The Rudolf Steiner Archive

9. The Course of Human Life from a Spiritual Scientific Perspective

[ 1 ] You are all familiar with the Greek temple maxim, “Know thyself.” It contains the deepest wisdom about life, and time and again it is brought to people’s attention. While it can be embraced as a beneficial guide through life, it can also be misunderstood. “Know thyself” is a truth. It must not be understood to mean that a person should brood inwardly and think that he is already a complete human being; rather, it is a call to the self-development of the inner, dormant powers of the soul—to elevate and expand them, and to develop one’s innate talents and potential. Striving and seeking are far better tools for self-knowledge than believing that everything within us is already complete.

[ 2 ] Let us consider how a person develops from birth to death, as it truly is.

[ 3 ] To anyone who hears about the nature of the human being from the perspective of spiritual science, these things seem to be fraught with manifold doubts and challenges. I can only give you a brief outline here. What the materialistic mind perceives is, for the spiritual researcher, merely one aspect of the human being. We call this the physical body. It is composed of the same substances and forces as minerals and stones. A stone or a mineral, however—these lifeless bodies—have the ability and power to sustain themselves. The human physical body does not. Precisely because of its physical and chemical forces, this is impossible for it; as a corpse, it decays. We can understand the true principle of life as an entity that struggles at every moment to prevent the decay of the physical body. We call this entity the etheric body; it is, as it were, the architect of the physical body, organizing the chemical and physical substances. In the past, it was even common in the natural sciences to refer to this principle of life as “vital force.” From the mid-nineteenth century onward, it became fashionable to speak of living matter as if it assembled itself, just as if a house were to assemble itself from wood and bricks. Just as a house is built according to the architect’s plans, so too are the forces of the etheric body used to construct the physical body. The etheric body is thus the second member of the human being.

[ 4 ] The third is the astral body. It is the vehicle of all desires, passions, pleasure and suffering, joy and pain. But what makes human beings the crown of creation is the power to say “I”—that is the fourth member of the human being. These four aspects of the human being have been studied for millennia and are universally regarded as the expression of the forces that build up the divine human being. These four aspects are explained in all schools of the initiated. Pythagoras first made it clear to his students that the human being consists of these four aspects; only then were they permitted to learn about the higher levels. To do so, they had to take a vow: to receive the higher mysteries with seriousness, dignity, and fervor. This oath-like formula reads: “I swear by the One who has imprinted upon our hearts the sacred wisdom, the sublime and pure symbol, the primordial source of nature, and all the creations of the gods.”

[ 5 ] Even the person at the lowest level—the “savage”—already possesses these four entities, as does the average European, an idealist like Schiller, and even a spiritual person like Francis of Assisi. They differ in that the “savage” initially follows his instincts and passions and surrenders to them. The one who has already progressed further in his development—in whom the “I,” the center of his being, has already worked on the development of the three members and has thus already had a refining effect on his desires and passions—has already become aware that he may follow certain things and not others. Such a person has developed a second member in his astral body—and thus a fifth: his spiritual self, the Manas.

[ 6 ] But human beings can also work into the etheric or life body through all the impulses of art, and there they develop a second member within it, which is the sixth member of the human being: the buddhi, that is, the life spirit, consists of the religious impulses that transform the etheric body in the unconscious. This transformation has been taking place ever since the human race came into existence. The etheric body is the bearer of memory, habits, and what is called conscience. This transformation proceeds more slowly than that in the astral body; and these activities can be compared, in the case of the latter, to the minute hand of a clock, and in the case of the former, to the hour hand.

[ 7 ] Think back to when you were eight years old, and compare what you have learned since then in terms of concepts and life experience. It is an enormous amount. That is the change in your astral body. But if I was quick-tempered as a child, that hasn’t changed all that much. Our “I” can only work on the life body slowly. This happens unconsciously. The advanced student, however, works consciously on bringing about this transformation. He receives guidance on how to change his habits and his temperament. Once the student has learned to consciously reshape certain fundamental traits—for example, transforming domineering tendencies into humility—he has the hope of ascending higher and higher, and higher gates will open to him. This is relatively difficult, but it is even more difficult to work on one’s physical body. What power does he have over his pulse, his breathing, and the functions of his physical body? What the student learns to develop there toward higher evolution is the seventh member, the spiritual man, the Atma. Thus, the human being then consists of seven members.

