PART I
THE WISDOM OF MAN (Anthroposophy)
LECTURE III
Higher Senses, Inner Force Currents
and Creative Laws in the Human Organism.
N THE last lecture we dealt with the sense
of speech, and today we will examine the sense of concept. The term
“concept” is, of course, not intended here as pure
concept, but in its everyday meaning. That is, I hear a word spoken
and I visualize its meaning. This sense could also be called the
sense of visualization. [TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: The
verb vorstellen means imagine, in the loose sense (“I
can imagine”), but we have no noun in English that exactly
reproduces Vorstellung. “Visualization” must
serve, but the reader should understand that its application is not
limited to the visible; it covers abstract ideas as well as concrete
objects — anything we “call to mind.” The terms
“visualization,” “conception” and “mental
picture” are here used interchangeably.] In
order to understand how this sense comes about we must glance back
once more to the sense of tone or hearing and to the sense of speech
or sound, asking ourselves what it means “to have a sense of
speech.” How does the perception of sound [Always
the spoken sound is meant.] come about?
What particular process takes place when we perceive a sound like “a”
or “i”? To grasp this we must understand the apparatus of
sound perception, and we will give a few indications that you will be
able to substantiate later.
In music we distinguish between the single tone, the
melody, and the harmony. Harmony implies perception of tones
occurring simultaneously, melody calls for the mental co-ordination
of a sequence of tones. The mechanism of sound perception can be
comprehended by studying the relation between the tonal element in
sound and sound itself.
Suppose we could raise into consciousness what we
accomplish subconsciously in perceiving sound. We would then no
longer be dealing merely with a sense perception but with a judgment,
with the formation of a concept. If we were able, in hearing a
melody, so to crowd the single tones in time as to perceive them
simultaneously, to cause past and future to coincide; if in the
middle of a melody we already knew what was to follow, knew this so
vividly as to draw the future into the present, then we would have
consciously converted the melody into a harmony. We are not able to
do that, but what we cannot execute consciously actually takes place
unconsciously in the sense of sound. When we hear an “a”
or an “i” or other sounds, a subconscious activity
momentarily transforms a melody into a harmony. That is the secret of
sound; it is melody transformed into harmony. This marvelous
subconscious activity proceeds in approximately the same way as the
various refractions in the eye are carried out according to physical
laws, which is another process we can call to consciousness after it
has taken place.
But this subconscious activity that instantly converts a
melody into a harmony is not enough; something more is needed if the
sound is to come forth. A musical tone is not a simple thing. A tone
is a musical tone only by virtue of its harmonics
[TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Dr. Steiner refers here to
something much more definite than what is suggested by our
“overtones,” a term that has almost lost its original
significance. The harmonic series as it is known in the field of
music is the series of intervals into which a vibrating body (a
string, a column of air, etc.) divides itself unassisted by
artificial means. Under favorable conditions some three to five of
these harmonics can be detected by a keen ear. They come out most
clearly in large church bells.] (overtones) that
sound with it, however faintly, in contrast to noises, which
have no harmonics. In a harmony, therefore, we hear not only the
separate tones but the harmonics of each tone as well. Accordingly,
if we crowd a melody into a harmony, we have not only the separate
notes of the melody crowded into simultaneity, but the harmonics of
each note as well. Now, the final step. Through the agency of that
subconscious activity, the attention of the soul must be distracted
from the fundamental tones of the melody. These must in a sense be
aurally disregarded, and only the harmony created by the harmonics be
comprehendingly heard. A sound comes into being when a melody is
transformed into harmony and then the fundamentals disregarded,
attention being directed exclusively to that harmony of the
harmonics. What these harmonics then yield is the sound “a,”
“i,” etc. In this way we have explained sound perception
as taking place in the same way that sight does in the eye.
The next question is difficult but important. How does
the perception of visualization come about? How does it happen that
when we hear a word we understand its meaning by means of the word
itself? That this is a question by itself can be seen from the fact
that in different languages the same thing is designated by different
sounds. While the sound we hear is a different one in every language
(amor and Liebe), it nevertheless points the path to an
identical underlying conception. Whether the word used is amor
or Liebe, it appeals to the sense of visualization underlying
it. This underlying sense of visualization is always uniform,
regardless of all the differences in the sound formations. But now,
how is this perceived?
