The Rudolf Steiner Archive

[ 1 ] When in the autumn of 1813, Johann Gottlieb Fichte gave to the world as the ripe fruit of a life wholly devoted to the service of truth, his Introduction to the Science of Knowledge, he said at the very outset, “This doctrine presupposes an entirely new inner sense organ or instrument through which a new world is revealed having no existence for the ordinary man.” He then showed by a simile how incomprehensible this doctrine must be when judged by conception of the ordinary senses. “Think of a world of people born blind who, therefore, know only those objects and relations that exist through the sense of touch. Go among them, and speak to them of colors and the other relations that exist only through light and for the sense of sight. You will convey nothing to their minds, and this will be the more fortunate if they tell you so, for you will then quickly notice your mistake and, if unable to open their eyes, you will cease talking in vain . . . .”

Now those who speak about such things as Fichte does in this instance, often find themselves in the position of a normal man among those born blind. Yet these are things that relate to a man's true being and highest goal, and to believe it necessary “to cease talking in vain” would be to despair of humanity. We ought not to doubt for one moment the possibility of opening the eyes of every earnest person to these things. On this supposition all those have written and spoken who have felt within themselves that the inner sense-instrument had developed, thereby enabling them to know the true nature and being of man, which is generally hidden from the outer senses. Hence from the most ancient times such a hidden wisdom has been spoken of again and again. Those who have grasped some understanding of it feel just as sure of their possession as people with normal eyes feel sure of their ability to visualize color. For them this hidden wisdom requires no proof. They know also that this hidden wisdom requires no proof for anyone else to whom the “higher sense” has unfolded itself. They can speak to such a person as a traveler can speak about America to people who have themselves never seen that country but who can visualize it, for they would see all that he has seen were the opportunity to present itself to them.

[ 2 ] It is not, however, only to researchers into the spiritual world that the observer of the supersensible has to speak. He must address his words to all men, because he has to give an account of things that concern all men. Indeed, he knows that without a knowledge of these things no one can, in the true sense of the word, be a human being. Thus, he speaks to all men because he knows there are different degrees of understanding for what he has to say. The feeling for truth and the power of understanding it are inherent in everyone, and he knows that even those who are still far from the moment in which they will acquire the ability to make their own spiritual research can bring a measure of understanding to meet him. He addresses himself first to this understanding that can flash forth in every healthy soul. He knows that in this understanding there is a force that must slowly lead to the higher degrees of knowledge. This feeling, which perhaps at first perceives nothing at all of what it is told, is itself the magician that opens the “eye of the spirit.” In darkness this feeling stirs. The soul sees nothing, but through this feeling it is seized by the power of truth. The truth then gradually draws nearer to the soul and opens the higher sense in it. In one person it may take a longer, in another a shorter time. Everyone, however, who has patience and endurance reaches this goal, for although not every physical eye can be operated on, every spiritual eye can be opened. When it will be opened is only a question of time.

[ 3 ] Erudition and scientific training are not prerequisite conditions for the unfolding of this higher sense. It can develop in the unsophisticated person just as in the renowned scientist. Indeed, what is often called at the present time the only true science can, for the attainment of this goal, be frequently a hindrance rather than a help because this science considers real only what is accessible to the ordinary senses. Its merits in regard to the knowledge of that reality may be ever so great, yet when science declares that what is necessary and a blessing for itself shall also be authoritative for all human knowledge, it thereby creates a mass of prejudices that close the approach to higher realities.

[ 4 ] The objection is often made to what has just been said that insurmountable limits have been once and forever set to man's knowledge, and since a man cannot overstep these limits, all knowledge must be rejected that does not take them into account. Furthermore, the one who presumes to make assertions about things, which for many stand proved as lying beyond the limits of man's capacity for knowledge, is looked upon as being highly immodest. In making such objections the fact is entirely disregarded that a development of the human powers of knowledge must precede the higher knowledge. What lies beyond the limits of knowledge before such a development takes place is, after the awakening of faculties slumbering in every man, entirely within the realm of knowledge.

One point in this connection must not be neglected. It might be said, “Of what use is it to speak to people about things for which their powers of knowledge are not yet awakened and are therefore still closed to them?” This is really the wrong way to view the matter. Certain powers are required to discover the things referred to, but if after having been discovered they are made known, every person can understand them who is willing to bring to them unprejudiced logic and a healthy sense of truth. In this book the things made known are wholly of a kind that must produce the impression that through them the riddles of human life and the phenomena of the world can be satisfactorily approached. This impression will be produced upon everyone who permits thought, unclouded by prejudice, and a feeling for truth, free and without reservation, to work within him. Put yourself for a moment in the position of asking, “If the things asserted here are true, do they afford a satisfying explanation of life?” You will find that the life of every man supplied a confirmation.

[ 5 ] In order to be a teacher in these higher regions of existence it is by no means sufficient to have simply developed the sense for them. To that end science is just as necessary as it is for the teacher's calling in the world of ordinary reality. Higher seeing alone does not make a knower in the spiritual any more than healthy sense organs make a scholar in the ream of sensible realities. Because in truth all reality, the lower as well as the higher spiritual, are only two sides of one and the same fundamental being, anyone who is ignorant in the lower branches of knowledge will as a rule remain ignorant in the higher. This fact creates a feeling of immeasurable responsibility in the person who, through a spiritual call, feels himself summoned to speak about the spiritual regions of existence. It imposes upon him humility and reserve. This should deter no one—not even those whose other circumstances of life afford them no opportunity for the study of ordinary science—from occupying himself with the higher truths. Everyone can fulfill his task as a man without understanding anything of botany, zoology, mathematics and the other sciences. He cannot, however, in the full sense of the word, be a human being without having come in some way or other nearer to an understanding of the nature and destination of man as revealed through the knowledge of the supersensible.

[ 6 ] The highest to which a man is able to look, he calls the Divine, and he somehow must think of the highest destiny as being in connection with this Divinity. The wisdom, therefore, that reaches out beyond the sensible and reveals to him his own being and with it his final goal, may well be called divine wisdom or theosophy. To the study of the spiritual process in human life and in the cosmos, the term spiritual science may be given. When, as in this book, one extracts from this spiritual science those special results that have reference to the spiritual core of man's being then the expression theosophy may be employed to designate this domain because it has been employed for centuries in this way.

[ 7 ] From this point of view there will be sketched in this book an outline of the theosophical conception of the universe. The writer of it will bring forward nothing that is not a fact for him in the same sense that an experience of the outer world is a fact for eyes and ears and the ordinary intelligence. The concern here is with experiences that become accessible to everyone who is determined to tread the path of knowledge described in a later chapter of this book. We take the right attitude towards the things of the supersensible world when we assume that sound thinking and feeling are capable of understanding everything of true knowledge that emerges from the higher worlds. Further, when we start from this understanding and therewith lay down a firm foundation, we have also made a great step forward towards, “seeing” for ourselves, even though in order to attain this, other things must be added also. We lock and bolt the door to the true higher knowledge, however, when we despise this road and are determined to penetrate the higher worlds only in some other way. To have decided to recognize higher worlds only when we have seen them is a hindrance in the way of this very seeing itself. The determination to understand first through sound thinking what later can be seen, furthers that seeing. It conjures forth important powers of the soul that lead to this seeing of the seer.

The purpose of this book is to give a description of some of the regions of the supersensible world. The reader who is only willing to admit the existence of the sensible world will look upon this description as merely an unreal production of the imagination. Whoever looks for paths that lead beyond this world of the senses, however, will soon learn to understand that human life only gains in worth and significance through insight into another world. He will not, as many fear, be estranged from the “real” world through this new power of vision because only through it does he learn to stand securely and firmly in this life and learns to know the causes of life. Without this power of vision he gropes like a blind man through their effects. Only through the understanding of the supersensible does the sensible “real” acquire meaning. A man therefore becomes more and not less fit for life through this understanding. Only he who understands life can become a truly practical man.

[ 1 ] (1) To page 26. To speak of a “Life-Force” was still regarded only a short time ago, as a mark of an unscientific mind. Here and there among scientists to-day there are some who are not averse from the idea of a “life-force,” such as was accepted in former times. But anyone who examines the course of modern scientific development will, nevertheless, perceive the more consistent logic of those who, in view of this development, refuse to hear of such development, refuse to hear of such “life-force.” “Life-force” does not belong to what are called to-day “forces of Nature.” And anyone who is not willing to pass from the habits of thought and the conceptions of modern science to a higher mode of thinking should not speak of “life-force.” Only the mode of thinking and the premises of spiritual science make it possible to deal with such subjects without inconsistency. Further, those thinkers who seek to form their conclusions purely on the ground of natural science, have abandoned the belief which obtained in the latter half of the nineteenth century, namely, that the phenomena of life could be explained only through the same forces which are at work in inanimate Nature. The book of so noted a naturalist as Oscar Hertwig: The Development of Organisms: A Refutation of Darwin's Theory of Chance is a scientific phenomenon that sheds its light far and wide. It opposes the assumption that the inter-workings of mere physical and chemical laws are able to shape the living thing. It is also significant that, in what is called “Neo-Vitalism,” a view is becoming prevalent which also admits the action of a special force in the living thing, much as did the older adherents of “life-force.” But no one will be able in this domain to get beyond shadowy abstract conceptions unless he can recognise that to arrive at what transcends the working of the inorganic forces in life is only possible through a mode of perception which rises to vision of the supersensible. The point is that the natural scientific knowledge which has been applied to the inorganic, cannot be carried over into the region of life, but that knowledge of a different nature must be achieved.

[ 2 ] (2) To page 26. When the “sense of touch” of the lower organisms is spoken of here, the word “sense” does not mean the same thing as is referred to by this term in the usual descriptions of the “senses.” Indeed, from the point of view of spiritual science, much can be said against the use of this expression. What is meant here by “sense of touch” is rather a general “becoming aware” of an external impression, in contrast to the particular “becoming aware,” which consists in seeing, hearing, etc.

[ 3 ] (3)To page 24-44. It may appear as if the way in which the being of man is membered in this book is based upon a purely arbitrary differentiation of parts within the unitary soul-life. As against this it must be emphasised that this differentiation within the unitary soul-life may be compared with the appearance of the seven shades of colour in the rainbow, when fight passes through a prism. What the physicist accomplishes with regard to phenomenon of light through his study of this process, and the seven shades of colour which result from it, the spiritual scientist accomplishes with regard to the soul-nature of man. The seven members of the soul are not merely distinctions made by the intellect. They are this as little as are the seven colours in relation to light. The differentiation depends in both cases upon the inner nature of the facts; only that the seven members in the case of light become visible through an external contrivance, and the seven members of the soul through a mode of spiritual observation suited to the nature of the soul. The soul's true nature cannot be grasped without the knowledge of this membering. For through the three members, physical body, life-body, and soul-body, the soul belongs to the transitory world; through the other four members it is rooted in the eternal. In the “unitary soul” the transitory and the eternal are indistinguishably united. Unless one is aware of this differentiation in the soul, it is not possible to understand its relation to the world as a whole. Another comparison may also be used. The chemist separates water into hydrogen and oxygen. Neither of these substances can be observed in the “unitary” water. Nevertheless each has its own identity. Hydrogen and oxygen both combine with other substances. And so, at death, the three lower members of the soul unite with the transitory part of world-being; the four higher members unite with the eternal. Anyone who objects to taking this membering of the soul into account is like a chemist who might refuse to know anything about the separation of water into hydrogen and oxygen.

[ 4 ] (4) To page 31. The descriptions given by spiritual science must be understood with utmost exactitude; for they are of value only when they are accurate expressions of the ideas. For example, in the sentence: “They (the sensations, etc.) do not in its case (namely, that of the animal) become interwoven with independent thoughts, transcending the immediate experience”—if the words “independent, transcending the immediate experience” are left out of account, it would be easy to fall into the mistake of thinking that it is being claimed here that the sensations and instincts of animals do not contain thoughts. But true spiritual science is based on knowledge which says that all inner experiences of animals (as indeed of existence in general) are permeated with thought. Only the thoughts of the animal are not those of an independent ego living in the animal, but are those of the animal group-ego, which is to be regarded as a being controlling the animal from outside. This group-ego is not present in the physical world, as is the ego of man, but works down into the animal from the soul-world described previously. (Further details regarding this are to be found in my Occult Science.) The point to make clear is, that in man, thoughts attain an independent existence: that in him, they are not experienced indirectly in sensation, but are experienced in the soul directly as thought.

[ 5 ] (5) To page 35. When it is pointed out that little children say “Charles is good,” “Mary wants to have that,” it must be remembered that the important point is not so much how soon children use the world “I,” but when they connect the corresponding idea with that word. When children hear adults using the word, they may well use it too, without forming the idea of the “I.” But the generally late use of the word points to an important fact of development, namely, to the gradual unfolding of the idea “I” out of the dim “I”-feeling.

[ 6 ] (6)To pages 38/9. A description of the real nature of “Intuition” is to be found in my books, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment and >Occult Science—an Outline Through inadequate attention a contradiction might be detected between the use of the word in those books, and what is said concerning it in this one. But for the careful observer there is no such contradiction. It will be seen that what is revealed in its fullness from the spiritual world to supersensible perception, through Intuition, makes itself known in its lowest manifestation to the Spirit-self, just as the external physical world makes itself known in sensation.

[ 7 ] (7) To page 45. On “Re-embodiment of the Spirit and Destiny.” It must be borne in mind—disregarding for the moment the facts of spiritual science already given in other parts of the book—that in this section the attempt is made, by means of the study of the course of human life, to gain an idea of the extent to which this human life, with its destiny, points to a series of earth-lives. These ideas will, of course, appear very questionable to those who regard the customary belief in a single life on earth as the only well-founded one. But it should also be borne in mind that the intention here is to show that the ordinary way of looking at things can never lead to an understanding of the deeper foundations of life. For this reason, other conceptions which apparently contradict the generally accepted ones must be sought. And this search is only hindered by a deliberate refusal to apply the same consideration of a course of events belonging to the soul, as is applied to a series of events in the physical world. In thus refusing, no value is attached, for instance, to the fact that when a stroke of fate falls upon the “I,” the effect in the realm of feeling is related to that produced when the memory meets an experience related to what is remembered. But anyone who tries to perceive how a stroke of fate is really experienced will be able to differentiate this experience from the assertions which must arise if an external standpoint is taken—through which, of course, every living connection of this stroke of fate with the ego is lost. For such a point of view, the blow appears to be either the result of chance, or to have been determined by some external cause. The fact that there are also strokes of fate which, in a certain way, break into a human life for the first time, only showing their results later on, makes the temptation all the greater to generalise on this basis, without taking other possibilities into account. People do not begin to pay heed to these other possibilities until experience of life has brought their imaginative faculty into a direction similar to that which may be observed in Goethe's friend, Knebel, who wrote in a letter as follows: “On close observation it will be seen that there is a plan in the lives of most people which seems traced out for them, either through their own nature, or through the circumstances which affect them. Their lot in life may be infinitely varied and changeable, but taken as a whole, a certain conformity will be apparent in the end ... However secretly it may operate, the hand of a definite destiny, whether it be moved by an outer cause, or by an inner impulse, may be clearly discerned; even conflicting causes often move in its direction. However confused the course of life may be, plan and definite direction are always discernible.”

[ 8 ] Objections to observations of this kind may easily be raised by people who are not willing to consider experiences of a soul-nature. But the author of this book believes that in what he has said about repeated earth-lives and destiny, he has accurately drawn the boundary line within which conceptions can be formed about the underlying causes which shape human life. He has pointed out the fact that the mode of viewing things to which these conceptions lead, can only be defined by them as it were in “silhouette,” that they can only prepare the thoughts for what must be discovered by means of spiritual science. But this thought-preparation is an inner work of the soul, which, if it does not overstep the mark, if it does not seek to “prove” but aims merely at being an exercise of the soul, makes a man impartially open to items of knowledge which without such preparation, appear foolish to him.

[ 9 ] (8) To page 69. The subject of the “spiritual organs of perception” which is only briefly alluded to at the end of this book in the chapter on “The Path of Knowledge,” is more fully dealt with in my books, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment and Occult Science—an Outline.

[ 10 ] (9) To page 89. It would be incorrect to imagine that there is ceaseless unrest in the spiritual world, because a “state of rest, a remaining in one place, such as is found in the physical world,” is not present there. In the realm where the “Archetypes are creative Beings,” there is not what can be called “rest in one place,” but there is rest of a spiritual kind that is compatible with active mobility. It may be likened to the restful contentment and happiness of the spirit which are manifest in deeds, not in inactivity.

[ 11 ] (10) To page 93. One is obliged to use the word “purposes” with regard to the great driving powers of world-creation, although in so doing, inducement is given to the temptation to conceive of these powers simply in the sense of human purposes. In the case of such words, which have naturally to be taken from the sphere of the human world, this temptation can be avoided only by perceiving a new significance and meaning in them, a meaning from which everything that they contain of the narrow, limited, human element has been eliminated; while in place of this there has been imparted to them the meaning which a man gives them at moments in his life when he rises above himself.

[ 12 ] (11) To page 94. Further particulars with regard to the “Spiritual World” are to be found in my Occult Science—an Outline.

