Memory

From Anthroposophy

When the human being, in normal daily waking consciousness, encounters an external event or object that makes a sensory impression on us, we form an internal mental image of this object using the astral body is the first to be involved - see process of perception. This experience of the soul, what we form as an idea, is also written into the etheric body of the human being (and remains there). When we remember something, our astral body reads what has been written into our etheric body, and the result of this reading is the emergence of an image that we call a memory. Hence, the memory process consists of a kind of reading of our astral body in the etheric body. (1914-12-12-GA156)

The process of incorporating soul experiences such as those from the process of perception with our human senses into our memory takes place through an imprinting of the conscious I-experience that is creating astral images, onto our etheric and physical bodies. This takes place during sleep and typically takes three or four nights for the experience to be incorporated.

Aspects

  • the process of memory (1922-10-20-GA218, see also Discussion Note 1 below, in summary:
    • the human 'I' has a conscious experience of waking consciousness using the human physical body, and creates an astral image
    • the image enters and tries to make a shape (using salt forming conglomerations) - this is an inward penetrating, plastic shaping, force
    • opposing this, is the tendency to dissolve by the etheric fluid waves
    • during sleep, the dissolving waves decrease and after three or four nights the image can be incorporated
  • for a description of the 'memory-mirror', see 1921-09-23-GA207 and 1921-09-24-GA207 on Matter is destroyed in the brain.
  • loss of soul faculties and memory with age (dementia, alzheimer)
    • the threefold soul (as in 'the maturity or development level of the human I', see eg Schema FMC00.289 and variants) remains the same, but with age, 'operationally' in the experience of reality with waking consciousness, it is the (mirror) reflection in the physical and etheric body that suffers as this 'instrument' decays; and this causes a weakening of the mind and soul faculties with waking consciousness (1907-03-16-GA097 Q&A)
      • notes
        • see also Schema FMC00.428A on Human character - the I and threefold soul and the quote "the I plays on the instrument of the soul and the different strings of human soul life"(1909-10-29-GA068B) that also uses the metaphoric image of the music instrument (as in 1907-03-16-GA097 Q&A)
        • brain scans are used to diagnose dementia/Alzheimer and the decay of the central nervous system
  • memory (see also 'memory-mirror' concept above) is related to the faculty of concentration (see initiation exercises), see also 'effects of digital computing on soul' where the term 'digital dementia' is used (re: Further reading section below)
  • see also:

Future faculty

Illustrations

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.

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.


Lecture coverage and references

1907-03-16-GA097

has a few sentences that can be read/interpreted in the context of understanding dementia and diseases such as Alzheimer's disease

see: Human character - the I and threefold soul#1907-03-16-GA097

1910-03-30-GA119

see full lecture extract on: D00.003 - Systemic aspects of the study process#1910-03-30-GA119

Memory, like thinking, is a faculty of the soul. The character of thinking changes when from being thinking of the head it becomes, at a higher spiritual level, thinking of the heart.

What is there to be said of memory?

In the normal consciousness of everyday life we find that memory works in the following way.

Man has consciousness of what is around him in the immediate present. He sees the things around him, makes his observations, forms his ideas. He can incorporate all this in his consciousness. Then he proceeds from what his soul can experience in the present to something it experienced in the past. Through memory, Man passes out of the present into the past. When he recalls something he experienced yesterday, he is looking backwards in time. Therewith he surveys something that was once in his environment but is so no longer. Anyone who studies memory from this point of view realises that just as our consciousness of the present is connected with the space immediately around us, this memory, this extension of consciousness over the past, is connected with time.

For a genuine seeker, however, the nature of this particular activity of consciousness changes completely.

...

[later effects with new clairvoyant faculty of space-memory is described and also side effects]

...

[transition effects - clouding and deteriorating memory]

In the course of such development it may happen that you hear people who do not understand what is happening, complaining: ‘I used to have an excellent memory, but now it has deteriorated.’ Those who really understand will not complain but will realise that this is quite natural. It is an actual experience, for it is a fact that during the process of spiritual development the ordinary memory is, at first, impaired.

Anyone who knows this will not let it trouble him; for he knows too that he receives full compensation for the loss when he is close to the point where it might become dangerous. He will have great difficulty if he has to recollect something he experienced yesterday; but he will notice that pictures come before his soul in which experiences of the past are revealed, and this is naturally a much more faithful memory than is otherwise possessed in life. Therefore we may hear such people speak of having suffered a kind of obscuration of the memory and having then acquired a new kind of memory, superior to the ordinary one, for that has one great flaw: it reveals things in a shadowy way and details are lost. But in the memory which presents pictures in space the details appear again. Faithfulness and exactitude of memory increase enormously.

