The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Twentieth Lecture

[ 1 ] It is simply the case that the methods of observation, consideration, and judgment that are otherwise common today—based on the habits of thought that have developed over the last three to four centuries—cannot be readily applied to anthroposophical spiritual science. What is initially indicated by intellectual concepts is, in anthroposophy, really only a kind of guideline for directing the observation of life and the world in a direction in which one can grasp reality—complete reality. Therefore, the initial concepts of spiritual science offer little more than a kind of outline that draws one’s attention to certain methods of observation. These schemas are drawn from spiritual science, which is to a certain degree already developed, so that anyone who engages with spiritual science does indeed receive something that may at first seem plausible to common sense, but which can only be fully understood when one brings what science and life otherwise provide into relation with these schemas.

[ 2 ] One gains such a framework relatively early on when one begins to explore anthroposophical spiritual science. And it is this framework that guides us to view the human being in such a way that we take the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the “I” as the basis for this perspective. In my book Theosophy, I immediately sought not merely to present these four aspects of human nature as a mere schema, but—through the way they are presented there—to imbue these four abstract concepts with a certain concrete content. So that one can see, to a certain extent—more can never be done—how justified it is to view human beings according to these four components.

[ 3 ] But these things truly come to life in a concrete way when one delves into what is revealed in human life, in human relationships with the world, and in the world itself—and when this then fills the concepts, which were initially outlined in a schematic way, with very specific content. From a certain perspective, let us try to do that again today.

[ 4 ] Let us begin, first of all, with what we call our “I”—insofar as we consciously experience this “I”—and consider what this “I” of ours actually represents. As you know, this “I” as consciousness is interrupted throughout the course of life by all the states that occur between falling asleep and waking up. With the exception of dreaming—and, in fact, to a certain extent even during dreaming—this sense of self is absent during the time between falling asleep and waking up. We can say: This sense of self always “ignites” at the moment of waking up—though “ignites” is, of course, merely a figurative expression—and it “fades” at the moment of falling asleep.

[ 5 ] If we develop the ability to observe such things, we realize that this sense of self is, in the strictest sense, bound to the entire scope of sensory perceptions—and, in fact, to nothing else. You need only conduct a kind of mental experiment once, which consists of trying, while awake, to erase all sensory content—to, so to speak, disregard all sensory content. We will return to this matter later from a different perspective. But you will already notice, when you try to set aside all sensory content, that in the vast majority of cases and for the vast majority of people, there is a certain tendency to then sink into a kind of sleep-like state; but that precisely means dampening the “I.” One can already observe that ego-consciousness, as it prevails during waking hours, is essentially linked to the presence of sensory content. So that we can say: We experience our ego at the same time as we experience sensory content. In fact, in everyday consciousness, we do not experience our ego any differently than in conjunction with sensory content. As far as sensory content extends, self-consciousness is present, and as far as—at least in ordinary life—self-consciousness is present, so far does sensory content extend. It is certainly justified, at first, when proceeding from the standpoint of this everyday consciousness, not to separate the self from sensory content, but to say to oneself: Insofar as red, this or that sound, this or that sensation of warmth, tactile sensation, or this or that sensation of taste or smell is present, the “I” is also present; and insofar as these sensations are not present, the “I,” as experienced in the ordinary waking state, is also not present.

[ 6 ] I have often presented this as a finding based on the observation of the soul. I made this particularly clear once in a lecture I gave at the Philosophers’ Congress in Bologna in 1911, where I attempted to show how what is experienced as the “I” should not, in fact, be separated from the entire scope of sensory experiences. We must therefore say: The “I” is, in essence, initially bound—I am always speaking of experience—to sensory perceptions. After all, we are not now considering the “I” as a reality; on the contrary, it is only in the course of these three lectures—today, tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow—that we intend to point to the “I” as a reality. For now, we want to focus solely on what we call the “I-experience” in the realm of our lives.

