Soul

Frederic Leighton: The Bath of Psyche, 1890

The soul (from Indo-European: *saiwalō or *saiwlō, probably derived from *saiwaz, "lake"; German: Seele), called psyche (Greek: ψυχή "breath"; Latin: anima) by the ancient Greeks and therefore occasionally also called breath soul, is that essential member of man's being which connects his bodily and spiritual existence.

„By body is meant here that, by which the things of his environment reveal themselves to man [...] By the word soul is meant that, by which he connects the things with his own existence, by which he feels pleasure and displeasure, lust and displeasure, joy and pain at them. As spirit is meant that which is revealed in him when he, according to Goethe's expression, regards things as "as it were divine being". - In this sense man consists of body, soul and spirit.“ (Lit.:GA 9, p. 26f)

Anthroposophy thus represents the trichotomy, the threefold division of the human being into the three essential members spirit, soul and body. In the Catholic Church, the doctrine of trichotomy has been considered heresy since the Fourth Council of Constantinople (869). It was replaced by the dichotomy, which concedes man only body and soul and denies his independent spirit. This dualistic view continues to have an effect in philosophy and the sciences to this day, as is shown by the never-ending discussions about the body-soul problem, which are primarily linked to Descartes' postulated division of the human being into a spatially extended physical res extensa and an inextensible, point-like soul-spirit res cogitans. How there should be a psychophysical interaction between these completely different substances remains completely unclear. From the anthroposophical point of view body, soul and spirit are not different substances, but in the sense of a consistent monism different manifestations of one and the same spiritual substance. This can be compared pictorially with water, which can appear as gaseous steam, as liquid water and as solid frozen ice.

The inner world of the soul, which in its full development is only possible for man, is divided into three parts which can be distinguished in the aura. Its body-bound parts, namely the sentient soul, the intellectual or mind soul and also the part of the consciousness soul facing the sensual world are subject to mortality; only the part of the consciousness soul facing the spirit is immortal. However, this immortal part of the soul is not given a priori and unlosable, but must be actively attained and preserved (see → immortality of the soul).

According to its substantial nature, the soul originates from the astral body, which in turn has separated itself from the astral world. The soul is the organ of consciousness, of desires and sensations, and of the human soul faculties of thinking, feeling, and willing, which determine the life of the soul. Artistically, it is usually represented in female form.

Body, Soul and Spirit

The human soul is often personified in female form. Originally, as some Gnostic writings suggest, it was an androgynous, i.e. dual-sex male-female being, which only assumed its single-sex female form through its fall into the sensual world. For example, the "Exegesis on the Soul" found among the Nag Hammadi scriptures states:

„The sages who lived before us gave the soul a feminine name. In fact, it is also a woman by nature. It has a womb just like other women. As long as it was alone with the father, it was a virgin and man-feminine in form. But when she fell into a body and came into this life, she fell into the power of many robbers. And the wicked threw her to one another and defiled her. Some abused her violently, while others acted in such a way as to persuade her with a seductive gift. In short, she was ravished, and she lost her virginity [...]. But she is wont to become a poor widow, having no help; neither has she any to hear her in her affliction; for she had received nothing from them but the ravishings which they had inflicted on her when they had dealings with her. And the children she brought forth with the adulterers are dumb and blind and sick. But when the Father, who is in heaven above, seeks her and looks down upon her and sees her groaning with her sufferings and shame, and how she repents of the fornication she has committed, and how she begins to call upon his name that he may help her, crying out with all her heart, saying: "Save me, my Father, for behold: I will give account to thee, for I have left my house, and fled out of my virgin chamber. Bring me back to thee again!" and when he sees her that she is in this state, he will hold her worthy of his mercy; for numerous are the sorrows that have come upon her because she has left her house.“

– Exegesis on the soul: (NHC II,6)

