The Rudolf Steiner Archive

11. The Cosmic Mural of the Etheric Body

[ 1 ] We have seen that changes take place in the four main members of the human being through serious anthroposophical or esoteric occult development, and you may have noticed that in our description the main emphasis has been placed on the inner transformation of these four members of human nature, on that transformation which is, so to speak, experienced inwardly. One must clearly distinguish this change, which can be experienced inwardly, from the description that can be given of the clairvoyant’s outward vision. That is, of course, something else. In actual esoteric development, it is, after all, important first of all to know what is taking place within the human being and what lies ahead when one undergoes an occult development. Interesting, though perhaps not so important, is the transformation as it becomes visible to the outer clairvoyant gaze. And here we can briefly characterize it as follows: What is perceived internally as a kind of increasing mobility and independence of the individual parts of the physical body—this is revealed to the clairvoyant gaze, which does not experience the change in the physical body from within but observes it from the outside—this is revealed by the fact that the physical body of a person engaged in occult development, as it were, divides and splits; and because it splits apart, the clairvoyant eye perceives it as moving apart.

[ 2 ] To the clairvoyant eye, the physical body of a personality advancing ever further into occult development actually grows. And one can say: When dealing with someone who is in the midst of genuine occult development, one has the impression that, if one encounters them at a certain time, what the clairvoyant eye sees as the physical body has a certain size; if one encounters them again years later, this physical body has grown, becoming significantly larger. There is, therefore, such a growth of the physical body beyond its ordinary physical size; only this is connected with the fact that this physical body becomes more shadowy. One then notices, however, that as the person in question has developed, they reveal a physical body that is growing larger and larger; but this body is, so to speak, composed of individual parts, and these individual parts present themselves to one in what is called imagination in occult life. The physical body of a personality undergoing occult development increasingly reveals itself as a sum of imaginations, of images that are, so to speak, inwardly alive and active; and these images are—or rather, are becoming—increasingly interesting, for these images are not arbitrary. At first, when the person in question is at the beginning of occult development, they are not yet particularly significant; they are least significant when the clairvoyant gaze observes the human body that has not yet undergone occult development.

[ 3 ] When one observes the human body that has not yet undergone occult development, one perceives a number of images, of imaginations. What constitutes physical matter vanishes from the clairvoyant gaze, and imaginations take its place; but these are so jumbled together that they do not reveal the friendly, inwardly radiant appearance of a person engaged in occult development, but rather appear as matter darkened within itself. But they also appear in the undeveloped human being, specifically as parts, and each part relates to something in the macrocosm. Essentially, one can distinguish twelve members. Each such member is actually a painting; a painting of a part of the great world. When one has all twelve together, one has the impression that some unknown painter has created miniature pictures of the macrocosm—twelve in number—and has formed the physical human body from them. Now, when the personality is undergoing occult development, this image becomes larger and larger, but also increasingly friendly and radiant from within. This is why: In a personality not engaged in occult development, the macrocosm is depicted only in its physical aspect; but in a personality undergoing occult development, the spiritual content also becomes increasingly evident in the images, revealing the images of the spiritual beings of the macrocosm. Thus, occult development also presents itself to us in such a way that the personality engaged in occult development increasingly transforms from a merely physical microcosm into a spiritual microcosm; that is to say, it increasingly reveals within itself not merely images of planets and suns, but of beings from the higher hierarchies. This is the difference between a person not engaged in occult development and one who is. And the higher the hierarchies revealed become, the further the human being advances in their occult development. One thus comes to know, so to speak, the structure of the world by clairvoyantly observing the physical human body.

[ 4 ] The etheric human body reveals, to a person not engaged in occult development, the course of the world—that which unfolds in time; it shows how planets and suns, or human cultures on Earth, or even individual human beings, change through their incarnations, and how they manifest themselves in the succession of becoming. The etheric body is thus actually a narrator; it narrates the course of world history. While the human physical body is like a collection of paintings by an unknown artist, the etheric body proves to be a kind of narrator that recounts world history itself through its own inner events. And the more a person is engaged in occult development, the further back these narratives extend. A person who is relatively little engaged in occult development may, to the clairvoyant eye, reveal in their etheric body a few generations that preceded them in physical inheritance; for this process of becoming is also still evident in the human etheric body. But the further a person’s occult development progresses, the more it becomes possible to see in the etheric body human cultures, individual incarnations of this or that individuality, and indeed to ascend to cosmic evolution and the participation of spirits of higher hierarchies in cosmic evolution.

