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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The Seven Planetary Seals

Saturn

Sun

Moon

Mars

Mercury

Jupiter

Venus

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Introductory Courses
Course 1: What is Anthroposophy? An Introduction.
Lesson WAI7

Study Material for Lesson WAI7

The Seven Life Processes

Rudolf Steiner first characterized the seven processes prerequisite for life in 1910 as follows: breathing, warming, nourishing, secreting, maintaining, growing, and generating.

Breathing and warming are the preconditions for all further activity. Through breathing, a rhythmical relationship is established between what is inner and outer — a space is opened up within space. This space, at first no more than a kind of pulsating differentiation, is permeated by warmth, thus constituting a kind of content, and establishing a basis for presence.
The nourishing process draws inward all that is necessary to give shape to any formative space. In secreting a process of sifting and sorting takes place — the retaining of what is essential while rejecting the inessential — through which form is given substance. The existence of any entity must be regulated through a process of constant maintaining. This would only keep things as they are, were it not for the process of growing that underlies all development and transformation. Organisms develop, from their juvenile forms into maturity. Finally, replicative, reproductive capacities appear at every level in the organism, generating its own kind.

We must learn to look out on the world with keen, healthy senses, and quickened power of observation, and then give ourselves up to the feeling that arises within us. We should not try to make out, through intellectual speculation, what the things mean, but rather allow the things themselves to tell us. We can call this breathing — living sensitively into a whole range of impressions, often of a contradictory nature. These polarities in reality form the field, in which we orientate ourselves, but also find mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason. It is here we find the first questions - so, breathing, we sense into things. Is there sufficient lightness of touch to allow these questions breathing space, or do we cramp the breath through too many concepts and interpretations, brought too soon, or too quickly? Another word for lightness of touch is tact. In sensing all the polarities and contradictions, we become aware of the whole situation - of possibilities becoming perceptible. As we live into these, we also need to be accommodating others, ensuring there is spaciousness enough for them to come to terms with the issues, so that their doubts or anxieties might be allayed.

Simultaneously we need to be aware of another life-field. We do not merely stand outside a situation and look at it, we have to enter in, and this penetration has to be accompanied by real warmth. In warming to the task, and - for instance - to the child, we establish empathy. We can be too heated in our views, in our enthusiasm, so that others want us ‘to chill out’. Or too cold - and then others might feel as though they are cast out. Distance - which is a form of antipathy - is freezing. We must be mindful that alienation is a common phenomenon in dysfunctional situations. Warmth suffuses, permeates, welcomes. Our dialogues should be such that they melt the ice, establishing a genuine relationship. Warming is also a marriage of the Self with the path. It is love, mutual permeation. Warmth connects. Warmth gives itself, so it involves surrender - absorbing other viewpoints without any prejudice. If we offer our contribution, just putting it there and letting it stand, allowing the other person time to form a relationship with it, then we do not force the matter.

Can we sense that breathing and warming belong together? Breathing opens a space, which warming fills. And because this breathing continues, the warmth-mood does not become a hothouse. When breathing and warming are in the right proportion, the effect is like mild, fresh springtime air.

We have to digest the situation - all the information, every impression - chewing it over, turning it over in our minds. But in order to really grasp what is involved, to find what is nourishing and can then feed change, we have to let issues sink deeply down into our body’s unconscious processes. We have to slow down, pause. If we were cows, we would regurgitate and chew over our cud before swallowing it again. Digestion always proceeds in stages; we have to break down an event or situation into its constituent parts, and slowly work our way through these, in order to fully take it in. Everyone’s digestive processes are different; while some are more carnivorous, really tearing into it, others are ruminants. Others will be nibblers and light grazers. They digest at a different rate; if forced, indigestion occurs. That hard lump in the belly can be fear and dread. We must ensure not only that everyone has a meal-ticket to the same table, but also is allowed to work through the menu in his or her own way. Interest in each other’s meal is important. While we cannot force others to eat what we like, we might try to understand their tastes.

