Man's life development

From Anthroposophy

This section will include:

Aspects

childhood

  • development of the Embryo in the womb before birth
  • during the first years "It is not the child that is speaking, but the angel is speaking out of the child" and "The spiritual world speaks through the child, but men are not aware of it. The wisest can learn most from a child. And when someone who is himself able to look into the spiritual worlds has a child before him, with the stream that rises up into the spiritual world, it is as if — forgive the homely expression — he has in the child something like a telephone-line into the spiritual worlds." (1911-02-11-GA127)
  • the sense of authority between the 7th and 14th year
    • between the 7th and 14th/15th year there lives in the child an ability, that could be described as 'the power to act on authority'. There is nothing better for the child, than to undertake something out of veneration for the person who says: that’s good, that needs to be done. Nothing is more detrimental for the child than acquiring the habit of forming its own judgment at too early an age, before having reached sexual maturity. In the future, the sense of authority between the 7th and 14th year should be developed much more intensively than in the past. Education in these years will increasingly need to be consciously focused on developing a pure feeling for authority in the child; because what the child acquires in these years, will form the basis for experiencing the equality in the social organism that every person deserves. Equal rights will only arise in this way, because people will never mature as adults towards a feeling for equal rights, when they do not develop a sense for authority during childhood. In the past, a much less strong feeling for authority might have been enough; in the future, it will not be sufficient. (1919-08-09-GA296)

late age

  • dementia, alzheimer
    • old people become mentally weak because the physical body, which is the instrument of the soul, the reflection mirror, deteriorates and can no longer reflect (1907-03-16-GA097)
    • for mental diseases, see also Schizophrenia

Development of the I during human life

Rhythms

Full life

  • Biography work
  • for longitudinal studies of people's lives, see 'Further Reading' section below, eg George E. Vaillant and the Harvard Grant study
  • the two halves of a human life
    • "during the first half of life, a Man is unable to acquire self-knowledge through his original being; he has to acquire it through Lucifer, while his original being goes on developing further. The Luciferic infuses him with self-knowledge during the first half of life. In the second half of life this brilliant self-knowledge is clouded over by Ahriman." (1918-10-05-GA184)

other

  • the language of astrology (transits - rhythms of returns, birth chart reading, ..)
  • life transitions and karma

immortality

  • On the concept of immortality:
    • “To be immortal means having the power (acquired by initiation or received after death from the spiritual world) to preserve the renounced past existence in memory. That is the real definition of immortality“. (1912-08-28-GA138)
    • spiritual immortality of the soul is linked to the teachings of reincarnation, and covered in very many lectures. See eg Socrates doctrine of immortality in GA008, or 1911-11-17-GA069 discussing papers by Maximilian Drossbach (1810-1884): 'The Empirical Solution of the Immortality Question According to the Known Natural Laws' (1849) and 'Thoughts on Immortality as a Repetition of the Earth-life' (1851) by Gustav Widenmann (1812-1876)
  • longevity - materialistic or 'ahrimanic immortality' and manipulation of deceased souls by secret societies (1917-01-20-GA173C, 1917-01-22-GA174, 1917-11-25-GA178)
    • Rudolf Steiner also touches on ancient secret techniques for extending life, but is very discrete and does not divulge details (lecture references to be added)
    • see also: Draja Mickaharic (1912-) first read 'Immortality' (2007) then 'The Long Lived' (2014) (also in his other writings), in which he describes several methods and illustrates by various (anonymized) stories that he was told over his long life as a magician:
      • by projecting one's soul and consciousness outside one's dying physical body before (or at) death and 'jumping' (projecting) into the physical body of another young and healthy person; then forcefully banishing the consciousness of the invaded out of the body. When seizing control, the new body becomes a new vessel to continue life. Seemingly this is an established technique that can be done ever again over centuries and millenia.
      • using an 'alchemical elixir of life' to transform the physical body completely, a transformation that affects skin, teeth, hair etc and whereby the person - as a helpless newborn infant - requires months of special (magical) care to restart physical regeneration and functioning (eg metabolism of drinking and eating). When the change is completely, the person has greater strength and can not be ill or be poisoned any more and will retain this for the remainer of a greatly extended lifespan.
    • other references: o.a. article in 'Prana' Apr-May-Jun 1918 editor Johannes Balzli (Karl Brandler-Pracht): 'Von magischen Kräften und Wundern. Ein Abschnitt aus Dr. Carl Vogels 'Unsterblichkeit'

Inspirational quotes

Jorge Luis Borges

from "Twenty-Four Conversations with Borges", a collection of interviews conducted by Roberto Alifano between 1981 and 1983

All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.244 illustrates the premature awakening of I-consciousness due to Luciferic and Ahrimanic influences, before the actual work of the normal Spirits of Form (SoF) between age 21 and 42. In the original plan, Man would have remained in a spiritual conditions outside of this period. Illustrations from 'The human life' by George O'Neil.

