The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Sixth Lecture

[ 1 ] It is, of course, easy to understand that a karmic law can take effect when, in the sense indicated yesterday and the day before, the cause of the illness manifests itself from within the human being. But if the cause of the illness, in a certain “sense,” acts from the outside—and in how many cases does science today seek the cause of illness externally in infection—if, therefore, the main focus must be directed toward an external cause of the illness: that karmic law—that which a person has brought with them through birth as the effects of the experiences and actions of their past lives—can also operate in such a way as to bring about these external causes of illness; this certainly still seems, and rightly so, less comprehensible to many. Nevertheless, if we continue to explore the very essence of karma, we will not only come to understand how external causes can be connected to what we have experienced and done in past lives, but we will even come to realize that external misfortunes that befall us—that is, events that people today are so quick to call “coincidental”—can be linked in a lawful way to the course of previous lives. However, we will have to delve even deeper into the entire nature of the human being if we wish to shed light on precisely such relationships, which are actually veiled from our entire human perception.

[ 2 ] We concluded yesterday by showing how chance always presents external events to us in a veiled form, because in those instances where we speak of chance, the possibility of external deception—brought about by the Ahrimanic forces—is greatest. Now let us examine the origins of such coincidences—that is, such events that are commonly referred to as “coincidences” in everyday life—in specific cases.

[ 3 ] It is therefore necessary that we first keep in mind a principle, a truth, a realization: that in life, many things that we describe with the expression “coming from within,” “originating from within the human being,” is in fact a delusion, because many things that we initially believe to be caused within the human being—when we truly move beyond the illusion—must in fact be described as something flowing from the outside inward. And we encounter this phenomenon wherever we deal with all those human experiences, all those influences on the human being, which we understand under the term “inherited traits.” These inherited characteristics, which appear to us as if we possessed them solely because our ancestors did as well, can seem to us, to the highest degree, as though they had been bestowed upon us through no fault of our own and without any contribution on our part. And we can easily fall into a false distinction between what we bring with us from our previous incarnations and what we have inherited from our parents or ancestors. But the process of re-entering an incarnation by no means takes place as if we were driven—without any inner motivation of our own—toward this or that pair of parents, this or that people, or this or that region. Even in the case of inherited traits that do not at all fall within the realm of disease, we must by no means assume such a thing; rather, we must say to ourselves: If, for example, in a family such as that of the musician Bach, musicians of varying degrees of talent were born again and again over many generations—one is usually more outstanding, but in the Bach family more than twenty musicians of varying degrees of talent were born— one might easily believe that we are dealing with a pure hereditary line—that is, that characteristics are inherited from ancestors and that, precisely because such characteristics are present, a person develops certain qualities brought over from earlier incarnations into musical talents. But this is not the case; rather, the situation is quite different.

[ 4 ] Let’s suppose that someone, in a lifetime between birth and death, had the opportunity to receive many musical impressions. However, these musical impressions passed him by in that lifetime, simply because he did not have a musical ear. Other experiences in their life will not pass them by in the same way, because their faculties are structured in such a way that they can transform these experiences and impressions into their own abilities. Therefore, we can say that a person has certain impressions in life that he is able to transform into abilities and talents through the predispositions he brought with him from his last birth; he also has other impressions which, due to his overall karma—because he did not receive the corresponding predispositions through it—he cannot transform into the corresponding abilities. However, these impressions remain; they are stored and, in the time between death and a new birth, transform into a specific tendency that will now be realized in the next incarnation. And this tendency leads the person to seek, in their next life, a physical existence precisely within a family that can provide them with the corresponding predispositions. So if someone has received many musical impressions but, because of a lack of musical ear, has been unable to transform them into musical abilities or pleasures, it is precisely this inability that will give rise to the tendency in their soul to enter a family that can bequeath a musical ear to them, Thus we understand that when the structure of the ear is inherited in a family just as, for example, the external shape of the nose is, all those individuals who—as a result of their previous incarnation—are yearning for the possession of a musical ear will flock to this family. And so we see that a person has not, in fact, “accidentally” inherited a musical ear or something similar in any given incarnation, but rather that he has sought out these inherited traits—truly sought them out.

