The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Theosophy and Rosicrucianism III

[ 1 ] That which is designated by self-consciousness is the holy of holies in man. He who realizes this in the right way will readily see that the meaning of human existence is actually expressed by the word “self-consciousness”. Self-consciousness is the ability to know oneself as an ego.

[ 2 ] You will best get an idea of this if you remember that in the whole range of the German language there is one name that is fundamentally different from all the others: that is the word I. Anyone can call a table a table, but only you can say “I” for yourself; for everyone else you are a you. The word 'I' can never sound from outside to my ear if it is to mean myself. All spiritual science has felt this. For example, when the Hebrew religion spoke of this essence of the human inner being, it called it the unutterable name of God. It was said that if the 'I' is to be spoken, it must resound from the center of the being itself. No external being can utter the name. It was therefore like a shiver that went through the whole assembly when the priest pronounced the word Yahweh, “I am that I am”. That is when the God in man begins to speak. That is the pure, original meaning of the Hebrew name of God. You will get to know other names, but all of them are related to this one name. And with this I we denote the fourth link of the human being. From this I, the human being works through the other links of his being: the astral body, the etheric body and also the physical body. No matter how far we go back in the developmental history of the human being, these four links were always present in man; and that is precisely what distinguishes him from animals.

[ 3 ] Let us try to understand how the developed relates to the undeveloped in terms of these four elements. Consider, in that order, a savage who still eats his fellow man, an average modern human being, and then a highly developed person, such as Goethe, Schiller or Francis of Assisi. The savage follows his drives and passions directly, as they are contained in his astral body. He already has an ego, but it is still completely controlled by the astral body. The average person today already differentiates between good and not good. This is because this person has already worked on his astral body. He has worked on it and even transformed some instincts into so-called ideals. The more a person has worked on his astral body from his ego, the higher the level of development he has reached. The average person in Europe today has already transformed a great deal. An individuality such as Schiller or Goethe has already transformed the far greater part of his astral body. But a person who has already subdued all passions under his will, such as Francis of Assisi, for example, has an astral body that is already completely transformed by the I; there is nothing left in it that is not under the control of the I. As much as man has reworked of his astral body in this way, we call it his Manas or spiritual self; this is the fifth link in his being. We can therefore say: In the I lies the germ for reworking the astral body into Manas, spiritual self.

[ 4 ] But now there is also the possibility that man will not only remodel his astral body, but also his etheric body, so that the ego also becomes master of the etheric body. You must realize, however, that this is much more difficult and takes longer. The difference between the transformation of the astral body and that of the ether body is as follows: Just think about what you knew at the age of eight and everything you have acquired since you were young! The medium for all these transformations is the astral body; it changes, so to speak, day by day, quite substantially, through all the external impressions you take in. But it is different with the ether body. If you want to get an idea of what it is like, imagine the following: if you were a hot-tempered child at the age of eight, then it is quite possible that you are still hot-tempered sometimes today. Only a few people succeed in changing themselves in such a way that they also transform their habits, inclinations, temperament and character. This is not at all contradictory to what has been said above. The astral body is indeed connected with our desires and sufferings and our passions; but when these passions have become habits, so-called character traits, then they are anchored in the etheric body; and if we want to transform such habits, then the etheric body must transform itself, for it is the carrier of all habits and character traits.

[ 5 ] I have often compared the changes in the astral body and etheric body with the movement of the minute and hour hands of a clock.

[ 6 ] "We will speak later about the development of the advanced student. Such a disciple is not one in the sense of ordinary life, not one who merely learns something. Certainly, such a disciple must also learn a lot, but infinitely more important than learning is the above-described working into the etheric body: that he manages to transform a violent temper into gentleness. It is precisely for this that esoteric science gives the disciple the guidance.

