The Rudolf Steiner Archive

8. Madness from the Perspective of the Science of the Spirit

[ 1 ] The humanities, in particular, must have something to say about so-called mental illnesses. To begin with, the term itself is poorly chosen. One should not speak of “mental illnesses.” Furthermore, it is precisely in this field that the greatest misconceptions are widespread among the general public, both in scholarly and non-scholarly circles and in their literature. The manifestations are mistaken for the condition itself. People speak of delusions of grandeur, delusions of persecution, and religious delusions. These terms all refer only to symptoms. No one can go mad because of a religious idea. For example, one might read the curious statement that Hölderlin fell ill due to the disharmony between modern and ancient worldviews. Had Hölderlin not been a poet, the same kind of madness would still have overtaken him; it would simply have expressed itself differently, through other ideas. If someone lives by religious ideas and then falls ill, his religious ideas will become distorted. If he has lived by materialistic ideas, those will become distorted. The causes of mental illness lie deep within human nature. Modern medicine has not brought to light anything positive in this area; it has only hypotheses, doubts, and conjectures. Admittedly, it is difficult—indeed, impossible—for the materialist to gain clarity on these questions. Much of what doctors no longer classify as mental illness actually falls into this category: for example, litigious insanity, as well as religious sectarians and fanatics. The latter live under an idea as if under a delusion and exert a great suggestive power over the weak, giving rise to contemporary maladies and epidemics of thought.

[ 2 ] How can something like madness actually take root in the human being? To answer this question, we must keep in mind the four lower aspects of the human being: the physical body, the vital body, the astral body, and the “I.” The ego works upon the three remaining members of the human being. Above all, it refines and purifies the astral body by compelling it not to blindly follow its instincts. But the ego also works into the vital body, specifically through the great impulses of life, namely through artistic impulses. Just as the work of the “I” gives rise to two parts within the astral body—a more purified and a less purified part—so too is the life body now divided into two parts. And gradually, the part that is being worked upon by the “I” grows ever larger. The “I” also acts upon the physical body, but unconsciously. It is only capable of doing so consciously in the case of a higher disciple among the initiates.

[ 3 ] Now, in order to answer our question, we must recall the process of reincarnation. When we sleep, something very similar happens to us as when we die. During sleep, the astral body and the “I” separate from the physical body. All instincts and sensations thus sink into an unconscious darkness. Only the physical body and the etheric body remain in bed. At death, the etheric or life body also separates from the physical body. In the hours that follow, while the human being’s essence rests in the etheric body, the entire life lived so far passes before the soul in grand images, until the etheric body, too, detaches itself from the soul and dissolves into the universal ether. But only the material aspect of the etheric body dissolves. The image of memory remains, like an essence, connected to the astral body and the “I” throughout all subsequent times. Initially, it passes into the Kamaloka state. Kamaloka, the place of desires, is the name we give to the state in which everything that still clings to earthly life is expelled from the astral body. Everything that has not yet been refined dissolves; the rest is carried forward into the future. To a very small extent, parts of the physical body are also carried over, but only in the case of highly refined individuals. Upon reincarnation, the person takes the unrefined parts back upon themselves in order to continue working on their purification. The more often a person appears on Earth, the stronger their character becomes; the more refined their conscience grows; and the greater and more numerous their talents and powers become. We need this Hermetic principle above all when explaining mental illnesses: As above, so below; as below, so above. A smiling face readily expresses a person’s cheerfulness to us. A tear reveals the soul’s inner sorrow. In this case, we will call cheerfulness and sorrow the “above,” and smiles and tears—which represent the material image of cheerfulness and sorrow—the “below.” A properly trained person views the entire world differently. To him, a flower is an expression of the sorrow or cheerfulness of the Earth Spirit. And this is no more merely a poetic thought to them than the soul is merely a poetic thought. The Earth Spirit, as the higher principle, underlies the Earth. All that is material is condensed spirit, just as ice is merely condensed water. Just as one can melt ice so that it becomes water, so too can one transform matter so that it becomes spirit. We distinguish the following physical parts in the human being, which correspond to his upper members: first, the purely physical, which is constructed according to purely physical laws—above all, the sense organs; second, everything related to digestion, growth, and reproduction. That which builds up crystals could also build up the human body, but it would then be a dead organism. The etheric body is the formative principle that builds the digestive organs and so on. Third, the nervous system (brain and spinal cord): its formative principle is the astral body; fourth, the blood. The “I” dwells within it, and is at the same time the architect of the blood system.

Blood Circulation: I
Nervous System: Astral Body
Reproduction: Etheric Body
Physical: Physical Body

[ 4 ] Everything physical is subject to the laws of physical heredity, including the reproductive organs, the nervous system, and blood circulation. The individuality must unite with this physical body. The “I,” with its refined astral and etheric bodies—and indeed even parts of the physical body—must be in harmony with what has been inherited; together, they must form a harmonious whole. Almost always, such harmony does indeed occur, for the physical adapts to the spiritual; it transforms itself. But what if such an adaptation is not possible—what if the astral body acquires a nervous system that it cannot readily use?

