Soul

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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"[1] - 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[2], 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."[3]), 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[4] 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)[5]. As an immortal substance, it remains after death, but without body it cannot develop its full potential and loses its personhood[6], which it only has in[7] 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.

Literatur
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.

References

  1. ↑ Epiphanius: Panarion XXV 48
  2. ↑ Cf. the Principle of Spiritual Economy
  3. ↑ Gorgias 493a2-3
  4. ↑ In this context, the parable of the rich man and poor Lazarus handed down in the Gospel of Luke is noteworthy, insofar as it is one of the few biblical passages that gives a concrete idea of the existence of the dead in Sheol, the underworld, and the souls are drawn here in a thoroughly corporeal form and not as bodiless free souls. They appear as concrete human beings who can see and hear, suffer pain or feel joy. Even in early Christianity, this parable was therefore often used as an argument against the Platonic doctrine of the soul and the gnosis that followed it, which saw the redemption of the soul precisely in its bodily-free existence. Accordingly, Tertullian († c. 220) already characterised the soul thus:

    „So we describe the soul as arising from God's breath, immortal, consubstantial, corporeal, of form capable of image, simple in substance, sentient through itself, progressing in various ways, free-willed, subject to contingencies, of changing mental direction and disposition, rational, ruling, endowed with foreboding, and arising from a soul.“

    – Tertullian: On the Soul (De anima), Cap. 22online

    In the following chapters, Tertullian describes in great detail how the soul is generated at the same time as the body at conception, in that the divine breath once received by Adam is passed on from generation to generation (see De anima 27).

  5. ↑ see also: Richard Heinzmann: Anima unica forma corporis - Thomas von Aquin als Überwinder des platonisch-neuplatonischen Dualismus in Philosophisches Jahrbuch, 93rd volume, Verlag Karl Alber, Freiburg/München 1986, p. 236ff
  6. ↑ "The soul separated from the body is a single substance of rational nature existing for itself. It is not, however, 'person'." (Sum of Theology I 29,1,V)
  7. ↑ in the body, but not through the body
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