The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Third Lecture

[ 1 ] From yesterday’s lecture, we saw how the human physical body is connected to what we call our sensory world. We have seen that the human physical body is, so to speak, made of the same substance that we find in the external sensory world and that appeared to us yesterday as will. So that we can say: In the external sensory world we have active will, and in the human physical body, too, we have—in truth—active will. And in this respect, the human physical body is indeed also a part of the external sensory world. Behind the sensory world, we have found the world of becoming and passing away, and within it we have found, as its true form, that which we can call ruling wisdom. And from this substance of ruling wisdom is in fact formed, in turn, what we call the human etheric body. Now, embedded within this human etheric body and physical body is what we call the astral body and the ego, for the whole human being, as he appears to us on Earth, is a composite, a lawful composite of physical body, etheric body, astral body, and ego.

[ 2 ] We must insert here a consideration that might, let us say, be somewhat difficult for today’s session, but which, once made, leads us extraordinarily deeply into an understanding of the world and, in particular, of the human being as such. We can assume from the outset that the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the I must be united in a certain way. Now, anyone who, on the basis of developed clairvoyance, can engage in a consideration of this interconnection of the four members of human nature will, when viewing the human being as he actually is in the world, gain the impression—we shall see how important it is to take this impression into account—that these four members of human nature are, in fact, irregularly connected. In modern human beings, they are joined in such a way that one must say: Some disorder must have crept into this arrangement at some point. — So, to be clear, the following must be said: By examining the four members of the human being, one gains the impression that they do not actually fit together as they ought to, but rather fit together in a disorderly manner; disorder has crept in. This is the impression one receives. And you can, precisely when this point is touched upon by the mysteries of life, see once again what infinite depths the correctly understood occult religious texts contain.

[ 3 ] We will gradually see that what is meant by this disorder is wonderfully expressed in the Bible through the words Lucifer speaks to man when he seeks to tempt and seduce him: “Your eyes will be opened, and you will know good and evil.” — There is something tremendously profound in these words. It does not merely mean: Your eyes shall be opened. Here, the eyes stand as representatives of the senses in general. If we understand Lucifer’s words correctly, we can translate them as follows: All your senses will function differently than they actually should if you would only follow the gods and not me—namely, Lucifer. Through Lucifer’s influence, the senses function, so to speak, in a different way than they otherwise would. Yes, it is indeed extraordinarily difficult for modern people to create a mental image of how these senses function, and I will have to say some rather grotesque things if I am to make clear to you how these senses would actually function had it not been for the disorder introduced by Lucifer into the composition of the four members of human nature. One must speak in grotesque terms for the simple reason that people, being as they are, cannot conceive that anything other than what they currently experience could actually have been right from the very beginning. What could be more natural and self-evident to modern people than that, when one asks the question: “What are human eyes actually for?”—they answer: “Well, of course, for seeing.” And one could say that, in a certain sense, a person has the right to think you’re a fool if you tell them: “The eyes aren’t for seeing!” In reality, from the very beginning of Earth’s development, human eyes were never meant to be for seeing. They only came to see as they do today through Lucifer’s seduction. Namely, what is actually human vision should not penetrate the eye and go outward to the so-called things, but should actually only reach as far as the eye, and human beings should actually, in every act of seeing, in every activity of vision—if things had gone according to the original intentions of the gods, so to speak— he should actually become truly conscious of his eye itself in every act of seeing; that is to say, he should not see an external thing, but should actually perceive his eye. He should become conscious of the activity taking place in the eye as such, whereas today he is not conscious of the activity of seeing, but only becomes conscious of what happens through the activity of the eye: He becomes aware of what confronts him as an external object. But human beings should become caught up in their own seeing much earlier than only at the point of the object: they should already become aware of it in the eye itself. They should feel the activity of the eye as such.

