Lecture I

Now let us look at the spiritual aspect of the human being. We find that here, too, both luciferic and ahrimanic influences are called upon. In life here on earth the being of man expresses itself in the first instance in the alternating states of waking and sleeping. In the waking state the spiritual part of our being is fully given over to the material world. The following must be said in this connection: In sleep, from the moment of going to sleep to the moment of waking up, we find ourselves in a spirit-soul existence. On going to sleep we depart with our spirit-soul existence from our physical and etheric bodies, and on waking up we enter with our spirit and soul once again into our physical and etheric bodies. In sleep, you could say, we bear our state of soul-spirit within us; but on waking up we keep back our soul state almost entirely in the form of our soul life. Only with our spirit do we plunge fully into our body. So in the waking state in the present phase of human evolution we become with our spirit entirely body, we plunge into our body, at least to a very high degree. From the existence of our sleeping state we fall into that of our waking state. We are carried over from one state to the other. This is brought about by forces which we have to count among the ahrimanic forces.