The Rudolf Steiner Archive

3. Understanding the Soul and the Spirit

[ 1 ] This entire series of lectures is devoted to the understanding of the spirit, and if today we are to speak specifically about the understanding of the spirit and the soul, it is because this allows us, in a certain way, to come to an understanding of the concept of the spirit itself by relating it to the concept of the soul. For those engaged in spiritual science, it is particularly disruptive in our time that, when considering the human being, the two concepts of spirit and soul are constantly conflated.

[ 2 ] You are all no doubt aware that we have what is known as psychology, or the science of the soul, which is taught in schools on a relatively large scale today. In college course catalogs, you will also find courses on psychology, which literally means the study or knowledge of the soul. It should be noted, however, that among all those who speak of this kind of psychology or science of the soul, there is no clear awareness that, when it comes to human beings, one must speak of the soul and the spirit. Everything associated with a person’s inner life—that is, if we may use these terms, a person’s thinking, feeling, and willing—is regarded under the concept of the soul. The soul is regarded as the very opposite of the physical and corporeal aspects of the human being, and it is said—if one is willing to entertain such a notion at all, that is, if one has not succumbed to a completely materialistic way of thinking—that the human being consists of body and soul.

[ 3 ] For now, we will consider only those views that take the position that the soul is a real entity. When it is said that human beings consist of body and soul, people are usually completely unaware that they are thereby falling prey to a dogma that developed relatively late in the course of Christian history. Even early Christianity, which still drew upon the wisdom traditions, distinguished—as did all wisdom traditions of various times and peoples—between body, soul, and spirit within the human being. It was only later council decrees that, so to speak, abolished the spirit, and it is only since the Council of Constantinople that one speaks solely of body and soul. Modern scholarship—that which deals with such matters at all, and thus does not think materialistically—believes it stands on the ground of completely free research and has no inkling that it has merely internalized this later Christian concept of the soul, which disregards the spirit, as a prejudice, as a preconceived notion. This is generally the case with many concepts that feature in our scholarship and are accepted as if they were truly the result of research, whereas they represent nothing more than a centuries-old prejudice.

[ 4 ] Now we will examine popular psychology itself in its various forms. However, the aim here is not to criticize it, but merely to characterize it. Psychology, we may well say, has suffered the most and most profoundly from the materialistic mindset and way of thinking. Gradually, not only has the concept of the spirit been lost to the external science of sensory phenomena, but psychology has even lost the concept of the soul—that is, its very subject matter. It is an interesting development that spiritual life has undergone in this regard. A bold researcher and thinker, who achieved extraordinary things in many fields, had the courage to articulate what for others is, so to speak, merely a fundamental attitude and sentiment within modern psychology. This bold thinker was Friedrich Albert Lange. You can all obtain his *History of Materialism* today in Reclam’s Universal Library. This is an excellent book because anyone who studies it thoroughly—if they think at all—must come to the conviction—as I explained in my last lecture—that materialism as a worldview can be compared to a man who pulls himself up by his own hair through his own strength. This Friedrich Albert Lange made a statement regarding the study of the soul that can be summed up in three words: “Psychology without a soul.” That is from Friedrich Albert Lange. Other researchers have not dared to voice this conclusion; yet they act and conduct research in psychology as if the concept of the soul were none of their concern. Even today, you will find all sorts of concepts regarding the soul in the most famous works of academic psychology. But if you truly wish to learn and understand something about the soul, you will seek advice there in vain, for this psychology has—and this is not meant as a criticism, but merely as a characterization—completely lost the concept of the soul, even if this is not always explicitly stated. Whether you turn to Wundt or others for guidance on the questions that interest people regarding the life of the soul, you will find no answers anywhere. You will find all sorts of questions answered regarding the way people perceive objects in their environment. You will also find all sorts of speculations about the relationship between perception and consciousness. For example, one might ask: How long does it take for a person, after receiving a stimulus, to bring it into consciousness? You will find questions addressed there concerning attention, questions about how people make judgments, how they compare things with one another, how they remember, and so on. But who could deny that the unbiased, perceiving soul—taken here in the ordinary sense—when it inquires into its own nature, has one thing above all else in mind: What is the nature of this soul of mine? Does it share the fate of the physical body, to decay and cease to exist when death occurs? Does it merely participate in the life of the sensory environment, or does it participate in a far higher, supersensory life that is not limited to the physical world? You will search in vain for these questions—which are questions of life itself for human beings—even as questions in today’s psychological theories. Everything in human life points to them; but when the true nature of the soul is considered, it is said that this goes beyond the limits of human knowledge.

