The Rudolf Steiner Archive

after the talk for the workers on the Goetheanum building

I myself am absolutely opposed to any agitation on our part. Of course I cannot prevent everything. But anyone who reads, for example, in the little pamphlet 'Die Hetze gegen das Goetheanum' ('The Agitators Against the Goetheanum') – yes, if it were only my things in it, then of course one would not be able to find what one now finds in it. But of course I cannot do everything all by myself and must be prepared for the fact that many things happen that would not have happened if it had been up to me. But that is not true when I speak to you, for then I simply point out the strict facts. For what I have told you today are strict facts, and I have drawn from them only a general characteristic of scientific life. You yourselves must say: Where such facts are not taken into account, there is no will to do real science, but there is the will to throw dust in people's eyes, even if in a rather unconscious way.

The beginning of anthroposophy is to be made with a consideration of the human senses. Through the senses, the human being enters into a relationship with an external world. When speaking of the senses, two things should be considered. First, one should disregard how the human being enters into another world, namely the spiritual world, through a different path, as described above. And then one should initially disregard whether there is anything spiritual behind what the senses observe. When speaking of the senses, one should approach the spiritual in such a way that one waits to see to what extent the hint of the spiritual arises naturally from the observation of the senses. The spiritual must not be rejected nor presupposed; its manifestation must be awaited.

It is not the objects of sensory observation, but the senses themselves, as human organs, that are considered here. On the basis of what his senses convey to him, man forms ideas about an external world. This is how knowledge of this external world comes about. In relation to knowledge, one can speak of truth and error. Does error now arise in the realm of the senses, or only where judgment, memory, etc. are used to form ideas about the statements of the senses? We have a right to speak of illusions. If, through some irregularity in the ear or the eye, a sound or a light appears differently than it would with the normal formation of the organs concerned, then, for example, there is an illusion. Does this mean that Goethe was wrong when he said, “You may trust your senses implicitly; they will not let you see anything false if your intellect keeps you alert”? Goethe's statement proves to be immediately justified when we consider the following. An error that is caused by reason or memory is different from a sensory deception. The latter can be corrected by common sense. If, through an error of the eye, a tree standing before him appears to someone as a human being, he will only fall into error if he does not correct the eye defect and sees in the pretended human being an enemy against whom he defends himself. It is not so with an error of the intellect, for there it is this intellect itself that errs, and which therefore cannot at the same time correct its own mistakes. The illusions of the senses only become real errors through the mind. This distinction is not pedantry, but a necessity.

Many people are accustomed to listing five types of sensory perception when speaking of sensory perception: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching (or feeling). But we cannot stop here, because there are other ways in which a person enters into a relationship with the outside world that differ from those of hearing or seeing, for example. Even anthropological science currently speaks of senses other than those included in the above list. It is not necessary here to go into the list given by anthropology. It should only be noted that here lies one of the very gratifying points where science, based on mere sensory-physical facts, is pushed by its own observations to views that partly coincide with what the spiritual researcher must establish. Such points of contact will arise more and more in the course of time; and if goodwill prevails on both sides, a time will soon come when natural science and spiritual research will be mutually accepted.

In anthroposophical terms, everything that causes a person to recognize the existence of an object, being or process in such a way that it is justified to place this existence in the physical world can be called a human sense that leads man to recognize the existence of an object, being or process in such a way that he is justified in placing this existence in the physical world.

Seen in this light, the most indeterminate and general sense appears to be that which can be called the sense of life. Man only really notices the existence of this sense when something is perceived through it that breaks through the order in the body. Man feels weariness and fatigue in himself. He does not hear the fatigue, the weariness; he does not smell it; but he perceives it in the same sense as he perceives a smell, a sound. This kind of perception, which relates to one's own corporeality, is ascribed to the sense of life. It is basically always present in an alert person, even if it only becomes quite noticeable when there is a disturbance. Through it, the person perceives themselves as a corporeal self filling the space.

This sense is different from the one by which a person perceives a movement they have performed, for example. You move a leg, and you perceive this movement. The sense by which this happens is called the sense of self-motion. The difference between this sense and the first arises when you consider that through the sense of life you only perceive something that is present in the inner body without you doing anything about it. The sense of one's own movement perceives such things that require activity or mobility.

The third sense arises when one notices how the human being is able to maintain a certain position in relation to above and below, right and left, etc. It can be called the sense of equilibrium or the sense of static. Its peculiarity arises from the fact that one must have a perception of one's position if one is to maintain oneself in it as a conscious being. If the sense of equilibrium does not function, then dizziness will overtake the person; he will fall over. An unconscious object is maintained in its position without being aware of it. Such an object cannot be affected by dizziness. When speaking of this sense, anthropology points to a small organ in the human ear. There are three semicircular canals in the so-called labyrinth of the ear. If these are injured, dizziness occurs.

If you survey the peculiarities of the three senses listed, you will find that humans perceive something through each of them that relates to their own physical existence. Through the sense of life, he acquires general sensations about his corporeality; through the sense of self-movement, he perceives changes in this corporeality of his; through the sense of equilibrium, he perceives his relationship to the spatial outside world. However, he receives this perception in such a way that it reveals itself to him as a state of his own corporeality, as his own sensation of position. — Through these three senses, the human being acquires the sensation of his own corporeality as a whole, which is the basis for his self-awareness as a physical being. One can say that through the senses of life, of self-movement and of balance, the soul opens its gates to one's own corporeality and senses this as the physical external world that is closest to it.

With the following senses, the human being encounters the external world that does not belong to him in this way. The first sense to be considered here is that through which man comes into closest contact with what is called matter. Only gaseous or airy bodies allow close contact with the material. And this is conveyed through the sense of smell. Without a substance being divided into the finest particles and thus spreading like air, it cannot be perceived by the sense of smell.

The next stage of sensory perception is that by which not only the substance as such, but also the effects (deeds) of the substance are perceived. This happens through the sense of taste. This sense can only perceive a watery body, or one that is dissolved in the fluid of the mouth in order to be tasted. Through the sense of taste, man penetrates one degree deeper into the external materiality than through the sense of smell. With the latter, it is the substance itself that approaches the person and manifests itself in its own way; with the sense of taste, what is felt is the effect of the substance on the person. This difference can best be felt by considering how, in the sense of smell, the gaseous nature of the substance must be ready to approach the person so that he can perceive it as it is; in the sense of taste, the person, through his own liquid, dissolves the substance, thus making a change with it, in order to penetrate into those peculiarities of that substance which it does not reveal to him by itself. The sense of smell is suited to perceive the outer side of material things; the sense of taste penetrates more into the inner side of material things. And this inner aspect of material things man must first induce to reveal itself by changing the outer aspect.

Man penetrates even deeper into the inner aspect of the physical external world through the next sense. It is sight. Whether man sees a body as red or blue reveals more about the inner aspect of this body than is contained in the effect conveyed by the sense of taste. It depends on the nature of a body whether it behaves towards the colorless sunlight in such a way that it appears red or blue under its influence. Color manifests itself as the surface of a body. But one can say how the body reveals itself on its surface; this is an appearance of its inner essence through the medium of light.

The sense of warmth penetrates even deeper, as it were, below the surface of the bodies. If you feel a piece of ice or a warm object, you are aware that cold or warmth is something that does not just appear on the surface like color, but that permeates the body completely. You will notice how the sequence of senses characterized here is such that with each successive one, the human being delves deeper into the interior of the bodies of the external world.

A further advance in this immersion is given with the sense of hearing. It leads to the interior of the bodies to a far greater degree than the sense of warmth. Sound causes the interior of the bodies to tremble. It is more than a mere image when one speaks of the soul of a body being revealed through sound. Through the warmth that a body carries within itself, one experiences something of its difference from its surroundings; through sound, the intrinsic nature, the individuality of the body emerges and communicates itself to perception.

If, as is appropriate, one speaks of meaning where knowledge comes about without the participation of understanding, memory, etc., then one must recognize other senses than those listed. If we apply this distinction, it is easy to see that in everyday life the word “sense” is often used in a non-literal way. For example, when we speak of a sense of imitation, a sense of concealment, etc. In what appears as imitation, concealment, etc., the intellect and judgment are already involved. Here we are not dealing with mere sensory activity.

But the situation is quite different when we perceive in language what is revealed by the sound. It is certainly self-evident that a complicated act of judgment is involved in the perception of something spoken, that comprehensive soul processes come into play that cannot be described by the word “sense”. But there is also something simple and direct in this area that represents a sensation before all judgment, just as a color or a degree of warmth is. A sound is not felt only in terms of its pitch, but something much more inward is grasped with it than the tone itself. If we say that the soul of a body lives in the tone, we may also say that in the sound this soul-life reveals itself in such a way that it is released and freed from the physical, and enters into manifestation with a certain independence. Because the sensation of sound precedes judgment, the child learns to sense the sound-meanings of words before it can use judgment. It is through speech that the child learns to judge. It is entirely justified to speak of a special sense of sound or sense of language. The reason that recognizing this sense is difficult is because the most diverse exercise of judgment usually occurs in addition to the direct sensation of what is revealed in the sound. But a careful examination of oneself shows that all hearing of what is given in sounds is based on an equally direct, judgment-free relationship to the being from which the sound emanates, as is the case when a color impression is perceived. It is easier to grasp this fact if we visualize how a sound of pain allows us to directly experience the pain of a being, without any kind of reflection or the like interfering with our perception. It is important to consider that the audible sound is not the only thing through which such inwardness is revealed to a person, as is the case with the sound of speech. Gesture, facial expression, and physiognomy ultimately lead to something simple and direct, which must be counted as much a part of the meaning of speech as the content of the audible sound.