[ 13 ] (12) To page 105. When it is said here: “from out of the Eternal he can determine the direction for the future,” this is intended to point to the special constitution of the human soul during the time between death and a new birth. A stroke of destiny which befalls a person during life in the physical world, may seem, from the point of view of that (physical) life, to contain something altogether opposed to the man's own will: in the life between death and re-birth a force, akin to will, rules in the soul which gives to the man the urge towards experiencing this very blow of fate. The soul sees, as it were, that an imperfection has clung to it from earlier earth-lives: an imperfection which had its original in an ugly deed or an ugly thought. Between death and re-birth there arises in the soul a will-like impulse, to make good this imperfection. The soul therefore becomes imbued with the tendency to plunge into a misfortune in the coming earth-life, in order, through enduring it, to bring about compensation. After its birth in the physical body, the soul, when met by some hard fate, has no glimmering of the fact that in the spiritual life before birth, the impulse which led to this hard fate had been deliberately given. Therefore, what seems completely undesired from the point of view of the earth-life, is willed by the soul in the supersensible. “From out of the eternal the human being determines the future for himself.”

[ 14 ] (13) To page 115. The chapter in this book on “Thought-forms and the Human Aura” is doubtless the one which may most easily lead to misconception. It is precisely with regard to these descriptions that antagonistic feelings find the best opportunity for raising objections. It is indeed very natural to demand, for instance, that the statements of the seer in this domain should be proved by experiments in keeping with the scientific mode of thinking. It may be demanded that a number of people who assert that they are able to see the spiritual element in the aura should place themselves in front of other people, and allow their auras to work upon them. Then these seers should be asked to say what thoughts, feelings, etc., they see as the auras of the people they are observing. If their reports coincide, and if it is found that the persons who are observed really have the feelings, thoughts, etc., reported by the seers, then the existence of the aura could be believed in. That is certainly in accord with the methods of natural science. The following, however, must be taken into account. The work which the spiritual investigator carries out upon his own soul, through which he acquires the capacity for spiritual vision, has, as its aim, the acquisition of this capacity. Whether he is then able in any given case to perceive something in the spiritual world, and what he perceives, does not depend upon himself. It flows to him as a gift from the spiritual world. He cannot take it by force, he must wait until it comes to him. His intention to bring about the perception has no bearing on the real causes of its happening. But this intention is exactly what natural science demands for the experiment. The spiritual world, however, will not allow itself to be commanded. If the above attempt is to succeed, it would have to be instituted from the spiritual world. In that world a Being would have to have the intention to reveal the thoughts of one or more persons to one or more “seers.” These seers would then have to be brought together, through a “spiritual impulse,” for their work of observation. In that case their reports would most certainly agree with each other. Paradoxical as all this may appear to the purely scientific mind, it is true, nevertheless. Spiritual “experiments” cannot be undertaken in the same way as those of a physical nature. If the seer, for example, receives the visit of a person who is a stranger to him, he cannot at once “undertake” to observe the aura of this person. But he sees the aura when there is occasion in the spiritual world for it to be revealed to him.

[ 15 ] These few words are intended merely to draw attention to the misconception in the objection described above. What spiritual science has to do, is to point out the way by which a man may come to see the aura, by what means he may bring about the experience of its reality. Thus the only reply that spiritual science can make to the would-be seer is: “The conditions have been made known; apply them to your own soul, and you will see.” It would certainly be more convenient if the above demands of the natural scientific methods could be fulfilled; but whoever asks for tests of this kind shows that he has not made himself acquainted with the very first elements of spiritual science.

[ 16 ] The statements made in this book about the “human aura” are not intended to encourage the desire for “supersensible” sensationalism. This desire only admits itself satisfied, as regards the spiritual world, when it is shown something as “spirit,” which cannot be distinguished in the presentation from the physically sensible, so that it can rest comfortably and remain with its conceptions in that same physical sense-world. What is said on page 117 about the way in which the auric colour is to be imagined, could certainly be calculated to prevent such misunderstanding. But anyone who is striving for true insight into these things must clearly perceive that the human soul, in experiencing the spiritual and psychic, has of necessity the spiritual, not the physical, sight of the aura. Without this sight the experience remains in the unconscious. It is a mistake to confuse the pictorial sight with the actual experience itself: but we must also make quite clear to ourselves that in this same pictorial vision the experience finds a completely adequate expression: not one for instance which the beholding soul creates arbitrarily, but such a one as takes shape of itself, in supersensible perception. At the present time a natural scientist would be forgiven should he feel called upon to speak of a kind of “human aura” as Prof. Dr. Moritz Benedikt speaks in his book on the Rod and Pendulum Theory (Ruten und Pendellehre): “There exist, even though in small numbers, human beings who are adapted to the dark. A relatively large fraction of this minority sees in the dark very many objects without colours, and only relatively very few see the objects coloured also. ... A considerable number of learned men and doctors have been investigated in my dark room by my two classical ‘subjects’ or ‘seers in the dark’ and those investigated in this way could retain no justifiable doubt as to the correctness of the observations, and descriptions ... Now those ‘adapted to the dark’ who see colours, see in the front the forehead and scalp blue, the rest of the right half likewise blue and the left red, or some see it ... orange-yellow. To the rear one finds the same division and the same colouring.” But the spiritual investigator is not so easily forgiven when he speaks of the “aura.” There is no intention here of taking up any kind of attitude to the things worked out by Benedikt, which belong to the most interesting modern theories about Nature. Neither is it intended to take advantage of a cheap opportunity to “make excuses” for spiritual science through natural science, as many are so glad to do. The only intention has been to point out how, in one instance, a natural scientist can make assertions which are not entirely unlike those of spiritual science. But at the same time it must be emphasised that the aura spoken of in this book, which can only be comprehended spiritually, is something quite different from what can be investigated by physical means and about which Benedikt is speaking. It is a gross illusion to think that the “spiritual aura” can be one that may be investigated by the external means of natural science. It is accessible only to that spiritual seeing which is reached by the Path of Knowledge (as described in the last chapter of this book). But it would also be a mistake to suppose that the truth and reality of what is spiritually perceived could be demonstrated in the same way as that which is perceived through the senses.

[ 1 ] The following words of Goethe point in a beautiful manner to the starting point of one of the ways by which the nature of man can be known. “As soon as a person becomes aware of the objects around him, he considers them in relation to himself, and rightly so, for his whole fate depends on whether they please or displease, attract or repel, help or harm him. This quite natural way of looking at or judging things appears to be as easy as it is necessary. Nevertheless, a person is exposed through it to a thousand errors which often make him ashamed and embitter his life. A far more difficult task is undertaken by those whose keen desire for knowledge urges them to observe the objects of nature in themselves and in their relations to each other; for they soon feel the lack of the test which helped them when they, as men, regarded the objects in reference to themselves personally. They lack the test of pleasure and displeasure, attraction and repulsion, usefulness and harmfulness. This they must renounce entirely: they ought as dispassionate and, so to speak, divine beings, to seek and examine what is, and not what gratifies. Thus the true botanist should not be moved either by the beauty or by the usefulness of the plants. He has to study their formation and their relation to the rest of the vegetable kingdom; and just as they are one and all enticed forth and shone upon by the sun, so should he with an equable, quiet glance look at and survey them all and obtain the test for this knowledge, the data for his deductions not out of himself, but from within the circle of the things which he observes.”

[ 2 ] The thought thus expressed by Goethe directs man's attention to three kinds of things. First, the objects concerning which information continually flows to him through the portals of his senses, the objects which he touches, smells, tastes, hears and sees. Second, the impressions which these make on him, characterising themselves through the fact that he finds the one sympathetic, the other abhorrent; the one useful, the other harmful. Third, the knowledge which he, as a so-to-speak “divine being,” acquires concerning the objects—that is, the secrets of their activities and their being which unveil themselves to him.

[ 3 ] These three regions are distinctly separate in human life. And man thereby becomes aware that he is interwoven with the world in a threefold way. The first way is something that he finds present, that he accepts as a given fact. Through the second way he makes the world into his own affair, into something that has a meaning for himself. The third way he regards as a goal towards which he has unceasingly to strive.

[ 4 ] Why does the world appear to man in this threefold way? A simple consideration will explain it. I cross a meadow covered with flowers. The flowers make their colours known to me through my eyes. That is the fact which I accept as given. I rejoice in the splendour of the colours. Through this I turn the fact into an affair of my own. Through my feelings I connect the flowers with my own existence. A year later I go again over the same meadow. Other flowers are there. New joy arises in me through them. My joy of the former year will appear as a memory. It is in me; the object which aroused it in me is gone. But the flowers which I now see are of the same kind as those I saw the year before; they have grown in accordance with the same laws as did the others. If I have informed myself regarding this species and these laws, then I find them in the flowers of this year again just as I found them in those of last year. And I shall perhaps muse as follows: “The flowers of last year are gone; my joy in them remains only in my remembrance. It is bound up with my existence alone. That, however, which I recognised in the flowers of last year and recognise again this year, will remain as long as such flowers grow. That is something that has revealed itself to me, but is not dependent on my existence in the same way as my joy is. My feelings of joy remain in me; the laws, the being of the flowers remain outside me in the world.”

[ 5 ] Thus man continually links himself in this threefold way with the things of the world. One should not for the time being read anything into this fact, but merely take it as it stands. There follows from it that man has three sides to his nature. This and nothing else will for the present be indicated here by the three words body, soul, and spirit. Whoever connects any preconceived opinions, or even hypotheses with these three words will necessarily misunderstand the following explanations. By body is here meant that through which the things in man's environment reveal themselves to him; as in the above example, the flowers of the meadow. By the word soul is signified that by which he links the things to his own being, through which he experiences pleasure and displeasure, desire and aversion, joy and sorrow in connection with them. By spirit is meant that which becomes manifest in him when, as Goethe expressed it, he looks at things as a “so to speak, divine being.” In this sense the human being consists of body, soul and spirit.

[ 6 ] Through his body man is able to place himself for the time being in connection with things; through his soul he retains in himself the impressions which they make on him; through his spirit there reveals itself to him what the things retain for themselves. Only when one observes man in these three aspects can one hope to be enlightened about his nature. For these three aspects show him to be related in a threefold way to the rest of the world.

[ 7 ] Through his body he is related to the objects which present themselves to his senses from without. The materials from the outer world compose this body of his; and the forces of the outer world also work in it. And just as he observes the things of the outer world with his senses, so he can also observe his own bodily existence. But it is impossible to observe the soul-existence in the same way. Everything in me which is bodily process can be perceived with my bodily senses. My likes and dislikes, my joy and pain, neither I nor anyone else can perceive with bodily senses. The region of the soul is one which is inaccessible to bodily perception. The bodily existence of a man is manifest to all eyes; the soul-existence he carries within himself as his own world. Through the spirit, however, the outer world is revealed to him in a higher way. The mysteries of the outer world, indeed, unveil themselves in his inner being; but he steps in spirit out of himself and lets the things speak about themselves, about that which has significance not for him but for them. Man looks up at the starry heavens; the delight his soul experiences belongs to him; the eternal laws of the stars which he comprehends in thought, in spirit, belong not to him but to the stars themselves.

[ 8 ] Thus man is citizen of three worlds. Through his body he belongs to the world which he also perceives through his body; through his soul he constructs for himself his own world; through his spirit a world reveals itself to him which is exalted above both the others.

[ 9 ] It seems obvious that because of the essential differences of these three worlds, a clear understanding of them and of man's share in them can only be obtained by means of three different modes of observation.

[ 1 ] The soul-being of man is not determined by the body alone. Man does not wander aimlessly and without a purpose from one sense impression to another; neither does he act under the influence of every casual incitement which plays upon him either from without or through the processes of his body. He reflects upon his perceptions and his acts. By reflecting upon his perceptions he gains knowledge of things: by reflecting upon his acts he introduces a reasonable coherence into his life. And he knows that he will fulfil his duty as a human being worthily only when he lets himself be guided by correct thoughts in knowing as well as in acting. The soul of man, therefore, is confronted by a twofold necessity. By the laws of the body it is governed by natural necessity; but it allows itself to be governed by the laws which guide it to exact thinking because it voluntarily acknowledges their necessity. Nature subjects man to the laws of metabolism, but he subjects himself to the laws of thought. By this means he makes himself a member of a higher order than that to which he belongs through his body. And this order is the spiritual. The spiritual is as different from the soul as the soul is different from the body. As long as we speak only of the particles of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen which are in motion in the body, we have not got the soul in view. The soul-life begins only when within the motion of these particles, the feeling arises: “I taste sweetness” or “I feel pleasure.” Just as little have we the spiritual in view as long as we consider merely those soul-experiences which course through a man who gives himself over entirely to the outer world and his bodily life. This soul-life is rather the basis of the spiritual just as the body is the basis of the soul-life. The scientist, or investigator of nature, is concerned with the body, the investigator of the soul (the psychologist) with the soul, and the investigator of the spirit with the spirit. To make clear to oneself through thought upon and observation of one's own self the difference between body, soul, and spirit, is a demand which must be made upon those who seek by thinking to enlighten themselves regarding the nature of man.

[ 1 ] Man can only come to a true understanding of himself when he grasps clearly the significance of thinking within his being. The brain is the bodily instrument for thinking. Just as man can only see colours with a properly constructed eye, so the suitably constructed brain serves him for thought. The whole body of man is so formed that it receives its crown in the organ of the spirit, the brain. The construction of the human brain can be understood only by considering it in relation to its task, which consists in being the bodily basis for the thinking spirit. This is borne out by a comparative survey of the animal world. Among the amphibians we find the brain small in comparison with the spinal cord; in mammals it is proportionately larger; in man it is largest in comparison with the rest of the body.

[ 2 ] Many prejudices are prevalent regarding such statements about thinking as are brought forward here. Many persons are inclined to undervalue thinking, and to place higher the “warm life of feeling” or “emotion.” Some, indeed, say it is not by “sober thinking,” but by warmth of feeling, by the immediate power of “the emotions,” that one raises oneself to higher knowledge. People who talk thus fear to blunt the feelings by clear thinking. This certainly does result from the ordinary thinking that is concerned only with matters of utility; but in the case of thoughts that lead to higher regions of existence, the opposite happens. There is no feeling and no enthusiasm to be compared with the sentiments of warmth, beauty and exaltation enkindled through the pure, crystal-clear thoughts which relate to higher worlds. For the highest feelings are as a matter of fact not those which come “of themselves,” but those which are achieved by energetic and persevering work in the realm of thought.

[ 3 ] The human body is so built as to be adapted to thinking. The same materials and forces which are present in the mineral kingdom are so combined in the human body that by means of this combination thought can manifest itself. This mineral construction, built up in accordance with its task, will be called in the following pages the physical body of man.

[ 4 ] This mineral structure which is organised with reference to the brain as its central point, comes into existence through propagation and reaches its fully developed form through growth. Propagation and growth man shares in common with plants and animals. Through propagation and growth what is living differentiates itself from the lifeless mineral. Life gives rise to life by means of the germ. Descendant follows forefather from one living generation to another. The forces through which a mineral originates are directed upon the substances of which it is composed. A quartz crystal is formed through the forces inherent in the silicon and oxygen which are combined in the crystal. The forces which shape an oak tree must be sought for in an indirect way in the germ in the mother and father plants. The form of the oak is preserved through propagation from forefather to descendant. There are inner determining conditions innate in all that is living. It was a crude view of Nature which held that lower animals, even fishes, could evolve out of mud. The form of the living passes itself on by means of heredity. How a living being develops depends on what father or mother it has sprung from, or in other words, on the species to which it belongs. The materials of which it is composed are continually changing; the species remains constant during life, and is transmitted to the descendants. Therefore the species is that which determines the combination of the materials. This force which determines species will be here called Life-force. Just as the mineral forces express themselves in the crystals, so the formative life-force expresses itself in the species or forms of plant and animal life.

[ 5 ] The mineral forces are perceived by man by means of his bodily senses; and he can only perceive that for which he has such senses. Without the eye there is no perception of light, without the ear no perception of sound. The lowest organisms have only one of the senses belonging to man: a kind of sense of touch. Nothing can be perceived by such organisms, in the way a human being perceives, except those mineral forces which make themselves known through the sense of touch. In proportion as the other senses are developed in the higher animals does their surrounding world, which man also perceives, become richer and more varied. It depends, therefore, on the organs of a being whether that which exists in the outer world exists also for the being itself, as perception, as sensation. What is present in the air as a certain motion becomes in man the sensation of hearing. Man does not perceive the manifestations of the life-force through the ordinary senses. He sees the colours of the plants; he smells their perfume; the life-force remains hidden from this form of observation. But the ordinary senses have just as little right to deny that there is a life-force as has the man born blind to deny that colours exist. Colours are there for the person born blind as soon as he has been operated upon; in the same way, the objects, the various species of plants and animals created by the life-force (not merely the individual plants and animals) are present to man as objects of perception as soon as the necessary organ unfolds within him. An entirely new world opens out to man through the unfolding of this organ. He now perceives, not merely the colours, the odours, etc., of the living beings, but the life itself of these beings. In each plant, in each animal, he perceives, besides the physical form, the life-filled spirit-form. In order to have a name for this spirit-form let it be called the ether-body, or life-body.¹

To the investigator of spiritual life, this matter presents itself in the following manner. The ether-body is for him not merely a product of the materials and forces of the physical body, but a real independent entity which first calls forth these physical materials and forces into life. It is in accordance with spiritual science to say: a purely physical body, a crystal for example, has its form through the action of the physical formative forces innate in that which is lifeless. A living body has its form not through the action of these forces, because the moment life has departed from it and it is given over to the physical forces only, it falls to pieces. The ether-body is an organism which preserves the physical body every moment during life from dissolution. In order to see this body, to perceive it in another being, one requires the awakened “spiritual eye.” Without this, its existence can be accepted as a fact on logical grounds; but one can see it with the spiritual eye as one sees colour with the physical eye. Offence should not be taken at the expression “ether-body.” “Ether” here designates something different from the hypothetical ether of the physicist. It should be regarded simply as a name for what is described here. And just as the physical body of man in its construction is a kind of reflection of its purpose, so is this also the case with man's etheric body. Moreover, it can be understood only when considered in relation to the thinking spirit. The etheric body of man differs from that of plants and animals, through being organised to serve the purposes of the thinking spirit. Just as man belongs to the mineral world through his physical body, he belongs through his etheric body to the life-world. After death the physical body dissolves into the mineral world, the ether-body into the life-world. By the word “body” is denoted that which gives any kind of being “shape” or “form.” The term “body” must not be confused with a bodily form perceptible to the physical senses. Used in the sense implied in this book the term “body” can also be applied to such forms as soul and spirit may assume.