Sophia

Sophia (Greek: Σοφíα "wisdom") is often called the female aspect of the Godhead in Gnosis. As the world soul, she is the macrocosmic analogue of the human soul or the group soul of mankind. She is often equated with the Holy Spirit (here thought of as female). In many cases it appears as the lowest of the aeons emanated by the Godhead, which in their totality form the Pleroma. Through its fall it becomes the cause for the creation of the material world. A distinction is also often made between a higher and lower aspect of Sophia. The lower or inferior Sophia, which dwells outside the Pleroma, is then also called Achamoth (Greek: Ἀχαμώθ) by the Valentinians. Sometimes she is also called Prunikos (Greek: Προύνικος), which according to Epiphanius of Salamis is supposed to mean something like "harlot" or "the lustful one" - but this meaning of the word is not regarded as certain.

Virgin Sophia

→ See also: Virgin Sophia

In Christian esotericism, the Virgin Sophia is the astral body that has been purified of lower sensual desires and elevated to the spirit self, corresponding to Isis in pre-Christian times. She stands for the completely pure human or human soul. In esoteric Christianity, the mother of Jesus was always called the "Virgin Sophia", as also by John the Evangelist; only exoterically does he call her the "Mother of Jesus".

Two-soul doctrine

The two-soul doctrine, still advocated by the Byzantine patriarch Photius I, according to which man has a higher, immortal spirit-soul and an earthly, transient soul, was banned at the Fourth Council of Constantinople in 869. The spirit was to be reserved for God alone. The doctrine of the trichotomy, according to which man consists of spirit, soul and body, has since been considered heresy in the Roman Catholic Church. It was replaced by the dichotomy, which concedes man only body and soul and denies his independent spirit. Thus, as Rudolf Steiner often puts it, "the spirit was abolished".

The immortal soul

According to the anthroposophical view, however, it is precisely the immortal individual spirit, the I of man, that reincarnates and, apart from exceptional cases, not the largely perishable soul, which after death, through its purification in the Kamaloka (purgatory) and in the higher realms of the soul world, disperses to its imperishable remnant (entelechy) in the general astral world and must be largely rebuilt anew and with different qualities for the next earthly incarnation. The immortality of the soul is not given from the beginning, but is only acquired with the consciousness soul oriented towards the spiritual through the activity of the I. The doctrine of the reincarnation of the spirit must therefore be strictly distinguished from the transmigration of the soul or metempsychosis. The body is subject to heredity, the soul to the fate (karma) created in previous earthly lives, and the spirit continues to develop through successive incarnations.

Body and soul

Plato still perceived the body as a dungeon or even a grave of the soul (Greek: τὸ μὲν σῶμά ἐστιν ἡμῖν σῆμα to men soma estin hemin sema, literally: "The body is a grave for us."), whereby it could only fully develop and ascend into eternity in the body-free state after death. In Christianity, on the other hand - in sharp contrast to this - it is precisely the inherent and indissoluble body-relatedness of the soul that appears as its central characteristic, which is what makes it a truly human soul. For Thomas Aquinas, the most essential destiny of the soul, according to Aristotelian hylemorphism, is to be the form of the body (Latin: anima forma corporis). As an immortal substance, it remains after death, but without body it cannot develop its full potential and loses its personhood, which it only has in the body. After death, therefore, it has a lesser mode of existence than in the embodied state and only achieves its perfection through the resurrection of the body, which is made possible by the all-surpassing love and grace of God in that God Himself became man in Jesus Christ, passed through death on Golgotha and rose again on the third day.

In the meantime, with increasing materialism, the understanding not only of the spirit but also of the soul, namely of its continued existence after death, has been largely lost. This development has not stopped at contemporary theology either, for example in the form of the whole-death theory advocated mainly by Protestant theologians or the increasingly widespread talk in Catholic theology since the middle of the 20th century of immediate resurrection in death, which at the same time also de facto "abolishes" the immortal soul.

