II. Esoteric Christianity

The first words of the Gospel of St. John touch, in fact, upon the deepest mysteries of the world. This can be seen when we allow the truths of Spiritual Science which lie at their very foundation to pass before our souls. And we must dip deeply into spiritual knowledge, if these first words of this Gospel are to appear to us in the right light. We must recall to memory much that is well known to those of you who for a long time have been occupying yourselves with the Anthroposophical world conception. But today we shall need to expand certain elementary truths of this conception by penetrating further into various significant cosmic mysteries. We need but briefly call to mind how the human being appears to us between the time of waking in the morning and the evening, when he again sinks into sleep. We know that he is composed of a physical body, an ether or life body, an astral body, and an ego. These four members of the human being, however, are in close relationship only during the waking state. It is quite necessary that we remember that during the night, while sleeping, the human creature is, in reality, entirely different from the same creature during the day, during waking day consciousness, for then his four members are assembled in a very different manner. When he sleeps, the physical and ether bodies lie in bed. The astral body and ego, in a certain sense, are loosened from their connections with the physical and ether bodies and are in fact outside of them—we must understand the word outside in a spiritual, not in a purely spatial sense. Therefore during the night the human being is a creature consisting of two parts, one that remains lying in bed and another part which separates from the physical and ether bodies. Now we must first of all clearly understand that if, during the night, from the moment of going to sleep to the moment of waking again in the morning, the physical and ether bodies lying in bed were completely abandoned by what fills them throughout the day—that is, the astral body and ego—they could not then exist at all by themselves.