[ 5 ] If you have a little patience and take a look at this kind of psychology, you will realize that the very same methods and research approaches that are applied today to the physical world—to the life around us—and which we have come to call “scientific methods,” are also applied to the study of the soul. Indeed, when these methods are applied, nothing else can result but what we encounter in this psychological literature. More than in any other field, the question in the study of the soul is who is conducting this research. Where materialistic thinking prevails, people have become increasingly convinced that the results of such research can only be of a nature that confronts everyone from the outside. Who today still fully and thoroughly understands the meaning of Goethe’s beautiful words:

If the eye were not like the sun,
How could we see the light?
If God’s own power did not dwell within us,
How could the divine delight us?

[ 6 ] Nothing in the external world comes to meet us unless we are connected to the thing, being, or force in question in the external world, unless we carry within ourselves something related to it. Thus, only those who seek outside themselves something they have experienced within themselves can explore the soul. Not everyone—and this must be emphasized particularly with regard to the study of the soul—can be a psychologist; for a person perceives only as much of the mysteries of other souls as has become a reality within himself.

[ 7 ] As we said right at the beginning, spiritual science deals with the spirit as such. And all of these lectures are devoted to the study of the spirit. Whatever the specific titles may be, the spirit is to be sought in all of them. As is already evident from the lecture given here fourteen days ago, the science of the spirit will have to show that behind everything we encounter, the spirit lives and works.

[ 8 ] What is matter to spiritual science? Merely another form of spirit! When spiritual science speaks of matter, substance, and the body, it speaks of them in the same way that it speaks of ice in relation to water. Ice is water in another form. Now, someone might come along and say: Then spiritual science denies matter and physicality when it asserts that everything is spirit—and thus, for spiritual science, there is no matter. Spiritual science by no means takes this peculiar position. Let us stick with our comparison of ice and water. What matters for life are not empty words, not empty definitions, but effects that you encounter in life. Even if one says that ice is water in another form—and one is entirely correct in doing so—the effects of water are still different from those of ice, as anyone can observe by placing a piece of ice on their hand instead of pouring water on it. Anyone who were to deny that ice is water in another form would thoroughly embarrass themselves. Similarly, it would never occur to spiritual science to deny matter. It exists; it is simply spirit in another form. And in what form? In the form that it can be observed and perceived from the outside through the senses. That is the essential nature of matter. Today’s lecture thus follows on from the one eight days ago, in which we were able to show how every materialistic view crumbles into nothing in the face of the progress of natural science, and how the fanciful concept of matter dissolves into mist and fog as a result of new research. What was still a certain concept thirty years ago—such as ether and matter—is now shattering in the face of further research. And what remains to us of what approaches us from the external world? That which we see and hear—sound, color, warmth, and so on—that which we perceive. As best we can, we should strive to embrace the view that behind warmth, behind sound, behind light, there is nothing of that terribly brutal swirling of atoms that, during the long era of materialism, was considered the only reality. In this sense, what is real is what we see, what we hear, and what we perceive as warmth. And when we look beyond color, beyond sound, beyond warmth as we perceive it, what do we find behind them? If we take sound, for example, as long as it remains within the sensory world, we find moving air. But we must not venture beyond the sensory world with our speculations. We must remain within the sensory world. A powerful statement was made by someone who is not taken seriously by scholars—a man who was not only a poet but also a thinker—the great statement: “Let us seek nothing behind the phenomena; they themselves are the teaching.”

[ 9 ] When we look beyond sound, beyond light, we do not find material atoms that penetrate our retinas, permeate them, and, through this permeation, produce the perception of color and light. If we truly look beyond that, what do we find there? — Spirit! Color relates to spirit as ice relates to water. Sound relates to spirit as ice relates to water. Instead of that fantastical world of swirling atoms, the true thinker and researcher of the spirit finds, behind what he sees and hears, spirit—spiritual reality—so that the question of the nature of matter loses all meaning. For how does the researcher of the spirit answer the question of the nature of matter? What is, in essence, that which surrounds us out there in the world and appears to us as matter? It is spirit! And we know spirit! We must seek its essence within ourselves. What we ourselves are in our innermost being—that is what all things out there in the world are, only in a different form. They exist in such a form that one can view them from the outside when spirit gives itself a surface. Let me utter a word that every natural scientist will regard as madness: When the spirit goes outward, it appears as color, as sound. Color and sound are nothing other than pure spirit—exactly the same as what we find within ourselves when we truly understand ourselves. Thus, in spiritual science, every mineral is spirit. The lowest member of the human being—what we call the physical body—is, in its true essence, nothing other than spirit in the very form in which it is also present in seemingly lifeless nature.