The soul as inner world

„As its own inner world, the soul essence of man is distinct from his corporeality. The inner world is immediately apparent when attention is drawn to the simplest sense sensation. No one can know at first whether another experiences such a simple sensation in exactly the same way as he does. It is known that there are people who are colour-blind. Such see things only in various shades of grey. Others are partially colour-blind. They are therefore unable to perceive certain nuances of colour. The view of the world that their eye gives them is different from that of so-called normal people. And the same applies more or less to the other senses. It is obvious that even simple sensory perception belongs to the inner world. With my bodily senses I can perceive the red table, which the other also perceives; but I cannot perceive the other's sensation of red. - One must therefore call the sensation of the senses a spiritual thing. If one only makes this fact quite clear to oneself, then one will soon cease to regard inner experiences as mere brain processes or the like. - First of all, the sensation is followed by the feeling. The one sensation gives the human being pleasure, the other displeasure. These are impulses of his inner, his spiritual life. In his feelings, man creates a second world for himself in addition to the one that affects him from the outside. And a third is added: the will. Through it, the human being has an effect on the outside world. And through this he imprints his inner being on the outer world. The soul of the human being flows outwards, as it were, in his acts of will. This distinguishes man's deeds from the events of outer nature, that the former bear the stamp of his inner life. Thus the soul, as man's own, confronts the outer world. He receives stimuli from the outer world; but in accordance with these stimuli he forms a world of his own. Physicality becomes the underground of the soul.“ (Lit.:GA 9, p. 30f)

The three soul members

The human soul is formed by the fact that the individual human I works subconsciously and constantly on the three lower, bodily members of man and that this work is reflected in corresponding changes in the astral body. This results in a threefold structure of the human soul.

"We must again bear in mind that what we call the actual human soul life, the human inner being, is not simply a chaos of sensations, drives, ideas, passions, ideals, surging through one another; but we must tell ourselves with all clarity that this human soul breaks down into three separate members; that we can distinguish quite precisely: the lowest soul member, the sentient soul; the middle soul member, the intellectual or mind soul; and the highest soul member, the consciousness soul. These three members are to be distinguished in the human soul life. But they must not fall apart in this human soul. The human soul must be a unity. What is it in the human being that unites these three members of the soul into a unity? That is precisely what we call in the actual sense the human "I", the bearer of human self-awareness.|58|145f}}

Corresponding to the three lower members of man, the following soul members are thus incorporated into the astral body:

1. Sentient soul
2. Intellectual or mind soul
3. Consciousness soul

„One can again unreservedly have the will to triviality and say: Why do you anthroposophists have the spleen to distinguish in the soul three soul members and even many members in human nature? You speak of a sentient soul, an intellectual soul and a consciousness soul. It would be much simpler to speak of the soul as a unified entity in which thought, feeling and volition take place - it is certainly simpler, more convenient - and trivial too. But at the same time this is also something that the scientific contemplation of man cannot in truth promote. For it is not from the longing to divide and to make many words that the division of the human soul into sentient soul arises, that is, into that part which first enters into contact with the environment and receives the perceptions and sensations from outside, in which the desires and instincts also develop, and which is then to be separated from that part in which what has been gained has already been processed in a certain sense. We bring our sentient soul into activity by facing the outside world, receiving from it impressions of colour and sound, but also allowing to emerge what we as normal human beings do not have in hand at first: our drives, desires and passions. But when we withdraw and process within ourselves what we have taken in through perceptions and so on, so that what is stimulated in us by the outer world is transformed into feelings, then we live in the second soul member, in the intellectual or mind soul. And in so far as we direct and guide our thoughts and are not led on a string, we live in the consciousness soul.

In "Occult Science" or in "Theosophy" you will see that the three members of the soul have many more relations - of a different kind - to what is in the outer world, not because we take pleasure in the division, but because what we call the sentient soul is related to the cosmos in quite a different way than what we call the consciousness soul.