[ 6 ] In the life-body we still have something external to man. With the first stirrings of sensation the inner self responds to the stimuli of the outer world. You may trace ever so far what one is justified in calling the outer world, but you will not be able to find sensation. Rays of light stream into the eye, penetrating it till they reach the retina. There they call forth chemical processes (in the so-called visual-purple); the effect of these stimuli is passed on through the optic nerve to the brain where further physical processes arise. Could one observe these, one would simply see physical processes, just as elsewhere in the physical world. If I were able to observe the ether-body, I should see how the physical brain-process is at the same time a life-process. But the sensation of blue colour, which the recipient of the rays of light has, I can find nowhere in this manner. It arises only within the soul of the recipient. If, therefore, the being of this recipient consisted only of the physical body and the ether-body, sensation could not exist. The activity by which sensation becomes a fact differs essentially from the operations of the formative life-force. It is an activity by which an inner experience is called forth from these operations. Without this activity there would be a mere life-process, such as is to be observed in plants. If one pictures a man receiving impressions from all sides, one must think of him at the same time as the source of the above-mentioned soul-activity which flows out from him to all the directions from which he is receiving the impressions. In all directions soul-sensations arise in response to the physical impacts. This fountain of activity shall be called the sentient soul. This sentient soul is just as real as the physical body. If a man stands before me, and I disregard his sentient soul by thinking of him as merely a physical body, it is exactly as if I were to call up in my mind, instead of a painting—merely the canvas.

A similar statement has to be made in regard to perceiving the sentient soul, as was previously made in reference to the ether-body. The bodily organs are “blind” to it. And blind to it also is the organ by which life can be perceived as life. But just as the ether-body is seen by means of this organ, so through a still higher organ can the inner world of sensation become a special kind of supersensible perception. A man would then not only sense the impressions of the physical and life-world, but would behold the sensations themselves. Before a man with such an organ, the sensation world of another being is spread out like an external reality.

One must distinguish between experiencing one's own world of sensation, and looking at that of another person. Every man of course can look into his own world of sensation; only the seer with the opened “spiritual eye” can see another person's world of sensation. Unless a man be a seer, he knows the world of sensation only as an “inner” one, only as the peculiar hidden experiences of his own soul; with the opened “spiritual eye” there shines out before the outward-turned spiritual gaze what otherwise lives only in the inner being of another person.

[ 7 ] In order to prevent misunderstanding, it may be expressly stated here that the seer does not simply experience in himself what the other being has within him as content of his world of sensation. That being experiences the sensations in question from the point of view of his own inner being; the seer becomes aware of a manifestation of the world of sensation.

[ 8 ] The sentient soul depends, as regards its activity, on the ether-body. For it draws from it that which it will cause to gleam forth as sensation. And since the ether-body is the life within the physical body, therefore the sentient soul is also indirectly dependent on the latter. Only with properly functioning and well-constructed eyes are correct colour sensations possible. It is in this way that the nature of the body affects the sentient soul. The latter is thus determined and limited in its activity by the body. It lives within the limitations fixed for it by the nature of the body. The body accordingly is built up of mineral substances, is vitalised by the ether-body, and limits even the sentient soul. A man, therefore, who has the above-mentioned organ for “seeing” the sentient soul, knows it to be conditioned by the body. But the boundary of the sentient soul does not coincide with that of the physical body. It extends somewhat beyond the physical body. From this one sees that it proves itself to be greater than the physical body. Nevertheless the force through which its limits are set proceeds from the physical body. Thus between the physical body and the ether-body, on the one hand, and the sentient soul on the other, there inserts itself another distinct member of the human being. This is the soul-body or sentient body. One can express this in another way. One part of the ether-body is finer than the rest, and this finer part of the ether-body forms a unity with the sentient soul, whereas the coarser part forms a kind of unity with the physical body. Nevertheless, the sentient soul extends, as has been said, beyond the soul-body.

[ 9 ] What is here called sensation is only a part of the soul-being. (The expression sentient soul is chosen for the sake of simplicity.) Connected with sensations are the feelings of desire and aversion, impulses, instincts, passions. All these bear the same character of individual life as do the sensations, and are, like them, dependent on the bodily nature.

[ 10 ] Just as the sentient soul enters into mutual action and reaction with the body, so does it also in thinking, with the spirit. In the first place thinking serves the sentient soul. Man forms thoughts about his sensations. He thus enlightens himself regarding the outside world. The child that has burnt itself thinks it over, and reaches the thought “fire burns.” Nor does man follow blindly his impulses, instincts, passions; his thinking about them brings about the opportunity through which he can gratify them. What is called material civilisation moves entirely in this direction. It consists in the services which thinking renders to the sentient soul. An immeasurable amount of thought-power is directed to this end. It is thought-power that has built ships, railways, telegraphs, telephones; and by far the greatest proportion of all this serves only to satisfy the needs of sentient souls.

Thought-force permeates the sentient soul in a similar way to that in which the formative-life-force permeates the physical body. The formative-life-force connects the physical body with forefathers and descendants, and thus brings it under a system of laws with which the purely mineral body is in no way concerned. In the same way thought-force brings the soul under a system of laws to which it does not belong as mere sentient soul.

Through the sentient soul man is related to the animal. In animals, also, we observe the presence of sensations, impulses, instincts and passions. But the animal obeys these immediately. They do not, in its case, become interwoven with independent thoughts, transcending the immediate experiences.² This is also the case to a certain extent with undeveloped human beings. The mere sentient soul is therefore different from the evolved higher member of the soul which brings thinking into its service. This soul that is served by thought will be termed the intellectual soul. One could also call it the mind-soul.

[ 11 ] The intellectual soul permeates the sentient soul. He who has the organ for “seeing” the soul sees, therefore, the intellectual soul as a separate entity, in relation to the mere sentient soul.

[ 12 ] By thinking, man is led above and beyond his own personal life. He acquires something that extends beyond his soul. He comes to take for granted his conviction that the laws of thought are in conformity with the laws of the world. And he feels at home in the world because this conformity exists. This conformity is one of the weighty facts through which man learns to know his own nature. Man searches in his soul for truth; and through this truth it is not only the soul that speaks, but the things of the world. That which is recognised as truth by means of thought has an independent significance, which refers to the things of the world, and not merely to one's own soul. In my delight at the starry heavens I live in my own inner being; the thoughts which I form for myself about the paths of heavenly bodies have the same significance for the thinking of every other person as they have for mine. It would be absurd to speak of my delight were I not in existence; but it is not in the same way absurd to speak of my thoughts, even without reference to myself. For the truth which I think to-day was true also yesterday; will be true to-morrow, although I concern myself with it only to-day. If a piece of knowledge gives me joy, the joy has significance just so long as it lives in me; the truth of the knowledge has its significance quite independently of this joy. By grasping the truth the soul connects itself with something that carries its value in itself. And this value does not vanish with the feeling in the soul any more than it arose with it. What is really truth neither arises nor passes away: it has a significance which cannot be destroyed. This is not contradicted by the fact that certain human “truths” have a value which is transitory, inasmuch as they are recognised after a certain period as partial or complete errors. A man must say to himself that truth exists in itself, and that his conceptions are only transient forms of eternal truths. Even he who says, like Lessing, that he contents himself with the eternal striving towards truth because the full, pure truth can, after all, only exist for a God, does not deny the eternity of truth but establishes it by such an utterance. For only that which has an eternal significance in itself can call forth an eternal striving after it. Were truth not in itself independent, if it acquired its value and significance through the feelings of the human soul, then it could not be the one unique goal for all mankind. One concedes its independent being by the very fact that one sets oneself to strive after it.

[ 13 ] And as it is with the true, so it is with the truly good. Moral goodness is independent of inclinations and passions, inasmuch as it does not allow itself to be commanded by, but commands them. Likes and dislikes, desire and loathing belong to the personal soul of man; duty stands higher than likes and dislikes. Duty may stand so high in the eyes of a man that he will sacrifice his life for its sake. And a man stands the higher the more he has ennobled his inclinations, his likes and dislikes, so that without compulsion or subjection they themselves obey what is recognised as duty. Moral goodness has, like truth, its eternal value in itself, and does not receive it from the sentient soul.

[ 14 ] By causing the self-existent true and good to come to life in his inner being, man raises himself above the mere sentient soul. The eternal spirit shines into it. A light is kindled in it which is imperishable. In so far as the soul lives in this light, it is a participant of the eternal. It unites therewith its own existence. What the soul carries within itself of the true and the good is immortal in it. Let us call that which shines forth in the soul as eternal the consciousness-soul.³ We can speak of consciousness even in connection with the lower soul-stirrings.

The most ordinary everyday sensation is a matter of consciousness. To this extent animals also have consciousness. By consciousness-soul is meant the kernel of human consciousness, the soul within the soul. The consciousness-soul is thus distinguished as a distinct member of the soul from the intellectual soul. This latter is still entangled in the sensations, the impulses, the passions, etc. Everyone knows how at first he counts as true that which he prefers in his feelings, and so on. Only that truth, however, is permanent which has freed itself from all flavour of such sympathy and antipathy of feeling. The truth is true, even if all personal feelings revolt against it. The part of the soul in which this truth lives will be called consciousness-soul.

[ 15 ] Thus three members have to be distinguished in the soul as in the body: sentient soul, intellectual soul, consciousness-soul. And just as the body works from below upwards with a limiting effect on the soul, so the spiritual works from above downwards into it, expanding it. For the more the soul fills itself with the true and the good, the wider and the more comprehensive becomes the eternal in it. To him who is able to “see” the soul, the radiance which proceeds from a human being because his eternal element is expanding, is just as much a reality as the light which streams out from a flame is real to the physical eye. For the “seer” the corporeal man counts as only part of the whole man. The physical body, as the coarsest structure, lies within others, which mutually interpenetrate both it and each other. The ether-body fills the physical body as a life-form; extending beyond this on all sides is to be perceived the soul-body (astral form). And beyond this, again, extends the sentient soul, then the intellectual soul which grows the larger the more it receives into itself of the true and the good. For this true and good cause the expansion of the intellectual soul. A man living only and entirely according to his inclinations, his likes and dislikes, would have an intellectual soul whose limits coincide with those of his sentient soul. These formations, in the midst of which the physical body appears as if in a cloud, may be called the human aura. The aura is that in regard to which the “being of man” becomes enriched, when it is seen as this book endeavours to present it.

[ 16 ] In the course of his development as a child, there comes the moment in the life of a man in which, for the first time, he feels himself to be an independent being distinct from the whole of the rest of the world. For finely strung natures it is a significant experience. The poet Jean Paul says in his autobiography: “I shall never forget the event which took place within me, hitherto narrated to no one, and of which I can give place and time, when I stood present at the birth of my self-consciousness. As a very small child I stood at the door of the house one morning, looking towards the wood pile on my left, when suddenly the inner vision, ‘I am an I’ came upon me like a flash of lightning from heaven and has remained shining ever since. In that moment my ego had seen itself for the first time and for ever. Any deception of memory is hardly to be conceived as possible here, for no narrations by outsiders could have introduced additions to an occurrence which took place in the holy of holies of a human being, and of which the novelty alone gave permanence to such everyday surroundings.” It is well known that little children say of themselves, “Charles is good,” “Mary wants to have this.” One feels it to be right that they speak of themselves as if of others, because they have not yet become conscious of their independent existence, because the consciousness of the self is not yet born in them. Through self-consciousness, man describes himself as an independent being, separate from all others, as “I.” In “I” man includes all that he experiences as a being with body and soul. Body and soul are the carriers of the ego or “I;” in them it acts. Just as the physical body has its centre in the brain, so has the soul its centre in the ego. Man is aroused to sensations by impacts from without; feelings manifest themselves as effects of the outer world; the will relates itself to the outside world in that it realises itself in external actions. The “I” as the essential being of man remains quite invisible. Excellently, therefore, does Jean Paul call a man's recognition of his ego an occurrence taking place only in his veiled holy of holies; for with his “I” man is quite alone. And this “I” is the man himself. That justifies him in regarding his ego as his true being. He may, therefore, describe his body and his soul as the “sheaths” or “veils” within which he lives; and he may describe them as bodily conditions through which he acts. In the course of his evolution he learns to regard these instruments ever more and more as servants of his ego. The little word “I” is a name which differs from all other names. Anyone who reflects in an appropriate manner on the nature of this name, will find that in so doing an avenue to the understanding of the human being in the deeper sense is revealed. Every other name can be applied to its corresponding object by all men in the same way. Everybody can call a table “table” or a chair “chair.” This is not so with the name “I.” No one can use it in referring to another person; each one can call only himself “I.” Never can the name “I” reach my ears from outside when it refers to me. Only from within, only through itself, can the human being refer to himself as “I.” When the human being therefore says “I” to himself, something begins to speak in him that has nothing to do with any one of the worlds from which the sheaths so far mentioned are taken. The “I” becomes ever more and more ruler of body and soul. This also expresses itself in the aura. The more the “I” is lord over body and soul, the more definitely organised, the more varied and the more richly coloured is the aura.

The effect of the “I” on the aura can be seen by the “seeing” person. The “I” itself is invisible even to him; this remains truly within the veiled “holy of holies.” But the “I” absorbs into itself the rays of the light which flashes up in a man as eternal light. As he gathers together the experiences of body and soul in the “I,” so too he causes the thoughts of truth and goodness to stream into the “I.” The phenomena of the senses reveal themselves to the “I” from the one side, the spirit reveals itself from the other. Body and soul yield themselves up to the “I” in order to serve it; but the “I” yields itself up to the spirit in order that the spirit may fill it to overflowing. The “I” lives in body and soul; but the spirit lives in the “I.” And what there is of spirit in the “I” is eternal. For the “I” receives its nature and significance from that with which it is bound up. In so far as it experiences itself in the physical body, it is subject to the laws of the mineral world; through its ether-body to the laws of propagation and growth; by virtue of the sentient and intellectual souls to the laws of the soul-world in so far as it receives the spiritual into itself it is subject to the laws of the spirit. That which the laws of mineral and of life construct, comes into being and vanishes; but the spirit has nothing to do with becoming and perishing.

[ 17 ] The “I” lives in the soul. Although the highest manifestation of the “I” belongs to the consciousness-soul, one must nevertheless say that this “I,” raying out from it, fills the whole of the soul, and through the soul exerts its action upon the body. And in the “I” the spirit is alive. The spirit sends its rays into the “I” and lives in it as in a “sheath” or veil, just as the “I” lives in its sheaths, the body and soul. The spirit develops the “I” from within, outwards; the mineral world develops it from without, inwards. The spirit forming an “I” and living as “I” will be called Spirit-self, because it manifests as the “I,” or ego, or “self” of man. The difference between the “Spirit-self” and the “consciousness-soul” can be made clear in the following way. The consciousness-soul is in touch with the self-existent truth which is independent of all antipathy and sympathy; the Spirit-self bears within it the same truth, but taken up into and enclosed by the “I,” individualised by the latter and absorbed into the independent being of the man. It is through the eternal truth becoming thus individualised and bound up into one being with the “I,” that the “I” itself attains to eternity.

[ 18 ] The Spirit-self is a revelation of the spiritual world within the “I,” just as from the other side sensations are a revelation of the physical world within the “I.” In what is red, green, light, dark, hard, soft, warm, cold, one recognises the revelations of the corporeal world; in what is true and good, the revelations of the spiritual world. In the same sense in which the revelation of the corporeal world is called sensation, let the revelation of the spiritual be called intuition.⁴ Even the most simple thought contains intuitions, for one cannot touch it with the hands or see it with the eyes; its revelation must be received from the spirit through the “I.” If an undeveloped and a developed man look at a plant, there lives in the “I” of the one something quite different from that which is in the “I” of the other. And yet the sensations of both are called forth by the same object. The difference lies in this, that the one can form far more perfect thoughts about the object than can the other. If objects revealed themselves through sensation alone, there could be no progress in spiritual development. Even the savage is affected by Nature; but the laws of Nature reveal themselves only to the thoughts, fructified by intuition, of the more highly developed man. The stimuli from the outer world are felt even by the child as incentives to the will; but the commandments of the morally good disclose themselves to him only in the course of his development, in proportion as he learns to live in the spirit and understand its revelations.

[ 19 ] Just as there could be no colour sensations without physical eyes, so there could be no intuitions without the higher thinking of the Spirit-self. And as little as sensation creates the plant on which the colour appears, does intuition create the spiritual realities about which it is merely giving information.

[ 20 ] The “I” of a man, which comes to life in the soul, draws into itself messages from above, from the spirit-world, through intuitions, just as through sensations it draws in messages from the physical world. And in so doing it fashions the spirit-world into the individualised life of its own soul, even as it does the physical world by means of the senses. The soul, or rather the “I” lighting up in it, opens its portals on two sides; towards the corporeal and towards the spiritual.

