Soul - Revision history

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	{{See also\|Soul death\|Total death}}		{{See also\|Soul death\|Total death}}

	[[Soul death]], the dying off or complete dissolution of the soul, threatens those people who fill their souls only with earthly transient knowledge during their life on earth. They will be hit particularly hard by the [[second death]] at the time of the [[Last Judgement]], when not only the physical body but also the etheric body in its form corresponding to earthly development will finally be laid aside, because they do not have the necessary soul substance through which they can continue their further development on the [[New Jupiter]] - the [[New Jerusalem]] from the [[Apocalypse of John]]. Only those who have filled their [[astral body]] with the [[Christ]] Being will pass the second death unnoticed.		[[Soul death]], the dying off or complete dissolution of the soul, threatens those people who fill their souls only with earthly transient knowledge during their life on earth. They will be hit particularly hard by the [[second death]] at the time of the [[Last Judgement]], when not only the physical body but also the etheric body in its form corresponding to earthly development will finally be laid aside, because they do not have the necessary soul substance through which they can continue their further development on the [[New Jupiter]] - the [[New Jerusalem]] from the [[Apocalypse of John]]. Only those who have filled their [[astral body]] with the [[Christ]] Being will pass the second death unnoticed.

			== Descent of the souls ==

			{{GZ\|All souls are descended from Christ, and such a time will come when souls will become aware of this, and when they will understand that even the equalisation among souls can only take place through the Christ.\|266c\|48}}

			(Record C)

			{{GZ\|In the primordial beginning there was a soul substance which then divided itself into innumerable differentiated individual souls; through this differentiation karma arose, which exists in soul connections from person to person. In the time before the event of Palestine, these karmic connections lived out in the blood relationship, were bound to the blood. But precisely at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, this soul substance gradually dried up, and men would have passed soullessly over the earth at the end of the earth's development, would have lapsed into animalism in human bodies which would be the caricatures of animal bodies; and the I (for it is not the I that dies out, karma is bound to this until the end) would be empty and soulless if the Mystery of Golgotha had not taken place. The Christ is the spiritual progenitor of the present humanity, as Adam is in relation to the body, and only by filling ourselves with the Christ-substance, the Christ-impulse, do we escape soullessness, and we do this by absorbing the knowledge of the Mystery of Golgotha and letting it live in us. More and more soulful then become the relationships and the living together of man and man.\|266c\|48f}}

			(Record D)

	==Literature==		==Literature==

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	{{GZ\|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.\|9\|26f}}		{{GZ\|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.\|9\|26f}}

	[[Anthroposophy]] thus represents the [[trichotomy]], the threefold division of the human being into the three essential members [[spirit]], soul and [[body]]. In the [[w:Catholic Church\|Catholic Church]], the doctrine of trichotomy has been considered heresy since the [[~~w:Fourth Council of Constantinople\|~~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 [[w:René Descartes\|Descartes]]' postulated division of the human being into a spatially extended physical [[w:res extensa\|res extensa]] and an inextensible, point-like soul-spirit [[w:res cogitans\|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.		[[Anthroposophy]] thus represents the [[trichotomy]], the threefold division of the human being into the three essential members [[spirit]], soul and [[body]]. In the [[w:Catholic Church\|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 [[w:René Descartes\|Descartes]]' postulated division of the human being into a spatially extended physical [[w:res extensa\|res extensa]] and an inextensible, point-like soul-spirit [[w:res cogitans\|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]]).		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]]).