It is the consciousness soul that isolates the human being, that makes him feel like an inwardly closed being. What we call the intellectual soul brings him into relationship with his surroundings and with the whole cosmos, making him a being that appears like an extract, like a confluence of the whole world. Through the consciousness soul, man lives in himself, isolates himself. The most important thing that one experiences in the consciousness soul is that which one develops most late in life: the ability to think logically, to have opinions, thoughts and so on. That rests in the consciousness soul. In relation to these qualities, the individual nucleus of the human being, which comes into existence through birth, is indeed most predisposed to isolation. This innermost core of being works itself out most late in the human being. While his envelope, his bodily organisation, emerges earliest, his actual individuality emerges latest. But as man is at present - he was different in the past and will be different in the future - he indeed develops his opinions, concepts, ideas in the most isolated part of his being. These, therefore, have the least influence on the whole structure and formation of his total personality, and also come out as an annex only when the total personality is firmly established, plastically formed.“ (Lit.:GA 60, p. 237ff)

The first disposition of the sentient soul was created when the Earth was condensed to the state of fire in the polar age, which in a certain way repeated the Old Saturn. It continues to form through the unconscious work of the human I on the astral body. It is a transformed part of the astral body. This twilight unconscious work on the astral body began in Lemurian times and reached its climax in the Egyptian-Chaldean culture. The sentient soul is born as an independent element at the age of 21. Aristotle referred to the sentient soul as the orectikon. In the Hebrew tradition it is called Nephesh.

The intellectual or mind soul was predisposed when the Earth was condensed to the state of air in the polar age. It represents a modification of the astral body, which is further formed by the I working unconsciously on the etheric body and the result of this activity being reflected back into the astral body. This work began in the Atlantean period and reached its climax in the Greco-Latin culture. Aristotle called the intellectual or mind soul the kineticon. In the Hebrew tradition it is called Ruach. As an independent element, the mind soul is born at the age of 28. In the intellectual soul, the I appears to us for the first time, but it does not yet become clearly aware of itself. This only happens through the consciousness soul.

The consciousness soul is also a transformed part of the astral body. Its first disposition was created when during the hyperborean age - a short repetition of the Old Sun - the Earth condensed to the state of water. It is formed further by the fact that the I unconsciously works on the physical body, reshaping it, and this activity is reflected back into the astral body. This unconscious work of the I began at the end of the Atlantean era and is striving towards a climax in our present cultural epoch. The consciousness soul is born as an independent element at the age of 35. Aristotle used the term dianoetikon for the consciousness soul. In the Hebrew tradition it is called Neshama.

In the Zohar, the holy book of Kabbalah, this trinity of soul members is described in its fundamental meaning thus:

„And behold, when the All-Holy One created man, He read his substance from the four sides of the world, placed man himself in the place of the lower sanctuary, and drew to him the soul of life from the upper sanctuary. And the soul is grouped into three levels, which is why it has three names, according to the upper secret: Nephesh, Ruach, Neshama. Nephesh the lower level. Ruach is the substance that rules over the soul, existing in all things in the right way. Neshama, the higher substance, ruling over everything - holy, upper level. These three levels are combined in man, in those who are worthy to serve their Lord. For in the beginning there is in him the Nephesh, and that is the holy judgment, that in it man may change to the right. When a man reaches purification on this level, he can ennoble himself by ascending to "Ruach", for this is the holy level that rests above Nephesh, so that with it the man who has become worthy may ennoble himself. But if he has ascended in Nephesh and Ruach and has changed to the right in the service of his Lord, then Neshama, the upper, holy level that rules over all, rules over him, so that he may beautify himself with the upper, holy level - thus he becomes all-perfect, perfect on all sides, in order to become worthy of the world to come, as one who loves God.“ (Lit.: Zohar, p. 127f)

