The Nature of Man in the Light of Spiritual Science

GA 68d — 10 December 1907, Stuttgart

14. Man, Woman and Child in the Light of Secret Science

The subject we are to deal with today has been a matter of interest at all times. In particular, however, we may describe the relationship between man and woman as a kind of question of our immediate present, as a question that is being discussed with great vehemence today from the most diverse points of view, from the most diverse partisan standpoints. It is not the task or the mission of occult science to become involved in party disputes and conflicts. Therefore, what will be said about this subject today may seem, in some respects, quite out of keeping with the times, for from a higher vantage point, spiritual science has to consider questions such as these with complete objectivity, with complete calm, with the calmness of the narrative tone.

However, it does not have it easy. For such questions stir up the human mind, the whole world of feeling and passion in an extraordinary way, and more than with anything else, it is the case with such a question that one or the other has their answer somehow ready, and that therefore much of what has to be said from a higher point of view, especially in this field, goes against all their judgments and prejudices, that they have to rebel inwardly. But this cannot deter the spiritual researcher, despite all party antagonisms, despite all the stirring up of passions, especially in such a field to fulfill his task towards the present, to be a keen observer and to raise such a question above all party-political views.

Just how difficult this is can be seen from a very small selection of judgments that are being made in this area in our present day. Not only agitators and agitators, not only those who lightly find these or those buzzwords, have talked about our topic, especially about the nature of women, but also those who want to strike a higher objective tone from their own point of view, and it will be instructive to take this little survey. It should be emphasized from the outset that not just any random judgments will be given, but rather, leading judgments.

Scholars and unlearned people have expressed their views on the nature of women. But it is significant how this has happened. There is someone who deals with the nature of man from an anthropological point of view, summarizing the nature of woman in the word: sense of devotion. Mind you, that is not meant as if it were an ideal that women should strive for, but rather he wants to say that, according to a woman's nature, the most salient quality of a woman is the sense of devotion. Another personality, who wanted to describe the nature of women with equal objectivity, summarized what emerged for her and expressed the nature of women with the word: lust for power. A very important pathologist tried to sketch the nature of women from his point of view. He said: Everything in a woman points to one basic quality, which is gentleness. Another said: “Temperance under anger.” Yet another, who believed he could summarize the qualities of women from a higher vantage point, said: “Conservative sense,” and yet another said: “Everything revolutionary comes from the nature of women.” There you have a small selection that can give you a picture of the unanimity of those who want to sketch objectively. A very famous nerve pathologist wrote the little book: “On the physiological imbecility of women”.

If we take such judgments not only from their comic but also from their universal spiritual side, they are highly instructive; for they show us what it means when we are told: What you spiritual scientists say is subjective belief, but when you stand on the field of external observation, only unanimous judgments can come out. — Such are these unanimous judgments! But it is interesting that here, as in so many points of our contemporary judgments, we are confronted with a fact that proves how secret science is something that must seem to us to be called for when it comes to the great, important questions of the present. For even if our time gropes in the dark about such things in many respects, this groping in the dark often points out, in a remarkable presentiment, how necessary it is to speak the right word.

Something that must seem like a caricature of the right idea, spoken out of the spirit of materialism, is to be found in a sensational book that has been published recently, a book by the young Weininger, a brilliant but immature thinker: “Sex and Character”. If we want to appreciate this strange presentiment correctly, we must first bring to mind a fact that spiritual science shows us. Although we have often described the elementary view of the nature of man, today we must once again delve into this nature of man. We understand from the point of view of spiritual science... /gap in transcript

Now we understand the relationship between man and woman when we first express an important fact that spiritual science provides us, a fact that may seem grotesque to some, but that does not matter. Basically, every human being has both sexes within them in some form. The man has the visible male body on the outside; his etheric or life body is of a female nature; and the opposite is true for women, so that a polar contrast is present in humans.

He who tries to appreciate this fact with all the powers of his soul will understand how much of the phenomena becomes understandable. Who would not see how female qualities unite in man in beautiful harmony with his male qualities! At the same time, something else is given, so that one can raise the question: If now in sleep the astral body and the ego are outside the physical and etheric body, what about the sex of the astral body and the ego? They are absolutely neutral in terms of sex; what lives in sex is an organ outwards, just like the senses.