[ 21 ] Now just as the physical world can only give information about itself to the ego by building out of physical materials and forces a body in which the conscious soul can live and possess organs to perceive the corporeal world outside itself, so does the spirit-world build, with its spirit-substances and spirit-forces, a spirit-body in which the “I” can live and, through intuitions, perceive the spiritual. (It is evident that the expressions spirit-substance, spirit-body contain a contradiction, according to the literal meaning of the words. They are used only in order to direct attention to what, in the spiritual, corresponds to the physical body of man.)

[ 22 ] Just as within the physical world each human body is built up as a separate physical being, so is the spirit-body within the spirit-world. In the spirit-world there is an “inner” and an “outer” for man just as there is in the physical world. As man takes in the materials of the physical world around him and assimilates them in his physical body, so does he take up the spiritual from the spiritual environment and make it into his own. The spiritual is the eternal nourishment of man. And as man is born out of the physical world, so is he born out of the spirit through the eternal laws of the true and the good. He is separated from the spirit-world outside him, as he is separated from the whole physical world, as an independent being. This independent spiritual being will be called the Spirit-man.

[ 23 ] If we investigate the human physical body, we find the same materials and forces in it as are to be found outside it in the rest of the physical world. It is the same with the Spirit-man. In it pulsate the elements of the external spirit-world; in it the forces of the rest of the spirit-world are active. As within the physical skin a being is enclosed and limited which is alive and feels, so also is it in the spirit-world. The spiritual skin, which separates the Spirit-man from the homogeneous spirit-world, makes him an independent being within it, living a life within himself and perceiving intuitively the spiritual content of the world—let us call this “spiritual skin” (auric sheath) the spirit-sheath. Only it must be kept clearly in mind that the spiritual skin expands continually with advancing human evolution, so that the spiritual individuality of man (his auric sheath) is capable of enlargement to an unlimited extent.

[ 24 ] The Spirit-man lives within this spirit-sheath. It is built up by the spiritual life-force. In a similar way to that in which one speaks of an ether-body, one must therefore speak of an ether-spirit in reference to the Spirit-man. Let this ether-spirit be called Life-spirit. The spiritual being of man therefore is composed of three parts, Spirit-man, Life-spirit, and Spirit-self.

[ 25 ] For one who is a “seer” in the spiritual regions, this spiritual being of man is a perceptible reality as the higher, truly spiritual part of the aura. He “sees” the Spirit-man as Life-spirit within the spirit-sheath; and he “sees” how this “Life-spirit” grows continually larger, by taking in spiritual nourishment from the spiritual external world. Further, he sees how the spirit-sheath continually increases, widens out through what is brought into it, and how the Spirit-man becomes ever larger and larger. In so far as this “becoming larger” is “seen” spatially, it is of course, only a picture of the reality. In spite of this, man's soul is directed towards the corresponding spiritual reality in conceiving this picture. For the difference between the spiritual and the physical being of man is that the latter has a limited size while the former can grow to an unlimited extent. Whatever of spiritual nourishment is absorbed has an eternal value. The human aura is accordingly composed of two interpenetrating parts. Colour and form are given to the one by the physical existence of man, and to the other by his spiritual existence. The ego marks the separation between them in such wise that the physical, after its own manner, yields itself and builds up a body that allows a soul to live within it; and the “I” yields itself and allows to develop in it the spirit, which now for its part permeates the soul and gives it the goal in the spirit-world. Through the body the soul is enclosed in the physical; through the Spirit-man there grow wings for its movement in the spiritual world.

[ 26 ] In order to comprehend the whole man, one must think of him as put together out of the components above mentioned. The body builds itself up out of the world of physical matter in such wise that its construction is adapted to the requirements of the thinking ego. It is penetrated with life-force, and thereby becomes the etheric or life-body. As such it opens itself through the sense-organs towards the outer world and becomes the soul-body. This the sentient soul permeates and becomes a unity with it. The sentient soul does not merely receive the impacts of the outer world as sensations; it has its own inner life which it fertilises through thinking, on the one hand, as it does through sensations on the other. It thus becomes the intellectual soul. It is able to do this by opening itself to intuitions from above, as it does to sensations from below. Thus it becomes the consciousness-soul. This is possible for it because the spirit-world builds into it the organ of intuition, just as the physical body builds for it the sense-organs. As the senses transmit to the human organism sensations by means of the soul-body, so does the spirit transmit to it intuitions through the organ of intuition. The Spirit-self is thereby linked into a unity with the consciousness-soul, just as the physical body is with the sentient soul in the soul-body. Consciousness-soul and Spirit-self form a unity. In this unity the Spirit-man lives as Life-spirit, just as the etheric body forms the bodily basis for the soul-body. And as the physical body is enclosed in the physical skin, so is the Spirit-man in the spirit-sheath. The members of the whole man are therefore as follows:

1. Physical body.
2. Ether-body or life-body
3. Soul-body
4. Sentient soul
5. Intellectual soul
6. Consciousness-soul
7. Spirit-self
8. Life-spirit
9. Spirit-man

[ 1 ] Soul-body (C) and sentient soul (D) are a unity in the earthly man; in the same way are consciousness-soul (F) and Spirit-self (G) a unity. Thus there come to be seven parts in the earthly man.⁵

1. Physical body.
2. Ether-body or life-body
3. Sentient soul-body
4. Intellectual soul
5. Spirit-filled Consciousness-soul
6. Life-spirit
7. Spirit-man

[ 27 ] In the soul the “I” flashes forth, receives the impetus from the spirit and thereby becomes the bearer of the Spirit-man. Thus man participates in the “three worlds,” the physical, the soul, and the spiritual. He is rooted in the physical world through his physical body, ether-body, and soul-body and blossoms through the Spirit-self, Life-spirit, and Spirit-man up into the spiritual world. The stalk, however, which takes root in the one and blossoms in the other, is the soul itself.

[ 28 ] This arrangement of the members of man can be expressed in a simplified way, but one entirely consistent with the above. Although the human “I” lights up in the consciousness-soul it nevertheless penetrates the whole soul-being. The parts of this soul-being are not at all as distinctly separate as are the limbs of the body: they interpenetrate each other in a higher sense. If then one regards the intellectual soul and the consciousness-soul as the two sheaths of the “I” that belong together, with the “I” itself as their kernel, then one can divide man into physical body, life-body, astral body, and “I.” The expression astral body designates here what is formed by soul-body and sentient soul together. This expression is found in the older literature, and may be applied here in a somewhat broad sense to that in the constitution of man which lies beyond the sensibly perceptible. Although the sentient soul is in certain respects energised by the “I” it is still so intimately connected with the soul-body that, in thinking of both as united, a single expression is justified. When, now, the “I” saturates itself with the Spirit-self, then this Spirit-self makes its appearance in such wise that the astral body is worked over from within the soul. In the astral body there are primarily active the impulses, desires, and passions of man, in so far as they are felt by him; sense-perceptions are also active in it. Sense-perceptions arise through the soul-body as a member in man which comes to him from the external world. Impulses, desires, and passions, etc., arise in the sentient soul, in so far as it is energised from within, before this “inner” has yielded itself to the Spirit-self. If the “I” saturates itself with the Spirit-self, then the soul energises the astral body with this Spirit-self. This expresses itself in the illumination of the impulses, desires, and passions by what the “I” has received from the spirit. The “I” has then, through its participation in the spiritual world, become ruler in the world of impulses, desires, etc. To the extent to which it has become this the Spirit-self manifests in the astral body. And the astral body is thereby transmuted. The astral body itself then appears as a two-fold body—in part untransmuted and in part transmuted. Therefore the Spirit-self, as manifested in man, can be designated as the transmuted astral body.

A similar process takes place in a man when he receives the Life-spirit into his “I.” The life-body then becomes transmuted. It becomes penetrated with the Life-spirit. This manifests itself in such wise that the life-body becomes quite other than it was. For this reason one can also say that Life-spirit is the transmuted life-body. And if the “I” receives the Spirit-man, it thereby receives the necessary force with which to permeate the physical body. Naturally, that part of the physical body, thus transmuted, is not perceptible to the physical senses. For it is just that part of the physical body which has been spiritualised that has become the Spirit-man. The physical body is then present to the physical senses as physical, but in so far as this physical is spiritualised, it must be perceived by spiritual faculties of perception. To the external senses the physical, even when permeated by the spiritual, appears to be merely sensible.

Taking all this as basis, the following arrangement of the members of man may also be given:

1. Physical body.
2. Ether-body or life-body
3. Astral body
4. “I” as soul-kernel
5. Spirit-self as transmuted astral body
6. Life-spirit as transmuted life-body
7. Spirit-man as transmuted physical body

• 1. The author of this book, long after it was written, applied to what is here called etheric or life-body, the name “formative-force-body” (also cf. Das Reich, 4th book of the first year's issue.) He felt moved to give it this name, because he believes that one cannot do enough to prevent the misunderstanding due to confusing what is here meant by etheric body with the “vital force” of older natural science. In what concerns the rejection of this older concept of a vital force in the sense of modern natural science, the author shares in a certain respect the standpoint of those who are opposed to assuming such a vital force. For the purpose of assuming such a vital force was to explain the special mode of working in the organism of the inorganic forces. But that which works inorganically in the organism, does not work there in any other way than it does in the inorganic world. The laws of inorganic nature are in the organism no other than they are in the crystal, and so forth. But in the organism there is present something which is not inorganic: the formative life. The etheric body or formative-force-body lies at the base of this formative life. By assuming its existence, the rightful task of natural science is not interfered with: viz., to observe the workings of forces in inorganic nature and to follow the workings into the organic world: and further, to refuse to think of these operations within the organism as being modified by a special vital force. The spiritual investigator speaks of the etheric body in so far as there manifests in the organism something other than what shows itself in the lifeless. In spite of all this the author does not here feel impelled to replace the term “etheric body” by the other “formative-force-body,” since within the whole connected range of what is said here, any misunderstanding is excluded for everyone who really wants to see. Such a misunderstanding can only arise when the term is used in a development which cannot exhibit this connection. See also under Addendas 1, 2,& 3 p.26
• 2. See also under Addenda 4
• 3. Bewusstsein-Seele (consciousness-soul) may also, as indicated by Dr. Steiner, be translated “spiritual soul.”
• 4. See also underAddenda p.38-39.
• 5. See also underAddenda p.42

[ 1 ] Midway between body and spirit lives the soul. The impressions which come to it through the body are transitory. They are present only as long as the body opens its organs to the things of the outer world. My eye perceives the colour of the rose only as long as the rose is in front of it and my eye is itself open. The presence of the things of the outer world as well as of the bodily organs is necessary in order that an impression, a sensation, or a perception can occur. But what I have recognised in my intellect as truth concerning the rose does not pass with the present moment. And as regards its truth, it is not in the least dependent on me. It would be true even although I had never stood before the rose. What I know through the spirit is rooted in an element of the soul-life, through which the soul is linked with a world-content that manifests itself in the soul independently of its bodily basis. The point is not whether what manifests itself is essentially imperishable, but whether its manifestation for the soul takes place in such a way that the soul's perishable bodily basis takes no part, but only that which is independent of the perishable element. The enduring element in the soul comes under observation at the moment one becomes aware that the soul has experiences which are not bounded by its perishable factor. Again the important point is not whether these experiences come to consciousness primarily through perishable processes of the bodily organisation, but the fact that they contain something which does indeed dwell in the soul, but yet in its truth is independent of the transient process of the perception. The soul is placed between the present and duration, in that it holds the middle place between body and spirit. But it also mediates between the present and duration. It preserves the present for remembrance. It thereby rescues the present from impermanence, and takes it up into the duration of its own spiritual being. It also stamps that which endures upon the temporal and impermanent by not merely yielding itself up in its own life to the transitory incitements, but by determining things from out of its own initiative, and embodying its own nature in them in the shape of the actions it performs. By remembrance the soul preserves the yesterday; by action it prepares the to-morrow.

[ 2 ] My soul would always have to perceive afresh the red of the rose, in order to have it in consciousness, if it could not retain it through remembrance. What remains after an external impression, what can be retained by the soul, can again become a conception, independently of the external impression. Through this power of forming conceptions, the soul makes the outer world so into its own inner world that it can then retain the latter in the memory—for remembrance—and, independent of the impressions acquired, lead therewith a life of its own. The soul-life thus becomes the enduring result of the transitory impressions of the external world.

But action also receives permanence when once it is stamped on the outer world. If I cut a twig from a tree, something has taken place through my being, which completely changes the course of events in the outer world. Something quite different would have happened to the branch of the tree if I had not interfered by my action. I have called into life a series of effects which, without my existence, would not have been present. What I have done to-day endures for to-morrow; it becomes lasting through the deed, as my impressions of yesterday have become permanent for my soul through memory.

[ 3 ] For this fact of becoming permanent through action we do not, in our ordinary consciousness, form a definite conception, like that which we have for “memory,” for the becoming permanent of an experience which has occurred as the result of a perception. But will not the “I” of a man be just as much linked to the alteration in the world resulting from his deed as it is to a memory resulting from an impression? The “I” judges new impressions differently, according as it has or has not this or that other recollection. But it has also as “I” entered into a different relation to the world according as it has performed one deed or another. Whether in the relation between the world and my “I” a certain something new is present or not, depends upon whether or not I have made an impression on another person through an action. I am a different man in relation to the world after having made an impression on my surroundings.

The fact that what is here indicated is not so generally noticed as is the change in the “I” through the acquiring of a recollection, is solely due to the circumstance that the recollection unites itself, immediately on being formed, with the soul-life, which man always feels to be his own; but the external effects of the deed are independent of soul-life and work out in consequences which again are something different from what is retained in the recollection. But apart from this it must be admitted that, after a deed has been accomplished, there is something in the world which the ego has sealed with its own character. If one really thinks out what is here being considered, the question must arise as to whether the results of a deed on which the “I” has stamped its own nature might not retain a tendency to return to the “I,” just as an impression preserved in the memory, revives in response to some external inducement. What is preserved in the memory waits for such an inducement. Could not that which has retained the imprint of the “I” in the external world wait also, so as to approach the human soul from without, just as memory, in response to a given inducement, approaches it from within? This matter is put forward here only as a question: for certainly it might happen that the opportunity would never occur, through which the results of a deed, bearing the impress of the ego, could meet the human soul. But that these results do exist, as such, and that, through their presence, they determine the relation of the world to the “I” is seen at once to be a possible conception, when one really follows out in thought the matter before us. In the following considerations, we shall enquire whether there is anything in human life which, starting from this possibility, points to a reality.

[ 4 ] Let us first consider memory. How does it originate? Evidently in quite a different way from sensation or perception. Without the eye I cannot have the sensation “blue.” But through the eye I in no way have the remembrance of “blue.” If the eye is to give me this sensation now, a blue thing must come before it. The body would allow all impressions to sink back again into nothing were it not that whilst the present image is being formed through the act of perception, something is also taking place in the relationship between the outer world and the soul, as a result of which the man is able, subsequently, to form, through his own inner processes, a fresh image of that which he received in the first place as an image from outside himself. (Anyone who has acquired practice in observing the life of the soul will be able to realise how erroneous it is to say that a man has a perception to-day, and to-morrow, through memory, the same perception appears again, having meanwhile remained somewhere or other within him. No; the perception which I now have is a phenomenon which passes away with the “now.” When recollection takes place, a process occurs in me which is the result of something that happened, in addition to the calling forth of the actual present image, in the relation between the external world and me. The image called forth through remembrance is a new one, and not the old one preserved. Recollection consists in the fact that one can make a fresh mental image to oneself, and not that a former image can revive. What appears again in recollection is something different from the original image itself. These remarks are made here, because in the domain of Spiritual Science it is necessary that more accurate conceptions should be framed than is the case in ordinary life, and indeed also in ordinary science.) I remember; that is, I experience something which is itself no longer present. I unite a past experience with my present life. This is the case with every remembrance. Let us say for instance, that I meet a man and recognise him again because I met him yesterday. He would be a complete stranger to me were I not able to unite the picture which I made yesterday by perception, with my impression of him to-day. The picture of to-day is given me by the sense-perception, that is to say, by my sense-organisation. But who conjures yesterday's picture into my soul? It is the same being in me that was present during my experience yesterday, and is also present in that of to-day. In the previous explanations it has been called soul. Were it not for this faithful preserver of the past, each external impression would be always new to a man. Clearly the process by which perception becomes a recollection is that the soul imprints it upon the body, as though it were stamped upon it. But the soul must both make the impression and also itself perceive the impression it has made, just as it perceives any object outside itself. It is in this way that the soul is the preserver of memory.

[ 5 ] As preserver of the past the soul continually gathers treasures for the human spirit. That I can distinguish what is correct from what is incorrect depends on the fact that I, as a human being, am a thinking being, able to grasp the truth in my spirit. Truth is eternal; and it could always reveal itself to me again in things, even if I were always to lose sight of the past and each impression were to be a new one to me. But the spirit within me is not restricted to the impressions of the present alone; the soul extends its horizon over the past. And the more it is able to bring to the spirit out of the past, the richer does it make the spirit. Thus the soul hands on to the spirit what it has received from the body. The spirit of man therefore carries at each moment of its life a two-fold possession within itself: firstly the eternal laws of the good and the true; secondly, the remembrance of the experiences of the past. What it does, it accomplishes under the influence of these two factors. If we want to understand a human spirit we must therefore know two different things about it: first, how much of the eternal has revealed itself to it; second, how much treasure from the past lies stored up within it.

