The Rudolf Steiner Archive

2. The Origin of the Soul

[ 1 ] Anyone who speaks today about the nature of the soul exposes themselves to misunderstandings and attacks from two sides. Above all, the theosophist, who speaks from his standpoint—that is, from the standpoint of knowledge and understanding—will face these attacks not only from the official side of science but also from the adherents of various religious denominations.

[ 2 ] Science today has little interest in the soul, not even that branch of science which takes its name from the soul—psychology, or the study of the soul. Even psychologists would prefer to disregard entirely what is actually called the soul. Thus, the catchphrase “psychology without a soul” was coined. — The soul is supposed to be something so questionable, something so indefinite, that one simply examines, for example, the phenomena of various ideas, just as one examines a natural process; but one wants nothing to do with the soul itself. Modern science cannot possibly accept such a thing as a soul. It asserts that human ideas are subject to the laws of nature just as everything else in nature is, and that man is nothing more than a higher form of natural product. Thus, we should not ask what the soul is. In doing so, one invokes Goethe’s words: “/p”

According to eternal, iron,
Great Laws
We must all
Complete the cycles
Of our existence.

[ 3 ] Just as a stone begins to roll, so must human beings develop in accordance with eternal laws—On the other hand, there are religious creeds that are based on tradition and revelation.

[ 4 ] Theosophy is hostile neither to religion nor to science. Like researchers, it seeks to arrive at the truth through knowledge, and it does not dispute the fundamental truths of religious creeds.

[ 5 ] These fundamental truths are often little understood by those who profess religious beliefs. Primordial, eternal truths underlie all religions. The creeds that exist today have developed from these. However, they have since become overgrown with later additions. Their deeper truth has been lost to them. The core of truth lies behind them. Science, however, has not yet advanced to the point where it has ascended from matter to spirit. It has not yet reached the stage where it applies the same zeal to its research into the spiritual realm as it does to natural phenomena. The core of truth in science lies in the future. Thus, this higher truth of religion has been lost and has not yet been found by science. Theosophy stands between them today. It reaches back into the past, to what has been lost, and seeks to explore in the future what has not yet been found. For this, it reaps attacks from both sides. Customs and outward manners are different today from those of earlier times, but despite the much-vaunted tolerance of the present age, attempts are still made to intimidate those who hold an inconvenient opinion. Those who speak of the soul today, just as natural scientists speak of external facts, are no longer burned at the stake, but there are still ways to harass and suppress them today.

[ 6 ] And yet, when we measure today’s circumstances against the events of the past, a certain comfort emerges as we look to the future. When, in the 17th century, the Italian researcher Redi asserted that lower organisms did not simply arise from the inanimate, he narrowly escaped the fate of Giordano Bruno. At that time, it was generally believed that lower organisms developed from inorganic matter. Today, Redi’s view is universally accepted, and anyone who denied the principle that “nothing living arises from the non-living” would be considered backward. Today, Virchow’s principle—“life only from life”—is generally accepted. — Yet the principle “The soulful arises only from the soulful” still finds no credence today. But just as understanding has progressed to the insight that the living can arise only from the living, so will science one day adopt the principle: “Nothing soulful arises from the soulless.” — Then people will look down upon the limited science of our day just as they do today with regard to the views of Redis’s contemporaries. After all, we stand today with regard to the soul on the same ground as the natural scientists of the 17th century stood with regard to the living. According to this modern view, the spiritual is supposed to develop out of the merely living; the soul is supposed to emerge directly from the animal realm. In later times, people will look down upon this view with a pitying smile, just as we today smile at the view that living things arise from the non-living.

[ 7 ] The soul did not arise from the primal source of mere life; the soul emerged from the spiritual. And just as life takes on the form of an animal merely to manifest itself, so too did the spiritual once take on the animal form in order to spread itself. Our knowledge is woven into the stream of external reality, and in doing so we forget what should concern us most: the soul is infinitely close to us. We are it ourselves. When we look within ourselves, we see the soul. People find this so difficult to grasp. Our observation is directed primarily toward what lies outside of us. But: should what we see outside be closer to us than what we ourselves are? Today, people are clear about external research, yet they are strangers to themselves. How is it that people grasp the truths of external research so easily and overlook what is closest to them? The soul is, after all, far more familiar and closer to them. Every natural phenomenon must first make its way through the senses. These often alter and distort the image. The color-blind person sees colors quite differently from how they really are. And apart from such exceptional cases, we know that all eyes are different; no two people see colors in exactly the same shades. Depending on the eye of the beholder, on the ear of the listener, the impressions differ. But the soul is ourselves; we are capable of seeking it at every moment. It is remarkable that the influence of a great poet rests chiefly on this realization: how much closer our inner self touches us than anything outside of us. Tolstoy’s pathos is founded on this realization that shook him to the core. From this perspective, he wages his struggle against culture, fashions, and whims.