Literature

• Ernst Pöppel (Hrsg.): Gehirn und Bewusstsein, Wiley Verlag Chemie 1989, ISBN 978-3527279012
• Richard Heinzmann: Anima unica forma corporis. Thomas von Aquin als Überwinder des platonisch-neuplatonischen Dualismus. in Philosophisches Jahrbuch, 93. Jahrgang, Verlag Karl Alber, Freiburg/München 1986, S. 236f. pdf
• George Karamanolis: Seele und Seelenwanderung academia.edu
• George Karamanolis: Arten von Unsterblichkeit in der antiken Philosophie, Universität Wien 2014 academia.edu
• Peter Heusser, Peter Selg: Das Leib-Seele-Problem: Zur Entwicklung eines geistgemäßen Menschenbildes in der Medizin des 20. Jahrhunderts, Verlag des Ita Wegman Instituts 2011, ISBN 978-3905919295
• Matthias Beck: Das Geistkonzept des Thomas von Aquin - Seine Rezeption in moderner Theologie und seine Relevanz für Medizin und Genetik, in: Johannes Weinzirl (Hrsg.), Peter Heusser (Hrsg.): Was ist Geist?, Wittener Kolloquium für Humanismus, Medizin und Philosophie, Band 2, Königshausen u. Neumann 2014, ISBN 978-3826052224, S. 137 - 174
• Aristoteles, Klaus Corcilius (Hrsg., Übers.): Über die Seele. De anima, 1. Auflage, Meiner 2017, ISBN 978-3787327898
• Der Sohar. Das heilige Buch der Kabbala, aus dem Hebräischen übertragen und herausgegeben von Ernst Müller, Diederichs Gelbe Reihe, Heinrich Hugendubel Verlag, Kreuzlingen/München 2005, ISBN 3-7205-2643-7
• Rudolf Steiner: Das Christentum als mystische Tatsache, 24 Vorträge, gehalten in Berlin vom 19. Oktober 1901 - 26. April 1902, nicht veröffentlicht in der GA.
• Rudolf Steiner: Theosophie, GA 9 (2002), Kapitel Die seelische Wesenheit des Menschen, ISBN 3-7274-0090-0 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Metamorphosen des Seelenlebens – Pfade der Seelenerlebnisse. Erster Teil, GA 58 (1984), ISBN 3-7274-0585-6 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Antworten der Geisteswissenschaft auf die großen Fragen des Daseins, GA 60 (1983), ISBN 3-7274-0600-3 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Aus schicksaltragender Zeit, GA 64 (1959), ISBN 3-7274-0640-2 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Die Apokalypse des Johannes, GA 104 (1985), ISBN 3-7274-1040-X English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Das Prinzip der spirituellen Ökonomie im Zusammenhang mit Wiederverkörperungsfragen, GA 109 (2000), ISBN 3-7274-1090-6 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Okkulte Geschichte, GA 126 (1992), ISBN 3-7274-1261-5 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Okkulte Untersuchungen über das Leben zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt, GA 140 (1961) English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Zufall, Notwendigkeit und Vorsehung , GA 163 (1986), ISBN 3-7274-1630-0 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Der Tod als Lebenswandlung, GA 182 (1996), ISBN 3-7274-1820-6 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Menschenwerden, Weltenseele und Weltengeist – Erster Teil, GA 205 (1987), ISBN 3-7274-2050-2 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Esoterische Betrachtungen karmischer Zusammenhänge. Dritter Band, GA 237 (1991), ISBN 3-7274-2370-6 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Aus den Inhalten der esoterischen Stunden, Band III: 1913 und 1914; 1920 – 1923, GA 266/3 (1998), ISBN 3-7274-2663-2 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Vorträge und Kurse über christlich-religiöses Wirken, III, GA 344 (1994), ISBN 3-7274-3440-6 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner: Vorträge und Kurse über christlich-religiöses Wirken, V, GA 346 (2001), ISBN 3-7274-3460-0 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
• Rudolf Steiner, Harald Haas (Hrsg.): Grenzerlebnisse der Seele: Schreck, Scham, Zweifel und schreckvollste Verwirrung (Thementexte), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach 2016, ISBN 978-3727454158

References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated. Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com. Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English. Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA) Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.