For consciousness at around 2,5 and 9 years, see ao Seven year rhythm#1919-12-06-GA194


Lecture coverage and references

1907-03-16-GA097

Question: Why do old people become mentally weak, even if the soul cannot change?

Answer: 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.

In the physical body 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.

1919-08-10-GA296

see: Meaning of life#1919-08-10-GA296

What helps to prepare people for life is

  • the opportunity to imitate during the first seven years of life;
  • that he can follow a worthy authority up to the fourteenth year;
  • and that up to the twenty first year he learns to love in the right way

... because these forces can no longer be developed later. What human beings miss when certain forces that need to be developed during specific years of youth, are not awakened, turns them into problematic personalities.

Development of the I during human life

1909-06-17-GA107

We know that Man's development is a gradual and very complicated process. We have repeatedly emphasised that in the first seven years of his life, up to the change of teeth, man develops in quite a different way from the later period up to fourteen, and again from the fourteenth to the twenty-first year. We will only touch on this today, for you already know it.

According to spiritual science man passes through several births. The human being is born into the physical world when he leaves his mother's body and frees himself of the physical maternal sheath. But we know that when this has happened he is still enclosed in a second maternal sheath, an etheric one.

During the first seven years of his life the child's etheric body is completely enveloped in external etheric currents that come from the outer world, just as the physical body is enveloped until birth in a physical maternal sheath.

At the change of teeth this etheric sheath is stripped off, and not until now, at the age of seven, is the etheric body born. Then the astral body is still enclosed in the astral maternal sheath that is stripped off at puberty.

After this the astral body develops freely until the twenty-first or twenty-second year, which is the time when strictly speaking the actual I of man is born. Not until then does the human being awaken to his full inner intensity and the I that has evolved through the course of his earlier incarnations work its way free.

To clairvoyant consciousness a very special fact becomes apparent here. If you watch a very young child for several weeks or months, you will see the child's head surrounded by etheric and astral currents and forces. However, these currents and forces gradually become less distinct and vanish after a while.

What is really taking place there?

You can actually discover what is happening, even without clairvoyant vision, although clairvoyant vision confirms what we are about to say. Immediately after the birth of a human being his brain is not the same as it will be a few weeks or months later. The child already perceives the outer world, of course, but its brain is not yet an instrument capable of connecting external impressions in a definite way. By means of connecting-nerves running from one part of the brain to another, the human being learns by degrees to link together in thought what he perceives in the external world, but these connecting nerve-strands develop only after birth. A child will hear and see a bell, for instance, but the impression of the sound and the sight of the bell do not immediately combine to form the thought that the bell is ringing. The child learns this only gradually, because the part of the brain that is the instrument for the perception of sound and the part that is the instrument for visual perception become connected only in the course of life. And not until this has happened is it possible for the child to reach the conclusion: ‘What I see is the same thing that is making the sound’. Connecting-cords like this are developed in the brain, and the forces that develop these connecting-cords can be seen by the clairvoyant in the first weeks of the child's development as an extra covering round the brain. But this covering passes into the brain and subsequently lives within it, no longer working from outside but from within. What works from outside during the first weeks of the child's development could not go on working at the whole development of the growing human being were it not protected by the various sheaths. For when that which has been working from outside passes into the brain, it develops under the protecting sheath first of the etheric body then of the astral body and only when the twenty-second year has been reached does that which first worked from outside become active from within. What was outside the human being during the first months of his existence and then slipped inside, is active for the first time independently of sheaths in the twentieth to the twenty-second year; then it becomes free and awakens into intense activity.

[development of the I]

But up to the age of twenty-one, when the I is born in Man, his development is comparable to that of the animal. This must not lead to the conclusion that human development up to the age of twenty-one is identical to that of an animal, for that is not the case.

The I is already within the human being from the beginning, right from conception, and it now becomes free.

Hence, because there is something within Man from the beginning that becomes free at the age of twenty-one, he is from the outset no animal being, for the I, although not free, is nevertheless working in him from the start.

And it is essentially this I that can be educated. For it is this I, together with what it has accomplished in the astral, etheric and physical bodies, that passes from one incarnation to another. If this I received nothing new in a further incarnation, Man would not be able to take anything with him at his physical death, from his last life between birth and death. And if he were not able to take anything with him, he would be at exactly the same stage in the following life as he was in the previous one. Through the fact that you see Man going through a development in life, and acquiring what the animal cannot acquire, because the animal's possibilities of development do not go beyond its inborn capacities, Man is constantly enriching his I, and reaches higher levels from one incarnation to another.

