The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Anthroposophy II

[ 1 ] In our first lecture on anthroposophy the day before yesterday, we essentially just listed the human senses, though in a way that arises from the human being itself. We did not jumble them together haphazardly, as is usually done in sensory physiology—where the relevant connections cannot be recognized—but rather listed and arranged them in a comprehensive manner, corresponding to the reality of the human being. And today, since the realm of the human senses is among the most important things we will need in our further exploration of the human being, it will be our task to examine this human sensory world in even greater depth.

[ 2 ] We began with the meaning we called the “sense of life,” “purpose of life,” or “vital sense.” We will have to ask ourselves: What, in the true spirit of the word, is this sense of life based upon?—We must descend quite deeply into the subconscious depths of the human organism if we wish to form a picture of the source of what is called the sense of life. Of course, we can only sketch everything here. First of all, there is a peculiar interaction between the physical body and the etheric body. This fact becomes apparent when one attempts, through spiritual scientific research, to determine what underlies the sense of life. It is truly the case that the lowest member of the human being, the physical body, and the life body enter into a very specific relationship with one another. This occurs because something else arises in the etheric body and settles within it, permeating it, so to speak. The etheric body is permeated and flowed through by something else. This other thing is something that, fundamentally speaking, human beings today are not yet consciously aware of within themselves. Spiritual science, however, can tell us what is at work within the etheric body and permeates it like water a sponge, figuratively speaking. When one investigates this from a spiritual scientific perspective, one finds that it is the same as what the human being will one day, in the distant future, develop as the spiritual human being or the Atma. Today, human beings do not yet possess this Atma of their own accord; it must first be bestowed upon them, so to speak, from the surrounding spiritual world. It is bestowed upon them without their being able to participate in it consciously. Later, in the distant future, they will have developed it within themselves. It is thus the spiritual human being or Atma that permeates and interweaves the etheric body. What, then, does this Atma do in the etheric body? Today, human beings are not yet capable of having a spiritual being or Atma within themselves, for in the present age this is still a superhuman entity within the human being. This superhuman aspect, the Atma, expresses itself by contracting, indeed cramping, the etheric body. If we wish to use an image from the external sensory world for this, we could compare it, for example, to the freezing effect of cold. What will one day be the highest member of the human being—for which he is not yet ready today—is the very thing that constricts him. The consequence of the etheric body contracting is that the human astral body, the astral aspect, is squeezed out, and to the extent that the etheric body is compressed, the physical body is also strained. Frosty tensions arise within it. It is, so to speak, like squeezing out a sponge. The astral body, so to speak, makes room for itself, is squeezed out, pressed out. The processes in the astral body are now emotional experiences—experiences of pleasure and displeasure, of joy and pain, and so on. It is this process of being squeezed out that manifests itself within us as a sense of life—as a sense of freedom, for example, as a sense of strength, as a sense of weariness,

[ 3 ] Now let us ascend to the second sense. We have identified the sense of self-movement as the second sense. Here, too, something is at work in the human etheric body that we do not yet consciously possess. And once again, we can use the analogy of the sponge. For here, too, the etheric body is saturated and permeated like a sponge by water, and what now permeates and flows through it is the life spirit or the buddhi, which it will one day develop from within itself. Today, of course, this is given to us, as it were, provisionally from the spiritual world. Budhi, or the life spirit, acts differently than the spiritual human being. It acts in such a way that a balance, like that found in still water, is established within the astral body. The balance in the etheric body and then in the physical body results in a state of equilibrium within the astral body. When this equilibrium is disturbed from the outside, it seeks to restore itself. When we perform a movement, that which has become unbalanced is restored to equilibrium. If, for example, we extend our hand, an astral current flows back in the opposite direction of the extended hand, and this is the case with all movements in our organism. Whenever a change occurs in a physical posture, an astral current moves in the opposite direction within the organism. This is the case with blinking, and it is the case with moving the legs. In this inwardly experienced process of balancing within the astral body, the sense of self-movement reveals itself.

