The Rudolf Steiner Archive

13. Man and Woman in the Light of Spiritual Science

[ 1 ] These are the greatest mysteries of existence, and sympathy, antipathy, and all manner of other feelings so easily cloud our view. As far back as human thought extends, this question has always been pondered. When the researcher of the spirit sees all that has been thought, said, and investigated in this regard by those who hold the modern viewpoint—a viewpoint that has, admittedly, been around for over 200 years—he must conclude that scholars and the uneducated, the cultured and the uncultured, judge the character traits of women and men in a very peculiar way.

[ 2 ] Lombroso’s characterization of women caused a particularly great stir. He attributes to women a sense of devotion that permeates their entire character. Others, on the other hand, emphasize women’s desire to dominate and rule: the most fundamental aspect of the female character, as history has shown, is the lust for power. These two views stand in direct opposition to one another. A completely different school of thought attributes humility and gentleness to the female character, and energy to the male. Still others claim that the fundamental character trait of women is a hot temper. Finally, a neurologist describes women as a pathological nature: “On the Physiological Imbecility of Women.” Some describe women as a conservative element in history, while Hippel describes them as a revolutionary one.

[ 3 ] But perhaps it isn’t reasonable to frame the question this way at all. Let’s limit ourselves, for now, to an objective observation of the facts. There are similarities between men and women that are actually much greater than those between men and men or women and women. If you look at life from this perspective—what stands out to you most strongly, what strikes you most powerfully? The female character or the male character—or other traits that have nothing to do with male or female character? And isn’t it perhaps a sign of higher education to be able to recognize that we can also face the opposite sex and view it in terms of traits that have nothing to do with gender?

[ 4 ] Is it justified to attach such great importance to gender in human relationships as is done today, or is it perhaps one of the many consequences of materialism that such a significant role is attributed to gender today?

[ 5 ] Let us look at the matter objectively! Those who view people merely from the outside, based on their physical attributes, focus only on the outward appearance. But there is also a supernatural aspect. If one were to turn to the invisible, perhaps that which stands far above mere sexual relationships might then come to light. For those who observe with all their spiritual powers, it is clear that the immense significance attributed to sexuality—which threatens to engulf everything else in these sexual relationships—is the result of the materialistic mindset of our age.

[ 6 ] Let us see where the truth about the masculine and the feminine lies! Spiritual science recognizes many aspects of the human being: the physical body and the etheric body fight against the human being’s decay, while the astral body fights against exhaustion. A plant, which has no astral body, does not become fatigued. The astral body is the constant fighter against fatigue; sleep is meant to dispel the fatigue of the etheric body and the physical body. We are faced here with an extraordinarily important fact!

[ 7 ] It is easy to laugh at the name of what is being discussed here and to find it grotesque, but on the other hand, it is something that has a deep, deep significance for understanding the true nature of humanity and life on Earth. Every human being, whether man or woman, consists of the four members, but here we have a curious contrast in human nature: The physical body of a man is, of course, masculine, and the physical body of a woman is feminine; but the situation is different with the so-called etheric or life body: in a man, the etheric body is feminine, and in a woman, it is masculine, so that each sex continually carries the other within itself.

[ 8 ] As I said, as grotesque as this may seem to those who know nothing of these facts, it appears enlightening to those who know how to take these things in. How profoundly significant this insight is into many, many aspects of our everyday and social life. When we consider the individual human being, can we not truly appreciate the beautiful harmony of masculine qualities, balanced by the feminine qualities derived from the etheric body—and vice versa in the case of women? How is it that the strongest men, in a certain sense, possess certain feminine qualities? Or do we not also see heroic qualities in women? Are these not the very qualities they develop, for example, in war? This fact—which is an ancient spiritual one—is sensed by some people, but the way they interpret it is quite characteristic of our materialistic age.

[ 9 ] Perhaps most people know that a book by an unhappy young man—Weininger’s *Sex and Character*—had a profound impact, not only because it contains many paradoxes, but also because of the fate of its ill-fated author, who took his own life shortly after the book was published. At such a young age, one cannot form a judgment, no matter how capable one may be; one must have patience to pass judgment on these matters. It is not for nothing that the great poet Dante speaks of having reached the middle of life at the age of 35. Before the age of 35, it is simply not possible to form a sound judgment on this important matter. Well, this Weininger had some inkling of the dual nature of every human being—of the masculinity within women and the femininity within men. However, he interpreted this entirely in the spirit of materialism, in a very physical sense, by seeking two kinds of substance in every germ cell—a masculine and a feminine character in every cell! Thus, the visible was mysteriously supposed to contain the invisible! One can hardly imagine anything more grotesque! Because he knew nothing of the etheric body, he attributes the invisible to the visible! He does not know that there are higher levels of being, and yet he attempts to characterize human beings, reducing each one to “woman” and “man.” As a result, Weininger concludes that there is, after all, a certain difference between the feminine and the masculine: the feminine—the physical, and the masculine—the spiritual. He draws the conclusion: Woman has no “I,” no individuality, no personality, no freedom, no character, and no will! — But then he must deny the same to the other half as well! So he attributes half of this to every woman and denies it to every man! Such is the result when one attempts to apply materialistic theories directly to practical life.

