2. Human beings as Spiritual and Soul Beings

This is demonstrated once again by self-observation, which we can now discuss, now that I have already indicated what its essence consists of. You are all aware that the so-called ego reigns at the center of your soul life. But psychologists today are less clear about this. It is interesting to consider what, for example, such an excellent psychologist as Theodor Ziehen says about the I in his book Physiological Psychology. This book is a transcript of lectures, so everything is said in a lecture style. He says to his listeners: When you think about what the I actually is, what do you come up with? If you really think about it, the first thing that will come to mind is your body, then everything you have in relation to the outside world; then you will think of all your family and property relationships, you will think of your name and title—Theodor Ziehen left out medals—your dominant ideas and your main inclinations, you will think of your past. However, says Theodor Ziehen, reflective consciousness distinguishes, apart from everything that comes to mind, the ego as that which reigns within, as opposed to that which is outside, as that which moves and acts imaginatively from within. But that is a fiction of epistemology or speculative psychology. Physiological psychology has nothing to do with this. — Again, this is a passage that is intended to undermine the very foundations of spiritual science. But can anyone really afford, in ordinary consciousness, to think of their ego only in terms of what Theodor Ziehen thinks? Will they not feel the inner activity of a central being in their soul life? Will they really think only of their family and property relationships, their title and name, and so on? No, that cannot be the case! Human beings are aware that something is at work within them. But nevertheless, they actually get nowhere when they try to characterize the ego. In a limited sense, external scientific psychology is right today when it does not have much to say about this ego. How does this ego actually behave in ordinary consciousness? This is revealed by the self-observation that I characterized in principle earlier.