2. The Effect Of The Soul Upon Physical Man

When as a being of soul-and-spirit man descends from his pre-earthly existence into the Earth sphere he traverses the path I described in the course of lectures entitled Cosmology, Religion and Philosophy. As a being of soul-and-spirit he unites with the physical embryo provided for him in the direct line of heredity by father and mother. These two components, the physical embryo and the spiritual, interpenetrate and unite, and in that way man enters into existence on Earth. But in the line of heredity, in the inherited characteristics transmitted by ancestors to their descendants, there lie points of attack for the Ahrimanic beings. The Ahrimanic forces lie in the forces of heredity. And if a man has within him many of these inherited impulses, he will have a bodily make-up to which the Ego cannot satisfactorily gain access. Indeed the secret of many human beings is that they have within them too many inherited impulses. This is what is meant today by saying that a man is ‘burdened by heredity’. The consequence is that the Ego cannot penetrate fully into his body nor adequately fill the bodily organs. The body then develops an activity of its own, independently of the impulse of the Ego which should properly be working in the body. Thus by their efforts to lay as much as possible into heredity the Ahrimanic powers succeed in ensuring that the Ego is only very loosely connected with the human being. That is the one aspect.