The Rudolf Steiner Archive

6. Three Stages of the Awakening of the Human Soul

[ 1 ] Today I would like to add a few esoteric points to what I was able to speak about yesterday in the public lecture. What I would like to share with you today is intended to be a kind of esoteric supplement. When the human being, emerging from that existence I called “pre-earthly” yesterday, first grows into physical-earthly existence through the embryonic life, we see how, within this physical existence, the spiritual-soul aspect—which is hidden at the beginning—asserts itself out of the physical body, just as the child, so to speak, bursts into the physical earthly world. We see that the child’s life, in relation to its surroundings, is still, in a sense, a kind of dreaming; that it is only gradually awakening. We find, however, three aspects that represent the stages of this awakening at particularly significant points. These three aspects are observed with that heartfelt joy, with that devoted love, with which one always observes a child when one is a fully developed human being. But the full significance of this triad only truly becomes clear when, through spiritual science, one is able to observe the spiritual-soul life within physical-bodily existence. This triad consists of learning to walk, learning to speak, and learning to think. You know at what early age a human being goes through this triad. For this is, in fact, the logical sequence. We will see shortly why this logical sequence must be this way. It could be different, but this sequence is the one that is natural.

[ 2 ] Learning to walk is something that, in a very one-sided way, points to a number of things that the child is acquiring at the same time. After all, the child enters the world in a state of balance that is entirely different from the one in which it later moves through the world. At the same time, this is linked to the proper use of the arms, as well as the proper alignment of the human organism in the posture that corresponds to the human being’s relationship to the world—the mobility appropriate to human existence on earth. This is what the child must first learn. From the mobility that the human being acquires through his or her organism flows what places him or her in a state of equilibrium in relation to solids, liquids, and gases. In all of this lies the foundation, the groundwork for something else. As the human being engages in all these activities—learning to walk, maintaining balance, and learning to use the arms and fingers—the movements taking place throughout the entire system radiate upward into the system that underlies human speech. This tenses the muscles, sets the blood in motion, exerts an influence on the human etheric body, and is transmitted to the physical, etheric, and astral organs of respiration; this process continues and exerts a certain formative activity on the brain. One might say that it is transmitted to those organs that, from within the human being and through imitation of the surroundings, produce language. Speech is the transformed movement and transformed balance of the human being. Anyone who can come to an understanding of reality through an insight into the spiritual-soul aspect sees how dexterity continues to work within the melodious element of speech—not the finished dexterity, but the effort the child must make to acquire the dexterity that our hand exercises when grasping. What constitutes the rhythm of language is expressed in the way the feet touch the ground, in the movements of walking. It is very significant to observe whether a child learning to walk first steps down with the heels, the balls of the feet, or the toes. What springs forth from the human being as childlike thinking grows out of language. Walking, speaking, thinking: these develop out of that dull, dreamlike state of consciousness. When a human being is born and cannot yet do these things, this power is nevertheless present in the child as a residual effect, just as it is present in pre-earthly existence. Spiritual science can show us how this is present in pre-earthly existence. The first sounds of speech are not those that express thought, but arise from physical comfort or discomfort.

[ 3 ] What, then, were walking, speaking, and thinking like in pre-earthly existence? Anyone who observes the expressions of this thinking—as it flows from the child—by looking at it retrospectively, sees it vanish into an indefinite darkness. It only reappears to them in the final period before earthly birth. There one sees the spiritual-soul being of the human being in spiritual communion with that host of beings whom I have described in my *Outline of Esoteric Science* as Angeloi. It is a communion that can be characterized as follows: Thoughts are not conceived and expressed abstractly, but rather a living stream of thought flows back and forth from being to being; a living communion with the Angeloi arises. From the power that has flowed into the human soul, something develops that is, as it were, slumbering within the human being during embryonic life, but which later manifests as the power of thought and imagination. And we possess this in order to achieve proper communion with one another. Consider what we would be if we were not thinking beings—what we would be as human beings in relation to one another! Everything we are as human beings in relation to one another, we are precisely because we are thinking beings. Here on Earth, we communicate from human to human through the thinking we express in language. This way in which we communicate here through thinking stems from our pre-earthly interaction with the angels. Indeed, we can cultivate this same kind of interaction—as we do with the angels—with other human beings who are in their pre-earthly existence; this takes the form of a direct language of thought. But communication with the hierarchy of angels is even more sublime, for it provides not only satisfaction for the soul but also strength that reappears in the thinking which the child acquires on the third stage of its earthly life.