In studying this process, the perception of
visualizations or conceptions, we should keep in mind our premise
that conceptions reach us by way of sounds. To enable a conception to
come about, attention must be still further diverted; the whole
harmonic series must be ignored. At the moment when the soul as well
is unconsciously distracted from the harmonics, we perceive what has
incorporated in the sounds, what pertains to them as conception or
visualization. This implies that the visualization reaching us
through sounds — the visualization that, as something
universally human, pervades all sounds and languages — comes to
us slightly colored, toned down.
Incorporated in this harmonic series, which creates the
timbre and intensity and the various sounds in the different
languages, which vibrates into the human organism, are the Folk
Spirits. These manifest themselves through the sounds of the
language. Language is the mysterious whispering of the Folk Spirits,
the mysterious work upon the fluids, that vibrates into our organism
through the harmonics. But what underlies the harmonic series is the
universal human element, the common spirit of man that suffuses the
whole earth. The universal spirit of man can be perceived only when
each of us, from his own particular locality, ignoring the harmonics,
listens for what is inaudible, for what belongs in the realm of
conceptions.
In the course of historical evolution, men did not
acquire the capacity to comprehend what is universally human until
they learned to recognize common factors by disregarding, as it were,
the shades of sounds. Only in our life of conceptions can we begin to
grasp the Christ Spirit in His true being. The spiritual beings whose
task it is to proclaim Him in manifold forms — His messengers
to whom He has assigned their missions and tasks — are the Folk
Spirits of the various folk individualities. This thought has found
very beautiful expression in Goethe's fragment, Die Geheimnisse.
That will give a picture of what the sense of
visualization is, bringing us to an important milestone. We have
exhausted what we have in the way of ordinary senses, finally
arriving at the study of the subconscious human activity that is
able, through the force of the astral body, to push from
consciousness even the harmonic series. It is the human astral body
that pushes aside this harmonic series as though with tentacles. If
we achieve this power over the harmonics, which means nothing else
than the ability to ignore them, it signifies increased strength in
our astral body.
But even this does not exhaust the capacity of the
astral body; it is capable of still higher achievements. In the cases
we have so far discussed, the appearance of a visualization has
presupposed the overcoming of an outer resistance; something external
had to be pushed back. Now we find the astral body to be endowed with
still more power when we learn that its astral substance enables it
not only to push back what is outside, but also, when there is no
outer resistance, to stretch forth, to eject, its astral substance
through its own inner strength. If one is able thus to stretch forth
the astral tentacles, so to speak, with no resistance present, then
there appears what is called spiritual activity; the so-called
spiritual organs of perception come into being. When the astral
substance is pushed out from a certain part of the head and forms
something like two tentacles, man develops what is called the
two-petaled lotus flower. That is the imaginative sense, the
eleventh.
In proportion to his capacity for stretching out his
astral tentacles, man develops other spiritual organs. As his ability
to thrust out astral substance increases, he forms a second organ in
the vicinity of the larynx, the sixteen-petal lotus flower, the
inspirational sense, the twelfth. In the neighborhood of the
heart the third organ develops, the twelve-petal lotus flower, the
thirteenth, the intuitive sense. These three senses, the
imaginative, the inspirational and the intuitive, are additional,
astral senses, over and above the physical senses. Beyond these there
are still higher, purely spiritual senses, but let them here be
merely mentioned.
The question now arises as to whether these three astral
senses are active only in more highly developed, clairvoyant people,
or has the ordinary human being anything that can be called an
activity of these senses? The answer is that everybody has them, but
there is a difference. In clairvoyants these senses operate by
stretching out like tentacles, while in ordinary people their effect
is inward. At the top of the head, for instance, just where the
two-petal lotus flower forms, there are tentacles of this kind that
reach inward and cross in the brain. In other words, ordinary
consciousness directs them inward instead of outward. All that is
outside us we see, but not what is within us. Nobody has seen his own
heart or brain, and it is the same with spiritual matters. Not only
are these organs not seen, but they do not even enter consciousness.
They can therefore not be consciously employed, but they function
nevertheless; they are active. Here consciousness makes no decisions
whatever regarding reality.
