Human character - the I and threefold soul

• In every-day language we use the term 'human character', or a Man's character, to denote the sum of characteristics that describe a person in his behaviour and the way he reacts to the countless situations of everyday existence. These reactions differ according to the person, and we interpret this by saying that the characters of these individuals are different. Human character includes that person's physical characteristics, psychological attributes, and particular aspects of behaviour, as shown through a Man's actions. These characteristic sets of behaviors, cognitions, and emotional and mental patterns is related to Man's Personality and the complex nature of his constitution.
• In human sciences, psychology attempts to describe and explain the tendencies that underlie differences in behavior, personality and human character. Psychologists have taken various approaches including biological, cognitive, learning, trait-based theories, and psychodynamic or humanistic approaches.
• In the arts, a character or character sketch renders a thumbnail portrayal of an individual with descriptions, and particularly attempts to capture behavioural patterns, expressions or gestures that get to the essence of the individual. .

In spiritual science:

The development of the I shows how Man received the fourth bodily principle of the human 'I' through the sacrifice of the Spirits of Form (SoF) that let their substance ripple in and take hold of Man's astral, etheric and physical bodies. These faculties are called respectively the sentient, intellectual and consciousness soul, together making up the threefold soul. Man's individual spiritual I uses these lower bodies, and - as part of the development of humanity across the ages - grows into using the available faculties: starting with the sentient soul .. upto the consciousness soul. This aspect depends on:

• the maturity of the soul, as related to when the individual started incarnating, see Planets hosting beings at various stages of evolution
• the soul's individual pathway of developing through incarnate experiences, and how successful it has been in accomplishing the target for each age, or partially or fully falling sideways in error, see Sixteen paths of perdition

.

The natural development of the I is one of growth from the sentient soul experience growing into intellectual and later consciousness soul. Thereby the human 'I' uses an always larger part of Man's lower structure as a means to function and express. This is represented on Schema FMC00.431 by the arrows to the right. The consciousness soul is pivotal as it brings fructification from the spiritual world and moral impulses that are brought down also to the intellectual and sentient souls. As a result, Man's human character is undergoes transformation as the I matures in the mastery and use of the threefold soul.

It is important to realize Man does not leave behind the one aspect for the other, but gains in spiritual maturity: the mastery of having grown into the intellectual soul changes the sentient soul, and similarly the consciousness soul fructifies and changes the intellectual and sentient souls.

Hence, the human 'I' is really alive in the three lower bodily principles or members of Man all the time, and these three aspects are called the threefold soul. How the I holds the middle (or can be seen in the workings) of the threefold soul is also described in the lectures referenced on Schema FMC00.428A (below). Note the consciousness soul, intellectual soul and sentient soul should not be completely equated with willing, thinking and feeling, for the latter are to be found in each of the three soul members

Aspects

the threefold soul

• consist of three modifications, three parts within the astral body .. these three members of the astral body prepare the transformation of the astral body itself, of the etheric body and of the physical body. But these transformations are still not what meets us as the actual human inner being or soul. The soul, the inner part of Man, the three modifications of the astral body must make use of certain instruments, and these express themselves in such a way, that in the astral body the sentient soul is a sort of instrument, in the etheric body the intellectual soul soul, and in the physical body the consciousness soul (1910-06-09-GA121)
• the Human ‘I’ encloses within itself the sentient, the intellectual and consciousness souls (1910-06-09-GA121, see also Schema FMC00.428A)
• "in the consciousness-soul, the actual I-soul, is integrated the spirit-self or manas .. the spirit self (or manas) is enclosed in the consciousness soul" (1907-12-27-GA101)
• the threefold soul and the Mars, Mercury and Jupiter influences
  • (see 1908-02-15-GA102 and 1906-01-07-GA262 on Earth's seven epochs#Mars and Mercury influences 3)
• the archangel does not 'see' the human sentient soul or the part of the intellectual soul concerned with external sensory perception, only the part of the intellectual soul and consciousness soul with purely sense-free thinking, art, moral ideals etc. (1910-06-09-GA121, see also Third Hierarchy)
• threefold soul and Christ impulse
  • for further explanation on Schemas FMC00.428 and FMC00.428A, see Thinking Feeling Willing#1917-10-08-GA177 and Schema FMC00.488 on that same topic page.

human character

• physiognomy as the physical expression of human character (1910-03-12-GA068B and 1910-03-14-GA058)
• link between soul disposition or state of the soul (gemüt) and temperament (1908-10-26-GA244 Q&A 172.1 and 1911-11-09-GA244 Q&A 218.3), see also Human temperaments
• Laocoön group (or also Laokoon or Laocoon) (1910-03-14-GA058, 1917-01-24-GA292) - and Lessing's views
  • symbol of human character, or the unbalance between the three elements of the soul
    • Laocoon shows, in an outward physical way, the definite moment when the human being loses the unified character of the I which as a strong center joins the body members together. Through the entwining of the serpents, that which we call the human I is out of the body of Laocoon, and the individual impulses of the I, each one stripped bare into the physical, go their way Each individual limb goes its own way in limb and head and is not brought into characterful harmony with the outer form,because the I has just disappeared. (GA058)
  • the Laocoon group is a monument to the overcoming of the old priestly culture (of the third cultural age) by the cleverness of the individual human being (in the fourth and fifth cultural ages), built on the wisdom of the individual human being. The priest Laocoon, entwined with snakes (as a symbol of wisdom) shows how the world's culture of wisdom overcomes the old culture of priests, in which people had different views of truth and wisdom and of what should happen. Note: this is also contained symbolically in the legend of the Trojan horse, showing how the Trojan priestly culture was overthrown by the wisdom of Odysseus who built the Trojan horse (GA093)
  • relation with the Niobe group or Florentine Niobids (group of statues discovered in 1583 in Rome, now in museum in Florence, Italy)
    • Niobe is described as opposite of Laocoon. When the physical and etheric bodies are destroyed from the outside (and become more rigid in matter, rather than being formed by the I and astral body from above), they take on a form which, on the one hand, follows the destructive power and, on the other hand, makes it visible how the I and the astral body are forced out. Physical and etheric bodies freeze in formed matter.. and this is reproduced in Laocoon in the formation of the mouth, in the formation of the face, in the holding of the arms, in the forms which the fingers assume (1922-03-31-GA211)

soul life

• desire and judgement - two main elements in soul life, and what takes place in the process of human sense perception and the creation of mental images, sensations and memory (see Schema FMC00.565 and 1910-11-01-GA115, 1910-11-03-GA115)
• see more on: Aspects of human behaviour

various

• about Schema FMC00.428: see 1908-08-10-GA105 that describes what the situation would have looked like without Luciferic infection: Man would have received the Christ principle but without freedom
• lesser and greater guardian of the threshold

Inspirational quote

1909-10-29-GA068B

The I 'plays on the instrument of the soul and the different strings of human soul life',  what comes out as music and the expression of individual soul life, is what we know as and call human character

1918-10-19-GA185 see: Reconquista#1918-10-19-GA185 and Current fifth cultural age#Inspirational quotes

The age of the consciousness soul demands that Man should stand on his own feet, be self-sufficient and, as personality, emancipate himself. He must abandon the old supports. He can no longer allow himself to be persuaded into what he should believe; he must work out for himself his own religious faith.

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.431 provides and overview on how the I 'plays on the instrument of the soul and the different strings of human soul life', what comes out as music and the expression of individual soul life, is what we know as and call human character.

• how the I pulses through, works on, and develops the human soul
• the human I works itself up sentient -> intellectual ->  consciousness soul and can express itself in each of the three areas of soul life
• the I works order & harmony in the soul life, so a mutual fructification of sentient, intellectual, consciousness souls

Note: the schema was assembled mainly on the basis of the original german lecture versions of 1909-10-29-GA068B and 1910-03-12-GA068B. Purpose was to present a foundation. It can most probably be enrichted by including contents from the other five lectures.