[ 4 ] In fact, people today can hardly do this with their eyes unless they have undergone a special occult development. A person can do this with their hand; for a person can at least distinguish whether they are grasping an object with their hand or whether they are merely moving their hand freely, without purpose, so that they become aware only of the hand’s own activity. If a person directs their vision solely toward the eye, well, then they see nothing. This is the case with people today; but that was not the original intention. Rather, it was intended that when a person considers their eye or their ear—in short, any sense organ—and perceives the ruling will, they should truly be immersed in that ruling will and recognize it in the peculiar way it touches their eye. It should be just as with the hand as it is with the eye. When you grasp something, you feel that the object is hard if you can hardly overcome its resistance, and that it is soft if you can easily overcome its hardness. But you are actually feeling what you are doing with your hand. So it would be with the eye as well. One would only feel the eye—perceive the eye, so to speak, directly as connected to the ruling will—if the etheric body were properly integrated into the physical body.

[ 5 ] Now, the etheric body is not properly integrated into the physical body. The peculiar thing is that the etheric body is not properly integrated into the physical body. But this is only one example of the disorder that exists within the human being. In fact, no part of the human being is properly integrated into the other bodies; rather, everything within the human being is, so to speak, in disarray. If the Luciferic influence had not occurred at the outset of Earth’s development, then the integration of the four members of the human being would have been entirely different. And this is what we wish to make clear today: that something quite special has come about through the disorder that arose due to the Luciferic influence in the integration of the four members of human nature.

[ 6 ] Let us clarify this in the following way. I will first express the matter schematically; I will make do with a schematic representation. Let us first consider the relationship between the physical body and the etheric body embedded within it. If the etheric body were to be poured into the physical body in a completely regular manner, as was originally intended by the guiding gods, then the human being would experience something all around them—yes, we have difficulty finding words for these things, because they are not really tangible—like a continuous trickle of active will. Human beings would perceive differentiated, ruling will everywhere, and they would perceive a certain difference in the effects of this will depending on whether they direct the organs of their eyes, ears, and the like toward the world. These organs, in their diversity, would merely give them the opportunity to experience the will in different ways, but human beings would sense this trickling will everywhere. This would happen if, as mentioned, the etheric body were properly integrated into the physical body, as intended by the guiding gods. But that is not the case; rather, the etheric body is not fully present within the human physical body, so that it has, so to speak, left a part of itself behind in the physical body; that is, it does not completely permeate this physical body, but the physical body, in a certain sense, has a preponderance of its own activity that it should not have. There are thus, so to speak, places in the human physical body that are not completely permeated by the etheric body as they should be, according to the original intention of the divine-spiritual beings guiding the development of the Earth. And these places, where the physical body is not properly permeated by the etheric body, are those where the sense organs develop. And because this has come to pass, the sense organs have their present form. Hence, in every sense organ, we find this most remarkable phenomenon: purely physical effects occur there that are, so to speak, excluded from the general life forces.

[ 7 ] Just imagine that you have something in your eye that can be compared to the purely physical effects of a darkroom or a camera. It is as if a part of the physical body had been removed from its general interpenetration with the etheric body. That is indeed the case. The same applies to the peculiar inner ear, where there is something like a keyboard in the labyrinth of the ear. The etheric body has, as it were, been pushed back, and there are physical processes within the physical body that are not permeated in the usual way by the etheric body, and this gives rise to what we call sensory perceptions. Colors are experienced because the etheric body does not permeate the organ of sight in the usual way, and because purely physical effects are enclosed within the organism. And so it is with all the senses that a predominance of the physical body over the etheric body takes place. So that we can say: We are dealing, first of all, with the peculiarity that we can call, in the relationship between the physical and etheric bodies, a predominance of the physical body over the etheric body. If this predominance of the physical body were not present, then the entire sensory world spread out around us, as it is today, would not exist; rather, the human being would be connected to the surrounding world in such a way that he would perceive everything as a trickling, surging, and reigning will. If such a predominance of the physical body over the etheric body were not the case, he would not feel passive at all, but active, just as he feels active when he extends his hand. This is therefore an extraordinarily interesting fact that truly emerges from a higher, occult observation of the human being: that the entire sensory world is based on the fact that the etheric body has, as it were, been pushed back from the sense organs, and that something has been lodged there that is the mere physical world within us.

