Group soul of the animals

From AnthroWiki
Revision as of 09:36, 5 March 2021 by Odyssee (talk | contribs) (Created page with "The '''animal soul''', the soul of the animals, is not individualised like the soul of the human being, one can only speak of a '''group soul of the animals''', which the...")
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

The animal soul, the soul of the animals, is not individualised like the soul of the human being, one can only speak of a group soul of the animals, which the Hebrews called nephesh, and which, as it were, hovers around the individual animals from the outside. Only in man does nephesh move into the interior as the sentient soul.

All animals belonging to a species or genus have a group ego and an associated group soul.

„... the animal has no individual soul, but a group soul which acts from without, like a spiritual entity. All animals whose blood can be mixed without harm have a common soul, the group soul.“ (Lit.:GA 55, p. 152)

„The question is often asked: Has the animal no such soul as man? - It has such a soul, but the animal soul is at the top of the astral plan. The individual animal relates to the animal soul in the same way as the individual organs of man relate to his soul. If one hurts a finger, it is the soul that feels this. All the sensations of the individual organs go to the soul. This is the case in the same way with a group of animals. Everything that the individual animal feels is felt in it by the group soul. Take all the different lions, for example: the sensations of the lions all lead to a common soul. On the astral plane, all lions have a communal group soul. So all animals on the astral plan have their group soul. If you give the individual lion a pain, or if he feels a lust, it carries over to the astral plan, just as the pain of the finger carries over to the human soul. Man can rise to the understanding of the group soul when he is able to fashion for himself a form which contains all the individual lions, just as a general concept contains the individual associated entities.“ (Lit.:p. 157.pdf GA 96, p. 157)

The animals do have their own astral body, but it is clearly different from that of man. It is not as self-contained as that of the human being embodied on earth. However, the nascent astral body that man forms before he descends to earthly incarnation shows a similar form.

„The human astral body has a shape enclosed within limits, it has definite outlines. The astral body of animals has no such definite outlines. The astral bodies of animals look quite different. They do not belong to a single being, but group souls exist for whole groups of animals. The individual physical animals hang, as it were, from a common trunk, and from these individual animals a kind of strand then leads to the group souls which move the animals. You can also discover certain animal forms, which cannot be encountered in the physical, in the astral. These astral bodies are nascent human beings who are forming and further developing their astral bodies to form a suitable vehicle for such as come down from the spiritual world.“ (Lit.:GA 88, p. 67f)

Literature
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.
Retrieved from "https://en.anthro.wiki/index.php?title=Group_soul_of_the_animals&oldid=998"