[ 6 ] These treasures by no means remain in the spirit in an unchanged form. The impressions man acquires from his experiences fade gradually from the memory. Not so their fruits. One does not remember all the experiences one lived through during childhood while acquiring the faculties of reading and writing. But one could not read or write if one had not had the experiences, and if their fruits had not been preserved in the form of abilities. And that is the transmutation which the spirit effects on the treasures of memory. It consigns whatever can merely lead to pictures of the separate experiences to their fate, and extracts from them only the force necessary for enhancing its own abilities. Thus not one experience passes by unutilised; the soul preserves each one as memory, and from each the spirit draws forth all that can enrich its abilities and the whole content of its life. The human spirit grows through assimilated experiences. And although one cannot find the past experiences in the spirit as it were in a storeroom, one nevertheless finds their effects in the abilities which the man has acquired.

[ 7 ] Spirit and soul have thus far been considered only within the period lying between birth and death. One cannot stop there. Anyone wishing to do so would be like a man who observes the human body also within the same limits. Much can certainly be discovered within these limits; but the human form can never be explained by what lies between birth and death. It cannot build itself up directly out of mere physical substances and forces. It can only descend from a form like its own, which arises as the resultant of what has been handed on by heredity. The physical materials and forces build up the body during life; the forces of propagation enable another body, a body which can have the same form, to proceed from it; that is to say, one which is able to be the bearer of a similar life-body. Each life-body is a repetition of its forefather. Only because it is such a repetition does it appear, not in any chance form, but in that passed on to it by heredity. The forces which make possible my human form lay in my forefathers. But the spirit of a man appears also in a definite form (the word “form” is naturally used in a spiritual sense). And the forms of the spirit are the most varied imaginable in different persons. No two men have the same spiritual form. Investigations in this region should be made in just as quiet and matter-of-fact a manner as in the physical world. It cannot be said that the differences in human beings in a spiritual respect arise only from the differences in their environment, their upbringing, etc. This is by no means the case: for two people under similar influences as regards environment, upbringing, etc., develop in quite different ways. One must therefore admit that they have entered on their path of life with quite different qualities Here one is brought face to face with an important fact which when its full bearing is recognised, sheds light on the being of man. A person who is set upon directing his outlook exclusively towards material happenings, could indeed assert that the individual differences of human personalities arise from differences in the constitution of the material germs. (And in view of the laws of heredity discovered by Gregor Mendel and further developed by others, such a view can say much that gives it the appearance of justification, even to a scientific judgment.) One who judges in this way only shows, however, that he has no insight into the real relation of man to his experience. For it is obvious to careful observation that external circumstances affect different persons in different ways, because of something which is not the direct result of their material development. To the really accurate investigator in this domain it becomes apparent that what proceeds from the material basis can be distinguished from that which, it is true, arises through the mutual interaction of the man with his experiences, but which can only take shape and form in that the soul itself enters into this mutual interaction. It is clear that the soul stands here in relation to something within the external world, which, by virtue of its very nature, cannot be connected with the material, germinal basis.

[ 8 ] Human beings differ from their animal fellow-creatures on the earth through their physical form. But in respect of this form they are, within certain limits, like one another. There is only one human species. However great may be the differences between races, tribes, peoples, and personalities, as regards the physical body, the resemblance between man and man is greater than between man and any animal species. Everything that finds expression in the human species is conditioned through inheritance from forefathers to descendants. And the human form is bound to this heredity. As the lion can inherit its physical form through lion forefathers only, so can the human being inherit his physical body through human forefathers only.

[ 9 ] Just as the physical similarity of men is clear to the eye, so does the difference of their spiritual forms reveal itself to the unprejudiced spiritual gaze. There is one very evident fact through which this is expressed. It consists in the existence of the life-history of a human being. Were a human being merely a member of a species, no life-history could exist. A lion, a dove, lay claim to interest in so far as they belong to the lion or the dove species. The single being in all its essentials has been understood when one has described the species. It matters little whether one has to do with father, son, or grandson. What is of interest in them, father, son and grandson have in common. But what a human being signifies begins, not where he is merely a member of a species, but where he is a single individual being. I have not in the least understood the nature of Mr. Smith if I have described his son or his father. I must know his own life-history. Anyone who reflects on the nature of biography becomes aware that in respect of the spiritual each man is a species for himself. Those people, to be sure, who regard a biography merely as a collection of external incidents in the life of a person, may claim they can write the biography of a dog in the same way as that of a man. But anyone who depicts in a biography the real individuality of a man, grasps the fact that he has in the biography of one human being something that corresponds to the description of a whole species in the animal kingdom. The point is not—and this is quite obvious—that one can relate something in the nature of a biography about an animal—especially clever ones—but the point is that the human biography does not correspond to the life-history of the individual animal but to the description of the animal species. Of course there will always be people who will seek to refute what has been said here by urging that owners of menageries, for instance, know how single animals of the same species differ from one another. The man who judges thus, shows however, that he is unable to distinguish the difference between individuals from a difference which reveals itself as acquired only through individuality.

[ 10 ] Now if genus or species in the physical sense becomes intelligible only when one understands it as conditioned by heredity, so too the spiritual being can be understood only through a similar spiritual heredity. I have received my physical human form because of my descent from human forefathers. Whence have I that which finds expression in my life-history? As physical man, I repeat the shape of my forefathers. What do I repeat as spiritual man? Anyone claiming that what is comprised in my life-history required no further explanation, but has just be accepted as such, must be regarded as being also bound to maintain that he has seen, somewhere, an earth-mound on which the lumps of matter have, quite by themselves, conglomerated into a living man.

[ 11 ] As physical man I spring from other physical men, for I have the same shape as the whole human species. The qualities of the species, accordingly, could thus be acquired within the species through heredity. As spiritual man I have my own form as I have my own life-history. I can therefore have obtained this form from no one but myself. And since I entered the world not with undefined but with defined soul-predispositions, and since the course of my life, as it comes to expression in my life-history, is determined by these predispositions, my work upon myself cannot have begun with my birth. I must, as spiritual man, have existed before my birth. In my forefathers I certainly did not exist; for they as spiritual human beings, are different from me. My life-history is not explainable through theirs. On the contrary, I must, as spiritual being, be the repetition of someone through whose life-history mine can be explained. The only thinkable alternative would be this: that I owe the form of the content of my life-history to a spiritual life only, prior to birth (or more correctly to conception.) But one would only be entitled to hold this idea if one were willing to assume that what acts upon the human soul from its physical surroundings is of the same nature as what the soul receives from a purely spiritual world. Such an assumption contradicts really accurate observation. For what affects the human soul out of its physical environment works in the same way as a later experience works on a similar earlier experience in the same life. In order to observe these relations correctly, one must acquire a perception of how there are impressions operating in human life, whose influence upon the aptitudes of the soul is like standing before a deed that has to be done, in contrast to what has already been practised in physical life. But the soul does not bring faculties gained in this immediate life to meet these impressions, but aptitudes which receive the impressions in the same way as do the faculties acquired through practice. Anyone who penetrates into these matters, arrives at the conception of earth-lives which must have preceded this present one. He cannot in his thinking stop at purely spiritual experiences preceding this present earth-life. The physical form which Schiller bore, he inherited from his forefathers. But just as little as Schiller's physical form can have grown directly out of the earth, as little can his spiritual being have arisen directly out of a spiritual environment. He must himself be the re-embodiment of a spiritual being, through whose life-history his own will be explicable, just as his physical human form is explicable through human propagation. In the same way, therefore, as the physical human form is again and again a repetition, a re-embodiment, of the distinctively human species, so too the spiritual human being must be a re-embodiment of the same spiritual human being. For, as spiritual human being, each one is in fact his own species.

[ 12 ] It might be objected to what has been stated here, that it is a mere spinning of thoughts; and such external proofs might be demanded as one is accustomed to demand in ordinary natural science. The reply to this is that the re-embodiment of the spiritual human being is, naturally, a process which does not belong to the domain of external physical facts, but is one that takes place entirely in the spiritual region. And to this region no other of our ordinary powers of intelligence has entrance, save that of thinking. He who will not trust to the power of thinking, cannot in fact enlighten himself regarding higher spiritual facts. For him whose spiritual eye is opened, the above trains of thought act with exactly the same force as does an event that takes place before his physical eyes. Anyone who ascribes to a so-called “proof,” constructed according to methods of natural science, greater power to convince than the above observations concerning the significance of life-history may be in the ordinary sense of the word a great scientist; but from the paths of true spiritual investigation he is very far distant.

[ 13 ] One of the most dangerous assumptions consists in claiming to explain the spiritual qualities of a man by inheritance from father, mother or other ancestors. Anyone who is guilty of the assumption, for example, that Goethe inherited what constituted his essential being from father or mother will at first be hardly accessible to argument, for there lies within him a deep antipathy to unprejudiced observation. A materialistic spell prevents him from seeing the mutual connections of phenomena in the true light.

[ 14 ] In such observations as the above, the antecedents are provided for following the human being beyond birth and death. Within the boundaries formed by birth and death, the human being belongs to the three worlds, of the bodily element, of soul, and of spirit. The soul forms the intermediate link between body and spirit, inasmuch as it endows the third member of the body, the soul-body, with the capacity for sensation, and inasmuch as it permeates the first member of the spirit, the Spirit-self, as consciousness-soul. Thus it takes part and lot during life with the body as well as with the spirit. This comes to expression in its whole existence. It will depend on the organisation of the soul-body, how the sentient soul can unfold its capabilities. And on the other hand, it will depend on the life of the consciousness-soul to what extent the Spirit-self can develop within it. The more highly organised the soul-body is, the more complete is the intercourse which the sentient soul will be able to develop with the outer world. And the Spirit-self will become so much the richer and more powerful, the more the consciousness-soul brings nourishment to it. It has been shown that during life this nourishment is supplied to the Spirit-self through assimilated experiences and the fruits of those experiences. For the interaction of soul and spirit described above can, of course, only take place where soul and spirit are within each other, penetrating each other, that is, within the union of Spirit-self with consciousness-soul.

[ 15 ] Let us consider first the interaction of the soul-body and the sentient soul. The soul-body, as has become evident, is the most finely elaborated part of the body; but it nevertheless belongs to the body and is dependent on it. Physical body, ether-body, and soul-body compose, in a certain sense, one whole. Hence the soul-body is also involved in the laws of physical heredity through which the body receives its shape. And since it is the most mobile and, so to speak, the most volatile form of body, it must also exhibit the most mobile, volatile manifestations of heredity. While, therefore, the difference in the physical body corresponding to races, peoples and tribes is the smallest, and while the ether-body shows, on the whole, a preponderating likeness, although a greater divergence as between single individuals, in the soul-body the difference is already a very considerable one. In it is expressed what is felt to be the external, personal peculiarity of a man. It is therefore also the bearer of that part of this personal peculiarity which is passed on from parents, grandparents, etc., to their descendants. True, the soul as such leads a complete life of its own; it shuts itself up with its inclinations and disinclinations, its feelings and passions. But as a whole it is nevertheless active, and therefore this whole comes to expression also in the sentient soul. And because the sentient soul interpenetrates and as it were fills the soul-body, the latter forms itself according to the nature of the soul and can in this way, as the bearer of heredity, pass on inclinations, passions, etc., from forefathers to children. On this fact rests what Goethe says: “From my father I have stature and the serious manner of life, from my mother a joyous disposition and the love of telling stories.” Genius, of course, he did not receive from either.

[ 16 ] In this way we are shown what part of a man's soul-qualities he hands over, as it were, to the line of physical heredity. The substances and forces of the physical body are in like manner present in the whole circle of external, physical Nature. They are continually being taken up from it and given back to it. In the space of a few years the substance which composes our physical body is entirely renewed. That this substance takes the form of the human body, and that it is perpetually renewed within this body, depends upon the fact that it is held together by the ether-body. And the form of the latter is not determined by events between birth—or conception—and death alone, but is dependent on the laws of heredity which extend beyond birth and death. That soul-qualities also can be transmitted by heredity, that is, that the progress of physical heredity receives an impulse from the soul, is due to the fact that the soul-body can be influenced by the sentient soul.

Now how does the interaction between soul and spirit proceed? During life, the spirit is bound up with the soul in the way shown above. The soul receives from it the gift of living in the good and the true, and of thereby bringing, in its own life, in its tendencies, impulses and passions, the spirit itself to expression. The Spirit-self brings to the “I,” from the world of the spirit, the eternal laws of the true and good.

These link themselves through the consciousness-soul with the experiences of the soul's own life. These experiences themselves pass away but their fruits remain. The Spirit-self receives an abiding impression by having been linked with them. When the human spirit meets with an experience similar to one to which it has already been linked, it sees in it something familiar, and is able to adopt a different attitude towards it from the one it would adopt if it were facing it for the first time. This is the basis of all learning. And the fruits of learning are acquired capacities. The fruits of the transitory life are in this way graven on the eternal spirit. And do we not see these fruits? Whence spring the innate predispositions and talents described above as characteristic of the spiritual man? Surely only from capacities of one kind or another which the human being brings with him when he begins his earthly life. These capacities, in certain respects, exactly resemble those which we can also acquire for ourselves during our earthly life. Take the case of a genius. It is known that Mozart when a boy, could write out from memory a long musical work after hearing it only once. He was able to do this only because he could survey the whole at once. Within certain limits, a man is also able during life to increase his capacity of rapid survey, of grasping connections, so that he then possesses new faculties. Lessing has said of himself that through a talent for critical observation he had acquired for himself something that came near to genius. One has either to regard such abilities founded on innate capacities as a miracle or to consider them as fruits of experiences which the Spirit-self has had through a soul. They have been graven on this Spirit-self, and since they have not been implanted in this fife, they must have been in a former one. The human spirit is its own species. And just as man, as a physical being belonging to a species, transmits his qualities within the species, so does the spirit within its species, that is, within itself. In each life the human spirit appears as a repetition of itself with the fruits of its former experiences in previous lives.¹ This life is consequently the repetition of others, and brings with it what the Spirit-self has, by work, acquired for itself in the previous life. When the Spirit-self absorbs something that can develop into fruit, it saturates itself with the Life-spirit. Just as the life-body reproduces the form, from species to species, so does the Life-spirit reproduce the soul from personal existence to personal existence.

[ 17 ] The preceding considerations give validity to that conception which seeks the reason for certain life-processes of man in repeated earth-lives. That conception can really only receive its full significance by means of observations which spring from spiritual insight, such as can be acquired by following the path of knowledge described at the close of this book. Here the only intention was to show that ordinary observation, rightly orientated by thinking, already leads to this conception. But observation of this kind, it is true, will at first leave the conception to become something like a silhouette. And it will not be possible to defend the conception entirely against the objections advanced by observation which is neither accurate, nor rightly guided by thinking. But on the other hand it is true that anyone who acquires such a conception through ordinary thoughtful observation, makes himself ready for supersensible observation. To a certain extent he develops something that one needs must have prior to this supersensible observation, just as one must have eyes prior to observing through the senses. Anyone who objects that through the formation of such a conception one can readily suggest to oneself the super-sensible observation, proves only that he is incapable of entering into the reality and that it is he himself who is thereby suggesting his objections.

[ 18 ] Thus the experiences of the soul become enduring not only within the boundaries of birth and death, but beyond death. The soul does not stamp its experiences, however, only on the spirit which flashes up in it; it stamps them on the outer world also, through its action. What a man did yesterday is to-day still present in its effects. The relationship between cause and effect in this connection is illustrated by the parallel relation between death and sleep. Sleep has often been called the younger brother of death. I get up in the morning. My consecutive activity has been interrupted by the night. Now under ordinary circumstances, it is not possible for me to begin my activity again just as I like. I must connect it with my doings of yesterday, if there is to be order and coherence in my life. My actions of yesterday are the conditions predetermining those actions which fall to me to-day. I have created my fate of to-day by what I did yesterday. I have separated myself for a while from my activity; but this activity belongs to me and draws me again to itself, after I have withdrawn myself from it for a while. My past remains bound up within me; it lives on in my present, and will follow me into my future. If the effects of my yesterday were not to be my fate to-day, I should have had, not to wake this morning, but to be newly created out of nothing. It would be absurd if under ordinary circumstances I were not to occupy a house that I have had built for me.

[ 19 ] The human spirit is as little newly created when it begins its earthly life, as a man is newly created every morning; let us try to make clear to ourselves what happens when entrance into this life takes place. A physical body, receiving its form through the laws of heredity, comes upon the scene. This body becomes the bearer of a spirit, which repeats a previous life in a new form. Between the two stands the soul, which leads a self-contained life of its own. Its inclinations and disinclinations, its wishes and desires, minister to it; it presses thought into its service. As sentient soul, it receives the impressions of the outer world and carries them to the spirit, in order that the spirit may extract from them the fruits that are to endure. It plays, as it were, the part of intermediary; and its task is fulfilled when it is adequate to this part. The body forms impressions for the sentient soul which transforms them into sensations, retains them in the memory as conceptions, and hands them over to the spirit to hold permanently. The soul is really that through which man belongs to his whole earthly life. Through his body he belongs to the physical human species. Through it he is a member of this species. With his spirit he lives in a higher world. The soul binds the two worlds together for a time.

