The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Lecture IX

[ 1 ] Let us try to understand the physical body in more detail. We currently distinguish four components in the human being: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the ego. In studying the physical body, we must now go into detail. Human beings were already something when they came over to Saturn from a very distant existence. The physical body is the oldest and most perfect member that human beings have today. The physical body has four parts, which the other bodies do not have. It was already developed in its rudimentary form on Saturn. The etheric body was only added on the Sun. There, the physical body developed to greater perfection. The astral body was added on the Moon, where the physical body underwent a further stage of development. On Earth, the I was added, and the physical body underwent a fourth stage of development. Thus, the physical body is, so to speak, already in the fourth grade, while the etheric body is in the third, the astral body in the second, and the I in the first.

[ 2 ] Therefore, only the physical body as such has self-consciousness; the other three bodies do not. The moment a person closes their physical sense organs when they sleep, self-consciousness ceases; when they open them to the outside world, they have self-consciousness. Self-consciousness is gained by being able to observe one's surroundings with one's organs. Only the physical body is capable of opening its organs to the outside world. If the etheric and astral bodies could observe their surroundings with their organs, human beings would also gain self-awareness in them. But this requires organs. The physical body also has its self-awareness only through its organs. These organs of the physical body are the senses.

[ 3 ] Let us consider the senses in their sequence. In truth, there are twelve senses. Five of these are already physical, and two others will become physical during further development on Earth. The five senses we already have are smell, taste, sight, touch, and hearing. Humans will gradually develop two other senses into true physical senses. These two are predisposed in the mucous body (hypophysis) and in the pineal gland (epiphysis). These will develop the two future senses in the physical body. Seven senses are possible for the physical body. In order to understand the senses in their sequence, we must realize that human beings, insofar as they are self-conscious beings, are on a descending arc. Even if the body is on an ascending arc, the senses are on a descending one.

[ 4 ] From the upper fundamental parts of the human being, Atma developed on Saturn, Buddhi on the Sun, and Manas on the Moon. The monad also came together piece by piece and then moved into the self-built house in the Lemurian period. Now the monad has descended to the fourth level: Atma, Buddhi, Manas, Kama-Manas. The descending arc is expressed in the development of the senses. Actually, in the beginning, only one sense existed on Saturn, the sense of smell. The senses that developed later had to descend from higher to ever deeper regions.

[ 5 ] In nature, we distinguish between the solid, the liquid, the gaseous, the ether of warmth, the ether of light, the chemical ether, and the ether of life. These are the seven stages of matter. In descending, human beings have passed through these stages from top to bottom. When development began, the first human germ of life could only express itself in the life ether. This corresponds to the sense of smell. Human beings then had their first sense, the sense of smell, of which only an echo now remains. As we saw a few days ago, the solid has its life on the Mahaparinirvana plane, the liquid on the Parinirvana plane, the gaseous on the Nirvana plane, the heat etheric on the Buddhi plane, the light etheric on the mental plane, the chemical etheric on the astral plane, and the life etheric on the physical plane; Therefore, we can also speak of the atomistic ether.

Conditions of the Plane	States of Matter	Senses
Physical plane	Life etheric	Smell
Astral plane	Chemical etheric	Taste
Mental plane	Light etheric	Sight
Buddhi or Shushupti plane	Heat etheric	Touch
Nirvana plane	Gaseous, air	Hearing
Parinirvana plane	Liquid	Mucous body
Mahaparinirvana plane	Solid	Pineal gland

[ 6 ] A body can only be smelled when it approaches the olfactory organ and comes into contact with it. The olfactory organ must unite with the substance itself. Smelling means perceiving with a sense that enters into a relationship with the substance itself.

[ 7 ] The second stage is the chemical-etheric. This is where the sense of taste developed. It is based on the fact that what is to be tasted dissolves. Here we are not dealing with the substance itself, but with what is made from the substance. This is a chemical-physical process through which something else is made from the substance. The tongue can do this; it can first dissolve and then taste.

[ 8 ] The third stage is in the light etheric. This is where vision develops. Here we do not perceive what has been chemically and physically broken down, but rather we perceive an image of the object, which is prepared by the external light.

[ 9 ] The fourth is the heat etheric. This is where the sense of touch develops. Here we no longer perceive an image, but less than an image. Heat is a temporary state of the body, a state that is only present in the body at that moment. We speak here of the sense of touch as perceiving heat and cold, but it is actually a “sense of warmth.”

[ 10 ] Fifth, we have the airy. This corresponds to the sense of hearing. Here we no longer perceive a state of the body in question, but what the body tells us. Here we go inside the body. With the sound of the bell, we are no longer interested in the bell itself, not the exterior of the bell, the material, but what it has to reveal from within. Hearing is connecting with what announces itself as the spiritual in the material. At this stage, sensory activity transitions from passive to active. The passively received sound becomes active in humans in language. In this, humans express their soul.

[ 11 ] Sixth, we have the fluid. The sense for the fluid is the mucous body. This is located in the brain, in an elongated cylindrical body.

[ 12 ] Seventh comes the solid. The pineal gland is the sense for the solid.