[ 8 ] The only reason we do not see our soul is that we have grown accustomed to not viewing it in its own form. Today, our faith in the material world has grown stronger, while our habits of thought have become dulled when it comes to the spiritual realm. And even those who do not adhere to religious creeds take the easy way out when it comes to inquiry. Goethe is frequently cited to justify this stance. One should think and inquire as little as possible. “Feeling is everything; name is smoke and mirrors.” With these words of Goethe, one seeks to dismiss the arguments of those who study the soul. Everyone is supposed to find everything in their feelings; in a state of obscurity, in a passing over of it, one believes one must sustain oneself. A kind of lyrical approach seems to be considered most suitable when it comes to the spiritual. Because everyone is so close to the soul, everyone believes they can understand everything through feeling. — Are these really Goethe’s own views, which he has Faust express in these words? The playwright must have the right to let his characters speak from the situation. And if these words, which Faust addresses to the childlike Gretchen, were to be his creed, would Goethe then have Faust first search through all the wisdom of the world? “Now, alas, I have philosophy” and so on. It would be a strange denial of his research, of his skepticism. If we were to resign ourselves to the soul with nothing but vague feelings, would we not then resemble a painter who, in his picture, offered no clear outlines, no likeness of what he had seen outside, but contented himself with merely expressing his feelings? No, the soul cannot be explained by vague feelings.

[ 9 ] Theosophy seeks to proclaim genuine scientific wisdom, and in doing so, it does not appeal exclusively to the emotions, just as science does not when it describes electricity. Theosophy does not seek to promote an understanding of the spiritual realm in a sentimental manner. No, it appeals to a sincere quest for knowledge. Whoever attempts to explore their own soul will be led to those who have sat at the feet of the Masters.

[ 10 ] Ever since the Theosophical Society was founded in 1875, it has cultivated a genuine science of the soul. Its aim is to teach people to perceive the soul. Today, everyone wants to talk about the soul and the spirit without having made a serious effort to understand them; they want to gloss over the difficulties that stand in the way, and the most amateurish endeavors are becoming widespread. Theosophy seeks to help those who thirst for spiritual wisdom, and aims to study the soul just as seriously as one scientifically investigates nature. These are the difficulties facing the soul researcher: that today, when no one who has not studied the natural sciences is permitted to speak about them, everyone who has not researched the soul nevertheless speaks about spiritual matters.

[ 11 ] Of course, the method of research is quite different here. The natural scientist works with physical instruments. With these, he penetrates ever deeper into the mysteries of the nature that surrounds us. In the study of the soul, the saying holds true that mysteries cannot be unlocked with levers and screws. The more the field of observation expands, the more natural science can advance. These observations require nothing more than ordinary common sense. But the kind of reasoning the researcher applies in the laboratory is essentially no different from what is required in commercial or technical enterprises; it is merely somewhat more complicated, but it is not a different process.

[ 12 ] Spiritual truth is not concerned solely with common sense; it appeals to other powers that lie deep within the human soul. It requires the development of the faculty of knowledge. The possibility of this development has always existed. The origin of all religions traces back to it. What Buddha, what Confucius, what all the great founders of the various religions taught, leads back to this deeper spiritual truth. At the very moment when the human race existed as it still does today, the soul was also present, and it could be explored through the development of the faculty of cognition. It was less a matter of expanding knowledge than of developing inner insight to perceive what lies within the soul. In the realm of the external sciences, everyone is dependent on the era in which they live. Aristotle, the great scholar of antiquity, could not yet make certain scientific observations in the 4th century B.C. that are only possible today through the tools of modern science. But the soul has always been fully present, and the only reason we are further from this realization today than our ancestors in ancient times is that we do not wish to explore our own souls. The Theosophical Society exists to foster this willingness. It is not doing anything new. Rather, this has been the case throughout the ages. But just as it is easier to explore what presents itself to us physically, so too are the soul and spirit more difficult to recognize and not so easily accessible or tangible to everyone. Yet even in ancient times, people observed this diversity, this multi-faceted nature of the soul.