[ 7 ] A high level of development has been attained by the one who can change a habit, that is, a property of his etheric body, overnight. Such a transformation of the etheric body must go hand in hand with what the student of the secret science otherwise learns. But even if a person knows nothing of such schooling, he still changes his ether body of his own accord, albeit slowly and gradually, through many embodiments. And as much of this ether body as is transformed, we call buddhi or life spirit; and this forms the sixth link of the human being.

[ 8 ] And then there is the stage, which lies much, much higher, on which man also learns to work into his physical body and to transform it. Now, the more control he has gained over his physical body, the more he is called an Atma or spiritual man; it is the seventh link in his being. Atma is related to the word “breathe”, because it is the breathing process that initiates this transformation. What it means to consciously control one's physical body from the ego is only realized when one considers how little one actually knows about one's physical body. This knowledge has nothing to do with what modern anatomy has to say about the physical body. Long before there was a modern anatomy, there were ancient teachings, which, however, have not become publicly known, but in which you can find knowledge about the inside of a person. This enabled these ancient sages, for example, to follow the flow of life and blood; it enabled them to look at themselves internally, to observe the physical body in all its organs. When we have developed to that extent, it is possible that no particle in our body moves without our will. That is the transformation into Atma, spiritual man.

[ 9 ] Now someone might object: the physical body is the lowest link in the human being, so why is it possible to transform it into the highest link? Precisely because the physical body is the lowest link, it takes the greatest effort on the part of the person to gain control over this body. The transformation of this physical body goes hand in hand with the attainment of control over the forces that permeate the entire cosmos. And mastery over these cosmic forces is what is referred to as magic.

[ 10 ] Thus, man, according to his true inner being, consists of seven parts, but these seven parts merge completely into one another. One will only get a proper idea of this interpenetration of all seven parts if one compares it to the seven colors of the rainbow, which are all also contained in sunlight. Just as light consists of these seven colors, so too does the human being consist of his seven limbs.

[ 11 ] Now we will discuss the significance of this division for the knowledge of the entire path of life of the human being. We already heard yesterday what the nature of sleep is. In the bed lie the physical body and the etheric body; respiration and blood circulation continue as the life expression of this etheric body; but everything that belongs to the astral body is lifted out of the physical body and etheric body with the I.

[ 12 ] In death, something else enters in contrast to this. While the physical and etheric bodies remain a unity throughout the entire time between birth and death, in death not only the astral body separates, as in sleep, but also the etheric body from the physical body. This physical body, however, is so complicated that it must disintegrate when it is left to its own devices. Let us now look at a person with clairvoyant vision immediately after death: we see only the physical body, with the astral and etheric bodies hovering above it. Immediately after death, a strange phenomenon occurs in the consciousness of the person who has just passed away: at the moment of death, the entire course of his life arises in the field of human memory like an extended tableau. Every little, even the smallest event passes before him in pictures. This is quite natural, because the etheric body, in addition to the property described above of preventing the physical body from decomposing, is also the carrier of memory. At the same moment that this etheric body is relieved of its former task, it becomes intensely involved in this second task. But since during life every event was connected with pleasure and pain, joy and suffering, due to the interpenetration with the astral body, the human being now, since the astral body has also detached itself from him, experiences these memory images, that is, his entire past existence, without sensation, without feeling, as in a great panorama.

[ 13 ] As long as this etheric body remains connected to the physical body, the instrument it has to use, the brain, is something that makes our memories never complete; we only retain fragments of life impressions in our memory. This is due to the imperfection of this physical brain, whereas at the moment of liberation from the physical brain, this etheric body remembers everything. An analogy to this state can be found in ordinary life in the shock one experiences, for example, at the moment of drowning, falling, and so on. This is simply due to the fact that in such a moment the etheric body is forcibly loosened from the physical body, which also happens, for example, in a lighter way when the limbs fall asleep, also during hypnosis, in which the clairvoyant sees the etheric body hanging out on both sides of the head. Materialistic physiology objects that there is a material change in the blood, but this is a confusion of cause and effect.