[ 5 ] The human astral body is, so to speak, visible to ordinary observation only through its inner shadow image—through experiences of thought, will, and feeling; it becomes more and more an expression of what a human being is worth in the cosmos in terms of their essence. I ask that you regard this description, this portrayal, as particularly significant. The astral body of a human being engaged in occult development becomes more and more the expression of the human being’s worth in the cosmos. We have, after all, described how we arrive at the conclusion that the astral body, in its original nature, is a kind of egoist, but how occult development must overcome this by elevating personal interests to world interests. If one observes the astral body of a personality engaged in higher development, one will see in this astral body depending on whether it appears gloomy or dark, or shines brightly within; depending on whether it reveals itself in shrill, discordant tones or in harmonious, melodious sounds—one will see from this whether the person in question has guided their development in such a way that they have remained bound to the personal interests mentioned earlier, or whether they have truly made world interests their own. This is what can be observed in the astral body of a human personality in the process of higher development: that when development has proceeded in accordance with true occult morality, we see in it how wonderfully the human being is transformed by expanding the horizon of their interests from the personal to the universal human and to the general world intentions. The astral body becomes ever more radiant, ever more sun-like, as the human being learns more and more to make the general affairs of humanity and the world his own affairs.

[ 6 ] The more a person advances in their development, the more their self tends to fragment and split apart. It sends out, as it were, the contents of its consciousness; these contents of consciousness go on errands in the world. Indeed, if a person wishes, for example, to get to know a being from the hierarchy of the Angeloi, it is not enough for them to apply ordinary cognitive powers. If they truly wish to get to know it, they must be able to transfer their consciousness; that is, they must be able to separate the powers of their Self and transfer a part of their self-consciousness into the being of the entity in question from the hierarchy of the Angeloi. Whatever being we seek to know, we can only come to know it by transferring our self-consciousness into that being. This is the impulse of the self to step outside of itself, to transfer itself into the other being, and to allow that which initially lived only within oneself to continue living in the other being. At a lower stage of human development, at the level of ordinary human existence, this impulse manifests itself in a certain urge to remove one’s consciousness from within oneself; this manifests itself in the need for sleep. And that which drives the human being psychically to sleep is precisely the same impulse which, in higher development, does not lead the consciousness over into the unconscious world of sleep, but into the consciousness of the Angeloi or the Spirit of Form or higher hierarchies. Thus one might express the paradoxical statement: What does it mean to come to know one of the Elohim, one of the Spirits of Form? It means to have developed to such an extent that one is able to sleep over into the consciousness of the Elohim and to awaken in the Elohim with the consciousness of this Spirit of Form, this Spirit of the higher hierarchies. This means recognizing a higher being: surrendering one’s consciousness, as one does in sleep, but surrendering it by virtue of the higher powers awakened within, so that this consciousness awakens and shines forth toward one as the consciousness of this higher being.

[ 7 ] Thus, in proper occult development, an astral body becomes like a sun that radiates its influence throughout the world. But as the Self develops further, it becomes like the planets that circle this sun of the astral body; as they circle through the world, they encounter other beings, and through these encounters, they bring news of these other beings to the perceiving being of the human being. Thus, in a person undergoing occult development, the astral body and the Self indeed present the image of a sun—that is the astral body—surrounded by its planets: that is, a number of duplicates of the Self that are sent out into other beings, so that the human being may recognize, through what is reflected back to him by his duplicated Self from these other beings, the essence of these other beings.

