The Origin and Goal of the Human Being

GA 53 — 13 October 1904, Berlin

The Nature of the Human Being

The lectures on the basic concepts of theosophy are intended to provide a brief outline of the worldview and way of life commonly referred to as theosophy. However, in order to prevent misunderstandings, I must first say a few words about this Theosophy. It could be believed that the Theosophical Society or the Theosophical movement propagates the view that I am about to present, and that this view is presented as dogma within the Theosophical movement. That is not the case. What is presented by individuals in the Theosophical Society is — to use a common expression — a personal view, and the Theosophical Society should be nothing more than an association that creates a nurturing environment for worldviews that lead into the higher realms of spiritual life; so that no one should believe that Theosophy is about propagating any dogmas. However, when people speak today of worldview associations, when they speak of monistic or dualistic views, they understand such associations or societies to be those that have united around some dogma, if not exactly committed to it, then at least oriented toward it, whether it be a justified or an unjustified dogma. This is not the case in Theosophy. On the other hand, however, it must be emphasized that only those who have penetrated the essence of the theosophical worldview are able to present their personal view of it. The theosophical worldview is such that individuals freely agree without committing themselves to a dogma externally. They do not need to commit themselves for this reason, because everyone who learns the facts must come to the same conclusions. The differences between individual researchers in this field are much smaller than in the field of sensory-scientific research and exploration of external facts, and if you really delve into these things, you will not hear that this or that theosophist, who has truly mastered the method of the theosophical worldview, disagrees with anyone else on essential matters. This is because, when we ascend to the higher realms of existence, the errors that simply occur in the realm of external sensory facts are no longer possible. There, it is not possible for one person to produce one worldview and another to produce another. It is only possible that one person is less advanced and can only represent part of the theosophical worldview. If he then believes that what he has recognized represents the whole of the worldview, it may happen that he appears to contradict those who are more advanced. Theosophists on the same level will not contradict each other.

Furthermore, I would like to emphasize at the outset that it is a serious misunderstanding when it is often assumed that the theosophical worldview has anything to do with the propagation of Buddhism or New Buddhism, as some like to call it. This is absolutely not the case. When Madame Blavatsky, Sinnett, and others spread the fundamental ideas on which the theosophical worldview is based, their initial inspiration did indeed come from the East, from India. The first great teachings came from there in the 1870s. That was an inspiration, but the content of the view that lives within the theosophical movement is common property not only of all times, but also of all those who have delved into these matters. It would be wrong to believe that in order to learn about theosophy, one must make a pilgrimage to India or immerse oneself in Indian scriptures. That is not the case. You can find the same philosophies and the same theosophical teachings in all cultures. Only in what we call the Indian Vedanta teaching is nothing, as it were, contaminated by external sensory science. In a certain sense, the core of the worldview that has always lived as theosophy has been preserved there. So this is not Buddhist propaganda, but a worldview that everyone can learn about everywhere. In addition, I would like to emphasize in particular that it is indeed somewhat alienating for people of the present day when they read about the sources of this worldview in the first books on theosophical worldview that appeared. In the book that has found the widest distribution and has inspired most people who have studied it to continue their study of theosophy, Sinnett's Esoteric Doctrine or Secret Buddhism, the first chapter refers to the great teachers from whom the theosophical teachings originate. Such a thing is, of course, somewhat unsympathetic to European culture. Nevertheless, for those who think clearly and consistently, it is nothing that does not correspond to common concepts. For who would deny that there are more or less developed people among humankind? Who would deny the great difference between an African Negro and, say, Goethe? And why should there not be even more developed individuals higher up on this ladder? It was basically just a matter of surprise that our development has actually produced personalities such as those described in Sinnett's book. Such personalities do indeed possess extraordinary knowledge and a wisdom that spans the globe. It would have been pointless for them to appear before the world. It is not a strange concept when we say that the so-called masters are great inspirers for us, nothing more, great inspirers in the spiritual realms. However, their development goes far beyond what is offered by conventional culture. They are great inspirers to us, but they do not demand belief in any authority or dogma. They appeal to nothing other than our own human knowledge and provide guidance on how to develop the powers and abilities that lie within every human soul in order to ascend to the higher realms of existence.