[ 5 ] If we now observe such a person from the moment of his birth, it will seem to us as if the musical ear were within him, an innate quality. But if we were to extend our observations back to before his birth, we would find that the musical ear, which he has only since developed, is something that came to him from the outside. Before birth or conception, the musical ear was not something that was within him; rather, there was only the tendency to be drawn toward such an ear. There, the human being drew something external to himself. Before reincarnation, the quality that we later call an “inherited trait” was something external; it came to the human being, and he rushed toward it. With reincarnation, it then becomes something internal and manifests within that person. — So when we speak of “inherited predispositions,” we are once again succumbing to a delusion, which consists in failing to consider something—which has only just become internal—at the very moment when it was still external.

[ 6 ] Let us now ask ourselves whether, as in the case we have just cited, it might not also be true of external events that occur during our lives between birth and death—that there, too, something external could be transformed into something internal? — We would not be able to answer this question unless we examine the nature of illness and health even more deeply than we have so far. We have cited various examples to characterize illness and health, and you know that I do not define them, but rather attempt to describe them step by step, adding more and more characteristics to them so that they gradually become comprehensible. So let us now add more characteristics to those we have already identified.

[ 7 ] We must compare illness and health to something that occurs in everyday life; then we will find something even deeper, namely the comparison with sleeping and waking. What happens within the human being when the daily states of waking and sleeping alternate? We know that when we fall asleep, the physical body and the etheric body are left behind in bed, and that the astral body and the “I” emerge from the physical body and the etheric body. For us, therefore, falling asleep is a withdrawal of the “I” and the astral body from the physical body and the etheric body; waking up, on the other hand, is a re-entry of the astral body and the “I” into the physical body and the etheric body. Every morning upon waking, the human being thus immerses what constitutes the inner self—the astral body and the “I”—into the physical and etheric bodies. What, then, happens in relation to the inner experiences that take place within the human being during falling asleep and waking up?

[ 8 ] When we consider the moment of falling asleep, it appears to us as though all the experiences that ebb and flow in our lives from morning to night—above all, the experiences of the soul: pleasure and suffering, joy and pain, passions, mental images, and so on—sink down into the unconscious. In normal life, when we sleep, we ourselves are surrendered to the unconscious. Why do we become unconscious when we fall asleep? — We know, after all, that during sleep we are surrounded by a spiritual world, just as we are surrounded by the things and facts of the physical-sensory world when we are awake. Why do we not see this spiritual world? In ordinary, normal life, we do not see the spiritual realities and spiritual things that surround us for the reason that, given the current state of human development, such perception would be extremely dangerous for us from the moment we fall asleep until we wake up. If a person were to consciously enter the world that surrounds them between falling asleep and waking up today, their astral body—which, after all, reached full development during the Old Lunar Age—would indeed flow into the spiritual world; but the “I,” which is only meant to develop during the Earth Age and will be fully developed at the end of the Earth Age, could not do so. The “I” is not yet sufficiently developed to be able to unfold its full activity from the moment of falling asleep until waking up.

[ 9 ] The situation with the “I” is such that we could compare the state it would enter if a person were to fall asleep consciously to the following: Let’s suppose we have a small drop of a colored liquid; we place it in a basin of water and let it disperse within it. Then one would no longer see the color of this droplet, because it would have had to dissolve into the entire vast mass. — Something similar happens when a person, upon falling asleep, leaves the physical body and the etheric body. The physical body and the etheric body are what hold the entire human being together. The moment the astral body and the “I” leave these two lower members, they strive apart in all directions, driven solely by the urge to expand continuously. The ego would thus be dissolved, and although the person would have before them the images of the spiritual world, they would not be able to perceive them with the powers that only the ego can unfold—since the ego would, after all, be dissolved— that is, with powers of judgment, conceptual understanding, and so on—and thus not with the same consciousness with which he perceives the conditions of everyday life. He would be beside himself, torn this way and that, drifting aimlessly and without direction on the sea of astral impressions. For this reason—because the “I” is not yet strong enough in the normal human state—the “I” will continue to exert a retroactive influence on the astral body, preventing it from consciously entering its true home, the spiritual world, until the “I” itself can accompany the astral body wherever it goes. Thus, there is a good reason why we lose consciousness when we fall asleep. We would not be able to preserve our “I.” We will only be able to retain it sufficiently when the Earth’s evolution has reached its end. That is why we are not yet able to develop our astral body in terms of its capacity for consciousness.