[ 8 ] And the feeling one has when recognizing the members of higher hierarchies in their inner essence—through the physical body and the etheric body, one learns to recognize them in their outer essence; inwardly one learns to recognize them through the astral body and the Self; through the astral body and the Self one enters, so to speak, into communion with these beings of the higher hierarchies—the feeling one has is this: as if one had to transform oneself into the sun in one’s astral body and split off from oneself a Self that has the predisposition to plunge into the hierarchy of the Angeloi; another Self that has the predisposition to plunge into the hierarchy of the Archangels; another Self that has the predisposition to plunge into the hierarchy of the Spirits of Form. A fourth self descends into the hierarchy of the Spirits of Movement, a fifth descends into the hierarchy of the Spirits of Wisdom and Will, a sixth self descends into the hierarchy of the Cherubim, and a seventh into the hierarchy of the Seraphim. It is possible, my dear friends, that when a human being raises the four members of his being to a high level for development, he may indeed attain an experience such as has just been described. This is possible; but in addition to developing his self in the manner I have just indicated, he can attain a development of his self that is, in a sense, even higher.

[ 9 ] It is precisely by separating seven selves from itself that the Self, as the eighth remaining self, undergoes a higher development. So please, consider the matter this way: We have the original Self of the human being, which is given to the human being before he has undergone an occult development. Now he undergoes such a process, and through this, this human being sends out seven Selves from within himself. In order for what was originally given to him to be able to send out seven Selves, he had to apply an inner power. However, by undergoing this process, the Self itself has risen one level higher. Now, however, I ask you to consider that the process I have described here, so to speak, in its extreme form, takes place gradually. The person undergoing occult development is, of course, not immediately a perfect sun in his astral body, surrounded by the planets of his self, but first attains an imperfect solar existence, imperfect formations of his planetary selves; all this takes place gradually. But with this, the development of the ordinary self also very slowly and gradually transitions into the higher self. When this development has reached a certain point—that is, when the self actually ascends higher and higher—then the possibility gradually arises to look back on past incarnations. I am thus pointing out to you here the point that makes it possible to look back on past incarnations. This is the development of the Self beyond itself, so that it transcends itself through the forces that simultaneously give it the ability to perceive the higher hierarchies. One could therefore say: Through its occult development, the human being becomes, in relation to its Self and its astral body, star-like, or rather, like a star system, to the clairvoyant gaze.

[ 10 ] With that, my dear friends, I have more or less described to you what arises in connection with external clairvoyance—that is, the act of observing another person who is becoming clairvoyant—whereas in the past few days I have described to you experiences that were more of an inner nature. There is one more important point to address, which is, in a sense, a further elaboration of a hint that has already been given. As you can see, when a person develops their astral body and their Self, they come to perceive a world that was previously empty as now filled with the beings of the higher hierarchies: Angels, Archangels, Archai, and so on. Now you might well ask: Do the realms of nature surrounding the human being also change? — And indeed, the realms of nature change quite significantly. You see, I told you earlier that for the clairvoyant, even the ordinary personality’s physical body appears as a series of images that grow ever more radiant within the more the personality progresses.

[ 11 ] What about animals? Yes, when one looks at animals with clairvoyant vision, their physical bodies also transform into imaginations, and then one knows: These animals are not what they appear to be in maya, but they are imaginations—that is, they are mental images conceived within a consciousness. Who conceives of the animals as imaginations? In whom are they imaginations? Animals, and also plants in their outer forms—though plants less so than animals, and minerals least of all—are imaginations of Ahriman. Our physicists seek the material laws in the outer realms of nature; the occultist, however, comes to realize more and more that the outer realms of nature, insofar as they present themselves as material entities, are imaginations of Ahriman. We know, of course, that animals, for example, are based on group souls. The group souls are not imaginations of Ahriman; rather, the individual animals in their outer forms are the imaginations of Ahriman. So when we consider the realm of lions, the group soul of these lions belongs, so to speak, to the good spiritual beings, and Ahriman’s struggle against the good spiritual beings consists precisely in forcing their group soul into the individual forms of the animals and imprinting his imaginations upon them. The individual lion forms, as they actually roam about in the world, have been forced out of the group souls by Ahriman. Thus the environment also gradually reveals itself to us as transforming into something entirely different from what it appears to be in maya.

