6. The Human Aura

The human aura can be understood by observing the human being. As a physical body, the human being is composed of the same substances that are found in the mineral world. And the forces that are active in this world are also active in him. The oxygen that the human being acquires through the breathing process is the same as that found in the air, in the liquid and solid components of the earth. And so it is with the substances that man takes in with his food. These substances and their powers can be studied in man as they are studied in other natural bodies. If we look at man in this way, we recognize him as a member of the mineral world. Furthermore, we can look at man in so far as he is a living being. He shows how the substances and forces of the mineral world build up an organism that takes the form of limbs, that grows and reproduces, whose parts work together in common activity. This way of being has in common with everything that lives. The question arises for anyone who devotes himself to such contemplation: how does a being live? A certain school of modern natural science makes it easy to answer this question. It simply says that the action of mineral substances and forces in a living organism is exactly the same as in inorganic nature, only much more complicated. According to this school, an organism has been understood when the complicated physical and chemical processes that take place within it have been understood. This view denies that there are special causes that transform the mineral substances and forces in the organism into life processes. A lively struggle developed in the nineteenth century against the advocates of a special life force. Clear thinking should have prevented this struggle. For just as no one should dispute that one understands a clock once one has grasped the mechanism of its parts, so too a clear-thinking representative of the life force could not object to the claim that one understands the organism in this sense scientifically if one knows the effectiveness of its substances and forces. But can anyone deny that the clock, which is completely comprehensible in mechanical terms, could not come into being without the clockmaker? Anyone who can really distinguish between the comprehensibility of an organism as a physical fact and the conditions of its origin cannot be in any doubt that the above comprehensibility affects the existence of special causes of life just as little as the existence of the watchmaker is affected by the mechanical comprehensibility of the watch. And just as the mechanic who wants to make the clock understandable does not need to describe the clockmaker, so the purely physical researcher does not need to take into account the special causes of life. But for those who delve deeper into the essence of phenomena, it becomes clear that the entities that make the physical organism appear physically comprehensible are not sufficient for the realization of the physical organism. That is why the perceptive speak of special causes of life. Life is something that is added to the physical effect in the organism and that eludes the senses and the intellect, which only adheres to the sensory facts. Life is the object of a special perception, just as the watchmaker is the object of a special perception. One must observe the organism with the “eyes of the spirit”, then the special causes of life, which elude sensory observation, reveal themselves. Those who observe with the “eyes of the spirit” have therefore called the natural builder of organisms “prana” (power of life). For them, the “life force” cannot be disputed, because for them it is a perception. And everything that is said against these defenders of a life force is only a fight against windmills. It will only be said as long as one misunderstands what they mean. In their sense, prana or the life force should be attributed to man, insofar as he is an organism, as the second link of his being, next to the physical-mineral body.