Note:

This is a lecture excerpt from the lecture cycle entitled "The Karma of Untruthfulness" by Rudolf Steiner. I have pulled only this lecture from the source page on Free Man Creator. The original source for the lecture can be found on SSDL and on the RSArchive. The difference below is the format of presentation provided on Free Man Creator, which breaks the text down using bullet-listing and subtitles, which lends to an easier way in which to 'absorb' the material.

I have also renamed this "Deep Dive" from FMC's "I-organization" to "The Human Bodily Organization" since what is presented below focuses more on an overview — which is the purpose of this article i.e. an overview of the interrelationship of the human four 'bodily' components.

FMC Introduction

The human 'I' consciousness arose through the sacrifice of the Spirits of Form whose substance (the I being their lowest element) 'rippled in' into Man during the Lemurian and Atlantean epochs, and in the current Postatlantean epoch found it's implementation in an adapted physical body and let to the development of the threefold soul, see 'Development of the I'. It took hold of the astral body (sentient soul), etheric body (intellectual soul) and physical body (consciousness soul), and this provides the threefold soul with the contemporary Waking consciousness.

However, Man's true I as a spiritual being, see Man's higher triad, is purely a spiritual entity in the higher spirit world.

So whereas 'Man' is truly a spiritual structure in the higher spirit world, the threefold soul in the lower spirit world 'operates' within and uses lower bodies (see Man's bodily structure and principles) and the organisms of earth, water, air and warmth and the higher ethers. It therefore uses all the available infrastructure: physical but also etheric and astral. (re GA202 reference below). The physical body with the physical senses give rise to waking consciousness and this makes for a reflection of the astral experiences called 'maya', see also Cosmic fractal.

The human 'I' and the I-organization

The human 'I' lives in the warmth body or organism, and blood is the physical expression of the I, but how does the 'I' work across the human bodily principles and subsystems on the blood-nerve interface?

This is called the I-organization: the I connects into the bodily structures of Man at different points of the nervous system (re GA174 reference, see also blood and nerves), as a mechanism of the astral body, and through that, lower down, to the etheric and physical bodies. That is the where, regarding the 'how', the I-principle lives in the warmth differentiations in the whole human organism through the element hydrogen.

So the I-organization can be described as the way how the human I-principle moulds and gives form to the lower bodily principles, as well as how it works in those lower bodily principles. The latter is the physiology depicted in Schema FMC00.036. As shown in Schema FMC00.415 and Schema FMC00.015A, one can imagine the I to sit on top of those lower bodily principles (the astral, etheric and physical body), and the life processes go through the I down to the mineral, from warmth downwards' to earth along the spectrum of elements.

Lecture Excerpt

What was said yesterday' about so-called poisonous substances indicated strongly how all the impulses of life are graded in relation to one another. For instance, some substance is said to be poisonous, and yet the higher nature of the human being is intimately related to this poison; indeed, the higher nature of man cannot exist without the effects of poisons.

We are touching here on a most important area of knowledge, one with many ramifications and without which it is impossible to understand a good many secrets of life and existence.

The physical body

Looking at the human physical body, we have to admit that if it were not filled with those higher components of existence, the etheric body, the astral body and the I, it could not be the physical body as we know it. The moment man steps through the portal of death, leaving behind his physical body — that is, the moment the higher components withdraw from the physical body — it begins to obey laws other than those which governed it while those components were present there. The physical body disintegrates; after death it obeys the physical and chemical forces and laws of the earth.

The physical body of Man as we know it cannot be constructed in accordance with earthly laws, for it is these very laws which destroy it. The body can only be what it is because there work within it those parts of man that are not of the earth: his higher components of soul and Spirit. There is nothing in the whole realm of physical and chemical laws which could justify the presence of such a thing as the human physical body on the earth.

Measured by the physical laws of the earth, the human body is an impossible creation. It is prevented from disintegrating by the higher components of man's being. lt follows, therefore, that the moment these higher components — the I, the astral body and the etheric body — desert the human body, it becomes a corpse.

You know from earlier lectures that the diagram of the human being we have often given is quite correct as such, but that in reality it is not as simple as some would like. To begin with, we divide the human being into physical body, etheric body, astral body and I.

I have pointed out on other occasions that this in itself implies a further complication ..

• the etheric body is something supersensible, something invisible that lives in the human being and cannot be perceived by the senses. But it has, in a sense, its physical counterpart because it imprints itself on the physical body. The physical body contains not only the physical body itself, but also an imprint of the etheric body. The etheric body projects itself onto the physical body; so we can speak of an etheric projection onto the physical body.
• lt is the same in the case of the astral body. We can speak of the astral projection onto the physical body.
• You know that the I projection onto the physical body may be sought in certain features of the blood circulation, where the I projects itself onto the blood.
• In a similar way the other higher components project themselves onto the physical body.