These first processes are prerequisites for the central phase in any developmental relationship: secreting - the secret aspect of digesting. We have to secrete what serves development, and excrete the useless. In dysfunctional relating, we lose the ability to sort things out together. A kind of emotional diarrhea, or else constipation might be the result. Therefore all the information, all one’s experiences are to be examined methodically, sifted, sorted, and given a value. What is the essential point? What can be discarded as useless? Or is it perhaps just inappropriate right now? What is wanted? What is needed? What remains in the sieve of our consciousness? How do the facts become faculties? Does the result of the secreting process relate to our initial purposes or aims? A whole range of possibilities and limitations begins to emerge. Establishing what is actually in the field and what is outside it, may involve some real effort. Being hard on issues, while gentle with people, is important. Antipathy can easily become hostility, and sympathy can become submissiveness. Always to be prepared for surprises: therein lies the miracle of secretion. It is the complete transformation of substances, so that nothing remains as it was. Most change is not incremental but proceeds in leaps. And through all this we need to be aware that the most vital secretion in this process is the Self. Am I now more present? Does the other become more present? Has there been a precipitation of self-image, self-esteem, self-determination? Can we see how specific capacities are secreted out of transformational experiences?

We know that progress cannot occur without effort. What is taking shape has to be borne forward. Maintaining is a conscious task. We need to bear the essential learning towards a future becoming. What has been acknowledged? What has been decided? Who is responsible for carrying it further? Is there sufficient personal and institutional steadfastness? How does each event set the stage for the next? The event in memory, the virtues of forbearance and letting things be - of letting-go and letting-come - are important elements in this. Do we communicate the stages of following-through? We need to keep all things in mind, simultaneously holding them in our consciousness, and ticking off each step as we proceed.

Growing the next phase is a conscientious extension of this bearing-in-mind towards an ever- greater facility. This is a maturing stage. We will be looking for growth, for development, for change. The details of what now is needed must be worked out as we proceed. Where are the reflections, the review points when progress is to be evaluated? What has to change in the face of practical experience in the course of life? Who decides on what changes?

Throughout this, all the other life processes are active, continuously breathing, warming, nourishing, secreting, maintaining, etc., for they sustain and support one another. This is the nature of life, after all - and thus they are to be seen as continuous, interweaving processes rather than sequential ones.

Ultimately, the realization or fulfillment: transformation of ourselves implies a truly creative event where something new is generated, freshly born from all that has gone before. Generating is what results from the work we do: a previously unimagined future blossoms into a new world of possibilities. The decisive moments are not a direct function of life processes; these are gracious events. But they are well prepared-for through increasing awareness of these processes, which are already taking place in us: we are simply considering how we might cooperate with the functional basis of our own lives.

In summary we see the following list of the Life Processes:
Breathing: sensing in the phenomenological polarities
Warming: permeating the experiential space
Nourishing: taking it all in to become ‘response-able’
Secreting: sorting the essential from the inessential
Maintaining: supporting the developmental environment
Growing: cultivating the transformational process
Generating: creating the new as a spontaneous outcome

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The Seven Soul Types

The Seven Soul Types are differentiated into active, extrovert and passive, introvert types with the seventh - the Sun Type - being in harmony concerning the introvert and extrovert, active and passive aspects of the soul. Each type relates to - or one could say - connects with one of the planets and therefore to one of the days of the week, and the color, organ, tree, metal, etc. that relates to the qualities of each planet. Following please find a list of the seven soul types and their qualities:

Saturn or the self-conscious type
Qualities and Challenges: Memory; Poor contact with outside world; Relates to the past; Inner world primary; Active.

Moon or the romantic type
Qualities and Challenges: Daydreaming; Passive; Mirrors outside world; Timeless; Inner world primary.

Jupiter or the dominant type
Qualities and Challenges: Wisdom-filled thinking; Active inner life; Orders chaos outside; Command of the present; Inner and outer worlds balance; Active.

Mercury or the mobile type
Qualities and Challenges: Combinative thinking; Observation, reaction on the spur of the moment; Inner world adapts to outside chaos; Inner and outer worlds balance; Passive.

Mars or the aggressive type
Qualities and Challenges: Speech and action; Active in the world - collisions; Relates to the future; Outer world primary; Active

Venus or the aesthetic type
Qualities and Challenges: Judgment out of sympathies and antipathies; Timeless, reacting to the moment; Outer world primary; Passive.

Sun or Ideal type or the radiant type
Qualities and Challenges: All soul functions in harmony; Activity, passivity in harmony; Inner and outer world in harmony.

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Tasks and Assignments for Lesson WAI7

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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