To an even greater degree, the sensory character is hidden in the next sense to be characterized. When we understand a person who communicates through speech, gestures, etc., it is true that judgment, memory, etc. play a predominant role in this understanding. But here too, right self-contemplation leads us to recognize that there is a direct grasping and understanding that can precede all thinking and judging. The best way to develop a feeling for this fact is to realize how one can understand something even before one has developed the ability to judge it. There is, in fact, a very direct perception of that which reveals itself in the concept, so that one must speak of a sense of concept. What a person can experience as a concept in his own soul, he can also receive as a revelation from another being. Through the perception of the concept, one delves even deeper into the inner being of another person than through the perception of sounds. It is not possible to delve even further into another person than to the sensation of what lives in him as a concept. The sense of concept appears as that which penetrates into the innermost being of an external being. With the concept that lives in another person, the human being perceives what lives in him or her in a soul-like way. The sensory character of what is usually called the sense of touch does not appear in the same way as with the ten senses mentioned. This sense conveys external pressure, resistance, hardness, softness. One must visualize the essence of what is meant by “pressure”. The process is by no means a simple one. In reality, we do not perceive the pressing body directly, but rather the fact that it causes us to recoil at this or that point on the skin, or that we have to make a greater or lesser effort to make an impression on the body. There is a remarkable difference between this perception and that of, for example, a degree of warmth that is revealed on a body. Even if it is absolutely true that a cold bath will appear in a different state of warmth to a person who is hot from exercise than to a person who is freezing, that is, that in the perception of warmth, the subjective state is also perceived, it remains true that essentially the nature of the external object is revealed in the warmth. This results in a direct relationship between the feeling person and the object. It is not the same as saying to oneself that one must exert oneself more or less to make an impression on a body or to overcome the resistance it offers through its hardness or softness. What one says to oneself is the reproduction of an experience that one has within oneself in the body. And even if the fact is hidden, it is still true that in such a perception the judgment plays along, as it were secretly: “I find strong resistance, therefore the body is hard.” Just as it is true that, for example, in the sense of language, perception can be a completely direct one without any judgment, it is also true that, in the sense of touch, there is always an underlying judgment, however hidden. What is directly sensed by the sense of touch can always be found within the realms of the first three senses listed here. A body that presses on me, for example, causes a shift in the position of my body, which is sensed by the sense of life, or the sense of self-movement, or the sense of balance.

It is necessary to clearly define the differences between the individual sensory areas. With each sense, the relationship that a person has with an external object is different than with the other senses. Through the sense of life, the sense of self-movement, and the sense of balance, a person is immersed in his or her own physicality and perceives him or herself as a being of the external world. Through the sense of smell, the sense of taste, and the sense of sight, the physical reveals itself insofar as it manifests itself outwardly. Through the sense of warmth, it reveals inwardness, but still in an external way. With the help of the sense of hearing, the sense of speech, the sense of thought, the human being perceives an alien inwardness that is external to him. If one pays attention to these differences between the sensory areas, then one will not be tempted to speak too much in general terms about what a sense, sensory perception, etc. is. Rather, one will pay attention to the particular relationship through which the human being enters into the external world through each sense. It does not say much to characterize sensory perception, for example, as an impression that is directly caused by a stimulus of the sensory nerve in the soul. Through such definitions, it is all too easy to lose the characteristic of each individual sense in blurred generalizations. But it is important to note that the impression we experience from the warmth of a body is quite different in nature from that caused by a light impression. If we do not take this into account, we are easily led, for example, to place far too much value on judgments such as: “Man perceives the external world through the senses and forms ideas and concepts on the basis of sensory perceptions.” Here sense perception is simply set against conceptual thought. Such a judgment obscures the necessary free view of the fact that, for example, the sensation of smell is very far removed from the conceptual experience, but that the sense of hearing as a sense perception already approximates to what is present within the soul as such an experience.

The basis for the further life of the soul is given in the sensory perceptions. Based on the sensations of the first three senses, as well as those of smells, tastes, colors, sounds, etc., the ideas arise from the interaction of the human being with the outside world, through which what is given from the outside is reflected in the soul. The judgments arise through which the human being orients himself within this outside world. Experiences of sympathy or antipathy arise, in which the emotional life is formed; desires, longings and will develop. If one wants to have a characteristic for this inner life of the human soul, one must focus one's attention on how it is held together and, as it were, permeated by what one calls one's own “I”. A sensory perception becomes a soul experience when it is taken up from the realm of the senses into the realm of the “I”. One can gain a justified idea of this fact by making the following simple consideration. For example, one perceives the warmth of a certain object. As long as one touches the object, there is an interrelationship between the “I” and the external world. In this interrelationship, the idea of the temperature of the object in question is formed in the “I”. When you remove your hand from the object, the idea remains in the “I”. This idea now forms something essential within the soul life. It should not be neglected to note that the idea is that which detaches itself from the sensory experience and lives on in the soul. Within certain limits, a person can now call the experiences that he has with the help of the senses, and which then continue in the soul, his world.

But anyone who now reflects on how this world enters his realm will be forced to assume a different existence for this world. For how can this world only be an experience of the soul; how can man know anything about it? Only through having senses. Before the world can present itself to man as a sensory perception, these senses themselves must first be born out of it. For man the world would be soundless if he had no sense of hearing, and cold if he had no sense of warmth. But just as this is true, so is the other: in a world in which there were no sounds, no sense of hearing could arise; in a cold world no sense of warmth could develop. One need only think of how eyes do not develop in beings that live in the dark; or how, in beings that have developed eyes under the influence of light, these eyes atrophy when their bearers exchange their stay in the light for one in the dark. One need only think this through with complete clarity to realize that the world given to man through his senses, and on which he builds his soul life, must be based on another world, which makes this sensory world possible only by allowing the senses to arise out of itself. And this world cannot fall within the realm of the sensory, since it must precede it entirely.

Thus, contemplation is opened up to a world that lies beyond the sensory world, which cannot itself be perceived by the senses, but from which the sensory world arises as if from an ocean of existence that lies beyond it. The sense of warmth perceives warmth; behind it lies something that has formed the sense of warmth. The eye perceives through light; behind it lies something that forms the eye. One must distinguish between a world as it is given to man through the senses and one that underlies it. Is it impossible to say anything about this latter world through mere reflection? We can say something if we consider the following. Through the interrelationship between man and the external world, as mediated by sense perception, the world of perception, feeling and desire arises within man. In the same way, one can think about the relationship between the assumed other world and man. Through them, the organs of sensory perception arise in him. In everything that can be experienced in the sensory world, the human being is there with his “I”, in which the soul world is built up on the basis of sensory experiences. The construction of the sensory organs, which necessarily precedes all sensory perception, must take place in a realm of reality into which no sensory perception can penetrate. (There is hardly any need to consider the objection that might briefly occur to someone that a person could observe the structure of the sense organs in another being. After all, what he can perceive there, he perceives through the senses. One can indeed observe how a hammer is made without using a hammer; but one cannot observe with the senses how a sense organ is formed without using one.)

It is entirely justified to speak of the sense organs as having to be built from a world that is itself supersensible. And the essence of sense perceptions as described here provides food for thought for saying more about this world. Since the sense organs ultimately appear to be the result of the activity of this world, it can be said that this activity is a manifold one. It acts on man from as many sides as there are sense organs. The currents of this world pour into the wells that lie in the sense organs, so that man can draw from these wells for his soul life. And because that which is drawn from these wells ultimately comes together in the 'I', it must, although it comes from different sides, originally flow from a single source. In the 'I', the various sensory perceptions come together in unity. In this unity, they present themselves as belonging together. What strikes the soul in sensory perception is such that the inner life of the ego can be detached from it. From this it can be seen that behind the sensory world, in a supersensible one, there are as many sources of activity as there are sensory organs. These sources of activity reveal themselves through their effect, which consists in the structure of the sensory organs.

The range of these sources of activity thus includes a number of these sources that is equal to the number of sense organs. And one can say that the outermost limits of this range may be assumed to be the “I” on the one hand and the “sense of touch” on the other, although the sense of touch, like the “I”, may not be counted as part of the actual sensory life. What once belonged to the “I” has detached itself from sensory perception, and so, because it is a completely inner experience, can no longer be counted among the latter. But it belongs to the essential nature of every sensory perception that it can become an “I” experience. To do so, every sense organ must be predisposed from the supersensible world to provide something that can become an “I” experience. And the sense of touch, in a sense, provides experiences of the opposite kind. What it reveals about an object presents itself as something that lies entirely outside of the human being. Thus, the human being as a whole must be constructed out of the supersensible world in such a way that, on the basis of tactile experiences, he confronts a world outside of himself.

If we survey the life of the human soul as it develops out of sense experiences, the sense organs appear as fixed points, as if in a circumference; and the “I” appears as the movable element, which, by passing through this circumference in various ways, gains the experiences of the soul. The whole structure of the human organism, insofar as it is expressed in the sense organs, points to its causes in the supersensible world. There are as many sense areas as there are such causes; and within the realm of these causes, there is a unified supersensible principle, which becomes apparent in the organization towards the unity of the I.

A further consideration shows that the supersensible activity revealed in the structure of the sense organs works in different ways. In the three spheres of the sense of life, the sense of self-movement and the sense of equilibrium, the activity starts from within the human body and manifests itself within the limits of the skin. This kind of activity is also present in the senses of smell, taste, sight, warmth and hearing; but it is joined by another, which must be said to proceed from the outside inward. The organ of hearing, for example, is a member of the human organism. Within this organism, the forces must be at work that shape this organ in accordance with the nature of the body as a whole. From the outside, however, the hidden supersensible forces in the world of sound must come together, forming this organ in such a way that it is receptive to sound. In the case of the five sense organs mentioned, an encounter of forces is thus indicated on the surface of the human body, as it were: forces act in the direction from the inside of the body outwards and shape the individual sense organs according to the nature of the whole organism; the forces that meet them come from the outside inwards and shape the organs in such a way that they adapt to the various manifestations of the external world. In the case of the senses of life, self-movement and equilibrium, only one of these two directions, the one striving from the inside outwards, is present. It further follows that in the case of the senses of speech and of concepts, the direction from the inside outwards does not apply, and that these senses are built into the human being from the outside in. For these senses, therefore, the supersensible activity as characterized reveals itself in such a way that it already approaches the inner life of the soul in terms of its formation. Insofar as we must also see the 'I' predisposed in the above-characterized way in the supersensible forces that build up the senses, we can say that in the 'I' these forces betray their own nature most of all. Only that this essential nature is, as it were, concentrated in a point in the 'I'. If we observe the 'I', we find in it a nature that is spread out in the most abundant profusion in a supersensible world and reveals itself out of this only in its effects, in the building of the senses. In this respect, too, the sense of touch presents itself as the opposite of the 'I'. In the sense of touch, that part of the supersensible world (or, if you will, the extra-sensible world) is revealed that cannot become an inner experience of the human being, but is accessed through corresponding inner experiences.

