The Nature of Man in the Light of Spiritual Science
GA 68d — 10 January 1908, Leipzig
15. Man and Woman in the Light of Spiritual Science
The question of “man and woman”, which is the question of the day, must be considered from a higher point of view through theosophy and should occupy us today. However, this consideration also leads us down into the practical.
Our time wants to have overcome materialistic thinking and feeling. In a sense it has; nevertheless, a materialistic attitude still prevails in the tone of our time. It is not so much the big questions of existence that suffer from this as what is happening directly in our environment. It is only through theosophy that this question can be put into the right perspective. The women's issue of the present time is a justified trend. But we need only let such questions pass before our soul to realize how little our time is able to judge. As a test, I will mention here various judgments passed by so-called important people on the nature of women. An important naturalist, a man of public political life, tried to summarize his judgment as follows: All of a woman's qualities point to one thing, and that is gentleness. Another thinker: “The essence of a woman in all her qualities culminates in the word ‘temperance’.” An important German philosopher characterized the way a woman thinks. There are two directions of thought: firstly, analysis – dissecting thinking – and secondly, synthesis – a joining together of thoughts. Those who know how to combine both activities of thinking correctly have the right harmony. Generally speaking, one of the two approaches is more prevalent in men. This German philosopher calls women's thinking analytical and men's thinking synthetic. Another thinker says the opposite. Another sees the preserving element in everything that a woman does; another, who knows history, calls her a subverter.
Where do these contradictions, these one-sided views come from? In the outside world, everything is truly distinct from one another; for example, a tree: one person draws it from this side, another from that; both pictures will be quite different. The purpose of spiritual science is to help people overcome such one-sidedness. In our time, everything is again aimed at overcoming this one-sidedness. People who think something today no longer feel at home in materialistic thinking.
Perhaps you have heard of a book that caused quite a stir some time ago: “Sex and Character”; its author was the unfortunate Weininger, who later took his own life. The thinking in this book comes from the natural sciences and combines the ideas of man and woman in a very materialistic way. It says: If we look at the individual human being, we find a mixture; man is feminine, woman is masculine. If we look at this idea in a supersensible way, it is quite correct, but in Weininger's book it is materialistically understood and seems quite monstrous. He presents a mixture of substances. Nothing but materialistic paradoxes — apparent absurdities — can be derived from it. Weininger comes to the conclusion: Woman lacks: I, personality, individuality, character, freedom and will. — What is left then? One could also ask: If we look at a man; since he is half woman, does he also lack half of: I, personality, individuality and so on? Nevertheless, there is an inkling here of something correct. Here, the human essence is considered only in terms of its lowest link, namely, in terms of its physical body. But man is only recognized when one considers the properties of his four-part essence: the physical body, etheric body, astral body and the ego.
Today, we are particularly interested in the truth, which may seem insane, namely that the physical body and the etheric body are in some ways opposed, like north and south, positive and negative. They are opposites in relation to the male and female. The etheric body is of the opposite sex of the physical body. Everyone carries these opposites within themselves. This becomes understandable to us in the qualities of women: loving devotion, compassion, which, when they can be increased, can increase to the level of male bravery. On the other hand, increased male qualities take on the qualities of the female character. A myriad of phenomena can be explained to you by taking into account the etheric body in addition to the physical body. How can our concepts be purified by such views?
Let us consider the phenomenon of sleep. It is the state where all feelings and sensations sink into the indefinite dark. When a person sleeps, the astral body escapes with the ego, leaving behind the physical body and etheric body, and upon awakening, it plunges back into the latter. Why does the astral body sink back into it with the ego? Because it receives impressions through the physical senses; for the physical eye does not see and the physical ear does not hear. Today man cannot yet perceive through the astral body, but later on it will be the case. Today the astral body is in the same position as our physical body once was, when in gray, gray prehistoric times the physical senses began to develop. So it will be one day when the astral body has developed its organs. Then the masculine and the feminine will be brought into one realm.
Just as I and the astral body submerge, so every man - and every woman - only becomes a sexual being every morning upon awakening, when he submerges. These concepts are only on the outside of man. The Bible verse: “There is no marriage in heaven” (Matt. 22:30; Mark 12:25; Luke 20:35f.) becomes understandable to us through this. Man is in the heavens at night. We must not believe that there are no similar contrasts in the higher worlds. If we follow man up into sleep, we also encounter contrasts. When man leaves his physical and etheric bodies every night, he first enters the astral world.
The first contrasts we find in the astral world are those of form and life, or, let us say, death and life. These contrasts exist so that harmony can develop in the further evolution of the world.
Let us try to understand how, in our existence, death manifests itself as form and life as becoming. Observe a plant and see how the root sprouts, the stem forms, leaves and flowers sprout. In the bark of the tree you have the affiliation of death to life. Inside, the plant retains its living becoming. The bark is the enveloping death. Thus you can find the interaction between death and life everywhere, and it is here that true existence first reveals itself. It is no coincidence that the ancient initiates, the Druids, were named after the “oak”. They formed a protective shell around themselves in order to make the inner self all the more viable. Where there is increased life, there will also be increased death as a “wrapping” of life. This contrast between dying and awakening is evident everywhere. With the same sharpness as the male and the female in the physical world, the active death and the active life are expressed in the astral world.
You can also find these contrasts expressed in art. To make this point clear, I will mention the Juno Ludovisi. In its form, one immediately sees something finished. If you study the whole, look at the width of the forehead, you say to yourself, there is spirit, a lot of spirit. The spirit that lives in it and is constantly being created has become external form. You can see the source completely flowing out on the face. The life of the soul has become rigid in an instant, has died. In the Zeus head, you find the opposite in a sense. There is a narrow forehead formation, deep wrinkles in the forehead, and a beautiful form, but it is possible that life could take a different form. This is the contrast that you will learn to recognize in its fullness. One is the dying of death, the beauty of death, the other is the developing life. This contrast between the dying form and the ever-newly kindling life is expressed in the masculine and the feminine. If there were only the masculine, there would only be consuming life; the image of the form is expressed in the feminine physical form. Thus they present themselves: life and form, becoming and dying away. Life in the feminine radiates towards us, the life that wants to sustain and continue itself; in the masculine, a form that would be fully developed, eternal. Thus, in our lives, man and woman struggle with each other, and so do death and life.
Wherever there is an awareness or a presentiment of these facts, symbols and myths appear in a completely different light, for example a fact of a biblical myth, although every symbol has more than one explanation; and therein lies the power and strength of the symbol, that it is meaningful, for example the myth of the serpent. There you will find the words: “I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:15) In this we have an indication of the meaning of these words: male and female. The one from whom this myth originates wanted to point to the duality of the human being. Nature, which strives for form, must be overcome by that which is becoming eternal. The higher nature of man, which overcomes form, is Eve; man's attachment is the serpent. The higher feminine nature should overcome that which goes outwards. Goethe spoke a deeply mystical word:
The eternal feminine draws us upward!
The time behind us, the culture of man, is over. Now is the time when man and woman work together on culture, and that is the basis for the real question of women: male – physical and female – ethereal. The power of action lies in the conquest of form. The one will find itself in the other, and so, in contrast, true harmony will arise. True strength will find itself in the other, and only then will true creativity arise.