[ 8 ] Let us now consider how these seven members develop from birth to death. Human beings begin their existence with physical birth; in reality, they are merely continuing the life they led in the womb, but even that is merely a continuation of a previous life. Before physical birth, the human being was completely surrounded by the mother’s body, which also supplied it with strength and vital fluids. Upon emerging from the physical body, the human being pushes away the maternal shell; whereas before he was protected, he now enters the physical world. The eyes and ears had formed, but the human being could not perceive light or sound; he learns this only in the physical world. Through birth, he has changed his setting.

[ 9 ] With this birth, however, only the first aspect—the physical body—is born. There is also a second and a third birth for human beings. When a person is born, they are still surrounded by an invisible etheric and astral sheath. Just as this [physical] sheath is shed in the womb and at birth, so too is the etheric sheath shed during the change of teeth, and the etheric body is fully born. This is the second birth. It takes place gradually and accompanies the period when the baby teeth are replaced by permanent ones. Once a person has left their etheric body, they are still surrounded by the astral body. The third birth occurs at sexual maturity. At that point, the astral sheath is shed, and the person becomes receptive to astral influences. These are important moments that must be taken into account. The first through seventh years: the first epoch. The second epoch—the seventh through fourteenth years—is significantly different, as is the third, from the fourteenth to the twenty-first year. Then the human being develops their astral body freely through the “I” that lies behind it.

[ 10 ] During the first epoch, the physical organs must be formed up to a certain point. Although the human being continues to grow even then, there is a significant difference between growth up to the age of seven and growth thereafter. The change of teeth marks a kind of final year. By then, the human being has been given the direction that he or she will retain, and the foundation of his or her form remains. So whatever a person has not developed by the age of seven cannot be made up for later. Only one aspect needs to be taken into account: Until the age of twenty-one, development will be more of an educational nature; after that, it will take on a different character. What ensures that a person’s organs take on the proper form? The surrounding world does. Goethe says that the eye is shaped by light itself. Light is the creator, the shaper. Sound forms the ear, and so on. What light and air can create in a human being is formed most intensively during the first epoch, up until the change of teeth. A suitable environment is formative for the human physical body.

[ 11 ] For example, it is by no means irrelevant whether a child is surrounded by invigorating or dulling colors. A nervous, agitated child should therefore be surrounded by lively colors—reddish or reddish-yellow hues. What matters is what has a creative effect on the child. Here is an example. If you stare intently at a white cloth with red spots and then look away from it, you will perceive the complementary color and see green spots. This green has a soothing effect. That is why an agitated child should wear a red dress, while a calm child should be dressed in muted colors. It all depends on stimulating the child’s inner forces. A perfectly formed doll does the child a disservice, for it leaves no room for the imagination to work. And the child derives a sense of well-being from shaping its inner organs, which is thereby robbed of this experience. The child must find joy in its surroundings. You cannot do enough to foster delight and joy during the first stage of life. Just avoid asceticism.

[ 12 ] Another is love. The love that surrounds the child permeates its etheric and astral bodies. It even instills beneficial instincts.

[ 13 ] Here I would like to mention nutrition. Do not think that children should be overfed with eggs. This food spoils their natural nutritional instincts. The less a child is overfed with eggs, the healthier their instinct for nourishment will be. Spiritual science is considered a practical discipline that provides practical guidance for your life here on earth.

[ 14 ] In the second epoch—from the change of teeth to sexual maturity—the astral body is actually born. Until then, the life body—the etheric body—is enveloped; now everything that constitutes memory and habit must emerge so that the child can become a useful member of human society. If you were to try to influence the child with something like this beforehand, it would be like trying to introduce light and sound to the child from the outside while it is still in the womb. You cannot do that. However, the period up to the age of seven is indeed the time when joy and pleasure, desire, and instinct are guided onto the right path. There are two magic words you must inscribe in the child’s heart: imitation and example. These are the two active forces. An example must be set, not a command.