[ 10 ] The exact opposite occurs when a person wakes up. When he wakes up and sinks into the physical body and the etheric body, he should actually experience the inner nature of the physical body and the etheric body. But he does not. At the moment of waking, they are prevented from looking into the innermost depths of their physical being, for their attention is immediately directed toward external experiences. Their powers of sight and cognition are not directed toward penetrating their inner being; rather, they are diverted toward the external world. If a person were to grasp their inner self, the exact opposite of what occurs would happen compared to what happens when a person could consciously enter the spiritual world while falling asleep. Everything that a person has already attained spiritually through their “I” in the course of their earthly life would converge, and after submerging, it would now act upon them with all its force in the physical and etheric bodies. This would result in everything that is in any way an egoistic trait unfolding with all its might. And a person would descend with their “I,” and with every part of themselves that descends, they would pour out their passions, instincts, and desires into an ever more powerful egoism. All egoism would pour into their instinctual life. To prevent this from happening, we are distracted by the external world and not allowed to turn our consciousness inward.

[ 11 ] This can also be seen from the accounts of those mystics who sought to truly penetrate the innermost depths of the human soul. Take a look at Meister Eckhart, Johannes Tauler, or other medieval mystics who truly undertook the journey into the human inner self. There you will find mystics who devoted themselves to a state in which they completely diverted their attention from whatever might interest them in the external world in order to descend into their own inner selves. Read the biographies of the saints or mystics who attempted to descend into their own inner being. What did they experience? Temptations, trials, and the like, which they describe in vivid detail. That was the counterforce that arose from the compressed astral body and ego. That is why those who, so to speak, wanted to descend into their own inner being as mystics without hindrance insisted with all their might that, to the same extent that they descended, the “I” should be extinguished. Meister Eckhart even found a beautiful term to describe this descent into one’s own physicality. He speaks of “Entwerdung,” that is, the extinguishing of the “I.” And read in German Theology how the author describes the mystical journey into the human inner self, how he insists that the one who wishes to descend into physicality no longer acts out of his ego, but that Christ—with whom he has become completely imbued—acts within him. Such mystics sought to extinguish their ego. It is not they who are to think, feel, and will, but Christ within them who is to think, feel, and will—so that what emerges from them is not what lives within them as passions, instincts, and desires, but rather what pours into them as Christ. That is why Paul says, “Not I, but Christ in me!” Such things spring from such depths.

[ 12 ] Thus, we can describe waking up and falling asleep as inner experiences of the human being: Waking up as a sinking of the compressed sense of self into the physicality of the human being; falling asleep as a liberation from consciousness, because one is not yet ready to look into that world into which one must actually enter when falling asleep. In this way, we understand waking and sleeping in the same sense in which we must understand many things in the world: as the interpenetration of the various members of the human being. If we consider a waking human being from this perspective, we say: Within the waking human being there are four members of the human being—the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the “I”—and they are interwoven in a specific way. What follows from this? Waking itself! For a person could not be awake if they did not enter into their physicality in such a way that their attention is diverted by the external world. It is precisely on a very specific, orderly interaction of the four members of the human being that waking depends. And again, it is on the proper separation of these four members that sleep depends. It is not enough to say that a human being consists of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and an “I”; rather, we understand the human being only when we know to what degree the various members are linked with one another in a particular state, how they are interlocked. This is essential for understanding human nature. Now let us regard the way in which the four members of the human being are joined together—as it appears to us in the waking human being—as the normal state. Let us take this concept as our starting point: to regard the state of the waking human being as the normal state.