[ 8 ] Now we come, secondly, to the relationship between the etheric body and the astral body. It is not, however, the case that the astral body properly permeates the etheric body; rather, there is again a predominance of the etheric body over the astral body in human nature. One can very quickly discern this predominance of the etheric body over the astral body with even a slight degree of clairvoyance. It doesn’t take much at all: namely, if such a predominance did not exist, among many other things, a human being would never be able to cry. He could not cry. Immediately, when one observes a person crying—a person who secretes this peculiar salty fluid from the lacrimal glands—one notices that in this case there is excessive activity of the etheric body in relation to the activity of the astral body. Human beings cannot fully live out what they experience astral-ly within their etheric body; the etheric body has a preponderance over the astral body, and this preponderance is expressed in that the etheric body acts back upon the physical body and squeezes tears out of it. But this is the case with all glandular secretion, with all that constitutes glandular secretion processes in the human being. All of these are based on a predominance of the etheric body over the astral body. And this predominance, this disturbed equilibrium, expresses itself in its extension to the physical body in such a way that all the secretions of the glands take place. Otherwise, no secretion would take place in glandular activity; rather, the activity of the astral body, if it were to coincide with the etheric body, would be exhausted in the inner mobility and inner activity of the glands. The glands would not squeeze anything out of themselves, but would be exhausted within themselves. No squeezing out of matter would take place. So you see that the consequences of the Luciferic temptation reveal themselves quite powerfully to occult observation. For example, if Lucifer had not entered the world order, human beings would never sweat—forgive the harsh expression—but there would be, corresponding to the activity taking place there, an activity and movement that exhausts itself internally, within the organs in question; nothing would penetrate outward from the gland. So that we can say: Secondly, we have a predominance of the etheric body over the astral body.

[ 9 ] If we derive the distinctive nature of our sensory world from the first predominance—by saying: The predominance of the physical body over the etheric body is actually what gives rise to the distinctive appearance of our sensory world—then we can say: That which is the predominance of the etheric body over the astral body brings about what we might call our emotional self-perception. For the overall sensation, the overall state of being of the human being, insofar as it is expressed in the physical state of being, comes about through this predominance of the etheric body over the astral body. Thus, the purely physical state, the overall physical sensation, is what subjectively expresses this predominance.

[ 10 ] If we now wish to continue our examination, we must not proceed schematically. For, wouldn’t you agree, anyone who were to proceed schematically now would have it easy; they would say: Well, he has constructed a predominance of the physical body over the etheric body, then a predominance of the etheric body over the astral body; now, as a third step, there would be a predominance of the astral body over the I. That would mean setting up a schema based on purely intellectual principles, but it leads nowhere. We must not continue the consideration in this way. The fact is that when one receives information about occult facts and then tries to continue it schematically through the intellect, the reality always turns out differently. It is not possible to continue with the intellect; it works for a while, but then things turn out differently again. Namely, one must now assume, as a third factor, a reversed preponderance—a preponderance of the astral body over the etheric body. Now, as a third factor, the relationship of the astral body to the etheric body must once again be taken into account, and then, for occult observation, a preponderance of the astral body over the etheric body emerges again.

[ 11 ] This predominance is, in fact, the most important aspect when it comes to observing human beings. For you see, if you consider human beings in the most basic sense—that is, I would say in a very materialistic way, then human beings might actually appear to you as they are truly described in some materialistic books: as a rather large digestive apparatus, as an apparatus that eats and digests and builds up its body from the substances it has taken in through eating and which it has processed in various ways, and so on. In fact, in materialistic worldviews, you will find humans depicted hardly any differently than as a large digestive and eating apparatus—that is, an apparatus that takes in substances from the outside and processes them internally, distributing them in various ways to the muscles, bones, tendons, and so on. If one considers the human being in broad terms, if one disregards what the human being is insofar as he perceives a sensory world, insofar as he perceives certain glandular secretions within a general bodily sensation, and in general, if one looks only at the gross aspects of food intake, at what happens to the substances from their intake through the mouth to their processing into blood and the circulation of this blood — if one considers what the human being is in a general sense, this is the material process that is ultimately the physical expression of the predominance of the astral body over the etheric body. Namely, you will recall that when we view the world spiritually at all, we must see a spiritual aspect behind every sensory aspect. The sensory is actually only the outer appearance. Behind all these gross processes of food intake and digestion, we must see, as spiritual forces, the predominance of the astral body over the etheric body. So that we can say: This predominance of the astral body over the etheric body is expressed in the normal organic life processes, insofar as these are physical; that is, in the normal physical-organic life processes.