So the physical body in its physical aspect is in itself a complicated system, for it is fourfold. And just as the most important aspect cannot exist in the physical body if the I and the astral body are not in it — for it then becomes a corpse — so is it also in the case of these projections, for they are all present in the physical substance. Without the I there can be no human blood, without the astral body there can be no human nervous system as a whole. These things exist in us as a counterpart of man's higher components.

A balanced healthy balanced constitution

When the I  has been, shall we say, `lifted out' of the physical body, when it has passed through the portal of death, the physical body has no real life any longer, but becomes a corpse. In a similar way, under certain conditions, these projections cannot live in a proper way either.

• For instance the I projection — that is, a certain quality of the blood — cannot be present in a proper way in the human organism if the I is not properly fostered. To turn the physical body into a corpse it is, of course, necessary for the I to depart entirely from the physical body.
• But the blood can go a quarter of the way towards becoming a corpse if you prevent it from being permeated with what ought to live in the I, so that it can work in the right manner of soul and spirit on the blood.

You will gather from this that is possible to bring disorder into man's soul in such a way that the right influences cannot be brought to bear on the blood nature, the blood substance. That is then the point when the blood can change into a poisonous substance — not entirely, for in that case the person would die, but in part.

The human physical body is abandoned to destruction if the I departs from it, and in a similar way the blood is brought into a state of ill health — even if this is not necessarily noticeable — if the I is not fostered and interwoven with the right care.

So when is the I not fostered and interwoven with the right care?

This is the case under certain quite definite circumstances. Let us look for the moment at the Post-Atlantean period. We see that as human evolution proceeds, certain definite capacities, certain definite impulses are developed in each succeeding cultural epoch. It is impossible to imagine people living in the ancient Indian period having a condition of soul development similar to ours. From cultural age to age, as human beings pass through succeeding incarnations on earth, different impulses are needed for the human soul.

Let me draw you a diagram. Imagine this to be the main actual physical body, the one that has to be filled with all the higher components of human nature in order to be a physical body at all.

Of all these higher components, I shall deal solely with the I, though I could deal with all three.

• The shading here indicates that the physical body is permeated by the I. So, in a way, the other projections also have to be permeated.
• Here let me indicate the projection of the etheric body, which is for the most part anchored in the human being's glandular system; for this, too, has to be permeated and inter-woven.
• Thirdly, let me indicate what is anchored chiefly in the nervous system. This, again, in a certain way, must be interwoven with the workings of the I.
• And the I body itself — this, too, has to be interwoven in the proper way.

As Man passes through succeeding periods of evolution he has to step into different developmental impulses with each period. He has to absorb whatever the contemporary age requires him to take in.

• In the first cultural age in the current epoch, ancient India, impulses of soul and spirit had to be absorbed which enabled the etheric body to be developed;
• in the next period, ancient Persia, the astral body was developed;
• in the period of Egypt and Chaldea it was the turn of the sentient soul;
• in the Greco-Latin period, the intellectual or mind soul;
• and today, the consciousness soul.

Whether the human being absorbs in the right way whatever is suitable for the age in which he is living will depend on whether he has properly entered into all these bodily principles — just as the physical body is permeated by the higher components of his being — so that they absorb what the age requires.

Suppose an individual during the fifth Post-Atlantean cultural age were to resist absorbing anything of what ought to be absorbed during this period; suppose he were to reject everything which could cultivate his soul in the manner required by the fifth Post-Atlantean cultural age. What would be the consequence?

His bodily nature cannot revert to an earlier state if he belongs to that part of mankind which is called upon at present to absorb the impulses of the fifth cultural age. Not everyone is called upon at the same time, but at present all the white races are called upon to absorb the culture of the fifth post-Atlantean period. Now suppose an individual were to resist this.

A certain member of his bodily nature — above all, the blood — would remain void of all that could be taken in, were he not to put up this resistance. This member of his bodily nature would then lack what ought to permeate its substance and its forces. This substance and the forces living in it —though not to a degree comparable to bodily death brought about by the departure of the I — would then become sick in its life forces, which become degraded so that man bears them as a poison within him.

Thus to remain behind in evolution means that Man impregnates his being with a kind of formative phantom which is poisonous.

On the other hand, if he were to absorb what his cultural impulses require him to absorb, the state of his soul would be such that he could dissolve this poisonous phantom he bears within him.

By failing to do so, he allows this phantom to coagulate and become a part of his body. This is the source of all the sicknesses of civilization, the cultural decadence, all the emptiness of soul, the states of hypochondria, the eccentricities, the dissatisfactions, the crankinesses and so on, and also of all those instincts which attack culture, which are aggressive and antagonistic towards cultural impulses.

Either the individual accepts the culture of his age, and fits in with it, or he develops the corresponding poison which deposits itself within him and can only be dissolved if he does accept the culture. But if the poison is allowed to become deposited, it leads to the development of instincts which are opposed to the culture of the age. The working of a poison is also always an aggressive instinct.