[ 20 ] But the physical world into which the human spirit enters is no strange field of action to it. On that world the traces of its own former actions are imprinted. Something in this field of action belongs to this spirit. It bears the impress of its being. It is related to it. As the soul in the first place transmitted impressions from the outer world to the human spirit, in order that they might remain enduringly within it, so later the soul, as the organ of the human spirit, converted the faculties bestowed on it by the spirit into deeds which in their effects are also enduring. Thus the soul has actually immersed itself in these actions. In the effects of his deeds a man's soul lives further a second life of its own. Now this provides us with a motive for examining life from this angle, in order to perceive how the processes of fate enter into it. Something “happens” to a man. He is probably at first inclined to regard such a “happening” as something coming into his life “by chance.” But he can become aware of how he himself is the outcome of such “chances.” Anyone who studies himself in his fortieth year and in the search after his soul-nature refuses to be content with an unreal abstract conception of the “I,” may well say to himself: “I am indeed nothing else whatever than what I have become through what has ‘happened’ to me according to fate up to the present. Should I not be a different man, if, for example, I had had a certain series of experiences when twenty years old instead of those that I did have?” The man will then seek his “I,” not only in those educative impulses which came to him from “within” outwards, but also in what has formatively thrust itself into his life from “without.” He will recognise his own “I” in that which “happens to him.” If one gives oneself up unreservedly to such a perception, then only a further step of really intimate observation of life is needed in order to see, in what comes to one through certain experiences of destiny, something which lays hold upon the “I” from without, just as memory works from within in order to make a past experience flash up again. Thus one can make oneself able to perceive in the experiences of fate, how a former action of the soul finds its way to the ego, just as in memory an earlier experience finds its way into the mind as a conception, if called forth by an external cause. It has already been alluded to as a “possible” conception, that the consequences of a deed may meet the human soul again. A meeting of this kind in regard to certain consequences of action is out of the question in the course of one earth-life, because that earth-life was particularly arranged for the carrying out of the deed. Experience is derived from its accomplishment. A definite consequence of that action can as little react upon the soul in that case, as one can remember an experience while one is still in the midst of it. It can only be a question here of the experience of the results of actions which do not confront the ego while it has the same soul-content which it had during the earth-life in which the deed was committed. One's gaze can only be directed to the consequences of action from another earth-life. As soon as one realises that what “happens” to one seemingly as a destined experience is bound up with the “I,” just as much as what shapes itself “from out of the inner being” of that “I”—then one is forced to the conclusion that in such a destined experience one is concerned with the consequences of action from previous earth-lives. One sees that one is thus led, through an intimate grasp of life, guided by thinking, to what for the ordinary consciousness is the paradoxical assumption—namely, that the destined experiences of one earth-life are linked with the actions of preceding earth-lives. This conception again can only receive its full content through supersensible knowledge; lacking this it remains a mere silhouette. But once more, this conception, derived from the ordinary consciousness, prepares the soul so that it is enabled to behold its truth in actual super-sensible observation.

[ 21 ] Only the one part of my deed is in the outer world: the other is in myself. Let us make this relation of “I” to deed clear by a simple example taken from natural science. Creatures that once could see, migrated to the caves of Kentucky, and through their life in them have lost their power of sight. Existence in darkness has put the eyes out of action. Consequently the physical and chemical activity that is present when seeing takes place is no longer carried on in these eyes. The stream of nourishment, which was formerly expended on this activity, now flows to other organs. These creatures can now live only in these caves. They have by their act, by the immigration, created the conditions of their later lives. The immigration has become a part of their fate. A being that once acted, has united itself with the results of the action. It is so also with the human spirit. The soul could only mediate and make over certain capacities to the spirit through being itself active. And these capacities correspond to the actions. Through an action which the soul has performed, there lives in the soul the predisposition, full of energy, to perform another action, which is the fruit of that first action. The soul carries this as a necessity within itself, until the latter action has come to pass. One might also say: through an action, the necessity has been imprinted upon the soul to carry out the consequences of that action.

[ 22 ] By means of its actions, the human spirit has really brought about its own fate. In a new life it finds itself linked to what it did in a former one. One may ask, “How can that be, when the human spirit on reincarnating finds itself in an entirely different world from that which it left at some earlier time?” This question is based on a very superficial conception of the linking's of fate. If I change my scene of action from Europe to America I also find myself in new surroundings. Nevertheless, my life in America depends entirely on my previous life in Europe. If I have been a mechanic in Europe, my life in America will shape itself quite differently from the way in which it would, had I been a bank clerk. In the one case I should probably be surrounded in America by machinery, in the other by banking arrangements. In each case my previous life decided my environment; it attracts to itself, as it were, out of the whole surrounding world, those things that are related to it. So it is with the Spirit-self. It inevitably surrounds itself in a new life with that to which it is related from previous lives. And on that account sleep is an apt image for death, because the man during sleep is withdrawn from the field of action in which his fate awaits him. While one sleeps, events in this field of action pursue their course. One has for a time no influence on this course of events. Nevertheless, our life in a new day depends on the effects of the deeds of the previous one. Our personality actually incarnates anew every morning in our world of action. What was separated from us during the night is spread out as it were around us during the day. So it is with the actions of the former embodiments of man. They are bound up with him as his destiny, as life in the dark caves remains bound up with the creatures who, through migration into them, have lost their power of sight. Just as these creatures can only live in the surroundings in which they have placed themselves, so the human spirit can only live in the surroundings which by its acts it has created for itself. That I find in the morning a state of affairs which I created on the previous day is brought about by the direct progress of the events themselves. That I, when I reincarnate, find surroundings which correspond with the results of my deeds in a previous life, is brought about by the relationship of my reincarnated spirit with the things in the world around. From this one can form a conception of how the soul is set into the constitution of man. The physical body is subject to the laws of heredity. The human spirit, on the contrary, has to incarnate over and over again; and its law consists in its bringing over the fruits of the former lives into the following ones. The soul lives in the present. But this life in the present is not independent of the previous fives. For the incarnating spirit brings its destiny with it from its previous incarnations. And this destiny determines its life. What impressions the soul will be able to have, what wishes it will be able to have gratified, what sorrows and joys shall grow up for it, with what individuals it shall come into contact—all this depends on the nature of the actions in the past incarnations of the spirit. Those people with whom the soul was bound up in one life, the soul must meet again in a subsequent one, because the actions which have taken place between them must have their consequences. When this soul seeks re-embodiment, those others, who are bound up with it, will also strive towards their incarnation at the same time. The life of the soul is therefore the result of the self-created destiny of the human spirit. The course of man's life between birth and death is therefore determined in a three-fold way. And thereby he is dependent in a three-fold way on factors which he on the other side of birth and death. The body is subject to the law of heredity; the soul is subject to its self-created fate. Using an ancient expression, one calls this fate, created by the man himself, his karma. And the spirit is under the law of re-embodiment, repeated earth-lives. One can accordingly express the relationship between spirit, soul and body in the following way as well: the spirit is immortal; birth and death reign over the body according to the laws of the physical world; the soul-life, which is subject to destiny, mediates the connection of both during an earthly life. All further knowledge about the being of man presupposes acquaintance with the “three worlds” to which he belongs. These three worlds are dealt with in the following pages.

[ 23 ] A thinking which frankly faces the phenomena of life, and is not afraid to follow out to their final consequences the thoughts resulting from a living, vivid contemplation of life, can, by pure logic, arrive at the conception of the law of destiny and repeated incarnations. Just as it is true that for the seer with the opened “spiritual eye,” past lives, like an opened book, he before him as experience, so it is true that the truth of all this can become obvious to the unbiased reason which reflects upon it.²

• 1. See also under Addenda p. 58.
• 2. Compare what is said about this at the end of the book under Addenda p. 45.

[ 1 ] Our study of man has shown that he belongs to three worlds. From the world of physical corporality are taken the materials and forces that build up his body. He has knowledge of this world through the perceptions of his outer physical senses. Anyone trusting to these senses alone, and developing only their perceptive capacities, can gain for himself no enlightenment concerning the two other worlds, the soul-world and the spiritual. A man's ability to convince himself of the reality of a thing or a being depends on whether he has an organ of perception, a sense for it. It may, of course, easily lead to misunderstandings if one calls the higher organs of perception “spiritual senses,” as is done here: for in speaking of “senses” one involuntarily connects with them the thought of the “physical.” The physical world is in fact designated the “sensible,” in contradistinction to the “spiritual.” In order to avoid this misunderstanding, one must take into account that “higher senses” are spoken of here only in a comparative or metaphorical sense. As the physical senses perceive the physical, the soul and spiritual senses perceive the soul and spiritual worlds. The expression “sense” is used as meaning simply “organ of perception.” Man would have no knowledge of light and colour had he not an eye able to sense light; he would know nothing of sound had he not an ear able to sense sound. In this connection the German philosopher Lotze rightly says, “Without a light-sensing eye, and a sound-sensing ear, the whole world would be dark and silent. There would be in it just as little light or sound as there could be toothache without the pain-feeling nerve of the tooth.” In order to see what is said here in the right light, one need only think how entirely differently the world must reveal itself to man on the one hand, and on the other to the lower forms of animal life that have only a kind of sense of touch or sense of feeling spread over the whole surface of their bodies. Light, colour and sound certainly cannot exist for them in the same way as for beings endowed with ears and eyes. The vibrations which the firing of a gun causes, may also have an effect on them if they are struck by them. But in order that these vibrations of the air should present themselves to the soul as a report, an ear is necessary. And an eye is necessary in order that certain processes in the fine matter called ether should reveal themselves as light and colour. A man only knows something about a being or thing because through one of his organs he receives an effect from it. This relationship of man with the world of realities is excellently brought out by Goethe when he says, “It is really in vain that we try to express the nature of a thing. We are aware of activities, and a complete history of these activities would indeed embrace the nature of that thing. We endeavour in vain to describe the character of a man: if instead we put together his actions and deeds, a picture of his character will present itself to us. Colours are the deeds of fight, deeds and sufferings ... colours and fight are indeed linked in most intimate relationship, but we must think of them both as belonging to the whole of Nature; for through them the whole of Nature is engaged in revealing herself to the sense of the eye especially. In like manner Nature reveals herself to another sense ... Nature thus speaks downwards to other senses, to known, mis-known and unknown senses; she thus speaks with herself and to us through a thousand phenomena. To the attentive she is nowhere either dead or silent.” It would not be correct to interpret this saying of Goethe's as though by it the possibility of knowing the essential nature of things were denied. Goethe does not mean that one perceives only the activity of a thing, and that its nature is hidden behind this. He means rather that one should not speak at all of a “hidden being.” The being is not behind its revelation; it comes on the contrary, into view through the revelation. But this being is in many respects so rich that it can reveal itself to other senses in yet other forms. That which reveals itself does belong to the being: only—on account of the limitations of the senses—it is not the whole being. This thought of Goethe's corresponds entirely with the views of spiritual science set forth here.

[ 2 ] As in the body eye and ear develop as organs of perception, as senses for bodily processes, so is man able to develop in himself soul and spiritual organs of perception through which the soul and spiritual worlds will be opened to him. For those who have not such higher senses, these worlds are “dark and silent,” just as for a being without eyes and ears the bodily world is “dark and silent.” It is true that the relation of man to these higher senses is rather different from his relation to the bodily senses. It is good Mother Nature who sees to it, as a rule, that these latter are fully developed in him. They come into existence without his help. But on the development of his higher senses he must work himself. If he wishes to perceive the soul- and spirit-worlds, he must develop soul and spirit, as Nature has developed his body so that he may perceive the corporeal world around him and guide himself in it. Such a development of the higher organs not yet developed for us by Nature herself is not unnatural; for in the higher sense all that man accomplishes belongs also to Nature. Only he who is ready to maintain that man should remain standing at the stage at which he left the hand of Nature could call the development of the higher senses unnatural. By him the significance of these organs is “mis-known,” in the sense of the quotation from Goethe. Such a one might just as well oppose all education, for this also develops further the work of Nature. And he would have to oppose especially operations upon those born blind. For almost the same thing happens to that man who awakens the higher senses in himself, in the way set forth in the last part of this book, as happens to the person born blind and operated upon. The world appears to him with new qualities, events, and facts, of which the physical senses reveal nothing to him. It is clear to him that through these higher organs he adds nothing arbitrarily to the reality, but that without them the essential part of this reality would have remained hidden from him. The soul- and spirit-worlds are not to be thought of alongside or outside the physical world; they are not separated in space from it. Just as for persons born blind and operated upon, the previously dark world flashes out in light and colours, so do things which previously were only corporeal phenomena, reveal their soul- and spirit-qualities to one who is, in soul and spirit, awakened. It is true, moreover, that this world then becomes filled with other occurrences and beings that remain completely unknown to one whose soul- and spirit-senses are not awakened. (The development of the soul- and spirit-senses will be spoken of in a more detailed way farther on in this book. Here these higher worlds themselves will be first described. Anyone who denies the existence of these worlds says nothing more than that he has not yet developed his higher organs. The evolution of mankind is not terminated at any one stage; it must always progress.¹

[ 3 ] The “higher organs” are often involuntarily pictured as too similar to the physical ones. It should, however, be realised that these organs are spiritual or soul-formations. One ought not to expect, therefore, that what is perceived in the higher worlds will be only a cloudy, attenuated form of matter. As long as something of this kind is expected one can come to no clear idea as to what is really meant here by “higher worlds.” For many persons it would not be nearly as difficult as it actually is to know something about these higher worlds, the elementary part, that is to say, if they did not form the idea that what they will see is again physical matter rarefied. Because they presuppose something of this kind, they are not, as a rule, at all willing to recognise what they are really dealing with. They look upon it as unreal, refuse to acknowledge it as something that satisfies them, and so on. True, the higher stages of spiritual development are accessible only with difficulty; but those stages which suffice for the perception of the nature of the spiritual—and that is already a great deal—would not be at all difficult to reach, if people would from the first free themselves from the preconception which consists in picturing to themselves the soul and the spiritual merely as being of a finer physical nature.

[ 4 ] Just as we do not wholly know a man when we have formed a picture of his physical exterior only, so also we do not know the world around us if we know in it only what the physical senses reveal to us. And just as a photograph becomes intelligible and living to us when we have become so intimately acquainted with the person photographed as to know his soul, so can we really only understand the corporeal world if we learn to know its soul- and spiritual-basis. For this reason it is advisable to speak, first about the higher worlds, the soul- and spirit-worlds, and only then judge of the physical from the standpoint of spiritual science.

[ 5 ] At this present stage of civilisation certain difficulties are encountered by anyone speaking about the higher worlds. For the greatness of this age consists above all in the knowledge and conquest of the physical world. Our words have, in fact, received their stamp and significance in relation to this physical world. Nevertheless we must make use of these current words so as to link on to something known. This opens the door to many misunderstandings on the part of those who will trust only their external senses. Much can at first be expressed and indicated only by means of similes and comparisons. It must be so, for such similes are a means by which man is first directed to these higher worlds, and through which his own ascent to them is furthered. (Of this ascent we shall speak in a later chapter, when the development of the higher organs of perception will be dealt with. To begin with, knowledge of the higher worlds must be gained by means of similes. Only then is man ready to acquire for himself the power to see into them.)

[ 6 ] As the substances and forces which compose and govern our stomach, our heart, our brain, our lungs, etc., come from the physical world, so do our qualities of soul, our impulses, desires, feelings, passions, wishes, sensations, etc., come from the soul-world. The soul of man is a member of this world, just as his body is part of the physical-corporeal world. If one wants at the outset to indicate a difference between the corporeal and soul-worlds, one could say that the latter is in all its objects and entities much finer, more mobile and plastic than the former. But it must be kept clearly in mind that on entering the soul-world one enters a world entirely different from the physical. If, therefore, “coarser” and “finer” be spoken of in this respect, readers must be fully aware that one is suggesting by means of a comparison something that is fundamentally different. It is the same with all that is said about the soul-world in words borrowed from the world of physical corporality. Taking this into account, it can be said that the formations and beings of the soul-world consist in the same way of soul-materials and are directed in the same way by soul-forces, as is the case in the physical world with physical substances and physical forces.

[ 7 ] Just as spatial extension and spatial movement are peculiar to corporeal formations, so are susceptibility and impelling desire peculiar to the things and beings of the soul-world. For this reason the soul-world is described as the world of desires or wishes, or as the world of longing. These expressions are borrowed from the human soul-world. One must therefore hold fast to the idea that the things in those parts of the soul-world which lie outside the human soul are just as different from the soul-forces within it, as the physical substances and forces of the external corporeal world are different from those parts which compose the physical body. (Impulse, wish, longing, are names for the material of the soul-world. To this material, let us give the name of “astral.” If one pays more attention specifically to the forces of the soul-world, one can speak of “desire-reality.” But it must not be forgotten that the distinction between “matter” and “force” cannot be as sharply drawn as in the physical world. An impulse can just as well be called “force” as “matter.” )

[ 8 ] The differences between the soul-world and the physical have a bewildering effect on one who obtains a view of the soul-world for the first time. But that is also the case when a previously inactive physical sense has been opened. The man born blind, when operated upon, has first to learn to guide himself through the world which he has previously known only by means of the sense of touch. Such a man, for example, sees the objects at first in his eyes, then he sees them outside himself, but they appear to him as if painted on a flat surface. Only gradually does he grasp perspective and the spatial distance between things, and so on. In the soul-world entirely different laws prevail from those in the physical. Now it is true that there are many soul-formations bound to those of the other worlds. The soul of man, for instance, is bound to the human body and to the human spirit. The occurrences to be observed in it are therefore influenced at the same time by the bodily and the spiritual worlds. This has to be taken into account in observing the soul-world; and one must take care not to claim as a law of the soul-world occurrences due to the influence of another world. When, for example, a man sends out a wish, that wish is brought to birth by a thought, by a conception of the spirit whose laws it accordingly follows. But just as the laws of the physical world can be formulated disregarding, for example, man's influence on it, so the same thing is possible with regard to the soul-world.