[ 7 ] You know how difficult it becomes to live in abstract ideas—ideas that are not imbued with the content of sensory experiences. This goes so far that there are many philosophers who claim outright that such senseless thinking—imagining without any sensory perceptions being present at the same time, even if they are merely sensory perceptions reflected from within—is not possible at all. However, upon genuine self-observation, it soon becomes clear that inner experience is by no means limited to sensory perceptions; rather, we simply move beyond sensory perceptions to what we call ideas. We do, however, obtain the pure image of imagination only when we clearly observe what emerges from a complex of sensory perceptions from which we have turned away and which we subsequently still imagine—albeit now with the aid of the very same powers that otherwise serve us in memory. Of course, it cannot be claimed that the content of sensory perceptions does not enter into these mental images. But the activity observable in human mental life is different when we experience a sensory perception in connection with the external world, and when we merely imagine that sensory perception.

[ 8 ] But this life of imagination leads us far away from what is, in fact, the very essence of our sense of self in sensory perception. We cannot say that we have a strong sense of self in the same sense when we are merely imagining; on the contrary, in mere imagination, there is always a tendency for this sense of self to fade, which manifests itself precisely in the transition to a dreamlike state or even a kind of sleep-dazed state during mere imagination. We delve deeper into our inner self when we are merely imagining than when we are engaged in sensory perception in connection with the external world. Here, one must refer to each individual’s self-observation. One will be able to notice how there is a tendency to dampen the “I” when sensory perception is dampened. We then penetrate precisely when we link the sensory experience to the idea of our “I” entering our astral body.

[ 9 ] So we can say: Just as life in sensory perception is connected to the experience of the “I,” so too is the experience of imagination connected to the astral body. Above all, this dampening of the “I” is expressed—and this is actually the most important point to bear in mind if one wants to understand what I am actually explaining now—in the fact that, by remaining within sensory perception, we have something entirely individual. The complex of sensory perceptions that we have before us at this very moment—no one else can have it exactly the same way. It is, in fact, something entirely individual, and in this very individuality we simultaneously have our sense of self. To the extent that we ascend to the experience of representation, we simultaneously have the power to arrive at something more general—for example, to form abstractions—which can then be communicated in the same form to others who share our understanding. As for the sensory perceptions we individually experience throughout our entire lives, we can in fact only understand them ourselves; but as for the ideas we associate with them, they take on a form that is more general in nature, such that they can, so to speak, be communicated to a larger number of people.

[ 10 ] This already attests to the fact that the “I” becomes subdued as we move from sensory experience to the experience of ideas. Yet at the same time, we delve deeper into ourselves; this, too, is a direct experience. Now, as the ideas—or rather, what takes place within us in their formation, which we shall leave undefined for the time being—as this continues to develop, the ideas become memories. Ideas actually disappear from our consciousness at first. From some underlying depths—which we will leave undefined for now—facts emerge, as a result of which we can evoke the same ideas.

[ 11 ] That is the only thing we can claim. Isn’t that right? If we stick to the facts, we can’t agree with those psychologists who say, for example: These ideas then descend into the subconscious, where they wander around without the conscious mind knowing anything about it, and when one remembers them, they wander back up again. — That’s not what actually happens. There’s nothing to suggest, at first glance, that an idea I formed three years ago has continued to exist to this day, wandering somewhere in the depths of the soul, only to resurface today when I recall it. Rather, the only thing that can be said, if one wishes to speak precisely, is this: At that time, I formed those ideas; the faculties associated with this process of idea-formation are, in their subsequent development, such that today this idea can once again emerge consciously within me. That is the sole fact of the matter. And if people were inclined everywhere to grasp the precise facts, there would certainly be far fewer theories and hypotheses in the world than there are. For precisely with regard to what I am now explaining here, most people believe that what they once formed as a concept lives on somewhere in the vague and then resurfaces.

[ 12 ] But we also know that the mental image formed in connection with a sensory experience is, in fact, fleeting, and that—even if this is sometimes concealed—an inner force must be unleashed, one that can be experienced when a past experience becomes a mental image again in memory. That which serves as the basis for memories lies deeper within us than the ordinary mental image linked to a sensory perception. It is a memory rooted in our very constitution. It is, after all, connected to our nature as temporal beings. We know that mental images can be recalled in various ways, depending on how far back in time they lie. If we summarize all the relevant facts, we must conclude: In any case, what was once experienced in a mental image linked to a sensory perception has been drawn into the stream of time in which we ourselves live. Certain sensations that we definitely experience while a memory surfaces tell us how closely remembering is actually connected to our entire organism. We also know how, at different stages of life—that is, in the sequence of time in our lives between birth and death—the power of memory is greater or lesser.