[ 10 ] How, then, does what we call the human spirit differ from the spirit that confronts us in the external world as minerals and plants, as mountains, as thunder and lightning, as trees and bodies of water, and so on? How does the spirit—which we refer to as “spirit” in the narrower sense—differ from all of these? It is distinguished by the fact that this spirit, in the narrower sense, reveals itself as spirit in its very own form—the form that belongs to it as spirit. What is commonly called nature is indeed spirit, but it is spirit that turns its outer aspect toward the senses; and what is called spirit in the narrower sense is, in essence, exactly the same. Nature, in terms of form, is that which, in its very own form, turns toward the innermost core of our being. If we seek the spirit out there in nature, we find it lifeless in minerals, animated in plants, and sentient in animals. Human beings unite within themselves this threefold form of the spirit in the three members of their being, as we know them from the standpoint of spiritual science. Only by considering this complex nature of the human being—and not being content with the abstract distinction between body and soul—but rather by asking, “How is the human being constituted?”—can one arrive at a true understanding of the human being.

[ 11 ] In spiritual science, we first distinguish the human physical body—that which the human being has in common with all of so-called inanimate nature in terms of substances and forces. The human physical body contains the same substances and forces that we find out there in the mineral world. But beyond that, the human being has another component, which we call the etheric or life body. When we speak of ether, this has nothing to do with the fanciful ether that has long played a role in science and is likely to be completely discarded in the near future. With regard to the etheric body, we are not yet ready to engage with the methods of higher perception. However, we understand the etheric body best when we approach the matter this way: Let us take a plant, an animal, or human beings themselves. The physical body consists of the same substances and the same forces, but in an infinitely complex mixture and variety, so that these substances cannot, by themselves, form the physical body. No plant body can, through its physical forces alone, be what it is; neither can an animal body nor a human body. There is a complexity and diversity in the mixture and combination of substances that would cause the body to disintegrate if it were left to its own physical and chemical forces. At every moment of life, the so-called etheric or life body works against the disintegration of the physical body. A constant struggle takes place within them. And at the moment of death, when the etheric or life body separates from the physical body, the substances and forces of the physical body follow their own laws. That is why we say in spiritual science: the physical body is, physically and chemically, an impossible mixture; it cannot sustain itself. What fights against the decay of the physical body at every moment is the etheric body. — The third member of the human being is what we have often called the bearer of pleasure and pain, of joy and sorrow, of instincts and passions. When life begins to become inner, then in spiritual science we begin to speak of what is called the astral body. This is the third member of the human being and the third member of the animal being.

[ 12 ] Today, our understanding of what constitutes an individual being is so vague that certain researchers can no longer distinguish between an animal and a plant. Of course, there are transitional forms; but they are not of interest to us here. In popular works—which are otherwise very commendable—you may read that a plant exhibits the same manifestations as an animal or a human being, and people therefore speak of a “plant soul” in the ordinary sense. The animal soul and the human soul are confused with what are, in the plant, simply expressions of life. When do we speak of an animal or human soul, or of an astral body? When inner life and inner experience are added to the outer appearance. It is the inner aspect that matters. If you see a plant, touch it, and the plant closes its leaves, a stimulus has been applied to the plant, and it is showing you a certain response to that stimulus. To call this response an expression of the soul is the most incredible amateurism. One cannot speak of a soul or an astral body merely because some kind of reaction takes place; otherwise, you would also have to attribute a soul to litmus paper when it turns red in acid. What matters is not some external reaction, but whether something happens within such a being. If you bump into a being and it exhibits a change in form or some other external reaction, you may call that a manifestation of life; but to speak of sensation or a soul in this context is to turn all concepts upside down. One can speak of a soul or an astral body only when, in addition to what is happening externally, a new event—a new reality—occurs internally; when, in response to a jolt or pressure, pain or some other stimulus is accompanied by something experienced as joy. What makes a being a spiritual being is not the expressions it manifests outwardly, but the processes it experiences within itself. Only where sensation begins, where life is inwardly transformed into pleasure and suffering, where some external object does not merely exert an attraction on a being, but where an inner experience arises within the being in response to the external object—only then can we speak of a soul or an astral body. When a plant winds itself spirally around a rod or stick, these are effects that are responses to stimuli: manifestations of life. Even if it happens with some plants that when you bring a finger near them, they follow the finger rather than the rod, you are not dealing with an inner process. Such a process can only be said to exist when an impulse stirs within the being, causing it to follow the stimulus through this influence. Anyone who fails to make this strict distinction is incapable of rising to the concept of the soul or the astral body. Human beings share these with animals, but not with plants.