[ 13 ] Later, just as humans now speak and influence the air, they will also gain influence over the fluid. The “I think” and the thought itself are expressed in the air, in forms such as crystals, for example. At the next stage, feeling also plays a part in thought. Development goes backwards. The warmth of the heart is then expressed in vibrations and flows outward together with the thought. And humans reach the final stage when they create real beings that are permanent; when they express their will through the word. Expressing feelings is merely a transition. When human beings become creative through the will, the beings they bring forth will truly be there.

[ 14 ] Human beings will later express what they feel in their surroundings. This will be communicated to the element of liquid. The entire liquid of the next planet (Jupiter) will become an expression of what human beings feel. Today, human beings send out words; they are inscribed in the Akasha. They remain there, even when the air waves dissipate. Jupiter will later be formed from this. So if people today speak recklessly, reckless scaffolding will be erected on Jupiter! That is why so much attention must be paid to what one says, why so much importance must be attached to people controlling their speech. Later, human beings will also send out their feelings; the state of the Jupiter fluid will be a result of the feelings on Earth. What human beings say today will give Jupiter its form; what they feel will give it its inner warmth. What human beings put into their will today will be the individual beings that will inhabit Jupiter. Jupiter will be built up from the fundamental forces of the human soul.

[ 15 ] Just as we can deduce the rocky structure of the Earth today from earlier states, so the rocky structure of Jupiter will be the result of our words. The sea of Jupiter, the warmth of Jupiter, arises from the feelings of present-day human beings. The beings of Jupiter arise from the human will. In this way, the inhabitants of the previous planet actually create the foundation for the next one. And beings that still hover above... (gap in the text) today, as the monad once hovered above our Earth, will incarnate on Jupiter. There will then be a kind of Jupiter-Lemurian race. Then the beings that we have created as the Pitris will be there. Just as we have inhabited the grotesque forms of the Moon, these beings will then inhabit the forms that we develop with our pineal gland.

[ 16 ] We continue to build the house for subsequent, future monads. A very similar procedure was at the basis of the development of man from the moon to the earth. This will make it very clear how everything external is basically created from within.

[ 17 ] The mere physical body is difficult to separate from what has been formed by man's aberrations. A hunchback owes his hump to the astral, to karma. The outer form, the physiognomy, and so on, are dependent on karma. What modifies the physical body is therefore dependent on the higher bodies. If one subtracts everything that depends on karma, the physical body is actually wisely constructed. Everything that is sick is aberration expressed in the physical body. All illnesses have been injustices in the past; all injustice will be illness in the future. When people become worthy, they will create the solid beings they will create as equally wise bodies.

[ 18 ] All wisdom, feeling, and will will truly be present in the next evolution as form and being. In all ancient religions, the physical body is called a temple because it is so wisely constructed. It is not right to speak of the physical body as the lower nature, for what is low in man actually lies in the higher bodies, which are still infantile today.

[ 19 ] Here we can also consider an important karmic connection. We live in a materialistic age, which is the result of a previous age. This materialistic age has achieved a great deal, not only externally but also internally. Consider, for example, the decline in mortality through hygienic measures. This is indeed progress, brought about by external hygienic facilities. Such external progress is always a karmic effect of the progress that was made internally in the past. These physical advances are the result of the internal progress of the Middle Ages. It is therefore very wrong to look back on the “dark” Middle Ages today. Our most important materialists were initially educated to be idealistic, for example, Faeckel, Büchner, and Moleschott. That is why their systems are so beautifully coherent in their thinking, but they owe this to their idealistic education. Today's materialism is in fact the external expression of the preceding idealistic period.

[ 20 ] We must also work now for the future. When the karmic effect of the earlier idealistic period entered into materialism, a new beginning of idealism and spiritualism had to be made. The leading individuals followed this law when they brought the theosophical movement into being.

[ 21 ] The 14th century was the height of the city-building era. Within a few centuries, independent cities had sprung up in all European cultural regions. The citizen is now the founder of materialism in practical life. This was expressed in the myth of Lohengrin. Lohengrin, the emissary of the Grail Lodge, was the wise leader who intervened in the Middle Ages and prepared the way for the founding of cities. He has the swan as his symbol; the initiate of the third degree is the swan. Consciousness is always represented as something feminine. Elsa of Brabant represents the consciousness of the materialistic city spirit. But spiritual life must be saved; this happens through Christian Rosenkreutz founding the Rosicrucian Order. Spiritual life remained in the secret schools. Today, materialism has been taken to extremes. That is why a new impact had to come in our time. The same movement that is now popularizing the elementary teachings of spiritual life through theosophy intervened at that time in order to create a new inner life that can later manifest itself in the outer world. The inner always expresses itself later in the outer. An illness is the karmic consequence of a previous wrongdoing, for example, a lie. When such an act becomes real, it becomes an illness. Epidemics can be traced back to injustices committed by peoples long ago. They are something imperfect that has moved from the inner to the outer.

[ 22 ] The sixth sense is the kundalini light in the radiating feeling of warmth; the seventh is the synthetic sense.