1914-12-12-GA156

see: Process of perception#1914-12-12-GA156

1916-01-02-GA165

lecture title: Perceiving and Remembering

summary:

  • the whole etheric body consists of an inner blend — an inwardly organised blend of the four kinds of ether
  • the etheric light-body, stirred by this meeting, experiences again the same movements which it did at the first meeting; and because Man is always with part of his astral body and Io in the outer ether, he feels the movements which stir the outer ether, and thus because of its law of continuity [or persistence] he again becomes aware of what he experienced previously.
  • remembrance is: the perception from the outer ether of inner etheric movements; the perception from the outer light-ether of movements in the inner light-body: that is, to remember.
  • consciousness perceives the inner movements of the light-ether from the light-ether. This is remembrance purely as an act of perception.
  • we do not see them as light movements, because this light-ether body is seated within the physical body, and therefore the movements of the light-ether impinge everywhere on the physical body. Through these impacts, the light movements of the etheric body are transformed into memory pictures. These light movements are not perceptible, it is only through what the memory presents to us through contact with the physical body that we are aware of them.

quote A

[memory]

Now we shall inquire today:

How does memory come about? How is it that we have remembrance of many things, of objects and experiences that we have passed through? How does it come to pass that we have memory?

Take this case. We meet a man today, whom we first saw five days ago. We remember that we saw him five days ago, that we spoke with him, that he told us his name. We say: we recognize this man.

What is it that really takes place in us when we thus remember a man and our former meeting with him?

1/ This is what occurs; the first thing we have to take into consideration is this, that when we met the man five days ago our etheric body experienced certain movements. It is the light part of the etheric body that we are now considering; of course, the other members of the etheric body — the heat, chemical and life parts also vibrate in sympathy, but it is the light part that we are considering today; I will speak of it therefore as the light-body. Our etheric body, then, experienced certain movements, for the thoughts evoked by the man whom we met, revealed themselves within our light-body as movements — as inner light-movements; so that apart from our having perceived the man with our senses, we received impressions [not communicated through the senses] that gave rise to movements in our light-body.

Thus the whole result of our meeting with the man consisted in our light-body experiencing all kinds of movements.

Picture this vividly to yourselves. While you stood before the man and spoke to him, your etheric light-body was in continual movement. What you said to him, what you felt and thought regarding him, is all disclosed in the movements of your light-body.

2/ When, several days after, you see this man again, the fresh sight of him stirs your soul, and this movement causes your etheric body, purely because of its laws of continuity, to reproduce the movements it experienced five days before, when you met the man and exchanged thoughts with him. Very well, we encounter this man again after five days. The etheric light-body, stirred by this meeting, experiences again the same movements which it did at the first meeting; and because man is always with part of his astral body and ego in the outer ether, he feels the movements which stir the outer ether, and thus because of its law of continuity [or persistence] he again becomes aware of what he experienced previously.

We have really to picture to ourselves, that during the waking state we are both with our ego and astral body within the outer light-ether; sleep only consists in that part of the astral body and ego, which during the day, when we are awake, is within the physical and etheric body, also withdrawing into the outer ether.

Remembrance is this: the perception from the outer ether of inner etheric movements; the perception from the outer light-ether of movements in the inner light-body: that is, to remember.

Suppose, for example, that you see two men meet each other. Perhaps the one merely sees the face of the other, but because of this certain movements arise in his etheric body. Then he goes his way. The etheric body retains the tendency to repeat these movements if stirred to do so. Five days later these two men meet again. They perceive each other, the one whose light-body is stirred to make the same movements which it made when he saw the other's face before. This is expressed in his consciousness when he says: I have seen this face before. That is: consciousness perceives the inner movements of the light-ether from the light-ether. This is remembrance purely as an act of perception. We can say: in the external light one perceives the movements taking place in the inner light-body. But we do not see them as light movements.

Why do we not see them thus in ordinary life?

We do not see them as light movements, because this light-ether body is seated within the physical body, and therefore the movements of the light-ether impinge everywhere on the physical body. Through these impacts, the light movements of the etheric body are transformed into memory pictures. These light movements are not perceptible, it is only through what the memory presents to us through contact with the physical body that we are aware of them.

1916-08-28-GA170

title: Memory and habit

see also: Metamorphosis#1916-08-28-GA170

1918-08-18-GA183

title of lecture: Memory and Love

1922-10-20-GA218

(SWCC)

[this section is preceeded by an explanation of the process of seeing]

..

[Key paragraph: interface etheric & astral]

What I have shown you here for the act of seeing, continuously occurs in the human organism.

Continuously in the human organism the etheric body .. under the impulse of the physical body and on the waves of the living water, meets the astral body with all that which outer impressions are under the impulse of the I.