[ 5 ] We do not classify sensory illusions as mental illnesses. A book by the Viennese criminal anthropologist Moritz Benedikt has much of interest to offer us in this regard, even though it was not written from a humanities perspective. In it, Benedikt recounts his own experiences. He has a partial cataract in his left eye, so his vision is somewhat distorted. When he looks in a very specific direction in the dark, he sees ghosts of a very special kind. Once, he was so frightened by them that he reached for his gun. This can be explained as follows: A healthy person is not aware of the internal components of his eye. But anyone with irregularities in their eye becomes aware of them only when they first appear to them externally in a mirror image. Let us now extend this to the entire human being. We are not at all aware of our inner self, but only of what is conveyed to us from the outside. When harmony reigns between the upper and lower realms, one is not at all aware of inner processes. If, for example, a person has a sluggish brain that the astral body cannot utilize, this disturbance suffered by the astral body manifests outwardly just as the disturbance in the eye did. There, the astral body becomes aware of itself because it is disturbed; there it sees itself projected outward, and hopes, wishes, and desires confront it in the form of external images. Insanity, querulous insanity, and hysteria belong here—all those conditions in which a person cannot bring their feelings into harmony with the external world. But the etheric body, too, can suffer from internal abnormalities. It is the bearer of visual images. When the etheric body is unaware of itself, the images of the external world appear to it as they truly are. But when disturbances in the etheric body cause the images to be reflected outward, they become delusions and paranoia. When the physical body—which is meant to bring harmony with the physical environment—itself becomes diseased, when the physical body becomes conscious of itself, idiocy occurs. When the physical body is too heavy, so that the astral body cannot control it and cannot emerge from it, what is called dementia occurs. But if the physical organs are too mobile, so that they cannot clearly express mental activity, paralysis results. Yet there is an infinite variety of such cases here, which can have very different origins, particularly delusions. They can arise either from the projection of the astral body or from a disease of the astral body. Then the emotions become so intense that they lead to fits of rage. These are imprinted in the etheric body, giving rise to delusions. These delusions are like the scar left by a wound in the astral body. They are much more difficult to cure than the fits of rage themselves. Fixed pupils are sometimes a precursor to madness.

[ 6 ] Let us now recall that a human being is born more than once. First, physically. Then, at the time of teething, the etheric body is born, and at the time of sexual maturity, the astral body. It may happen, however, that the disharmony between the upper and lower bodies only becomes noticeable upon the birth of the astral body. Previously, the surrounding astral sheath had maintained harmony. After the astral birth, the astral body is left to its own devices, and the disharmony between it and the physical body then becomes apparent. This type of mental disorder manifests itself in such a way that the young person often gives the same answer to completely different questions; they also suffer from obsessive thoughts. These conditions are called “youthful folly.” However, this does not occur suddenly but develops gradually, beginning around the ages of eleven or twelve. Depressive states, fatigue, difficulty getting along with one’s surroundings, headaches, and digestive and sleep disorders are early warning signs. It is sad to consider that most parents still punish their children for such conditions, since they regard these states as bad behavior. “Youthful folly,” in particular, is the most difficult to cure. But the spirit as such cannot be ill; it is always healthy. It is disturbed only when the lower aspects are out of balance. If you look at yourself in a garden mirror, you see a distorted image of yourself. Yet no one would conclude from the distorted image that the true face must also be distorted. The same is true of mental illnesses. Distorted images of the spirit in the physical realm are the forms of insanity. That is why a cure is never possible through the path of logic or abstract concepts. Such attempts are completely worthless. Our physical organs, too, are condensed spirit, even if they are not our spirit itself. And farthest removed from the spirit condensed into the physical realm are shadowy, logical constructs; closest to it, however, are pictorial, imaginative conceptions permeated by passions. These can counteract the disease-causing power of other images. Counter-images must be provided through the power and authority of another personality. One cannot prove the illogical to the patient by rational explanation, but one can have an effect through vivid imagery. The power of personality must prove to the patient that, for example, what he believes he cannot do, he can in fact do. The patient must see this. In the field of so-called mental illnesses, conventional science will one day have to join forces with spiritual science. A thorough study is necessary in order to always have the right counter-imagery at the ready. These must not be “normal,” but must lean toward the other side.

[ 7 ] Spiritual science is not passive; it does not retreat into a world apart; it seeks to contribute in a practical way. Because spiritual forces underlie the world, we must come to know them if we wish to have an impact on the world. Our material world is an imprint of the spiritual world. We must come to know the spiritual world in order to understand the physical. Of course, Hellenbach says: “What do we care about all that spiritual rabble?” But we want to say: “Yes, we do care about the human rabble, and since human beings are connected to the spiritual world, we want to find the bridge between the two.”