Odyssee at 16:38, 6 December 2021

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	The Hebrew doctrine of the soul already knows a corresponding differentiation by distinguishing between [[nephesh]] ({{HeS\|נפש}}; [[sentient soul]]), ruach ({{HeS\|רוח}}; [[intellectual soul]]) and [[neshama]] ({{HeS\|נשמה}}; [[consciousness soul]]). The lower soul members nephesh and ruach are mortal and dissolve after death. Neshama is the living breath, the "breath of life" that [[Yahweh]]-[[Elohim]] blows into man ({{B\|Genesis\|2:7}}) and in Genesis denotes the consciousness soul, especially in its fusion with the [[spirit self]]. In this way, it is the immortal part of the soul that resides in the body during the earthly incarnation, but is not therefore bound to the body.		The Hebrew doctrine of the soul already knows a corresponding differentiation by distinguishing between [[nephesh]] ({{HeS\|נפש}}; [[sentient soul]]), ruach ({{HeS\|רוח}}; [[intellectual soul]]) and [[neshama]] ({{HeS\|נשמה}}; [[consciousness soul]]). The lower soul members nephesh and ruach are mortal and dissolve after death. Neshama is the living breath, the "breath of life" that [[Yahweh]]-[[Elohim]] blows into man ({{B\|Genesis\|2:7}}) and in Genesis denotes the consciousness soul, especially in its fusion with the [[spirit self]]. In this way, it is the immortal part of the soul that resides in the body during the earthly incarnation, but is not therefore bound to the body.

			== Soul death
			{{See also\|Soul death\|Total death}}

			[[Soul death]], the dying off or complete dissolution of the soul, threatens those people who fill their souls only with earthly transient knowledge during their life on earth. They will be hit particularly hard by the [[second death]] at the time of the [[Last Judgement]], when not only the physical body but also the etheric body in its form corresponding to earthly development will finally be laid aside, because they do not have the necessary soul substance through which they can continue their further development on the [[New Jupiter]] - the [[New Jerusalem]] from the [[Apocalypse of John]]. Only those who have filled their [[astral body]] with the [[Christ]] Being will pass the second death unnoticed.

	==Literature==		==Literature==

Odyssee at 16:32, 6 December 2021

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@@ Line 166: / Line 166: @@
 [[Rudolf Steiner]] remarks:
 {{GZ|The fourth culture, the Greco-Roman, it leads man completely down to the physical plane. He has now become so fond of it that he has completely forgotten where he came from. He has lost his understanding of the spiritual world. This is deeply illustrated by the saying of the Greek hero Achilles: "Better a beggar in the upper world than a king in the kingdom of shadows.|109|246f}}
 ==Literature==

Odyssee at 11:35, 6 December 2021

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	{{GZ\|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.\|9\|26f}}		{{GZ\|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.\|9\|26f}}

	[[Anthroposophy]] thus represents the [[trichotomy]], the threefold division of the human being into the three essential members [[spirit]], soul and [[body]]. In the [[w:Catholic Church\|Catholic Church]], the doctrine of trichotomy has been considered heresy since the [[w:Fourth Council of Constantinople\|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 [[w:René Descartes\|Descartes]]' postulated division of the human being into a spatially extended physical [[w:res extensa\|res extensa]] and an inextensible, point-like soul-spirit [[w:res cogitans\|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.		[[Anthroposophy]] thus represents the [[trichotomy]], the threefold division of the human being into the three essential members [[spirit]], soul and [[body]]. In the [[w:Catholic Church\|Catholic Church]], the doctrine of trichotomy has been considered heresy since the [[w:Fourth Council of Constantinople\|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 [[w:René Descartes\|Descartes]]' postulated division of the human being into a spatially extended physical [[w:res extensa\|res extensa]] and an inextensible, point-like soul-spirit [[w:res cogitans\|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]]).		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]]).

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	He has now descended to earth, so that this spiritual world can penetrate the earthly world through him. But man's true self does not live in the world which can be seen with the eyes and which can be approached with the three ordinary faculties, thinking, feeling and willing; it lives in a world which since that time has penetrated the earthly one, but it is united with the Christ. And one can only know of the true I by knowing at the same time of the Christ; one can only feel the true I when one feels at the same time the essence of the Christ and the essence of the Mystery of Golgotha; the true I can only carry one through when one feels at the same time carried through by that impulse which proceeds from the Mystery of Golgotha.\|344\|117ff}}		He has now descended to earth, so that this spiritual world can penetrate the earthly world through him. But man's true self does not live in the world which can be seen with the eyes and which can be approached with the three ordinary faculties, thinking, feeling and willing; it lives in a world which since that time has penetrated the earthly one, but it is united with the Christ. And one can only know of the true I by knowing at the same time of the Christ; one can only feel the true I when one feels at the same time the essence of the Christ and the essence of the Mystery of Golgotha; the true I can only carry one through when one feels at the same time carried through by that impulse which proceeds from the Mystery of Golgotha.\|344\|117ff}}

