Human astral body

The human astral body corresponds to the element 'air' and is one of Man's bodily principles part of the structural make-up of Man, and so closely intertwined with the other bodily principles it should not be studied or considered as a separate entity. In the human life, Man develops the astral body approximately between 14 and 21 years from the age of puberty.

When the astral body is together with the physical body, it has an egg-like shape. In accordance with individual characteristics, it has various radiant colours fluctuating and enclosed in an egg-shaped sheath. The auric egg has an underlying blue colour with a dark violet spot in the middle of the brain. It extends about two-and-a-half times the length of the head beyond the physical body, surrounds it like a cloud and fades away as you go from the head downwards. See also: Human aura

It has three key energy centers in a triangle consisting of brain, liver and heart. In the spirit world these form a six pointed figure, in the astral world a triangle. After death it is a wonderfully radiant, mobile formation.

Aspects

whereas the physical body is a space body corresponding with Earth, and the etheric body is a time body corresponding with water, the astral body corresponds with the airy element: it is stimulated by breathing whereby the airy element enters the human organism and eventually reaches the head in an extremely attenuated state; in this distribution and organisation of the air the astral is active (1924-02-02-GA234)
the astral body remains behind in the spiritual world (before conception and birth) and does not come down into the physical, it "throws its beam into life" whereby its activities extend through the whole of your life. The human being is really like a comet stretching its tail far back into the past. Thus the activity in the astral body today has its origin in a time long past, when one was in the spiritual world before descending to Earth, and that time is still active (1924-02-02-GA234)
- therefore, to look clairvoyantly at the astral body is to look directly into the spiritual world and perceive directly what a Man has undergone in the spiritual world before he descended to Earth. (1924-02-02-GA234)

Dual nature

Man's astral body is made up of a dual nature:

Although the astral bodily principle was developed on Old Moon, the higher spiritual part only merged with the lower physical part in the Lemurian epoch in the current planetary stage Earth. As a result, Man still contains a lower animal nature. The spiritual beings living in Man withdrew slowly as Man developed his own I-consciousness, see development of the I.
This dual nature is visible clairvoyantly when the human being is asleep, and the astral body appears as two intertwining spirals or 6-figures, one of which from the physical body, the other extending into the cosmos like the trail of a comet, giving the appearance of a whirl like the Orion nebula.
Therefore in ancient legends and art we still find the image of the Centaur, which reflects an actual human form in a certain stage of evolution (Lemuria before Separation of the Moon) and above man and below animal. (see 1908-09-09-GA106 below). Man is to a certain extent a centaur as his humanity is somehow 'mounted upon' his lower, bestial, astral nature. This dual nature is related to how Man moved from four to two legs and assumed an upright position in the Lemurian epoch. (see 1905-10-16-GA093a below).

Physiology - link with other bodily principles

physical body
- the astral body finds its functioning in Man's physical body through the nervous system, the different types of nerves were created on Old Moon (see FMC00.135 below).
- the astral organization is predominantly active in the nervous system in the spinal marrow with all its branches. This makes it the vehicle for the soul aspect of the human being, of reflex processes, but not for anything that happens in the I, in the self-aware mind and spirit. (Blood and nerves#Extending practical medicine .28Steiner .26Wegman.2C 1925.29)
- movement is not conveyed to the muscle by means of the nerves, but by the astral body: what calls forth movement in the muscles is connected with the astral body, in such a way that in the astral body itself, by the movement of the muscles, a kind of resonance or tone is developed (1911-03-07-GA124)
- just as a Man can fill two professions so too can the astral body be on the one hand the builder of the nerve-system, and on the other hand the builder, the creator of the lymph (1908-01-06-GA102, see Blood is a special fluid#1908-01-06-GA102)
etheric life body
- perpetual battle and balance required between the astral body and the ether body: the ether body gives life; the astral body gives feeling, perception .. but feeling and awareness cannot arise unless the life is suppressed (re arsenicum) (1924-01-19-GA352)
the efficacy of the astral body is through the middle system in the human organism (1921-04-15-GA313)
kundalini fire as in-between-matter between astral and physical matter that is the connection between physical and astral body
astral senses are called lotus wheels or chakras, see Development of the chakras

Various

the snake as a symbol for the astral body (1909-03-14-GA266/1)
advanced souls that will have clairvoyant faculties already develop the astral body differently from conception, see 1903-11-04-GA088 on Embryo in the womb
the seven members of the human astral body are interrelated as are the tones of the scale, the various tones of the melody are experienced inwardly in the corresponding member of the astral body. (1914-12-29-GA275), see topic page Music
form while asleep
- observed clairvoyantly, the astral body of the sleeping human appears as if it consists of many streams and sparkles of light and the whole appears like two intertwining spirals, as if there were two 6-figures, one of which vanishes into the physical body, while the other extends far out into the cosmos like the trail of a comet. (1905-02-06-GA090B and 1907-05-26-GA099, see Symbols#1907-05-26-GA099)

cinema [screen projection] causes deep damage of the human astral body as if one's physical body is shot with hail .. so the astral body is also shot with hail (1912-01-14-GA244 - Q&A 223.14)
see also: Astral world