[ 12 ] Yes, you see, we have discovered something peculiar here. I ask you to consider this peculiarity carefully. You must realize: What materialism often regards as the whole human being—that which is actually the primary concern of the vast majority of people—namely, taking in food and transporting the nutrients to the various organs of the body—exists solely because the Luciferic influence once brought about a shift that caused the astral body to predominate over the etheric body. That is to say, if Lucifer had not existed at the beginning of human development and had not shifted the astral and etheric bodies in the manner described, human beings would not eat, digest, and process substances in the way they do today. So what is regarded as the primary material aspect of human beings is a purely Luciferic act; it is nothing other than the product of a shift between the astral body and the etheric body, such that the astral body gained some activity through Lucifer, thereby gaining a predominance over the etheric body. This is what Lucifer gave him, and it is precisely through this that human beings came to consume coarse food in the first place. Human beings were not at all intended to consume coarse food, but were meant to develop a mode of existence, a stage of existence, on which they would have no need to consume coarse food at all.

[ 13 ] This fact is wonderfully expressed by the fact that Lucifer’s temptation brought about what we might call the expulsion from Paradise. For to be in Paradise means nothing other than to be a spiritual being and to have no need to consume physical food or to process it within oneself. This is the expulsion from Paradise, which appears to the vast majority of materialistically minded people as the highest pleasure. Human beings have not only been punished by having to, so to speak, consume and process food, but they have been doubly punished because what appeared to the first humans in the symbols of the Bible as the greatest loss—that they had to leave Paradise and consume physical food—has become the greatest pleasure for the vast majority of people. Humans have changed so much that even being outside of Paradise has become the greatest pleasure for them. It is indeed strange that one must make these things clear to oneself, but one must.

[ 14 ] Finally, we come to a fourth point. This concerns the relationship between the ego and the astral body, and here, as a result of the Luciferic shift, the ego comes to dominate the activity of the astral body. You see what we lack: we do not have an actual dominance of the astral body over the ego. That is simply not present. One must not construct this schematically, but must proceed on the basis of observation and know that the relationship between the astral body and the etheric body exists in two forms, and here only in such a way that we have a predominance of the ego over the astral body. This means that the ego does not relate to the astral body as was originally intended before the Luciferic influence took hold, but that it has become more egoistic, more self-centered than it should have been. It has become more egoistic, more self-centered than it should have been. This happened through the Luciferic influence. What actually happened there that this predominance took place—which is the fourth point in what we have mentioned—what actually happened there? We must now consider what the proper relationship between the ego and the astral body would be.