These senses, then, are active. They direct their
activity inward, and this impulse directed inward is perceived. When
the imaginative sense pours inward there arises what in
ordinary life is called outer sensation, [TRANSLATOR'S
NOTE: There is no wholly satisfactory English equivalent for the
noun, Empfindung, though the adjective empflindlich is
exactly “sensitive.” The term “sensation” is
used in this translation (occasionally varied by “sentience”),
but it should be understood that only the meaning it has, for
example, in “a sensation of warmth” is here applicable,
never that in “the news created a sensation.” In other
words, it is the noun corresponding to the adjective “sentient,”
not “sensational,” and to the verb “to sense.”]
outer perception of something. We can have an outer perception only
because what appears in the imaginative sense works its way into us.
By means of this imaginative sense we are able to “sense”
a color, and that is not synonymous with seeing a color, or analogous
to hearing a tone. When we see a color, we say, for instance, it is
red. But through the activity of the imaginative sense we can also
have a sensation connected with it — that color is beautiful or
ugly, pleasant or unpleasant.
The inspirational sense also directs its activity
inward, and this produces a more complicated sensation: feeling. The
entire life of feeling is an activity of the inspirational organ
streaming inward.
When the intuitive sense pours inward, thinking
proper arises, that is, thought forming. So the order of the
processes is: We sense something, we have a feeling connected with
it, and we form thoughts about it.
Thus we have ascended from the life of the senses to the
soul life. Starting from without, from the sense world, we have
seized hold on the soul of man himself in its activities of
sentience, feeling and thought. Were we to continue along this path,
examining the still higher senses that correspond to the other lotus
flowers — they can hardly be called senses any more — the
entire higher life of the soul would be revealed to us in their
interplay. When, for example, the eight- or ten-petal lotus flower
directs its psychic activity inward, a still more delicate soul
activity is engendered, and at the end of the scale we find the most
subtle one of all which we call pure, logical thought. All this is
produced by the working of the various lotus flowers into the inner
man. Now, when this inward motion is transformed into an outer
motion, when the astral tentacles stretch outward and criss-cross,
directing, as so-called lotus flowers, their activity outward, then
that higher activity comes into being through which we rise from the
soul to the spirit, where what normally appears as our inner life
(thinking, feeling and willing) now makes its appearance in the outer
world, borne by spiritual beings.
We have arrived at an understanding of the human being
by ascending from the senses by way of the soul to what is no longer
in him, to spirit acting from without, which belongs equally to man
and to surrounding nature, to the whole world. We have ascended to
the spirit. As far as we have gone, I have described the human being
as an instrument for perceiving the world, experiencing it with his
soul and grasping it spiritually. I have not described something
finished, but something that is active in man. The whole interplay of
forces and activities of the senses, the soul, and the spirit is what
shapes the human being as he stands before us on earth. How does this
come about? We can give but brief intimations, but such as we find
substantiated on all sides.
What we see before us in observing a human being merely
with our senses really does not exist at all; it is only an optical
illusion. Spiritual-scientific observation actually perceives
something quite different. Remember that sensibly we cannot perceive
ourselves completely. We see but a part of our surface, never our
back or the back of our head, for example. But we know, nevertheless,
that we have a back, and we know it by means of the various senses,
such as the sense of equilibrium or of motion. An inner consciousness
tells us of the parts we cannot perceive externally. Indeed, there is
a great deal of us that we cannot perceive unless the appropriate
organs are developed.
Let us further consider the portion of the human being
that he himself can perceive sensibly — with the eye, for
instance — and let us delimit it. Through what agency is he to
perceive it? Actually, all that we can see of ourselves with our eyes
we perceive through the sentient soul; the sentient body would not be
able to perceive it. It is the sentient soul that really comprehends.
The portion of the human being that he sees with his eyes, which the
sentient soul confronts, is nothing but the image of the sentient
body, the outer illusion of the sentient body. We must, of course,
extend the concept a bit to cover those portions of the body we can
touch though not see, but there, too, we have the image of the
sentient body. Perception comes about through other activities of the
sentient soul. The latter extends to every point at which outer
perception occurs, and what it perceives there is not the sentient
soul but the illusion of the sentient body. Could we perceive this,
we would see that astrally something endeavors to approach but is
pushed back.
