# The Nature of Man in the Light of Spiritual Science

## GA 68d — 29 January 1908, Wiesbaden

### 17. The Essence of Man in the Light of Spiritual Science

Among the many different currents of thought in our time is the one known as “theosophical thought”. Anyone who tries to form an opinion about Theosophy from books, articles and so on can easily come to one of the many prejudices that exist against the Theosophical worldview today. For many, Theosophy is seen as the warming up of an old superstition, a childish worldview, as it was suitable for the imagination of the peoples of the past, but as it no longer fits the enlightened man of the present. Others imagine that Theosophy wants to be something like a kind of new religion, like a kind of sect formation. It is not surprising that those who are serious about religious life see Theosophy as something dangerous. A third prejudice is that Theosophy wants to transplant an oriental religious concept into Europe. Some see a direct danger in this if it were to happen. But this is one of those types of spiritual movement that today's lecture is intended to address, that in order to understand it, one has to deal with it a little more thoroughly and deeply. Not that special learning is part of Theosophy, but patience to deal with the matter a little more deeply. Then everyone can cope with it. Theosophy or spiritual science rests on two solid pillars. Once you have recognized the significance of these two pillars, nothing stands in the way of you delving deeper into this spiritual current. The first pillar is the recognition that behind our physical world, which is perceptible to the senses, there is a superphysical, a supersensory, a spiritual world. The second pillar is that man has the ability to penetrate into this spiritual world, the supersensible world.

Already, in our time, strong and weighty objections are raised against the first, that there is a supersensible world at all. Our modern science believes it is already violating something if one even admits that there is a spiritual world. Theosophy does not speak of the spiritual world in a strange sense, not as if the spiritual worlds were somewhere else than where they are, but it speaks of them in the same way that the great German philosopher Fichte spoke of spiritual worlds in a particularly forceful way. In the fall of 1813, he said the following to his audience:

> This teaching presupposes a completely new inner sense-percept, through which a new world is given, which is not at all present for the ordinary man.

Furthermore, he added:

> Imagine a world of blind-born, who therefore know only those things and their relationships that exist through the sense of touch. Step among them and talk to them about colors and the other relationships that exist only through light and for the seeing. Either you talk to them about nothing, and this is the happier outcome when they say so, because in this way you will soon notice the mistake, and if you are unable to open their eyes, stop talking to them in vain.

Just as the blind person may consider it a fantasy when we talk to him about colors and light, so too those who speak of spiritual worlds are considered fantasists by those who do not know these worlds. For those who know nothing of the spiritual worlds, one who does know speaks as the seeing person speaks to the blind person about the world of color and light. It is indeed necessary to speak about the spiritual worlds in a way similar to the way J. G. Fichte spoke about the spiritual worlds; however, it is not quite the same. For the blind-born, there is sometimes the possibility of an operation. There is a moment when what was shrouded in darkness is suddenly bathed in light, color and radiance. But not everyone who was born blind can be operated on. For every person, however, there is the possibility of becoming aware of the worlds that are around us but are now veiled from him.

The awakened, the seeing, have spoken at all times of such worlds, which are all around us and for which man's dormant abilities need only be awakened. But there have been many different words for them. Today we use the word “theosophy” for the teaching of these worlds, following the example of the Apostle Paul, who was the first to use the word “theosophy” for it. Those who see into the spiritual worlds have always been called initiates or seers. For those who become initiates, seers, there comes a moment, a moment that can be compared in some way to the moment when physical light first enters the eye of the operated blind-born ; only for the person who does not merely want to gain a mental conviction of the spiritual worlds, the moment when he becomes seeing is much more brilliant than the moment experienced by the operated blind person. Perhaps one says, because only a few people have been able to look into the spiritual world: What does the spiritual world concern those who cannot look into it? But it is like this: When those who communicate the wisdom of the spiritual world from direct experience, from their own vision, then these truths can be understood if people only want to reflect sufficiently. To experience spiritual truths, seership is needed; to understand them, common sense is needed.

To anyone who might object that this is not yet a convincing argument for me; I must first be able to see into the spiritual worlds myself - one must say: It is not that he is prevented from having this ability, but that he does not want to apply his comprehensive human sense to what is communicated to him by others. The seers are in the spiritual worlds. The spiritual worlds are not somewhere else; they are where we are, and man can become an experiencer of these spiritual worlds through the abilities slumbering in him. To experience the spiritual worlds requires seership; to comprehend them only requires common sense. As the light is related to the eye, so are the spiritual worlds related to the soul.