[ 4 ] We now come to a third element that can permeate the human etheric body. This third element is also something that humans already possess to some extent today, but have brought into their consciousness only to a very small degree, namely Manas, or the mental self. But because it is the human being’s earthly task to develop this Manas, it is understandable that it acts upon the etheric body differently than the life spirit or spiritual human, which are to be developed only in the distant future. It has an expansive effect on the etheric body, not a constricting one, and the result is that the opposite of what has been described as the “frosty” quality of the life spirit occurs. One could compare the effect of Manas on the etheric body to the influx of warmth into a room. Something like a stream of warmth pours into the etheric body when Manas enters, expanding it elastically. The result is that the astral body is now also thinned out, able to expand along with it, but without being squeezed out; it can remain within the expanding etheric body. While sensory perception in the sense of life is based on the astral body being pushed out, what has been called the sense of balance or equilibrium arises from the fact that the etheric body is expanded and, at the same time, the astral body gains more internal space. The astral body becomes less dense within itself; it becomes thinner. As a result of this thinning of the astral and etheric bodies, the physical substance is now also given the opportunity to stretch and expand in some way. Through the action of Atma, the physical body was contracted; through the action of Budhi, it was kept in balance; but through the action of Manas, the physical body is relieved, and since the etheric body also expands, it can push its particles outward at certain points. Through such pushing out, those organs—the three small semicircular canals in the ear—have also come into being, standing perpendicular to one another, corresponding to the three directions of space. They are, so to speak, expansions of the sensory matter of the physical body. Such organs arise in the most diverse ways as new formations, as wondrous structures that do not come into being through an inward drive, but rather through the cessation of external pressure—that is, as pressure diminishes and relief sets in. Because the astral body can expand further, it is able to enter into a relationship with the external world. It must establish equilibrium with this external world. If this does not happen, the person stands crookedly or even falls over. This was not an issue for the first two senses, but this sense has the task of establishing equilibrium. When we strive toward something, we must do so in whatever way we can; for example, we must strive into space in its three directions. Hence, those three semicircular canals in the ear grow perpendicular to one another in the three directions of space. If these organs are injured, the sense of balance ceases to function, and the person experiences dizziness, fainting spells, and the like. When it comes to animals, the situation is such that they descended into physical matter too early, so that physical matter has hardened even more within them. Stone-like formations, the otoliths, actually develop. They are positioned in such a way that balance can be measured and perceived through them.

[ 5 ] We have thus discussed, so to speak, moving from the inside out, three senses. The last sense lies right on the boundary between what a person experiences internally and what they must experience in order to integrate themselves into the external world. Recently, external science, which is bound to sensory facts, has, so to speak, been forced to finally acknowledge these three areas of our sensory organization. In doing so, we must make a sharp distinction, as we always do here, between what is the actual result of research and the opinions currently held by the collective mind of scholars with their inadequate thinking. It has shown precisely in this area how it is bound to err if it lacks the guide that leads through the labyrinth, for it is precisely here that the problem lies most severely. Thus, these structures, which constitute a human sensory organ, have been compared to certain organs in the plant kingdom, where a kind of balance is also brought about by the rearrangement of such particles when the plants lean. But because the modern thinker is generally abandoned by logic whenever he ought to have a correct view of things, he has arrived at the strange conclusion that plants, too, possess a sense of balance. Such logic, however, is based on the standpoint that I have often characterized and cited through an analogy. Because a certain plant, when any insect approaches it, draws its leaves together to catch it, one says in this superficial way that one must speak of a corresponding sense in the plant. I know, however, a device that can do this in a far more excellent way; it even goes so far as to lure the small animals in and snap them up—namely, the mousetrap. With the same justification by which one applies what is said of human senses to plants, it could also be applied to the mousetrap. We could just as foolishly apply this to the scale with its balance and speak of a sense of balance in the scale. Such absurdities stem from insufficient thinking that cannot expand sufficiently, that cannot properly penetrate the essence of the matter. .

[ 6 ] Thus we have three senses over which science today, in a certain sense, spreads its tentacles; yet it will only learn to master them when it finds the thread of spiritual science and is able to apply it. Only then will it truly comprehend the structure of the human organism as it really is, precisely under the influence of the interactions that have been described. For this, however, it is necessary to be able to observe and grasp the whole human being from within through spiritual science.