Substances and their forces

arsenicum

Man's astral body itself produces arsenic (1924-01-19-GA352) else "Man would not be able to sense things and respond to them inwardly"
stimulates or strengthens the activity of the astral body (1924-01-19-GA352): energizing effect of arsenic, eg through mineral waters such as Levico or Roncegno and stimulation of astral body (1924-01-01-GA314) these mineral waters are balanced combinations of iron, copper and arsenic effects - ideal for human bodily organization (1920-04-01-GA312)
getting hold of the organs by the astral body, this astralization or arsenizing increases the process of mineralization .. (the astralizing process finds expression in a kind of warming in the region of the stomach, whereby digestion and assimilation become facilitated). The bodies of people who astralize too strongly, arsenize strongly in their organic physical processes, do not decompose so readily as those of people whose astral bodies are weakly connected with their organs. It is an arsenic process, that the Earth becomes rocky (1921-04-15-GA313)
therapy of general diseases with arsenic if the astral body penetrated by the I is to be treated. If the astral body is the only cause, therapy with electric or magnetic fields is recommended.

cyanide

cyanide substance is needed for the purification of astral bodies .. due to comets it is distributed over the Earth in tiny amounts this, the Earth digests the comet, and something spiritual (good or evil) rises up that influences the human astral body favourably or unfavourably (1924-09-20-GA346, see Comets#1924-09-20-GA346 and also Schema FMC00.542 lower right)
for more on cyanide, so also Working of substances and their forces#Note 1 - On cyanide

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.252 is a sketch illustrating the astral body, the right version is from original handwritten listener notes. See Human aura for more info, and Man's higher triad for the 'dark violet spot'.

Schema FMC00.137 is an infographic as a reference to the moment in the Lemurian epoch where the fusion of the lower physical and higher spiritual part of Man took place, the human being assumed its upright position, and first got his astral body made up of a lower and a higher component. See lecture extract below.

Schema FMC00.135 shows (left) the nervous system as the instrument of the astral, interfacing with the blood and I-organization (right).

FMC00.134 depicts the evolution of the Human astral body in the Current Postatlantean epoch, linked to the development of the threefold soul; the sentient, intellectual and consciousness soul.

Compare also with schemas FMC00.013 and FMC00.129, and Schema FMC00.326 on the topic page Kundalini.

As stated in 1923-08-31-GA227: "It is impossible to follow the evolution of Man in its reality unless we are able to understand what happens to the human astral body in the course of earthly evolution."

Inspirational quotes

1923-08-31-GA227 (see below for more)

It is impossible to follow the evolution of man in its reality unless we are able to understand what happens to the human astral body in the course of earthly evolution.

Lecture coverage and references

1903-12-29-GA088

what connects the astral body with the physical body and its organs, and what leads them back together again?
There exists a kind of band, a connection that is an in-between-matter between astral and physical matter. This is called kundalini fire. If you observe a sleeping person, then you can always follow the astral body in astral space. There is a luminous band leading to where the astral body is. The location can always be found. When the astral body separates, then to the same extent the kundalini fire becomes thinner and thinner. It becomes an increasingly thin track; it becomes more and more a thin mist. Now when you look carefully at this kundalini fire you will see that it does not always have the same form. In some places it is brighter and thicker; those are the places that lead the astral back again to the physical body. The optic nerve is therefore connected to an astral nerve through a thicker kundalini fire.
... The astral body with its kundalini fire cannot be completely lifted out of the physical body. Should it happen that someone actually decides not to return, the kundalini fire would continually draw him back to the body. It is as if he still belonged to the physical body. Such a person would follow the track of the kundalini fire. When the life forces are not yet exhausted, it is very difficult to lift the astral body out of the physical body. It is very difficult when someone is attached to a physical body that he can no longer make use of.
In this sense the destiny of a suicide and that of an accident victim are not that very different from one another.
...
The physical body is permeated by the nervous system. Every nerve center is connected to an astral center; for example, the optic nerve is surrounded by, is enveloped by an astral optic nerve, by an astral substance belonging to the optic nerve.

