The Threshold of the Spiritual World
GA 17
Translated by Steiner Online Library
Summary of the Foregoing
[ 1 ] The human being carries within himself a spiritual core of being which belongs to a spiritual world. This spiritual core of being is the human permanent being, which lives itself out in repeated earth lives in such a way that it forms itself in an earth life within the ordinary consciousness as an independent being in relation to this consciousness, experiences itself after the physical death of man in a purely spiritual world, and after a corresponding time lives out the results of the preceding earth life in a new one. This permanent being works in such a way that it becomes the inspirer of the human being's destiny. It inspires this destiny in such a way that an earthly life results as the consequence of the previous one based on the world order.
[ 2 ] Man is this permanent being himself; he lives in it as in his "other self". Insofar as he is this "other self" as a being, he lives in an astral body, just as he lives in a physical and etheric body. Just as the environment of the physical body is the physical world and that of the etheric body is the elemental world, so the environment of the astral body is the spiritual realm.
[ 3 ] Beings of the same nature and origin as the "other self" of the human being act in the physical and elemental world as ahrimanic and luciferic forces. The relationship between the astral human body and the etheric and physical bodies can be understood through the way in which they work.
[ 4 ] The original source of the etheric body is to be sought in a long-past state of the earth, its so-called solar time.
[ 5 ] According to the foregoing, the human being can be viewed schematically as follows:
[ 6 ] I. The physical body in the physical-sensual environment. Through it, man recognizes himself as an independent being (I).
[ 7 ] II. The subtle (etheric) body in the elemental environment. Through it man recognizes himself as a member of the earth-life body and thus indirectly as a member of three successive planetary states.
[ 8 ] III. The astral body in a purely spiritual environment. Through it, the human being is a member of a spiritual world, of which the elementary and physical worlds are reflections. In it lies the "other self" of the human being, which expresses itself in repeated earthly lives.