[ 15 ] Here is an example. The parents of a well-behaved child discovered that the child had taken money from them. The parents called it stealing. But the child had used the money to buy gifts for poor children. The child had done what it had seen its parents do. In the physical environment, nothing should be done that the child is not allowed to imitate. Lectures are of no use here; they have no effect at that age; they only take effect once the etheric body is revealed. Jean Paul calls the example the greatest motto of education. Ask any world traveler, and he will say that he learned more from his mother or nurse in the first years of his life than he did on all his travels combined. Under the protection of the outer physical environment, into which love works its way into the outer shell, infinite powers develop. Here, too, Jean Paul says: Look at the child—it learns language and also the spirit of language through inner development. What would a person have achieved in terms of later language development if such power were preserved within them? The child possesses the power to shape language; for example, it calls the person who makes bottles a “bottle-maker”—and much more besides. The worst thing is when the proper sequence is not followed in education. — Jean Paul says: “Look at what words the child uses, and then ask whether its father can explain them to it philosophically.” This is how the talent for imitating letters develops, but the child does not learn to understand the meaning of the letters until after the age of seven.

[ 16 ] Between the age of seven and puberty, memory, disposition, and character undergo a transformation. There are three aspects to consider: thinking, willing, and feeling. These are nurtured by different teachers. Thinking—which the child has instinctively developed through the etheric body—must be transformed. The child has learned language, but now must be taught the meaning of what is spoken—the meaning of what he has imitated in form. Therefore, visual instruction should not be begun too early; it should only begin when the child is ready. Then one should appeal to the child’s feelings and emotions through what is known as history. Try to have the child look up to the great figures of world history. Religion must be made the indispensable foundation of education. Human beings undergo a process of will formation that appears to them as the primal essence of the divine being. The absorption of visual imagery must form concepts, not abstract forms. Today, it is not easy for the teacher to find an analogy for death, such as that of the chrysalis becoming a butterfly: the chrysalis opens, and the butterfly flies out. Thus, in death, the soul detaches itself from the body. What one believes oneself has an effect on the child. Goethe says: “Everything transitory is but a parable.” That is the image of the butterfly. There is a point of view from which the spiritual person truly believes in it. Then, through a sensory image, the supersensory reality is made clear to the child.

[ 17 ] From this perspective, I would like to talk about something that is portrayed in a very strange way today. What a concern the “stork’s nest” is. Our highly enlightened contemporaries say today that we must not teach children such lies. That is not how it is. In five hundred years, our descendants will say of us: What strange people these were, who so crudely and clumsily portrayed the physical event. That is a much greater lie. The image of the stork’s nest dates back to a time when people knew that it was a spiritual expression of the process. The soul descends from the spiritual realm, and that is the most important aspect of this process. All descent and all ascent are associated with flying beings. Thus it was also the flying being, the stork. The little song “Fly, beetle, fly” and so on—“Pommerland” means “Children’s Land”—tells us of the flying soul that the mother brings forth from the Children’s Land. All fairy tales convey spiritual truth in a form that the child can understand. The point is that these forces are developed. Just as the two magic words “imitation” and “role model” must be at work in the first epoch, so “following” and “authority” must be at work in the second epoch. The question of schooling will become a question of the teacher. Each person must choose the teacher who will guide them along the paths to Olympus. What the child believes is what matters. Truth must be expressed in person; it must have become flesh. Authority is the magic word through which the child’s conscience, character, and temperament vividly model themselves after the teacher.