[ 7 ] We now turn to the sense of smell. This may raise the question: Why is what science calls the sense of touch—and what is usually discussed most extensively—being left out? — Given the limited number of lectures that can be given on this entire subject, some topics must be covered rather quickly, and some things may therefore sound somewhat paradoxical. The sense of touch was omitted because, as it is usually described, it is an invention, a figment of the imagination of physiology. It does not exist as such, for one can designate a whole range of senses as those of touch. But one cannot speak of a true sense of touch. What, then, is happening when one touches? Suppose one touches an object. What is happening there is actually entirely a matter of the sense of balance. When one presses a part of the body, the balance in that part of the body is disturbed, and nothing else is happening other than what occurs within the sense of balance. The same is true when one presses on a table, strokes a velvet surface, or pulls on a rope. There are only changes in equilibrium within ourselves when pressure, pulling, or stroking, and so on, occur as tactile processes. The sense of touch must always be sought where the sense of equilibrium is at work.

[ 8 ] The most erroneous views regarding the sense of touch exist in science. People speak of pressure without delving further into the nature of this phenomenon. For the average person, pressure is something they do not question further. But for those who view the matter from a spiritual-scientific perspective, pressure is linked to the question: What kind of disturbance in equilibrium arises in the organism, and what kind of compensation is consequently necessary in the astral body? — Just how this sense of pressure, which would be part of the sense of touch, is misunderstood can be seen from the fact that people ask: Why aren’t people crushed by the immense atmospheric pressure bearing down on them? — If the situation with external pressure were as described, an immense pressure would be exerted on our bodies. An inquisitive boy might then ask about this in physics class, and he would be told that pressure and counterpressure, which acts from the inside out, are equal in our bodies and cancel each other out. People, they say, are just as filled with air on the inside, and the result is an equally great outward pressure, so that the two equally strong, oppositely directed pressure forces balance each other out. Equilibrium is established, and a person cannot be crushed. But if the boy in question is a bright one, he will raise an objection and say: I have often dived deep into the water and been completely surrounded by water, yet I have not been crushed, even though I was not filled with water inside my body; otherwise I would have drowned! — Herein lies the absurdity of where things lead when we interpret them purely from an external, materialistic perspective. In truth, it is an eminently spiritual process when pressure is exerted upon us. This leads right into our astral body when disturbances in the balance must be compensated for. When pressure is exerted upon us, the balance shifts; we push the astral body into the compressed part and thus restore the disturbed balance—indeed, we even allow it to protrude slightly beyond it. Astrally speaking, there is always a small bulge where pressure is applied. This balancing, purely astral effect is so strong that it is able to overcome the entire external air pressure from within. Here, the spirit is literally tangible; one simply does not notice it.

[ 9 ] But what happens with the sense of smell? Here, the human organism is affected by something that is already closer to our consciousness, namely the consciousness-soul itself. What is called the consciousness-soul in spiritual science comes into play when we smell. It causes, at a specific point in the organism, not merely an expansion or dilution, but rather that the astral body sends its effect outward from this point, and this effect thus extends beyond the organism. While, during the act of smelling, the gaseous substance penetrates the mucous membrane of the nose, the astral substance pushes outward to the same extent. When we smell, this astral substance always leaves the organism, plunges into the object, and experiences something not only within itself but within this object—which we name and experience as a pleasant aroma, fragrance, stench, or the like. It is like a sensory organ of the astral body, brought about by the conscious soul.

[ 10 ] The sense of taste functions in its own way because, within it, the etheric body is influenced by the intellectual or emotional soul. This soul channels astral currents outward through the organ of taste and directs them toward the substances on the tongue. What takes place in the astral body during the act of smelling is of a very special nature. What, then, flows out of the astral body when we smell? It is nothing other than a volitional force. What we feel inwardly as a volitional impulse surges forth to meet the incoming substance when we smell. The process of smelling is a form of resistance, a desire to repel the inflowing substance. Spiritual research can say that this inflowing substance is not merely an air-like substance—that is merely Maya, illusion—but rather it is will flowing in from the outside. A play of will-forces takes place during the act of smelling. The consequence of this is, as someone once intuited, that here will from within and will from without fight and inhibit one another. On this intuition, that person—it is Schopenhauer—founded a philosophy of the will. But this is a false metaphysics. What Schopenhauer says there about those forces of the will actually applies only to the sense of smell; everything else is simply read into it.

[ 11 ] Just as what pours out in the sense of smell is volitional in nature, so too in the sense of taste, what flows out toward the food is of a sensory nature, and what flows in is also of a sensory nature. Here, in the act of tasting, sensation thus interacts with sensation. Everything else about it is merely Maya, merely an external sign. Here, an affective effect manifests as a sense: namely, tasting is perceived as pleasant, unpleasant, disagreeable, and so on. However, one is not dealing with the feeling itself here, but only with corresponding interactions of feelings.