Schema FMC00.565: shows a simple schematic to the description the two main elements in soul life, and what takes place in the process of human sense perception and the creation of mental images, sensations and memory - as related to desire and judgement.

Schema FMC00.428 illustrates the I as the center or cardinal point of two opposing streams of Jehovah (Spirits of Form) and Lucifer. The Jehovah SoF impulse infused love into Man's physical blood from below, the Luciferic influence brought Man's freedom and egoism from above, into Man's astral body and developing sentient soul. Both influences were first subconscious, and develop to full consciousness only with the maturing of Man's threefold soul. The Christ Impulse brought about a shift, see Schema FMC00.428A.

Schema FMC00.428A adds the explanation from Rudolf Steiner's narrative in the sources listed, against the background of Schema FMC00.428.

It shows how "the Christ Impulse triggered a reversal of the influences of the two crossing streams", and gave Man independence in love and allowed for a spiritualization of love, as love without true freedom is not love.

Note: all texts originate from the GA244 sources listed, but were aggregated into a single schema explanation.

Schema FMC00.468 provides the key statement and illustration of the fructification of Man by the Christ Impulse, and specifically how the evolved consciousness soul is the gateway for this spiritual fructification by Man's higher triad (consisting of spirit-self or manas, life-spirit or budhi, and spirit-man or atma) through the Christ Impulse as the budhi life-giving influence driving this.

Schema FMC00.085 is a simple summary table capturing key figures appearing in the Kalevela, the story of the development of the sentient soul. (first draft, to be extended)

Lecture coverage and references

Overview coverage

Below are seven main lectures part of 1909-GA058 and GA068B.

• GA058 volume was first published in 1984, with the title: Metamorphoses of the soul, paths of soul experience. Interestingly, the lectures in that volume first have 1909-12-05-GA058 (anger: the chained Prometheus), then 1909-10-22-GA058 (truth, and Goethe's Pandora), 1909-10-28-GA058 (Andacht), and then 1910-03-14-GA058 (human character).
• The chronological ranking of lectures now shows that although four lectures constitute the headlines of this volume's title, Rudolf Steiner actually covered this quite differently. GA068B was published in first edition in 2021, nearly 40 years later and over a century after the lectures were held.

This is another illustration that shows how the constitution of the original GA included the guiding principle to not include the publishing of what were regarded 'double' lectures with similar contents or coverage than other lectures. Indeed Rudolf Steiner sometimes held lectures that were quite similar or congruent in contents. These alternative or complementary lectures were only published as part of the GA2025, most typical examples of which are GA111 and GA117A. For the earnest student, these lectures sometimes contain important details, another phrasing or other differences.

The above example also shows that no 'contents based coherence' or 'study logic' was used for the assembly of the volumes, as lectures could have been presented differently, as the logic of Schema FMC00.431 shows.

Note that in 1910-GA059, Vol 2 of Metamorphoses of the soul, Rudolf Steiner goes into characteristics such as conscience, laughing and crying, human error, praying, positive and negative soul disposition, and so on.

Reference extracts

1907-03-16-GA097

the below can be read/interpreted in the context of understanding dementia and diseases such as alzheimer (see Memory), but also more general the fact that certain soul faculties (may) weaken in old people (eg slower functioning etc)

from: Questions and answers on the lecture given in Leipzig on 16 March 1907

Why do old people grow weak-minded, seeing that the soul remains changed?

The soul does not change. It never descends from the level it has reached, it its instrument has grown weak. It is like a great pianist who cannot play well as before if the instrument is poor.

You will say the soul no longer knows its own level. Yes, for it cannot see itself for as long as it is in a physical body. There you altogether have only the reflection of the soul, the mirror reflection. When the mirror grows or breaks, it can no longer give a reflection.

It is only the occult student who is truly able to perceive his soul.

quote - other version

The soul, indeed, does not change. It never descends from the stage once reached. But its instrument has become weak, like a great pianist who can no longer play as he played formerly, if he has a bad instrument.

You will say the soul no longer knows its own stage. Yes, the soul does not see itself as long as it is in a physical body. There is only to be found the reflection of the soul, the mirror image. Now the mirror becomes clouded or broken. Then it can no longer reflect.

1907-12-27-GA101

for specific quote on consciousness soul, see: Man's bodily principles#1907-12-27-GA101

for full lecture, see: Group souls of humanity#1907-12-27-GA101

1908-10-26-GA244 Q&A 172.1

(limited extract)

Where do we place the 'Gemüt' in the structure of Man's nine bodily principles?

Mainly in the consciousness soul .. [Vorzüglich] the 'I'.

...

The German word for the active force in the soul is 'Mut'. When an attribute or characteristic becomes intrinsic, then this is represented with the syllable 'Ge' .. so 'Gemuot' is the same as 'Gemüt'. The German word 'Gemüt' as an encompassing concept. .. The I develops in the consciousness soul. .. Through the consciousness the active element of the feeling comes in: Muot or Mut, the active that works in the soul.

'Gemüet, Gemüot' .. means 'Gemüt' .. is the part of the soul that develops itself from intellectual soul, consciousness soul, where the Willing impuls hits in.

1909-03-14-GA058

When someone is born, his I and astral body, including his sentient soul, intellectual soul and consciousness soul, are by no means featureless; they are endowed with definite attributes and characteristics brought from previous lives.

1909-10-21-GA068B

anger

1909-10-22-GA058

The mission of truth

synopsis:

The I is confined between losing itself and egoism. Lessing demands that man strive for truth. A sense of truth leads to selflessness. The one-sided point of view does not lead to truth. Passions, desires, have to be overcome; to the same extent peace and harmony rules among man. There is the truth of reflective thought about outer observation, as well as truth which comes about by creative thought. Among the latter are the truths of spiritual science. Reflective thinking can lead to egoism; truths arrived at by creative thinking, which lead into the future, liberate us from our self. This is the contrast between Epimetheus and Prometheus. Both the Titan brothers must work together. Wisdom and the Word have to unite with the deed.

1909-10-28-GA058

andacht

The mission of 'reverence'

synopsis:

The “Unio mystica” is the union with the eternal-feminine within human reach. The human being should strengthen his I but he must not harden it into egoism. The will is able to develop devotion towards the unknown, the feeling develops love for the unknown. When both are united reverence comes into being, which leads to knowledge of the unknown. Love without judgement leads to sentimental enthusiasm. Love and devotion imbued with the right kind of self-feeling lead upwards.

Gestures of reverence are the bended knee, folded hands, the lifted face. The soul purifies within itself a feeling for what is beautiful and what is good. The will, purified by reverence, builds up moral ideals. In old age the strength arises to be active in life. We draw near to the almighty, Increasingly rich knowledge is the result of educating the consciousness soul. The “eternal-masculine” must permeate all reverence. The strong Iascends to higher regions.

1909-10-29-GA068B

human character (1)

1909-12-05-GA058

The mission of anger

synopsis:

There are hidden faculties in the soul. Soul and spirit can issue only from soul and spirit. The fact of repeated earth lives is a consequence of this. The sentient soul is connected with the sentient body, the Intellectual soul with the ether body and the consciousness soul with the physical body. In the sentient soul lie images, antipathy and sympathy. The intellectual soul forms thoughts and judgements with the outside world. We have to make ourselves as many-sided as possible and overcome egoism. Anger can educate the human being to calmness and true gentleness.

Prometheus brought language, knowledge, writing and fire to mankind, all of them gifts which educate the I. The wrath of Zeus extinguishes the power of the I in Prometheus. Zeus is succeeded by Christ, anger by the loving I.