Anthropology describes the sense organs as sensory phenomena. It is consistent with the above findings that it does not yet designate special organs for the senses of life, self-movement and balance. The forces acting from the inside out shape the human being as a general sense organism that experiences and maintains itself. The organs of these three sense areas spread out, as it were, in the general physicality. It is only with the sense of balance that anthropology points to the three semicircular canals as a hint of a special sensory organ, because it is with this sense that the human being enters into an elementary relationship with the outside world, namely with the spatial directions. For the five intermediate senses there are separate organs, which readily show that the abilities characterized, from outside inward and from inside outward, interact in a variety of ways in their formation. (Even if there are still some doubts for anthropology regarding the external sense organ for warmth, these doubts will be resolved as science advances.) External organs for the sense of sound and the sense of conception cannot be described in the same way as for the other senses because these organs are already located where physical life internalizes itself in the soul. But the organ of touch will present itself to science more and more clearly as what it must be in the sense of the above considerations. It must work in such a way that the human being withdraws into himself in the touched objects, so to speak, shutting himself off from the areas of this sense in inner bodily experiences. We must therefore recognize in the structures spread over the entire surface of the body, which are regarded as organs of touch, something that essentially has to do with the body's surface withdrawing from the external world that is touched. The organs of touch are therefore actually formative for the interior of the human body; they give the body the form through which it withdraws from the external world that touches it from all sides. (In those places where the organs of touch show a greater sensitivity, the human being relates to the outside world differently than in those places of lesser sensitivity. He pushes himself more or less, as it were, against the outside world in one case or the other. From this it can be seen that the shape of the body is, in a certain respect, a result of the nature of the organs of touch at the various points on the surface of the body.)

Another aspect now becomes part of the sensory life of the human being. Here too we can distinguish a number of areas. First of all, there is the process by which the inner life of the body is sustained from the outside: breathing. In this process, the life of the body touches the outer world; it confronts the outer world, as it were, in a form in which it cannot continue to exist, in order to receive from it the strength to continue. These words express approximately what is revealed to man in the breathing process, without going into the results of sensory science. The latter belong to anthropology. But what is characterized here is experienced by man directly in life, in his desire for air, in the observation of the inhibition of life when there is a lack of air, etc. A further process in this area is that which can be described as warming. For the maintenance of bodily life, man depends on the development of a quite definite degree of warmth within his body, which does not depend on the processes that determine the warmth of his surroundings, but on those that take place within him, and which maintain the intrinsic warmth within definite limits, however the external warmth may be constituted. A third process of this kind is nutrition. Through it, the life of the body enters into a relationship with the external world in such a way that the substances consumed by it are replaced. A fourth process must be added to nutrition if it is to take place. In the mouth, the food consumed must interact with the saliva secreted by the body; similarly, such a process takes place during the further digestive process. This can be described as the fourth process in this area: secretion. Physical self-observation now shows that this process is followed by another. In the secretion that aids digestion, what is secreted is merely able to transform the food in such a way that it can be absorbed into the body. But man must also secrete that which can enter into this bodily life. He must transform the nutrients in such a way that they can serve to build up his body. This is based on a process that goes beyond what is given in the secretion just characterized. This process shall be called the process of preservation. Another process arises when we turn our attention to human growth. This goes beyond mere maintenance. In addition to the maintenance process, which would leave the body as it is at a particular point in time, there is another process that can be described as a growth process. The growth process and the maintenance process reach their conclusion when the finished body presents itself to the human being in a very specific form. This shaping of the human being from the inside out into a very specific form is called production. Reproduction then presents itself as a repetition of this production. That which belongs to one's own body is brought forth in such a way that it remains united with the human being; in reproduction, the brought forth comes out. Since here, for the time being, we are only speaking of the human being as a self-contained physical individuality, the process of reproduction is not taken into account.

The processes that are referred to here as aspiration, warming, nutrition, secretion, maintenance process, growth process and production are now followed by inner experiences for humans in a similar way to how inner experiences follow the processes of sensory perception in the ego. Emotional experiences follow breathing, warming and nourishment. These experiences are less noticed in their middle states, but they immediately stand out when this state is disturbed in one direction or the other. If breathing cannot take place in the appropriate way, anxiety and the like occur. A disturbance of the warmth state manifests itself in the feeling of frost or heating. Disturbance of nutrition manifests itself in hunger and thirst. It can be said that breathing, warmth and nutrition are linked to inner experiences, which reveal themselves as a kind of well-being, comfort, etc. These experiences are always there; they underlie what manifests itself as malaise, discomfort, hunger, etc. when there is a disturbance. Real introspection now shows that such emotional experiences are also related to secretion, the process of preservation, the process of growth and the process of creation. Think of how states of fear and anxiety manifest themselves in excessive perspiration; and you will be able to admit that secretion of this kind, within certain limits, is connected with a feeling that manifests itself in a general sense of comfort, just as one can see that all secretion is accompanied by an emotional state that escapes the attention of consciousness as long as it is normal. And further, self-reflection shows that such emotional experiences are also connected with the processes of preservation, growth and production. One can feel, for example, that the feeling of strength of youth is the expression of what inner experiences follow growth.

These inner emotional experiences are now something that stands in a similar way in the human being to the processes of breathing, warming, growing, etc., as the inner experiences that follow sensory perceptions stand in the “I” to the processes of these perceptions. It is therefore possible to speak of the fact that, for example, breathing is connected with an experience in the human being in a similar way to how hearing is connected with the experience that is designated as sound. The only difference is that the degree of clarity with which external sense perceptions are inwardly relived is much greater than that which is accorded to the inner experiences characterized here. Hidden beneath or within the 'ego-person' is another person who is built up out of inner experiences, just as the ego-person is built up out of the results of external sense perceptions. But this human being who lies beneath the 'I-human' is only really noticed in life when he announces himself to the 'I-human' in the disturbances of his experiences. But just as little as one may throw together the process of sensory perception with the process in the ego that is linked to it, so little may one do so, for example, in relation to the breathing process and the inner experiences (of an emotional nature) that combine with this process. It would be easy to be tempted to completely misunderstand the nature of these inner experiences and to say that there is no essential difference between them and those that develop under the influence of sense perceptions. It must be admitted that the difference between the two types of inner experiences, for example, between the sense of life and the inner emotional experience during the breathing or warming process, is not particularly clear. But it can easily be determined by more exact observation, if one bears the following in mind. It belongs to a sense experience that a judgment can only be attached to it through the “I”. Everything that a person accomplishes under the influence of a judgment must, if it relates to sense perceptions, be such that the judgment is made within the “I”. For example, one perceives a flower and passes judgment on it: this flower is beautiful. What is now evoked by the processes of breathing, warming, nourishment, etc., as inner experiences, points, without the intervention of the “I”, to something similar to judgment. In the experience of hunger there is an immediate indication of something corresponding to hunger and connected with it in the same way that, after making a judgment in response to a sense perception, the human being connects with that sense perception. Just as the activity of the 'I' connects with the sense perception when making a judgment, so with hunger something external is connected without the 'I' establishing this connection. This union may therefore be called an instinctive manifestation. And this applies to all inner experiences that are connected with breathing, nourishment and growth processes. We must therefore distinguish between the instinctive inner experiences of breathing comfort and warmth and well-being, and the corresponding perceptions of the meaning of life. The wave of instinct must, as it were, first beat against the 'I-human being' in order to reach the realm of the meaning of life. The structure of the inner experiences that take place through the processes described behind the 'I-human being' are now to be ascribed to the 'astral human being'. Again, the name 'astral human being' should initially be associated with nothing other than what is described here. Just as the “I-person” draws his experiences from the “sense world” through the sense organs, so the “astral person” draws his from the world that is given to him through the processes of breathing, growing, etc. For the time being, let this world be called the “world of life”.

In order for a “life world” to exist, the organs of life must be built out of a world that lies beyond all life in a similar way to the forces for building the sense organs lying beyond the world of sense perceptions. This world reveals itself again in its effects, in the structure of the organs of life. The individual areas of the life processes: breathing, warming, nourishment, etc., can be interpreted as references to just as many areas of this world. One can now see that the areas of the life processes are less strictly separated from each other than the areas of sensory perception. The sense of taste, for example, is strictly separated from the sense of sight, whereas the areas of life processes are closer; they merge more. Breathing leads to warming, which in turn leads to nutrition. - Anthropology therefore shows essentially separate sensory organs for sensory perception; for the life processes, it shows organs that flow into one another. Thus the lungs, the most exquisite respiratory organ, are connected with the organs of blood circulation, which serve for warming; these in turn flow together with the digestive organs, which correspond to nutrition, etc. — This is an indication that the corresponding areas of the world in which their constructive forces lie also relate to each other in a different way than the forces for building the sense organs. The latter must, as it were, be more mobile in relation to one another than the organs of sense. The experiences of the sense of taste, for example, can only meet with those of the sense of hearing in the common 'I' to which they belong. The feeling of growth, on the other hand, meets with itself through that which is revealed in the breathing process. The feeling of the power of growth is revealed in the ease of breathing, in warming, etc., through increased inner life. Each feeling-like experience of this kind can coincide with another of the same kind. The areas of sensory perception could be depicted as a kind of circumference, with the individual areas resting on it while the “I” moves across them. The life processes can be depicted in a different way. They can all be imagined as being mobile and capable of moving across each other.