[ 12 ] The next sense is the sense of sight. Here, what now works upon the etheric body and pours into it is the sensory soul. The process here is of a thought-like nature. A thinking principle prevails there. The feeling soul already possesses within itself what becomes conscious in the conscious soul; however, the thought is still subconscious within it. It is a thinking within the feeling soul that flows out through the eyes. Here, then, true thought substance flows out. It has far greater elasticity than the other two substances that flow out in the sense of smell and taste, and therefore it also reaches much farther. The fact is that astral substance truly flows out from the human being and flows toward things. It is not that etheric waves of light enter the eye, which then projects the received image outward! There would have to be someone sitting inside doing this work of projection. This would be a horribly superstitious notion, this “something” that is projecting. Science, which is so proud of its naturalism, in this particular case allows itself to be aided in a grotesque way by the much-maligned imagination. So an astral substance flows toward the object as a substance of thought and penetrates until it encounters resistance somewhere in the distance and is opposed by another astral substance. The conflict between astral forces taking place out there forms the color we perceive in things. Color arises at the boundary of things, where the astral emanating from the human being meets the astral of things. Color arises at the boundary between the outer and inner astral.

[ 13 ] It is very curious when one considers, for example, that there is actually already a form of thinking present subconsciously in the sensory soul, which only comes to light in the intellectual soul and only becomes conscious to us in the conscious soul. What in fact appears as two impressions when we look at things with both eyes is brought about by a mental process that does not initially enter consciousness. For this to enter consciousness, both mental processes must work together; they must make their way up from the soul of sensation into the soul of consciousness. We can illustrate this path well again with a parable: Here are the two hands. Each hand can feel on its own, but only when the two hands cross do we become aware of the sensation that one hand feels the other, just as an external object is only brought into real consciousness through touch. If the impressions gained through thought work in the sensory soul are to enter human consciousness, they must be crossed. In the case of vision, this is the result of the two optic nerves crossing in the brain. The reason for this crossing of the optic nerves is that a thought process carried out in the subconscious, in the sensory soul, is raised into the conscious soul through the crossing, in that one process can now be perceived by the other. Thus the physical is built up from the spiritual, and it is only through anthroposophy that the human being can be understood down to the finest anatomical details.

[ 14 ] Next comes the sense of warmth. Here, too, there is something that conveys the sense of warmth through its effect on the human being. This is the sensory body itself, which brings its astral substance into play and allows it to flow outward when a sensation of warmth is to occur. This occurs when a person is truly able to send their astral substance outward without being hindered. In the bath, we do not feel warmed if the water is just as warm as we are—that is, when there is equilibrium between us and our surroundings and nothing is absorbed by us. Only when warmth flows out from us or can flow into us do we perceive warmth or cold. If the external environment is lacking in warmth, we allow warmth to flow out into it. If we are lacking in warmth, we allow warmth to flow into us. Here again it is evident that a flow out and a flow in are taking place. When there is equilibrium between the outside and the inside, however, the heat is not felt. The experience of heat always has to do with the activity of the human sensory body. When we touch an object that is becoming warmer and warmer, this body will radiate more and more intensely. We are increasingly pressed by what wants to enter, and the sensory body must then radiate correspondingly more. But this only goes so far. When it is no longer possible to let energy radiate out from the sensory body, we can no longer endure the heat and we burn ourselves. It should also be the case that we feel a burning sensation every time we can no longer radiate substance from our sensory body when touching something very cold. If we touch a very cold object that prevents us from radiating substance from the sensory body—because it gives nothing back to us—then the excessive cold also appears to us as a burning sensation and causes blisters. Both are based on the same effect.

[ 15 ] We now turn to the realm we refer to as that of the sense of hearing. The human etheric body is involved here. However, this etheric body, as humans possess it today, is incapable of truly giving anything away without causing us permanent loss, as the sensory body is still able to do. The etheric body has been formed in such a way since Atlantean times that it can no longer give anything away, for the human being would then have to forgo that in his life force. It must therefore happen in a completely different way if a hearing effect is to come about. Here, then, the human being can no longer give anything away. Of his own accord, man cannot develop a higher sense than the sense of warmth. If something that man himself does not possess were not to enter into him, no sense of hearing could come about. Man must therefore be permeated by beings who make their own substance available to him. Hence, the human organism is permeated by beings who penetrate it like a sponge. These are the beings we call angels, who have already passed through the human stage in the past. They send their astral substance into us humans as a foreign astral substance, which the human being appropriates and allows to work within and radiate from them. It flows through the ears toward what is conveyed to us through sound. As it were, on the wings of these beings we step into that inner realm which we learn to recognize as the soul of things. Here, then, we are dealing with beings who stand above the human being, who fill the human being, but who are of the same nature as his own astral substance.