[ 14 ] The first fate of man after death is thus this review of the past life, which varies in length and lasts on average about three and a half days. Then comes a kind of second death, in that the etheric completely detaches itself from the astral body as well, and then a kind of etheric corpse remains. This etheric corpse very soon dissolves in the universal ether, although at different speeds for each person, but not completely; a kind of essence from the past life remains, which the ego takes with it and which is an imperishable good that remains with the person for all subsequent embodiments. After each embodiment, a new leaf is added to the previous ones, as it were. In Theosophy, this is called the causal body, and it is the quality of this causal body that determines how the later embodiments take shape.

[ 15 ] Now the astral body is alone. How does this state differ from sleep, when it also emerged from the other members, the physical and etheric body, and was therefore also alone then? The forces that it had to use in sleep to develop and repair the physical body have been released by the fact that this physical body has been discarded permanently; the astral body now uses these for itself and becomes aware of them. In this state of self-awareness, the astral body is now going through a period that you can best understand by considering the following.

[ 16 ] Think about enjoying a delicious meal; a person enjoys it and experiences pleasure from this enjoyment. This enjoyment does not reside in the physical body, but in the astral body; but in order for this enjoyment to come about, it needs the tool, namely a tongue, a palate; thus the physical body provides the tool for the pleasures of the astral body. But what happens after death, when this physical body has been discarded? The instrument, the mediator of pleasure, is missing, but the astral body has not lost its longing, its desire for pleasure. Imagine this state as vividly as you can. It is a state similar to that felt by a thirsty person in the desert. After death the astral body will still have the desire for enjoyment, and to the extent that it was accustomed to it in the past life. That is why this time after death is a time of unsatisfied desire for all people. This state is called Kamaloka; Kama means desire, locus: place. It is the same state that we find described in numerous myths, for example in the torments of Tantalus, or in purgatory. Of course, this state is not only an agonizing one; it is agonizing only until this astral body has given up the desire for enjoyment. The more the astral body craved things during its physical life, the longer this state will last. From this you can see that, depending on the desires a person had in a past life, the astral body may not only experience torment when it reaches Kamaloka, but also, under certain circumstances, something very good and pleasant. For example, it experiences every joy it has had in the beautiful nature as pleasant. To enjoy this joy of the beautiful nature, we must have eyes to see, but beauty is something that goes beyond the physical, and that is why this state is also a source of increased enjoyment in the time of the kamala life. Such things are the causes of the great joys and wonderful experiences during the time of the kamala. Man can brighten up this time for himself if he frees himself from clinging to purely physical pleasures. If you consider this, you will understand many things in life, for example, in relation to everything that is called art. The more ideal the art is, the more the ideal is illuminated, the stronger and the more uplifting the work of art has an effect beyond life. Its element is the spiritual. Only materialistic short-sightedness has led to naturalism in art. After living through this time of Kamaloka, we have arrived at the point where man has given up all his material pleasures, and this point in time marks the transition to a completely new state. The soul now also discards from the astral body everything that the human being, that is, the ego, has not yet worked on; and this now discarded astral shell is thus the third corpse that the human being then leaves behind.

[ 17 ] And now, after the I has become one with what it has conquered from the other bodies, thus with the essence of the etheric body described above and now also with that of the astral body, it passes over into the spirit world. And that is the time that the soul lives through from then until a new birth.

[ 18 ] We will discuss that tomorrow. Today I would just like to emphasize one thing again: that all these spiritual worlds are continually around us and not spatially separated from us in an afterlife, so that they are always visible to the eye of the seer. And anyone who can see into these spiritual worlds can also see these shadows or spectres — for that is what these corpses are — at any time. It is precisely these corpses that very often intrude into spiritualistic seances. But if the participants in such a spiritualistic seance mistake the astral corpse for the individuality concerned, it is just as foolish as mistaking the physical corpse for the human being himself. Therefore, during such spiritualistic seances, the astral corpse, which is precisely what the ego cannot use, very often takes on ridiculous features.