Chapter II: The Nature of Humanity

Even for those accustomed to materialistic notions, this organization of the human being according to the number seven would not have the vaguely magical and superstitious quality often attributed to it, if they could simply follow the given explanations, and not themselves bring in the ‘magical’ significance which they presume. We speak of the seven colors of the rainbow, or of the seven notes of the scale (treating the octave as a repetition of the keynote.) In no other sense—only from the standpoint of a higher kind of observation—do we refer to the seven members of man's being. As light appears in seven colors and the musical scale in seven notes, so does human nature—for all its singleness and unity—appear in the seven members here described. In sound and color the number seven does not imply any kind of superstition; nor does it in the constitution of the human being. (On one occasion when this was mentioned in a lecture, it was objected that the number seven does not apply to color, since there are other ‘colors’ beyond the red and violet, only the human eye cannot perceive them. But even taking this into account, the comparison is still valid; for the human being too reaches beyond the physical body on the one hand and beyond Spirit-Man on the other. Only these extensions of man's being are ‘spiritually invisible’ to the available methods of spiritual observation, just as the colors beyond red and violet are invisible to the physical eye. This remark was necessary because it is too easily concluded that supersensible vision and the ideas to which it leads are scientifically inexact. If one really enters into what is here intended, it will in no case be found inconsistent with genuine Science. There is no contradiction—neither when scientific facts are cited by way of illustration, nor when a direct relation to the discoveries of natural Science is pointed out.)