1910-03-12-GA068B

andacht

1910-03-14-GA058

human character (2)

Note: the date on rsarchive has the wrong year (checked against V1 in DE edition)

synopsis:

The divisions in the being of Man must be overcome by the unified character. At its foundation lies the harmony brought forth by the I from the interaction of the three soul members. The human being ripens through experience and wisdom learnt from life. Experiences are transformed into abilities. They are limited by the disposition of the physical and ether bodies. The forces which we have woven into archetype can only enter existence in a new life. The outer is an expression of the inner being.

Laocoon, an image of the human being from which the I is absent. True ripeness of experience is not attained until the 35th year of age. Joy and love fill the physical body of the child with strength. Then there are fewer obstacles for the I in the period of the consciousness soul. Similar links exist between the ether body and the intellectual soul and the periods when they manifest themselves. The experience of authority in the period from 7 to 14 provides the foundation for courage. The ideals presented to the human being in the period from 14 to 21 are imprinted on the sentient soul. Immersion in the cosmic secrets further remoulds the character.

Character is evident in facial expression, the physiognomy and the formation of the skull.

1910-06-09-GA121

see long extract on: Folk souls#1910-06-09-GA121 - advised to read in full

If we wish to throw light upon the present inner being of man, we find it necessary to picture it as being threefold, as being divided into:

• The sentient soul, which is, as it were, the lowest member of the inner human being,
• The intellectual soul, the central member, and
• The consciousness (or spiritual) soul, the highest member of the inner nature of the human being, in which the human ‘ I ’ is first actually brought to a state of consciousness.

In the spiritual-soul is first to be found that which is called human self-consciousness. Nevertheless the ‘ I ’ of Man is active in all three parts of his inner life, in the sentient soul as well as in the intellectual soul , and in the consciousness soul.

In the sentient-soul the ‘ I ’ is active in such a way that man is hardly aware of his I. In the sentient-soul, therefore, he is thus far given up to all his desires and passions. The ‘ I ’ broods dully in what we call the sentient-soul. It first works itself out and begins to appear in the intellectual-soul or mind-soul, and only becomes quite apparent in the spiritual-soul.

If we wish to examine each of these three members of the human inner being separately, we must look upon them as three modifications, as three parts within the astral body. It certainly is the case, that these modifications, these three members of the astral body, prepare the transformation of the astral body itself, of the etheric body and of the physical body. But these transformations are still not what meets us as the actual human inner being or soul. The soul, the inner part of Man; consists of three modifications of the astral body. The three modifications must make use of certain instruments, and these express themselves in such a way, that

• in the astral body the sentient soul is a sort of instrument,
• in the etheric body the intellectual soul soul, and
• in the physical body the consciousness soul.

Thus we can distinguish the human inner being from that which is the human envelope or covering; so that therefore the inner nature of man consists of three modifications of the astral body.

...

[see full lecture as it describes what is contained in these three members of the soul, how to distinguish them from one another]

..

in Man the ‘I’, his highest member, encloses within itself the sentient, the intellectual and consciousness souls.

1910-06-16-GA121

Therefore the East did not experience the whole process of receiving the ‘I’ as though coming from a higher spiritual world, with the assistance of a divine spiritual individuality such as Thor. This was experienced in Europe, and hence the European felt this gradual ascent to the individual ‘I’ as the emerging from a kind of group-soul.

[group soul]

The Germanic Scandinavian still felt himself attached to a group-soul, belonging to a whole community, as if he were a part in the great body of his people. Thus only could it come about that nearly 100 years after the Christ-impulse had been given to the Earth, Tacitus could describe the Germans of Central Europe as appearing to belong to separate tribes, and yet as members of one organism and belonging to the unity of the organism. At that time each individual still felt himself to be a member of the tribal ‘I’. He felt his individual ‘I’ being gradually born out of the tribal ‘I’, and in the God Thor he recognized the giver, the bestower of the ‘I’, the God who really presented him with the individual ‘I’. But he felt this God to be still united with the collective spirit of the tribe, with that which dwelt in the group-soul.

To this group-soul was given the name Sif. That is the name of the spouse of Thor. Sif must linguistically be connected with the word Sippe-tribal relationship, and this connection really exists, although veiled and hidden. Occultly, however, Sif signifies the group-soul of the individual community from which the single individual grows forth. Sif is the being who unites herself with the God of the individual ‘I’, with the giver of the individual ‘I’, with Thor. The individual man recognized Sif and Thor as the Beings who gave him his ‘I’. The Northman still felt thus about them, at a time when to the peoples in other parts of Europe other tasks had already been given in the educating of man up to the ‘I’.

Every single people has its particular task. There above all we find that people, that collection of peoples, that community of peoples whom we know by the name of Celts. The folk-spirit of the Celts—of whom from former lectures we know that later he received quite different tasks—then had the task of educating the still youthful ‘I’ of the peoples of Europe. For this it was necessary that the Celts should receive an education and instruction which was communicated directly from the higher world. Hence it is perfectly true that through their Initiates, the Druid Priests, the Celts did receive instruction from the higher worlds which they could not have acquired by their own strength, and which they then had to hand on further to the other nations.

The collective culture of Europe is a gift of the European Mysteries. The progressive folk-souls are, as they progress, always the leaders of the collective culture of humanity. But at the time when these folk-spirits of Europe had to direct men to work from out of themselves, it became necessary that the Mysteries should begin to withdraw. Hence with the withdrawal of the Celtic element there took place a kind of withdrawal of the Mysteries into much more secret depths. At the time of the old Celts there was, through the Mysteries, a much more direct intercourse between the spiritual Beings and the people, because the ‘I’ was still united to the group-soul nature, and yet the Celtic element was to be the donor of the ‘I’ to the other part of the population. We might therefore say, that before the actual Germanic Scandinavian evolution began, the mystery-education could only be given to European civilization by the old Celtic Mysteries. This mystery-education allowed just so much to come to the surface as was necessary to form a foundation for the whole culture of Europe. Now out of this old culture, through intermingling with the many different races, peoples and subdivisions of peoples, the most varied folk-souls and folk-spirits were able to fertilize themselves, and they brought the ‘I’ into ever different conditions in order to educate it, the ‘I’ which has worked its way up out of the foundations of all that lies below the ‘I’ of man.

After the old Greek culture had to a certain extent reached a culminating point in the fulfillment of its special mission, we see quite a different aspect of this same mission in the Roman Empire and its various stages of culture. We have already mentioned that the several post-Atlantean civilizations follow one another in certain order.

[first Indian cultural age]

If we wish to obtain a survey over these successive stages of post-Atlantean civilization, we may say that the old Indian culture worked upon the human etheric body. Hence the wonderfully wise, clairvoyant character of the old Indian culture, because—after the development of the special human capacities—it was a culture that was in the human etheric body; so that we may say, the ancient Indian culture is to be understood somewhat as follows (see diagram).

From the Atlantean down to the later post-Atlantean epoch the Indian folk-spirit went through the whole of the development of the inner soul forces, without his ‘I’ being wakened. He then returned to his work in the human etheric body. The essential thing in the old Indian culture is that the Indian, with completely developed soul-forces, with soul-forces refined to the highest point, goes back again into the etheric body, and within that he perfects those wonderfully delicate powers, the later reflection of which we see in the Vedas and in a still more refined condition in the Vedantic philosophy. All this was only possible because the Indian Folk-soul had evolved to high degree before the ‘I’ was seen and realized, and this again occurred at a time when man could perceive by means of the forces of the etheric body itself.

[second Persian cultural age]

The Persian Folk-soul had not progressed so far as this, only so far as to perception in the sentient body or astral body.

[third cultural age]

It was again different at the time of the Egyptian-Babylonian-Chaldæan culture. That part of Man which we describe as the sentient soul was then able to perceive, and we must therefore describe this Egyptian-Chaldæan culture as working in the sentient soul.