[ 10 ] Let us now consider other characteristics of the human being—for example, the “I”! Let us observe a sleeping person. When we have the sleeping human being before us, the entire life of sensation sinks down into an indeterminate darkness; the physical body and the life body remain in bed; from them rises the astral body with the “I.” It is in this spiritual world. If we now consider this astral body and the “I” in relation to gender, what do we find? Here, only spiritual science can provide an answer. What we call “man” and “woman” here in this world—in the physical world and also in the world to which our etheric body belongs—is unknown to the astral body and to the “I.” The masculine and feminine remain connected to the physical and etheric bodies while a person is alive; and without the sexual aspect, a person is in the state of sleep, in their true home, in the so-called astral and spiritual worlds: at first, neither feminine nor masculine is the human being’s astral body and the “I.”

[ 11 ] But now let us ask ourselves: Is there really nothing in this astral world, where we are at night, that corresponds to gender? Here lies a great and significant mystery that human beings must understand if they are to dare [at all] to pass judgment on this matter! The question is this: What exists in the world that occupies the same space as we do here—in a world we call the astral or spiritual realm—that corresponds to the masculine and feminine aspects of physical nature? After all, bear in mind that this spiritual or astral world is not some pipe dream, but is right here around us. When we ask what in this world corresponds to the opposites of the masculine and the feminine, we find two essential words that penetrate deep, deep into our soul—if we understand them correctly, they can unlock many, many secrets of the astral world.

[ 12 ] There, the sexual dichotomy corresponds to the opposition between life and death, between destruction and development.

[ 13 ] This polar opposition corresponds to him! This points to two primal forces that permeate the entire cosmos and that must exist. If human beings are to understand this, the terrors and all the peculiar feelings associated with the words “death” and “life” must cease! They must recognize the great significance of death and life! Goethe said: “Nature invented death in order to have abundant life!”

[ 14 ] What, then, does death mean for human beings? Spiritual science shows us that human beings do not merely die once, but that they go through death time and again! This life is a repetition of the many lives that preceded it, and many more will follow this one, in an alternating cycle of birth and death. And each incarnation represents, in a certain sense, a step forward for the human being: With each incarnation, the human being rises higher. Back when the Earth emerged from the darkness of non-existence, the human being first entered the stages of existence in which he now finds himself—his first physical incarnation, his first earthly existence. His limbs were imperfect; his “I” was a slave to the astral body. Humanity would never ascend to the higher stages of development if it did not pass through death. That alone drives it to rise higher.

[ 15 ] He had to destroy this body, but what remained of the human being from his first incarnation? What he had heard and seen returned to the spiritual world from which he had come, and now, in that spiritual world, he is laying the foundation for his second incarnation. If he were to remain in the first, he could never, as a creator, make use in the spiritual world of what he had attained here.

[ 16 ] Thus, one must always pass through death again and again, and an image of death is the solidification of form, the hardening of form. Consider what we call life and death out in nature—look at the tree! How does it approach death? It turns to wood; it dries out. And so it is with everything that must succumb to death! You can observe this in your own human life! You can distinguish very clearly in human beings an ascending line of life up to middle age, where more and more of the forces developed in the previous incarnation come to the fore, and then the descending line in old age—a hardening. Densifications settle in various places, and so on. Here, on this Earth, every life is subject to hardening, and hardening is the sister of death.

[ 17 ] But this solidification is nothing other than what one side represents: the form, the shape. Just imagine life stripped away from a human being—what remains? Form! If you study a marvelous image of life, all that remains is a lifeless image—one you might admire, for example, in the great and significant figure of Zeus, and so on. There you have the form, the work of art without life—the image of life, yet not filled with life. The form eternally strives to emancipate itself from life, and as a seer, you can follow this emancipation of the form at every moment in the astral world; there it is what the seer perceives as the image, as the rigid image of life, as the dead form of life. This is a force like positive magnetism, like electricity; thus this form moves through the astral world.