On the ways and means, how these two currents meet our whole human constitution, our-whole inner situation depends, because they have to meet in the right way.

What does that mean: to meet in the right way?

Well, we have to deal again with something extraordinarily complicated. The head-organization of Man is, at first so (see diagram 1) that the head is a plastic image of the forces which man had as a soul-spiritual being in pre-earthly life. The head is formed by plastic forces, it is also developed very early during embryonic life, and it retains really only the power to give form. If the human head did not have this power to give form (zu gestalten) it would be indeed only a dead body. This human head is a marvelous creation (Gebilde). It is a faithful impression of the physical, etheric, even of the astral and even of the I; it is an image of their descent from super earthly worlds into earthly existence. The head forms itself truly as an image of those cosmic experiences, which Man went through in pre-earthly existence and retains only the plastic formative forces. If we look at the child we see that all plastic formative forces start from the head. Man receives from his head radiating into the remaining organism that which gives the plastic configuration to his organs during his growth correspondingly.

Then, it is throughout only the plastic forming force, which goes out from the head.

[Impressions: two opposing fronts]

If something enters the head, as it happens in seeing, it is right away received in a way that a force is forming which wants to give shape. What is entering there the eye wants to take shape inside of man. Most of all it wants to form the nerves, the nervous system, in a way that in the inner organism there will be, so to say, a copy of that which had been the outer impression (diagram). One can say in this direction (arrows from above downward) from the senses going inside, goes a forming force. This force wants to make Man, as it were, into a statue. It is really so: everything we see, wants to make us into a statue in a certain fine way.

Against this force, for example, from the kidney system (arrows from below to above) another force comes forth, which continuously dissolves.

What wants to be formed there?

Imagine, how that is. Coming from the eye a very fine picture wants to form; up to a physical shaping of forms this wants to go. There is always a tendency like that taking place, that salty substances which otherwise are dissolved stick together, that is, they want to become salt. So that we continuously have a tendency for form shaping. Now, from below there always arises a tendency to dissolve that again.

So we have continuously a tendency in the human organism

  • from without towards the inner that should become a statue, and
  • from the inside continuously it is dissolved again.

This process that takes place through the encounter of the astral with the etheric, that comes to meet the astral on the waves of the watery, is of immense importance for human life, basically it really means the whole of human life.

[Memory]

Imagine, someone tells you something tonight. It is also an impression. It occurs differently in the way of the senses, than when you see a red plane, but it also is an impression. What has been communicated to you there, again wants to take form in you. If it can take on form, then it stays in you as remembrance. And if you happen to have a head which is very much inclined to salt (to pickle) right away all impressions, then you will have a marvelous memory. Like an automaton, you can always repeat everything that someone communicates to you. But with most people it is not that way, because with most people there is the strong tendency to dissolve this in turn; what, as radiation of the watery element in connection with the etheric body comes to meet the plastic formative forces, dissolves this again. In reality it is a warm current which continuously is dissolving. If one looks at this matter, something extraordinarily interesting will result.

If one wants to remember things as a human being — not as a human automaton — then one must not get such a rigid inner salt-formation right away, when someone tells us something, so one can always repeat (abtratschen — like a parakeet) the matter right away. There are such people, but they become dependent, they are not themselves any more, who remember things, but the things take hold of them, one becomes an automaton.

If one wants to be an independent human being, the following procedures have to happen:

What someone is telling you, or what one reads is, at first, in the I and the astral body and wants to penetrate now through the organization of the brain, of the head, first into the liquid, and then wants to consolidate, to call forth a sort of mineral salt-like formation.

But it is good when the inner current comes and extinguishes this presently, so that, at most, the impression penetrates the liquid (but it dissolves) and at present no rigid form can come about. Since, at present, it cannot become a firm shape, the matter remains in the astral body.

[The key to the process of ‘working impressions’ by three days sleep]

Now one is asleep, the next night. There it goes out with the astral body and the I. There it reinforces itself somewhat during the state of sleep. (See diagram 3, right) Then it comes back in again with awakening (left), and will possibly be extinguished again; and this happens as a rule three to four times. Only after the fourth, having been asleep, the extinguishing force will not be strong enough anymore, and then this is fixed so firmly, that this plastic formation (Gebilde), which cannot be dissolved in there anymore, becomes the basis for memory-representation, for recollection.

You will say: But I can remember those things also, that I have heard yesterday, when I did not sleep a couple of times afterwards. That is right, but this is not the question now. That you can remember those things which you have heard yesterday has its cause from the fact that the matter is still in the astral body, and perhaps makes, an impression into the ether body; but one does not forget really after one day, not after the second or the third. If the matter really is forgotten, then the inner dissolving force is still so strong after the fourth day, that the whole matter will be dissolved; then it is dissolved. Because, if it is, then there is so much strength existing, that it comes in a fourth time and can still be dissolved, then we forget the matter unrefutably.