			[[File:Apocalypse vasnetsov.jpg\|thumb\|450px\|[[w:Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov\|Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov]]: ''The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse'' (1887)]]

			The fact that the awareness of the mortality of the body-bound soul first appeared in the [[Greco-Latin period]] is pointed out in the [[Apocalypse of John]] at the opening of the fourth seal:

			{{GZ\|We perceive ... how at the opening of the fourth seal, which therefore corresponds to a mystery of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, a pale horse appears, and how now there is talk of death which has come into the world ({{B\|Acts\|6:8}}). This touches on one of the most important mysteries of the Apocalypse, insofar as this mystery is particularly important for our time. In the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, in a certain sense, death really enters humanity. Just realise this. You learn to recognise human nature well by looking at something like death [...]

			This was what occurred in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, precisely in the epoch that coincided with the Mystery of Golgotha, that man saw his earthly life clearly enclosed, so to speak, by the two gates: the gate of birth or conception and the gate of death.

			This consciousness, this kind of constitution of the soul, really only came into being in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, so that we have to do with the unfolding of this consciousness that man is strictly enclosed within the limits of earthly life, approximately from the eighth century before Christ until the fifteenth century after the Mystery of Golgotha. Since that time, a new consciousness has been preparing itself, but we are only at the beginning.\|346\|74ff}}

			The words [[Achilles]] speaks to [[Odysseus]], who has descended into the [[underworld]], are also to be interpreted in this sense:

			{{Quote\|Praise me not now death, glorious Odysseus.<br>
			I would rather be the unfortunate vassal,<br>
			Who lives but meagrely, as a day labourer to build the field,<br>
			Than rule the whole crowd of mouldering dead.\|Homer\|''Odyssey'' 11,488-491}}

			[[Rudolf Steiner]] remarks:
			{{GZ\|The fourth culture, the Greco-Roman, it leads man completely down to the physical plane. He has now become so fond of it that he has completely forgotten where he came from. He has lost his understanding of the spiritual world. This is deeply illustrated by the saying of the Greek hero Achilles: "Better a beggar in the upper world than a king in the kingdom of shadows.\|109\|246f}}

	==Literature==		==Literature==

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Immortality of the soul

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	{{GZ\|Above all, it is a question of your being able to place before your souls in the right way that which is expressed as the mystery of Christianity in the third part of the Letter to the Colossians in the third verse. I would like to call this passage before your souls today in the way it is really meant:		{{GZ\|Above all, it is a question of your being able to place before your souls in the right way that which is expressed as the mystery of Christianity in the third part of the Letter to the Colossians in the third verse. I would like to call this passage before your souls today in the way it is really meant:

			<center>
			<table><tr><td>
	<poem>You have died, and your I is separated from you and		<poem>You have died, and your I is separated from you and
	united with Christ in the spirit world; but if Christ,		united with Christ in the spirit world; but if Christ,
	who bears your I, has himself come before the vision,		who bears your I, has himself come before the vision,
	then you too will reveal yourselves with him.</poem>		then you too will reveal yourselves with him.</poem>
			</td></tr></table>
			</center>

