Living body
  3. Astral body
  4. I as the core of the soul
  5. Spirit self as transformed astral body
  6. Life spirit as transformed life body
  7. Spirit man as transformed physical body. 9

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