So, at the beginning of these lectures, I will apparently give you a personal picture, and that is because I will not say anything, deliberately not say anything, that I have not been able to verify myself and for which I cannot myself act as a witness. On the other hand, however, I am also convinced that what I myself have to say in this way is entirely consistent with those who have always represented the theosophical worldview, and in particular with those who represent it today. It is like people standing at different points and looking at a city. When they draw a picture of the city, these pictures will differ slightly from each other, depending on the perspective that results from the particular point of view. Similarly, of course, the worldviews described according to the observations of theosophical researchers also differ. But basically, it is always the same. This is how the worldview that I will present relates to the worldviews presented by other theosophical researchers. It is entirely consistent and differs only in terms of perspective.

In today's lecture, I will give a picture, initially more descriptive, of the basic components of the human being, according to his physical and spiritual nature. In the second lecture, I will then move on to the two essential concepts of the theosophical worldview, reincarnation or re-embodiment, and karma or the great destiny of humanity. In the following lectures, I will then give a picture of the three worlds that human beings must pass through on their great pilgrimage: the physical world, which everyone knows; the astral world, which not everyone knows, but which everyone can get to know if they patiently apply the appropriate methods; and the spiritual world, which the soul essentially has to pass through. Then, in one lecture, I will give a broad overview of the theosophical worldview: the origin and development of the world and human evolution, what can be called theosophical anthropology and theosophical astronomy. That is the plan.

Above all, we must be clear about the components of human nature. Through careful study, which theosophy will provide us with, we will learn that of these components of the human being, only the first main component is visible to the ordinary observer: the physical nature of the human being in the broadest sense of the word, what we call the body. The materialist regards this body of man as the only thing that constitutes the human being. To this, the theosophical worldview adds two further components: that which has always been called the soul, and, as the highest component, the imperishable essence of man, that which has no beginning and no end in our sense of the word: the spirit. These are, roughly speaking, the basic components of man. Those who learn to observe in the higher realms of existence learn to observe the soul and spirit just as the physical eye learns to observe the sensual, the physical. However, since the spread of pure sensory science in the West, people have largely lost their awareness and ability to observe in these higher spiritual and mental realms. It has remained confined to very limited circles. The last person to speak from the lectern about these higher realms of human observation, who still spoke in such a way that one could recognize that he knew something of what can be known, was Johann Gottlieb Fichte, the great German philosopher. When he opened his lectures at the newly founded university in Berlin, he spoke very differently from other philosophy professors since the 17th century. He spoke in such a way that it was clear he did not want to merely teach what could be understood with the intellect, but rather to point out that human beings themselves can develop, that sensory perception is subordinate, and that human beings can develop abilities within themselves that are simply not present in everyday life. In the history of German intellectual development, these lectures by Johann Gottlieb Fichte were epoch-making. Today, however, they can only be meaningful to those who rediscover them. The following passage is memorable: "This teaching presupposes a completely new inner sensory tool, through which a new world is given that is not available to ordinary people at all ... Imagine a world of people born blind, who therefore only know the things and their relationships that exist through the sense of touch. Go among them and talk to them about colors and other relationships that are only available to the eye through light. Either you talk to them about nothing, and this is the happier option, if they say so; for in this way you will soon realize your mistake and, if you are unable to open their eyes, you will stop your futile talk."

This is what it is all about, that people should be directed to the observation of soul and spirit. Theosophy is by no means in any contradiction with popular science. Theosophists need not deny a single one of the modern propositions of science. All of that is valid. Just as, for example, among a group of people who are blue-blind, everything that is present in shades of yellow and red can be perceived, but nothing blue, so too, for those who are spiritually blind, the soul and spirit cannot be perceived. This becomes completely clear when, through the appropriate methods, the blind person becomes sighted. When he becomes sighted, a new world lights up around him, which was as invisible to him as the blue color nuance is to the blue-blind person before he could be made to see blue next to red through eye surgery.