[ 4 ] Let us now turn to the second level: language. It is not as closely bound to the sensory-nervous system as thought is. Language is connected to the chest system, the human rhythmic system, to that which expresses itself in breathing and in blood circulation. If we trace back what emerges from the child—language that imitates the outer world—all the way to pre-earthly existence, we find that human beings derive these forces from the communion they were able to cultivate in their pre-earthly existence with the second hierarchy—the archangels, the ruling beings of the tribal peoples—who have this task precisely because they share with human beings the relationship that has just been described. These powers, which human beings receive through their communion with the archangels, sank into the night and only reemerge in the powers of earthly language, through which we communicate with one another. What would we be as human beings without language, if we could not pour the ethereal nature of thought waves into the coarser air waves that convey language! The forces that cause our rhythmic system to become the “bearer of a denser revelation” come to us from the hierarchy of the Archangels. And so we can trace this by going back to pre-earthly existence. We cannot merely say in abstract terms that human beings live among spiritual beings—rather, we can state in a very specific way what gift this or that kind of being has bestowed upon us for our earthly life. We thank these spiritual beings—that is, we establish a proper relationship with these beings—when we say: “For my thinking, I thank the angels; for speech, I thank the archangels.”

[ 5 ] Let us now return to the very first thing a child learns: walking, and learning to maintain balance. There is more to this than one usually realizes. It involves the “I” bringing about a very specific physical process that transforms a human being from a crawling creature into a walking one. It is the “I” that raises the human being to an upright posture; it is the astral body that influences the sense of language in the upright being; and it is the etheric body that permeates all of this with the power of thought. But they all act upon the physical body. When we consider the animal, whose spine runs parallel to the earth’s surface, its activity—its movement, its actions, everything that arises from the astral—is something entirely different from that of the human being, who, as a willing being, acts out of his upright, vertical nature. What in humans are states that unfold in this way within the “I,” the astral body, and the etheric body is, in the physical body, a kind of combustion process. This is the point where our physical science, if it wishes to perfect itself, will be able to find a connection with anthroposophy.

[ 6 ] It must be said: The processes of combustion in humans are entirely different from those in animals. When the flame of the organic being acts horizontally, it destroys what arises from the conscience; what arises from the moral realm of the conscience cannot take effect. The fact that it is permeated by the conscience in human beings is due to the fact that the flame of the will stands vertically on the ground in human beings. The child enters into this influence of the moral, of the conscientious, just as it does into the outer physical state of balance. As the child learns to walk, moral human nature—indeed, even the religious permeation of human nature—surges into the human being. These are truly sublime forces at work when the child transitions from crawling to walking. If we trace these forces back through the darkness of the child’s consciousness, they lead us to an even higher level of human interaction with the beings we call primordial forces, the Archai. All of this is a continuation of what the human being experienced in pre-earthly existence. If we wish to add a third element to the prayer-like formula: “For my thinking I thank the Angeloi; for speech I thank the Archangeloi”—we must say: “For my placement within earthly existence, endowed with physical and moral powers, I thank the Archai, who have received these from even higher beings.”

[ 7 ] And now we can answer the question: How is it that a human being, who had a consciousness of light before birth, then brings a dull consciousness into the world? Yes, it is in this process that what we can summarize under the terms “powers of movement,” “powers of speech,” and “powers of thought”—which we have received from the higher hierarchies in order to transform them—is submerged. We thus see how that which makes us human—that which distinguishes us as human beings among human beings—reveals itself to us in connection with the higher divine-spiritual worlds. In a certain sense, we enter these divine-spiritual worlds again and again anew during our earthly life. The fact is that we must tell ourselves: For the very essence of the human being, the state of sleep—from which dreams emerge—is at least as important as the waking state. When a person transitions from the waking state to the sleeping state, it is precisely these three faculties—which the person has acquired in the manner described—that fall silent. Imagination, speech, and action fall silent. Here, however, we see how, as thinking falls silent when we fall asleep—to the same extent that our thoughts fade from our consciousness—we draw near to the Angeloi, and how, when the ability to speak ceases, we draw near to the Archangeloi beings. To the extent that a human being is surrendered to complete stillness, he or she, through the cessation of action, draws near to the Archai, the primordial forces.

[ 8 ] But what this is all about is that we come into the presence of these three hierarchies in a worthy manner precisely while we are asleep; that we come into the presence of the Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai in a worthy manner. This is the point where we should speak in particular to the people of the present, for a great deal depends on how our thinking takes shape while we are awake—on how we draw near to the angels. It depends on the way a person uses their powers of speech in a worthy manner whether they come into the presence of the Archangels in a worthy manner. It depends on the way they correctly use their motor abilities and their moral sense whether they come into the presence of the Archai in a worthy manner.