[ 9 ] An important difference between soul and physical processes can be expressed by saying that interaction in the former is much more inward than in the latter. In physical space there prevails, for example, the law of “impact.” When an ivory ball strikes another which is at rest, the latter moves in a direction which can be calculated from the motion and elasticity of the former. In soul-space, the mutual action of two forms which meet depends on their inner qualities. If they are in affinity they mutually interpenetrate each other and as it were grow together. They repel each other if their essential beings conflict. In physical space there are, for example, definite laws of vision. Distant objects diminish in perspective. When one looks down an avenue, the distant trees appear, according to the laws of perspective, to stand at shorter distances from each other than the near ones. In soul-space, on the contrary, all objects near and far appear to the clairvoyant at those distances from each other which are due to their inner nature. This is naturally a source of all manner of mistakes for those who enter the soul-world, and wish to become at home there by the help of the principles they bring with them from the physical world.

[ 10 ] One of the first things that a man must acquire in order to make his way about the soul-world, is the power to distinguish the various kinds of forms found there in a similar manner to that in which solid, liquid, airy or gaseous bodies are distinguished in the physical world. In order to do this one must know the two basic forces which are the most important here. They may be called sympathy and antipathy. According to the way in which these basic forces work in any soul-formation, its nature is decided. The force with which one soul-formation attracts others, seeks to fuse with them, to make its affinity with them effectual, must be designated as sympathy. Antipathy, on the other hand, is the force with which soul-formations repel, exclude each other in the soul-world, with which they assert their separate identity. The part played in the soul-world by a soul-formation depends upon the proportion in which these basic forces are present in it. One has to distinguish, in the first place, between three kinds of soul-formations according to the manner in which sympathy and antipathy work in them. These kinds differ from each other in that sympathy and antipathy have in them definitely fixed mutual relationships. In all three, both basic forces are present. Let us take, to begin with, a formation of the first kind. It attracts other formations in its neighbourhood by means of the sympathy ruling in it; but besides this sympathy there is at the same time present in it antipathy, through which it repels certain things in its surroundings. From the outside such a formation appears to be endowed with the forces of antipathy only. That, however, is not the case. There is sympathy and antipathy in it, but the latter predominates. It has the upper hand over the former. Such formations play a self-seeking role in soul-space. They repel much that is around them, and lovingly attract only little to themselves. They therefore move through soul-space as unchangeable forms. The force of sympathy in them makes them appear avaricious, with a greed that seems insatiable, as though it could never be satisfied. That is because the predominating antipathy repels so much of what approaches, that no satisfaction is possible. If one wishes to compare this kind of soul-formation with something in the physical world, one can say that it corresponds with the solid physical body. This region of soul-substance may be called Burning Desire. That portion of this Burning Desire which is mingled with the souls of animals and men determines in them what one calls the lower sensual impulses, their dominating selfish instincts.

The second kind of soul-formation is that in which the two basic forces preserve a balance, in which, accordingly, antipathy and sympathy act with equal strength. They approach other formations with a certain neutrality; they act on them as if related, but without especially attracting or repelling. They erect no solid barrier, as it were, between themselves and their surroundings. They constantly allow other formations in their surroundings to act on them; one can therefore compare them with the fluids of the physical world. And there is nothing of greed in the way in which such formations attract others to themselves. The activity meant here may be recognised, for example, when the human soul receives the sensation of a certain colour. If I have the sensation of a red colour, I receive to begin with a neutral excitation from my surroundings. Only when there is added to this excitation pleasure in the red colour does another soul-activity come into play. That which produces the neutral excitation is the action of soul-formations standing in such mutual relationship that sympathy and antipathy preserve an equal balance. The soul-substance here being considered, must be described as a perfectly plastic and mobile substance. Not self-seeking like the first it moves through soul-space in such a way that its being receives impressions everywhere, and it shows itself to have affinity with much that approaches it. An expression that might be applied to it is Flowing Susceptibility.

The third degree of soul-formation is that in which sympathy has the upper hand over antipathy. Antipathy produces the self-seeking self-assertion; this, however, retires into the background when inclination towards the things around takes its place. Let us picture such a formation within soul-space. It appears as a centre of an attracting sphere which spreads over the objects around it. Such formations must be specially designated as Wish-Substance. This designation appears to be the right one, for although antipathy, relatively weaker than the sympathy, is there, the attraction works in such a way as to bring the attracted objects within the soul-formation's own sphere. The sympathy thus receives an underlying tone of selfishness. This wish-substance may be likened to the airy or gaseous bodies of the physical world. As a gas strives to expand on all sides, so does the wish-substance spread itself out in all directions.

[ 11 ] Higher grades of soul-substance render themselves distinguishable by the fact that in them one of the basic forces, namely antipathy, retires completely into the background, and sympathy alone shows itself as the one really effective factor, which is able to express itself primarily within the various parts of the soul-formation itself. These parts act upon each other in mutual attraction. This force of sympathy within a soul-formation comes to expression in what one calls liking. And each lessening of this sympathy is disliking. Disliking is only lessened liking, as cold is only a lessened warmth. Liking and disliking compose what fives in man as the world of feeling in the strict sense of the word. Feeling is the activity of the soul within itself. What one calls soul-comfort depends on the way in which the feelings of liking and disliking interact within the soul.

[ 12 ] A still higher grade is occupied by those soul-formations whose sympathy does not remain shut up within the region of their own life. They differ from the three lower grades, as does in fact the fourth also, in that in them the force of sympathy has no opposing antipathy to overcome. It is only through these higher orders of soul-substance that the manifold variety of soul-formations can unite and form a common soul-world. In so far as there is any appearance of antipathy, it is when the soul-entity approaches some other object for the benefit of its own life, in order that it may itself be strengthened and enriched by the other. Where antipathy is stilled, the other object is received as a revelation, a source of discovery. This higher form of soul-substance plays in soul-space a similar role to that played by light in physical space. It causes a soul-entity to absorb into itself, as it were, the being or essence of others for their sake, or, in other words, to let itself be shone upon by them. It is only by drawing upon these higher regions that the soul-entities are awakened to their true soul-life. Their dull, darkened life opens outwards, and begins to shine and ray out into soul-space; the sluggish, dull weaving within itself which seeks to shut itself off through antipathy when only the substances of the lower regions are present, becomes force and mobility, which goes forth from within and pours itself outwards in streams.

[ 13 ] The Flowing Susceptibility of the second region is only effective when formations meet each other. Then, indeed, the one streams over into the other. But contact is essential. In the higher regions there prevails a free out-raying and outpouring. Rightly does one describe the essential nature of this region as an “out-raying,” for the sympathy which is developed acts in such a way that one can use as symbol for it the expression taken from the action of light. As a plant languishes in a dark cellar, so do the soul-formations without the soul-substances of the higher regions which give them life. Soul-Light, Active Soul-Force and the true Soul-Life, in the strict sense, belong to these higher regions, and thence pour themselves into the soul-beings.

[ 14 ] Thus we have to distinguish between three lower and three higher regions of the soul-world; and these two are linked together by a fourth, so that there results the following division of the soul-world:

1. Region of Burning Desires.
2. Region of Flowing Susceptibility.
3. Region of Wishes.
4. Region of Attraction and Repulsion.
5. Region of Soul-Light.
6. Region of Active Soul-Force.
7. Region of Soul-Life.

[ 15 ] Throughout the first three regions, the soul-formations receive their qualities from the relative proportions of sympathy and antipathy; throughout the fourth region sympathy weaves its web within the soul-formations themselves; throughout the three highest, the power of sympathy becomes ever more and more free; illumining and quickening, the soul-substances of this region waft through soul-space, awakening that which, if left to itself, must lose itself in its own separate existence.

[ 16 ] For the sake of clarity it is here emphasised, though it should be superfluous, that these seven divisions of the soul-world do not represent regions separated one from another. Just as in the physical world, solid, liquid and airy or gaseous substances interpenetrate, so do Burning Desire, Flowing Susceptibility, and the forces of the World of Wishes in the soul-world. And as in the physical world, warmth penetrates bodies and light illumines them, so is it the case in the soul-world with attraction and repulsion, and with the Soul-Light. And something similar takes place with regard to the Active Soul-Force and the true Soul-Life.

• 1. See also under Addenda p. 69.

[ 1 ] The soul is the connecting link between the spirit of man and his body. Its forces of sympathy and antipathy which, owing to their mutual relationship, bring about soul-manifestations such as desire, susceptibility, wish, liking, aversion, etc., are not only active between soul-formations and soul-formations, but they manifest themselves also in relation to the beings of the other worlds, the physical and the spiritual. While the soul lives in the body it participates to a certain extent in all that takes place in the body. When the physical functions of the body proceed with regularity, pleasure and comfort arise in the soul; if these functions are disturbed, aversion and pain arise. And the soul has its share in the activities of the spirit also; one thought fills it with joy, another with abhorrence; a correct judgment has the approval of the soul, a false one its disapproval. The stage of evolution of a man depends, in fact, on whether the inclinations of his soul move more in one direction or in another. A man is the more perfect, the more his soul sympathises with the manifestations of the spirit; he is the more imperfect the more the inclinations of his soul are satisfied by the functions of the body.

[ 2 ] The spirit is the central point of man, the body the instrument by which the spirit observes and learns to understand the physical world and through which it acts in it. But the soul is the intermediary between the two. It releases the sensation of the tone from the physical impression which the vibrations of the air make on the ear; it experiences pleasure in this sound. All this it communicates to the spirit, which thereby attains to the understanding of the physical world. A thought which arises in the spirit is translated by the soul into the wish to realise it, and only through this can it become deed, with the help of the body as instrument. Now man can fulfil his destiny only by allowing his spirit to direct the course of all his activity. The soul can by its own power direct its inclinations just as readily to the physical as to the spiritual. It sends as it were, its feelers down into the physical as well as raising them into the spiritual. By sinking them into the physical world the soul's own being becomes saturated and coloured by the nature of the physical. But since the spirit is able to act in the physical world only through the soul as intermediary, it also receives in this way the direction towards the physical. Its formations are drawn towards the physical by the forces of the soul. Observe, for example, an undeveloped man. The inclinations of his soul cling to the functions of his body. He feels pleasure only in the impressions made by the physical world on his senses. His intellectual life too is thereby completely drawn down into this region. His thoughts are used only to satisfy his demands on the physical life. Since the spiritual Self lives from incarnation to incarnation, it is intended to receive its direction ever increasingly out of the spiritual. Its knowledge should be determined by the spirit of eternal Truth, its action by the eternal Goodness.

[ 3 ] Death, regarded as a fact in the physical world, signifies a change in the functions of the body. With death the body ceases to be, through its organisation, the instrument of the soul and the spirit. It shows itself henceforth entirely subject in its processes to the physical world and its laws; and it passes over into it in order to dissolve there. It is only these physical processes of decay in the body that can be observed after death by the physical senses. What then happens to soul and spirit escapes these senses. For even during life, soul and spirit can be observed by the senses only in so far as they attain to external expression in physical processes. After death such an expression is no longer possible. Therefore in regard to the fate of the soul and spirit after death, observation by means of the senses and a science based on them are of no value. Here a higher knowledge steps in, based on observation of what takes place in the soul- and spirit-worlds.

[ 4 ] After the spirit has released itself from the body, it still continues to be united with the soul. And as during physical life the body fettered it to the physical world, so now the soul fetters it to the soul-world. But it is not in this soul-world that the spirit's true, primordial being is to be found. The soul-world is intended to serve merely as its connecting link with the scene of its actions, the physical world. In order to appear in a new incarnation with a more perfect form, the spirit must draw force and renewed strength from the spiritual world. But through the soul it has become entangled in the physical world. It is bound to a soul-entity which is saturated and coloured by the nature of the physical, and through this it has acquired a tendency in that direction. After death the soul is no longer bound to the physical body, but only to the spirit. It lives now within soul-surroundings. Only the forces of this soul-world can therefore have an effect on it. And at first the spirit also is bound to this life of the soul in the soul-world. It is bound to it in the same way as it is bound to the body during physical incarnation. When the body shall die is determined by the laws of the body. Speaking generally, in fact, it must be said it is not that the soul and spirit forsake the body, but that they are released from the body when its forces are no longer able to fulfil the purpose of the human organisation. The relationship between soul and spirit is just the same. The soul will release the spirit to pass into the higher, the spiritual world, when its forces are no longer able to fulfil the purpose of the human soul-organisation. The spirit is set free the moment the soul has handed over to dissolution what it can only experience in the body, and retains only that which can five on with the spirit. This remainder which, although experienced in the body, can, nevertheless, as fruit be impressed on the spirit, connects the soul with the spirit in the purely spiritual world. In order to learn the fate of the soul after death, therefore, one has to observe its process of dissolution. It had the task of giving the spirit its direction towards the physical. The moment it has fulfilled this task the soul takes the direction to the spiritual. In fact, the nature of its task would cause it to be at once only spiritually active when the body falls away from it, that is, when it can no longer be a connecting link. And so it would be, had it not, owing to its life in the body, been influenced by the latter and in its inclinations attracted to it. Without this colouring, received through the body, it would at once, on being disembodied, follow the laws of the spiritual-soul-world only, and manifest no further inclination to the sense-world. And this would be the case if a man, on dying, completely lost all interest in the earthly world, if all desires, wishes, etc., attaching to the existence he has left, had been completely satisfied. In so far, however, as this is not the case, that which remains over in this direction clings to the soul.

[ 5 ] To avoid confusion, we must here carefully distinguish between what chains man to the world in such a way that it can be balanced in a subsequent incarnation, and that which chains him to one particular incarnation, that is, to the immediately preceding one. The first is made good by means of the law of destiny, Karma; but the other can be got rid of only by the soul after death.

[ 6 ] After death there follows, for the human spirit, a time during which the soul is shaking off its inclinations towards physical existence, in order once more to follow the laws of the spiritual-soul-world only and set the spirit free. It is natural that this time will last longer the more strongly the soul was bound to the physical. It will be short in the case of a man who has clung little to physical life; long, on the other hand, for one who has completely bound up his interests with it, so that at death many desires, wishes, etc., still live in the soul.

[ 7 ] The easiest way to gain an idea of the condition in which the soul fives during the time immediately after death, is afforded by the following consideration. Let us take a somewhat crass example: the pleasures of the bon vivant. His pleasure consists in the tickling of the palate by food. The pleasure is naturally not bodily, but belongs to the soul. The pleasure lives in the soul as also does the desire for the pleasure. But for the satisfaction of the desire the corresponding bodily organs, the palate, etc., are necessary. After death the soul has not immediately lost such a desire, but it no longer possesses the bodily organ which provides the means for satisfying the desire. The state of the man is now—to be sure, from another cause, but one which acts in the same way only far more strongly—as if he were suffering burning thirst in a region in the length and breadth of which there is no water. The soul thus suffers burning pain from the deprivation of the pleasure, because it has laid aside the bodily organ through which it can experience that pleasure. It is the same with all that the soul yearns for and that can only be satisfied through the bodily organs. This condition (of burning privation) lasts until the soul has learned not to long any more for what can only be satisfied through the body. And the time passed in this condition may be called the Region of Desires, although it has of course nothing to do with a “locality.”

[ 8 ] When the soul enters the soul-world after death it becomes subject to the laws of that world. The laws act on it, and on their action depends the manner in which its inclinations towards the physical are destroyed. The way in which they act on it must differ according to the kinds of soul-substances and soul-forces, in whose domain it is placed at the time. Each of these kinds will make its purifying, cleansing influence felt. The process which takes place here is such that all antipathy in the soul is gradually overcome by the forces of sympathy, and this sympathy itself is brought to its highest pitch. For through this highest degree of sympathy with the whole of the rest of the soul-world, the soul will, as it were, merge into it, become one with it; then it is utterly emptied of its self-seeking. It ceases to exist as a being inclined to physically sensible existence. In this way the spirit is set free. The soul therefore purifies itself through all the regions of the soul-world already described, until, in the region of perfect sympathy, it becomes one with the general soul-world. That the spirit itself is in bondage until this last moment of the liberation of its soul is due to the fact that, through its life with it, the spirit has become most intimately related to the soul. This relationship is much closer than the one with the body. For to the body the spirit is only indirectly bound through the soul; while to the soul it is directly bound. The soul, is in fact, the spirit's own life. For this reason the spirit is not bound to the decaying body, though it is bound to the soul that is gradually freeing itself. On account of the immediate bond between the spirit and the soul, the spirit can feel free from the soul only when the latter has itself become one with the general soul-world.

[ 9 ] In so far as the soul-world is the abode of man immediately after death, it can be called the “Region of Desires.” The different religious systems, which have embodied in their doctrines a knowledge of these conditions, know this “Region of Desires” by the name of “purgatory,” “cleansing fire,” and so on.

[ 10 ] The lowest region of the soul-world is that of Burning Desire. By it everything in the soul that has to do with the coarsest, lowest, selfish desires of the physical life is purged from the soul after death. For through such desires it is exposed to the effects of the forces of this soul-region. The unsatisfied desires which have remained from physical life furnish the points of attack. The sympathy of such souls extends only to what can nourish their selfish natures; it is greatly exceeded by the antipathy which floods everything else. Now the desires, however, are concerned with physical enjoyments which cannot be satisfied in the soul-world. The craving is intensified to its highest degree by this impossibility of satisfaction. But at the same time, owing to this impossibility, it is forced to die out gradually. The burning lusts gradually exhaust themselves, and the soul has learned by experience that the only means of preventing the suffering that must come from such longings lies in killing them out. During physical life, satisfaction is ever and again being attained. By this means the pain of the burning lusts is covered over by a kind of illusion. After death, in the “cleansing fire” the pain comes into evidence quite unveiled. The corresponding experiences of privation are passed through. It is a dark, gloomy state in which the soul thus finds itself. Of course only those persons whose desires are directed during physical life to the coarsest things can fall into this condition. Natures with few lusts go through it without noticing it, for they have no affinity with it. It must be stated that souls are the longer influenced by Burning Desire the more closely they have become bound up with that fire during life; and the more they require on that account to be purified in it. Such purification should not be described as suffering in the same sense as one would feel anything similar in the sense-world as suffering. For the soul, after death, demands its own purification, because only thereby can an imperfection that exists in it be purged away.