You see, Johann Gottlieb Fichte knew this. People in those times when humanity was not yet numb — I do not say this in a reproachful sense — also knew this, and for a few, the tradition has always been preserved and the methods developed. They knew that when we speak of the essence of man, we are not only dealing with what we call the body, but that what is soul can also be perceived, has the same laws, and is just as embedded in a world as the body. In a higher sense, it is the same with the spirit. The human body is governed by the same laws that govern other things around us. In the human body we have the same thing we have in the physical world; we find the same chemical and physical laws in the human body. This physical world is perceptible to the physical senses. It is not only subjectively present for human beings, but also objectively there for their perception. Subjectively, humans perform physical activities. They digest, breathe, eat, and drink, and they perform the internal physical activity of the brain through which internal thought activity is mediated; in short, humans perform all the activities that biology, physics, and other physical sciences teach us about. It is humans who perform these activities. And one can also perceive it. When a human being encounters his fellow human beings, he perceives what he is subjectively, either directly or through the means of science, objectively as well.

But human beings are subjectively something higher; they are also a sum of feelings, drives, and passions. Just as you digest, you feel, you desire. That is also you! But under normal circumstances, human beings do not perceive this objectively. When they encounter their fellow human beings, they do not see their feelings, desires, passions, and drives externally. If humans were blind, they would not see a whole range of physical activities. It is only because they can exercise physical sensory activity that the physical-subjective is also objectively perceptible to them. And because they do not initially exercise a spiritual sense activity, the spiritual-subjective, the feelings, the instincts, the passions, the desires, are subjectively present in every human being, but when they encounter their fellow human beings, they cannot perceive this. Now, just as he has developed an eye in a physical way to perceive bodily activity, he can develop his spiritual eye and perceive the world of instincts, desires, and passions; in short, he can bring about a situation in which he also has the spiritual as an objective perception before him. This world, in which the average person today lives without perceiving it, but which they can perceive if they develop the appropriate powers in themselves through the appropriate methods, is what we call, using a theosophical term, the astral world, or, to use an English word, the soul world. What our common psychology describes as the soul is not what theosophy understands as spiritual life, but only its outer expression.

An even higher world than the spiritual world is the spiritual world. Those who are able to perceive the soul because their organs are open to the soul cannot yet perceive what spirit is in their environment. They can perceive the soul, but not the thought itself. The soul seer sees desires and passions, but not thinking, not the objective thought. Therefore, those who cannot see objective thought deny its existence altogether. People did not understand Hegel when he spoke of the objective existence of the world of thought. And those who cannot perceive it are, of course, right from their point of view when they deny it. But they can say nothing other than that they do not see it, just as someone born blind claims that he cannot see color.

Body, soul, and spirit are, roughly speaking, the three basic components of human existence. Each basic component has three components or stages. What is commonly referred to as the body is not as simple as the materialistic researcher's mental image. It is a composite thing consisting of three members or three components. The lowest, coarsest component is usually what humans see with their physical senses, the so-called physical body. This physical body has within it the same forces and laws as the physical world around us, as the entire physical world. Today's natural science studies nothing else in humans but this physical body; for even our complicated brain is nothing more than a component of this physical body. Everything that immediately fills space, everything we can see with our naked senses or with our armed senses, with the naked eye or with a microscope, in short, everything that natural scientists still consider to be composed of atoms, theosophists still refer to as physical corporeality. This is the lowest component of physical being. Now, however, many researchers deny the next component of physical being, the etheric body. The term etheric body is not a happy choice. But it is not the name that matters. The denial of the etheric body is only the result of recent scientific thinking. The denial of this etheric body is linked to a long-standing scientific dispute. For now, I will only briefly indicate what is meant by this etheric body.