	A tremendous depth is hidden in this word. It is actually spoken almost for later times than for the time of the apostles. It is actually spoken for our time, so that our time understands it in the right way. For it is so, that in the earthly development of mankind up to about the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, men experienced in their inner being that which could be of their [true] self in this inner being. With what they experienced in their inner being, they experienced at the same time something real of what lived in them in the pre-earthly existence. One could not have said to these people: Become aware of your eternal spiritual-soul core through something! because they simply had states of consciousness in which this eternal spiritual-soul core shone forth. They only needed self-knowledge, just as people today have sense-awareness; and in looking at their self they perceived - without that clear I-consciousness which only developed later - their pre-natal and their after-death. And so they could understand when the initiates spoke to them: Your body dies, but what you experience in your inner being you know does not die with you; it is alive, it remains alive. - Death did not yet have an instrument to kill the human soul.		A tremendous depth is hidden in this word. It is actually spoken almost for later times than for the time of the apostles. It is actually spoken for our time, so that our time understands it in the right way. For it is so, that in the earthly development of mankind up to about the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, men experienced in their inner being that which could be of their [true] self in this inner being. With what they experienced in their inner being, they experienced at the same time something real of what lived in them in the pre-earthly existence. One could not have said to these people: Become aware of your eternal spiritual-soul core through something! because they simply had states of consciousness in which this eternal spiritual-soul core shone forth. They only needed self-knowledge, just as people today have sense-awareness; and in looking at their self they perceived - without that clear I-consciousness which only developed later - their pre-natal and their after-death. And so they could understand when the initiates spoke to them: Your body dies, but what you experience in your inner being you know does not die with you; it is alive, it remains alive. - Death did not yet have an instrument to kill the human soul.

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	{{GZ\|In death the physical body dissolves into earth matter. Now this is significant. When we sleep, the desire to return to the physical body lives in us constantly - I have already mentioned this several times. This desire dominates us from the moment we fall asleep until the moment we wake up; in a way, we long for the physical body again. If we have discarded it in death, then we cannot long to return to it, we cannot press ourselves back into it. But from this it follows that we cannot develop this desire to return to the physical body. This desire, which we have from the time we fall asleep until we wake up, is now gone. Something else takes the place of this desire. It is replaced by the thought of our physical body that arises in our astral body and especially in our I. We now look at our physical body. It lives in our consciousness. It becomes a content of our consciousness. And the dissolution of our physical body into its elements causes us to carry the consciousness of our physical body through the time that passes between death and a new birth. Through this, however, we know ourselves, as it were, remembering our physical body, as an I the whole time between death and a new birth. Thus the knowledge of the physical body takes the place of the possession of the physical body. A state of consciousness, an appearance of consciousness takes its place. This whole feeling of the physical body, which we have from birth to death, is replaced after death by the consciousness of our physical body. And through this consciousness, that is, through a purely spiritual state, we are further sufficiently connected with life on earth.\|163\|125}}		{{GZ\|In death the physical body dissolves into earth matter. Now this is significant. When we sleep, the desire to return to the physical body lives in us constantly - I have already mentioned this several times. This desire dominates us from the moment we fall asleep until the moment we wake up; in a way, we long for the physical body again. If we have discarded it in death, then we cannot long to return to it, we cannot press ourselves back into it. But from this it follows that we cannot develop this desire to return to the physical body. This desire, which we have from the time we fall asleep until we wake up, is now gone. Something else takes the place of this desire. It is replaced by the thought of our physical body that arises in our astral body and especially in our I. We now look at our physical body. It lives in our consciousness. It becomes a content of our consciousness. And the dissolution of our physical body into its elements causes us to carry the consciousness of our physical body through the time that passes between death and a new birth. Through this, however, we know ourselves, as it were, remembering our physical body, as an I the whole time between death and a new birth. Thus the knowledge of the physical body takes the place of the possession of the physical body. A state of consciousness, an appearance of consciousness takes its place. This whole feeling of the physical body, which we have from birth to death, is replaced after death by the consciousness of our physical body. And through this consciousness, that is, through a purely spiritual state, we are further sufficiently connected with life on earth.\|163\|125}}

			== Immortality of the soul ==
			[[File:Madonna on the crescent Spain 17c.jpg\|thumb\|Praying Madonna on the Crescent Moon, Spain, 17th century (anonymous)]]
			{{See also\|Death of the soul}}

			The immortality of the soul does not consist simply in the survival of what we know as the empirical life of the soul - called "mind" in English - from earthly existence, for this is largely tied to the activity of our physical organistation.