Others say: It may be that spiritual worlds exist, but people do not have the abilities to penetrate them. Those who say so are of the opinion that human abilities are not capable of development, that people remain as they are. Today, the word development is a kind of magic formula for many. But as soon as one speaks of spiritual development, they want nothing to do with it. To those who believe that man cannot recognize the spiritual worlds, one can answer: Certainly, with the abilities you have today, you cannot recognize the spiritual worlds; but abilities lie dormant in man that can be developed, enabling him to perceive the spiritual worlds. These truths will only be publicly proclaimed in recent times because humanity needs them in this form now. They have always been incorporated into the world and human thinking and feeling. But in this form they are coming before the public for the first time. Above all, these truths have always been contained in all religions. They have been contained in them in other forms, as this form was sufficient for humanity. For centuries now, humanity, which clings to the old forms, has been experiencing doubts, scruples, and so on, in the face of spiritual truths.

Let us think back to the times when there was no printing, when what comes to people today in the form of printed works could not reach people in this way, but only in detail. In those days, human perception and feeling could take a completely different form in relation to great spiritual truths. But now that the enormous sum of science is penetrating into humanity through a thousand and one channels, the dissemination of spiritual truths also requires a different form. We need only say a few words to recognize the effects. Those beings through whom the impulses arose at the time when the truth was given to people in ancient forms of presentation knew that an eternal core lives in man; they no longer have this effect on people. There must be another form that can prove suitable for the modern soul.

Modern theosophy wants to be such a different form. It does not want to oppose religious truths, but wants to be the instrument to recognize these truths in such a way that even the most modern soul can be convinced. Those who know something about such secrets have not come out of their reserve out of a desire for agitation or subjective arbitrariness, but because it was necessary for humanity. This is how a theosophical lecture must be understood. Those who speak out of a theosophical attitude never speak as agitators, never out of the attitude that they must influence people with ordinary powers of persuasion.

Today there are many world views, and their representatives go among people to teach a particular truth, believing that people must accept this truth under all circumstances. The theosophist does not want to be a dogmatic teacher; he wants to be a narrator of the facts of the spiritual worlds. An important Frenchman once coined the word “I do not teach, I narrate” in relation to the facts of the sensual world. It is absolutely essential that those who are already pointed to the facts by their convictions, who are already sufficiently pointed to them by their whole way of feeling, to what the communicator has to say, should approach theosophy.

Among people, there are those who can perhaps see into the spiritual worlds. There are very few of them. Secondly, there are those who recognize the logic of the spiritual worlds for scientific reasons. There are also only a few of them, since science today still has an enormous amount of prejudice. But there are many who come to Theosophy out of a certain sense of truth, out of the intuition of their soul. Many a scientist will still approach Theosophy with a certain smile; but he does not consider that the human soul is not designed for untruth, but for truth. When the human soul is not prejudiced, it finds the straight path, because it is designed for truth. Everyone must come to Theosophy voluntarily. Everyone in whom any one of the three reasons mentioned is effective comes to Theosophy.

Today we want to talk about the essence of man and thereby create a basis for answering the primal riddle of seeking humanity, for answering the question about the secret of death, which is connected with the question about the essence of life. In the theosophical view of the world, the human being is more complex and manifold than is usually thought today. First of all, we speak of the physical human body. For spiritual science, which seeks to penetrate the secrets of existence from a supersensible point of view, the physical human body is only one part of the human being. Let us realize how we have to think about this physical human body in terms of spiritual science. We can grasp it intellectually. We look out into our environment. We see everything that surrounds us, from the smallest stone on the earth to the shining star, to the shining sun; we see beings of the most diverse kinds that present themselves to our senses. We see what we call the mineral world, the world of substances and material forces. When we get to know this world of substances, which are spread out around us, which fill the universe, which shine towards us from the stars, then the same substances and forces are in the human physical body as are out there in the seemingly lifeless natural world. These substances compose the physical body; the same forces permeate it until the human body decays. Spiritual science, like any other science, holds that the human body is composed of the same substances and forces as the physical world. But spiritual science also holds that the substances and forces in man and in every living being have an arrangement that would not be physically and chemically possible in itself. Left to themselves, they would disintegrate. A rock crystal exists in that form according to physical and chemical laws, but this is not possible in the human body.

Spiritual science points to a second link in the human being, the etheric body or life body. What is this etheric or life body? It is a constant fighter against the disintegration of the physical body. This etheric or life body is in all of us. We can imagine it as a sponge permeated by water. In the same way, the physical body of every living being is permeated by the etheric or life body. This prevents the physical substances and forces from following their own laws. The moment of death occurs precisely because the etheric or life body leaves the physical body. But then the physical body is also a corpse. Thus, in every moment of life, the etheric body is a fighter that prevents the physical body from becoming a corpse.