[ 9 ] We live in a time when people no longer wish to include in their thinking anything that goes beyond the physical world; they want to be stimulated by the external world. Independent, pure thinking—as I called for thirty years ago in *The Philosophy of Freedom* as the foundation for moral insight—is, unfortunately, rarely sought or cultivated in today’s children. But through such thinking—which Goethe and Schiller would still have called idealistic—human beings break free from the mere waking world of earthly existence and retain something for the state of sleep. We possess as much power to draw near to the angels in sleep as there is idealism in our thinking. And we are just as powerless to take the steps we would need to take toward the angels as there is materialism at work in our thinking. It should be noted in the same sense that those people fall prey to Ahrimanic elemental beings during sleep—toward whom their thinking must then turn—who do not find, through the idealism they develop while awake, the strength to come into the presence of the angelic beings. It is indeed so beautiful when a child has learned to think so directly in a way that most people can no longer even imagine! A child’s thinking, immediately after it has learned to think, is full of spirituality. It is wonderful to see how, until the time when they become consumed by materialism, children in their sleep literally fly toward the angelic beings, how they become connected with the angelic beings during sleep. So we can say: In sleep, we seek—but only through idealism, through the spiritualization of the world of thought—those worlds from which we have evolved in order to learn to think here as human beings among human beings.

[ 10 ] And if we consider language: the idealism of thought has precisely the same significance for communication with the Angeloi as the idealism of disposition has for a person’s communication with the Archangeloi beings during sleep. The person who is able to infuse their words—when addressing another—with goodwill and a kind disposition—one that reaches into the other’s soul, that does not pass the person by but engages with them through the interest one can have in them—that disposition, which can be described as an idealistic and benevolent disposition, is what also gives language its melodious quality. When the astral body and the “I” have passed into sleep, it gives the astral body and the “I”—which are also involved in language—the power to draw near to the Archangelic beings, whereas it is the antisocial, egoistic attitude that scatters these forces into the world of the Ahrimanic elemental beings; so that when a person falls asleep and has not used language in an idealistic, proper way, they actually dehumanize themselves.

[ 11 ] The same is true when we act in a way that is benevolent toward others, yet fully aware that human beings are not merely creatures living in the flesh, but that, in their inner essence, they are spiritual beings. For it is from this awareness that respect for other human beings as spiritual beings also arises. Through actions guided by this understanding, we gain the power for the state of sleep that brings us in the right way into the presence of the Archai; whereas, if we are unable to perform acts of human kindness, if we are aware of ourselves only as physical beings, the corresponding forces are then scattered into the world of Ahrimanic elemental forces: we alienate ourselves from human nature itself.

[ 12 ] Thus, human beings bring with them three kinds of gifts from their pre-earthly existence; yet they reconnect these gifts in three ways to their original form—between falling asleep and waking up—when they remain unconscious but repeatedly come into the presence of these beings. It is just as we here on Earth must shape our interactions with people from three sources: the source of thought, the source of speech, and the source of action. Thus, during our sleep life, we stand in a threefold relationship to the spiritual world: to the angels, to the archangels, and to the primordial forces.

[ 13 ] What we establish here in union with these beings is of decisive importance when we pass through the gate of death. For through spiritual vision one can see how human beings can come ever closer and closer to the Angeloi, the Archangeloi, and the Archai. However, there is something that could become very dire for the future of humanity if it surrenders itself entirely to the Ahrimanic elemental beings, if materialism in thought, speech, and action becomes increasingly entrenched. But thanks to the spiritual world, human souls today still possess—at least for most people—such a legacy of good disposition in thought, speech, and action that not everything can yet be corrupted by today’s materialism. Very materialistic people have little from their present earthly life to bring them into the presence of the hierarchies, yet what brings them there wells up from their past lives. But humanity could very easily receive a different reward if it does not adopt a spiritual outlook on life. The idealization of thought, speech, and action gives human beings the opportunity, so to speak, to forge new connections with the three kinds of divine-spiritual beings—the Angeloi, the Archangeloi, and the Archai—whom human beings need for the time between death and a new birth. Otherwise, in the distant future—if they had no connection with the Angeloi during this time—they would be born as beings paralyzed in thought; if they had not established a connection with the Archangeloi, as beings without language; and if they had no connection with the Archai, they would be born with paralyzed limbs and paralyzed moral impulses. It is up to humanity on Earth to either bring about the ruin of all humanity through the materialism of civilization and culture, or to elevate it to a higher plane through spiritualization—what I have called in my *Secret Science* the “Jupiter existence” of the earthly being.