			{{GZ\|Those who have thought about the immortality of the soul have always thought as about something that is in ordinary life and passes through the gate of death; whereas that which passes through the gate of death must first be sought, for it lies so deeply hidden in the soul that it is not even noticed, that attention is not directed to it in ordinary life; but it is there nevertheless. And when he who thus really, as it were chemically, separates the spiritual-soul from the bodily, when he then experiences this spiritual-soul as it is concealed in a supersensible world of spiritual beings standing above him, then he also knows that in this soul which is concealed in ordinary life - just as hydrogen is concealed in water - he has in it something which works quite secretly, as it were between the lines of life; which absorbs into itself the finest forces of the soul, of experience, of the moral faculties of man, just as the little plant germ absorbs the forces from the whole plant in order to concentrate them. And just as after the withering, after the leaves wither and the blossom dies, the plant carries over as a little germ that which lived in the previous plant into the following plant, that which the plant has saved over as a germ, - so it is in the human soul. When you distil it in this way, you realise that in every moment of life, awake and asleep, this human soul is constantly working in the subsoil of everyday life, working out all the abilities we acquire, being penetrated, deeply penetrated, by what it has done wrong and right, beautiful and ugly; it carries this within itself, just as the plant germ carries within itself the germ of the whole new plant. And then one knows that what lives so hidden in the soul goes through a life between death and new birth - and again returns to earth life. In the life between death and a new birth, the human being gathers forces from a spiritual world, but these forces become formative forces, so that through a new birth he can unite with what is given to him by father and mother, by the ancestral line. Thus the human soul does not live through one earth-life, but through successive earth-lives.\|64\|342f}}

			Above all, however, the immortality of the soul is not something that is given to man from the outset and cannot be lost, but something that he must actively acquire and likewise actively preserve.

			{{GZ\|Inner activity, inner active involvement with what man makes of himself, even what he makes of himself as an immortal being, that is necessary. Man must work at his immortality. That is what most people would like to have conjured away. They believe that knowledge can only teach us something of what we already know, that we are immortal [...]

			That is basically the Christian teaching. Therefore, man should not merely have faith in Christ, as a newer confession would have it, but he should consider Paul's words: "Not I, but the Christ in me." The power of Christ in me, it must want to be developed and it must be trained! Faith as such cannot save a person, but only the inner cooperation with the Christ, the inner working out of the power of the Christ, which is always there if one wants to work it out, but which must be worked out. Initiative, activity, that is what humanity will have to fulfil itself with. And it will have to realise that mere passive faith simply makes it too easy for man, so that immortality would gradually die on earth. This is the endeavour of Ahriman.\|205\|186f}}

			{{LZ\|Plato's "Phaidon" wants nothing other than eternity of the soul. He does not want to prove eternity of the soul. It is not a matter of logical proof. His aim is to bring to life what is gathered around Socrates and to bring it into a new world. The soul is to rise by turning away from what can be seen with eyes and heard with ears. In short, eternity is to be something that one acquires, that one acquires through initiation into the mysteries. Plato's disciple says: The soul can become immortal if it rises to the vision of eternity. When it sees the spiritual, it participates in spiritual life. In this way it becomes eternal. This is a process of development that we went through in the Platonic "Phaidon", also a process of development that we see in the "[[w:Symposium (Plato)\|Symposium]]" [...]

			That is the basic element that runs through the Platonic "Phaidon". Plato says: You can see what you want, but if you only perceive what your eyes, ears and external senses give you, then you cannot come to the spiritual. The super-sensible is what guarantees you eternity of the soul. - He could not have the eternity of the soul proved. The disciples should acquire it, they should become immortal. That is the basic conception of the Platonic method.\|Rudolf Steiner 1901/1902, 12th lecture, [http://www.steiner-klartext.net/pdfs/19020124b-04-01.pdf pdf]}}