This image of the sentient body comes about as follows.
From back to front there is co-operation of the sentient soul and the
sentient body. When two currents meet, a damming up occurs, and
thereby something is revealed. Imagine you see neither current, but
only what results from the whirling together of the two. What shows
as a result of this impact of the sentient soul thrusting outward and
the sentient body pressing inward from without, is the portion of our
external corporeality that the eye or other outer sense can perceive.
We can actually determine the point on the skin where the meeting of
the sentient soul and sentient body occurs. We see how the soul works
at forming the body. We can put it this way. There is in the human
being a cooperation of the current passing from back to front and the
opposite one, resulting in an impact of sentient soul and sentient
body.
In addition to these two currents there are those that
come from the right and from the left. From the left comes the one
pertaining to the physical body; from the right, the one pertaining
to the etheric body. These flow into each other and intermingle to a
certain extent, and what comes into being at this point is the
sensibly perceptible human being, his sensibly perceptible exterior.
A perfect illusion is brought about. From the left comes the current
of the physical body, from the right that of the etheric body, and
these form what appears to us as the sensibly perceptible human
being.
In like manner we have in us currents running upward and
downward. From below upward streams the main current of the astral
body, and downward from above the main current of the ego. The
characterization given of the sentient body as being bounded in front
should be understood as meaning that it operates in a current upward
from below, but that it is then seized by the current running forward
from the rear, so that in a certain sense it is thereby bounded.
But the astral body contains not only the one current
that runs upward from below as well as forward from the rear, but
also the other one running backward from the front; so that the
astral body courses in two currents, one upward from below and the
other backward from the front. This gives us four intermingling
currents in the human being.
What is brought about by the two vertical currents? We
have one current running upward from below, and if it could discharge
unobstructed we would draw it thus as in the diagram, but this it
cannot do. The same is true of the other currents. Each is held up,
and in the center, where they act upon each other, they form the
image of the physical body.
Actually, it is due to the intersection and
criss-crossing of the currents that the threefold organization of man
comes into being. Thus the lower portion that we ourselves can see
should be designated as the sentient body in the narrower sense.
Higher up lies what in the narrower meaning we can call our senses.
This portion we can no longer perceive ourselves, because it is the
region where the senses themselves are located. You cannot look into
your eyes but only out of them, into the world. Here the sentient
soul, or its image, is active. The face is formed by the sentient
soul. But the two currents must be properly differentiated. The lower
currents, streaming from all sides, are held down from above, and
this lower part we can designate the sentient body. Below, the
impulses proceed largely from without; while above, it is principally
the sentient soul that makes itself felt. From above there streams
the ego, and at the point where this current is strongest, where it
is least pushed back by the other currents, the intellectual soul
forms its organ.
Now, in addition to this ego current we have one from
left to right and one from right to left. Again the whole activity is
intersected. There is further a current running through the
longitudinal axis of the body, effecting a sort of split up above. At
the upper boundary a portion of the intellectual soul is split off,
and this is the form of the consciousness soul. There the
consciousness soul is active, extending its formative work into the
innermost man. Among other things, it forms the convolutions in the
grey matter of the brain.
The nature of this spiritual being helps us to
understand what exists in man as form. That is the way in which the
spirit works on the form of the human body. It evokes all the organs
plastically, as the artist chisels a figure out of stone. The
structure of the brain can be comprehended only with the knowledge of
how these separate currents interact in man; what we then see is the
joint activity of the various principles of the human being.
Now we must go into a few details in order to show how
these facts can be fruitful when they will have become the common
property of a true science. We have learned that up above there came
into being the organs of the consciousness soul, the intellectual
soul, and the sentient soul. The ego acts downward from above; the
main portion of the astral body, upward from below. In their mutual
damming up, a reciprocal action takes place that extends along the
whole line, so to speak; it forms the longitudinal axis of the body,
and the effect of this will be a different one at every point of the
line. When the ego, for instance, is called upon to perform a
conscious act, this can only be done at the point where the sentient
soul, the intellectual soul, and the consciousness soul have
developed their organs. Through the intellectual soul, for example,
reasoning comes about, and a judgment must be localized in the head
because it is there that the appropriate human forces find
expression.