[ 13 ] Now, most of you will recall that the consciousness we currently possess as earthly human beings between birth and death is only one of the many possible forms of consciousness. If, for example, you study An Outline of Esoteric Science or the earlier essays “From the Akashic Records,” you will see that today’s consciousness is one of seven distinct levels of consciousness; that the consciousness we possess today developed from three preceding states of consciousness and will later evolve into three subsequent forms of consciousness. While human beings were lunar beings, they did not yet have an “I.” The “I” did not become united with the human being until the Earth period. Therefore, human beings could not have possessed the present form of consciousness until the Earth period. A state of consciousness such as the one we have today between birth and death presupposes that the “I,” just as is the case today, interacts with the other three members and is the highest of the four members of the human being. Before human beings were endowed with the “I,” they consisted only of the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body. At that time, the astral body was its highest member, and its state of consciousness was such that today, at most—if we draw an analogy from ordinary life—we could compare it to what a person has preserved like an old heirloom in their dream consciousness. But you must not imagine today’s dream consciousness; rather, imagine one that reflects realities in the images of the dream. If you study today’s dreams, you will find quite a lot of chaos in the most varied images, because today’s dream consciousness is an old heirloom. But if you were to study the consciousness that preceded today’s, you would find that external objects—such as plants—would not have been perceived at that time. Thus, an external impression on the person would have been impossible. If something had come near the person, you would have received an impression that took a detour through the dream image into the person’s inner being—an image that is a symbol, but one that would have corresponded to a specific external object and impression.

[ 14 ] So, prior to ego-consciousness, we are dealing with a type of consciousness that is bound to the astral body—which was then the highest member—namely, astral consciousness, which is dull and dim and not yet illuminated by the light of the ego. This astral consciousness in human beings, once they became earthly human beings, has been overshadowed and drowned out by ego-consciousness. Yet the astral body is still within us, and we may ask: How did it come to pass that our astral consciousness could be drowned out and suppressed at all, so that the “I”-consciousness could take its place entirely? — This became possible because the earlier connection between the astral body and the etheric body was made much looser through the endowment of the human being with the “I.” The former, more intimate connection, so to speak, was dissolved. Thus, before the emergence of “I”-consciousness, there existed a much more intimate connection between the human being’s astral body and the lower members of his being. The astral body intruded much more deeply into the other members than it does today. In a certain sense, the astral body has been torn away from the etheric body and the physical body.

[ 15 ] Now we must make this process—this sort of partial separation, this detachment of the astral body from the etheric body and the physical body—completely clear to ourselves. Then we will ask ourselves: Is it perhaps still possible today, within our ordinary sense of self, to create something that would resemble this ancient connection? Could it also happen today in human life that the astral body seeks to penetrate deeper into the other members than it should, becoming more impregnated with and permeated by all sorts of things than is proper for it?

[ 16 ] A certain degree of normality is therefore necessary for the astral body to be permeated by the etheric body and the physical body. Let us now suppose that this normal balance is exceeded in any direction. Then a disturbance must occur throughout the entire human organism; for what a human being is today depends on the existence of this specific relationship between the various members of the being, which we observe in the waking human being. The moment the astral body behaves improperly—when it penetrates deeper into the physical and etheric bodies—a disturbance must occur. Now, however, we have seen in our recent reflections that what we are now concluding actually happens. We have merely described the entire process from the other side. When, then, does it happen?

[ 17 ] This happens when, in a previous life, a person has imprinted something on their astral body—has allowed something to seep in—that we regard as a moral or intellectual transgression from that previous life. This has become ingrained in the astral body. This is now something that, when a person enters life anew, can in fact cause the astral body to seek a different relationship with the physical body and the etheric body than it would have sought had it not imprinted this transgression within itself in the previous life. Thus, it is precisely our transgressions—those that took place under the influence of Ahriman and Lucifer—that have been transformed into organizing forces which, in the new life, cause the astral body to relate to the physical and etheric bodies differently than it would have done had such forces not penetrated it.