In the languages of Central Europe this can be felt quite clearly: many dialects do not say that a person is angry but that he is poisonous. This expresses a deep sense for something that is indeed the case. Someone who is irascible is described in Austria, for instance, as "gachgiftig" which means that he is quick to grow poisonous, quick to anger.

Human beings acquire poison, sometimes in a very concentrated form, if they refuse to accept what could dissolve such poison.

Nowadays, untold people refuse to accept spiritual life in the form fitting for today, which we have been endeavouring to describe for such a long time, more recently even in public.

In such people, the lotus flower here [on the forehead] reveals very clearly what occurs in these cases, for the effects reach right into the realm of warmth, and such people leap up like flames against anything in the world around them which happens to reveal something that could bring healing to our times. Certainly, Mephistopheles, the devil, is abroad amongst us; but the development of even a small beginning — tiny flames stirring — starts when we refuse to accept something that is fitting for our time, so that we do not dissolve the poison but make it into a partial corpse and allow it to coagulate in our organism as a phantom of formative forces.

If you think this through properly, you will discover the cause of many dissatisfactions in life. For those who bear such a poisonous phantom within them are unhappy indeed. We would call these people nervous, or neurasthenic; but it can also make them cruel, quarrel-some, monists, materialists, for these characteristics are the result, more often than we might think, of physiological causes brought about by the poison being deposited in the human organism instead of being assimilated.

Broader perspective

You will see from all this that there belongs to the overall balance of the world in which we are embedded a kind of unstable equilibrium between what is good and right on the one hand, and its opposite, the effects of poisons, on the other. If it is to be possible for what is good and right to come about, then it must also be possible to err from what is right, for poisons to have their effect.

If we now apply this to the wider situation, we see that it must be possible today for people to attain to some degree of spiritual life, to develop within themselves impulses for a free, inner spiritual life.

To make it possible for the individual to attain to a life of the spirit, the opposite must also exist, namely a corresponding possibility to err along the path of grey or black magic. Without the one, the other is not possible. Just as you, as a human being, cannot maintain yourself without the firm foundation of the earth beneath your feet, so it is not possible for the illumination of spiritual life to be pursued without the resistance which must be permitted to exist and which is inevitable for the higher realms of life.

We have already mentioned the highly contradictory and yet no less important fact that the question: To whom do we owe the Mystery of Golgotha? could elicit the reply: To Judas. For it could be argued that if Judas had not betrayed Christ Jesus, the Mystery of Golgotha would not have taken place, so therefore we ought to be grateful to Judas, since Christianity — that is, the Mystery of Golgotha — stems from him. However, to be grateful to Judas and perhaps recognize him as the founder of Christianity is going too far! Wherever we strive to enter higher realms we have to reckon with living, not dead truth, and the living truth bears within it its own counter-image, just as in physical existence life bears death within it.

This is something I wanted to place in your soul today, for on this basis much can be understood. There has to exist the possibility for what is spiritual, but also for the deposition of the poison which is its polar opposite. And if it can be deposited then it can also be used — it can be utilized in every realm.

Many questions could be asked about this, but today we shall deal with only one:

How can we find our way through the maze? Is there not a very great danger that anything we approach in the world might contain the polar opposite, namely the poison, or at least that some-body or other might seek to make something poisonous out of it?

Of course there is always this possibility. Everything that is potentially very good can also be perverted and become the opposite. This must be the case in order that human evolution can take its course in freedom in accordance with the present cultural age. Indeed, the very best evolutionary impulses in our age are those most likely to be turned into their opposite.

This is valid for social life as well as for the human organism. In lectures given here last year, we saw that in the present age, to start with only germinally, the capacity is beginning to develop which will enable us to create a life of Imaginations — to develop thoughts which rise up freely — though so far this possibility is denied by materialists. However, it lies in the very nature of our present age that a life of Imagination must develop little by little.

What is the counter-image of a life of Imagination?

The counter-image of Imaginative life is fabrication, the creation of fabrications about reality and a corresponding thoughtlessness in alleging this or that. I have often described it in these lectures as an inattentiveness to truth, to what is actual and real.

The most wonderful thing with which mankind is presented in the fifth cultural age is the gradual ascent from mere one-sided intellectual life into Imaginative life, which is the first step into the spiritual world.

This can err and become untruthfulness, the fabrication of untruths in relation to reality. I am not, of course, referring to poetry, which is entirely justified, but to fabrication with regard to what is real.

Another element which must come into being during the present age — we have discussed this here, too — is a form of thinking that is particularly conscientious and aware of its responsibility. When you see what anthroposophical spiritual science has to offer, you cannot but admit that, to understand what is said, sharply delineated thoughts are needed, thoughts which are imbued with the will to pursue reality in an objective way. Clear thinking is certainly necessary if our teachings — if I may call them that — are to be understood. Above all, what is needed are not fleeting thoughts, but a certain quietness of thought. We must work towards achieving this kind of thinking.

... [continued]

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