It is because Man bears within him an I that has already been at work, although it only becomes free at his twenty-first year, that education is practicable, and something further can be done with him beyond his original possibilities. The lion brings its lion nature with it and lives it out. Man not only brings with him his nature as a member of the general human species, but also what he has attained as an I in his previous incarnation. This can be transformed more and more by education and life, and it will have acquired new impetus by the time man passes through the portal of death and has to prepare for a new incarnation. The point is that man acquires new factors of development and is constantly adding to his store.

1922-01-02-GA303

discusses the second seven year period. Upto the ninth-tenth year the muscular system cooperates with the soul which has an intimate relationship to breathing and blood circulation. This changes towards the twelfth year in such way that the muscles now incline more to the skeleton. The formative forces of the head pass to the muscular system, then into the skeleton.

Longevity

The quotes below are examples that describe the elixir of life and immortality as the quest towards the future spiritual immortality of Man, not of physical immortality. That is why Rudolf Steiner also called anthroposophy or spiritual science the much needed elixir of life for humanity's future. However in certain lectures Rudolf Steiner did hint to ancient techniques for extending life, but he did not unveil anything further.

1907-06-29-GA100

The idea of the Stone of Wise was connected with the meaning that little by little it enabled one to know man's immortal part, which cannot decay after death, for it leads one up into the higher worlds. If a human being realizes that this immortal part cannot fall a prey to death, he acquires an immortal life through the possession of the Stone of the Wise, and thus he overcomes death.

This had been interpreted as meaning that one would never die. But it means instead that thereby one learns to know the world where man lives after death. Moreover one saw in the Stone of the Wise an elixir of life. All this rendered the Stone of the Wise extremely desirable. Those who knew the true meaning of these things must have found these words strangely correct; for they are true—but those who do not know the secret cannot do much with them.

...

Now you will be able to understand the indications which were published by that strange man, though he did not understand them. The Stone of the Wise is the ordinary black coal; but you must learn the process enabling you to elaborate the carbon through your inner forces: this constitutes the future of mankind. The present coal is a prototype of that which will one day constitute the most important substance of the human being. Bear in mind the clear diamond: also the diamond is nothing but carbon! This was called, the “Preparation of the Stone of the Wise” in the Rosicrucian world-conception. It conceals a process of transformation in the human being and the call to work upon future conditions of humanity,. All who work in this way help to prepare the human bodies of the future, the bodies which will in future be needed by the human souls.

1910-12-27-GA126

Eabani comes to know a woman of Erech and is attracted by her into the City. He becomes the friend of Gilgamesh and this brings peace to the city. Gilgamesh and Eabani together are now the rulers. Then Ishtar, the Goddess of Erech, is stolen by a neighbouring city. There upon Eabani and Gilgamesh go to war with the marauding city, conquer the king and bring the Goddess back again to Erech. Gilgamesh lives near her, and here we come to the strange fact that he has no understanding of the essential nature of the Goddess. A scene takes place, directly reminiscent of a Biblical scene described in the Gospel of St. John. Gilgamesh confronts Ishtar, but his conduct is very different from that of Christ Jesus. He upbraids the Goddess for having loved many other men before she had encountered him, reproaching her particularly for her most recent attachment. Thereupon the Goddess carries her complaints to that deity, that Being of the higher Hierarchies, to whom she belongs. She goes to Anu. And now Anu sends a bull down to the earth; Gilgamesh has to engage in combat with it. Those who recall Mithras's fight with the bull will see a resemblance here. All these events—and when we come to explain the myth we shall see what depths it contains—have led meanwhile to the death of Eabani. Gilgamesh is now alone. A thought comes to him that gnaws at the very fibres of his soul. Under the impression of what he has experienced, he becomes conscious for the first time of the thought that man is mortal; a thought to which he had previously paid no heed comes before his soul in all its terror. And then he hears of the only man of earth who has remained immortal, whereas all other human beings in the Post-Atlantean epoch have become conscious of mortality: he hears of the immortal Xisuthros far away in the West. And because he is resolved to fathom the riddle of life and death, he sets out on the perilous journey to the West.5

I can tell you at once that this journey to the West is nothing else than the search for the secrets of ancient Atlantis, for happenings prior to the great Atlantean catastrophe.

Gilgamesh sets out on his journey. The details are interesting. He has to pass through an entrance guarded by giant scorpions; the spirit leads him into the realm of death; he enters the kingdom of Xisuthros and there learns that in the Post-Atlantean epoch all men will inevitably be more and more penetrated with the consciousness of death.