1905-10-16-GA093A

covers the transformation of Man's structure (looking back on what had developed on Old Moon), and the impact of the divine intervention in the Lemurian epoch

quote A

.. in the Lemurian Epoch the union of the maternal and paternal principles takes place for the first time. This etheric head naturally branches out into the astral body which surrounds the human beings with its rays .... If one had found the means of lifting the head with the astral body out of such a human being something quite peculiar would have occurred. He would thereby have lost the possibility of holding himself upright; he would have folded up. Just the opposite procedure was taken with man at that time and through this he gradually raised himself to the upright posture. In the Lemurian Epoch, however, man was still at a stage at which he did not yet possess what we are assuming could be lifted out of him. In this earlier period he did not yet possess this etheric head with the astral body.
Man as he wandered over the earth was then really a being folded together. The two organs now used for work, the hands, were then turned backwards and formed additional organs of movement, so that he went on four legs. One must picture two people of the present day, man and woman, entwined in one another, think away the upper half of the body, leaving only the lower half there. The human being was actually male-female. He also had at that time an astral and etheric body, but not the one which he had later. This was a different astral body, that is, such a one as had reached its highest perfection on the Old Moon. There, on the Old Moon, the astral body together with the etheric body had acquired the capacity of developing a physical body which then had a crab-like form. The human being could stand on one pair of legs and make a kind of leaping movement.
This astral body with the etheric body was then of quite another nature. It had a form which was not entirely egg-shaped, but more like a bell which descended like a dome over the human being who went on all fours. The etheric body provided for all the life functions of this Lemurian human being. In his astral body he had a dull twilight consciousness similar to that of our dreams. His consciousness was however unlike the reminiscences inherent in our dreams, for he dreamt of realities. When he was approached by another human being unsympathetic to him, there arose in him a sensation of light which indicated what was unsympathetic.
Already on the Old Moon man had some slight power of using both his front limbs for the purpose of grasping, so that now the time came for assuming the upright posture. His other living companions were, in the Lemurian Age, of the nature of reptiles; animals of grotesque shapes who have left no traces behind them. The ichthyosaurs and so on are descendants of these animals. It is a fact that at that time the earth was inhabited by beings reptilian in character; human bodies too were reptile-like. When eventually this reptilian human being assumed the upright posture, the formation of the head, quite open in front, out of which gushed a fiery cloud, became visible. This gave rise to the tales about the winged serpent, about the dragon. Such was man's grotesque form at that time, reptile-like. The Guardian of the Threshold, the lower nature of man, frequently appears in a form of this kind. It represents the lower nature with the open formation of the head.
At that time, the union took place between these forms on the Earth and the other beings already described. The astral body with the head formation united with the winged-serpent body with its fiery opening. It was the fructification of the maternal earth with the paternal spirit.
In this way there proceeded the fructification with the manas forces. The lower astral body merged with the higher astral body. A great part of the astral body, as it then was, fell away.

One portion formed the lower parts of the human astral body, and

the other newly acquired astral body, connected with the head, united with the upper parts of the human being.

What was then peeled off abandoned this astral body which was bound up with the form of the winged-serpent; it could no longer have any further development on the Earth. It formed, as a conglomerate substance, the astral sphere of the moon, the so-called eighth sphere. The moon actually provides shelter for astral beings which have come into existence through the fact that Man has thrown something off.

This is where we find the origin of the Eighth sphere, see Eighth sphere#1905-10-16-GA093A and further, quote B:

This union of the paternal spirit with the maternal substance was described in Egypt as the union of Osiris and Isis. From it came forth Horus. The merging of the serpent form with the etheric head, with the newly acquired astral body and head formation, led to the conception of the form of the sphinx. The sphinx is the expression of this thought in sculpture.
There were seven kinds or classes of such forms, all of which differed somewhat from each other, from the finest, approximating to the highly developed formation of the human form down to those which were utterly grotesque. These seven kinds of human forms had all to be fructified. One must conceive the descent of the ‘Sons of Manas’ in this pictorial way. Only then can one understand how the astral body of man came into existence. It is composed of two different members.
.. the astral body of Man is composed of two different members. .. If we consider human development we shall find that the one part of the astral body is continually endeavouring to overcome the other half, the lower nature, and transform it. In so far as Man today consists of astral body with etheric body and physical body, it is in fact only the physical body which in its present state is a product which has reached completion. In the case of the etheric body also there are two parts that seek to merge into one another. ...
.. The etheric body consists of two members, that part of human nature which originally came over from the Old Moon, and its opposite pole. They were at first not yet joined together; later they approached one another and became united.
The one is the pole of animality, the other the pole of the spiritual. The pole of animality is called ‘etheric body’, the pole of the spiritual, ‘mental-body’. The mental body is materialised ether.
Between them is the astral body and this too has arisen out of the union of a duality. Fundamentally it is also a two-fold formation. We have to differentiate in it a lower and a higher nature. The higher nature was originally connected with the mental body. This part of the astral body which has its seat in the mental body — what therefore has come into it from above — is the other pole of the lower astral body.

One of the characteristics of the lower astral body is that it has desires.

The upper part has instead of these, devotion, love, the giving virtue. This part of the astral body is called Buddhi.

at the end of the lecture, in context of process of reincarnation and descend of souls to Earth quote C

What clings to the person from that astral body which came with him from the Old Moon compels him to spend a period of time in Kamaloka until he has freed himself from this point as regards that particular life.
Then he still has that part of the astral body which has found a state of balance; with this he makes his journey through the spirit world and back to physical life.
This is why one sees bell-like formations in astral space rushing about with terrific speed. These are the human souls again seeking incarnation. When here with us such a bell-like human being darts through astral space and an embryo in South America is karmically connected with it, this human bell must immediately be there. So these returning souls rush through astral space.