Now let us assume that such an organ is to come into
being, but one in which no reasoning takes place, in which the
intellectual soul has no part, an organ independent of the work of
sentient, intellectual and consciousness souls, in which only the
physical, etheric and astral bodies and the ego have a part —
an organ in which an impression received from the astral body is
immediately followed by the reaction of the ego, without reasoning.
Suppose that these four members of the human being — astral
body and ego, etheric body and physical body — are to cooperate
without any delicate activity such as reasoning or the like. What
would be the nature of an organ in which these four currents work
together? It would have to be an organ that would not reason. The
reaction of the ego would follow directly, without reasoning, upon
the impression received by the organ in question from the astral
body. That would mean that the ego and the astral body act together.
From the astral body a stimulus proceeds to the ego, the ego reacts
upon the astral body.
If this is to be a physical organ it must be built up by
the etheric body. From the left would come the current of the
physical body, from the right, that of the etheric body. They would
be dammed up in the middle and a condensation would result.
In addition, the currents of the ego and the astral
body, from above and below respectively, would undergo the same
process.
If we draw a diagram of such a structure, where in one
organ the currents of the physical and etheric bodies are dammed up
against those of the ego and astral body, the result is nothing less
than the diagram of the human heart with its four chambers:
| Diagram 1 Click image for large view | |
That is the way the human heart came into being. When we
consider all that the human heart achieves — the co-operation
of the physical, etheric and astral bodies and the ego — it
will be borne in upon us that the spirit had to build the human heart
in this way.
Here is another example. We have learned that in visual
activity there is really a subconscious thought activity present.
Conscious thought activity comes about only in the brain. Well, how
must the brain be built in order to make conscious thought activity
possible? In the brain we have the outer membrane, then a sort of
blood vessel membrane, then the spinal cord fluid, and finally the
brain proper. The latter is filled with nerve substance, and when
sense impressions are communicated to this nerve substance through
the senses, conscious thought activity arises. The nerve substance is
the outer expression of conscious thought activity.
When an organ is to be created in which not a conscious
but a subconscious reaction to an external impression is to take
place, it would have to be built in a similar way. Again there must
be a sheath and something like a blood vessel membrane against the
back. The spinal cord fluid must dry up and the whole brain mass be
pushed back to make room for a subconscious thought activity
undisturbed by a nervous system. Were the nerve substance not pushed
back, thinking would take place there; when it is pushed back, no
thinking can take place. Thus an external impression is first
digested by subconscious thinking on the part of those portions not
interlaced by the nervous system, and only later does it penetrate to
the instrumentality of sentience, feeling and conscious thought.
The result of this pushing back of the brain, so to
speak, to the rear wall is that the brain has become an eye. The eye
is a small brain so worked over by our spirit that the nerve
substance proper is pushed back to the rear wall of the eye and
becomes the retina. That is the way nature's architects work. A
single plan governs in building really all of the sense organs; it is
merely modified in the case of each organ as occasion demands. At
bottom, all sense organs are small brains formed in different ways,
and the brain is a sense organ of a higher order.
There is one more detail to be studied, but first we
will interpolate a few elucidating remarks in the nature of
theoretical cognition, which in turn will clarify the standpoint of
anthroposophy.
We have said that the standpoint of anthropology lies
below, among the details of the sense life, that theosophy stands
upon the summit, and anthroposophy half-way between the two. In a
general way, anyone can become convinced of the existence of the
sense world by means of his senses, and with his mind understand the
laws governing there. For this reason most people believe
unhesitatingly anything resembling their sense experiences, which can
be checked. It could easily be demonstrated that formally there is no
difference whatever between the spiritual scientist's statements
concerning the existence of spiritual worlds and the belief that
there was such a person as Frederick the Great. Formally there is no
difference between the belief that there are Spirits of Will and the
belief that there was a Frederick the Great. When someone constructs
for you the life of Frederick the Great from external data, you
believe that there was a person with the attributes set forth. The
human being gives credence to what is told him, provided it resembles
what he finds in his own environment. The spiritual investigator is
not in a position to deal with such things, but it is none the less
true that there is no difference in the attitude assumed toward such
communications. We have described the standpoints of anthropology and
of theosophy. Ours is between the two. A feeling of confidence and
faith in theosophy's message is fully justified by our sense of
truth; there is such a thing as well-founded acceptance of theosophic
truths.