Now, however, there are also clear relationships between the sense perceptions and the life processes. Take the breathing process and relate it to the auditory perception. In both cases, the corresponding bodily organ is directed towards the outside world. This is an indication that in the outer world that which has a relationship to both the one and the other organ reveals itself. It is only that, for instance, two things reveal themselves in the air; in relation to one, the respiratory organ is formed and places it at the service of the body; in relation to the other, the structure of the organ of hearing is related. It may be recognized that the forces that shape the organ of hearing must, so to speak, be more original than those that form the respiratory organ. For in the developed human body, everything is interdependent. A human organ of hearing can only unfold from the inside out if the respiratory system is predisposed in just the way it is. From out of the organism, the respiratory system grows towards the outer world, as does the organ of hearing. Now the respiratory organ serves only the inner life of the body; the organ of hearing, however, must be adapted to the outer world - to the realm of sound. In the outgrowth of the respiratory organ from the body, therefore, only the nature of the body itself needs to be taken into account; the organ of hearing must outgrow itself in such a way that it is appropriate for the outer world of sound. No other organ needs to lie in front of the respiratory organ; it grows in accordance with the inner formative forces. The organ of hearing, however, must grow towards an already existing structure. Its adaptation to the outer world must precede its emergence from the inner life of the body. This shows that the forces that form the organ of hearing as a sensory tool belong to a world that is the more original or higher than the other, in which lie the forces that reveal themselves as such, which form both the organ of hearing and the organ of respiration from the body. A similar thing can be shown for other sensory perceptions and life processes. One's attention is drawn to the sense of taste. The secretions can be related to it in a similar way to the respiratory process to the sense of hearing. The saliva of the mouth contains what the food dissolves and thus makes it possible to taste. A similar reflection to the one just made can show that the forces from which the secretory organs are formed are the less original ones compared to those through which the sense of taste arises.

In the light of such considerations, one can therefore assume a higher supersensible entity in man, whose powers reveal themselves in the structure of the human sense organs. Likewise, there is another whose effects reveal themselves in the structure of the human organs of life. The latter world is felt by the 'astral man' as his instinctive inner experiences; the former manifests itself to the 'I-man' as a sensory reality (sensual world). However, neither the first world through the senses nor the second can come directly to manifestation in the astral man.

It has been said that the supersensible world reveals itself in the “I”, as it were shrunk to a point, in its own nature; in the same sense, it can be recognized that the second of the worlds mentioned shows itself in the emotional experiences of the “astral man”, which can be described as life instincts. In these experiences something is expressed with which the other instinctive experiences of the “astral man” merge into one and are an image of a supersensible world in the sense that the “I-man” is an image of such a world.

The “I-person” and the “astral person” represent two human parts that express themselves in inner processes. In order to make the “I-person” possible, the forces of a supersensible world build up the sense organs. In so far as the human body is the carrier of the sense organs, it shows itself to be built out of a supersensible world. Let us now call this carrier of the sense organs the physical human body. The 'I-human' permeates it in order to live with its help in the sense world. We must therefore see in the physical human body an entity that is built out of forces that are related in their nature to the 'I' itself. Within the sense world, the physical human body can only reveal itself in its sensory manifestation. According to its inner reality, it is a being of a supersensible nature. — In order to make the “astral human being” possible, another world, which is added to the characterized supersensible world as a “life world”, builds the organs of life. The forces of this world have proved to be akin to those of the experiences that the “astral human being” has in the instincts of life. What builds up the physical human being reveals itself in the sense world in the sense described above. The forces that build the organs of life can only reveal themselves in the physical world in the processes of life. This is because they generate the organs of life, and only through such organs can a life process manifest itself. The organs of life themselves are not organs of perception. Therefore, not only the forces that build up the organs of life remain imperceptible to the senses, but the manifestation of these forces in the human being cannot become manifest to the senses either, but can only be an intuitive, instinctive experience. This revelation will now be called the 'etheric human body'. (The word 'etheric' should be understood to mean only what is meant here, and in no way what bears the name 'ether' in physics.) Just as the physical human body relates to the 'I-human', so the 'etheric human body' relates to the 'astral human'. The physical body is, in its essence, such that it provides the I with sense experiences; the “etheric body” can only be experienced directly by the “astral human being” in terms of feeling. The relationship between the I and the physical human body is the same as that between the “astral human being” and the “etheric human body”. Thus the organs of life presuppose forces to which they adapt themselves, in that they shape sense organs, such as the organ of hearing, out of the body in the sense of experiences to which they themselves do not serve; and the sense organs in turn presuppose the organs of life in that they are maintained by their processes.

Thus we can distinguish: 1. A supersensible world in which lie the forces for building up the sense organs. 2. A supersensible world in which lie the forces for building up the organs of life. The former presupposes the latter; therefore the former can be called the higher spiritual world and the latter the lower spiritual world. 3. A world in which the astral human being is related to the life processes in such a way that these reveal themselves in him as life instincts. This presupposes the life processes, and thus the second world. It may be called the astral world. 4. A world in which sense experiences reveal themselves to the human being through the sense organs. This, however, is the physical-sensual world.

The physical human body is formed from the higher spiritual world, in so far as it is the carrier of the sense organs. The etheric human body is formed from the lower spiritual world, in so far as it builds up the life organs. In the astral world, the astral human being enters into a relationship with the processes of life, in so far as these reveal themselves in the life instincts. In the physical world, the human ego enters into a relationship with the sense experiences (sound, tone, warmth, light, etc.) that present themselves as the external world, insofar as these reveal themselves as the sense world.

In the previous section, the “astral man” was only considered in terms of how his emotional experiences reflect the processes of the life organs. But these experiences are not the only ones that are peculiar to him. In addition to these experiences, there is, first of all, the ability to move in humans. The human being does not move his body only in response to impulses that arise from life processes. The impulses for movement are located in the inner life, insofar as this is independent of life processes. But self-reflection shows that these impulses do not always have to be triggered by the impulses of the “I-human”; they arise as instinctive experiences and thus belong to the same realm as the instinctive experiences that combine with the life processes, that is, the “astral human”. Furthermore, those experiences of the “astral man” that can be described as instinctive desires also present themselves as such experiences. Desires arise on the basis of sensory perceptions. But in relation to them, self-contemplation shows the following. Sensory perception first leads to a judgment when it is taken up by the “I-person”. This judgment then acts on the “astral person” when it leads to a desire. The experience forms in the “I-person”: the sensually perceived is valuable; interest awakens for it. If this interest is now to become a desire, the judgment must be seized by an impulse of the “astral man”. And desires are also formed on the basis of experiences that are connected with life processes. However, the emotional experiences described above are not yet desires. The experience of hunger is not yet a desire. It only points to the life process in a judgmental way. The desire is an independent experience that the “astral man” adds to the feeling of hunger. In addition, there are desires that are rooted in the “astral man” without being stimulated by life processes or by external perceptions. Certain drives belong to the realm from which such desires arise. — A third kind of independent experience of the “astral human” arises when we consider how something else interposes itself between the process of sense perception and the experience of the “I-human”. It is the “image” that arises in the alternation between sense experience and “I” on the basis of the former. The sense experience is transitory; it lasts only as long as the sense organ is directed towards the object. The “picture” remains; but this “picture” is not yet something that belongs to the judgment, to the I-activity itself. For one can only judge on the basis of the “picture”. The picture contains an experience of the “astral man”, not of the “I-man”. One can also call the “image” the sensation if one does not apply this word to the sense experience itself but to its content. In this sense, sensations are the third kind of independent experiences of the “astral human being”. Just as one speaks of sense organs for the physical human being and of life organs for the etheric human being, so too can one speak of impulses of movement, longings and sensations for the astral human being. The organs for these experiences cannot come from the astral human being itself, because the latter must first have them before it can have the experiences. The organs must be formed out of a world lying outside the astral man. But because the astral man has such experiences in feeling, desire and movement, the impulses of which are rooted in himself, and because he is, so to speak, an observer of what must unfold in himself, the forces that form the corresponding organs can only come from the same sphere as the whole astral man. We must therefore presuppose a world that, although it lies outside the “astral man”, is nevertheless of the same essence as it. The nature of this world can also be revealed here from that experience of the “astral man” which is the innermost. The “sensations” or “image sensations” can be recognized as such in the sense mentioned above. In the desires and impulses of movement, on the other hand, there is something that points beyond the inner experience. The desires and impulses of movement must also be stimulated from a world that is similar to his world of “images”, in the construction of which he is involved as an “astral human being”. We can now distinguish between the “astral human being” as he experiences himself inwardly in “images”, desires and impulses of movement, and the “astral human being” who is the revelation of a world lying outside the impulse of movement and desire. This “astral man” is to be distinguished from the first “astral body” of man. It can be perceived by the senses just as little as the “etheric body,” because it does not produce organs for physical perception, but only for sensation, desire and movement impulse. It is clear that the impulse of movement and desire cannot be perceived by the senses; but this must also be admitted for the intuitive perception, in so far as it is of the same nature as the forces that build up the “astral body”. For the image that arises through a sensory experience also detaches itself from this experience and remains as the content of the “astral man”. But the forces that form the organs of the “astral man” must be conceived as a detached “image”, not as a sensory experience. However, as long as this “image” is imagined as if its content had come from a sensory experience, it cannot illustrate the forces from which the “astral body” is formed. This is because a sensory organ is necessary for the emergence of such an image. It must be thought of an image of this kind, but not of such origin. A fantasy image is of this kind. As long as a fantasy image comes from the mere personal arbitrariness of the “I-human”, it cannot, by its very nature, be considered for the characterization of the world mentioned. It must arise out of a reality that lies outside of the “I-human” and also outside of the “astral human”. Taking into account all that has been said, one can form an idea of what the “astral body” must be like. According to the indications that have emerged, it is an imagistic body rooted in reality, which from within itself kindles the forces of desire and movement.

In the areas corresponding to sensory experiences, something was given that could be visualized as a perimeter along which the individual forces were distributed, which manifest themselves in the sense organs as their effects. In the regions corresponding to the life processes, the picture could be chosen so that the individual corresponding forces run over each other. One must say “run over each other”; for the individual processes do not interpenetrate. Respiration, for example, comes close to the process of maintenance because the latter must continually rebuild the organ of respiration. But the respiratory process itself is not changed by the influence of the process of conservation. The two processes – breathing and the process of conservation – thus work past each other. This is different for the processes of movement, desire and “image sensation”. These three processes work in the following way. Image sensations are effectively generated in desires; desires live on in the impulses of movement. It is therefore justified to say that when an image sensation meets desire, the former permeates the latter, and the content of the image sensation lives on in the desire. Likewise, the desire lives on in the movement - together with the image sensation. Thus the forces of the world out of which the astral body is formed can be visualized in such a way that one thinks of them as three force-structures: that structure which corresponds to the image-sensations acts on that which pours out the longings, and in the structure for the movements the effects of the first two structures then live on.

It will now be easy to see that the world from which the “astral body” originates, is the same as that characterized in the previous chapter as the “astral world”. For the life processes must first be transformed into life instincts in order to be impulses in the “astral man”. Life instincts, pictorial sensations, desires and impulses for movement thus belong to the “astral man” insofar as he already presupposes the lower spiritual world and himself has his origin in the “astral world”.