[ 16 ] But there is also a higher meaning, namely the linguistic, verbal, or phonetic meaning. Where this comes into play, human beings again have nothing they can contribute of their own accord. Therefore, beings must intervene here whose substance is similar to that of which the human etheric body is composed. They naturally possess the corresponding astral substance as well; however, this is pushed out into the environment in this process. They must enter into human beings; they give their etheric body, and this power can then be radiated back out into the surroundings by the human being. These are the Archangeloi, the Archangels. They play a very different role from the angels. They ensure that the human being can not only hear the sound but also experience it with understanding. They enable the human being not only to hear a tone, a G or a C-sharp, but also, when hearing a sound, to experience something within it—namely, the inner essence of the sound; so that, for example, they perceive an A in terms of its sound quality. These beings are nothing other than what are also called folk spirits, the spirits of the individual national identities. While in the sense of hearing the angels express their work externally through effects on the air—by acting upon the air in the ear—the archangels counteract what happens in the air outside with other effects. Through them, effects on the vital fluids are brought about, similar to the effect in an aqueous substance. Through what they effect, the circulation of the humors is directed in a certain direction. That, for example, a person perceives the corresponding sense of the sound in A is also brought about by the finer humors. The external expression of this work lies in the formation of national physiognomies, the particular expression of the human organism insofar as it belongs to a particular people. It is within this that these beings work in particular. Therefore, we can say that the fluids flow differently in a human being and the entire organism functions differently, depending on whether that archangelic being imparts this or that as the meaning of the sound to the people to whom it belongs. If, for example, a people says “Aham”—“I” in Sanskrit—for the self, whatever other theories they may have about the human self, these theories play no role; but the two A’s in succession provide an original organization, and the member of this people must have a sense of the self that corresponds to these two successive A’s. If a people combines “I” with “ch,” a completely different effect occurs. Such a people must have a different conception of the “I.” In the “I” lies a particular nuance, a particular coloring; it is what the national spirit instills in the organism with regard to the conception of the “I”:

[ 17 ] There is also a significant difference between whether something is denoted by the sequence of A and O or by I and E. The entire national sentiment must change accordingly. “Amor,” for example, has a different emotional nuance than when “Liebe” is said. Here one typically sees the national spirit at work. It is not insignificant that, for example, the word “Adam” is used by the Israelites to refer to the first human form, but in ancient Persia to refer to the self. It is precisely these very different emotional values that are thus evoked in the various peoples. We have here hinted at the mystery of language, or rather its first elements.

[ 18 ] This refers to the influence of spirits who occupy the level of the archangels in the hierarchical order and who permeate human beings with what constitutes the essence of sound, causing its watery substance to vibrate. It is also one of the greatest experiences for the human being ascending to the supersensible when he begins to feel what a difference there is in the formative power of sounds. The power of sound manifests its most exquisite effect in the watery element, while the power of tone manifests it in the air.

[ 19 ] Then one can also sense the significance of why someone might feel compelled to refer to a being by the name “Eve.” If the person in question wishes to express something else that relates to this in the same way that the spiritual relates to the sensory, they could use its mirror image and thus obtain “Ave” as a sequence of syllables for the greeting to Mary. This produces a feeling in the human organism that is the opposite of what is felt when one says “Eva.”

[ 20 ] Yet another inversion of “Eva” would be the word “Yahweh,” with the “Y” at the beginning, as the name for God in the Old Testament. Anyone who delves into the sound can discern all the connections between Yahweh and Eva as they progress toward higher insights.

[ 21 ] Language did not arise by chance; it is a product of the mind. To perceive it in its true nature, we have the sense of sound, which has the same legitimacy within the entire system of the senses as the other senses. And there are deeper reasons why the senses must be listed in precisely this order.

[ 22 ] Next time, we will move on to the concept of meaning and the higher senses, so that we can then explain the microcosm from a spiritual-scientific perspective.