This bell formation is reminiscent of those which appeared in the Lemurian epoch, only it has already found its state of balance with the higher astral body.

1906-09-02-GA095

talks about the form and appearance of the astral body

When the astral body is together with the physical body, it is somewhat egg-like in shape.
After death it is a wonderfully radiant, mobile formation. In accordance with individual characteristics it has various colours, radiant colours. Its three gleaming points are at first widely separated, joined together but open below. They are centres of force; they draw progressively together and then they look like a small triangle. 1. Heart; 2. Liver; 3. Brain. These three points work together at the time of a new incarnation.

In Devachan they are radiant centres of force, which stream out from the three points.

In the astral world these three points form a triangle; in Devachan they form a six-pointed figure — two interlaced triangles. They are bells.

1908-05-25-GA103

Let us once more look back to the time when the human astral body with the I was immersed in the matrix of a common divine astral substance.
As you follow this evolutionary course, you find that development took place in such a way that it is possible to describe it schematically.

In the beginning, your whole astral being was embedded in the common astral substance and through the processes which we have just described, the physical and etheric enclosed it like surrounding shells. Thus individual human beings became separated from the general astral substance as detached parts. It was as though you had a fluid substance here before you and were dipping out parts of it.

The detachment of the individual human consciousness from the divine consciousness runs parallel with the formation of the physical body. Thus we may say that the further we progress, the more we see how the separate individual human beings enclosed in the shell of the physical body, develop themselves as parts which are severed from the common astrality.

It is true, the human being had to pay for this becoming independent by the darkening of his astral consciousness. Therefore he looked out from the sheath of his physical body and beheld the physical plane. The ancient clairvoyant consciousness, however, gradually disappeared.

Thus we see coming into existence the human inner being, an independent individual human inner being which is the bearer of the I.

When you observe the sleeping human being of the present, you have before you in the physical and ether bodies, which have remained behind in bed, what these sheaths, formed during the course of the ages, have produced through condensation. What had previously separated from the common astral substance returns to it each night in order to receive strength from it. Of course it does not enter so deeply into this divine substance as it did at that time, otherwise it would be clairvoyant. It retains its independence. This, then, is the independent individuality that came into existence in the course of evolution. It may be asked, to what is this independent individual human being indebted for its very existence, this inner being that seeks its strength outside the physical and ether bodies?
It is indebted to the physical and ether human bodies which were gradually formed in the course of evolution. They gave birth to that which dipped down into the physical senses and looked out into the physical world during the day, but which at night sank down into a state of unconsciousness, because it had severed itself from that condition in which it previously existed. In occult language, the part remaining in bed is called the real earth-man. That was “man.” And that part in which the ego remained day and night, that part born out of the physical and ether bodies was called the “child of man” or the “son of man.” The “son of man” is the ego and astral body, born out of the physical and ether bodies in the course of earthly evolution. The technical expression for this is the “son of man.”

1908-09-08-GA106

describes the formation of the nerves

At the time when all this had not yet happened, when Osiris had not yet withdrawn, man in his light-form did not have the foundation for something that today is of the greatest importance. We know that the spinal cord is important and nerves proceed from it. Not even the beginnings of these were present in the time when the moon had not yet departed.
These fourteen aspects of the moon, in the order in which they follow on one another, were the cause of fourteen nerve-filaments being annexed to the human spinal cord. The cosmic forces worked in such a way that these fourteen nerve-filaments correspond to the fourteen phases or aspects of the moon. This is the result of the Osiris influence. But something else also corresponds to the moon-evolution. These fourteen phases are only half the phenomena of the moon. The moon has fourteen phases from new moon to full moon, and fourteen phases from full moon to new moon. During the fourteen days leading to the new moon, there is no Osiris influence. Then the sun shines upon the moon in such a way that the latter gradually turns its unilluminated surface to the earth as the new moon. These fourteen phases from full moon to new also have their result, and for the Egyptian consciousness this result was achieved through Isis. These fourteen phases are ruled by Isis. Through the Isis influence fourteen other nerve-filaments proceed from the spinal cord. This makes a total of twenty-eight nerve-filaments, corresponding to the different phases of the moon. So we see, from the viewpoint of cosmic events, the origin of specific members of the human organism.
Many will now object that this does not account for all the nerves, but only for twenty-eight of them. There would have been only twenty-eight had the moon-year coincided with the sun-year. But the sun-year is longer, and the difference between the two caused the surplus nerves. Thus from the moon the influences of Isis and Osiris were built into the human organism. .