Coming to the third possibility, the standpoint lying
between the other two, we find that from this vantage point we can
distinguish intelligently that there is a sense perception; I believe
because I can see it. There is a spiritual perception; I believe
because the spiritual scientist tells me it is there. But there is a
third possibility. Here is a hammer; my hand grasps it, picks it up,
and raises it from the horizontal to the vertical position. We then
say that it was moved and raised by my will. That will not strike
anybody as remarkable, for we see the underlying will embodied in the
man that raises the hammer. But supposing the hammer were to raise
itself up, without being touched by a visibly incorporated will. In
that case it would be foolish to imagine such a hammer to be the same
as other hammers. We would have to conclude that something invisible
was at work in the hammer. What conclusion would we draw from this
embodiment of a will or other spiritual force? When I see something
in this world acting as it could not act according to our knowledge
of the laws of outer form, I am forced to conclude that in this case
I do not see the spirit in the hammer, but it is reasonable to
believe in it; in fact, I should be a perfect fool not to believe in
spiritual activity.
Suppose you are walking with a clairvoyant and encounter
a human form lying motionless by the way. With the ordinary senses it
might be impossible to determine whether it was a living being or a
cardboard dummy, but the clairvoyant would know. He would see the
etheric and astral bodies and could say that that is a living being.
You would be justified in believing him, even though you could not
perceive the etheric and astral bodies yourself. But now the figure
stands up, and you see that the spiritual scientist was right. That
is the third possibility.
Now I will tell you a case that you can observe and
verify in ordinary life — close at hand in one sense, though
not in another. We have considered the various currents in the human
being and found them to run as follows:
From left to right, the currents of the physical body.
From right to left, those of the etheric body.
From the front backward, those of the sentient body.
From the rear forward, those of the sentient soul.
From above downward, those of the ego.
From below upward, those of the astral body.
The ego, then, acts downward from above; so how would
its physical organ have to lie? The physical organ of the ego is the
circulating blood; and the ego could not function downward from above
without an organ running in the same direction in the human body.
Where the main direction of the blood-stream is horizontal, not
vertical, there can be no ego, as in men. The main direction of the
blood-stream had to raise itself in man to the vertical in order to
enable the ego to lay hold on the blood. No ego can intervene where
the main blood-stream runs horizontally instead of vertically. The
group ego of animals can find no organ in them, because the main
blood-line runs horizontally. Through the erection of this line to
the vertical in man, the group ego became an individual ego.
This difference between men and the animals shows how
erroneous it is to set up a relationship inferred from purely
external phenomena. That act of rising from the horizontal to the
vertical is an historic incident, but it could no more have taken
place without an underlying will, without the co-operation of spirit,
than the raising of the hammer could have done. Only when a will, a
spiritual force, courses through the blood can the horizontal line
pass over into the vertical, can the upright position come about and
the group soul rise to become the individual soul. It would be
illogical to recognize the spiritual force in one case, that of the
hammer, and not in the other, in man.
That is the third possibility, a middle way of
conviction, as it were, through which we can verify all theosophic
truths. The deeper we penetrate into these matters, the clearer it
becomes that this middle path to conviction is universally applicable
— this middle way that fructifies ordinary experience through
spiritual science. External research will be stimulated by spiritual
science. Comparing the results of genuine spiritual-scientific
research with outer phenomena, we are forced to the conclusion that
all external processes are really comprehensible only if we take into
account, without prejudice, the experiences of spiritual science.
Thus to observe the world without prejudice, that is the standpoint
of anthroposophy. It receives fruitful impulses from above, from
theosophy, and from below, from anthropology; it observes the facts
of the spiritual world and the things of this world, and explains the
latter by means of the former. The building of each of our organs can
be explained through spiritual activity, just as we described the
transformation of the brain into an eye, and the build of the heart.
By showing how spiritual facts and earthly things are
interwoven, how spiritual truths are verified in outer phenomena,
anthroposophy leads to the conviction that it is senseless not to
acknowledge the higher truths that spiritual science is in a position
to bring us.
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