[ 13 ] If we consider all these facts, we will be able to say that, just as the power of imagination resides in the astral body, the power of memory resides in the etheric body. So that, for example, when we summarize the act of remembering in the word “memory,” we can say: Memory is just as one with the etheric body as the life of imagination is with the astral body, and sensory perception is with the “I.” In any case, what underlies the act of imagining is incorporated into the flow of time throughout our existence. Just as our growth and our ongoing development between birth and death are part of a certain flow of time, so too is what we experience as recollection—what lives on as memory—part of this same flow, and we sense this interconnectedness. Now, however, something is added to the things I have discussed so far—things that anyone can discover through faithful self-observation with even a modicum of subtle attention. That the “I” is connected to sensory perception is a completely obvious fact, and anyone who does not acknowledge this simply refuses to observe a completely obvious fact. That the experience of imagination is connected to the astral body is something one can certainly arrive at even through ordinary observation. A more subtle form of observation is, however, required if one wishes, so to speak, to examine the connection between the etheric body and memory. But even here, one can—I would say—rely on scientific methods, particularly when observing pathological cases, memory disorders, and the like, and seeing how they are connected specifically to growth and nutritional disorders. And we must certainly regard the forces of nutrition as lying in the same direction as the forces of growth or the forces of reproduction. It is certainly possible to compile a series of observations that allows us to grasp this connection between memory and the etheric body.

[ 14 ] On the other hand, what I now have to add, however, only becomes apparent through imaginative observation, and—I would say—can at most be intuited by ordinary observation. But once it has been discovered through imaginative observation, the entire context in which these things can be placed makes their truth perfectly clear to common sense. We penetrate, as it were, from the outside in, ever deeper into our own being, starting with sensory perception and the “I,” the experience of imagination and the astral body, the experience of memory and the etheric body, and then diving down into the physical body.

[ 15 ] In the physical body, however, we are dealing with something that is still connected to memory, but not in the same way as the etheric body. To better understand this—what is revealed to imaginative observation and what I am about to characterize—one can draw on the findings that are evident in certain pathological disorders. The person then develops certain inclinations—I would say tendencies—within their physical body; these need not go so far as to produce involuntary movements or twitches, though they could, of course, go so far as to result in death—but that actually belongs to a different field. When involuntary movements occur—I would say of a more innocent nature—then anyone who is willing to delve into such matters at all can already see that within a certain category of involuntary movements there are aftereffects of experiences. If someone shows a tendency to perform this or that action with their fingers habitually but involuntarily, one can always point out—provided one has sufficient research data—how this or that complex of experiences leads precisely to these actions. These movements must not exceed a certain degree of involuntariness; rather, I would say, they are semi-involuntary movements.

[ 16 ] You see, the problem is that what has been experienced leaves too strong an imprint on the physical body; it may still leave an imprint on the etheric body, but not too strongly on the physical body. If it leaves too strong an imprint on the physical body, then this physical body comes under the influence of memories. It must not. Imaginative observation shows us that what is at work in memory is still movement in the etheric body—in a sense, it is still a developing movement within the etheric body. In the physical body, it becomes blocked. It must not completely permeate the physical body; it must be repelled by the physical body.

[ 17 ] If I were to draw a diagram, it would look like this: Let’s assume we have the physical body here (see diagram, red), the etheric body here (orange), the astral body here (green), and finally the “I” here (white). Now a sensory experience occurs. This sensory experience is first taken up by the “I.” A mental image is formed of it as it becomes embedded in the astral body; the force that then makes memory possible takes effect as it becomes embedded as a movement in the etheric body. But now it must be held back. It must not proceed further; it must not penetrate the physical body entirely, but must be held back here. For within the physical body—naturally, at first entirely unconsciously—an image arises from what lives in memory. The image bears no resemblance to the experience itself; it is a metamorphosis; yet an image does arise. So it must be said: Just as memory is connected to the etheric body, so a real inner image is connected to the physical body. — Whenever such a movement originating from the etheric body becomes blocked in the physical body, we always have an imprint, an image; this image, of course, can only be accessed through imaginative visualization. There you see how, in fact, the physical body becomes the bearer of all these images. You may say: “But I can’t possibly have, for example, the image of a church tower in my physical body!” — I will first give you an idea of how you can indeed have the image of a church tower in your physical body by illustrating the matter to you in a vivid way.