[ 12 ] Now, so that you may have something, as it were, by which you can climb the ladder of the ideas that have unfolded before us in the course of this cycle, I would like to give you a kind of schematic diagram. First, I will sketch here on the left what we might call the structure of the ordinary human being, consisting of the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, the soul of sensation, the soul of feeling or intellect, the soul of consciousness, the Spirit-Self, the Life-Spirit, and the Spirit-Man. We are, of course, familiar with the structure of the human being. So I will simply represent this in outline form. The innermost part is the soul of feeling, the next is the soul of emotion or intellect, the next is the soul of consciousness, and the next is the Spirit-Self. The higher members can, of course, be thought of as supplementary, since we no longer need them today. This constitution of the human being manifests itself externally in such a way that the physical is, as it were, in the three lower members, what is experienced as soul is in the three middle members, and the Spirit-Self is no longer present in the human being in the same way, so to speak, but rather as a perspective into the future. When a human being undergoes occult development, the first step involves suppressing certain things within the soul itself. We have seen how it is particularly important that the human being succeeds in blocking out external sensory impressions. This is, after all, the first requirement for genuine occult progress: that one blocks out external sensory impressions. By blocking out external sensory impressions, the part of the soul that develops primarily under the influence of these impressions undergoes an inner transformation. This is the consciousness soul. Understand this correctly: the consciousness soul is currently in its primary stage of development, because it relies mainly on external sensory impressions. You must not confuse the fact that the consciousness soul is strengthened most internally under the influence of sensory impressions with the fact that these sensory impressions are mediated by the feeling soul. When it comes to occult development, one must consider under what influences the consciousness soul is strengthened most: this is under the influences of external sensory impressions; if these are eliminated, then the consciousness soul is dampened. So that—I will sketch on the right what corresponds to the individual soul members in the occultly developed human being—the consciousness soul in the occultly developing human being will, above all, have to take a back seat. This is what is meant by what leads people in ordinary life to emphasize their ego, what leads them to emphasize this ego above all else in every possible sphere. In our time, this “I” is already emphasized in the realm of thought. Nothing is heard more often than: “This is my point of view; I think this or that.”—As if it mattered what this or that person thinks, as if it did not rather matter what the truth is! It is true that the sum of the three angles of a triangle amounts to one hundred and eighty degrees, and it is irrelevant what standpoint a person takes on this. It is true that the hierarchies are divided into three times three, counting upward from the human being, and it is irrelevant what standpoint a person takes on this. Thus, what is the emphasis on the ego recedes; in its place, the consciousness soul, which previously served primarily for the cultivation of the ego, gradually fills with what we call imagination. We can even say: In the occultly developing human being, the consciousness soul transforms into the imagination soul.

[ 13 ] We know from the discussions of the past few days that thinking itself—which is primarily developed in the intellectual or emotional soul—must also undergo a transformation. We have heard how thinking must increasingly refrain from developing its own thoughts, how the human personality must increasingly suppress independent thinking. When a person succeeds in suppressing what they have made of their intellectual or emotional soul in their ordinary life, then inspiration takes the place of what lives within the person on the physical plane as ordinary thinking, as intellectuality, and also as ordinary emotional life, and the intellectual or emotional soul is transformed into the inspirational or inspired soul. The inspired works of culture have been inspired into the transformed intellectual soul.

[ 14 ] The feeling soul is gradually overcome, primarily by transcending the astral body altogether, making worldly interests one’s own, and thereby moving further and further beyond personal feeling; through this process, the feeling soul—along with all inner impulses, inner passions, and emotions—is transformed into intuition. And the intuitive soul takes the place of the emotional soul. — So that we can now depict here on the right (see diagram on page 186) the occultly developed human being, of whom we say: He also consists of an astral body, an etheric body, and a physical body, but inwardly of the intuitive soul, the inspirational soul, and the imaginative soul, which then merge into the Spirit-Self. And now, from the diagram, which accurately reflects the facts of occult observation, you can, so to speak, retain from the results of the lectures how a person influences their occult development through the degree of their moral development. What, then, is a person who is still entirely filled with personal emotions, personal passions, who acts under the influence of, one might say, human instincts? Such a person still lives entirely in their sensory soul; they do not moderate their instincts through intellectual concepts, let alone through the development of their consciousness; they are, so to speak, if I now draw moral development into the center as this line (page 186, smallest arrow), as it were, developed only up to the sensory soul here.