[ 13 ] Then, as has often been mentioned, we have a fourth element through which human beings experience something within themselves that makes them the crown of earthly creation—that which we call the “I.” Recognizing the essence of this “I” is of extraordinary importance for all knowledge.

[ 14 ] In earlier lectures, I have pointed out that within the entire scope of our language, there is only a single word, a single name, that differs from all other names. You can designate every other object by its name—the clock, the table, the notebook. But you cannot designate that which is the “I” by its name. Try saying “I” to another being! You can only say “I” to yourself. Every being is a “you” to another, and for every being, the other is a “you.” If the name of the “I” is to be spoken, then this name must resound from the very core of the being. Religions founded on spiritual science have also sensed this, and therefore rightly said: Here the Deity utters a first sound, a first word in the human soul in its very essence, and thus the expression for this “I” has appeared to them as something sacred. Because no one else can utter it—because only the soul can utter it—they have therefore called it the “inexpressible name of God.” What Hebrew religious doctrine later designated with the term Yahweh is nothing other than the expression of the “I” that designates itself within itself. This is the fourth member of the human being.

[ 15 ] And now, when we consider this fourfold being—physical body, etheric body, astral body, and I—we must say: With these four members, which no other being on Earth possesses except for the human being, everyone—from the uneducated savage to the most highly developed spiritual being—stands before us. But how do individual human beings on Earth differ from one another, if they all have these four members? It is because one has worked more, and another less, on his three members from the perspective of his I. Let us compare the still entirely savage human being, who follows every impulse, every desire, every passion, with a highly spiritual moralist who holds to pure, sacred moral principles and follows them—one who allows only those of his impulses and passions to prevail to which the spirit is able to say “yes.” How do the two differ? In that the highly spiritual person has worked on his astral body from the perspective of his “I.” The uneducated savage has done little work on his astral body; he still possesses it almost exactly as he received it from nature, from the divine powers. The highly spiritual moralist and idealist has transformed, purified, and cleansed it.

[ 16 ] An astral body consists of two parts: one part that a person possesses without any effort on their part, and the other that they have shaped through their own work—which is the work of their “I.” People who have reached such a high level—such as Francis of Assisi, for example—regardless of what you may otherwise think of him—have brought almost their entire astral body under the control of the “I,” so that nothing happens in their astral body that is not governed by the “I.” How does such a person differ from a primitive? In the primitive person, everything happens through what has nothing to do with the “I”; in the highly spiritual person, everything happens through what he has made of his astral body. To the extent that the astral body has been transformed by the “I,” to that extent the spiritual self, or Manas, is present in the human being.

[ 17 ] Here we have the five aspects of the human being: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, the “I,” and the spiritual self. And then, as human beings, we have the ability not only to transform, purify, and refine our astral body—not merely the sum of our desires, drives, and instincts—but we also possess the greater capacity to transform our etheric body. In everyday life, people working on their spiritual development gradually refine their astral body through the ordinary impulses of life, moral concepts, and intellectual ideas. Everything we learn reshapes the astral body. If we want to grasp the contrast between the transformation of the astral body and the transformation of the etheric body by the “I,” we must recall what we were like as eight-year-old children. Back then, there were many things we did not know that we know today. We have learned a great deal. Through the impressions we absorbed in this way, the astral body has been transformed; it has incorporated the spiritual self, or Manas. But everything that constituted our temperament, our inclinations, and so on when we were eight-year-old children has not been transformed in the same way. If, at the age of eight, you were a quick-tempered, stubborn child, then you are probably still quick-tempered or stubborn at times today. The transformation of temperament and inclinations proceeds much more slowly. One can compare the progression of the astral body to the movement of the minute hand and the progress of the etheric body to the advance of the hour hand. However, inclinations change only when the etheric body transforms, and this requires stronger impulses than those needed for the transformation of the astral body. A person who is engaged in spiritual science possesses such strong impulses, and can experience them even when exposed to the impression of a work of art in which one perceives the infinite meaning—such as in Wagner’s *Parsifal* or Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. These impulses do not merely affect the astral body; they are so powerful that they purify, cleanse, and transform the human etheric body. The same is true when a person stands before a painting by Raphael or Michelangelo and is penetrated by an impulse of the eternal through the colors. Yet the strongest impulses are, after all, the religious impulses of humanity. What has passed through the ages as religious impulses has transformed human beings so profoundly that it has taken hold of their etheric body, so that human beings also carry within themselves, with regard to their etheric body, two parts: the untransformed part, as received from nature, and the transformed part. The transformed part is called the life spirit or Buddhi.