Sometimes today's science says: There is an ideal for the researcher; this ideal is to create living things, in the laboratory, from the parts of inanimate substance. Today's science must cling to this ideal. And now many a person, who believes he has a firm footing in science, adds: As long as we do not succeed, you theosophers can talk about an etheric body, as long as we cannot produce living substance from inanimate protein substance. But when we do succeed, the theosophist will also recognize his error. It is quite understandable that today's science has to talk this way. Much could be said against this objection. But just one point will be raised here. One should not believe that spiritual science has ever taken a different view regarding the question of creating a living being from non-living substances. The theosophist merely says: Yes, the time will come when it will be possible for man to create living things from non-living substances. Nevertheless, the theosophist speaks of the etheric or life body. For him, the etheric or life body is a fact. Even though it is possible to create something alive out of something lifeless, the fact remains that the etheric or life body is there. It is the first spiritual link in the human being.

It is not an objection to the part of a spiritual being in a thing when we say that we understand the physical according to mechanical laws. We understand a clock according to purely mechanical laws. Is the watchmaker indispensable because of that? This objection is trivial. Many people believe that because people used to be at a more childlike stage, they believed that spiritual beings were behind the physical, directing the world. Today, however, it is no longer necessary because science tells us how things are connected. Scientific elucidation of a fact has nothing to do with understanding the spiritual background.

Secondly, if a person believes that the life body must be verifiable in a person as a piece of iron here or there, then that is a crude, materialistic idea. Imagine dry air in a room is interspersed with something watery. Even if we can extract the water, we cannot say that the water was not in the room. Whatever is active in our life body can be found everywhere. As a general world principle, it fills the universe. If we combine substances in a way that the thought of the combination proves to be a magnet for life, then we will also experience that the inanimate substance comes to life. Spiritual science knows this. But it tells us: the art of being able to do what today must still be left to the great secrets of nature, this art will not be handed down to mankind by good hands until the laboratory table has been transformed into an altar; until the action at the laboratory table has been transformed into a sacramental action. Man will, when he is once able to produce the combination, that through the combination of thoughts, life will also be attracted, interweave what lives in his soul; he will interweave his good or evil there. As long as humanity has not yet been purified, this secret must therefore remain hidden from humanity.

Thus we have already composed the human being out of two parts, the physical body and the etheric or life body, which it has in common with all plants and animals, with all living beings. But if we were to say that this is all that is enclosed in the human skin, then that would not be correct. There is much that is much closer to the human being than what is physically enclosed, such as bones, muscles, nerves and so on. There is something that is closer to every human being; it is the sum of joy and pain, of drives, desires and passions, everything that lives in the soul up to the highest ideal. Perhaps a materialistic way of thinking would say: All this is there, but it is a product of the physical body. If it were, then one would not need to speak of it as something independent, but spiritual science shows us that all this is not a product of the physical or etheric body, but rather indicates that what takes place in man in terms of drives and desires, feelings, passions and ideals is the result of a third link of the human being. Everything that appears incomprehensible in its complexity when we look at it in its simple elements becomes comprehensible.

If we ask ourselves whether anything is shown in man today where physical effects arise from spiritual causes, we find the following: when a person is frightened, he pales; the blood flows from the periphery to the heart. When he blushes with shame, the blood flows from the heart to the periphery, to the outer parts of the body. These are small physical effects of mental and spiritual processes.

Spiritual science shows us that not only this, but everything physical, arises from the soul and spiritual: they are soul experiences of the most comprehensive kind, which not only set the blood in circulation in a small way, but drive it around in the first place. Soul and spiritual processes underlie the whole world.

Thus we speak of a third link of the human being. This third link of the human being, which man has in common with animals, we call man's astral body. So we have the human being composed of three links: the physical body, the etheric body and the astral body.

Now there is something else in man that we must designate as the fourth link of the human being, according to which we must see man as the crown of earthly creation. This fourth link of the human being is unique to man; it is what makes him the crown of all beings around him. Anyone can call the table a “table” and the chair a “chair”; but there is only one thing that only each person can say about themselves. This cannot be handled in the same way as the names of other things; it is what is designated by the simple little word “I”. What the “I” is in a person cannot be designated by anyone else, but only by the person themselves. If the little word “I” is to be the designation of the innermost human being, then it must come from within the human being himself.

These powers, which find their expression in the little word “I”, we call the fourth aspect of the human being. All religions and world views that have known of so-called spiritual science have thus felt the importance of the I in man. That is why they called this name the “ineffable name of God”. This is where it is revealed in man that man is a spark, a drop of the divine substance.