[ 15 ] It may therefore happen that a person has developed only as far as the sensory soul, that is, that he allows his personal desires, instincts, and so on to rule him completely. Let us suppose that such a person were to be elevated through occult development. The result would be that they would transform their sensory soul into an intuitive soul and possess certain intuitions; but these intuitions would prove to be nothing other than the transformations of their own personal drives, desires, and instincts. A person who has reached the level of the intellectual soul in their moral development—that is, who has acquired clear, more general concepts, and who in a certain way embraces general world interests in their mind—will at least transform their emotional soul into the inspirational soul and can attain certain inspirations, even if their clairvoyant power is not yet entirely pure.

[ 16 ] Only when a person has truly advanced with their ego to the level of the consciousness soul do they first begin to transform their consciousness soul into the imagination soul; the rest follows, so to speak, as a natural consequence, since they have already passed through the other stages. In our time, therefore, a corresponding true clairvoyance must be directed toward setting before the human being the task of pursuing his moral development in such a way that he first strips his instincts, desires, and so on from the personal sphere and elevates them to the standpoint of general world interests; then an attempt must be made for such a person to truly grasp themselves as an “I,” but to grasp themselves as an “I” within the conscious soul. Then the feeling soul, the emotional soul, and the conscious soul will be able to be transformed without any danger into the intuitive soul, the inspirational soul, and the imaginative soul. When we consider ordinary consciousness on the physical plane, the sensory soul is the richest soul. For what is hidden in such a human soul—even when it stands at the lowest level—as a sum of instincts and drives! What drives and desires is such a human soul not capable of! This human soul is already somewhat poorer in terms of emotional and intellectual content, but poorest of all as a consciousness soul, shrunk down to the consciousness of the self, that is, in a sense, to a single point. One might say: The figure representing the human soul in its natural state on the physical plane would depict a sort of upward-pointing pyramid (see the two triangles); at the base, the sum of the drives, desires, and passions; at the apex, the point of consciousness. An inverted pyramid represents the developed soul of the true clairvoyant: a pyramid that has its base at the top, namely all possible imaginations that one can form and which express everything that can depict the content of the worlds to us, and at the bottom, as the apex, that which constitutes the higher individual consciousness of the human being. But in yet another sense, this schema is, so to speak, authoritative. I have also already indicated in the new editions of my *Theosophy* that we can say: The feeling soul is, as it were, the provisionally transformed astral body. So that we can arrange the following here: at the bottom the physical body, then the etheric body, then the astral body. The provisionally transformed astral body is the sensory soul on the physical plane; the provisionally transformed etheric body is the intellectual or emotional soul, and the provisionally transformed physical body is the consciousness soul.

[ 17 ] Thus, in the current cycle of humanity, we have located the consciousness soul in the physical body, meaning that it makes use of physical instruments. The intellectual soul is located in the etheric body, meaning that it makes use of etheric movements. The sensitive soul, which comprises instincts, desires, and passions, makes use of the forces located in the astral body. The emotional or intellectual soul, which comprises the inner powers of feeling—such as compassion—makes use of the etheric body; the consciousness soul makes use of the brain of the physical body.

[ 18 ] If, in this sense, the sensory soul is transformed into the intuitive soul, then you must also create a mental image of the intuitive soul having its instrument in the human astral body. The inspirational soul is the transformed intellectual or emotional soul. It has its instrument in the human etheric body. And the imaginative soul, the transformed consciousness soul, has its instrument in the human physical body. Now compare what I have presented here as a diagram with what I just explained, and you will realize that this diagram serves as a visual aid. I have explained to you that, for clairvoyant perception, the physical body transforms into imaginations that are pictures of the macrocosm. Here in the diagram you see the soul of imagination filling the physical body. In fact, the imaginative soul plunges into the physical body, permeating it, so that the clairvoyant consciousness, the more it faces a developed human being, sees the limbs of the physical body permeated with ever higher and higher imaginations, which are pressed into the physical body from the innermost being of this personality. In the ordinary human being, there are a number of imaginations imprinted upon the members of his body by higher spiritual beings; in the more highly developed human being, the imaginations that are originally present in the limbs of the physical body are joined by those which he imprints into his bodily limbs from his own inner being; so that the organs of the physical body of an occultly developed personality become ever richer and richer.