[ 18 ] When what we learn from a lecture on initiation comes to bear on a person, what transforms the etheric body becomes even more evident. Initiation consists in giving the human being the means to transform the etheric body more and more. Therefore, even for the one called a secret student, all intellectual learning—everything he can absorb through formal education—is merely preparation. For those who undergo training in the spiritual sciences, the only thing more important than any intellectual acquisition is consciously transforming a single inclination into another—even if it is merely a hand gesture. Transforming such an inclination may, under certain circumstances, be of greater value than any amount of acquired theoretical knowledge. Essentially, initiation consists of impulses that purify and refine the human etheric body. These impulses then continue in those that rise to purify and refine the physical body, and this is the highest attainment a human being can achieve in his or her present life.

[ 19 ] Now, one might say, the physical body is, after all, the lowest; so if a person acts upon the physical body, is that something special? — Oh yes! Precisely because the physical body is the lowest link, the strongest forces must be applied to transform it into its original form—the form of pure spirit. The purification of this physical body begins with specific methods for regulating the breathing process. That is why the part that is thus transformed is called the Atma, or the true spiritual human being; Atma simply means “breathing.” Then, once the body has been transformed—though it remains outwardly as it was before—the human spiritual-scientific training proceeds at the highest level. Through this, the human being not only attains the ability to live consciously within their physical body—to know, so to speak, every blood cell, every nerve impulse—but also comes to act out into the great natural world, transforming from a human being who was, so to speak, previously confined within their own skin into one capable of influencing the forces of the universe and the cosmos. Thus, the human being transitions into that state through which he becomes one with the cosmos. All other talk of becoming one with the cosmos that does not occur through the path of true training and development is mere chatter and empty rhetoric.

[ 20 ] Human beings become one with the cosmos by first transforming their astral body, then their etheric body, and finally their physical body. In this way, they become one with the entire cosmos, just as the little finger is one with the physical body to which it belongs. This is a completely natural and regular course of human development that many people have undergone, that we are all already undergoing to a certain degree, and that everyone will undergo in the future.

[ 21 ] What is actually happening here? Let’s try to visualize it: What is the astral body? It is nothing other than the sum of desires, drives, and passions—of pleasure and suffering, joy and pain. Everything that interacts within the human being is an expression of the spirit, spirit in some form; for everything is spirit. How, then, is it possible for the “I” to work on the astral body? It is possible because the spirit reveals itself to the “I” in its very own form. The Spirit is hidden within the passions, drives, and desires; there it appears in its manifestations. It flows into the “I” in its very own form, and the “I” allows it to flow back out into the astral body, so that the “I” mediates between the very own form of the Spiritual and that of its manifestation. The same is true of the etheric body and, ultimately, of the physical body as well; and thus a continuous process of spiritualization takes place during the transformation of the three human bodies, or members, of the human being. Just as it is true that everything we encounter in the mineral world is spirit—but spirit in its outward manifestation—so it is true that what we encounter in the human being is on the path to spiritualization through what the “I” itself pours into the lower being. But only when the “I” stands between this outward expression—the material aspects of the human being, namely the physical body, etheric body, and astral body—and the members of the spirit that shine into the three bodies—the spiritual self or Manas, the life spirit or Buddhi, and the spiritual man or Atma—is this transition of the spirit into the three bodies possible. The “I” must stand in between. Then the higher can work upon the lower.