If you look at a mineral, a dead, lifeless body, and compare it with a plant, you will say to yourself — and this is what everyone said until the turn of the 18th to 19th century, when the dispute about the etheric body began — that the stone is lifeless, but the plant is full of life. What must be added so that the plant is not a stone is called the etheric body in theosophy. This etheric body will probably be better called simply life force in time, because the etheric or life force is something that natural science spoke of until the 19th century. Modern science denies the existence of such a thing as life force. Goethe already mocked those who do not recognize that life requires something higher than the inanimate to explain it. You all know the passage in Faust: “He who wants to recognize and describe something living first seeks to drive out the spirit, then he has the parts in his hand, but unfortunately the spiritual bond is missing.” Goethe means the bond of life force. I have discussed this matter in my book Goethe's Worldview. Today there are again a number of natural scientists who believe that they cannot get by with the inanimate, who therefore at least intuitively accept what theosophists call the etheric body. They call themselves neovitalists. I need only refer to Hans Driesch and others to show how natural scientists are once again coming to describe this etheric body, albeit under other names, as something that really exists. And the further natural science advances, the more it will recognize that plants already have such an etheric body, for otherwise they could not live. Animals and humans also have such an etheric double body. Those human beings who develop the higher bodies can actually observe this etheric body with the simplest, most primitive organs of spiritual perception. This requires a very simple trick, but one that is only known to esoterically trained theosophists. You are familiar with the word suggestion. Suggestion consists in the ability to perceive things that are not apparently there. Suggestion, in which something is talked into a person, is not of interest to us at first. More important for us, in order to gain insight into the etheric body, is another kind of suggestion. Anyone who has studied the theory of suggestion knows that the hypnotist is able to suggest things to a person so that they do not see things that are present. Let's say a hypnotist suggests to a person that there is a clock here. Then the person concerned would see nothing at that spot in the room. This is nothing more than a diversion of attention to an abnormal area, an artificial diversion of attention. Anyone can observe this process in themselves. People are capable of suggesting to themselves what is in front of them. The theosophically educated person must be able to perform the following trick in order to perceive the etheric body: they must suggest to themselves the physical body of an animal or a human being. Once their spiritual eye is awakened, they will not see nothing in the place where the physical body was, but will see the space filled with very specific color images. These instructions must, of course, be carried out with the utmost caution, for all kinds of illusions are possible in this area. However, anyone who really knows with what caution, with what precision surpassing all scientific accuracy, theosophical research is conducted, knows what to do. The room is filled with light images. This is the etheric or double body. This light image appears in a color that is not contained in our usual spectrum from ultra-red to ultraviolet. It resembles the color of peach blossoms. This is the color in which the etheric double body appears. You will find such an etheric double body in every plant, every animal, indeed in every living being. It is the external, sensory expression of what natural scientists today suspect once again, of what is called life force. This brings us to the second link in the physical body of the human being.

But the physical body has a third component. I have called this the soul body. You can form a mental image of it by thinking that not every body that lives is also capable of feeling. I cannot get involved in the debate about whether plants are also capable of feeling; that is another matter. You must consider what is broadly referred to as feeling. What distinguishes plants from animals in this respect we will hold on to. Just as plants are distinguished from stones by their etheric double body, so the body of the animal, as a sentient body, is again different from the mere plant body. And that which in the animal body also transcends mere growth and reproduction, that which makes feeling possible, we call the soul body. In the physical body, in the etheric body, and thirdly in the soul body, the bearer of sentient life, we have only the outer side of the human being and the animal. With this we have observed what lives in space.

Now comes that which lives within, that which we call the sentient self. The eye has a sensation and carries it to where the soul can perceive it. Here we gain the transition from body to soul when we ascend from the soul body to the soul, to the lowest member of the soul, which is called the sentient soul. Animals also have a sentient soul, because they transform what the body prepares for them to sense, what the soul prepares for them, into inner life, into soul life, into sensations. However, in spiritual vision, the soul body and the sentient soul cannot be perceived separately. They are, so to speak, intertwined and form a whole. Roughly speaking, what forms a whole here — the soul body as the outer shell and the sentient soul within it — can be compared to a sword in its sheath. This forms a whole for spiritual contemplation and is called Kamarupa or astral body in theosophy. The highest member of the physical body and the lowest member of the soul form a whole and are called the astral body in theosophical literature.