[fourth cultural age]

The Græco-Latin folk-spirit was directed to the intellectual soul or soul of the higher feelings, and worked in that. He himself was only able to work upon this intellectual soul or soul of the higher feelings because it had a sort of expression of its nature in the etheric body. But this form of world-conception which now appeared in Greece was less real, as it were, less objective, it bore less of the stamp of reality. Whereas in the old Indian culture there was a more direct activity in the etheric body, there was a more blurred, a fainter image of the reality, which, as I have said, was like a memory of what these peoples had once experienced, a memory reflected in their etheric body.

In the other peoples which then follow upon the Greek people we have to deal principally with the use of the physical body for the development, stage by stage, of the consciousness or spiritual soul. Hence the Greek culture was one which we can only understand if we try to do so from within, if we realize that in this culture what is important in external experience is that which pours forth from the inner nature of the Greeks. On the other hand the peoples lying more towards the West and the North have the task, under the guidance of their folk-souls, of directing their gaze out into the world, and of seeing what is there to be seen on the physical plane, and of perfecting that which has to play a part on that plane. The Germanic Scandinavian peoples had also the special task of perfecting this as they alone could, because they still enjoyed the blessing of being able to see into the spiritual world with the old clairvoyance, and to carry the primeval experiences which they perceived so vividly, into that which had to be arranged on the physical plane.

[foundation - roman people]

One people there was, which, at its later stage no longer possessed this blessing; which in the first place had not gone through such a previous evolution, but had been placed on the physical plane at one bound, as it were, before the birth of the human ‘I’ and therefore was only able under the guidance of its Folk-soul, of its archangel, to look after that which helped this human ‘I’ on the physical plane, that which was necessary for its well-being there. This was the Roman people. Everything that the Roman people had, under the guidance of its Folk-spirit, to accomplish for the collective mission of Europe, was for the purpose of giving importance to the ‘I’ of Man as such. Hence the Roman people was able to develop that which places the I among other I's. It was able to found the whole system of the rights of the individual. Hence it was the creator of jurisprudence, which is built up purely on the ‘I’. The relation of one ‘I’ to another was the great question in the mission of the Roman people.

[mixtures of people - development of the threefold soul]

The other peoples, which grew out of the Roman civilization, already possessed more of what—coming so to say from the sentient soul, the intellectual soul (or Soul of the Higher Feelings) and from the spiritual soul itself—in some way or other fertilizes the ‘I’ and drives it out into the world. Therefore all the mixtures of races of which external history relates, which occurred on the Italian and Pyrenean Peninsula, in present-day France and in present-day Great Britain, were necessary in order to develop the ‘I’ in the different shades of the sentient soul, the intellectual soul and the consciousness oul on the physical plane. That was the great mission of those peoples which gradually developed in various ways in Western Europe.

• All the several shades of culture and the missions of the peoples of Western Europe can finally be explained by the fact that there had to be developed in the direction of the Italian and Pyrenean peninsulas that which could be formed in the ‘I’ through the impulse of the sentient soul. If you study the several folk-characters in their light and shadow sides, you will find that in the peoples of the Italian and Pyrenean peninsulas there is a peculiar mingling of the ‘I’ with the Sentient Soul.
• Then you will be able to understand the peculiar nature of those peoples who till now have lived in the land of France, if you consider the growth and mingling of the intellectual soul, with the ‘I’.
• The great world-historical effects, however, which we may consider as represented by Great Britain, are to be traced back to the impulse of the consciousness soul penetrating into the human ‘I’. With the world-historical mission that proceeded from Great Britain is also connected that which proceeded from the founding of the external constitutional form. The union of the consciousness soul with the ‘I’ did not exist as yet inwardly. If, however, you recognize how this union came about between the consciousness soul and the ‘I’ that had been driven outwards, you will find that the great historical conquests made by the inhabitants of that island proceed from that impulse. You will also find that what took place there in the founding of the parliamentary forms of government at once becomes comprehensible, if you know that an impulse of the consciousness soul was to be placed on the plane of the world's history.

Thus many shades were necessary, for the several peoples had to be guided through many stages of the ‘I’. If we had sufficient time to follow these things on further we should find pictures in history which would show us how the basic forces branch and work out in the most various ways. Thus did the peculiar constitution of the soul work among the western peoples, who had not preserved in themselves the direct elementary remembrance of the clairvoyantly experienced things of the spiritual world of former times.

[complex mixture & preparation]

In later times, in the Germanic Scandinavian domains, that which proceeded directly from a gradual, successive evolution of primeval clairvoyance and which had already been poured into the sentient soul, had to develop in quite a different way. Hence that current of inwardness, which indeed is only the after-effect of a more inward clairvoyant experience gone through in a former age. The Southern Germanic peoples had in the first place their task in the domain of the consciousness soul.

The Græco-Latin age had to develop the intellectual soul. But it had not merely to give the impulse with this soul, it had to work also with a wonderful premature development that was endowed with clairvoyant experience. All this was poured into the Spiritual Souls of the Central European and Northern Germanic peoples. It worked among these souls as an inner capacity, and the Germanic peoples living more to the South had first of all to develop what pertains to the inward preparation of the Spiritual Soul, to fill it inwardly with the consciousness resulting from the old clairvoyance, but transposed on to the physical plane.

[german idealism]

The philosophies of Central Europe, those philosophies which were represented by Fichte, Schelling and Hegel as late as in the nineteenth century, are apparently far removed from the sphere of mythology, but they are nevertheless nothing but the result of the most penetrating old clairvoyance, acquired by Man when he worked in co-operation with the divine spiritual beings.

• It would otherwise have been impossible for a Hegel to have looked upon his ideas as realities, it would have been impossible for him to make the strange statement so characteristic of him, when, in answer to the question, ‘what is the abstract?’, he replied, ‘The abstract is for instance an individual Man who performs his daily duties, let us say a carpenter.’ That, therefore, which to the abstract scientist is concrete, was abstract to Hegel. That which to the abstract scientist are mere thoughts, to him were the great, mighty architects of the world. Hegel's world of ideas is the final, the most highly sublimated expression of the Spiritual Soul, and contains in pure concepts that which the Northman still saw as sensible-super-sensible, divine spiritual powers in connection with the ‘I’.
• And when the ‘I’ was expressed in Fichte, it was nothing but a precipitation of what the God Thor had given to the human soul, now viewed from the Spiritual Soul in what seems to be the simplest of thoughts, the thought ‘I am,’ which is the starting-point of Fichte's philosophy.

A straight line of evolution goes from the presentation of the ‘I’ by the God Thor or Donar to the old Northern peoples from the spiritual world, down to this philosophy. This God had to prepare all this for the Spiritual Soul in order that the latter might receive its fitting contents, for its task is to look out into the outer world and to work within that world. But this philosophy does not discover merely the external, crude, materialistic experience, it discovers in the external world the contents of the Spiritual Soul itself, and looks upon Nature merely as the other side of idea. Take this on-working impulse, and in it you have the mission of the Northern Germanic peoples in Central Europe.

Now, as all evolution has to progress, we must inquire: How does this evolution advance?

When we look back into the ancient times we can see something remarkable.

• As we have said, in old India the first culture took place in the etheric body, after the necessary perfecting of the spiritual forces had been accomplished. But there are other civilizations besides, which have preserved the old Atlantean culture and carried it over into the people of the post-Atlantean epoch. Whereas on the one hand we have the Indian, coming thus to his etheric body, and from this and its forces creating his mighty civilization and his magnificent spiritual life, ...
• we have coming from the other side a culture which originated in Atlantis and continued to work on in the post-Atlantean epoch; a culture which for its foundation and development works out the other side, as it were, of the consciousness of the etheric body. That is the Chinese culture. If you bear this connection in mind, and remember that the Atlantean culture was directly related to what in our earlier lectures we called ‘The Great Spirit,’ you will understand the details of the Chinese culture. This culture was directly connected with the highest stages of the evolution of the world. But it still works into modern human bodies, and from a completely different side.