1909-03-14-GA266/1

There is a remedy that will hinder Ahrimanic beings from penetrating into our consciousness, a symbol that one must enliven within oneself. This is the staff of Mercury: the luminious staff with a black snake and a brightly lumnious shining snake. The snake is a symbol for the astral body. Every night the astral body sheds its skin, it throws off the used-up skin. The black snake is a symbol for this. Overnight it gets a new, shimmering skin, and this newly enlivened, beautiful, shining skin of the astral body is symbolized by the shining skin. [continues on the use of the symbol in meditation]

1911-03-07-GA124

.. much of what is believed to-day will have to be unlearnt — fundamentally unlearnt. This will not be difficult, for scientific facts indicate that we will have to overcome many things. Thus many things are so regarded today that they are called “of the senses,” things which inform us concerning such self-understood wisdom, as that the terms “motor” and “sensory nerves” are pure nonsense. There are no motor nerves. There are only nerves of perception. Nerves that control movements are also nerves of perception, only their purpose is to bring to our perception the corresponding movement of the muscles. It will not be so very long before people realise that movement is not conveyed to the muscle by means of the nerves, but by the astral body, and indeed by that within our astral body which in the immediate future will not be directly perceived to be what it is. For there is a law which lays down that what is active (operative) is not recognised immediately for what it is. What calls forth movement in the muscles is connected with the astral body, and indeed in such a way that in the astral body itself, by the movement of the muscles, a kind of resonance or tone is developed.

1912-01-14-GA244 - Q&A 223.14

p 398

Question on Cinematography A deep damage of the human astral body is caused by cinema with its inherent lack of soul, as if one's physical body is shot with hail .. so the astral body is also shot with hail. Under all circumstances this gives a negative influence on the astral forces. Terrible for school or popular lectures.

1921-04-15-GA313

These studies will have to culminate in a description of the nature of the remedies we have arrived at and which we then need to bring into more common use. But it will not be possible to speak properly about what one must know and master with regard to these remedies if we have not fully prepared ourselves. This must be done first. Therefore today we will study a few of those things that can guide us into the whole web of man's being, which results from the cooperation between ego, astral body, etheric body, and physical body. I have already mentioned that, by means of a certain effect of arsenic, one can drive the astral body further into the organs than is otherwise the case in the human being. Of course, the astral body draws the ego in with it.
By driving the astral body further into the organs, we enhance the mineralizing process in the organs. And if we notice that the organs are indicating a proliferating etheric, are too active vitally, developing life forces that are too strong, then the introduction of arsenic would have a healing effect. One can even designate something that occurs inside the human being by means of an outer process that has a certain affinity with the human process. If you want to express this affinity of the astral body with the etheric body — and thereby with the physical — you may speak of “arsenizing.” A gentle “arsenizing” is continually taking place in the human being and is especially strong at the moment of waking. We must realize clearly that the human organism has within itself, as a system of forces, that which lies in the metals. This affinity between the human being and his earthly-cosmic environment is certainly present; certain processes that unfold outside and come to an end in the metals, for example, also occur in the human being. Hence, when we speak of “arsenizing” the human being, you must not think of the arsenic as directly active; rather the human being is itself active within in the way that arsenic is active outside.
Through this one attains insight into the way to assist such effects in the human being. When you study this “arsenizing” process — I might also say this “astralizing” process — in the human organism, you will notice that when it is too active it finds expression in a kind of warming in the region of the stomach, whereby digestion and assimilation become facilitated. When these become excessively facilitated, it can become a serious problem, because difficulties then arise as reactions to such processes that occur with too great a facility. All this is connected with a certain mineralizing process in the human being. This is a direction to pursue in our research. But such research must be done in the right way, taking all the other factors into consideration. The bodies of people who “astralize” too strongly, i.e., “arsenize” strongly in their organic physical processes, do not decompose so readily as those of people whose astral bodies are weakly connected with their organs. This is certainly something that ought to be observed. Indeed, one sees the extreme form of this tendency in bodies poisoned by arsenic; they tend to mummify and do not decompose easily.
Now the question is: What can we do if this “arsenizing” (or “astralizing”) process is too strong, that is when the person mummifies himself while alive, so to speak? One must have an eye for such things. If a person is mummifying too intensely, how can we counter this process? If I may express myself radically, I would say that then one must make the whole human being partly into a tooth. This is something that can give us many clues into the mysterious working of the human organism. One must make the whole human being into a tooth. In some way or other one must try to give him the radiating force of magnesium, taking the whole organism into account. He must be given some preparation of magnesium, thus introducing into his whole organism the radiating force of magnesium, which Professor Römer has described. This is something that leads us deeply into the relation between the astral body (which is also carrying the I) on the one hand and the etheric and physical bodies on the other.
Let us now consider the opposite condition in the human being, in which the astral body and the I have an inadequate tendency to permeate the organs. The organs, in so far as they are nurtured by the physical and etheric influences, begin to be left to themselves. The expression of this condition is that there is no proper connection between things that should work reciprocally, between the reciprocal nourishment of the human being by his environment and the inner organic processes. The inner organic processes begin to develop their vital forces too strongly. They receive no influence from outside; the permeation of the food-substance by the forces of the ego diminishes. The astral body, in consequence, has to be too active in one direction and cannot reach the etheric body properly. A proliferation of physical and etheric activity occurs, expressing itself in diarrhea, which is essentially connected with such phenomena. Blood is found in the stool, and the inner vital activity becomes so strong that small, organic tissues peel off from the intestinal walls. These are also found in the stool, which takes on the appearance of a fluid resembling beef bouillon. Finally protein is drawn into the process and excreted without being worked through in the proper way. Such phenomena clearly indicate that the vital force is proliferating, unhindered by the “astralizing” force.
The astral body and the I must work into the physical and etheric human being if these half-conscious movements of the digestive tract, that are necessary for the organism, are to occur. Now imagine that the astral body and the ego are not inserted in the right way and that the etheric body and the physical body remain active by themselves. There then arises a nervous need to relieve the bowels, which is characteristic of such conditions. The farther you follow this matter, the farther you are from ordinary diarrhea and the nearer to dysentery. The farther you proceed with the description of this clinical picture, the more you find yourself describing in all these phenomena the opposite of “arsenization,” or “astralization.” And as the astral body is strongly implicated in all this, you will be led, by the matter itself, to the conclusion that the antidote to be used is in everything that comes from arsenic, i.e., that one must oppose these conditions by “arsenizing.”
I believe that we can deeply enrich and intensify our ideas in relation to such things if we make clear to ourselves that there are processes in the outer world corresponding to everything that takes place in the human being. And even if it must sound dreadful to one who has passed through the educational system of today, I do not want to avoid using certain expressions that have a serious meaning for spiritual science and which, if understood correctly, can lead us very deeply into these matters.
[Earth]
You see, the “arsenizing” (or “astralizing”) process observed in the human being, the mummification of the physical organism, its becoming brittle, is basically the same process as that which takes place when the earth forms rocks. Wherever rocks are in process of formation the earth is, in a sense, poisoned by arsenic or in the early stages of poisoning.
Imagine, on the other hand, that the outer astrality that surrounds the earth everywhere (as I suggested in the last course of lectures), succeeds in avoiding the surface of the earth and rests directly on the water. Imagine that it avoids playing its part in bringing forth the blossoms, the growth and the emergence of the plants from the earth into the atmosphere. The outer astrality penetrates below the ground, and in these areas the earth gets dysentery.
The process I am now describing ought to be taken into account, for there is much that is real behind it. It should be considered, because it gives information as to the connection of what takes place under the earth with a phenomenon such as dysentery, for example. In dysentery, we observe an effect on the human being of what lies under the ground, particularly in water, and it must be studied from this viewpoint. The essential thing to consider is that the astral body is very much involved in the matter, and hence to cure it it will be necessary to use intermediate potencies, because the efficacy of the astral body is through the middle system in the human organism.