			Up to the time of the [[Mystery of Golgotha]], people had an inner knowledge of their true self, albeit without a distinct I-consciousness. The more the body-bound I-consciousness came to the fore, the more this knowledge was lost. What the human being consciously carried as a soul in his earthly life was thus increasingly subject to mortality. This is also indicated in Paul's [[w:Epistle to the Colossians\|Epistle to the Colossians]] ({{B\|Col\|3:3-4 }}). Only through conscious union with the Christ can the soul be saved from sharing the fate of the perishable body. Rudolf Steiner spoke about this in detail in his lectures at the foundation of the Christian Community:

			{{GZ\|Above all, it is a question of your being able to place before your souls in the right way that which is expressed as the mystery of Christianity in the third part of the Letter to the Colossians in the third verse. I would like to call this passage before your souls today in the way it is really meant:

			<poem>You have died, and your I is separated from you and
			united with Christ in the spirit world; but if Christ,
			who bears your I, has himself come before the vision,
			then you too will reveal yourselves with him.</poem>

			A tremendous depth is hidden in this word. It is actually spoken almost for later times than for the time of the apostles. It is actually spoken for our time, so that our time understands it in the right way. For it is so, that in the earthly development of mankind up to about the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, men experienced in their inner being that which could be of their [true] self in this inner being. With what they experienced in their inner being, they experienced at the same time something real of what lived in them in the pre-earthly existence. One could not have said to these people: Become aware of your eternal spiritual-soul core through something! because they simply had states of consciousness in which this eternal spiritual-soul core shone forth. They only needed self-knowledge, just as people today have sense-awareness; and in looking at their self they perceived - without that clear I-consciousness which only developed later - their pre-natal and their after-death. And so they could understand when the initiates spoke to them: Your body dies, but what you experience in your inner being you know does not die with you; it is alive, it remains alive. - Death did not yet have an instrument to kill the human soul.

			But what put the apostle in a different position was that the souls had begun, around the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, to participate in the destinies of the body, and that the souls [since that time] have been in danger of sharing the destinies of the body. In ancient times, the soul did not share the fate of the body. Part of the fate of the body is dying, and the soul had not died with it. That was the very concrete conception in ancient times. This fact was later abstracted because people could not bear it in all its intensity. People did not want to admit to themselves that what had developed between birth and death under the continual pressing forth of the I-consciousness no longer had a share in the eternal core of the soul of man, but had a share in the body and participated in the fate of the body, that it therefore died with it. This was clear above all to the first Christians that the time had come in earthly development when the soul was endowed with the I on earth, but thereby died with the body. That the body dies was not what was said in the first proclamations of the Gospels, but that the soul dies, and that it has already died in the human beings who emerged from the pre-Christian development of the world. It was meant as a real word: You have died. - Not the earlier souls had died, for then they had not yet participated in the fate of the body, but you belong to the fate of the generation of those who have died, that is, your souls participate in the fate of the body; for what you carry here as an I-consciousness through your physical body is only a reflection of your true self. - Before the Mystery of Golgotha, one did not know anything of this true I when one looked into one's own self, but it was not yet separated from the human being. At the time of the Mystery of Golgotha it was separated from the human being, and the human being was lifted up into the spiritual world, and only the reflection of the I remains here below as I-consciousness.

			If we imagine what man experienced before the Mystery of Golgotha, he then had his soul, in which he experienced the pre-birth, and he had the real I, which he did not perceive at first. After the Mystery of Golgotha, man had his soul, but he no longer experienced the pre-birth in it. Since that time his true self has been a spiritual one, that is, it does not belong to the earthly world but to the spiritual world, and he has the reflection of this self through the physical body, the self-consciousness: "... and your self is separated from you and united with Christ in the spirit world."

