Sophia Institute online Waldorf Certificate Program
Sophia Institute online Foundation Studies Program

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What is Anthroposophy? An Introduction.

Course Outline

Lesson 1: Definition and expression of Anthroposophy in our modern world.
Lesson 2: Rudolf Steiner's life and work (Part 1).
Lesson 3: Rudolf Steiner's life and work (Part 2).
Lesson 4: Rudolf Steiner's life and work (Part 3).
Lesson 5: Thinking, feeling and willing. The threefold human being.
Lesson 6: Physical body, etheric body, astral body, and ego.
Lesson 7: The seven life processes and the seven soul types.
Lesson 8: The twelve senses.
Lesson 9: Anthroposophy at work in our modern times. The impulses of Anthroposophy in education, the arts, medicine, agriculture, and social issues.
Lesson 10: The structure of the Anthroposophical Society and the School of Spiritual Science.

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Introductory Courses
Course 1: What is Anthroposophy? An Introduction.
Lesson WAI6

Study Material for Lesson WAI6

The Physical Body, Etheric Body, Astral Body and Ego

A relative concise description of the physical body, etheric body, astral body and ego is given in this excerpt from a lecture by Rudolf Steiner:

The "human being as he confronts us in life, formed by the flowing together of these two streams, we know as a four-membered being. So we shall be able to say when we consider the entire individual: This complete human being consists of the physical body, the etheric body or body of formative forces, the astral body, and the ego.

In that part of man perceptible to the outer senses, which is all that materialistic thought is willing to recognize, we have first, according to spiritual science, only a single member of the human being, the physical body, which man has in common with the mineral world. That part which is subject to physical laws, which man has in common with all environing outer nature, the sum of chemical and physical laws, we designate in spiritual science as the physical body.

Beyond this, however, we recognize higher supersensible members of human nature which are as actual and essential as the outer physical body. As first supersensible member, man has the etheric body, which becomes part of his organism and remains united with the physical body throughout the entire life; only at death does a separation of the two take place. Even this first supersensible member of human nature — in spiritual science called the etheric or life body; we might also call it the glandular body — is no more visible to our outer eyes than are colors to those born blind. But it exists, actually and perceptibly exists, for that which Goethe calls the eyes of the spirit, and it is even more real than the outer physical body, for it is the builder, the moulder, of the physical body. During the entire time between birth and death this etheric or life body continuously combats the disintegration of the physical body. Any kind of mineral product of nature — a crystal, for example — is so constituted that it is permanently held together by its own forces, by the forces of its own substance. That is not the case with the physical body of a living being; here the physical forces work in such a way that they destroy the form of life, as we are able to observe after death, when the physical forces destroy the life-form. That this destruction does not occur during life, that the physical body does not conform to the physical and chemical forces and laws, is due to the fact that the etheric or life-body is ceaselessly combating these forces.

The third member of the human being we recognize in the bearer of all pleasure and suffering, joy and pain, instincts, impulses, passions, desires, and all that surges to and fro as sensations and ideas, even all concepts of what we designate as moral ideals, and so on. That we call the astral body. Do not take exception to this expression. We could also call it the “nerve-body.” Spiritual science sees in it something real, and knows indeed that this body of impulses and desires is not an effect of the physical body, but the cause of this body. It knows that the soul-spiritual part has built up for itself the physical body.

Thus we already have three members of the human being, and as man's highest member we recognize that by means of which he towers above all other beings, by means of which he is the crown of earth's creation: namely, the bearer of the human ego, which gives him in such a mysterious, but also in such a manifest way, the power of self-consciousness.

Man has the physical body in common with his entire visible environment, the etheric body in common with the plants and animals, the astral body with the animals. The fourth member, however, the ego, he has for himself alone; and by means of it he towers above the other visible creatures. We recognize this fourth member as the ego-bearer, as that in human nature by means of which man is able to say “I” to himself, to come to independence."

(The Mystery of the Human Temperaments. A Lecture given by Rudolf Steiner in Karlsruhe, Germany on January 19th, 1909)

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Tasks and Assignments for Lesson WAI6

Please study the provided study material and other sources as needed to complete the assignment. Tasks and assignments for this lesson are listed below (in the submission form).

Please send your completed assignment via the online form or via email.

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