The Rudolf Steiner Archive

28. The Origin and Nature of Man

[ 1 ] Whether a person’s life is fulfilling or unfulfilling depends on the degree to which they understand their own nature. When people in the Middle Ages looked up at the starry sky—filled with admiration for its grandeur and beauty—they found comfort and hope, for they felt themselves to be a part of the universe, a part of the spirit that permeates the world. They recognized their origin and their destination, which would lead them back into the bosom of the Divine.

[ 2 ] People today feel so small, so tiny in the face of the vast structure of the universe and the infinity of space that they believe they must vanish like a speck of dust. Certainly, human beings are minuscule compared to the universe, and yet there is one thing greater than all created things: the soul, the spirit within human beings. The highest divinity, to which their journey leads them back, lives within them. This insight, this belief, was never taken away from the people of the Middle Ages.

[ 3 ] This has now changed significantly in our time. Popular writings never tire of emphasizing the smallness of human beings. Just as the Earth appears in space to be no more than a grain of sand, so too is the human being on Earth merely a grain of sand that will pass away. Thus, the present age emphasizes the smallness of human beings, while the Middle Ages emphasized their greatness. It is therefore difficult for people today to find their bearings between these perspectives on the smallness and the greatness of humankind. Schiller, who had a more theosophical way of thinking than most people realize, says:

You astronomers, do not prattle on about nebulae and
suns; the Sublime One does not dwell in space.

[ 4 ] Theosophy sheds new light on this confusion; it opens up depths that provide new insights into the nature of the human being. The theosophical worldview is by no means reactionary; it fully acknowledges that the materialistic worldview was necessary, for it led to an understanding of the external world. However, the consequence of this was that deeper knowledge of the human being was neglected. The materialistic worldview has taken over the globe. Now it is time to gain a deeper understanding of the soul and the spirit, and the teachings of Theosophy can provide us with this.

[ 5 ] How can the nature of human beings be fathomed? Modern science seeks to understand human beings, as it does everything else, through analysis. It uses the external senses to gain insight into the nature of human beings. The value of the knowledge gained in this way should by no means be diminished, but there is another kind of research.

[ 6 ] In ancient mystical writings—a term that, admittedly, has an unpleasant ring to it for many—you will find descriptions of the inner being, of the human spirit. They say that human beings possess inner organs with which they can engage in a completely different kind of inquiry than that carried out with the external senses. The results of these investigations using the inner, more subtle senses are by no means fundamentally different from those of materialistic investigation; they simply provide further, deeper insights than the external method of investigation.

[ 7 ] This spiritual wisdom has various names. The name “Theosophy” is just one among many. Paul was the first to use it. This wisdom is ancient; it is nothing new. However, it is being presented to people today in a way that has never been done before. This higher—or deeper—knowledge was once the preserve of secret schools. The word must not be misunderstood. The teachings are mysteries only in the sense that, for example, mathematics is a mystery to a simple farmer. It remains a mystery to him until he has learned it. Anyone who is ready can learn it. Over the course of millennia, many have learned this wisdom. In the past, greater demands were placed on the student. Today, schools primarily teach through the intellect and train the students’ minds. In the schools of wisdom, the aim is to develop the whole human being with all their emotional and spiritual faculties. And before a student was initiated into the deeper teachings of wisdom, they had to pass certain tests.

[ 8 ] Some who read *The Pythagorean Secret School* may find it quite simple. Only those who put themselves in the same state of mind as the people of that time will recognize its true meaning. They will appreciate its value.

[ 9 ] We can illustrate this with a work of art. Two people are standing in front of a painting by Raphael. One sees only the colors on the canvas and walks past the artwork completely unmoved. To the other—an art connoisseur with a deeper understanding—wonders of the soul and spirit unfold, while the first remains completely unmoved. This difference in perception of the artwork depends on the varying development of one’s inner powers. In one person, only the intellect was developed; in the other, the soul and spirit had undergone a development that created the right frame of mind to understand and enjoy the artwork.

[ 10 ] Anyone who wants to live a life in the Spirit must be clearly aware of one thing: that thoughts and feelings are real things. It is not the one who reads books with the intellect alone who grasps them, but the one who grasps them with the Spirit. Just as real as a brick falling from a roof and killing a person, a feeling of hatred just as truly wounds the soul of the one at whom it is directed. The soul is wounded by hatred just as the body is wounded by the brick. The teaching about the invisible can only be understood by those who constantly remind themselves that the invisible is far more real than the visible.