The second member of the soul is that which encompasses memory and the lower mind. The highest member is that which contains consciousness in the true sense. Both the soul and the body consist of three members. Just as the body consists of the physical body, the etheric double body, and the soul body or astral body, so the soul consists of the sentient soul, the intellectual soul, and the conscious soul. Only those who develop the abilities that lead to true vision through spiritual scientific methods can gain a correct understanding of this. What we perceive of things from outside is attached to the sentient soul. And what we call feeling, feelings of love, feelings of hate, feelings of desire, that is, sympathy and antipathy, are attached to the second member of the soul, the intellectual soul, Kamamanas. The third member, the consciousness soul, is that which human beings can only observe at a single point. Children usually only have consciousness of the first two members of the soul. They live only in the two members of the soul that I have mentioned, the feeling soul and the intellectual soul, but they do not yet live in the consciousness soul. In this consciousness soul, the human being begins to live in the course of childhood, and then this consciousness soul becomes the self-conscious soul.

Those who know how to observe their own lives closely consider this point in their lives to be particularly important. You will find this point described in Jean Paul's own biography, where he experiences the consciousness of the inner self. "I will never forget the phenomenon within me, which I have never told anyone about, where I stood at the birth of my self-awareness, the place and time of which I can specify. One morning, as a very young child, I was standing under the front door and looked to my left at the woodpile, when suddenly the inner face: I am an I, like a flash of lightning from the sky, drove before me and has remained shining ever since. There, my self had seen itself for the first time and for eternity. Deceptions of memory are hardly conceivable here, since no foreign narrative could add to an event that took place in the hidden inner sanctum of the human being, whose novelty alone gave permanence to such everyday circumstances." This represents the highest structure of the soul as experienced by human beings. In those who are spiritually awakened, the three components of the soul are indeed also visible to external perception. Just like the etheric double body, the three stages, the three components of the soul, are also truly visible to external spiritual perception. I have already said that the sentient body can never be separated from the soul body in perception. Now, this higher part of the human being, the soul, is represented in what theosophical literature refers to as the aura. Anyone who wants to gain knowledge of this through perception must learn to see it. The aura is threefold. The three parts are intertwined like three oval mist formations that envelop and surround the human form. In this aura, the soul body of the human being presents itself to our perception. It shines in the most varied colors, which can only be compared externally with what we call the colors of the spectrum. In these colors, which again go to the higher octave of red and violet, what we call the aura shines in the most varied ways. The human being is embedded in this aura as if in a cloud, and this cloud expresses what lives in the human soul as desire, passion, and instincts. The whole emotional organism of the human being expresses itself in the wonderful play of colors of the aura. This threefold aura is the soul of the human being. This is the soul when perceived objectively. Subjectively, everyone can perceive it: everyone feels and desires and has passions. They live them as they live digestion and breathing. But the ordinary external school of psychology usually describes only what I have called the soul body, or at most it describes the external expression of the soul life, but not what theosophy understands by soul. What it understands by the soul is an objective fact. But as a rule, one can only point to it as Fichte did when he drew attention to the fact that there are higher experiences in this world, but that the person who perceives only sensually perceptive human being is like a person born blind.