[ 15 ] This proper relationship, however, can only be recognized by restoring it, so to speak. For just as human beings are in the world today—that is, just as they are subject to Luciferic influence—the relationship between the ego and the astral body is not a proper one; rather, there is a preponderance of the ego. Human beings are more “ego-centric” than they ought to be—please forgive the neologism, but it is quite apt. For we have already made the observation that leads us to how the ego ought actually to be. The ego becomes what it is when a regular relationship exists, as the human being, through wise, energetic, and patient self-discipline, appropriates the things that have been named as wonder, as a feeling of reverence for what has been explored, as a feeling of wise harmony with world phenomena, and as resignation. Just as the ego then stands in relation to the astral body, so it makes the impression on our unbiased observation: Now the ego stands correctly; now the ego has undone what had come about through the Luciferic influence. Only by developing these four mentioned qualities of the soul to the highest degree can one re-establish the original relationship. And how, then, does the ego relate to the astral body? Yes, you see, that is precisely the peculiarity. You can already glean this if you follow certain chapters from the book How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds with attention: In the state in which human beings are today, they are actually constantly intimately interwoven with their thinking, feeling, and willing. It is hardly easy, is it not, to find a state in outer consciousness where a person is actually merely in their ego, where they are not interwoven with thinking, feeling, and willing. Just try for a moment to grasp the pure thought of the ego. Our anthroposophical friends are almost gasping for breath from the effort of grasping the pure thought of the “I” whenever Dr. Unger repeatedly demands that we actually think this pure thought of the “I,” apart from all our thinking, feeling, and willing. It is a veritable “losing one’s breath,” as they say in Northern Germany.

[ 16 ] From this you can see the difficulty of arriving at this “I” merely as a thought, let alone truly isolating it from this thinking, feeling, and willing. When a person is in this ordinary state of mind, these expressions of thought, feeling, and will rush through the soul; so do the desires. There, the “I” is never separated from thinking, feeling, and willing. But that is precisely what is achieved through the four states described: to be able to stand outside of thinking, feeling, and willing and to view them as something external to us. Our own thoughts must become as indifferent to us as objects outside of us—not when we no longer say: “I think,” but rather when our thinking appears to us as a process unfolding that actually has nothing to do with us. And the same must be true of feeling and willing. Every person who reflects even a little on the peculiarities of their soul must say to themselves: One can form a mental image of such a thing as an ideal, as an ideal that is attainable. But in reality, the human being is so intertwined with his thinking, feeling, and willing that it is extremely difficult for him to extricate himself, and it becomes hard for him to go through the world with the attitude: “Here I am going through the world, and now I am always carrying along a second companion with me, who clings to me because I am fused with him, but who appears to me like a kind of doppelgänger.” There it thinks, feels, and wills beside me. Yet I am someone else; I am what I am in my self; I walk alongside what I carry with me like a trinity, like three sacks, one of which is filled with my thinking, another with my feeling, and the third with my willing. But until one has come to the practice of this “three-sack theory,” one cannot form a proper concept of the opposition of the “I” to thinking, feeling, and willing, as was originally intended by the divine beings before the Luciferic influence reached humanity. Humanity was destined to be a spectator of itself, not to experience itself from within.

[ 17 ] What, then, was the actual temptation, the original temptation? Let’s put it as simply as possible: it consisted in the fact that Lucifer—I’ll translate a little here—approached this human ego, which man was supposed to have received in its purity alongside the astral body that had already been given to him on the Moon, and said: Look here, human, it’s boring to just wander around with this single focal point, “I am,” and merely observe everything else. It’s much more entertaining if you dive into your astral body. I will give you the strength to dive into your astral body, so that you do not remain one-sidedly with your ego, merely gazing at your double, but instead dive into it. And whatever might befall you as you dive into your astral body—which would feel like drowning—I will compensate for by giving you some of my strength. — Then the ego plunged in, and so that it would not drown, it was imbued with the Luciferic power. And what the human being has taken in of Luciferic power is the excess of the ego over the astral body; that is the greater egoism, which is actually a Luciferic quality.

[ 18 ] And what is it really, how does it manifest itself in our lives? Well, first of all, this Luciferic quality, this excessive egotism, manifests itself in our lives through the fact that we are, so to speak, intertwined—first with our thoughts, then also with our feelings and impulses of will. First with our thoughts. Yes, you see, human beings would never—forgive me for using an expression that may seem crazy to the outside world, but is significant—have come up with the convoluted idea that they possess reason within themselves, that they harbor thoughts within themselves, if Lucifer had not approached them with this; rather, they would have known that thoughts are outside of them, that they must therefore observe thinking. Humanity would have continued to observe until the thought was given, until it was revealed what is meant by thinking. This is illustrated, for example, in my Philosophy of Freedom. Humanity would not have come up with the idea: You are to piece together all manner of thoughts; you are to judge within yourself. Judging within oneself, independent of all revelation, is a Luciferic entity within us. Thus, the whole of reason, insofar as humanity regards it as its own characteristic, is actually an error; it is merely through Luciferic seduction that the idea entered into humanity that it should possess reason. And now you will understand that, in a certain sense, this reason has also arisen through a shift, that this reason can by no means be established as the decisive factor for all human apprehension of reality.

