The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Of the etheric body of man and of the etheric world

[ 1 ] Man acquires the recognition of a supersensible spiritual world and its cognition by overcoming certain obstacles which are initially present in the soul against this recognition. The difficulty that exists here is based on the fact that these obstacles are indeed effective in the existence of the soul's experience, but that they do not come to consciousness as such in ordinary life. There are many things alive in the soul of man of which this soul itself knows nothing at first, of which it must only gradually acquire knowledge, just as of the beings and processes of the outer world.

[ 2 ] The spiritual world is for the soul, before it is recognized by it, something completely foreign, something that has in its characteristics nothing of what the soul can experience through its experiences in the sensual world. So it happens that the soul could be placed before this spiritual world and see in it a complete "nothing". The soul could feel as if it were looking into an infinite, empty, barren abyss. - Such a feeling is actually present in the initially unconscious depths of the soul. The soul has this feeling, which is akin to timidity, to fear; it lives in it without being aware of it. For the life of the soul, however, not only that of which it is aware is decisive, but also that which is actually present in it without its knowledge. - If the soul now looks for "reasons of refutation", for "proofs" against the spiritual world from the realm of its thinking, then this does not happen because these "reasons" are compelling by their own value, but because the soul is looking for a kind of anaesthetic against the described feeling. One does not become a denier of the spiritual world, or of the possibility of its knowledge, because one can "prove" its "non-existence", but because one wants to fill the soul with thoughts that cover up the "shyness of the spiritual world". A liberation from this longing for a materialistic anaesthetic against the "shyness of the spiritual world" can only occur if one takes a look at the entire facts of the life of the soul described here. "Materialism as a fear phenomenon of the soul" is an important chapter in the science of the soul.

[ 3 ] This "fear of the spiritual" becomes understandable when one has come to recognize the truth that the processes and entities of the world of the senses are the external expression of supersensible, spiritual processes and entities. This understanding already occurs when one realizes that the body which is sensually perceptible in man, and with which external science alone has to deal, is the expression of a subtle, supersensible (etheric) body, in which the sensual (or physical) body is contained as a denser core, as in a cloud. - This etheric body is a second member of the human being. In it lies the basis of the life of the physical body. Now, in relation to this etheric body, man is not separated from the outer world to the same degree as he is separated from the physical outer world in his physical body. When we speak of an external world in relation to the etheric body, we are not referring to the physical external world which is perceived through the senses, but to a spiritual environment which is as supersensible in relation to the physical world as the etheric body of man is in relation to his physical body. As an ethereal being, man stands in an ethereal (elemental) world.

[ 4 ] When now that which man certainly always experiences, but of which he knows nothing in ordinary experience, namely that he is as an etheric being in an elementary world - when this fact becomes conscious, then this consciousness is a completely different one than that of ordinary experience. For the supersensible cognition this consciousness occurs. It then knows of that which is always present in life, but which is hidden from ordinary consciousness.

[ 5 ] Now, in ordinary consciousness, man says "I" to himself by pointing to the being that presents itself in his physical body. In the sense world his healthy soul life is based on the fact that he recognizes himself as a being separated from the rest of the world. This healthy soul life would be broken if the human being were to describe any processes or entities of the outer world as belonging to his "I". - Insofar as man experiences himself as an etheric being in the elemental world, this is different. There the own (I-) being blurs with certain processes and beings of the environment. The etheric human being must also find itself in that which is not its inner being in the way it has become accustomed to seeing this "inner being" in the sense world. There are forces, processes and entities in the elementary world which, although they are in a certain sense "outer world", must be approached as if they belonged to one's own "I". As an etheric human being, one is spun into the elementary world entity. In the physical-sensual world one has one's thoughts; one is together with them in such a way that one can regard them as belonging to the existence of the "I". In the etheric human being, forces, processes, etc., which do not behave like thoughts, but are like beings living with and in the soul, work their way into the "inner being" as intimately as thoughts do in the sensory world. Supersensible knowledge therefore requires a stronger inner power than that which the soul has in order to be able to assert itself as independent of its thoughts. And the preparation for true spiritual insight also consists essentially in strengthening the soul inwardly so that it can not only feel itself as its own being when thoughts are in it, but also when the forces and entities of the elementary world appear in its field of consciousness like a part of its own being.

[ 6 ] The power of the soul, through which it asserts itself as a being of the elemental world, is present in the ordinary life of man. At first the soul knows nothing of this power, but it has it. That it can also have it knowingly, it must first prepare itself for this. It must acquire that inner strength of soul which is acquired in the preparation for looking at the spirit. As long as man cannot decide to acquire this inner strength of soul, he is understandably afraid of recognizing his spiritual environment, and he resorts - unconsciously - to the illusion that this spiritual world does not exist or is not recognizable. This illusion helps him to overcome his instinctive fear of the merging or blurring of his own being (ego) with an essential external spiritual world.

[ 7 ] Whoever sees through the facts described above comes to recognize an etheric human being "behind" the physical-sensible human being, and a supersensible etheric (elementary) world behind the physical-perceptible one.

[ 8 ] In the elementary world, clairvoyant consciousness finds entities that have a certain degree of independence, just as physical consciousness finds thoughts in the sensory world that are dependent and non-essential. - Living in this elementary world then leads to seeing the partially independent entities in a larger context. Just as if one first looked at the members of a physical human body in their partial independence and then recognized that they exist as parts within the whole body, so for the supersensible consciousness the individual beings of the elementary world come together as life members of a great spiritual body, which is then recognized in the further course of the supersensible experience as the elementary (supersensible) life body of the earth. Within this life body of the earth, the etheric human being experiences itself as a member.

[ 9 ] This progression in the spiritual view is a living into the essence of an elementary world. This world is animated by beings of the most diverse kinds. If one wants to express the activity of these essential forces, one can only do so by drawing their manifold characteristics in pictures. There are entities that are related to everything that strives for permanence, for solidity, for heaviness. They can be described as earth souls. (And if one does not think oneself overly clever and is not afraid of the image, which after all is only meant to point to reality and not be reality itself, one can speak of "gnomes"). One finds beings that can be described as air, water and fire souls because of their nature.

[ 10 ] But then other beings also appear. These appear as elemental (etheric) beings, but one recognizes in them that there is something in their etheric beingness that is of a higher nature than the beingness of the elemental world. One learns to understand that one can no more come to terms with the true being of these beings with the degree of supersensible knowledge that is only sufficient for the elementary world than one can come to terms with the true being of man with mere physical consciousness.

[ 11 ] The above-mentioned beings, which can be figuratively called earth, water, air and fire souls, stand with their activity in a certain relationship within the elementary life body of the earth. They have their tasks within it. The characterized beings of a higher kind have an activity that extends beyond the earth realm. If one gets to know them further in supersensible experience, one's consciousness is spiritually led beyond the earth realm. One sees how this area of the earth has developed out of another, and how it develops the spiritual seeds within itself so that another area, a "new earth" so to speak, can emerge from it in the future. In my "Secret Science" it is said why that out of which the earth was formed can be called an old "moon planet", and why the world towards which the earth will strive in the future can be called "Jupiter". The essential thing is that one sees in the "old moon" a long-past world from which the earth world has formed through transformation, and that one understands in the spiritual sense as "Jupiter" a future world towards which the earth world will strive.