It will therefore seem quite comprehensible that the two great opposites of the post-Atlantean epoch will one day clash in these two civilizations: the Indian, which, within certain limits, is capable of development; and the Chinese, that shuts itself off and remains rigid, repeating what existed in the old Atlantean epoch.

[chinese culture and continent of Atlantis]

You really obtain an occult, scientific, poetic impression of this Chinese Empire if you observe it in its evolution, and think of the Great Wall of China, which was intended to enclose on all sides that which came from the primal ages and developed in the post-Atlantean epoch. I say that something like an occult poetic feeling steals over one, if one compares the Wall of China with something which existed in former times. I can only indicate these things. If you compare this with the results that have been obtained by science, you will find how extraordinarily illuminating these things are.

Let us clairvoyantly observe the old continent of Atlantis, which must be sought where the Atlantic Ocean now lies, between Africa and Europe on the one side, and America on the other. This continent was encircled by a sort of warm stream, a stream about which clairvoyant consciousness reveals that, strange as it may sound, it flowed upwards from the South, through Baffins Bay, towards the north of Greenland, encircling it and then, flowing over to the East, gradually cooled down; then, at a time when Siberia and Russia had not yet risen to the surface, it flowed down near the Ural mountains, turned, touched the Eastern Carpathians, flowed into the region occupied by the present Sahara, and finally streamed towards the Atlantic Ocean near the Bay of Biscay; so that it flowed in a perfectly unbroken stream. You will understand that only the remnants of this stream still remain. This is the Gulf Stream, which at that time encircled the Atlantean Continent.

You will now also understand that, with the Greeks, the life of the soul is remembrance. The picture of Oceanos arose in them, which is a memory of that Atlantean epoch. Their picture of the world is not so very incorrect, because it was drawn from the old Atlantean epoch. The stream that came down by Spitzbergen as a warm current, and gradually cooled and so on,—the region encircled by this stream the Chinese have literally reproduced by enclosing within their Great Wall the culture which they rescued from the Atlantean epoch. There was as yet no history in the Atlantean civilization, hence the Chinese civilization is also in some ways lacking in history. Thus we have there something pre-Indian, something coming from Atlantis.

Let us now turn, in the further progress of the Germanic Scandinavian folk-spirit, to the description of what follows it.

[sixth cultural age of spirit-self]

What happens first of all, when a folk-spirit so leads his people that the spirit-self can specially develop?

Let us recollect that the etheric body was evolved during the Indian civilization, the sentient body in the Persian, the sentient soul in the Egyptian-Chaldæan, the intellectual soul in the Græco-Latin, the consciousness soul in our own, which is not yet completed.

Then comes the laying hold of the spirit-self by the spiritual or consciousness soul , so that the spirit-self shines into the spiritual or consciousness soul, which, as that is the task of the sixth stage of civilization, must be prepared for gradually. That civilization, which must be pre-eminently a receptive one, for it must reverently await the penetrating of the spirit-self into the spiritual soul, is being prepared by the peoples of Western Asia and the Slav peoples of Eastern Europe. These latter were pushed forward with their folk-souls, for the very good reason that everything which is to happen in the future, must in a certain way be prepared beforehand, must already push itself in, in order to provide the elements for what is to follow.

It is extremely interesting to study these advance guards of a folk-soul who is preparing himself for later ages. This accounts for the peculiar nature of the Slav peoples at present living to the East of us. Their whole culture gives the Western European the impression of being in a preparatory stage, and they put forward in quite a curious way, through the medium of their advance guards, that which in spirit is quite different from any mythology.

It would be misunderstanding what is being pushed forward from the East as a civilization of the future, it would be misunderstanding this culture if we were to compare it with that which the Western European peoples possess, viz., an impulse that continues in a straight line, which is still rooted in and has its source in the old clairvoyance. The peculiarity attaching to the souls of these Eastern European peoples is expressed in the whole attitude they have always shown when their relations to the higher worlds have come into question. This relation, if we compare it with what appears in our mythology in Western Europe and the strange divine figures worked out even down to the individual character, is quite different. That which it offers appears to us in such a way that we may compare what it gives us as a direct out-pouring of the Folk-spirit, with our various planes or worlds, through which we prepare ourselves to understand a spiritual, a higher culture. For instance, we find there in the East the following conception: The West has received a series of successive worlds, lying side by side. In the East we find in the first place a distinct consciousness of a world of the Cosmic Father. Everything that is creatively active in air and fire, in all the elements in and above the Earth, meets us as one great, all-embracing idea, which is at the same time an all-embracing feeling, the concept of the Heavenly Father. In somewhat the same way as we think of the spirit world as fertilizing our Earth, so do we find this heavenly world, the world of the Father, coming towards us from the East, and it fertilizes that which is felt to be the Mother, the Spirit of the Earth. We have no other expression and can think of no other way of picturing the whole Spirit of the Earth than in the picture of the fertilization of Mother Earth.

Two worlds, then, confront one another there, instead of single individual Divine Figures. And what is felt to be the Blessed Child of these two worlds, stands in front of them as a third world. That is not an individual being, not a feeling in the soul, but something which is the product of the Heavenly Father and the Earth-Mother. In this way the relation of Devachan to the Earth is felt from the spiritual world. There, that which blossoms in the material body is felt as something altogether spiritual; and that which grows and blossoms in the soul, is perceived as the world which is at the same time felt to be the Blessed Child of the Heavenly Father and the Earth-Mother. Universal as these conceptions are we find them among the Slav peoples which have been pushed forward towards the West. In no Western European mythology do we find this conception so universal. We find in them clearly defined Divine Figures, but not that which we present in our anthroposophy as the different worlds; these we find more in the Heavenly Father, the Earth-Mother, and the Blessed Child of the East.

In the Blessed Child there is again a world which permeates another one. It is a world which is, however, conceived of as being individual, because it is connected with the physical sun and its light. The Slav element also has this Being,—although in a differently developed form of conception and feeling,—which we have so often found in the Persian mythology; it has the Sun-being who so pours his blessings into the other three worlds that the destiny of man is woven into the creation, into the Earth, through the fertilization of the Earth-Mother by the Heavenly Father, and through that which the Sun-spirit weaves into both these worlds.

A fifth world is that which comprises everything spiritual. The Eastern European element feels the spiritual world as underlying all the forces of Nature and their creations. But this we must think of in quite a different shade of feeling, connected more with the facts, creations and beings of Nature. We must conceive of this Eastern soul as being in a position to see an entity in an occurrence of Nature, of seeing not only the physically-sensible, but the astrally-spiritual. Hence the ideas of an immense number of beings in this unique spiritual world, which we may at the most compare with the world of the Elves of Light. It is that spiritual world, which is looked upon in anthroposophy as the fifth world, which dawns more or less in the feelings of the peoples of the East. Whether they call it by this name or that, does not signify; what does signify is that the feelings are colored and shaded, that the concepts which characterize this fifth plane or spiritual world are to be found in the world of the East. By means of these feelings this world of the East is preparing for that spirit which is to bring the Spirit-Self into Man, in readiness for that epoch when the Spiritual-Soul shall ascend to Spirit-Self, in the sixth age of post-Atlantean civilization, which is to succeed our own. We meet with this in a very unique manner not only in the creations of the Folk-Souls, which are as I have just described, but also in a wonderful preparatory fashion, in the various externalities of Eastern Europe and its culture.

1914-01-24-GA266/3

The consciousness soul, intellectual soul and sentient soul should not be completely equated with willing, thinking and feeling, for the latter are to be found in each of the three soul members.