[ 19 ] In Karlsruhe, I pointed out that it seems quite understandable for a person who relies on reason to say: Yes, if I want to comprehend the Resurrection within the mystery of Golgotha, then I simply have to set my reason aside. For everything reason tells us contradicts the Resurrection. This is what the person of the nineteenth century says; this is what even the theologian says, insofar as he is a liberal “theologian” in the nineteenth century. But how can he possibly expect that the Mystery of Golgotha—that something which is precisely not an act intertwined with the Luciferic, which lies entirely outside the sphere of Lucifer, which has come to overcome the sphere of the Luciferic—that this should be understood through what comes to him via Lucifer, namely through his own reason! Nothing is more self-evident than that one can never comprehend these things with one’s own reason. For reason is a Luciferic gift and is not suited to comprehending things that are not connected with the workings of Lucifer. That is the deeper connection of this matter. If the Mystery of Golgotha were comprehensible through human reason, then, my dear friends, it would not have needed to happen at all; then this Mystery of Golgotha would be entirely unnecessary. For it is there precisely to counteract the shift brought about by the Luciferic influence, that is, precisely to cure humanity of this peculiar presumption, of this peculiar arrogance of reason, which manifests itself in the fact that human beings wish to comprehend everything through their reason. This is the point at which one must understand how limited reason as such actually is. I have often protested that human knowledge is limited; but reason as such is limited.

[ 20 ] If you now look at this table that has emerged here, you will say: It reveals the true source of the original disorder. What, then, must have been the first disorder in the Luciferic temptation? Obviously, the one we call: the dominance of the ego over the astral body.

[ 21 ] All Luciferic influence stemmed from the fact that Luciferic power was added to the ego, that this ego became impurely mingled with thinking, feeling, and willing, and then gained the upper hand over the astral body. As a result, the astral body in turn regained its dominance over the etheric body. And now the balance within the human being was disturbed. It is as if, you see, a blow had been struck against the astral body through the Luciferic influence; the astral body, in turn, carries this forward and asserts its dominance over the etheric body. But it does not go any further. The etheric body does not simply continue the blow. It is as if you were striking an elastic ball: with the blow, you reach a certain limit, then the ball rebounds. We can speak of the astral body’s dominance over the etheric body; then the situation reverses, and now the etheric body gains dominance over the astral body—it snaps back, shoots back again. This is the reverse dominance, here at 2. And then follows the physical body’s dominance over the etheric body. These two strike back. Why do they strike back? For the reason that, while here Lucifer has been at work to strike, from the other side in the physical body and etheric body Ahriman strikes back. So that in fact here in the middle, where on one side there is the predominance of the etheric body over the astral body and of the physical body over the etheric body, and on the other side the predominance of the astral body over the etheric body and of the ego over the astral body, Ahriman and Lucifer collide. There they come together. There is a center within the human being where Lucifer and Ahriman meet within his own being. There the human being has the opportunity either to swing along with Lucifer and drive the astral body deeper into the etheric body than is good, or else to take up the thrusting force of Ahriman and allow the etheric body to be driven deeper into the astral body than is right and proper. We are dealing with such forces. The next step will be to realize that we are actually still dealing with these forces everywhere. Namely, nowhere have we encountered—except in that one instance where the astral body predominates over the etheric body, where we observed the processing of substances, the intake of food, and its digestion—nowhere but there have we encountered a material effect. Here, so to speak, we are confronted with the necessity of investigating, from a certain point of view, the nature of what substance, or matter, actually is. And this is the question with which we will begin our discussion tomorrow.