[ 18 ] Suppose, for my sake, that you have a face in front of you, and you let that face be reflected in some mirror that completely distorts it (it is drawn). Let’s assume that something dreadful arises within you, something terrifying. Now, I don’t mean that from an external experience—say, a church tower—something so terrifying is imprinted on the physical body, but in any case, something dissimilar must naturally arise. Now think about this: if you see such a monstrosity emerging from this beautiful forehead, it is caused by the curvature of the mirror. If you can take this curvature of the mirror into account, then—even if you don’t actually have that face in front of you right now—you can reconstruct the face from the caricature in conjunction with the mirror’s curvature. So if you understand the nature of the caricaturing mirror through which you see the caricature, you can reconstruct the beautiful face. Thus, there need not be anything inside a person that resembles a church tower or a drama—something they have experienced or the like—but what arises in connection with the nature of the whole person naturally makes it possible to reconstruct the matter in the same way.

[ 19 ] So no objection can be raised on the grounds that, naturally, because the world is large and structured differently from the human interior, the image cannot simply be present within the human interior. The image is there, and in a sense, the image is the final stage in a person through which external experience passes. The other processes—imagination and memory—are transitional moments. What we experience in the external world must not simply pass through us. We must act as an insulator; we must hold it back, and ultimately it is our physical body that does this. Our astral body transforms it, making it pale in our imagination; our etheric body strips it of all content and retains only the possibility of evoking it again. But what is actually brought about within us is imprinted upon us as an image. We continue to live with that. But we must not let it pass right through us. Suppose we were to let the image pass through us immediately; it would not, so to speak, be elastically reflected back by the etheric body; it would pass through the etheric body, pass through the physical body, and we would be constantly flitting about in the world as events dictate. This is difficult to describe in more complex cases, but if, for example, I were to see a person moving from right to left, I would immediately start dancing from left to right, wanting to imitate everything I see. I would want to imitate within myself, in my own form, everything I experience externally. It is precisely this that first reaches the astral body—which, in a sense, already has a paralyzing effect—then the elastic, repulsive etheric body, and finally, in particular, the physical body, which contains the whole experience. In the physical body, there is an isolation of what I perceive from the outside. And in this way, what I experience in the external world takes effect within me.

[ 20 ] The fact that we know human beings consist of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and an “I” provides us with a framework; but what matters is that we then fill this framework with concrete results—that is, sensory perception, imagination, memory, and then the very concrete image. That is what gives these schematic concepts their content. And one must arrive at such content more and more if one wishes to advance toward an understanding of what is reality in the world. One cannot, for example, say: “Yes, there we divide the human being into physical body, etheric body, astral body, and ego, as if there were boundaries there!” — After all, if one is a reasonable person, one does not claim in the first place that there are any boundaries other than those that arise when one considers the formation of images, the experience of memory, the experience of imagination, and the experience of sensory perception. But one must have an unbiased capacity for understanding the differences between these four types of experience.

[ 21 ] That is, to begin with, one way of approaching these matters. But now let us approach human beings and their relationship to the world from another angle. Suppose we are walking around. As we walk around—I have touched on this before here in a different context—we cannot, in our external observation, distinguish between our walking and the motion of an inanimate object. Whether I observe a thrown stone in its trajectory from the outside, considering only its motion, or whether I observe a person running—if both are moving at the same speed, then, at first glance, the same phenomenon is present in the external picture. If I disregard everything else and look only at the body in motion, I am dealing with a change in position in the case of both the stone and the person. I observe this change in position, this velocity. And this is, in the final analysis, essentially what we are aware of regarding our own movement in everyday life; for we must distinguish between the intention to perform a movement and the actual movement itself. When I think of a movement, I can remain perfectly still. I can imagine myself in motion, and if I have even a little imagination, I can picture myself moving. The image I have when I am actually moving need not differ at all from the imaginary image I have when I am at rest and merely imagine myself moving.