[ 18 ] If it seeks to incarnate itself here, in the physical world—[then] it is beauty! The opposing poles constantly repel one another, pushing and advancing; every form that arises is immediately dissolved and transformed into a new one—an eternal metamorphosis. This is brought about by the other pole; it is that which confronts human beings at night: will, energy. Form and beauty—these are the two manifestations here in the physical world of what surrounds us in the astral world as death and life. Form comes eternally, and life eternally. The principle of dissolution and crystallization reigns eternally. These are two fundamental forces, and within the human being the reflections of these two fundamental forces must prevail: The pure astral body is surrounded by death and life in the astral world, and when it enters this world of day, of wakefulness, it is absorbed by the physical [body] and the etheric body.

[ 19 ] The feminine aspect of the human being is the image of the form—that which continually strives to come into being on the astral plane; the masculine aspect of the human being is the image of that which continually seeks to shape everything into the Eternal.

[ 20 ] In this physical world, the relationship is defined by death and life. What are two poles on the astral plane—death and life—is here a constant struggle. The image of all physical life is embodied in the female form—when the progressive principle triumphs, death comes. Here, human life is defined as divided between birth and death, within the feminine, which is the image of the formed—that which strives toward the solid, that which seeks to become permanent. If only the feminine were at work, then human beings would tend to live in the physical body for as long as possible, to linger in the form. Through the influence of the masculine, death is instilled into the form. This is the mystery of the interplay between man and woman—through this, life and death are determined in the relationship between the feminine and the masculine. The feminine gives us life, and the masculine limits this life, setting death against life. Thus, what is commonly referred to in everyday life as an expression of love comes into direct contact with the mystery of death. A hallmark of this phenomenon is that beings, at the very moment they love and bring forth a new being, also depart from this world through death.

[ 21 ] This brings us, as they say in spiritual science, to the edge of a great mystery. The mingling—and, connected to it, death—shows us the possibility that the sexual opposition—male and female—is merely a special case, merely a particular aspect of a greater opposition. On the astral plane, we see this opposition manifest as eternally alternating life—powerful will and formed beauty. The sexual opposition is a special case. There is a law at work in the world that is far more significant than the sexual opposition. Such laws exist for all worlds, and they radiate down into our world; and if only people knew about the most important mysteries of existence, they would see that these laws are there, for their consequences are evident in the ordinary world. It is the equal measure of the masculine and the feminine on Earth, stemming from great cosmic forces flooding through the world. Human beings are immersed in many worlds, and whether a male or female child is born anywhere does not depend on the parents, but on the forces that exist outside of them.

[ 22 ] Imagine, for example, two vessels; one filled with a red liquid, the other with a blue liquid. If you immerse any object into the vessel containing the blue liquid, that object must emerge blue, and vice versa. The same is true with regard to human sexuality.

[ 23 ] Physiologists must conduct their research thoroughly; if they are unable to see and investigate beyond what their eyes can perceive, the secret will never be revealed to them.

[ 24 ] Remember these words: “In heaven, people do not marry.” (Mt 22:30; Mk 12:25; Lk 20:35ff.) Therefore, through his astral nature—which is neither male nor female—man reaches into the higher world; in this way, he transcends the opposition between male and female, and each of us possesses, in addition to our own, a super-masculine or super-feminine nature, through which we, as human beings, face one another, [and the more the higher aspect within us develops, the more we are able to face another human being in this way.]

[ 25 ] Theosophy is not here to preach asceticism, nor to suppress the sensual, but to flow through and permeate the feminine and the masculine. Spiritual science is called upon to restore this awareness to humanity, and this will be the future coexistence of men and women—already longed for today by the best among us—when people become conscious of what stands above gender, what embodies the highest interests, and what unites men and women within themselves. Then it will be impossible for relationships between men and women to become a struggle. And the spiritual scientific movement will be one that flows through the development of humanity and takes hold of people. Then the time will come when people will no longer speak idly and in clichés about whether there is a difference between men and women. The difference cannot be denied in many respects, for we stand firmly on this physical plane: If we are men, [then] we are in a male physical body; if we are women, we are in a female physical body. This lends nuance to our outer existence; but when we recognize that we have an innermost core of being, then we will welcome this nuance with joy, for it provides delightful diversity and variety. It is precisely when we understand how to find the eternal, the essential, that we can also rejoice in the temporal. Then a broad, [practical] perspective opens up, and we see how spiritual science can influence life—in art, education, and so on. We see that spiritual science is not a dry theory, but a living force at work. Those who embrace it permeate their entire being with it and ennoble, beautify, and elevate human relationships—which are expressed in the genders of humanity—by bringing them into harmony and fostering cooperation for the great progress and forward movement of the human race.