If one were to reply: Then Theosophy makes man a god, one can only say: Just as a drop from the sea is not the whole sea, so what is divine in man is not the whole of the divine. Just as a drop is related to the sea, so is the ego in man related to the whole of the divine. Only the divine that lives in the innermost part of man can make itself known within man. Everything else, such as colors, sounds, warmth and cold, must come to man from outside. One must recognize the full significance of this resounding within man, of the human ego. Fichte once said: “People would much rather think of themselves as a piece of lava from the moon than as an ego. They see this essence of the ego who knows where, just not in themselves.”

These four elements, the physical, etheric and astral bodies and the ego, are present in the most uneducated “savage” who still eats his fellow human beings, as well as in the most developed cultural human being. On his travels, Darwin once met a “savage” who was about to eat his wife. Darwin had the interpreter make it clear to him that this was not good. To which he replied that he could not know that until he had tasted her. When he had eaten a piece of her, he gestured to make him understand that she was very good.

Then there is still another self that follows all the desires living in the astral body. The self is hanging there as if chained and is dragged along by the desires of the astral body. The average European says to himself with regard to certain instincts and drives: “You must not follow them.

Let us compare the average person with Schiller. He differs from the average person in that he has transformed some instincts and desires into higher qualities. The saint has nothing left of desires over which he has not gained mastery. In the astral body of an advanced person, we can distinguish two parts: one part that the ego has ennobled and one part that has not yet been transformed. The transformed part of the astral body we call the manas or the spiritual self, the fifth limb of the human being. Thus, on the basis of the four limbs of the human being, man is able to create a fifth in the course of his perfection. Yes, he is able to create a sixth. He can transform not only the astral body, but also the etheric or life body. Let us remember what it was like to be seven or eight years old, and what we have learned since then. Of course, everyone has learned an enormous amount. All of this has a transforming effect on the astral body, changing the astral body. But if we were a hot-tempered or melancholy child at seven or eight years old, let us examine whether this hot temper or melancholy has changed. Some of it will usually still emerge at a later age. Schopenhauer therefore says that the qualities do not change at all. But that is not the case. They just change slowly. When the astral body changes, as the minute hand on the clock advances, so do the temperament and character change, the habits, as the hour hand of the clock advances, because the ether body is the carrier of it.

There is something in ordinary life by which the human being can transform his etheric body. Such impulses are those of true art, which allows us to sense the divine in form, color and sound. This art has a transforming effect on that which is effective in the etheric body. Everything that is given in the religious impulses of humanity also has a transforming effect on this. For example, when religious impulses pass through the soul in daily prayer, they have an effect on the etheric or life body through repetition. We can observe that the etheric body represents the principle of repetition where it is still unclouded, out in the plant. Again and again it gathers its strength and unfolds leaf by leaf. When a person does this with something that captures their soul, allowing themselves to be drawn to it again and again, the impulses have the same effect on their etheric or life body as the etheric body of the plant that drives out leaf after leaf. We call the forces of the transformed life body Lebensgeist or Budhi.

When a person is accepted into the so-called secret school, through which he can work even more intensively on his inner being through significant impulses, he has an even stronger effect on the etheric or life body, so that he can experience awakening. For the etheric or life body, changing habits is more important than any learning. For the actual secret-scientific training, one has done infinitely much when one consciously gives up the slightest habit. Man can also learn to develop the strongest power of the spirit, through which he overcomes the lower power of the physical body. This process begins with a regulation of the breathing process. When he can regulate this process, he begins to transform the principle of the physical body. This transformed part of the principle of the physical body is called a spiritual man or Atman, because Atma means breathing. He thus forms the three limbs of the higher being; the fifth limb, Manas, is the transformed astral body, the sixth limb, Budhi, is the transformed etheric body; the seventh limb, Atman, is the transformed physical body. In the ordinary human being, the four limbs are fully present, the three higher limbs developed according to the degree of development. These seven members of the human being enclose the transitory in him, but they also enclose the eternal. The arrangement that has been mentioned is the one we have between birth and death. When the human being passes through the gate of death, this arrangement changes. When we look into the mystery of death, the riddle of life is also solved.

What must always be borne in mind here is the task that Theosophy has. It should not merely satisfy curiosity or a thirst for knowledge, but should lead people to the realization that what they gain through it becomes inner impulses for life itself. It should solve the great riddles of life for us. If we have an outlook on spiritual life, then strength and security for our whole life arise from this insight. Knowledge and insight are what should lead us on the way, but we should gain strength from knowledge and insight. A person who lacks knowledge of the supernatural worlds becomes unfit for work and uncertain about the future. But what should result from theosophy should be the source of strength for a healthy, hard-working, hopeful and purposeful life.