[ 11 ] In the second region of the soul-world, sympathy and antipathy preserve an equal balance. In so far as a human soul is in that condition after death it will be influenced for a time by what takes place in this region. The losing of oneself in the external glitter of life; the joy in the swiftly succeeding impressions of the senses, bring about this condition. People live in it in so far as it is brought about by the soul-inclinations just indicated. They allow themselves to be influenced by each worthless trifle of everyday life; but as their sympathy is attached to no one thing in particular, the influences quickly pass. Everything that does not belong to this region of empty nothings is repellent to such persons. If the soul experiences this condition after death without the presence of the physical objects which are necessary for its satisfaction, the condition must needs ultimately die out. Naturally the privation which precedes its complete extinction in the soul is full of suffering. This state of suffering is the school for the destruction of the illusion in which a man is enveloped during physical life.

[ 12 ] Thirdly, there comes under consideration in the soul-world that which is filled with predominating sympathy, that in which the wish-nature predominates. The effects of this activity are experienced by souls through all that maintains an atmosphere of wishes after death. These wishes also gradually die out on account of the impossibility of being satisfied.

[ 13 ] The region of Attraction and Repulsion in the soul-world which has been described above as the fourth, imposes on the soul special trials. As long as the soul dwells in the body it shares all that concerns it. The inner surge of attraction and repulsion is bound up with the body. It causes the soul's feeling of well-being and comfort, dislike and discomfort. Man feels during his physical life that his body is himself. What is called the feeling of self is based upon this fact. And the more people live in the sense-life, the more does their feeling of self take on this characteristic. After death the body, the object of this feeling of self, is lacking. On this account the soul, which still retains the feeling, has the sensation of being, as it were, hollowed out. A feeling as if it had lost itself overcomes the soul. This continues until it has been recognised that the true man does not lie in the physical. The impressions of this fourth region on the soul accordingly destroy the illusion of the bodily self. The soul learns no longer to feel this corporality as an essential reality. It is cured and purified of its attachment to corporality. In this way it has conquered that which previously chained it strongly to the physical world, and can unfold fully the forces of sympathy which flow outwards. It has, so to say, broken free from itself, and is ready to pour itself with full sympathy into the common soul-world.

[ 14 ] It should not pass unnoted that the experiences of this region are suffered with special intensity by suicides. They leave their physical body in an artificial way, while all the feelings connected with it remain unchanged. In the case of natural death, the decay of the body is accompanied by a partial dying out of the feelings of attachment to it. In the case of suicides there are, in addition to the torment caused by the feeling of having been suddenly hollowed out, the unsatisfied desires and wishes on account of which they have deprived themselves of their bodies.

[ 15 ] The fifth stage of the soul-world is that of Soul-Light. In it sympathy with others has already reached a high degree of power. Souls are connected with it in so far as, during their physical lives, they did not lose themselves in the satisfaction of lower necessities, but took delight and pleasure in their surroundings. Enthusiasm for Nature, for example, in so far as it has borne something of a sensuous character, undergoes cleansing here. It is necessary, however, to distinguish clearly this kind of love of Nature from that higher living in Nature which is of the spiritual kind, and which seeks for the spirit that reveals itself in the things and events of Nature. This kind of feeling for Nature is one of the things that develop the spirit itself and establish something permanent in the spirit. But one must distinguish between such a feeling for Nature and a pleasure in Nature that is based on the senses. In regard to this the soul requires purification just as much as in the case of other inclinations based on mere physical existence. Many people hold, as a kind of ideal, arrangements which minister to sensuous welfare, and a system of education which results above all in the production of sensuous comfort. One cannot say of them that they are furthering only their selfish impulses. But their souls are, nevertheless, directed to the physical world, and must be cured of this by the prevailing force of sympathy in the fifth region of the soul-world in which these external means of satisfaction are lacking. The soul here recognises gradually that this sympathy must take other directions; and these are found in the outpouring of the soul into the soul-region, which is brought about by sympathy with the soul-surroundings. Those souls also who seek from their religious observances mainly an enhancement of their sensuous welfare, whether it be that their longing goes out to an earthly or a heavenly paradise, are purified here. They find this paradise in the “Soul-land,” but only for the purpose of seeing through its worthlessness. These are, of course, merely a few detached examples of purifications which take place in this fifth region. They could be multiplied indefinitely.

[ 16 ] By means of the sixth region, that of Active Soul-Force, the purification of that part of the soul which thirsts for action takes place in souls whose activity does not bear an egotistical character, but springs, nevertheless, from the sensuous satisfaction which action affords them. Natures which develop this desire for action, viewed superficially, convey the impression of being idealists; they show themselves to be persons capable of self-sacrifice. In the deeper sense, however, the chief thing with them is the enhancement of a sensuous feeling of pleasure. Many artistic natures and such as give themselves up to scientific activity because it pleases them, belong to this class. What binds these people to the physical world is the belief that art and science exist for the sake of such pleasure.

[ 17 ] The seventh region, that of the real Soul-Life, frees man from his last inclinations to the sensibly physical world. Each preceding region takes up from the soul whatever has affinity with it. What now still envelops the spirit is the belief that its activity should be entirely devoted to the physical world. There are individuals who, though highly gifted, do not think about much more than the occurrences of the physical world. This belief can be called materialistic. It must be destroyed, and this is done in the seventh region. There the souls see that no objects exist in true reality for materialistic thinking. Like ice in the sun this belief of the soul melts away. The soul-being is now absorbed into its own world; the spirit, free from all fetters, rises to the regions where it lives in its own surroundings only. The soul has completed its previous earthly task, and after death any traces of this task that remained as fettering to the spirit, have dissolved. By overcoming the last trace of the earth, the soul is itself given back to its own element.

[ 18 ] One sees from this description that the experiences in the soul-world, and also the conditions of soul-life after death, assume an ever less repellent appearance the more man has shaken off those elements adhering to him from his earthly union with the physical corporality and immediately related to his body. The soul will belong for a longer or shorter time to one or another region according to the conditions created in its physical life. Where the soul feels itself to be in affinity, there it remains until the affinity is extinguished. Where no relationship exists, it goes on its way without feeling the possible influences.

It was intended that only the fundamental characteristics of the soul-world and the outstanding features of the life of the soul in this world should be described here. This applies also to the following descriptions of the Spiritland. It would exceed the prescribed limits of this book were further characteristics of these higher worlds to be described. For what can be compared with spatial relationships and the course of time (since conditions here are quite different from those obtaining in the physical world) can only be discussed intelligibly when one is prepared to deal with them in full detail. References of importance in this connection will be found in the book Occult Science—an Outline.

[ 1 ] Before the spirit can be observed on its further pilgrimage, the region it enters must first be examined. It is the “World of the Spirit.” This world is so unlike the physical that whatever is said about it will appear fantastic to one who is willing only to trust his physical senses. And what has already been said in regard to the world of the soul holds good here to a still higher degree; that is, to say, one has to use analogies in order to describe it. For our speech, which for the most part serves only for the realities of the senses, is not richly blessed with expressions directly applicable to the “Spiritland.” It is therefore especially necessary here to ask the reader to take much that is said as an indication only. For everything described here is so unlike the physical world that it can be depicted only in this way. The author is ever conscious of how inadequately his account describes the experiences of this region, owing to the imperfect means of expression in language that is adapted entirely to the physical world.

[ 2 ] It must above all be emphasised that this world is woven out of the substance of which human thought consists. (The word “substance,” too, is here used in a far from usual sense.) But thought, as it lives in earthly man, is only a shadow picture, a phantom of its true being. As the shadow of an object on the wall is related to the real object which throws this shadow, so is the thought that makes its appearance through a human brain related to the being in the Spiritland which corresponds to this thought. Now when the spiritual sense of man is awakened he actually perceives this thought-being, just as the eye of the senses perceives the table or the chair. He moves in a region of thought-beings. The corporeal eye perceives the lion, and the thinking that is directed to the material world thinks the thought “lion” as a shadow, a shadowy picture. In “Spiritland” the spiritual eye sees the thought “lion” as truly as the corporeal eye sees the physical lion. Here we may again refer to the analogy already used regarding the Soul-land. Just as the environment of a man born blind and then operated upon appear all at once with the new qualities of colour and light, so is the environment of the person who learns to use his spiritual eye seen to be filled with a new world, the world of living thoughts or spirit-beings. There are to be seen in this world, first the spiritual archetypes of all things and beings which are present in the physical and in the soul worlds. Imagine the picture of a painter existing in the mind before it is painted. This indicates what is meant by the expression “Archetype.” It does not concern us here that the painter has not, perhaps, had such an archetype in his mind before he paints; and that it only gradually develops and becomes complete during the practical work. In the real “World of the Spirit,” there are such archetypes for all things, and the physical things and beings are images of these archetypes. It is quite understandable when anyone who trusts only to his outer senses denies this archetypal world, and holds archetypes to be merely abstractions which the intellect arrives at by comparing the objects of the senses. Such a person simply cannot see in this higher world; he knows the thought-world only in its shadowy abstractness. He does not know that a man with spiritual vision is as familiar with the spirit-beings as he himself is with his dog or his cat, and that the archetypal world has a far more intense reality than the world of the physical senses.

[ 3 ] True, the first insight into “Spiritland” is still more bewildering than that into the soul-world. For the archetypes in their true form are very unlike their material images. They are, however, just as unlike their shadows, the abstract thoughts. In the spiritual world everything is in continuous, mobile activity, ceaselessly creating. A state of rest, a remaining in one place, as in the physical world, do not exist here. For the archetypes are creative beings. They are the master builders of all that comes into being in the physical world and the soul-world. Their forms change rapidly; and in each archetype lies the possibility of assuming myriads of specialised formations.² They let the different formations well out of them, and scarcely is one produced than the archetype sets about pouring forth the next one. The archetypes stand in more or less intimate relationships to each other. They do not work singly. The one requires the help of the other for its creations. Innumerable archetypes often work together in order that this or that being in the soul-world or the physical world may arise.

[ 4 ] Besides what is to be perceived by “spiritual sight” in this “Spiritland,” there is something else that is to be regarded as “spiritual hearing.” As soon as the clairvoyant rises out of the soul-world into the spirit-world, the archetypes that are perceived sound as well. This “sounding” is a purely spiritual process. It must be conceived of without any accompanying thought of physical sound. The observer feels as if he were in an ocean of tones. And in these tones, in this spiritual sounding, the beings of the spirit-world express themselves. The primordial laws of their existence are expressed in their mutual relationships and affinities, in the intermingling of their sounds, their harmonies, melodies and rhythms. What the intellect perceives in the physical world as law, as idea, reveals itself to the “spiritual ear” as a spiritual music. (Hence, the Pythagoreans called this perception of the spiritual world the “Music of the Spheres.” To one who possesses the “spiritual ear” this “Music of the Spheres” is not something merely figurative and allegorical, but a spiritual reality well known to him.) If one wishes to gain a conception of this “spiritual music” one must lay aside all ideas of the music of the senses as perceived by the “material ear.” For here one is concerned with “spiritual perception,” that is, with perception of such a kind as must remain silent for the “ear of the senses.” In the following descriptions of the “Spiritland,” reference to this “spiritual music” will be omitted for the sake of simplicity. One has only to form a mental picture in which everything described as “picture,” as “radiance,” is at the same time sounding. To each colour, each perception of light, there is a corresponding spiritual tone, and every combination of colours corresponds to a harmony, a melody, etc. For one must hold clearly in mind that even where the sounding prevails, perception by means of the “spiritual eye” by no means ceases. The sounding is merely added to the radiance. Therefore, where archetypes are spoken of in the following pages, the “Primal Tones” are to be thought of as also present. Other perceptions arise as well, which by way of comparison may be termed “spiritual tasting,” and so on. But it is not proposed to go into these processes here, since we are concerned with awakening a conception of the “Spiritland” through certain selected modes of perception.

[ 5 ] It is necessary, in the first place, to distinguish the different kinds of archetypes from one another. In the “Spiritland,” too, one has to distinguish between a number of grades or regions in order to find one's way among them. Here also, as in the soul-world, the different regions are not to be thought of as lying one above the other like strata, but as mutually interpenetrating and pervading each other. The first region contains the “archetypes” of the physical world in so far as it is not endowed with life. The archetypes of the minerals are to be found here—also those of the plants; but the latter only in so far as they are purely physical, that is, in so far as the life in them is not taken into account. In the same way one finds here the archetypes of the physical forms of the animals and of human beings. This does not exhaust all that is to be found in this region but merely illustrates it by the readiest examples. This region forms the basic scaffolding of the “Spiritland.” It can be likened to the solid land of the physical earth. It forms the “continental” mass of the “Spiritland.” Its relationship with the physical corporeal world can only be described by means of an illustration. One gains some idea of it in the following way. Picture a limited space filled with physical bodies of the most varied kinds. Then think these bodies away and conceive in their place cavities in space, having their forms. The intervening spaces, on the other hand, which were previously empty, must be thought of as filled with the most varied forms, having manifold relationships with the physical bodies spoken of above. This is somewhat like the appearance presented by the lowest region of the archetypal world. In it, the things and beings which become embodied in the physical world are present as “spatial cavities.” And in the intervening spaces the mobile activity of the archetypes (and of the “spiritual music”) plays out its course. At the time of physical embodiment the spatial cavities become as it were filled with physical matter. If anyone were to look into space with both physical and spiritual eyes, he would see the physical bodies, and in between, the mobile activity of the creative archetypes.

The second region of the “Spiritland” contains the archetypes of life. But here this life forms a perfect unity. It streams through the world of spirit like a fluid element, as it were like blood pulsating through everything. It may be likened to the sea and the water systems of the physical earth. Its distribution, however, is more like the distribution of the blood in the animal body than that of the seas and rivers. This second stage of the “Spiritland” could be described as Flowing Life, formed of thought-substances. In this element are the creative Primal Forces, producing everything that appears in physical reality as living being. Here it is evident that all life is a unity, that the fife in man is related to the life of all his fellow-creatures.

[ 6 ] The archetypes of whatever is of the nature of soul must be designated as the third region of the “Spiritland.” Here we find ourselves in a much finer and rarer element than in the first two regions. To use a comparison it can be called the air or atmosphere of the “Spiritland.” Everything that goes on in the souls of both the other worlds has here its spiritual counterpart. Here all feelings, sensations, instincts, passions, etc., are again present, but in a spiritual way. The atmospheric processes in this aerial region correspond with the sorrows and joys of the creatures in the other worlds. The longing of a human soul appears here as a gentle zephyr; an outbreak of passion is like a stormy blast. One who can form conceptions of what is here under consideration, pierces deep into the sighing of every creature when he directs his attention to it. One can for example speak here of storms with flashing lightning and rolling thunder; and if one investigates the matter one finds that the passions of a battle waged on earth are expressed in such “spirit tempests.”

[ 7 ] The archetypes of the fourth region are not immediately related to the other worlds. They are in certain respects Beings who govern the archetypes of the three lower regions and mediate their working together. They are accordingly occupied with the ordering and grouping of these subordinate archetypes. From this region therefore a more comprehensive activity proceeds than from the lower ones.

[ 8 ] The fifth, sixth and seventh regions differ essentially from the preceding ones. For the Beings in these regions supply the archetypes with the impulses for their activity. In them are to be found the creative forces of the archetypes themselves. He who is able to rise to these regions comes to know the purposes which underlie our world.³ The archetypes lie here still like living germ-entities ready to assume the most manifold forms of thought-beings. If these germ-entities are projected into the lower region they well up, as it were, and manifest themselves in the most varied shapes. The ideas through which the human spirit manifests itself creatively in the physical world are the reflection, the shadow, of these germinal thought-beings of the higher spiritual world. The observer with the “ear of spirit” rises from the lower regions of the “Spiritland” to these higher ones, becomes aware that sounds and tones are changed into a “spiritual language.” He begins to perceive the “spiritual word” through which the things and beings do not now make known to him their nature in music alone, but express it in “words.” They utter to him what is called in spiritual science their “eternal names.”

[ 9 ] We must picture to ourselves that these thought-germinal-beings are of a composite nature. Out of the element of the thought-world only the germ-sheath, as it were, is taken. And this surrounds the true life kernel. With it we have reached the confines of the “three worlds,” for the “kernel” has its origin in still higher worlds. When man was described above according to his component parts this “life kernel” of the human being was specified, and its components were called “Life Spirit” and “Spirit Man.” There are similar “life kernels” for other beings in the Cosmos. They originate in higher worlds and are placed in the three which have been described, in order to accomplish their tasks in them.

The human spirit will now be followed on its further pilgrimage through the “Spiritland” between two embodiments or incarnations. In the course of the description the conditions and distinguishing characteristics of this “land” will once more come clearly into view.⁴

• 2. See also under Addenda.
• 3. That such a term as “purposes” is also meant in the sense of a “simile” is obvious from what was said above about the difficulties of expression in language. It is not intended to revive the old “doctrine of purpose.” See Addenda p. 93.
• 4. See also under Addenda p. 94.