This means that we no longer speak superficially of the male and female from the point of view of the external world, but we realize that we have to return to the invisible worlds, to the etheric body. Sensory observation is an illusion in this area. Outwardly, man is man, but inwardly he has the qualities of his female etheric body, and sensory observation shows us only one part of his being. This fact is caricatured by Weininger, only he speaks of this fact in a grossly materialistic sense. He talks about male and female substances being mixed up in every part of the human being. But it is not possible to make any progress with such a materialistic theory. He then goes on to describe some of the strange characteristics of women. Women have no individuality and no personality and no intelligence and no freedom and no character and no will. The male side also has this essence within it. Every man also has a part of his nature that has no individuality and so on.

If we hold fast to the truth that in every man we have to reckon with the male nature on the outside and the female nature on the inside, then we will understand many of the points of view of men and women. And we will understand the deep foundation of truth from which our male culture speaks, for example: “The eternal feminine draws us up.” This is spoken from the man's point of view. But since our expired culture was a man's culture and only now is the interaction beginning that will bear fruit of which today's world has little idea, we understand that in all mysticism that which strives upwards, the neutrally sexless, is referred to as the eternal feminine. One has only to see what active, positive qualities women are able to produce in the service of war, in the service of love, in the service of charity, and what intrepidity women show in quite different virtues; then one will be able to see the dual nature fully.

But now we need to approach the subject from an even deeper perspective. It has become clear to us that gender, that which expresses itself in the contrast between male and female, belongs to the physical and etheric bodies. What about a contrast that expresses itself here in the world in the higher worlds? Does every contrast cease to exist there? At night, it no longer makes sense to speak of gender. In a world for which one needs the higher senses, the human astral body lives with the ego at night. The human astral body and ego are united with this world of spiritual beings. Does the possibility of speaking of a similar contrast even cease in these worlds, or is there also something of such a contrast there? This question must arise for anyone who adheres to the basic truth that everything physical is the external expression of the spiritual. The contrast of the sexes must be the physical expression of something in the spiritual world. The mystery of the sexual is so deep and significant that when one comes to speak of the truth in this area, one must assert paradox upon paradox for the superficial observer.

There is an opposition in the world into which man enters during the state of sleep, an opposition whose expression here is the opposition of the sexes. This opposition in the spiritual world has been designated in secret science since ancient times as the opposition of death and life. Behind our world lies a world in which higher forces are for death and life. And here in this world, the expression of the opposite sexes is the expression of this power. We will be able to understand this at least approximately.

Let us consider a being of this world, for example, the human being. We must not look at him too straightforwardly and simply; we must see, if we want to understand him, how opposites actually come to expression in this human being. We see how the human being is born, how he grows up, how, up to the age of seven, he first develops the form according to what is firmly determined, how this form continues to grow and become larger for a long time, how he then remains stationary, how consuming forces then take effect from the middle of life. Where the creative forces appear to be concentrated, there is birth; where the destructive forces appear, there is death. In the middle of life we are in balance. But throughout life, these two forces are present in man. With birth, the destructive forces already begin their activity. In the middle of life, they gain the upper hand. And the human being is not possible without the continuous interaction of these two forces. If only the power of life were at work in man, then man would, in a short time, flare up like fire, constantly developing, rushing through life. The consuming forces, which find their sum in death, are at the same time the forces which, as beneficent forces in man, make it possible to bring form and shape into his being. From life comes a forward urge. Life seeks to transform every form into a new one. Death only appears to be something that, by its very nature, is destruction when we look at it in its totality. It is not always what it is as a totality. The same force that encompasses the human physical body is what gives the human being his form and maintains it in a certain state of rest. You can see this when you observe the opposite in an external being, for example, a plant. There you see how shoot after shoot is produced, how the forces of life bring forth leaf after leaf. And there you see a force that maintains the form, that brings firmness and shape into the rushing life. If only the power of life were at work, a leaf could not exist at all, for life would rush on. Life must continually be held back and drawn out of its never-ceasing course. These two forces keep each other in eternal balance. These two, appearing in their highest point as death and life, are the builders of formed life in the outer world.