[ 19 ] My intention in presenting this diagram was simply to provide you with a kind of summary note that encapsulates what I have described in detail during the lectures. I would like to draw your attention in particular to the fact that you can always take away from this diagram the memory that the soul of sensation, the soul of feeling or the soul of reason, and the soul of consciousness are reversed, so that the soul of consciousness does not become the soul of intuition, but rather the soul of imagination, and the soul of sensation does not become the soul of imagination, but rather the soul of intuition.

[ 20 ] With this, my dear friends, we have provided an outline of what could be presented in the course of these lectures under the theme: The changes in the human sheaths and the human self in the course of a seriously pursued anthroposophical development or an esoteric-occult development—which, after all, can certainly coincide. You have seen how we began, so to speak, with the small, barely perceptible changes in the physical body that those engaged in occult development first perceive faintly: the individual members of the physical body become, as it were, more and more alive inwardly, whereas otherwise only the human physical body as a whole appears to us as a living entity. Then we have seen how certain changes take place that represent momentous facts of inner life: those changes in the astral body and the Self that give rise to those powerful imaginations through which we can feel transported back to the very beginning of the development of humanity on Earth, indeed even a little beyond, leading to the imaginations of Paradise and of Cain and Abel. You have seen how, in fact, a kind of force arises in the physical body as a reality that enables it, as it were, to split apart; yet it remains intact, it does not yield, because here in our human cycle, occult practice must not go so far as to lead to damage to the physical body. Yet there is a strength in occult development that brings one close to the possibility that the physical and etheric bodies attract inner forces of destruction; and, fundamentally speaking, this is always present when a human being encounters the Guardian of the Threshold. This encounter with the Guardian of the Threshold is not at all possible without facing the danger of, in a certain sense, implanting destructive forces into one’s physical and etheric bodies; but every true occult development simultaneously creates the antidotes, and these antidotes are found in what you will find described in my *Secret Science* as the six occult auxiliary exercises: concentration of thought, that is, the intense focusing of one’s thoughts, the concentrated gathering of one’s thoughts; the development of a certain initiative of the will, a certain balance between pleasure and pain, a certain positivity in one’s attitude toward the world, and a certain impartiality. In those who cultivate these qualities in their soul in parallel with their occult development, a certain tendency of the physical and etheric bodies to break down does indeed develop—that is, to absorb seeds of death under the influence of occult development; but to the same extent that this develops, it is counteracted, so that it is actually never effective if the person develops the aforementioned qualities or, through their moral development, already possesses enough qualities equivalent to these six.

[ 21 ] Rather than simply providing you with a description, I sought to evoke in your hearts a sense of what occult development is and how it intervenes in the human being in such diverse and transformative ways. You have been able to sense and feel that a person faces many shocking and even dangerous experiences when undergoing occult development. But alongside many things that may have already instilled a faint dread even in theoretical contemplation, the thought must always conjure itself before the soul—a thought that dispels all dread, can eliminate all fear of danger, and simply evokes enthusiasm and strength of will in our soul: the thought that we are actively contributing to the evolution willed by the gods by advancing ourselves. Whoever is able to grasp this thought in all its grandeur, in all its inspiring and encouraging significance, whoever is able to grasp this thought in such a way that it makes evolution, occult development in the most beautiful sense as his duty, whoever is able to feel this, feels the beginning of that which, alongside all danger, alongside all struggle, alongside all confusion, alongside all obstacles, is linked to all development in the approach toward the bliss of the spiritual worlds. For by perceiving this thought through the inspiring power of the ideal of development, one can already begin to feel the bliss of development; but this bliss means: to recognize this development, this occult progress, as a necessity. This will be the future of such spiritual-esoteric movements as ours: that the spiritual development of human souls will be regarded more and more as a necessity, and that the exclusion hostility toward spiritual development will mean a binding oneself to the waste products of the earthly realm that are perishing in one’s own earthly heaviness, and a falling away from the God-willed evolution of the universe.