[ 18 ] Thus we see how it is precisely the effects of earlier thoughts, sensations, and feelings that cause the astral body to do what is bound to create disorder in the human organism. But when such disorder is caused, what then happens? When the astral body intrudes more deeply into the physical and etheric bodies than it should in a normal person, it does something very similar to what we do in the morning when we wake up, when, at the moment of awakening, we plunge down with our “I” into our two bodies. Waking up consists in the “I”-person diving down into the physical and etheric bodies. What, then, does the astral body do when it enters the physical and etheric bodies more deeply than it should, prompted by the effects of past experiences? — What else happens when we, with our “I” and astral body, descend into the physical and etheric bodies—when we wake up in the morning and perceive something—is precisely what manifests itself in the fact that we are waking up. Just as the entire waking state is the result of the “I”-person’s immersion into the physical and etheric bodies, so must something now occur that the astral body does—that is, something we would otherwise do as “I”-people. It immerses itself into the etheric and physical bodies. So when we have a person before us whose astral body has taken on the tendency to unite more closely with the etheric and physical bodies than is normally the case, we are faced with the same phenomenon in the astral body that we would otherwise observe in the “I-person” upon waking. What is this excessive intrusion of the astral body into the etheric body and physical body? It is something we might otherwise describe as the essence of illness. When our astral body does what we normally do upon waking—namely, forcing its way into the physical and etheric bodies—when the astral body, which normally should not develop consciousness within us, strives for consciousness within the physical and etheric bodies, when it seeks to awaken within us, then we become ill. Illness is an abnormal waking state of our astral body. What do we actually do when we are in a state of normal well-being, when we live in the ordinary waking state? Then we are awake for ordinary life. But in order to have this ordinary waking consciousness, we first had to place the astral body in a different state. We had to put it to sleep. The astral body must be asleep when we have our “I”-consciousness during the day; we can only be healthy when our astral body is asleep within us. Therefore, we can now understand the nature of health and illness in the following way: Illness is an abnormal awakening of the astral body in the human being, and health is the normal state of the astral body’s sleep.

[ 19 ] And what, then, is the consciousness of this astral body? If illness were truly the awakening of the astral body, something akin to consciousness would have to arise within it. It awakens abnormally; thus, we might expect an abnormal consciousness; but there would have to be some form of consciousness. When we fall ill, something similar to what normally occurs in the morning upon waking would have to arise. Our experience would have to be diverted toward something else. In the morning, our ordinary consciousness usually emerges. So when we become ill, does a form of consciousness emerge?

[ 20 ] Yes, a consciousness emerges that human beings know all too well. And what is this consciousness? A consciousness expresses itself through experiences! The consciousness that emerges here expresses itself in what we call the pain of illness—a pain we do not experience in the normal state of well-being during wakefulness, because at that time our astral body is asleep. When the astral body is asleep, it is in regular connection with the physical body and the etheric body, which means there is no pain. Pain is the expression of the astral body forcing its way into the physical and etheric bodies in a way it is not supposed to—and thereby coming into consciousness. That is pain.

[ 21 ] The point is that we must not, for example, extend what has just been said to the point of boundlessness. When speaking in terms of Spiritual Science, we must always remain within the limits of what is being said. — It has been said that when our astral body awakens, a consciousness arises that is steeped in pain. From this, however, we must not conclude that pain and illness always go hand in hand. Any forced intrusion of the astral body into the etheric body and the physical body is indeed a form of illness. Conversely, however, not every instance of illness consists of this, and we can understand that illness can also have a different character by recognizing that by no means is all illness accompanied by pain. Most people simply fail to notice this because, for the most part, they do not strive to be healthy in life, but rather strive to be pain-free; and when they are pain-free, they consider themselves healthy. This is not always the case; but in very many instances, people will believe that if they are free from pain, they are healthy. We would be succumbing to a tremendous delusion if we were to believe that the sensation of pain and illness are one and the same. A person’s liver may be thoroughly damaged; yet if the damage is not such that, for example, it affects the peritoneum, no pain occurs at all. A person may have a disease process within them that does not manifest itself in pain at all. This can be the case in many instances. From a more objective perspective, these illnesses are actually the more serious ones. For when a person feels pain, they set out to get rid of it; when they feel no pain, they do not make a particular effort to overcome the illness.

[ 22 ] What, then, about those cases where the symptoms are not accompanied by pain? What have we done in such cases? — We need only remember that we, as human beings as we are today, have indeed developed gradually, that during our time on Earth we have added the “I” to the astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body. But we were once human beings who had only a physical body and an etheric body. A being that has only a physical body and an etheric body is like a plant today. In such beings, we encounter a third level of consciousness—a much, much duller consciousness that does not even reach the brightness of today’s dream consciousness. It is, after all, a complete misconception to believe that a person has no consciousness during sleep. They do have consciousness; it is simply so dull that they cannot summon it up to the level of memory in their “I.” But such consciousness also resides in the plant. It is a kind of sleep consciousness, that is, one even deeper than astral consciousness. There we descend to an even deeper level of human consciousness.

