IV. The Art of Education Consists of Bringing Into Balance the Physical and Spiritual Nature of the Developing Human Being

Then there is yet something else which we shall have to consider. What is it that carries our ego on its descent from spirit worlds through birth into this physical world? It is the head which carries it. The head is, so to say, the carriage in which the ego journeys into the physical world. And when it has arrived ( hereingefahren ist) at this transition from the spiritual to the physical world, it completely changes its whole state of life. No matter how paradoxical this may appear to someone who looks at things only from outside, before we get ready to be born here on earth we are in constant movement in the spirit world: yes, there movement is our native element. Should we want to continue this movement we would never be able to enter into the physical world. We are safeguarded from continuing this movement through the head organisation which adjusts itself to the rest of the organism so that, in a manner of speaking, our head organisation becomes a carriage in which we ride into the physical world, but which comes to a halt when it has arrived and remains comfortably supported on the rest of the organism. And though the rest of the body walks, the head does not participate in this movement. Just as a man who travels in a carriage or a train is himself at rest, so the ego which was prenatally in constant movement, has come to rest once it has arrived in the physical world; it has ceased making the movements which it previously made. This points to something of extraordinary significance.