[ 11 ] It is also pointless to read only in books; what matters is life—life in the Spirit. The whole person must immerse themselves in the teachings, not just their intellect. This must be stated up front to facilitate an understanding of what is to be said. It is not enough to say “yes” to the Theosophical teachings; a person must transform themselves if they wish to attain knowledge.

[ 12 ] It is clearly evident that human beings are part of the external world. Born of a woman, they come into the world; the external sciences—chemistry, anatomy, and so on—show that the human body is composed of the same forces and the same substances found in all other things in the world. Human beings are, therefore, first and foremost physical beings. This is what external science teaches us. It cannot investigate anything beyond this; it can only investigate that which dies; theosophy provides us with information about that which is immortal. This is a simple idea. Just as the human being—the outer human being—is perceived through observation with the external senses, so the spiritual human being can be perceived through the inner senses.

[ 13 ] It is not difficult to understand what is meant by this. Look at my hands. It is conceivable that a skilled artist could artificially replicate a hand just like mine, so that outwardly it would be indistinguishable from mine; outwardly, let us assume, no difference would be apparent; and yet there is a word that reveals the immense difference between the artificial hand and the natural hand. The artificial hand remains as it is, unchanged; it can exist on its own. But if you remove the skin from the natural hand, it withers or decays. That one word is “life.” Science does not teach us about this.

[ 14 ] My entire body is filled with life. Human beings have not only a physical body, but also, secondly, an etheric body—I ask the scholars not to take offense at this term. Every living being has an etheric body, which is what enables the being to live. It cannot be perceived with the outer senses. Yet there is a way to see it just as one sees the physical body. There is a method that makes it possible to see life itself, not just to see colors and hear sounds.

[ 15 ] A doctor I spoke to about this said: “It’s only natural that the hand withers when it’s been cut off; blood no longer flows through it.” Quite right, but why does it need the blood? Why does it need the invisible? To be what it is!

[ 16 ] With death, the physical body disintegrates and the etheric body dissipates; it returns its constituents to the life ether that permeates the world.

[ 17 ] We now come to the third aspect of human nature. Imagine a person standing before you; you can see him and touch him. You perceive his physical weight and observe his life. But only the physical can be touched by the hand. Yet there is something else alive within him: pleasure and pain, passions and desires, instincts and inclinations—things no hand can touch and no physical eye can see. Yet all of this is a reality for human beings, even if it cannot be perceived by any physical eye or other sense. The part of the human being that encompasses the instincts, desires, passions, and so on is called, thirdly, the astral body.

[ 18 ] Anyone who has developed spiritual eyesight, anyone who has become able to see, can also perceive this body. It is also called the aura. Human beings share this astral body with all animals. But beyond that—something no animal can achieve—human beings possess something that is what truly makes them human. The word “I” expresses this. This word marks a tremendous difference from all other names. “I”—a powerful, great word. Anyone can say “table,” “chair,” “dog,” or “lion,” but “I” is a word that only you can say about yourself; no other person can say “I” to you—only you yourself can apply it to yourself. I am I; everyone else is “you.” One must immerse oneself in this thought to understand it.

[ 19 ] All religions are founded on wisdom, including the Jewish religion; the Jews knew and recognized God—the “I” within man, the hidden God whose name was unpronounceable to the people. Only the high priest was permitted to utter it before the people once a year: Jeoah—only a whisper escaped his lips, and then the divine spark coursed through the hearts of the congregation in a wave-like movement. And this “I” is the fourth element of the human being.

[ 20 ] Everything a human being does and engages in contributes to the development of this “I.” In prehistoric times, humans were not yet able to say “I.” They were still half-animal. Drives, desires, and instincts are the driving forces behind the development of the animal; through the “I,” these drives are refined; the “I” works into the astral body. In this way, human beings transform and refine their animal instincts. Anger and rage are transformed into calm reflection; hatred and feelings of vengeance are transformed into love as the “I” works into the soul. The wild is tamed; instincts become ideals, drives become duties, and selfishness becomes self-sacrifice. This transformation of the astral body brings about the growth of “Manas.” What a person has thus created for themselves is permanent. This is the point where immortality begins. Every cause we build into Manas remains, and the effects appear in subsequent reincarnations.