We have thus described the three members of the human physical body and the three members of the human soul. But since the physical body of the human being forms a unity with the human soul member in its third part, we first have two parts plus one plus another two, that is, five parts: physical body, etheric body, soul body, intellectual soul, consciousness soul, in which the I shines forth. This I is a very interesting point in the aura. At one point, the I becomes perceptible. Within the outer oval, you will find a strange, blue-shimmering or blue-iridescent spot, also oval in shape. It is actually like when you see a candle flame; but with the difference that the astral colors have compared to the physical colors, it is as if you saw blue in the middle of the candle flame. This is the I that is perceived within the aura. And that is a very interesting fact. No matter how far a person develops, no matter how far they train their clairvoyant gifts, at this point they first see this blue I-body, this blue light body. This is a veiled sanctuary, even for the clairvoyant. No one can see into the actual self of another person. Even for those who have developed their spiritual senses, this remains a mystery at first. Only within this blue shimmering spot does something new shine forth. There is a new flame forming, shining in the center of the blue flame. This is the third member, the spirit. This spirit again consists of three members, like the other components of the human being. Oriental philosophy calls these Manas, Buddhi, Atma. These three components are so developed in today's human beings that actually only the lowest part, the spirit self — that is the correct translation for Manas — is developed in the predisposition of today's thinking human beings. This Manas is just as firmly connected to the highest link of the soul as the sentient soul is to the soul body, so that once again the highest part of the soul and the lowest part of the spirit form a whole, because they cannot be distinguished. In the aura, one sees the highest link of the soul in the center of the blue shimmering spot where the I is located, and one sees the spirit shining within the I. Today, the spirit has developed to the level of manas in humanity. The two higher parts, buddhi and atma — the life spirit and the spirit man — are developed in their potential, and we will see how they will develop further when we talk about reincarnation and karma in the next lecture.

This is what stands connected, the highest structure of the soul and the lowest structure of the spirit. What cannot be observed separately is simply called manas in theosophical literature. The two highest structures, buddhi and atma, are the deepest essence of the human being, the immortal human spirit. So we have three times three members of the human being, of which the third is connected with the fourth to form a whole, and likewise the sixth with the seventh. This gives rise to the famous or notorious number seven in the human composition, which you can read about so often. In truth, man consists of body, soul, and spirit, and each member again consists of three components; of these, two times two members are united into a whole, whereby the nine is reduced to a seven. Man lives primarily in the second of the three members, the higher part. Man cannot perceive it with his outer senses.

I already mentioned in the introductory lecture that theosophical literature not only describes the different areas of life, but also shows the ways and means by which humans can rise to the methods that enable them to perceive all this for themselves. However, just as it is necessary for the natural scientist to learn how to use a microscope in order to gain insight into physical nature, a certain spiritual development is required in order to gain a genuine understanding of what we have described. Everyone can learn this; it is not the privilege of a select few, but a common good for all. Those who have committed themselves to following the instructions of the Theosophical Society and have gained insights for themselves can recount what they have experienced. They regard it no differently than an explorer of Africa recounting his experiences. These cannot be verified unless one goes there oneself. However, the methods are not usually taken seriously enough. If what is given in the last chapter of my book “Theosophy” were to be carried out truly and seriously, then a person could go very far in observing the higher realms of the human spirit.

Those who can form a theosophical worldview will understand many things that they could not understand before in the ordinary course of life. You cannot understand certain areas of Goethe's work if you have no idea about theosophy. Only those who have some idea of what Goethe calls the life processes or metamorphosis of plants can understand his explanations of the plant world. That Goethe was a theosophist is evident from a “hidden” text that is included in every edition but read by very few: the “Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily.” This contains the whole of theosophy, but in the way that theosophical truths have always been communicated. Only since the founding of the Theosophical Society have they been expressed outwardly; previously, they could only be represented figuratively. The “fairy tale” is such a figurative expression of theosophical teaching. In Leipzig, Goethe gained insight into the world we are talking about, and in a rather profound way. Many things in “Faust” indicate that Goethe belonged to the initiated theosophists. Many things in Goethe are like the creed of a theosophist. I would like to conclude today's lecture with Goethe's words, which could serve as a motto for this lecture because they proclaim in broad strokes and in a succinct style that the world is not only physical nature, but also a spiritual and soul entity. And Goethe expresses the fact that the world is a spiritual entity when he has the Earth Spirit utter the words that reveal the weaving of spiritual life throughout the world:

In the floods of life, in the storm of deeds
I surge up and down,
Weaving back and forth!
Birth and grave,
An eternal sea,
A changing weaving,
A glowing life:
Thus I create on the whirring loom of time
And weave the living garment of the deity.