Gilgamesh now asks Xisuthros whence he has knowledge of his eternal being; how comes it that he is conscious of immortality? Thereupon Xisuthros says to him: “You too can have this consciousness, but you must undergo all that I had to experience in overcoming the terror, anxiety and loneliness through which it was my lot to pass. When the god Ea had resolved to let perish” (in what we call the Atlantean catastrophe) “that part of humanity which was to live no longer, he bade me to withdraw into a kind of ship. I was to take with me the animals that were to remain, and those Individualities who are truly to be called the Masters. By means of this ship I outlived the great catastrophe.” Xisuthros then tells Gilgamesh: “What was there undergone, you can experience only in your innermost being; but you can attain the consciousness of immortality if for seven nights and six days you refrain from sleep.” Gilgamesh wishes to submit to the test but soon falls asleep. Then the wife of Xisuthros baked seven mystic loaves which by being eaten are to be a substitute for what would have been attained in the seven nights and six days without sleep. With this “life-elixir” Gilgamesh continues his journeying, bathes as it were in a fountain of youth, and again reaches the borders of his own country in the region of the Euphrates and the Tigris. A serpent deprives him of the power of the life-elixir and so he reaches his country without it, but all the same with the consciousness that there is indeed immortality, and filled with longing to see the spirit at least, of Eabani. The spirit of Eabani appears to him, and from the discourse which then takes place we can glean how, for the culture of the Egypto-Chaldean epoch, a consciousness of the link with the spiritual world could arise.—This relationship between Gilgamesh and Eabani is very significant. I have now outlined pictures from the significant myth of Gilgamesh which, as we shall see, will lead us into the spiritual depths lying behind the Chaldean-Babylonian culture-epoch. These pictures show that two individualities stand there: the individuality of one—Gilgamesh—into whom a divine-spiritual being has penetrated; and an individuality who is more of a human being, but of such a nature that he may be called a young soul, who has had few incarnations and for that reason has carried over ancient clairvoyance into later times—Eabani.

Discussion

Related pages

References and further reading

  • Friedrich A. Kipp: Die Evolution des Menschen im Hinblick auf seine lange Jugendzeit
  • Rudolf Meyer: 'Das Kind' Vom Wunder der Menschwerdung und von der Pflege der Kinderseele (1927, 1974)
  • Norbert Glas
    • Conception, Birth and Early Childhood (1983)
    • Lebensalter des Menschen (3 Volumes)
      • Band 1:
        • Frühe Kindheit. Ein Führer für alle, die an der Entwicklung kleiner Kinder interessiert sind (1954, 1985)
        • Early childhood: Guidance for all who are interested in the development of young children (1953)
      • Band 2: Jugendzeit und mittleres Lebensalter. Wege und Hemmnisse. Betrachtungen und Ratschläge eines Arztes (1960, 1990)
        • 14. bis 21. Lebensjahr und mittlers Lebensalter
      • Band 3:
        • Lichtvolles Alter. Ein Wegweiser für jüngere und ältere Menschen (1956, 1992)
        • The Fulfillment of Old Age (1986)
  • Hans Erhard Lauer: 'Der Menschliche Lebenslauf' (1952)
  • George and Gisela O'Neil: The human life (published 1977-1981, first book edition 1990, third edition 1998)
    • in FR as 'La vie humaine - saisir le sens de son parcours terrestre' (1996)
    • in DE as 'Der Lebenslauf: Lesen in der eigenen Biographie' (2014)
    • in ES as 'La Vida Humana: Comprender tu biografía' (2019)
  • Bernard Lievegoed: Phases - The spiritual rhythms of adult life (2008, first EN in 1979, first in NL in 1976 as 'De levensloop van de mens')
  • Siegfried Woitinas: 'Lebensrhythmen : Entwicklungen und Krisen im menschlichen Leben zwischen Geburt und Tod' (1987)
  • Klaus Raschen: 'Der Mensch im Alter' (der alternde Mensch und die Gemeinschaft : Das Verhältnis von Leben und Bewusstsein : Geburt und Tod : Angst vor dem Sterben) (1989)
  • William Bryant: The Veiled Pulse of Time: Life Cycles and Destiny' (1993, also in DE as 'Der verborgene Puls der Zeit: vom Geheimnis kosmischer Rhythmen im Lebenslauf')
  • George E. Vaillant:
    • Aging well - surprising guideposts to a happier life from the Landmark study of adult development (2002)
    • Triumphs of experience - the men of the Harvard Grant study (2012)
  • More information about longitudinal studies (following the lives of hundreds of people over a 75 year period) such as the Harvard Grant study, see Harvard Study of Adult Development.
  • Signe Eklund Schaefer, Karen Gierlach: Elder Flowering - Lived Experiences of Growing Older (2024)
Various more (unqualified)
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