			He has now descended to earth, so that this spiritual world can penetrate the earthly world through him. But man's true self does not live in the world which can be seen with the eyes and which can be approached with the three ordinary faculties, thinking, feeling and willing; it lives in a world which since that time has penetrated the earthly one, but it is united with the Christ. And one can only know of the true I by knowing at the same time of the Christ; one can only feel the true I when one feels at the same time the essence of the Christ and the essence of the Mystery of Golgotha; the true I can only carry one through when one feels at the same time carried through by that impulse which proceeds from the Mystery of Golgotha.\|344\|117ff}}

	==Literature==		==Literature==

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	[[Anthroposophy]] thus represents the [[trichotomy]], the threefold division of the human being into the three essential members [[spirit]], soul and [[body]]. In the [[w:Catholic Church\|Catholic Church]], the doctrine of trichotomy has been considered heresy since the [[w:Fourth Council of Constantinople\|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 [[w:René Descartes\|Descartes]]' postulated division of the human being into a spatially extended physical [[w:res extensa\|res extensa]] and an inextensible, point-like soul-spirit [[w:res cogitans\|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.		[[Anthroposophy]] thus represents the [[trichotomy]], the threefold division of the human being into the three essential members [[spirit]], soul and [[body]]. In the [[w:Catholic Church\|Catholic Church]], the doctrine of trichotomy has been considered heresy since the [[w:Fourth Council of Constantinople\|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 [[w:René Descartes\|Descartes]]' postulated division of the human being into a spatially extended physical [[w:res extensa\|res extensa]] and an inextensible, point-like soul-spirit [[w:res cogitans\|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]]).		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 [[desire]]s and [[sensation]]s, 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.		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 [[desire]]s and [[sensation]]s, 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.

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	{{See also\|Earth-bound dead}}		{{See also\|Earth-bound dead}}

			== I-consciousness in earthly life and after death ==
			{{See also\|I-consciousness}}

			The memory of the [[physical body]], which arises as a [[thought]] when the body dissolves, enables us to have [[I-consciousness]] after [[death]]. The moment of death is of special significance here, when the physical body is discarded in an instant and thereby a tremendous light of [[consciousness]] flares up, which, however, because it is so bright and dazzling, man is only gradually able to grasp. Here it is only continued on a large scale what was already the case on a small scale during life on earth, for even then the I-consciousness was based on small processes of destruction in the physical body.

			{{GZ\|Self-consciousness, which is summed up in the "I", rises out of consciousness. This arises when the spiritual enters into the human being through the forces of the physical and etheric bodies breaking them down. In the degradation of these bodies the soil is created on which the consciousness unfolds its life. But if the organisation is not to be destroyed, the decomposition must be followed by a reconstruction. Thus, when a degradation has taken place for an experience of consciousness, precisely what has been degraded will be rebuilt. In the perception of this reconstruction lies the experience of self-consciousness. One can follow this process in inner vision. One can feel how the conscious is transformed into the self-conscious by creating from oneself an imitation of the merely conscious. The merely conscious has its image in that part of the organism which has become empty through degradation. It has moved into self-consciousness when the emptiness has been filled again from within. The beingness that is capable of this fulfilment is experienced as 'I'.\|26\|19f}}

			{{GZ\|In death the physical body dissolves into earth matter. Now this is significant. When we sleep, the desire to return to the physical body lives in us constantly - I have already mentioned this several times. This desire dominates us from the moment we fall asleep until the moment we wake up; in a way, we long for the physical body again. If we have discarded it in death, then we cannot long to return to it, we cannot press ourselves back into it. But from this it follows that we cannot develop this desire to return to the physical body. This desire, which we have from the time we fall asleep until we wake up, is now gone. Something else takes the place of this desire. It is replaced by the thought of our physical body that arises in our astral body and especially in our I. We now look at our physical body. It lives in our consciousness. It becomes a content of our consciousness. And the dissolution of our physical body into its elements causes us to carry the consciousness of our physical body through the time that passes between death and a new birth. Through this, however, we know ourselves, as it were, remembering our physical body, as an I the whole time between death and a new birth. Thus the knowledge of the physical body takes the place of the possession of the physical body. A state of consciousness, an appearance of consciousness takes its place. This whole feeling of the physical body, which we have from birth to death, is replaced after death by the consciousness of our physical body. And through this consciousness, that is, through a purely spiritual state, we are further sufficiently connected with life on earth.\|163\|125}}

	==Literature==		==Literature==