[ 13 ] What is the soul? As long as we believe that the soul is something that merely dwells within the body and then leaves it again, we cannot come to an understanding of the soul. No, it is something that is active and alive within us and permeates all the body’s functions. It lives in movement, in breathing, in digestion. But it is not equally present in all our actions.

[ 14 ] We originated from a single cell, just as a plant originates from a seed. And just as the plant develops from organic forces, from the seed, so too does the human being develop from organic forces, from the tiny germ cell. He forms the organs of his body, just as the plant forms its leaves and flowers, and the growth of the human being is like that of the plant. That is why the ancient researchers also attributed a soul to plants. They spoke of the plant soul. And they found that this activity of building up the organs is something humans share with all plant beings. That which builds up all the organs in the human being is something that corresponds to the plant soul. They called it the vegetative soul and saw through it that the human being is related to nature, to all that is organic. The first thing that forms the human being is plant-like. Therefore, the plant soul was regarded as the first stage of the soul. It created the human organism. It built our body with its limbs, with eyes, ears, muscles; it had built our entire body. In everything concerning growth and the building of our body, we resemble the plant, just like every organic being.

[ 15 ] But if we had only the plant soul, we would not be able to transcend mere organic life. Yet we possess the capacity for perception and sensation. We feel pain when we pierce one of our limbs with a needle, whereas a plant remains unaffected by a puncture, say, of a leaf. This points to the second level of the soul, the animal soul. It gives us the capacity for sensation, desire, and movement—that which we share with the entire animal kingdom and therefore call the animal soul. This gives us the possibility not only to grow like plants, but to become a mirror for the entire universe. With the vegetative soul comes the assimilation of the substances that form the organism; with the animal soul, the assimilation of the subordinate soul life. Sensory life is built upon pleasure and pain. Just as our vegetative soul could not form organs if there were no substances in the world around us, so too can the animal soul draw sensation and desire only from the world of the desirous and the instinctual around us. Just as no plant could develop from its seed without the driving force of the germ, so too could no animal being come into being if it could not fill its organs with impressions, if it could not fill its life with pleasure and pain. Our vegetative soul builds the organic body from the world of the material. From the world of desires, the world of kama or the kamaloka, the animal soul takes in the substances of desire. If the body lacked the ability to take in these desires, then pleasure and pain would remain eternally distant from the plant soul. Nothing comes from nothing.

[ 16 ] Humans share the lustful soul with animals. Naturalists are correct in attributing these lower psychological traits to animals as well. However, this is a matter of degree. The marvelous structures of bee and ant colonies, the beavers’ dams, whose regular arrangement corresponds to complex mathematical calculations, provide proof of this. But in other ways as well, the animal soul rises to something akin to what we call reason in humans. Through training, especially in our domestic animals, skills can be awakened that humans consciously practice. There is, however, a great distance between them; in the lowest animal levels, there is only a dull sense of perception, while in the most developed levels, there is already a rudimentary form of what constitutes human intellect.

[ 17 ] This third stage of human soul life is constituted by the intellectual soul. We would remain stuck at the animal level if we had only an animal soul, just as we would not have progressed beyond the plant level if we had only a vegetative soul. That is why the question is so important: Is humanity really no different from higher animals? Is there no difference?

[ 18 ] Anyone who asks themselves this question and examines it without reservation will find that the human spirit does indeed transcend that of all animals. When the Pythagoreans sought to prove the existence of a higher soul in humans, they emphasized that only humans are endowed with the ability to count. And even if something similar is found in certain animals, the enormous difference between animal and human is clearly evident here, since in humans we are dealing with an innate capacity of the soul’s faculties, whereas in animals it is a matter of training. It is through the fact that humans can count that they differ from animals, but also through the fact that they transcend what animals can achieve, that they transcend immediate needs. No animal goes beyond the most immediate, temporal, and transitory need. No animal rises to the real and true, beyond the immediate sensory truth. The statement: “Two times two is four”—must hold true under all circumstances, even if the transitory truths of the senses lose their validity under other conditions. Whatever kind of beings may live on the planet Mars, however differently they may hear sounds or perceive colors through their organs, thinking beings on all planets must uniformly acknowledge the correctness of the calculation that two times two is four. What man gains from his soul applies for all time. It was true millions of years ago and will remain true for millions of years to come, because it originates from the eternal.