People who are more feeling-beings come to esotericism, and namely, especially those who have a religious bent. Such people usually get general ideas about the spiritual world and also Imaginations very easily. They're usually spared the things that make it difficult for men to ascend into spiritual worlds. Their worries are taken away from them by an angelic being, they're carried over the threshold by their angel. Such men can experience many beautiful things in the spiritual world, and when they speak about this we should listen well to what they tell us.

Then there's people who come to esoteric development more out of the will that's connected with emotions and passions, and this can be connected with criticism and ridicule. It's more difficult for them than for the feeling type to get into the spiritual world. When they stand before the threshold they're tortured by their passions and emotions so badly that it can become physical torture. In their meditation it is as if they were being tormented and hindered by devils. They would like to enter the spiritual world, but they don't feel that they can.

The third path through thinking is one that one can choose oneself. But very few people tread this path

1917-10-08-GA177

important lecture complementing Schema FMC00.428 and Schema FMC00.428A

see: Thinking Feeling Willing#1917-10-08-GA177

Laocoön and Niobe groups

1917-01-24-GA292

This is the famous Laocoön group — the starting-point, as you know, of many an artistic discussion, ever since Lessing's Laocoön of the 18th century. It is the work of three sculptors of the School of Rhodes. Lessing's writings on this subject are, indeed, most interesting. He tried to show, you will remember, how the poet describes is not placed before the eyes. We must call it to life in our imaginations. Whereas what the plastic artist has created is there before our eyes. Therefore, says Lessing, what the plastic artist portrays must contain far more repose; it must represent moments which can at least be imagined — for a single moment — in repose.

Much has been said and written about this Laocoon group, especially in relation to Lessing's explanations. It is interesting how the aestheticist, Robert Zimmermann, — without, of course, having any knowledge of Spiritual Science — arrived at an explanation which needs, no doubt, to be supplemented, but which was none the less correct for an age that had not Spiritual Science. His explanation contains — albeit only as an instinctive suggestion — some element of what I have been setting forth today. We see the priest, Laocoon, with his two sons, wound around by the serpents and going towards their death. Now we cannot but be struck by the peculiar way in which the body has been moulded. Much has been written on this subject. Robert Zimmermann rightly pointed out: The whole representation is such that we have before us the very moment where the life (or, as we should say, the etheric body) is already fleeing away. It is already a moment of unconsciousness. Hence the artist represents it as though the body of Laocoon were already falling asunder. That is the marvellous quality about this figure. The body is already being differentiated into its parts. Thus even in this late product we see how the Greek was aware of the etheric body. He brings to expression the actual moment where life is passing into death. It is the quick withdrawal of the etheric body through the shock — the shock that is expressed by the awful snakes coiling around. This effect of the etheric body withdrawing from the physical, and the physical falling asunder, is the characteristic thing in the Laocoon; not the other things that are so often said, but the peculiar way the body becomes differentiated. We could not imagine the body thus, unless we conceived it as the moment when the etheric body is drawing away.

...

To the same epoch belongs the famous Niobe group, Niobe losing all her children through the wrath of Apollo.

Discussion

Note 1 - Terminology: 'Andacht'

The German term Andacht is used and imported into English language for use within spiritual science, because the specific and rich intended meaning by Rudolf Steiner of this German word cannot be translated appropriately to English, without causing major misunderstandings when an existing equivalent English word would be used).

This is an example where words fall short of intended meaning in a spiritual scientific context. In normal everyday use and waking consciousness there is no single word for the subtle meaning described and intended. In fact any word is just a 'label' for what is intended and described here.

Hence, in this context and framework, translating the single word literally just does not work. 'Andacht' can not be translated by: attention, attentiveness, reverence, devotion, 'on-thought', or any single word.

As described in 1910-03-12-GA068B:

Andacht is that what gets aroused in the soul as inner impulses for the unknown, for what we do not know yet, as we can not understand it yet.

Did we not have anything in us that points us to what we can not understand, then this urge and longing could not awaken, to come to the unknown. All that we want to understand and can only understand once we have entered into it, this first has to work in us in a dark way as yearning or longing in our soul.

That what draws us into that, what we have not yet grown into, under what we do not find ourselves yet, but rather find ourselves outside of still, that is Andacht.

Note from a reader (machine translation from DE) 2024-03

You have not translated the word “andacht” and given an explanation of what it means and that it is not so easy to translate this word into English.

This word also appears in the mantram

Geist: Es denkt mich: Frömmigkeit

Chr.: Es webt mich: Dankbarkeit

Vater: Es wirkt mich: Andacht.

Or in English

Spirit: It thinks me: piety

Christ: It weaves me: gratitude

Father: It works me: devotion.

Steiner often talks about this mantram, i.e. “andacht” in connection with the Father, as the highest part of the Trinity.

See also wikipedia https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andacht .

Words such as 'Frömmigkeit, Dankbarkeit und Andacht' (piety, gratitude and devotion) only really open up when you meditate on them for a long time.

In a conversation with a friend about the word gratitude, he said that I am grateful to God for my existence, for this and that. I replied that I personally cannot feel or have gratitude towards God. For gratitude, I need a direct counterpart. I can have esteem, respect and reverence for God, I can worship him. This refers to God, who is somehow infinitely far away, unrecognizable, in a certain sense also abstract.

I can be grateful to Christ, who has bridged the infinite distance from God to me, to our world, who has come to meet me, so to speak. I have a counterpart, I can feel gratitude towards him.

'Andacht' (devotion) towards God the Father: Turning towards him, orienting myself towards him, in a seeking movement of the soul.

Note 2 - On the consciousness soul

Rudolf Steiner describes the threefold soul, with the third and last element in its development called the consciousness soul or spiritual soul. On this FMC wiki site we use the term consciousness soul, but it is spiritual in nature, and Steiner even calls it the 'actual I-soul':

"in the consciousness-soul, the actual I-soul, is integrated the spirit-self or manas .. the spirit self (or manas) is enclosed in the consciousness soul" (1907-12-27-GA101)

In this commentary we will try to bring these concepts to life with the help of a number of schemas to contemplate together. Below are thus offered a number of perspectives, as pieces of a puzzle to put together in your own mind. Consider it a jigsaw of 15 puzzle pieces (15 Schemas below) laid in seven moves.

Study process note:

• as other narratives on this site, the text below can be regarded as the basis for a voice-over explanation whilst projecting and 'touring' fifteen schemas on this site (listed below), as could be done with a movie to explain the links and provide a multimedia version (maybe an idea for the future). The approach consists of providing multiple perspectives to unlock getting stuck in a sequential fixed frame of mind, and nearly automatically lead or force the mind into contemplation of the whole instead of just a single perspective.
• the building on schemas as illustrations of concepts may come across as cumbersome, because it requires one to take the schemas and descriptions at hand. In today's world many people may probably not commit time and effort to go through this, as attention spans and concentration lower. However the intention of the narratives is to provide a guided study process for the earnest student of spiritual science who is on a quest for insight and willing to set aside and invest the time and concentration needed. The schemas are layered onto lecture references and so provide manifold links to the various perspectives underneath.
• note: the goal is not to try and outline or define what the consciousness soul is with a short description, or some bullet points or facts from Rudolf Steiner's lectures. All the latter is embedded in the training materials on this site in various contexts, as exemplified by the synthetic schemas where the consciousness soul appears, eg Schema FMC00.047A, Schema FMC00.236, Schema FMC00.232, Schema FMC00.046, Schema FMC00.233 (just some examples, non exhaustively). However such small facts or snippets of info taken together do not help to develop a kind of understanding of what is truly meant with the consciousness soul. For this, all this info has to be projected into an overall frame of understanding first. Thén the schemas can be linked and added with meaning. The goal of the below is to first construct, initialize, such mental imaginative frame of understanding. It assumes a basic understanding of spiritual scientific essentials, so foundational base knowledge is assumed.
• PS addition to the previous bullet, example from the anthrowiki page for consciousness soul:

  The consciousness soul (German: Bewusstseinsseele) is a transformed part of the astral body. During the Earth's evolution it emerged, when during the hyperborean time after the separation of the sun the earth condensed to the water state and the etheric body of the humans at the same time condensed to the light ether (Lit.:GA 13, p. 225). The stimulators of the consciousness soul are the Jupiter beings (Lit.: GA 98, p. 198, GA 102, p. 59f). The consciousness soul is further formed by the I working unconsciously reshaping the physical body and reflecting this activity back into the astral body. This unconscious work of the I began at the end of the atlantic time and is striving towards a climax in our present cultural epoch. The consciousness soul is born as an independent member of the human beeing at the age of 35. Through appropriate spiritual training the consciousness soul is transformed into the imaginative soul (Lit.:GA 145, p. 176f). At the same time, the spirit self is already initially formed.