[ 23 ] Let us now assume a person, through experiences in earlier incarnations, has not only introduced such disorder into his constitution that causes the astral body to sink into the physical and etheric bodies in a disorderly manner, but has also done something that can cause the etheric body to force its way into the physical body in an improper way. A state may well arise in which even the connection between the etheric body and the physical body is not what is normal for people today—that is, the etheric body pushes itself too deeply into the physical body. The astral body, so to speak, would not be involved at all in this; rather, what was predisposed in a previous life causes a denser fusion of the etheric body and the physical body within the human organism than is otherwise intended. Here we have the same phenomenon with the etheric body as we have with the astral body in the consciousness of pain.

[ 24 ] When the etheric body, for its part, sinks too deeply into the physical body, a state of consciousness arises similar to human sleep consciousness or plant consciousness. It is therefore no wonder that this is also a state that is not perceived by humans at all. Just as a person does not perceive anything while asleep, so too does he not perceive this state now. And yet it is an awakening! Just as our astral body awakens abnormally when it plunges too deeply into the etheric body and physical body, so too does the etheric body awaken abnormally when it plunges too deeply into the physical body. It’s just that a person cannot perceive it, because this awakening leads to a state of consciousness even more dull than the consciousness of pain. But let’s assume that a person had truly accomplished something in a previous life—something that, between death and rebirth, results in the etheric body awakening on its own, that is, taking intense possession of the physical body. When this has happened, a deep consciousness awakens within the person, but it cannot be perceived in the same way as the other experiences of the human soul are perceived. Does it therefore fail to exert an effect simply because it is not perceived? Let us try to understand what kind of peculiar tendency a consciousness takes on when it begins to lie one degree deeper.

[ 25 ] When you experience an external sensation—such as burning yourself—it causes pain. For pain to arise, consciousness must possess at least the level of consciousness of the astral body. Pain must be present in the astral body. So wherever pain arises in the human soul, a fact of the astral body is present. But let us suppose that something happens that is not associated with pain, yet which nevertheless evokes an external stimulus, an external sensation. If something flies toward your eye, it causes an external stimulus; the eye closes. This is not associated with pain. What does the stimulus bring about? A movement. This is similar to when the sole of your foot is touched: it is not pain—yet the foot twitches. There are, therefore, also such impressions on human beings that are not accompanied by pain, yet which nevertheless elicit some kind of reaction, a movement. People do not know—because they cannot penetrate to this deep level of consciousness—how such a thing comes about, that a movement follows the stimulus. When you feel pain and thereby reject something, it is the pain that has made you aware of what you are then rejecting. But something may occur that compels you to an inner movement, to a reflexive movement. Here, consciousness does not penetrate down to the level where the stimulus is transformed into movement. Here you have a level of consciousness that does not enter into your astral experiences, that is not consciously experienced, that takes place in a kind of sphere of sleep-like consciousness—yet it is not such that it cannot lead to events. When such a deeper penetration of the etheric body into the physical body takes place, this gives rise to a state of consciousness that is not one of pain—because the astral body is not involved in it—but one that is so dull that the person does not perceive it. This does not mean, however, that a person cannot perform actions in this state of consciousness or could not do something that corresponds to the entire situation. After all, people also perform actions in other situations where their consciousness is not present. You need only think of instances where ordinary daytime consciousness is extinguished and a person, as a sleepwalker, performs all manner of actions. It is not that there is no consciousness at all; rather, a form of consciousness is at work that a person cannot experience, because they can only experience the two highest forms of consciousness: astral consciousness as pleasure and pain and the like, and ego-consciousness as judgment and as ordinary waking consciousness. However, this does not mean that a person is unable to act from this state of sleep consciousness.

[ 26 ] So we, too, have this kind of deep consciousness, which a human being can no longer attain once the etheric body descends into the physical body. Suppose, however, that he wants to do something about which he can know nothing in normal life, something that is somehow connected to the situation; then he will do it without being aware of it. Something within him—the matter itself—will do it without his own knowledge. — Let us now consider a person who, through certain events in a previous life, has laid down causes within themselves that work their way down during the time between death and rebirth to the point where they lead to a deeper penetration of the etheric body into the physical body. Then actions will arise from this that lead to the manifestation of deeper-seated disease processes. The person may then be driven to actively seek out external triggers for illness.