[ 19 ] Thus, within our transitory, animal nature, lies the imperishable, through which we are citizens of eternity. Just as the animal soul is built up from the elements of Kama, so too is the higher spiritual soul built up from the spiritual.

[ 20 ] Nothing comes from nothing. Aristotle, the master of those who knew, but who was no initiate, no one who had been initiated, arrives at the concept of the miracle when he speaks of the spiritual. He constructs the body strictly according to the laws of nature, but he allows the soul to come into being anew each time through a miracle of the Creator. For Aristotle, the soul is a creation out of nothing. Every soul is also a new creation for the exoteric Christianity of later centuries. But we do not wish to accept the miracle of the soul’s creation each time. Just as the origin of the organ soul in the plant kingdom and the animal soul from the world of instinctual life has arisen, so must the spiritual soul—if nothing is to arise from nothing—arise from the spiritual realm of the world. And so we are led to the spiritual, to the soul of the universe, as Giordano Bruno expresses it in his work: On the Organic Forces of the Cosmos and on the Soul Forces of the Cosmos.

[ 21 ] Why does each of us have a unique soul? Why does every soul have its own unique characteristics? Science explains the unique characteristics of animals through the natural evolution of one species from another. However, every animal species still possesses characteristics that point to its origins in other animal genera.

[ 22 ] The spiritual soul can develop only from the individual spiritual realm. And just as it would never occur to anyone to believe that a lion arises directly from the cosmic forces of the universe, it would be equally absurd to assume that the individual soul developed from the general spiritual content of the universe, from the spiritual reservoirs of the cosmos. Theosophy stands on a foundation that likewise corresponds to a scientific worldview. Just as natural science posits that kind arises from kind, so it allows the soul to develop from the soul. It, too, allows the higher to emerge from the lower. From the universal soul, the individual soul develops, just as the animal has formed from the general principle of animality. According to the principle of the soul, soul arises from soul. Every soul is the result of the soul-world and is itself again the cause of the soul-world. From the eternal origin arises the soul, which is itself eternal. Theosophy traces this back to the so-called third human race, upon whose appearance the higher soul-world could first emerge as an influence within the organic realm. This human race is called the Lemurians. Previously, the soul had its home in the animal realm. For the animal world, too, originates from the soul. The soul first took possession of the animal realm in order to fulfill its functions. From there, it continues to work from soul to soul.

[ 23 ] Education therefore means: developing that which lies dormant within a person as an individual. Awakening this higher soul that lies dormant in every human being is the first principle of education. In the case of animals, the individual animal coincides with the concept of the species; one tiger is essentially the same as another. No human being, however, can be described as similar to another with the same justification. Every human soul is different from that of another. In order to awaken the soul in human beings, the art of education must also be different for each individual. And since the awakening of the soul’s powers was the beginning of all education, there must have been higher beings present even back then, when that third human race rose to spiritual life. The spiritual did not develop out of savagery or ignorance. Millions of years ago, when humans rose from a purely instinctual state, this did not happen of their own accord, but through the great teachers who stood by their side.

[ 24 ] There must always be great teachers who rise above the humanity around them, lifting them to a higher vantage point. Even today there are teachers who transcend contemporary knowledge, who propagate the seed of the soul. Where these teachers come from will be discussed in a future lecture. People have known about these guides of humanity throughout the ages. One of the most outstanding philosophers, Schelling, who was not himself a Theosophist, also speaks of them in one of his frequently misunderstood works.

[ 25 ] These great teachers, who can provide insight into the spiritual realm, who are experts in matters of the soul, whose wisdom is of an ethereal nature—that is, spiritual knowledge—have guided and advanced humanity. The Theosophical Society seeks to lead people back to these explorers of the soul. At its heart are those who can provide insight into the nature of the soul. They cannot step forward into the world; they cannot say, “Accept our truths”—for people would not understand their language. The great truth lies hidden from most. To lead people to the sources of wisdom—that is the task of the Theosophical Society. These goals lie before us in brilliant clarity.

[ 26 ] Our age has progressed so far that it denies the very existence of the soul. To restore this age’s faith in itself, to revive its belief in the eternal and imperishable within us—in the divine core of our being—that is to be the task of our movement.