Six viewpoints

1 - Schema FMC00.431

(see above on this page)

is a good entry-point for this. See below right on this schema, depicting that the spiritual flows in from right to left and hence fructifies also the intellectual and sentient soul. Granted as often the schema is dense and study - as always the lecture references provide the narrative.

2 - Schema FMC00.428A

(see above on this page)

provides an interesting view, because like FMC00.431 it illustrates "how the I plays on the instrument of the soul and the different strings of human soul life", however it positions the consciousness soul with the regular Spirits of Form and the Christ Impulse as countering the Luciferic influence.

From this it but a small step to see how the development of Man's various bodily principles, and the threefold soul, are linked to the cultural ages of the Current Postatlantean epoch, because the spiritual hierarchies make up Man and are in continuous development themselves, they roll off the rhythms of the Cosmic fractal, see Spiritual hierarchies and their eigenperiods like the different interconnected wheels of a large gearbox.

Specifically, see Schema FMC00.047 (and variants) on Current Postatlantean epoch: the threefold soul develops in the third, fourth, and current fifth cultural age.

Hence we want to bear in mind our understanding of the Third hierarchy, and the chain 'SoF > archai -> archangels -> angels' that evolves Man's bodily principles and related consciousness.

See also Schema FMC00.013 on on Current Postatlantean epoch. The above principle is why human consciousness (after having shifted already from atavistic clairvoyance in earlier epochs and ages, through the dark age or kali yuga, to the current waking consciousness), will evolve in the future from this mundane waking consciousness to a higher state of consciousness starting with imaginative consciousness - see Stages of clairvoyance.

3 - Schema FMC00.391

(on Stages of clairvoyance)

See the picture on the right of the schema, that depicts imagination, inspiration and intuition, and how the I and astral body have the consciousness experience in different ways, depending on this penetration and use of the astral, etheric and physical bodies.

These pictures and schemas are of course all very simplified. Therefore next, we zoom into considering the astral body in all this.

4 - Schema FMC00.134

Schema FMC00.134 (on Human astral body) illustrates the dual nature of the human astral body, consisting of a higher astral (refined part) and a lower astral.

5 - Schema FMC00.472A

(on Development of the I)

.. can now be contemplated to put the above elements together. It shows, in darker and lighter red, the higher and lower body (taken from the insert Schema FMC00.443, available on the same topic page)

6 - Schema FMC00.046 and Schema FMC00.569 with Schema FMC00.168

The first two show the gradual evolution across epochs and ages.

• First, building on the astral body description above .. Schema FMC00.569 (on Human aura) illustrates the spiritual I or mental body .. growing from black point (entry of the spiritual) to an ever-growing part of astral that is taken hold of and transformed (manas) and then beyond (further spiritualization). So the mental spiritual flowing in, taking on and growing beyond the astral-etheric-physical.
• Schema FMC00.046 (on Development of the I) depicts the process of gradual dripping or 'rippling through', as sketched differently in Schema FMC00.569.

.

Note there is the first evolution in the Lemurian and Atlantean epochs, then the next iteration and layer in the Current Postatlantean epoch - see Schema FMC00.168 (on Recapitulation). So Schema FMC00.046 has to be 'taken together' with Schema FMC00.168.

The way to zoom into this important change in the current epoch is described on Transition between 4th and 14th century.

Importance

7 - Schema FMC00.468 and Schema FMC00.438

Schema FMC00.468 (ao on this page) .. illustrates that the consciousness soul is the basis for spiritualization.

• PS: why the consciousness soul as the most refined part of the purified astral body? for this first see Schema FMC00.261 and variants on Astral world; then check Schema FMC00.508 on Interpenetration of astral and spirit worlds along with the inspirational quote from 1904-11-10-GA053 on that page.

It is foundational in self-initiation, as a person pushes off on this basis of consciousness for making a free choice out of a moral and spiritual awareness and self-consciousness, and takes on character transformation by introspection and self-assessment of one's Personality and the elemental balance. See more in Steps 2 and 3 in Bardon's IIH system of self-initiation.

So the consciousness soul is the fulcrum (in french: point d'appui) that provides the basis for Man's transformation and spiritualization. Man becomes more susceptible and influenced by the spiritual, with growing consciousness of moral ideals, conscience, empathy as a step towards less selfishness and more selflessness and love. This is the transformation of the human astral body into manas or spirit-self (see causal body) part of Man's higher triad. This is then the basis for spiritual fructification by the Christ Impulse and the budhi spark.PS: why the consciousness soul as the most refined part of the purified astral body? for this see also Schema FMC00.261 and variants on Astral world

That fructification is shown again differently by [6] on Schema FMC00.472. For a narrative that goes along with this, read Kundalini#Note 3 - The process of illumination

Schema FMC00.438 illustrates this link between consciousness soul and Christ Impulse in a different way, from an evolutionary perspective. This has been prepared throughout the Current Postatlantean epoch with Two streams of development, and will deliver its fruits in the next sixth cultural age.

Extra notes

1/ Schema FMC00.133 is not an ideal and probably debatable illustration regarding how it maps the illustration on the right to the one on the left. However its intention is to illustrate that the consciousness soul is truly spiritual in that it includes the manas spirit-self part (see also 1907-12-27-GA101 quote above. This is also illustrated on the right in both Schema FMC00.086 and Schema FMC00.218 on Man's bodily principles.

2/ Now that we've gone full-circle in this tour, let's go back to '3 - Schema FMC00.391' above and read the quote from 1909-06-30-GA112: "when Man opens himself to the power of the Christ-impulse, the experiences of his astral body are poured into the etheric body and clairvoyance ensues.". This links to the new faculties that humanity will develop naturally in the future, see more on Christ in the etheric.

3/ Furthermore, in terms of teachings and symbols, see Schema FMC00.114 (and Schema FMC00.380) on the Parsifal topic page.

The pivotal importance of the consciousness soul

Sometimes a certain lecture by Rudolf Steiner captures the essence and 'hits it on the nail' so clearly that such reference is really of value, and we ought to lifted out from the 100.000 pages text of Rudolf Steiner's Gesamtausgabe (GA).

The extract below from 1907-11-20-GA100 (see also Mary#1907-11-20-GA100) coins the essence of the consciousness soul:

Spirit-self is the same as the 'Holy Spirit', who according to esoteric Christianity, is the guiding being in the astral world. According to the same teaching, life-spirit is called the Word or the Son; and spirit-man is the 'Father Spirit' or 'Father'.

Those human beings who had brought the spirit-self to birth within them, were called Children of God; in such men “the light shone into the Darkness and they received the light.”

[editor: in this case the light is 'illumination', the life-spirit buddhi spark from the spirit-self manas, that is brought by the Christos principle]

Outwardly they were, men of flesh and blood, but they bore a higher Man within them [editor: see Man's higher triad];

the spirit-self had been born within them out of the consciousness soul.