1923-04-14-GA349

A symptomatic view of the astral body

1923-08-31-GA227

(see schema FMC00.134 above)

When we survey this evolution of world and of man we find that at a certain definite time, Man encountered difficulties which had to be overcome on his way from being led exclusively by divine-spiritual Beings to the conscious work of raising himself to knowledge of these Beings and so to the gaining of human freedom. This point of time, which in a certain sense signifies the greatest crisis in the whole evolution of man, came approximately 333 years after the Mystery of Golgotha. Such dates are only approximate owing to time being reckoned in various ways. According to our present reckoning, it was 333 years after the Mystery of Golgotha that this crisis came about.
Looking back at this critical moment, we can describe it as follows: if the evolution of mankind and that of the Earth itself had continued as they were doing, if men had remained under the guidance of the divine-spiritual Beings who had been leading them up to that time, then, since it was intended by those Beings that men should acquire freedom, it would have been achieved — but with what result? At that time it would have meant upsetting the balance between the two parts of the human astral body.
Think of the connection between the physical body and the astral body: we will keep to the astral body first. Before the year 333 the greater part of the astral body had been active essentially in the upper man, and its smaller part in his lower body — the middle man being between the two. And because in those times the upper part of the astral body was the more powerful, it was through it that divine-spiritual Beings exercised upon man their greatest influence. In accordance with the plan for mankind, human evolution has proceeded in such a way that:

up to about 3,000 years before Christ those conditions for the astral body held good,

but by 1,000 years before Christ the lower part of the astral body was becoming larger and the upper part relatively smaller,

until, in the year 333, the two parts had become equal. This was the critical situation 333 years after the coming of Christ,

and since then the upper part of a man's astral body has been continuously decreasing. That is the course taken by his evolution.