If we want to examine this contrast in a specific case, it presents itself in yet another form. The spiritual science that has been active in Europe since the fourteenth century has called this contrast: the contrast between formation and decay. In contrast to the rushing life, the forming form, that which is forming. This contrast can be felt everywhere in life, if one does not merely comprehend the world with the intellect. And if we now look for this other expression, we say: That which can be expressed in the decaying forces, when the Juno Ludovisi stands before us, where all life, frozen in the wonderful form, is captured in a moment, there you have the power at its highest tension. In reality, form does not live itself out in a moment like that. Forms change in every moment. The inner life is compressed in a single instant and then it presents itself to us. Beauty is the outward expression of what only the forces of decay can achieve, the forces that stop life. Primordial power, will, that is the other thing that form seeks to overcome in every moment. If we want to see forces, then in the time between formation and formation, action must be taken.

And in yet another respect, this contradiction between form and life, between destruction and eternal becoming, lives in man. If only the forces of life ruled in man, it would be as if there were an overabundance of oxygen. Man would rush. From the astral world comes the power of life and the power of stopping life. And so it is with our life. We must go through death. If we did not go through death, then something would be missing. We know how, in many lives on earth, the human being appears with heightened consciousness and a more complete ego. How does the human being come to fully grasp life? No being would be able to develop its self-awareness ever higher. It could not come to this if it could not experience its opposite itself. Imagine a being that had no idea that there is destruction, that had never sensed a fear of death, that would find it impossible to look death in the face. Such a being could not come to the strong sense of self and life that knows that in the end life conquers death. In contrast, we get to know the strong forces. We owe our ego to the fact that we are able to go through death. And he has the right feeling who has known and overcome the fear of death. Man takes up the forces of death and processes them into an elevated life.

And in the physical world, to whom does man, a being that can go through death, owe this fact, which is so important for his life, to be able to overcome death? To the opposite of the male and female.

For spiritual science, the female represents the creator of form, the male as that which wants to overcome the form over and over again. If only the feminine were able to work in the world, then everything would become rigid in form, even if it were a beautiful form. The feminine could cause life to take place in a closed form. Existence owes the fact that this form is overcome, that it rushes from form to form, to the interaction of the feminine with the masculine. And we human beings owe our form to the female part, and we owe the developing life, the becoming, to the male part. And everything in life is an interaction of these forces. Therefore, male and female work together in every being, and a man is only a human being in whom one pole is particularly pronounced in the physical, while the inner shaping remains more spiritual. And in woman the female form appears outwardly, while the will-like aspect appears inwardly. That is why there is a harmonious complementarity in the relationship between the sexes. That is why one sex finds something in the other that is of the same nature and essence, and why one sex understands the other because one has the other within itself.

Things in the world are so wonderfully interlinked that what sometimes seems so wonderful to us in the mood: the contrast between destruction and becoming, is expressed in the sexual contrast. Destruction, when stopped, means rest in form. When it presents itself to us in our outer life, becoming means at the same time the destruction of form from another side. Thus, when we consider this matter in its totality, nothing more or less sympathetic can ever be attached to one or other of these words. From a spiritual scientific point of view, our life on earth appears to us in such a way that we can say: with the interaction of the sexes, a compromise between form and eternal becoming and destruction of form is implanted in the human being. What must arise in a human being is implanted in that being. We take up these two forces of form and life with our generation because we are called into life from two sides. And so the great laws of the cosmos work that what appears as a contrast in another world as male and female appears in a higher world as a stronger contrast. Only when we see how two forces work together in each being, and that these beings can only stand before us because the balance of these forces is maintained in them, does our contemplation of male and female in all of nature become imbued not only with the concept and idea of the intellect, but also with will, mood and feeling. The world is complex and diverse, and we can only understand it if we engage with its complexity. As wonderful as this derivation of the sexual opposition from the other opposition of a higher world appears, it is a good guide if we follow it everywhere in life. We then know why the opposition of the sexes occurs in the world at all. It is justified because in the world the balance between formation and evolution must prevail. When man, as an initiate, ascends from the physical world to higher worlds, he does not encounter the opposition of male and female in these higher worlds. The saying in the Bible is deeply true: “There is no marrying in the heavens.” (Matthew 22:30; Mark 12:25; Luke 20:35f.) But when we look at the higher worlds with clairvoyance, we see another contrast everywhere. Everything is in a state of perpetual motion. Here this becoming and forming is only slowed down and condensed. It appears to us to be more calm. This can give us a picture of how something that can be perceived in the higher worlds appears in a completely different light. It could look as if this only applies to humans. But it applies everywhere where death and life and a sexual contrast are expressed in the physical world.