[Head is slower than rest of Man]

You see, this is a very interesting fact. And this fact, which one can observe by the way of imagination, if one simply sees how things are remembered, leads us to something else. It leads us to the realization that the head of Man is altogether a much slower fellow than the rest of Man.

When we talk about the threefoldness of Man, and keep at first the rhythmic organization in the middle, on one side his nerve-sense organization, that is the organization of the head, on the other side the metabolic-limb organism, then we can say: the head-organism in its whole development, in all its being and becoming takes up a much slower pace than the metabolic-limb organism. And it is so, that while this inner consolidating (diagram), this shape-giving, would take a second for any impression (it is not so, but I say it as an example) there would have been already four impacts of dissolving from the side of the kidney-system.

[Factor four]

This can be seen in the fact that our pulse beats four times, while we inhale once. The respiratory system works upward from the rhythmical system towards the head and imparts to it the four times slower beat. That which comes to expression through the four times faster beat of the blood circulation which brings about the dissolving factor. What expresses itself in the four times slower pace of the head has in its working all that which tends to solidify, which makes Man into a statue.

It is indeed interesting that this encounter which I have described to you, that is,

  • the surging upward of the thrusts coming from the kidney system and
  • the downward beat of the thrusts, which derive from outer influence that indeed while the impression is happening, four times an attack of dissolving is made on one.

And that is the reason that we have to sleep four times over it, so that the act of striking from outside will be sufficiently fastened.

All these things fit (gliedern sich) together in a marvelous way if one can enter truly into the inner configuration of the human organism. But this is still connected also with something else.

...

1925-GA026

on 'memory and conscience'

Discussion

Note 1 - The memory process and astral-etheric interface

The lecture 1922-10-20-GA218 explains the key process to memory.

  • step 1:
    • the human 'I' has a conscious experience of waking consciousness using the human physical body, and creates an astral image
    • the image enters and tries to make a shape (using salt forming conglomerations) - this is an inward penetrating, plastic shaping, force
      • so: outer impressions want to consolidate .. via the I using the astral .. this wants to form, take form
  • step 2:
    • opposing this, is the tendency to dissolve by the etheric fluid waves
    • The inner current dissolves it as etheric watery flows throughout the human body, watery waves or etheric currents, want to dissolve away (re: "this liquid that, as it were, radiates from the kidney system into the whole organism and also radiates into the eye, is by all means not a dead watery substance, but a living water")
  • Both meet
    • during sleep, the dissolving waves decrease and after three or four nights the image can be incorporated
      • so .. three to four night processes when the I and astral go out and are 'flushed'.


See extract from lecture 1922-10-20-GA218, see above:

What I have shown you here for the act of seeing, continuously occurs in the human organism.

Continuously in the human organism the etheric body .. under the impulse of the physical body and on the waves of the living water, meets the astral body with all that which outer impressions are under the impulse of the I.

On the ways and means, how these two currents meet our whole human constitution, our-whole inner situation depends, because they have to meet in the right way.

...

This process that takes place through the encounter of the astral with the etheric, that comes to meet the astral on the waves of the watery, is of immense importance for human life, basically it really means the whole of human life.

Related pages

References and further reading

  • Annie Besant: 'Memory and Its Nature (1935)
    • see also : Memory and Its Nature - by Annie Besant & H.P.Blavatsky - Adyar Pamphlets No. 203 & 204
  • Hermann Poppelbaum: Memory and its cultivation
  • Eugen Kolisko: Memory and phantasy (1977)
  • George Adams Kaufmann: Christ in the power of memory and in the power of love (1937)
  • Gedächtnis und Erinnerung (Flensburger Hefte 1996)

Dementia

  • Jan Pieter van der Steen:
    • Dementie (2009)
    • Dementie : achtergronden en praktijkervaringen (2017)
  • Judith von Halle: 'Dementia: Anthroposophical Perspectives' (original in DE 2010 'Die Demenz-Erkrankung', in NL 2015 as 'Het ziektenbeeld dementie: antroposofische gezichtspunten'
  • Marko van Gerven, Christina van Tellingen: Dementie en ik (2014)
  • Hans Stolp: De verborgen zin van dementie (2015)
  • Megan Carnarius: 'A Deeper Perspective on Alzheimer's and other Dementias: Practical Tools with Spiritual Insights' (2015 in EN, translated in various languages such as NL, IT)

Effects of digital computing on soul

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