It is impossible to follow the evolution of man in its reality unless we are able to understand what happens to the human astral body in the course of earthly evolution.
If human beings had not undergone this decrease in the upper part of the astral body, their I would never have been able to gain sufficient influence and they could never have become free. This decrease in the astral body therefore contributes to the evoking of freedom.
.. there is no sense in asking why the Gods have not arranged everything to give human beings pleasure: the Gods had to create a universe that was inherently possible. Much that gives men the greatest pleasure rests on that, besides other things which, until they are enlightened, they do not find at all agreeable.
This decrease of the astral body is connected with something else, for on the size of the astral body in the upper part of man — not on its size as a whole — depends his power to control, with his I and astral body, his physical and etheric bodies.
Hence all men are likely to have their health gradually impaired by this decrease in the astral body. We can form a true conception of human evolution only if we recognise that freedom has to be paid for on Earth by a general weakening of health. Not, of course, in the form of cholera or typhus, but freedom is not to be gained without bringing ill-health of some kind along with it.
If all human forces after the year 333 had remained as they were, men on Earth would have become weaker and weaker, increasingly powerless. And earthly life would have come to an end through this complete decadence of mankind.
A sun being to go through death – 333y before great crisis -> healing
At this point there took place what I should like to describe as follows. At a gathering of those divine-spiritual Beings I spoke of as belonging to the Sun, it was decided to send down to the Earth their representative, the Christ, there to go through something that the divine Beings connected with mankind would be experiencing for the first time. Birth and death are certainly not what materialists imagine them to be, but they are part of man's earthly existence.
None of the divine-spiritual Beings above man — Angels, Archangels, and so on up to the highest — had ever known death, but only metamorphoses. They change from one form to another, but they are not born and do not die. A man, too, changes form, but at the same time he lays aside his physical and etheric bodies, thus making birth and death a more radical change than any change experienced by the higher Hierarchies.
So the leaders in the harmonies and impulses of the Sun resolved to send down to Earth the Christ, as a Being who had not yet experienced birth and death, so that He might go through this purely human destiny. The Mystery of Golgotha, therefore, is not merely the concern of mankind; it is also a concern of the Gods, and this can be put into words such as these: The Sun Gods met and held counsel together as to the steps they should take for warding off from mankind the danger of becoming weaker and weaker through the decline of the astral body.
And so the Christ was sent down to Earth and went through birth and death — naturally not as a human being but as a divine Being. The consequence was that through the Mystery of Golgotha, through the fact of Christ's death, forces came into Earth-evolution for the healing of those other forces which, in the sense already described, were the cause of sickness. Thus Christ became for mankind, in very truth, the great cosmic and terrestrial Healer of mankind.
In other words, His forces entered everything that has to be healed in human beings, so that man, having his tendency to decadence on the one hand, but on the other the saving forces of Christ, can find his way to freedom. Therefore, provision was made in world-evolution to ensure that, 333 years before the great crisis, the Mystery of Golgotha should take place.
Human evolution on Earth, accordingly, could not have gone forward without this threat of disastrous universal sickness, to begin in the year 333. Then, through the Mystery of Golgotha, came the great universal healing.
Everything therefore done by man without Ego-consciousness, everything that derives from the deeper forces tending to his future downfall, can be healed through association with the Christ.

That is what the Mystery of Golgotha means for earthly and human evolution.

1924-01-19-GA352

Man produces arsenic in his organism all the time; so does the animal. The plant does not. And why? Because the plant has only an ether body and it is the astral body that produces arsenic. Man and animal, therefore, produce arsenic inwardly. Now what is the purpose of the arsenic? You see, if man were not able to produce arsenic in his organism, he would be incapable of feeling or perception; he would gradually lapse into a plant-like existence. He would begin, first of all, to be dreamy, and finally, he would go about in a state of utter drowsiness. The arsenic in his organism enables him to be wide-awake, to have feelings and perceptions. When I press my hand on something I not only squeeze the skin but I also feel something. And the reason why this feeling arises is that my astral body is producing arsenic all the time.
A man who takes arsenic strengthens the activity of the astral body. The consequence is that the astral body asserts itself all over the organism; it becomes excessively strong, seizes hold of all the organs and rots them away. That is what happens in rapid arsenical poisoning. If anyone takes a great deal of arsenic all at once, the astral body begins to be powerful to an alarming degree; it surges and swirls and finally destroys the activity of the whole organism. It drives the life out of the organs, for within the human being a perpetual battle is and must be in process between the astral body and the ether body.
The ether body gives life; the astral body gives feeling, perception (awareness).
But feeling and awareness cannot arise unless the life is suppressed. There is perpetual battle between the astral body and the ether body. If the ether body has the upper hand we become a little sleepy; if the astral body has the upper hand we become intensely wide-awake. Actually these conditions alternate in waking life, only the alternation is so rapid that it is not noticed and we think we are wide-awake all the time. In reality there is a constant swing: waking, sleeping; waking, sleeping. And what the astral body needs in order to be able to work down in the right way is provided by the amount of arsenic produced inwardly by the human being himself.
If arsenic is introduced from outside in excessive quantity, the astral body becomes suddenly very strong — so strong that it destroys the life in the ether body. The man can no longer live; he dies.
But if someone takes an amount of arsenic which makes the astral body only a little too strong, then the limbs and the inner organs gradually lose flesh and the man gets thin and has a greyish complexion, because the inner organs are not functioning in the right way. If he is given a very tiny quantity of arsenic, or if he is in the habit of taking such a quantity himself (in the latter case one will not give him any more because he is taking it already) then the astral body begins to be just a little lively; it stimulates the organs and the effect is just the reverse. If, from the beginning, too much arsenic has been given, the astral body destroys the organs; if only a little is given, the organs are stimulated just as they are stimulated by spice. If the dose is increased very gradually, the organs are able to stand it. The man begins to look healthier, to put on flesh, because his astral body is more active than it was before, when he was taking no arsenic.
...
If we notice that the astral body cannot work as it ought, is not in proper control of the physical and etheric bodies, it is necessary, in certain circumstances, to give the person a very tiny quantity of arsenic because that strengthens the astral body.