[ 21 ] Young children usually resemble their parents at first, and naturalists attribute all their characteristics to their ancestry. To a certain extent, they may be right. Raphael, too, resembled his parents as a child; many of his characteristics and his appearance can be explained by the nature of his ancestors. But then what? Suddenly something awakens within him—his genius—which he has inherited from neither his father nor his mother. One then says to oneself: This must either have no cause at all, or a cause other than heredity. —Often, too, one observes great diversity among the children of a single family. Where does this come from? This diversity has its root in the fact that the individual laid the foundation for it in previous lives. I do not owe my nature solely to my resemblance to my parents. Perhaps thousands of years ago, I myself laid the foundation for it. The differences in human natures are thus explained by reincarnation—by repeated earthly lives—in that each earthly life brings to manifestation what the person laid the foundation for in earlier incarnations.

[ 22 ] What was it that made the ancient Egyptian slaves perform their hard labor—their forced labor—with resignation, and in some cases even with joy? It was the fact they knew that in their next incarnation the tables would turn, that the quietly submissive slave might then become the ruler and the cruel oppressor might be enslaved; for such is the workings of the law of retribution, karma. Westerners have no idea what a sense of bliss this [law] brings, how it engenders joyful serenity. “God is not mocked; whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” (Gal 6:7) Reincarnation and karma—these are the great truths that empower and drive people to work on their astral body and refine it.

[ 23 ] Once a person has achieved this to a certain degree, they have undergone catharsis. Thereafter, in the secret schools, they are taught how to develop not only their astral body but also their etheric body. Once they have succeeded in this—once the etheric body has been completely transformed and perfected—it no longer dissolves. It becomes immortal. This is the resurrection to life, which means: awakening Christ within us.

[ 24 ] When the human being returns, he brings with him, in addition to the astral body and the etheric body, the sixth part of the human being: the buddhi.

[ 25 ] What lies beyond that, or slumbers even deeper within him, is—seventh—Atma. There is hardly anything to say about this in such a brief space.

[ 26 ] Once these higher fundamental aspects have been developed, it is possible to gain mastery over the entire body.

[ 27 ] Only now, after we have become familiar with the basic parts or bodies of the human being, can we gain clarity about their origin.

[ 28 ] Natural science cannot provide any information about the origin of humankind. It deals only with phenomena that are perceptible to the senses. The origin of humankind can be perceived only through occult, supersensory means, via the organs of the finer bodies.

[ 29 ] What does this reveal to us? If we look back a million years, what do we see? Something completely different from what we have now. Where Germany lies today, a tropical climate prevailed back then; giant animals—giraffes, elephants—roamed the swamps. Hardly any traces of this era remain; yet theosophical wisdom can trace them, going further and further back through the changes brought about by the Ice Age, back to ever simpler and simpler states. Humans who lived thousands of centuries ago looked very different from us today. There are also hardly any remains from that time. The forehead was set far back, and the forebrain was virtually absent. They possessed neither intelligence nor reason.

[ 30 ] Materialist science claims that humans have evolved over time. In their “childhood,” during the Stone Age, they were said to have been more like animals, and only gradually did they evolve into the humans we are today. There is, however, one difference between animals and humans that immediately catches the eye. When an animal is born, it is fully formed—take the chick, for example; when it hatches from the egg, it can eat right away and so on; it grows, but it does not undergo any further changes. A child, on the other hand, undergoes major changes before reaching adulthood.

[ 31 ] The parable of the human life cycle also applies to theosophical science, and according to it, we are now in our youth. Natural science traces human origins back to childhood, when humans were similar to animals; it cannot go beyond that. Theosophical science goes beyond that; it inquires about the father and mother. Why does one child of the same parents become a good-for-nothing, while the other becomes an intelligent being? Why did the animal-like being give rise, on the one hand, to animals that do not evolve further, and on the other hand, to humans with unlimited capacity for development? Natural science has no answer to this. Without the parents, the child would not exist; the natural scientist cannot go any further, for he cannot go beyond the reach of his senses, and there is nothing wrong with that.

[ 32 ] Usually, one infers the parents from the child. In spiritual insight, however, the search for the origin of humankind takes a very different form. The question of the parents must be approached with great caution. When we consider the human-like apes, may we see in them primitive humans? Two possibilities exist here: It was once concluded that humans evolved from the ape-like creature; then science rejected this hypothesis and reasoned that, given the still-too-great differences between the two, it was more likely that a being must have existed from which both the ape-like creature and the gibbon descended, as well as humans as they continued to evolve. There we would have the father of the good-for-nothing and the good, noble son. But this creature could not be found anywhere, and so the naturalists placed this primordial human in the sea.