There is nothing in the experience of the “I” itself by the human being that is stimulated by a sensory process. On the other hand, the I incorporates the results of the sensory processes into its own experience and builds the structure of its inner being, the actual “I-human”, from them. This “I-human” thus consists entirely of experiences that originate outside the I and yet persist in the I after the corresponding sensory experiences. They can therefore be transformed into ego experiences. We can gain an idea of how this happens by looking at the experiences of the so-called sense of touch. In this sense, nothing comes from an object in the external world into the ego experiences. The ego, so to speak, radiates its own essence to the point of contact with the external object and then allows this own essence to return in proportion to the touch. The returning own essence forms the content of the tactile perception. Why does the I not immediately recognize the tactile perception as its own content? Because this content has received a counter-impact from the other side, from the outside, and now returns as this impact has shaped it from the outside world. The I-content thus returns with the imprint it has received from the outside. Thus, the I receives a certain peculiarity of the external world in the nature of its own content. The fact that these are truly inner I-experiences, which have only taken on the peculiarity of the external world, can only be determined by judgment. Now, suppose that the I's experience cannot come into contact with the external object. The external object radiates its essence; and the I-experience must recoil from the contact. Then, within the I, an experience similar to the sense of touch arises; only that, through the weaker resistance of the I, something like an influx from the outside occurs in its experience. In fact, the experience of smell can be characterized as such a process. If the impact from outside is so strong that the external radiation digs into the experience of the I, then the influx from outside can happen, and only when the inner experience, so to speak, puts up resistance can it close itself off from the nature of the outside world. But then it has absorbed the current from outside and now carries it within itself as its own inner essence. The sense of taste can be characterized in this way. But if the I does not apply its own original experience to external existence, but instead applies to it the kind of entity that it has itself taken in from outside, then an inner experience can be imprinted from the outside that has itself originally been taken in from the outside. The external world then imprints itself on an inner experience that has itself only been internalized from an external source. This is how the sense of sight presents itself. With it, it is as if the external world were dealing with itself within the experiences of the I. It is as if the external world first sends a part of its essence into the human being and then imprints its own nature on this part. One now further assumes that the external world, with what it has sent into the inner being as a sense organ, completely fills the I-experience, as it were; then the inner being will relive the peculiarity of an external event in the sense perception, although inner experience and external world are juxtaposed. And a radiance from the outer world will then reveal itself as something that is similar to an inner experience. The I will experience the outer and inner as similar. This is the case with the sense of warmth. Now compare the experiences of the sense of warmth with the life process of warming. An impression of warmth must be recognized as something similar to the warmth experienced within and filling the inner self.

With the sense of smell, taste and sight, we can speak of an influx of the outer world into the experiences of the self. Through the sense of warmth, the inner life is filled with the character of the outer world. A sense of the inner life manifests itself in the sense of equilibrium, the sense of one's own movement and the sense of life. Through them, the self experiences its inner physical fulfillment.

Another takes place in the sense of hearing. There the external being not only allows the I-experiences to approach it as in the sense of touch; nor does it dig into them as in the sense of smell, taste and sight, but it allows itself to be irradiated, as it were, by the I-experiences; it allows them to approach it. And only then does it counter them with its own forces. The I must thereby experience something that is like a spreading out into the external world, like a laying of these I-experiences outwards. Such a relationship can be recognized by the sense of hearing. (Those who do not make abstract comparisons will not object that, for example, such a spreading out also takes place with the sense of sight. The perception of sound is of a fundamentally different nature than the perception of sight. Color does not contain the sense of self in the same sense as sound.) This spreading of the sense of self into the environment is even more pronounced in the sense of sound and in the sense of concept.

In order to characterize the astral human being, it was necessary to point out the trinity of image-sensation, desire and impulse of movement. The “I-human being”, insofar as he is directly experienced in his sensory processes, shows himself as a unity. All sensory experiences are only, as the preceding considerations show, differently modified or graded I-experiences. In the experience of the I itself, the human being is in direct relationship with the supersensible world. The other I-experiences are mediated to him through organs. And through the organs, the I-experiences reveal themselves in the diversity of the sense fields. Now, with two organs, the sense of concept and the sense of sound, one can easily follow the development of the sense ability to a certain degree. When a concept is perceived, the concepts acquired in the person's previous life prove to be what absorbs the new concept. A person proves to be understanding of a concept that approaches him to the extent that he has previously absorbed this or that concept. In the understanding of a concept, there is therefore an opening of the person to the outside and a sinking of what has been absorbed into the structure of the already existing concept organism. The life that unfolds there blossoms outwards and takes root in the conceptual organism. A similar thing happens for the sense of sound. A person is receptive to a new sound meaning to the extent that he has already acquired other sound meanings. The human being really carries a conceptual and a sound organism within him. Both must be present before the I-experiences can take place through conceptual and sound organisms. The I-human being cannot bring about the creation of this sound and conceptual organism through forces that lie in the sense life. And a third thing is necessary. The I unfolds its experiencing in all directions, as it were; it cannot experience itself in this experiencing. It must confront its own experiencing with something that is itself an experience of the self. It confronts itself as a sensation. We see, then, that the sense of 'I', the experiences of the sense of concept and the sense of sound, are brought to the 'I' by three organisms. We can count the 'I' organism as a fourth. If we keep to the image chosen above, we can say that the experience of the I unfolds on all sides; it is rooted on one side in a supersensible world that is like itself and strives into the conceptual and phonetic organisms in such a way that its own experience grows towards it, as if it were bringing the I-organism, the conceptual and phonetic organisms to full bloom, like a flower. If we imagine the human being as a being of the sensory world, as the direction characterized is incorporated in it, we must think of the contrast between above and below. “From top to bottom” is a direction in which we can imagine the development of I-experience; from “bottom to top” this development is opposed by the I-organism, towards which the I-experiences grow. Just as the leaves attach to the leaf stalk of a plant, unfolding from bottom to top, so the structures of the conceptual and phonetic organisms attach to the ego organism from top to bottom. If we now say, as is justified from the above, that the original ego experience unfolds out of a supersensible world, then we can assume that for the formation of the ego, conceptual and phonetic organisms, their coming into being, forces are at work which possess the same material as is present in the I-experience. However, they build this material into forms that must already be there when the I-experience is perceived by the senses. It is therefore self-evident that human ego-experience is one that flows from a supersensible world, but can only be perceived when it takes root in an organism that is a structure of ego, concept and sound. We can also say that it is an organism that unfolds its sense organs in these three. To this we can add the description of the astral body given above. The image-feeling, desire and impulse to move of the astral human being point to its essence. It is easy to see that there is an image-feeling in the ego organism that is not the result of a sensory experience. For the I-organism is, after all, the I-experience itself, which opposes itself in the opposite direction. In the conceptual organism, forces can be recognized which unfold towards the inside of the human being - in the astral human being - as desire. In the attraction that the concept organism has for newly added concepts, a careful self-examination will easily be able to notice the desire of this concept organism. But the same applies to the sound organism. It develops this desire for the new meanings. From this one can recognize the activity of the “astral body” in the formation of the ego, concept and sound organism.

A being that did not experience the I within, as humans do, but observed it from the outside, would be able to follow the emergence of the I organism, the organism of sounds and concepts. Such a being would have to perceive the I-experience itself in such a way that it does not allow any of this I-experience to enter into itself, but only penetrates to the boundary, and at this boundary the being of the I radiates back into itself. One sees that this is the opposite of the so-called sense of touch. With this sense, the outer world is touched and nothing of its essence is absorbed. This is also the case with the assumed being's relationship to the I. But whereas in the sense of touch the I only kindles its own experiences through the touch, thus only experiences its own content, the being presses its own content into the I-experiences, so that within the I-experiences it becomes I-perception. So when the ego perceives itself, it does so as a result of its activity, which has the same content as its own experience and differs from it only in that it shows the ego its own nature from the outside, whereas the ego can only experience this nature within itself. In the case of the conceptual sense, when the I comes into contact with this assumed being, it would not only have to reflect back the conceptual experiences, but it would have to push them back into the I-experience, so that they form the structure of the conceptual organism there. Nothing need be added to these conceptual experiences, but they must be preserved within the conceptual experience. However, in the case of the sound organism, preservation would not suffice. Something must be added to the concepts if they are to become sounds. The hypothetically assumed being would have to transfer some of its own content into the I-experience. A survey of the given conditions shows that in the I-organism only the own nature of the I is reflected back from the outside, in the concept organism the own I-experience in a different form can be directed back into itself through an external expression; in the sound organism something of the nature of the external itself pours over into the I-experience. The perceived external being would have to perceive the emergence of the I-organism as a kind of reverse sense of touch. It would sense the forming of the conceptual organism, just as a human being senses his own life processes through the sense of life. The only difference is that in the sense of life an inner structure is sensed; but the assumed being would have to sense, in its corresponding sense, the way it forms itself into the I-experience of the human being. In the sense of sound, there is then a pouring in from the outside. Should the assumed external being experience this, it would have to happen through a reverse sense of its own movement. Through this, the human being perceives his own movements; through the reversal of the same, that being would perceive the inward movement of its own being into the I-experience. It would experience itself in the execution of an external movement of the I-human being.

Now, the sense of life in the human being must be based on his own life processes. As has been shown, the life processes can be divided into breathing, warming, nourishing, secreting, maintaining, growing and producing processes. One can indeed imagine the process of forming the organ of the sense as a process of production directed from the outside inward, and the formation of the sound organism as a growing-into of the I-experience by a part of the assumed external entity. Only one must bear in mind that the I-experiences themselves are used as the material for this production and growing.