[ 22 ] And the essence of this “I”—how have we come to know it? We have come to know it already in its name. The name—this “I”—can never reach our ears from the outside if it signifies ourselves. This says more than all the phrases found in conventional psychology. If one were to truly grasp what the “I” is—by recognizing that this name can never approach us from the outside—then one would have achieved more than all of academic psychology. The philosopher Fichte already said this: The most beautiful thing is a human being as an “I.” Most people, however, would rather consider themselves a piece of lava on the moon than an “I,” for which they need their own inner strength to look at it, to perceive it.

[ 23 ] In the lecture on the animal soul, we will see that the animal also has a “I,” but not in the physical world. What distinguishes humans from animals is that they possess the “I” in the physical world. The “I” is that which allows the spirit to flow from within into what is another form of the spirit—into the various forms of matter, and even into the soul itself, which we call the astral body. We can therefore describe the essence of the “I” as nothing less than internalization. This internalization is merely prepared in the animal. Since we will be speaking further about the animal soul, let us merely hint at this today. One must not forget, then, that the animal, too, has an “I”—not the individual animal, but an entire animal species. All lions together, all tigers together, have an “I,” and this “I” exists in the supersensible world. It is as if invisible strands or threads were extending upward from an animal belonging to a genus into the higher world, connecting to the collective group or genus soul. And such a genus soul has become the human individual soul. What an entire group of animals possesses, every single human being possesses as well. Therefore, in animals, the internalization leading to the soul is only just beginning to take shape. We see this when we study the so-called soul of the animal—the astral body. The actual internalization of this soul—the first infusion of the spirit—is possible in our world, where the “I” itself is present as an individual soul. The soul, which possesses the “I” within itself, is thereby able to allow the spirit to flow into matter. Thus we see how spirit and body—or spirit and matter—are two entities, if we may put it that way; yet one of these entities is, in essence, the same as the other, merely in a different form. Matter and the body are spirit in another form. In the world, they differ from one another only as much as ice and water do. They are different, even though they are the same. And right in the middle stands the soul. It is the link between spirit and body.

[ 24 ] We can only understand the human being if we conceive of them in this threefold composition, consisting of the body—or, more precisely, the threefold body—comprising the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body; consisting of the spirit in the making: Manas, Buddhi, Atma, or the spiritual self, the life spirit, and the spiritual human being—and the soul as the entity that transforms one into the other, participating in both the body and the spirit. Only then can we understand the soul in its proper light, when we see it working on the body from the spirit in this way. When we study it from this perspective, spiritual science answers precisely those questions that human beings must pose regarding the true nature of the soul. We see how, in every moment of a person’s life, the soul is situated between the body and the spirit. In the case of a primitive human, for example, the soul will be able to draw only a tiny drop of spirit into the body. He is still entirely under the influence of external forces—hunger and thirst, what the etheric or life body imposes upon him as the manifestation of life, and the influence of instincts and desires that extend down to the animal level. The soul of the highly developed idealist—such as Schiller or Saint Francis of Assisi—leans toward the spirit, attains a higher consciousness, and frees itself from material existence. Spiritual science shows us that transformation takes place in forms. This is what we call “matter.” We will encounter this frequently in the winter lectures; we will often be able to elaborate on it before you, and no one should expect to grasp the conceptual framework of spiritual science in a single lecture.

[ 25 ] When we view the world around us from this spiritual-scientific perspective, it appears to be in a state of constant transformation, just as nature itself appears to us externally to be in a state of constant transformation. We see the flower spring forth from the seed in the spring. In the fall, we see it wither away again, but its essence is preserved in the seed, only to spring forth anew. In the same way, spiritual science will show us how the body is actually built up by the spirit, and how the essence of this spirit, when the body decays, is preserved as a spiritual seed that appears again and again.