[ 14 ] Anthroposophy is not a theory. Every word, every thought permeates our entire life of thought, our entire human soul. We cannot help but think: You are, after all, a crippled being if you do not have the right connection with the higher beings. — This also gives us a sense of responsibility in our moral existence toward the spiritual world, and from this comes a person’s true sense of responsibility toward the physical world. It arises only from this. If you reflect on what happens within a human being—how, through idealism in his thoughts, he draws near to the Angeloi; how, through his words, through the idealistic spirit contained in his speech, brings them into the presence of the Archangels, and through the idealism contained in their actions brings them into the presence of the Archai—and how, during sleep, they strive upward toward the three hierarchies—then you will also come to understand what anthroposophical research shows us: that what constitutes a human being’s destiny is woven in this way. We carry all of this through the gate of death, and later it becomes conscious. After death, we must shape our thoughts in communion with the angels; with the attitude we possess, we must acquire our perceptions after death. The way in which we place ourselves within humanity through speech gives us the ability, the power, to come together with the archangels. Through the way we use our limbs, we must acquire the possibility of having self-awareness after death through communion with the Archai. In this way we live our way into it, and in this way is woven that which then develops as a bright power of consciousness between death and a new birth.

[ 15 ] When we now observe the child during the first years of life, we see the aftereffects of the previous earthly life. One sees not only into the pre-earthly life, but also into the previous earthly life, and it is only then that one develops the ability to perceive the entire earthly life. One then observes the child as it learns to walk, learns to use its arms, and notes whether it walks on the balls of its feet or on its heels. One does not merely observe the child as it appears to the physical eye, but also sees how certain actions were previously carried out with tenderness, with gentleness, and with a compassionate heart—how this gives the child a steady gait in this life, and how an unsteady, wobbly gait is the result of a brutal, uncompassionate demeanor in a previous life. Every step the child takes, the struggle to achieve this or that form of gait, reveals to us how this form is the result of a previous earthly life. We learn to recognize the physical as a reflection of what lives within the child from a previous earthly life as a moral impulse. It is the most magnificent thing one can witness: learning to walk. The main measure of destiny is expressed in learning to walk. Human freedom, as I said yesterday, is no more impaired by the fact that a person is born with their destiny than it is by whether they have blond or brown hair.

[ 16 ] Learning to speak expresses something else. This, too, is connected to pre-earthly existence, but it is difficult to characterize. Because it is difficult to express, I would like to put it into simple terms. When a person passes through the gate of death, they have, in a certain sense, morally shaped their human being. They have always woven their own being during the state of sleep, and they begin to see for themselves what they have woven there. Once a person has passed through the gate of death, they come into the proper proximity of the Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai. But there is something else that a person receives from the second group of hierarchies. These pour into the person, as a further, more impersonal destiny, that which places the person in a specific language in their coming life and integrates them into a specific national context. Personal destiny is connected to what a person is in relation to the Archai; we derive our ability to speak from the Archangeloi. But the language we speak, we have received from much higher beings: the Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kyriotetes.

[ 17 ] When we consider thinking and imagination, they are connected—as I have shown—to the Angeloi. These beings can bestow the gift of thought upon human beings. However, they only acquired this ability during the Earth period; they did not possess it during the Lunar period. In the process, the Angeloi themselves undergo a development; through which they themselves draw near to the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones. Through this, they have attained the ability to have direct communion with the Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim, and these beings bestow not merely a capacity granted to a single human community, but one given to all of humanity. Thinking, after all, is something common to all of humanity. Hence the logic that is the same throughout the entire world. The path along which personal destiny unfolds, we have received from the Archai through their own powers. Human beings have received the powers of speech from the Archangels, but these are aligned with the second group of hierarchies. From the Angeloi, human beings have received the capacity for thought, but they bestow this upon us under the influence of the highest hierarchies.

[ 18 ] This is how things are interwoven in the order of the world, and one can only understand human beings if one can view them in their interconnectedness with the order of the world. In this way, one understands not only the individual human being, but also the essence of a living or dying language group, or of a form of thought that is imperfect or more perfect. Human beings exist on Earth within a certain dualism. They perceive beings as subject to certain laws of nature. And in contrast to this, human beings have an awareness of their connection to the divine. Here on Earth, there is no connection between the physical and moral orders of the world. But when we look back at life before birth and life after death, we enter a world where these two realms are fused into one. Nor can a person truly assess what he himself is unless he is able to perceive himself correctly as a spiritual being. Human beings cannot arrive at a unified worldview unless they look beyond birth and death, unless they gaze into the higher worlds. To understand their whole, complete being, human beings need a consciousness permeated by the realization of their connection to the spiritual world. — These are the things I wanted to share with you today in a more esoteric way.