It is now possible, by extending the assumed mode of observation, to interpret the other sense experiences in relation to that which stands behind them. For the sense of hearing, the experience is that the sound points to an external object, but the organ of hearing itself points to an activity by which it is formed in a similar way to the way the conceptual organism is formed by the reverse sense of life, and the sound organism by the reverse sense of its own movement. Now imagine that the sense of equilibrium shows itself in its opposite essence. Instead of causing a person to maintain their uprightness against the three external spatial directions, in its opposite state it would produce a rebellion against the three spatial directions directed inwardly in another being. If now the external being, as assumed above, really did place itself in relation to the human being in such a way that it poured its own nature into him and brought about a rebellion against the three spatial directions within him, then it could work in such a way that the essence poured into the inner life of the I is sensed as an inner experience, but the activity of the reverse sense of balance is not sensed, but acts in a similar way to the force that forms the conceptual organism in the reverse sense of life and the sound organism in the reverse sense of self-movement. In the auditory system, the reverse sense of balance then had a formative effect. Thus, the sound points to the inside of an outside that pours into the experience of the self; the organ of hearing points to a reverse sense of balance that has accumulated and organically arranged the structures of one's own being in a similar way to how the reverse sense of life accumulates and organises conceptual experiences. If the external being, as postulated, is then really taken up as clay, which is permeated by a reversed sense of balance, then it can also be thought that the development of the auditory system is based on a process that enables the organ, when it comes into contact with the human being, which flows as sound into the experience of the I. The opposite sense of balance represents the activity on which the sound is based and from which the auditory system has developed out of the organism towards the experience of sound.

The interpretation of the sense of warmth can be understood by thinking of the reverse of the olfactory experience. In the sense of smell, the external substance penetrates the human being, and the olfactory experience is an immediate reciprocal relationship with the substance. The reverse would be the case if the assumed external substance consisted of the content of the sensation of warmth, but was imbued with an activity that enters into a direct reciprocal relationship with the human being. Behind the content of the sensation of warmth, there would then be an activity forming the warmth. It would be such that warmth flows out from it, as smell flows out from the smelling substance. Just as the odor spreads out in all directions into the external world, so would this activity be conceived as radiating out from the human being in all directions, unfolding in this radiance the organ-forming power for the sense of warmth. And just as the external substance reveals itself to the sense of smell, so the inner human being would have to reveal itself to this activity. Such a revelation would be given if the activity striving outwards were based on a kind of life process; that is, if this activity filled the human being with its own essence. The sense of warmth would thus be based on a kind of nourishment of the human being with the substance that is revealed in the warmth-sense experience according to its content.

For the interpretation of the sense of sight, the reversal of the taste experience should be considered. If the organ of sight were to come about through an external activity of a being, as hypothetically assumed above, so that, for example, color filled this being but it was completely permeated by an activity that represents a reverse tasting, then this taste-radiating activity could be thought of as the organ-forming power of the sense of sight. The situation would have to be that the effect of an external substance is not felt in the taste experience, but that the human being's inner being flows towards the radiant taste of this being. Just as in the case of taste there is a change in the substance brought about by the human being, so too would the external being have to carry out a change with the human being. However, such a change is present in the inner processes of life, for example, in warmth. The warmth would have to arise in the human being from the taste radiating out from within. Only this warmth would not express itself in the same way as an external warmth, because it has not external warmth to the substance, but something that is the same as the content of the face-sense experience. One sees that in this warmth, which is given by the activity radiating from the inside of the human being and based on the color of the adopted being, lies the inner nature of the light itself. Not the visual experience, but the inner nature of light that underlies the visual experience, arouses a warmth that lives in the organ-forming power of the visual sense in the same way that the substance lives in the interaction with the sense of taste in the taste experience.

The sense of taste can also be described as a reversed sense of smell. Only here the reversal has a different meaning than in the comparison of the sense of taste and the sense of sight. If we imagine that such a reversal takes place in the organ of smell that does not send the smell from a substance into the human interior, but lets it rebound on contact, then we would indeed have an analogy of the human organ of taste. Only the human interior itself would have to be placed in the place of the external being assumed above. That is, for the sense of smell within the human being, an essence equal to that assumed external essence would have to be presupposed. But whereas that hypothetical essence allows its nature to approach the human being from the outside, for the sense of smell its image would have to be enclosed within the human being. In so far as the human organism presents itself as an odoriferous agent, it is filled with something essentially external and alien to it. An external factor has become internal and unfolds from the internal such forces as were active in the formation of the organs of sight, hearing and warmth. It is evident that something must express itself in the sense of smell that can be equated with an inner essence of the external itself. And if the sense of taste is the reverse of this, then it is justified to say that what strikes man in the taste experience as a revelation from outside is the same as what is effective in the inner being through the organ of smell. But then between the sense of taste and the sense of smell is the point where the outer world and the inner world show themselves to be the same. And we may imagine that behind the experience of smell there is something that really behaves as an organ-forming substance of the external world within the human being, namely in the structure of the organ of taste. This, then, is built by the substance of the external world. And in the organ of smell, only the outward flowing substance itself can be imagined, which is directly perceived as such in the experience of smell. The sensation of smell would thus be the self-perception of the substance, and the organ of taste the self-animation of the substance.

These remarks should indicate that there is no need to think of anything material behind the sense experiences, but only of spiritual entities. The sense experiences would then be the revelations of the spiritual. The sense experience reveals itself directly to the senses, but not the spiritual behind it.

If, from the observation of the I-experience in the I-organism, in the concept and sound organism, an image emerged like that of a plant form that strives from top to bottom, then one can imagine the rest of the human being as that which opposes the I-experience from bottom to top and inhibits it in its flow from top to bottom, so to speak, damming it up into itself. In this remaining human being, the essence that comes into existence through birth is given. This essence is the temporal prerequisite of what, in the above image, strives from top to bottom. One can therefore say that what opposes the experience of the self from bottom to top enters the earth with birth. In this human being, therefore, what has already taken place must have been described in the above as the activities that form the sense organs. The formation of these sense organs can then only be imagined in such a way that the forces forming the sense organs bore into the human being striving from bottom to top as currents. This then gives the picture of forces striving from different sides. These forces encircle the human being and must in turn encounter an inhibition, just as the ego experience flowing from top to bottom encounters an inhibition in the entire human being striving from bottom to top. This inhibition is present when we think of the forces that form the sense organs as encountering those present in the life processes. If we imagine the sense of equilibrium striving in the opposite direction to the activity of the tone force, we have the rudiment of the organ of hearing; if we imagine the sense of smell striving in the opposite direction to the warmth-experience force, we have the rudiment of the warmth organ. This extends throughout the whole human being. This fact fits into the picture when we consider that the reverse sense of taste runs in the opposite direction to the reverse senses of smell and balance. The reverse sense of smell then runs through the whole body, and from the other side the reverse sense of taste runs to prove itself as organ-forming for the sense of sight with the power of the light experience. In the sense of taste, the substance that is revealed in the sense of smell has an organ-building effect, and finds its inhibition in the organism that has been built up by the other senses. In the sense of smell, the substance-inner strives towards the substance-inner. One arrives at the image of a periphery from which the organ-building forces emanate to take effect in the human being as if in the center of the periphery. If only these forces were effective in forming organs, then the formation and order of the sense organs would be quite different from what they actually are. This can only be the case, however, if the organ-forming forces themselves are inhibited in their development. Suppose, for example, that the organ-forming force of the auditory system is strengthened at one point and weakened at others; then it will become particularly noticeable at one point. But this is the case when other forces are acting on the organ-forming forces themselves. The question now is whether there is anything in man to indicate that there are such forces outside of him. First of all, something special can be seen in the life processes. These continue even when the sensory experiences are at rest during sleep. This shows that there must be formative forces at work in their organs, which continue to function even when the senses are dormant. The forces that form the sense organs are thus, so to speak, only one side of the organ-forming activity. The life processes must, before they can be present, be prepared by the organ-forming forces of the life organs. The forces that underlie the life organs are even more remote from human consciousness than those that build the sense organs. In the sense organs, forces reveal their effects through the sense organs. In the life organs, however, it is not the forces that build them that reveal themselves, but only their effects, namely the organs themselves. Through the sense of warmth, warmth is sensed; through the sense of life, the life organs. The formation of the life organs thus presupposes a different world from that of the sense organs. But now the sense organs must fit harmoniously into the life organs. That is to say, in order for sense organs to arise in their corresponding form, the formative forces of the life organs must already contain the predispositions for the sense organs. This, however, points to a world in which the formative forces of the life organs work in such a way that they lay the potential for sense organs in these life organs, but do not yet form them themselves in them. Only after the life organs have been formed do they imprint the sense organs on the form of these life organs. Now, however, not all sense organs need to be present in the same way in the organ-forming forces of the life organs. The organs of the so-called sense of touch do not need to be present at all. This is because they only reflect the experiences of the life organs within themselves. But even of the life, self-movement and equilibrium senses, nothing needs to be present that only has a meaning when sense organs are imprinted on the life organs. Thus, what relates to the emotional experiences of the sense of life and self-movement at the sense organs themselves is not included in the indicated predispositions. But this points to a world in which the organ-forming forces of the life organs and the predispositions for the organ-forming forces of the senses of hearing, warmth, sight, taste and smell can be found. If the sense organs impress themselves on the already existing life organs, then the formative forces of the life organs must have created a foundation in these life organs. On this basis, the life organs develop the life processes, and the organ-forming forces of the senses radiate their currents into these life processes. These organ-forming forces thus encounter an inhibition in the life organs. Their activity collides with this inhibition. The senses can only be developed where the life organs allow it. The image of the human being shows that the distribution of the sense organs mentioned above is reflected in the contrast between “left-right” and “right-left”. And the symmetrical structure of the human being in these directions shows once again that the relationship between the life organs and the sense organs is twofold. One need only observe the sense organs in a human being facing forward to arrive at the picture, for instance, that the right ear, in so far as it owes its origin to the stage in which the formative forces of the life organs hold sway, is shaped from left to right, and that it has become a sense organ through the sense-forming forces having opposed its formation from right to left. The reverse would apply to the left ear. Similar considerations apply to the other symmetrically arranged sense organs.