[ 33 ] Theosophical research does indeed point to a region that is now covered by the sea.

[ 34 ] So how is this kind of research conducted? How can one learn this kind of research? Today, young people are taught to look out into the external world. A person is considered learned if they have acquired and internalized a great deal of knowledge.

[ 35 ] A different teaching method was employed in the ancient schools, which aimed to help students attain knowledge of the hidden powers. When a student came seeking to learn, the teacher gave him a phrase that contained power for the soul, and then sent him on his way. The student had to repeat this phrase silently within himself for hours every day, allowing it to live in his soul. We find such phrases, for example, in the little book *Light on the Path*, written by Mabel Collins. The student continued this practice for months until he had experienced the eternal meaning of the phrase within himself. In this way, the instruction continued until the inner sun shone forth in the heart—a sun that not only illuminates one’s own soul but also sends out rays of light to other souls, illuminating them as well. This light, this sun, now illuminates not only the life and soul of the person living in the present, but the trained student also learns to cast its rays back into the distant past, just like a spotlight.

[ 36 ] You can learn more about this type of research in my *Luzifer* Nos. 14–18, in the essay “The Akashic Records.” There are thus three kinds of chronicles: the Akashic Records, the written chronicle in books that we have possessed for about 6,000 years, and the chronicle of nature. Where the Atlantic Ocean now lies, the continent of Atlantis once stood long, long ago. Our ancestors who lived there had not yet developed reason. They were able to utilize other powers that have since become dulled in human beings. Just as we are now able to develop energy from coal—a driving force, or rather, to convert coal into a driving force—so too did the people living at that time understand the seed force—that is, the power inherent in the seed that enables the germ to break through the shell—and utilize it, transforming it into a force that propels it forward. The powers of the will were highly developed. Where did this come from? The “I,” which has now taken possession of the physical brain, could not yet act within it at that time, for there was no physical brain yet. Rather, it acted within the etheric body—just as powerfully and effectively within the etheric body as it does now within the physical brain. The etheric body was imbued with the divine “I.”

[ 37 ] There we have the human's parents. He is descended from his spiritual father and his biological mother.

[ 38 ] Egyptian wisdom beautifully symbolizes this eternal truth. Osiris, the spirit, the father; Isis, matter, the mother. From these two, Horus, the young human, was born. The physical body was endowed with the “I.” The unfertilized beings descended into the animal kingdom, while the primordial beings fertilized by the “I” evolved into increasingly highly developed human beings.

[ 39 ] Before the Atlantic epoch, the etheric body had not yet been fertilized. Only the astral body had been fertilized by the “I.”

[ 40 ] The land inhabited by people of this nature, who were driven solely by their instincts and passions, is commonly referred to as Lemuria. Science regards the Lemurian as a human being who has degenerated into an animal; the evolution taught to us by the Spirit regards him as a being striving to emerge from the animal state. There was a time when there were no warm-blooded beings on Earth. It was only at the moment when the human being descended to Earth as a spiritual being—at that great moment when the astral body was endowed with the “I”—that the human being became warm-blooded. The divine spark of the Spirit, the Father Spirit, united with Mother Matter, and from this union humanity arose. Humanity consists of Spirit and Matter. The descent of Manas, the Manasputras, is the descent of the human “I.”

[ 41 ] The origin of humankind from the Father Spirit and Mother Matter is the starting point for understanding the world and God.

[ 42 ] To recognize the word “I” in its entirety is to recognize the divine nature. Self-knowledge leads to knowledge of God, because the “I” originates from the divine. Recognizing the divine nature of the human being is the key to understanding the whole—including the physical human being. The poet says:

One man succeeded,
He lifted the veil from the statue of the goddess at Sais.
What did he see? Miracle upon miracle—himself.

[ 43 ] When a person finds themselves, they find God: through self-knowledge to the knowledge of God!

Concluding Remarks

[ 44 ] Until recently, there were no books on these subjects; these divine teachings of wisdom had been passed down orally since time immemorial, handed down from generation to generation. Now the time has come for people living their active lives to learn about these things, which is why they are now being published in a basic form.