[ 18 ] With sexual maturity, the astral body is born. This reveals within the human being what confronts him in the world. Becoming aware of the distinction between the sexes marks the birth of the astral body; the human being learns to recognize and distinguish the relationship between the masculine and the feminine. Therefore, at that time, one should engage as little as possible with all of this in theory. It is a mistake to think that only after the age of fourteen does a person need a period during which the world must influence him until he is mature enough to judge for himself. The astral body must mature—mature under the authority of the world, which must add what it has to give him. And then what brings about this maturation—the forces—comes into play. From the age of fifteen to sixteen, ideal forces must be developed: life forces and life aspirations. Whatever ideals a person holds are a source of strength for them. As the astral body matures, the muscular system grows stronger. And just as school days come to an end with sexual maturity, so too does the apprenticeship come to an end at the age of twenty-one. It is only after the apprenticeship that the birth of the free “I” actually takes place. It is at this point that the human being steps into the world as an independent worker, and the period of wandering begins. He must learn to work independently before he has matured enough to influence life as a master.

[ 19 ] Throughout this entire period, the human being is in the process of growing, and just as the human being continues to grow in terms of external physical features until the age of twenty-eight, or even thirty, so too does inner growth take place, for the body is the expression of the soul. This is when the human being develops a foundation. At first, the child develops by imitating a role model, then by following authority during the learning years, and during the years of travel through free interaction. Then comes a time when everything in a person is fully developed; this is the true age of manhood and womanhood. From that point on, external influence ceases to a certain extent. At the age of thirty, fat begins to accumulate in the body, and a person begins to put on weight. This is a sign that the inner forces have diminished.

[ 20 ] In the thirty-fifth year, a person begins to process the forces within themselves in a beneficial way. Up to that point, the soul has been working on the temporal aspects—those elements brought over from earlier incarnations—but now a person begins to work inwardly toward the eternal. That is why everything we have learned only matures, starting at the age of thirty-five, into something we can offer to the world. It is the time when a person becomes steadfast within themselves, gaining inner substance. While a person must learn through the world and through life up to that point, it is only from the age of thirty-five onward that the world can learn from them. Youth should be guided; only those who have risen above the height of the sun can offer guidance. Then they can give more than they take from it. This stems from the fact that the astral body emerges with sexual maturity; only then can it work inwardly within the etheric body. As long as the muscles are still growing, this is not possible. When the muscles are no longer left to the body’s own devices, the life body—the etheric body—becomes increasingly refined, and it gives to the environment what is developed within it. Particularly gifted individuals can do this before the age of thirty-five, but it only carries real weight from the age of thirty-five onward. The ancient Greeks would never have allowed anyone to make predictions before this time. They might act, but they would not predict. In all mystery schools, students under the age of thirty-five were admitted only to the preparatory course.

[ 21 ] Only when these forces had been set free could they rise higher. When a person grows old in this world, he only then becomes young for the immortal world. It is a great blessing—a person who has developed healthily will have a modest life around him and, until then, will still choose his hero, whom he strives to emulate in his own Olympus. In particular, this must serve as a warning to exercise great caution when, in the highest knowledge of the world, youth already seeks to make its mark in the world. This requires maturity and a firm footing in the spiritual world. Human beings become increasingly internalized; there are no set periods for this. Whoever undergoes a certain training—even if their hair is already grayed, their skin wrinkled and withered—may still be the youngest. Those who possess the youth of the soul will acquire the greatest powers even in old age. Even when memory fades, the power of imagination begins to weaken, and the power of ideals dies away—then one conserves one’s energies for all of this, and they serve to nurture the immortal. Old age withers outwardly and allows the eternal within the human being to come to life.

[ 22 ] This, too, is proof of human continuity. What grows and develops is the indestructible, incorruptible core of human being. The more the environment loses its appeal for him, the more important it is for the world what a person says and thinks at this age. That is why the ancients chose the elders as their leaders, including for the sake of social order. They had the words to speak and the thoughts to think that were meant to endure—the imperishable within the perishable.

[ 23 ] That is why spiritual science allows us to see this life in its true light. It gives us not only theories, but something that provides us with strength and security in life, and confidence in the world’s vast and promising future. Then the course of human life, with its ascent and passing, takes on a profound meaning when we know how to live by this wisdom, in accordance with the sublime maxim: “Know thyself.” It shows us how the world shapes us, and how we work our way out of ourselves. It reveals to us how we owe our existence to the world, but also that we are capable of giving. This path reveals to us the bliss of giving and receiving.