In so far as man is a being who has experiences through sense organs, his origin can be sought in that world from which it is said above that the astral man comes from. If we now consider that the forces that form the sense organs are the inverted sense experiences themselves, we may assume that we are talking about the world from which the astral man comes when we presuppose the existence of a being that forms the sense organs through forces that, as it were, collide from outside. For it has been shown that, during the formation of the sense organs, the reverse sense experiences flow into the human interior. Thus pictorial sensations are aroused by these forces. But the pictorial sensations, along with desires and impulses of movement, are what points to the astral body of the human being. If we now consider the forces that form the sense organs, also as a reversal of movement impulses and desires, we have an idea of how the human astral body, as the shaper of the sense organisms, is taken from an imperceptibly imperceptible world. - This presupposes a world underlying the world of sense experiences, which has been called the 'astral world'. We then have to take everything that man experiences through the senses as immediate reality and assume an astral reality hidden within it. The first is called the physical world. The astral world underlies it. It has now been shown that the latter is based on yet another. The formative forces of the life organs and the predispositions for hearing, warmth, sight and taste are rooted in this. Since it contains the formative forces for the organs of life, it can be said that the human being himself, insofar as he has the formative forces of the organs of life in his body, also comes from it. If we now call the sum of the formative forces of the human life organs (in the sense of §53) the “etheric” body of man, we can recognize that this etheric body has its origin in the world beyond the astral. This world has now been called the “lower spiritual world”, whereby again nothing more is to be thought of by this name than what is stated here.

Among the processes of life, there are three whose organs point beyond the world in which, according to what has been presented above, the origin of the organs of life is to be sought. In generation, the living physical body repeats its own structures; in growth, it adds something new to what already exists, out of the material of that which already exists; in maintenance, what already exists acts on what already exists; and in secretion, something that was only present in the living process is secreted out of it. These, then, are the life processes that take place within the life organs themselves. It is not so with nutrition, warmth, and breathing. These processes are only possible if the life organs absorb something from an external world.

Among the sense experiences, there are five whose organs point out in the same way to the world in which the origin of the organs corresponding to the other sense experiences is to be found. According to the above, the sense of taste is a kind of inverted sense of smell, in that the taste organ turns the experience felt by the sense of smell on the outer substance inward, so that the smell of the substance already inside the body is tasted. The sense of taste therefore presupposes a substance that is already in the organism. The sense of smell, however, requires the substance of the external world. Regarding the sense of sight, it is clear from the above considerations that its organ comes into being when an entity is active in this process of becoming, which does not treat the color experiences as they are when they are perceived through the sense of sight, but when it sets them in motion in an activity that is the opposite of that which builds up the sense of taste. Thus, if such an activity is present in an organism, a visual organ can arise from a preexisting taste organ being transformed into a visual organ. Thus, while an olfactory organ is inconceivable without contact with an external substance, and a gustatory organ is an inward-facing olfactory organ, and therefore requires a substance to be present within the body, the visual organ can come into being if a gustatory organ that is present in the germ is not developed as such but is transformed internally. Then the substance must also pour inwardly to this organ. It is the same with the organ of warmth. For the same reason as that given for the organ of sight, it can be regarded as an organ of smell that is arrested in its formation and transformed inwardly. (Thus the organ of taste would be regarded as a simply upturned organ of smell, and the organ of warmth as a transformed organ of smell.) The organ of hearing would be regarded in the same sense as a transformed organ of equilibrium, the organ of sound as an organ of the sense of one's own movement, whose formation was halted early on, and the organ of concept as an organ of the sense of life, transformed in its very origin. The formation of these organs does not presuppose the presence of an external substance, but it is only necessary that the substance flowing within is grasped by higher formative forces than those that prevail in the sense of smell.

On the other hand, contact with an external substance is necessary for the sense of smell. Now, the sense of equilibrium does not presuppose contact with the external substance, but it does presuppose a relationship to the three directions of space. If these directions were such in empty space, the sense of equilibrium could not exist; it can only exist if space is filled with matter and the material filling is permeated by forces with which the human body comes into contact. But for a reciprocal relationship to come about, other forces must be related to forces. Thus, the human body must counter the three forces of the material filling the space with three forces of its own material. The human body must therefore have an organ that is not only related to the external material in the same way as the organ of smell, but through which its three directions of force can be sensed. It has been shown above that the inverted sense of balance can be thought of as active in the formation of the organ of hearing. Now, let us assume that this inverted sense of balance takes an existing auditory system beyond the formation of an organ of hearing, that is, it does not end this formation at the moment when it has become an organ of hearing, but continues to develop it from that point on. Then the auditory system would become an organ of balance. In the same way, it can now be imagined that the reversed sense of self-movement would lead an organ of sound beyond the character of the organ of sound. Then, through a corresponding organ, the human being would not perceive sounds, but would sense the relationships that exist with the forces of external matter. And if the reversed sense of life were to lead an organ of perception far beyond its formation, then it would sense through a corresponding organ the relationship of its own substance to external substance. For this to be possible, the substance would not only have to prove effective in the human body, but it would have to be able to enter the body from the outside, without touching it, and allow its powers to play within. Then there would be three organs in the sense of balance, the sense of self-movement and the sense of life, for which the external world would be necessary for their development. But this is clear from the sense of touch, since it only recognizes an external world through a hidden judgment, and thus necessarily presupposes one. One can thus say that in the organs of taste, sight, warmth and hearing, organs are given that can be formed in the organism by the forces of the material flowing in it; for the sense of smell, sense of balance, sense of one's own movement, sense of life and sense of touch, external material with its forces proves to be a condition.

Just as the organs of life point to the material outside world in breathing, warming, and nourishing, so do the organs of the sensory organs mentioned. In contrast, secretion, maintenance, growth, production, taste, vision, hearing, speech, thought, and ego organisms presuppose inner formative principles that can only be active in internalized material.

If we now assume, as we have done above, that the formative forces for the organs of life and the predispositions for the sense organs lie in the lower spiritual world, then a distinction arises for the formative forces of the organs of life prevailing in this world between those that presuppose an internalized substance and those that shape their organs for the absorption of the substance from outside. It is easy to see that the latter are a prerequisite for the former. For if matter itself did not possess the potential to become internalized, it could not become active within itself. Thus, forces must prevail in matter that enable it to evoke counter-effects from what is external to it. The above description has shown that matter can produce such counter-effects in itself. The reversed senses of life, of self-movement and of equilibrium carry within them the hidden possibility of acting in such a way that, in order to produce internal formations, they are active as substance itself, without using the internal formative principles as such. They act, after all, not only within, but also outside their measure. If we now imagine these three inverted sensory activities as being so effective that they do not encounter any internally formed organ, but remain in the character of their effectiveness, then they reach a boundary where they must return into themselves. At this boundary, therefore, the material would throw itself back into itself; it would be inhibited in itself. At this boundary, what could be called materiality in materiality would be given. And this points to the possibility of how the organs that need inner substance arise out of a world in which the material-outer becomes material-inner. In this world, the first rudiments would have to lie both for those organs of the life process that are supplied by internalized substance and for those that need external substance. And the forces that bring the external substance to the interior should already have the potential for this internalization. Just as the forces in the organs of life themselves point to a world of other forces, from which the organs of life are first formed, so the internal flow of matter in the organs of life points to potentialities from an even higher world, from which they are formed. We are led to point to an outer world which, through the contrast between the sense of life, the sense of self-movement and the sense of equilibrium, can spark an inner world within itself. This world, however, can be called the “higher spiritual world”. What would be sought in it? Not forces that shape organs of life in the first place, but those that implant in their structures the potential to become organs of life. These forces, however, are to be thought of as the opposites of the sense of equilibrium, the sense of self-movement and the sense of life. If these forces are stopped before they reach the limit of their effectiveness, through inner formative processes in organs that are already being formed, then they shape the sense organs of hearing, of sound and of concept out of such organ predispositions. What happens when they reach the limit of that activity which lies in their own character? If the sense of life that is turned inwards did not encounter something in the organ of concepts that it only has to reshape, then it would obviously lead the conceptual experience back into itself. And in its reflection, it would immediately encounter itself. It would be the same as in a sensory experience, but it would have an independent existence without an underlying sensory organ. The same could be said for the sense of balance and equilibrium when reversed. In the higher spiritual world, we would thus find sense experiences that are at rest in themselves and which prove to be related to those sense experiences to which the human being in the physical world is closest with his ego, the experiences of the sense of concept, sound and hearing. But those experiences are as if there were not, as it were, a human ego standing before them and taking them in, but as if there were a being behind them that creates them in its own activity.

On the basis of the above considerations, the following can be said about the principles of education for humans:

It is assumed:

1. A higher spiritual world; in this lie forces that form structures which, in independent substance, represent living sensory experiences. And imprinted in these structures are the predispositions for the organs of life.

2. A lower spiritual world; in this lie the formative powers of the organs of life. The forces active in the first world form such structures that nourish themselves from the already internalized substance. The forces of this world themselves attach to them those that first internalize external matter. This results in a difference between the organs of life in terms of how they are produced and how they are nourished. The formations formed out of the first world are transformed into sense organs that nourish themselves from internalized matter. The formative forces of this world themselves add to these sense organs those that are in an interdependent relationship with external matter.

3. The astral world; in this lie the formative forces of the sense organs. But the life organs must also be transformed out of this world in such a way that they can receive the sense organs.

