The Threshold of the Spiritual World
GA 17
Translated by Steiner Online Library
Summary of Part of the Foregoing
[ 1 ] The human being carries within him a "true self" that belongs to a super-spiritual world. This "true self" is concealed in the sensory world by the experiences of thinking, feeling and willing. Even in the spiritual world, a person only becomes aware of this "true self" when he eradicates the memories of everything he can experience through his thinking, feeling and willing. The knowledge of the "true self" emerges from the forgetting of what has been experienced in the sensory, elemental and spiritual worlds.
[ 2 ] The physical-sensual human body reveals its true essence when the soul observes it from the super-spiritual world. There it becomes apparent that it received its first formation out of the general world process in a Saturnian state preceding the solar state of the earth. It then developed through the solar, lunar and terrestrial states to become what it is today as a physical human body.
[ 3 ] According to the foregoing, the entire essence of man can be viewed schematically as follows:
[ 4 ] I. The physical body in the physical-sensual environment. Through it, the human being recognizes himself as an independent being (ego). This physical body was formed from the general world-being in its first development during a long-past Saturnian state of the earth and has become what it is today through its development in four planetary transformations of the earth.
[ 5 ] II The subtle, etheric body in the elemental environment. Through it man recognizes himself as a member of the earthly body. It was first formed during a long-past solar state of the earth out of the general world existence and has become what it is today through its development in three planetary transformations of the earth.
[ 6 ] III The astral body in a spiritual environment. Through it, the human being is a member of a spiritual world. In it lies the "other self" of the human being, which expresses itself in the repeated earthly lives.
[ 7 ] IV. The "true self" in a super-spiritual environment. In this, man finds himself as a spiritual being even when all experiences of the sensory, elementary and spiritual worlds, i.e. all experiences of the senses, of thinking, feeling and willing, fall victim to oblivion.