Thus, in art, in Juno, all soul, all inner greatness, everything that strides from state to state in the rushing life, appears to us as poured out in a moment into a form and held fast. If this form were truth in real existence, the being would have to die at the same time. Beauty, if it is to be present in form, requires that the being in which beauty is expressed to its full extent is not a real being. Life must come out, then what remains, when what must be overcome in life remains there for itself, is the beauty of form. And if you want to represent the inner becoming, the rushing from state to state, then you will see that it can be captured in a characteristic form, but it is impossible to capture it in a beautiful form. They are not beautiful, the forms of the Laocoon Group. No inner calm is captured. Beauty and life are the same opposites in the field of art that we have outlined in the field of reality. There we look deeply into life. We only have to make such a study of life really alive and practical. At every turn in life we can look deeply into it and gain understanding if we look at things from such points of view. If we see anything that is captured in form, we sense hidden life, and when we see life, we long deeply — and this longing gives us a relationship to the being concerned — for movement. And that which is a spiritual-scientific fact is presented to us in the great religious documents in words. That is the significance of these documents: we understand them only when we have realized the underlying facts within ourselves.

Let us consider female nature. Outwardly, it is the feminine; inwardly, the masculine. Outwardly, it is that which gives form to life; inwardly, it is that which continually seeks to destroy life. Outwardly, it is that which gives the human being his form, placing him on the earth with his feet; inwardly, the female nature contains that which continually seeks to lead the human being to ever higher levels, lifting him from the earth into ever higher spheres. Let us now look at this contrast between the masculine and the feminine in woman. What can we say about this contrast? There is a power in woman that seeks to bind man to earth and that, if it were alone, would crush the striving of his head for spiritual heights. And there is a power, the hidden masculine power, that seeks to lift man up from the earth. Think of this as an image. Think of the serpent as representing the masculine power, and think of the feminine nature as representing the other power. What does the female have to do in its outward expression? To crush the head of that which wants to lift man up from the earth. And what does the male nature have to do? To hurt man where he stands firmly on the earth, to bite into the heel. — “She will crush your head, but you will pursue her heel.” (Genesis 3:15)

Here you have a wonderful expression of spiritual scientific fact in a great symbol. And we can take it literally. It sends shivers down the spine when, equipped with the truths of occult science, we approach religious documents and find the literal expression for great facts of life in their images. And then the word that these documents have a higher origin from a spiritual world becomes for us not a hypothesis but a necessary realization. Can it be the product of a child's imagination, what we recognize by looking deeply into nature? One must ask oneself this question, and it always leads us to show how we can make more and more progress in knowledge and understand the documents of the religions better and better. A seemingly mundane observation such as the relationship between the sexes leads to an understanding of an important word. The esoteric teaching must emphasize the mysterious bond between the sexes from the very sources of life, from the spiritual world itself. The antithesis in the physical world has its antithesis in the spiritual world.

The sexes must work together in all fields, including the spiritual. And if we have left behind us an era of prevailing male culture, an era of cooperation between the two forces is to come. It is precisely the science of the secret that brings us light into the question raised by our topic. Everything in life is explained when we derive this life from its invisible, supersensible foundations. Yesterday we spoke in general terms of the mission of spiritual science. Today we see how it fills something ordinary with light and clarity. Everything in life is the expression of forces beyond the sensual life. Whatever we encounter in life, we must seek its origin in the spiritual world. And the interaction of life and form is explained in a magnificent way. If man lived only in form, he would be destroyed; if he lived only in life, death would be the consequence. True life is possible through the interaction of opposites.

Goethe also sheds light on this in the words he calls the “primal words”, to suggest that they are taken from the secret science. He says in the “Orphic Words”:

Just as on the day you were given to the world, The sun stood to greet the planets, [You have flourished ever since, According to the law by which you came into being. That is how you must be, you cannot escape it! So said the Sibyls, so said the prophets, And no time and no power dissect Form that is stamped, that lives and develops.]