[ 22 ] So we must distinguish very carefully between thinking about our movements and our actual movements. But we also imagine these actual movements only externally, in exactly the same way that we imagine motionless objects. We see how this results in different distances from these or those objects. We observe our movements entirely externally; that is an additional factor. And when we speak of movements—I do not wish to get into whether this involves a hypothetical conception or a more or less well-founded conception; that is a matter for another chapter—but when we have movements present, we also have force present.

[ 23 ] So I will begin by sticking strictly to the ordinary facts: Where there is motion, there is naturally the exertion of a certain force. Thus we can say: The person in motion exerts a certain force. — We cannot speak of anything more than force, and we must also identify this force that he exerts with some object, even an inorganic one. Let us therefore consider only the physical body, either as a whole or in its individual parts; when it moves, it moves just like any other inanimate object. Thus, when we imagine ourselves in motion and look at the physical body, we can speak here only of force.

[ 24 ] The situation is quite different, however, when we begin to look into the inner workings of the being. We must be clear about this: While we perform a movement, internal processes are taking place within us. Substances are being consumed. Something is happening that is connected to the forces of growth, nutrition, and reproduction. These are forces that we cannot address in the same way that we address the forces we perceive in the external movement of an inanimate body. When we observe a plant as it grows—and the same applies, at least initially, to animals and humans with regard to their growth forces—we must it must be clear to us that the unfolding of forces is different from that which underlies the case when we have a body in motion that is merely observable from the outside, be it our own body in motion as observed from the outside or a human body in general. What is at work when growth processes take place—and by growth processes in the broader sense I now also mean those that occur, for example, when we are in motion—what is happening there, we must certainly seek in the etheric, in the etheric body. What we observe in external movement—in the relationship of the human being who is in external motion to this external world—does not lead us to look toward the etheric body. The moment we observe what is happening internally, we must look toward the etheric body. And if we define the concept of growth as broadly as I have just done, we can say: The specific power of growth—which thus also includes nutrition, metabolism, and so on—this specific power compels us to ascend to the etheric body. — We see this power of growth in the plant world.

[ 25 ] So that you may see that these ideas are not merely theoretical but can also be substantiated by observations in the field of spiritual science, I would like to state explicitly that what we observe in a growing organism—or indeed in any organism undergoing internal change— namely in the plant organism, where it appears in its purest form, is entirely based on the fact that the force, which otherwise expresses itself only in external movement, enters into a certain relationship with what can in reality be called Ather. I would also like to illustrate this for you.

[ 26 ] You are familiar with the often-mentioned fact that a solid object in a liquid loses as much of its weight—and experiences buoyancy—as the weight of the displaced water. Now, the forces underlying the external movements of physical bodies are, in a certain sense, rigid. They possess an inner rigidity, just as a solid body has a certain weight. When you place a solid body in water, it loses some of its weight. When you interpenetrate the forces that otherwise cause external motion with the forces of the ether, they lose their rigidity; they become internally mobile. Thus, a force that is so great as the moving force of the inorganic—and cannot become any greater if it is merely an external moving force—loses its rigidity when it unites with the ether; it can then expand or contract. And as such a force, it is then active in growth and in internal processes in general.

[ 27 ] This Archimedean principle can be stated as follows: Every solid body loses, in a liquid, an amount of its weight equal to the weight of the displaced liquid. One can further say that every force, when it unites with the etheric forces, loses as much of its rigidity as the etheric forces exert as suction forces upon it—that is, as much as the etheric forces counteract it with suction forces. It becomes movement, and thus it becomes what it acts as—for example, in the plant organism—but it also remains active in the animal organism and in the human organism. If we now proceed further upward from the etheric body to the astral body—that is, in the external view, from the plant to the animal—then what was initially an internally dynamic force within the power of growth now becomes free—similar to how I described the liberation of the forces that are set free in the seventh year with the change of teeth—internally free, so that what takes place there is no longer bound to the forces of the solid body. What manifests there as free forces are the instinctive forces in animals and humans. Thus, as we ascend to the astral body, what was still a force below becomes instinct. And as we ascend to the “I,” instinct becomes will.