1924-02-02-GA234

The astral, on the other hand, is stimulated — to begin with — by breathing, whereby the airy element enters the human organism and eventually reaches the head in an extremely attenuated state; in this distribution and organisation of the air the astral is active.
...
Thus you cannot speak of the etheric body without surveying Man's life in time back to birth and beyond. What one regards as the etheric body at some definite moment is only an abstraction; the concrete reality is the time-process.
It is different again with the astral body. This is apprehended in the way I described yesterday. I can only draw it diagramatically, and in the diagram space must become time for you.
Let us assume we are observing the astral body of a person on the 2nd February 1924. Let this be the person. ¹ He does indeed make this impression upon us: Here is the physical body, here his etheric body. We can also observe his astral body and this makes upon us the impression I described in my book Theosophy. It is so. But when one comes to the really ‘inspired’ knowledge which appears before empty consciousness — I described such knowledge yesterday — one attains the following insight. One says to oneself: What I am observing as the astral body of this person is not really present today, i.e. on the 2nd February 1924. If the person is twenty years of age, you must go backwards in time — let us say, to January 1904. You perceive that this astral body is really back there, and extends still further back into the unlimited. It has remained there and has not accompanied him through life. Here we have only a kind of appearance — a beam. It is like looking down an avenue; there, in the distance, are the last trees, very close together. Behind them is a source of light. You can have the radiance of the light here, but the source is behind — it need not move forward that its light may shine here.
So, too, the astral body has remained behind, and only throws its beam into life. It has really remained in the spiritual world and has not come with us into the physical. In respect to our astral body we always remain before conception and birth, in the spiritual world. If we are twenty years old in 1924, it is as if we were still living spiritually before the year 1904 and, in respect to our astral body, had only stretched forth a feeler.
That, you will say, is a difficult conception. Well, so it is. But you know there was once a Spanish king who was shown how complicated the structure of the universe is. He thought he would have made it simpler. A man may think like this, but, as a matter of fact, the world is not simple, and we must exert ourselves somewhat to grasp what man is.
To look intently at the astral body is to look directly into the spiritual world. (Only in the world external to Man have you around you what is astral.) When you look at human beings spiritually, you look into the spiritual world in respect to their astral bodies. You perceive directly what a Man has undergone in the spiritual world before he descended to earth.
But, you will say, my astral body is active within me. Of course it is; that is self-understood. But imagine some being or other were here, and by means of cords mechanically connected, were to produce some effect at a considerable distance away. It is like that with respect to time.
Your astral body has remained behind, but its activities extend through the whole of your life. Thus the activity that you notice in your astral body today has its origin in a time long past, when you were in the spiritual world before descending to Earth. That time is still active — in other words, it is still there, as far as the spiritual is concerned.
Anyone who believes that the past is no longer ‘present’ in the real time-process resembles a man in a railway train to whom one might say: That was a beautiful district through which we have just passed, and who would reply: Yes, a beautiful district. But it has vanished; it is no longer there. Such a man would believe that the district through which he had passed in an express train had disappeared. It is just as stupid to believe that the past is no longer there. As a matter of fact it is always there, working into man. The 3rd of January 1904, is still there in its spiritual constitution, just as what is spatial remains after you have travelled through it. It is there, influencing the present.
Thus, if you describe the astral body as I have done in my Theosophy, you must realise, in order to complete your insight, that what is active here is the ‘radiance’ of something far back in time. The human being is really like a comet stretching its tail far back into the past. It is not possible to obtain true insight into Man's being unless we acquire these new concepts.
People who believe one can enter the spiritual world with the same concepts one has for the physical world should become spiritualists, not anthroposophists. Spiritualists endeavour to conjure the spiritual — only somewhat thinner than ordinary matter — into the ordinary space in which physical men walk about. But it is nothing spiritual — only fine exudations. Even the phantoms described by Schrenck-Notzing are only fine, physical exudations which retain in their shape traces of the etheric. They are mere phantoms, not something really spiritual.

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References and further reading

Rudolf Steiner and Ita Wegman: 'Extending practical medicine' (1925)
Arthur E. Powell: 'The Astral Body (and other astral phenomena) (1926)