4. The physical world; in this world lie the sensory experiences of the human being.

It must now be recognized that these four worlds interact, that the forces of each higher world persist in the lower ones. The fact that the organs mentioned are derived from the forces of higher worlds can only mean that these organs are subject to the influences of the higher worlds, even if they occur in the lower worlds. From the physical world the forces of the higher worlds do not act on the sense organs; from the astral world the forces of the two spiritual worlds do not act on the life organs; and from the lower spiritual world the forces of the higher ones do not act on the endowments of the life organs characterized above. It follows that the forces of the higher worlds must show themselves active in a different way from the physical world than if they were to act directly from their own world. The forces of the higher spiritual world can only act as formative forces on the human being, who is endowed with sense organs, life organs and organ systems. They can determine the shape and position of the organs. Thus, the shape and position of the organs of the human body result from the activity of the higher spiritual world in the physical one. The I experiences concepts in conceptual perception; the sense of life, in its inverted form, produces the living concepts of the higher spiritual world. In the physical world, they can only function as formative forces. It is certainly clear that man owes his ability to perceive concepts to his upright form. No other creature on earth has the ability to perceive concepts, nor has any other the same upright form. (A little thought will show that in the case of animals that appear to have an upright form, this is due to something other than inner forces). In this way, one can see from bottom to top that which is connected to conceptual perception when the inverted sense of life is not involved. From this, one can conclude that there is a direction from top to bottom for the inverted sense of life. It would be even more correct to say that there is a direction almost from top to bottom. For one should see something in the direction of growth from bottom to top that is opposed to the reversed sense of touch. Insofar as the ego represents a contrast to the sense of touch, in the sense of the above explanations, one can regard the vertical direction of growth of the body upwards as an ego-bearer, like a continuous overcoming of the weight downwards, which of course represents a reversal of the sense of touch. From all this, the contrast between 'up-down' and 'down-up' in the human body can be interpreted as if a current from bottom to top takes place in such a way that the overcoming of the reversed sense of life from top to bottom is given in it. Now, the effect of the higher spiritual world on the physical human body must be seen in this reversed sense of life. Thus we can say that the human body, in so far as it is the carrier of the I, strives upwards; the physical human body, in so far as it shows in its form the effect of the higher spiritual world, from above downwards. In so far as the human being physically expresses the image of a being belonging to the higher spiritual world, one can see it as the meeting of the ego body with the physical body, arising from the interpenetration of two directions of force. In his ego experience, the human being belongs to the physical outer world, but at the same time he represents that which gives an image of the experience reflected back into itself. This is an image of what has been characterized as the self-contained sensory experiences of the higher spiritual world. In the body, insofar as it is the carrier of the ego, we can thus see an image of matter internalizing itself. Another contrast comes to light in 'backwards-forwards'; 'forwards-backwards'. The sense organs, together with the nerves belonging to them, now essentially represent organs that reveal their growth from front to back; if one imagines them, as is certainly justified, growing in such a way that their formative forces are opposed to the original direction of growth, coming from the lower spiritual world, then one may look for this latter direction in the direction from back to front. And then we shall be able to say that in the conclusion from behind in relation to the human form there is something analogous to that in the conclusion from below upwards in relation to the higher spiritual world. In the outer form, the forces of the lower spiritual world that cannot act on the human being from the physical world then worked from the front to the back on the organs of life; but from the back to the front, the forces of the lower spiritual world worked into the physical human world. They express what, in the sense of the above considerations, may be called the astral human being. Insofar as the astral human being shows itself in its bodily form, it strives from behind to the front just as the physical human body strives upwards. The third antithesis would be “right-left”; “left-right”. The symmetry of the human form in relation to this direction can be seen as an indication that the forces are balanced there. This can be seen when one observes the interaction in these directions of the human physical form, insofar as the physical organs have already been formed from the lower spiritual world, with the formative forces of the sense organs. In the left half of the body of the person facing forward, one would have to imagine the formative forces of the astral world for the sense organs, insofar as these forces no longer have a direct effect in the physical world, as from the left half of the body to the right; those forces of the astral world that have such an effect on the body that their effect is expressed in the body would then have to work to the left. Since these forces must act on organs that already come from the lower spiritual world, they will show an inward effect, as the forces of the higher and lower spiritual worlds show an outward effect in their formation. (What has been said here can be found substantiated in anthropology in the lines of the nerve tracts that cross in the organism.) This points to a permeation of the astral world with the etheric body of the human being, insofar as this is expressed in the physical form. It can be said:

1. The formation of the physical human body is conditioned by the direction from above to below from the higher spiritual world.

2. The shape of the human body, insofar as it is the carrier of the astral human being, points in the direction from back to front.

3. The shape of the human body, insofar as it is the carrier of the life processes, points both to the direction “right-left” and “left-right”.

4. The result of these formations would then be the actual physical human form. In order for this to come about, the formative forces indicated must permeate each other. Such interpenetration can only be conceived if the human being places himself in the physical world in such a way that the forces of the physical outer world in the direction of “right-left” and “left-right” are grasped by the forces of the astral world in such a way that the possibility remains open in their formation to then shape themselves further in the direction from back to front, and according to this determination, that from top to bottom remains open. For only if one imagines a direction that in principle goes from right to left and from left to right, acting on all sides, and then changes as in the direction towards the front, and is then transformed again upwards, can one imagine how the above comes about. But in order that this may result in the human form, for these forces, opposing forces must be thought of, proceeding from the physical world itself. These are then those forces which show themselves to be no longer acting from the physical world, but as forces coming from the higher worlds, as characterized above. But the latter alone may be sought in the physical human being. Man enters into relation with the others only as such a disposition. If we seek in the physical world the clue to man's relation to higher worlds, we must look not to the life processes and their connection with the organs, nor to the life of the sense organs, nor to the brain, but solely to the 'how', the form of the bodily shape and the organs. This 'how' shows that the clues to the spiritual worlds can still be perceived in the physical human being. (The difference between man and animal in relation to the higher worlds can therefore be seen from an observation of the bodily form, insofar as the animal is arranged in a different way in the spatial directions; but this different arrangement reveals that the higher worlds have a different effect on the animal and on man).

The anthroposophical considerations can be made fruitful if one applies the given considerations to the details of the human body shape. It will then everywhere result in full harmony with the anthropological observations. The indication of how in the organ of hearing, organ of sight, etc. conversions of organ systems that are in the process of developing or an inverted sense of smell in the organ of taste, can lead to ideas that must be found again in the organ forms. The asymmetrical organs are understood if we conceive of them in such a way that their forms have been formed by the fact that the “left-right” and “right-left” forces of the astral world could be excluded. If one recognizes, as has been done above, a reversal of the sense organs, a turning inwards of the same, then one will also be able to admit that the transformation can also be conditioned by other principles. Take the organ of hearing. The same has been related to the sense of balance. One can imagine that the activity that manifests itself in the sense of balance, an inward-facing organ system that has not yet differentiated into the organ of hearing, diverts it from its original direction of formation. The sense of sound would then come about if another activity were directed towards the corresponding organ system. This could be related to the experiences of the sense of self-movement. This would throw light on the fact that the organ of hearing finds expression in an organ turned towards the outer material, while the organ of speech cannot be perceived externally. The experience of the sense of self-movement corresponds to the inside of the body, while the experience of the sense of balance is expressed in relation to the outer spatial directions. One could therefore also call the speech organ a hearing organ held back inside the body. For the experience of the self, which does not correspond to any sensory experience, not a special organ, but only the upward striving of other organ systems, would come into consideration. Thus, in the speech organ and the organ of concepts, we can see structures whose physical form is determined by their tendency towards the experience of self. In what the body, as the carrier of the 'I', participates in from within, we can recognize the inversion in the formative forces, and say that when the body, as the carrier of the 'I', reshapes an organ, the nature of the formations of the higher spiritual world must be recognizable in its image. One such organ is the speech organ (the larynx). If the series of organs comprising the ear, sense of sound and sense of concept can be called a progressive bodily internalization of the sense potential, then the sense of sound can be recognized as reversed in the speech organ. Here the sound does not become a sense experience that strives inward through an organ toward the I, but is a sense content that is self-contained and creative, a truly reversed sense experience. The formation of the larynx corresponds exactly to these conditions. One can then also look for an organ that corresponds to an ability in man that stands between speaking and I, as grasping stands between hearing and I. Through this, something would have to arise from within man that is not as poor in content as the I-experience and does not yet flow directly into the outer world in its revelations. This would be the organ in the human brain that corresponds to the imagination. We will gradually learn to distinguish between the organ of concept and the organ of imagination in the brain.

Since the formative forces of the three higher worlds are to some extent still present in the form of the physical human body, it must also be recognized that the formative forces of the two higher spiritual worlds can act on the astral body directly from the astral world; and finally, that the life organs, as they are from the lower spiritual world, are directly influenced by the higher spiritual world. Taking into account such forces, the shape and position of the heart, the respiratory and circulatory organs, the muscular and skeletal systems, etc. can arise.

In the human form within the physical world, it is revealed that its development has not merely followed an adaptation to circumstances that are alien to the inner nature of the human being, but that this form ultimately expresses in image what the character of the “I” is. The human being's developmental disposition must be conceived in such a way that, in its formation, points of contact are given to the forces of the higher worlds. In the sense-perceptible world, only the content of sensations is given for perception, and the I, when it perceives itself, confronts these as pictorial sensations. Pictorial sensation, however, belongs to the astral world. In the I's experience of itself, the pictorial sensation thus stands, as it were, free in space. It has been shown that the sense of taste can be seen as an inverted sense of smell. If we do not think that the impact of the substance in the sense of smell is what causes the sensation, but rather that the experience of smell itself, as a self-experience in the I, becomes a component of the latter, then we can see in a desire or in a movement impulse of the astral I the response of this I to something that originates from the substance and is incorporated into the I without physical mediation. Behind the experience of smell, in addition to the experience of images, are the astral counter-effects against the desires and impulses of the ego. In the case of sound, it is possible to clearly distinguish between what is detached from the external object and what is perceived about this object through senses other than hearing. And what is detached is the experience of the self by the ego. We can certainly say that when an object is heard, only the sound-producing object belongs to a world in which the ego is not present, in which it cannot identify with the sensory experience. In the sense of one's own movement, the position and change in the shape of one's own organism is perceived. In this case, it seems obvious that, in addition to the self-experience of the ego, only an astral counter-effect to a movement impulse needs to be assumed. If there are only sense experiences in the physical world, then we can only speak of sense experiences in this world. But since a physical body must have sense organs in order to have sense experiences, there is nothing in this physical world for a human being but sense experiences and the perception of the self as an astral image experience. The ego has no other possibility than to experience objects of the external world, and to find the sense experiences combined in the most diverse ways. What happens is nothing but a free-floating in space of sense experiences. But let us assume that the human form as such is not meaningless, but that it depends on the direction and position of one organ in relation to another. And if we look at the physical world from this point of view, it is essential that the organ of taste is an upturned organ of smell. For if we now think of the experience of smell, as it is, as an image-sensation, without denying the substance itself, as space-filling, the ability to present this experience as an image-sensation, just as the ego-perception is in itself a freely floating image-sensation in space , then it must be recognized that something depends on whether the surface of an object is turned towards an object in such a way that, in order to receive the image sensation emanating from it, one sensory organ or the other must be turned towards it. For the human being in the physical world, however, it will only follow that, depending on the use of the organ, it perceives smell one time and taste the next. But if not only the ego perception in the physical world comprised the ego, but this ego were essentially based on the shape of its body in such a way that it experienced all visual impressions as its own, then in this ego the visual sensation of smell would be the ego's experience of itself on the one hand, and that of taste on the other. If we were dealing not with the finished physical form, but with one in the process of formation, there would be no perception of the self; the self-experience of the self would have to be quite different.