[ 26 ] We can transform ice into water and water into ice. In the same way, the spirit transforms into the body. The body decays, but the spirit within it remains and appears in ever-changing forms. This leads us to the law we call the law of change in human life. Human beings live here in the physical, etheric, and astral bodies. But they have another life as well—one that existed before this life and will exist after this life. There, just as they live here in these three bodies, they live in the spiritual world. And from there they draw the forces that build up their bodies, giving them the form they possess, even though life in the spirit is different. This is what becomes clear to us when we understand spiritual science in the right way. It reveals how the human being leads an alternating life between birth and death: life in the physical body, and the life between death and a new birth, until he proceeds to a new incarnation—life in the spiritual realm. And that which lives here in the physical body and there in the spiritual realm, and alternates between life in the physical body and life in the spiritual realm, is the soul. But each time the soul has undergone an incarnation, the human being has worked on their physical body and returns to the spirit realm as a soul enriched with the fruits of earthly life. The soul continues to develop, ever higher. Thus, it is also the mediator between spirit and body. And so we are led to the boundary that, upon proper contemplation of spirit, soul, and body, reveals to us the relationship between the three. We learn to recognize everything that decays and disintegrates as a transformation of that which constitutes the innermost essence of the soul, just as we recognize all that is temporal as a form of the eternal. Such a spiritual science leads to a science that truly answers the questions about the temporal and the eternal and about the fate of the human being after death—the questions that the human heart itself asks when it seeks to know something of such a science. A science that sets limits for itself fails to see what is most important. That is why our school psychology is so limited. In a certain sense, it is important to learn what it has to offer. Spiritual science does not spurn it, but it finds it insufficient as long as the nature of the spirit and the soul is not addressed. This is the true path to understanding the spirit and the soul: By undergoing a temporal life, the soul is bound to its bodies—if we may put it that way—it is entangled in these bodies, and that which draws it toward these bodies is the very part that stands as an obstacle to a pure, purified life in the spirit between death and a new birth. There we gradually come to understand where the soul’s obstacles to rebirth lie. We also come to understand that after death, the soul must first free itself completely—not only from the body—for death already accomplishes that—but also from its attachment to the body. Through a correct understanding of spirit, soul, and body, we also come to understand the destiny of the soul on its physical and spiritual journey through life.

[ 27 ] Today I have attempted to show you—without regard to what is gained through the methods of clairvoyance and initiation, which we will discuss in the coming lectures—but simply by applying ordinary human intellectual wisdom, how one can arrive in this way at pure, correct concepts of the soul and the spirit. We must bear this in mind: What we will encounter in the course of this winter will be the results of spiritual research. They can only be discovered through the methods described in the lectures on initiation and so on. However, they can be grasped and understood through ordinary logic and thorough thinking. Anyone who uses the excuse, “What does spiritual science have to do with me, since I am not a clairvoyant?”—such a person turns away from spiritual science not because of a lack of clairvoyance, but because they do not apply their thinking to it thoroughly and comprehensively enough. Spiritual science, in particular, has suffered greatly in our age of materialism—which some consider to be a thing of the past, and which has indeed been discarded in philosophy, yet flourishes precisely in the mindset of psychology. Today, the concepts of soul and spirit have suffered the most from this materialism. Spiritual science will have to make it its mission to restore pure and purified concepts of soul and spirit to humanity. In doing so, it will be the best servant of the lofty religious traditions, which distinguish between the human spirit and the all-encompassing world spirit—which these traditions call the Holy Spirit. We can understand these writings only when we grasp them deeply enough and view everything through grand and powerful, all-encompassing images that are expressions of true facts, as a means to understanding. Through spiritual science, we also understand much of what humanity will come to know in the future—and what it could only have sensed in earlier times through its greatest minds. Many wondrous feelings pass through the human soul as it attunes itself to the spiritual workings. Those who say of spiritual science: “You give us something for the spirit, but nothing for the soul; ‘I seek the soul, and you give me spiritual achievements’—they do not realize that what they reject is precisely what gives the soul what it desires. They thirst for the soul’s impulses of will. But the soul can only be happy and blissful when it allows the spirit to flow into it and shapes the bodies from within.

[ 28 ] What we encounter from the outside is spirit given form, and what calls matter into form flows down from the spiritual world. What the eye perceives as color in a form is, so to speak, condensed spirit, and the force that shoots into matter and brings about the form originates from the Eternal. Thus, to a mind that does not clarify this for itself through spiritual science but nevertheless feels and senses it, what lives around them may appear in such a way that they say to themselves: Everything that is here seems to me to have been shaped from within the spiritual world. Form appears to me as the sacred, which has shot like a flash of lightning into mere matter, and when I behold the form itself, it seems to sink into the matter and then withdraw from it again. The poet of spiritual science sensed this when he established the contrast between the body, the human soul, and the spirit, all of which are formative within the body. Schiller had an intuition, a sense of how the soul, in reality, allows the spirit to flow into matter, causing matter to vanish from view. As he reflected on this, he gave expression to that sensation in these beautiful words:

Only the body is subject to those powers,
That weave the dark fate.
But far from any power of time,
The companion of blissful natures
Wanders above in the fields of light,
Divine among gods, that form.