The 'mother' of such a spiritualised Man is not a bodily mother, she lies within him; she is the purified and spiritualised consciousness soul; she is the principle who gives birth to the higher Man.

This spiritual birth, a birth in the highest sense, is described in St. John's Gospel. The spirit-self (or 'the Holy Spirit') pours into the most highly purified consciousness soul. This is referred to in the words, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.” (John 1:32).

As the consciousness soul is the principle in which the spirit-self develops, this principle is called the 'mother of Christ', or, in the occult schools, the 'Virgin Sophia'.

Through the fertilisation of the Virgin Sophia the Christ could be born in Jesus of Nazareth.

This essence is illustrated on the Schema mentioned above: Schema FMC00.468 or Schema FMC00.468A.

More

Additional extracts from other lectures relate to this and we can stitch these to the above, as they shed light from various angles of perspective.

.

First, from 1908-05-31-GA103 (here SWCC, see also Mary#1908-05-31-GA103 and Kundalini#Note 3 - The process of illumination)

When the Virgin Sophia [consciousness soul] encounters the Cosmic Universal I [spirit-self manas cosmic principle] which causes illumination, the pupil is surrounded by light, spiritual light. This second power that approaches the Virgin Sophia [consciousness soul], is called in esoteric Christianity, the 'Holy Spirit [spirit-self]

and

.. the Virgin Sophia is the purified astral body [consciousness soul], and .. the 'Holy Spirit', the Cosmic Universal I [editor: the spirit-self, manas, which is a cosmic principle as it lies in the higher spirit world] which is received by the Virgin Sophia and which can then speak out of this purified astral body [consciousness soul]. ...

Men of our age can receive the Virgin Sophia (the purified astral body [consciousness soul]) and the Holy Spirit [spirit-self](illumination) in the manner described, but only Christ Jesus could give to the Earth what was necessary to accomplish this. He has implanted in the spiritual part of the Earth those forces which make it possible for that to happen ...

...

The Sun Logos ... became the Spirit of the Earth. This he achieved by entering into the body of Jesus of Nazareth in his thirtieth year, and by remaining active there for three years, after which he continued to remain on the Earth. Now, the important thing is, that this event .. must give something by which Man may gradually develop the beginnings of a purified astral body [consciousness soul] in the Christian sense.

There had to be something there .. whereby Man could make his astral body gradually more and more like a Virgin Sophia [consciousness soul], and through it, receive into himself the Holy Spirit [spirit-self] which was able to spread out over the entire Earth, but which could not be received by anyone whose astral body did not resemble the Virgin Sophia [consciousness soul].

...

the Gospel of St. John is the Gospel in which the writer has concealed powers which develop the Virgin Sophia [consciousness soul].

At the cross, the mission was entrusted to him of receiving that force as his mother and of being the true, genuine interpreter of the Messiah. This really means that if you live wholly in accordance with the Gospel of St. John and understand it spiritually, it has the force to lead you to Christian katharsis, it has the power to give you the Virgin Sophia [consciousness soul].

Then will the Holy Spirit [spiritual principle of manas or spirit-self], united with the Earth, grant you illumination or photismos according to the Christian meaning.

And what the most intimate disciples experienced there in Palestine was so powerful that from that time on, they possessed at least the capacity of perceiving in the spiritual world. [see Stages of clairvoyance]

Furthermore, from 1908-07-04-GA266/1 (see Kundalini#Note 3 - The process of illumination)

The etheric body is loosened, lifted out of the physical body through the Christ Impulse.

[editor: for the gradual loosening of the etheric body from the physical body, see Christ in the etheric]

The etheric body is permeated by the Holy Spirit [spirit-self] through the Christ Impulse.

And the Holy Spirit [spirit self] - our higher 'I' - causes forces to stream to us from outside.

and from the same topic page and 1908-01-07-GA266/1, more physiologically

When a person meditates, this awakens forces in and develops the pituitary gland, it begins to to shine brighter and brighter, sends forth rays, and gradually with its rays it encompasses the pineal gland lying in front of it, and stimulates it.

This process organizes the organic formation of the astral body, from the chaos of feelings and sensations, into spirit-self or manas.

When the pituitary gland causes golden threads to flow around the pineal gland, then the time has come when [the transformation of the astral body into spirit-self, into manas], has progressed far enough ... for the etheric body to be transformed into buddhi.

.

Just as the Schemas above provides a multi-perspective view, another such commentary, but even more broader and expanding and thereby 'touring the whole FMC wiki site' is offered on Kundalini#3.4 - Putting things together.

Or, one can start from Kundalini#Note 3 - The process of illumination.

Related pages

• Human 'I'
• Thinking Feeling Willing
• Development of the I
• Enlivened images
• Aspects of human behaviour
• Human temperaments

References and further reading

• F. W. Zeylmans van Emmichoven:
  • 'The Anthroposophical Understanding of the Soul' (1982 in EN, original in NL 1946: 'De Menselijke Ziel')
  • 'Gespräche über die Hygiene der Seele' (1946, 1988)
    • In twelve conversations with fictitious patients or with friends, ideas are developed ideas on how people can become mentally healthier. mentally healthier. Although the book is seventy years old, the topics seem the topics seem modern: restlessness, loneliness, mental turmoil, fear. Zeylmans develops the dialog, perhaps a little long-winded for today's reading speed, remedy: rhythm,ideals, calm, self-knowledge, reverence. On the one hand, the self-evident idealism against which these remedies are presented; on the other hand, terms such as “mindfulness”, “flow” or “resonance” are already on everyone's lips again today. A “self-help book” on an anthroposophical basis in the best sense of the word.
• Karl König : 'The human soul' (1959 in EN, in NL 1964/1996)
• Otto Julius Hartmann (1895-1985):
  • Die Frage nach der Seele: die menschl. Seele in Beziehung zu sich selbst, zu d. Mitmenschen, z. Weltall
  • Fragen der Seele in der Welt von heute
  • Von den Geheimnissen der menschlichen Seele (1982-84)
• Robert J. Sardello
  • 'Facing the world with soul - The Reimagination of Modern Life' (1974 in EN, also in NL as 'De ziel in de wereld : Een andere, spirituele benadering van het dagelijks leven')
  • The Power of Soul: Living the Twelve Virtues (2002)
• Jacques Lusseyran: Contre la pollution de moi (1992)
• Joseph Ennemoser: 'Untersuchungen über den Ursprung und das Wesen der menschlichen Seele (1980)

• John Gunning: 'The balance of the soul' ('Seelengleichgewicht'), articles Part 1 and 2 in Anthroposophical Quarterly No 21, issue 2.
• Christof Gestrig: 'Die menschliche Seele. Hermeneutik ihres dreifachen Wegs'
• Wolf-Ulrich Klünker:
  • Die Antwort der Seele. Psychologie an den Grenzen der Ich-Erfahrung (2006, in NL 2017 as 'Het antwoord van de ziel: Psychologie aan de grenzen van de ik-ervaring')
  • Anthroposophie als Ich-Berührung. Aspekte geistiger Begegnung (2013)
• Wolf-Ulrich Klünker, Johannes Reiner, Maria Tolksdorf, Roland Wiese: 'Psychologie des Ich: Anthroposophie, Psychotherapie' (2021)
• Roland van Vliet: 'Freedom, the I and Love: A Philosophy of Love' (2022)
• Roland Wiese: 'Die Entwicklung des Ich: Grundlage, Anregungen, Therapeutisches (2024)

see also related under: Medicine#Anthroposophical psychology - psychiatry - psychotherapy

Various other

• Thomas Moore: 'The planets within: The astrological psychology of Marsilio Ficino' (1982)