[ 28 ] I: Sensory Perceptions, Will
Astral Body: Imagination, Instinct
Etheric Body: Memory, Growth Force
Physical Body: Form, Force

[ 29 ] This relationship between the will and the instincts becomes apparent once again to a rational self-examination through an unbiased observation of ordinary mental life. From another perspective, we have filled what is here merely a schematic outline with the content of experience.

[ 30 ] We can say that when we consider the physical body, from within it presents itself to us as that which continually responds to experiences and becomes an image; viewed from the outside, it is an organization of forces. And it is also correctly observed with regard to the physical body that it actually consists of an interplay of forces and images. For if you imagine a painted picture—though you would have to imagine it spatially, in such a way that it is not a rigid image but an image in inner motion, with force acting at every point—then you get something like what must actually be conceived of as the physical body.

[ 31 ] If you imagine the forces of growth from the inside and think of them as permeating the other side of what underlies memory—but not as ideas that obscure one another, but precisely as what underlies memory— that is, etheric movements on one side that well up and surge upward through the inner processing of ingested nutrients—which surge upward through human movements—in conflict with what ripples downward from all that has been sensually perceived and become a mental image, and has then settled in the etheric body for the preservation of memory—if you conceive of this interplay between above and below, that is, what swings down from the imagination and what rises up from below, arising from the processes of nutrition, growth, and eating—both interacting with one another—then you will gain a vivid picture of the etheric body. And again, if you consider everything you experience yourself when instincts are at work—and you can surely understand how blood circulation and respiration operate within the instincts, how the entire rhythmic system is at work there, and how these instincts depend on our upbringing and on what we have absorbed— then you have the living interplay of what the astral body is. And when you finally imagine an interplay of acts of will—in which all your volitional acts are intertwined with your sensory perceptions—then you have a vivid picture of what enters consciousness as the “I.”

[ 32 ] However, that is merely a schema. One must fit the experiences—and we have, after all, only had a very small sample of them—into a schema. You have to have the closet first before you can put the items inside. Isn’t that right? The typical psychologist or physiologist first observes these things. And if someone happens to have all kinds of laundry and clothing but no closet—if they just pile them all on top of each other—well, over time that’s bound to turn into chaos! That’s our current psychology and physiology. You really do need a closet. Just as the person who makes the closet must, in a certain sense, know how the closet needs to be organized so that you can actually fit what you want to put in there, so too must what is being structured there, even though it can only be abstract—just as the cabinet, when it is still empty, is abstract in relation to when it is full—must still be inexplicable in a certain sense. If there is an empty cabinet somewhere, it, too, is inexplicable.

[ 33 ] So you see, there are of course an awful lot of points of attack against anthroposophy, depending on where one chooses to focus. But one can also—and I have tried to make this clear in my Theosophy—point out that while one is compelled to start by setting up the framework, since something concrete is already demanding it, But one must then have the patience to ascend to that which brings richness to the framework. And this is what must always be said, time and again, especially to anthroposophists: one should not give the world the impression that everything has already been said simply by throwing around abstract terms like physical body, etheric body, astral body, and I. If one merely says: “The human being consists of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and an ‘I’”—then one has said nothing more than four words. For there is, of course, a great difference between stating this—out of the fullness of knowledge—as a framework that can be used to organize one’s thoughts, and proceeding in such a way that it is dogmatized and communicated as dogma.

[ 34 ] That is why it makes such a repulsive impression when people simply repeat the conventional wisdom: “The human being consists of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and an ‘I.’” It all depends on how one says such things. One need not go as far as was supposedly said once in an anthroposophical lecture: “For the sake of simplicity, we divide the human being into seven parts.” — It is already a great absurdity to believe that one is grasping something real simply by presenting some arbitrary schema. Its primary purpose is to provide guidelines within which observations can be made.

[ 35 ] Now that I have shown you how certain commonly used concepts—such as will, memory, and so on—can be incorporated into the anthroposophical conceptual framework, we will move on to a further consideration of the human being tomorrow.