[ 27 ] It may seem strange that this is not obvious to ordinary ego-consciousness. But a person would never do this from within their ordinary ego-consciousness. They would never, from within their ordinary ego-consciousness, command themselves to penetrate a swarm of germs. But let us suppose that this dull consciousness finds it necessary for an external injury to occur and for what we called yesterday “the whole meaning of being ill” to unfold. Then this consciousness, which penetrates into the physical body, seeks out the cause of the illness. It is the human being’s own essence that seeks out the cause of the illness in order to bring about what we called yesterday the process of illness. Thus, from the deeper nature of illness, you will understand that even when no pain has yet arisen, counteractions can still occur. And even when pain manifests, if the etheric body penetrates the physical body too strongly, what might be called the search for external causes of illness by deeper layers of human consciousness itself can still occur. As grotesque as it sounds, it is nevertheless true: just as we do with our inherited traits, we seek out our external causes of illness—using a different level of consciousness—when we need them. However, what has just been said applies only within the limits of how it is presented today.

[ 28 ] Today, the main focus has been on clarifying that a person may be capable—even without being able to follow the process at the level of consciousness familiar to them—of seeking out the illness by inducing an abnormal, deeper state of consciousness. That was the point: to show that in illness we are dealing with an awakening of stages of consciousness that we, as human beings, have already overcome in the past. By having incurred faults in a previous life, we cause ourselves to bring forth deeper levels of consciousness than would otherwise be appropriate for our present life. And what we do as a result of the impulses arising from these levels of consciousness influences both the course of the disease process and the process that leads to the disease in the first place.

[ 29 ] Here we see that, in abnormal states, old levels of consciousness resurface—levels that human beings have long since overcome. If you just consider the facts of everyday life for a moment, you can already begin to grasp what has been said today. The fact is that, through their pain, people descend, so to speak, deeper into their very being. You are familiar with the saying that a person only realizes they have an organ once it has begun to hurt. That is a popular saying; but it is not entirely without merit. Why is a person unaware of this in normal consciousness? Because, under normal circumstances, their consciousness is so deeply asleep that it does not delve deeply enough into the astral body. But when it does delve in, pain arises, and through the pain, a person realizes that they have the organ in question. There is a great deal of truth in many sayings of everyday life, because they are legacies from earlier stages of consciousness, in which people, when they looked into the spiritual world, still knew much of what we must laboriously bring back to the surface today.

[ 30 ] Once you understand that human beings can experience deeper layers of consciousness, you will also be able to grasp that people may seek out not only external causes of illness but also external strokes of fate—events that cannot be rationally explained, yet whose rationality operates in such a way that they affect deeper layers of consciousness. — Thus, it may well seem conceivable that, under normal circumstances, a person would not deliberately place themselves where they might be struck by lightning. With their conscious mind, they would avoid this. But there could be a consciousness at work within them that lies much deeper than the conscious mind and that leads them precisely to the spot where lightning can strike them, guided by a foresight that the conscious mind lacks—a consciousness that thus wants the lightning to strike them, so that the person actively seeks out the accident.

[ 31 ] Today, we have only just begun to grasp the possibility that misfortunes—or even external causes of illness—are brought about by karmic effects. How this happens in detail, how the forces within the human being—those located in deeper layers of consciousness—operate, and whether our higher consciousness is able to prevent such misfortunes—these are questions that will continue to occupy us. Just as we can understand that when a person goes to a place where an infection can affect them, a level of consciousness is at work that has driven them there, so too must we be able to understand how it is that people take measures to ensure such infections have less and less effect—that is, that through hygienic measures guided by the higher consciousness, we can avert such outcomes. We can also grasp the possibility of deflecting this effect through the higher consciousness, and must say that it would be highly irrational for the subconscious to seek out pathogens if, on the other hand, the causes of disease cannot also be avoided through the higher consciousness.

[ 32 ] We will see that it is “reasonable” to seek out pathogens, and that it is also “reasonable” to take hygienic measures from the perspective of the higher consciousness to prevent the entry of infectious agents, thereby preventing the causes of disease.