Star consciousness, Sun consciousness, Moon consciousness

Man in the Light of Occultism, Theosophy, and Philosophy. Lecture 7 of 10

Rudolf Steiner, Christiania [Oslo], Norway, June 9, 1912:

My dear friends,

Yesterday we touched upon one part or aspect of the Mysterium Magnum, and some of you will perhaps have felt a certain difficulty in approaching it from the standpoint that we were obliged to take in order to make the matter clear in detail. But the world is complicated — let us admit that, once for all! And if we really have the desire to rise to the knowledge of higher truths, there is nothing for it but we must be ready to put up with some difficulties on the way.

Let us once more gather up for our consideration what we have to understand by the Mysterium Magnum. We saw on the one hand how it reveals man in his three members — or rather, reveals him as composed of three men each having seven members — so that we can distinguish an upper man, a middle man, and a lower man. As we go through the world and have our experiences, these three men seem to be closely and intimately united; everyday consciousness does not distinguish one from another. That was one aspect of the Mystery. The other consists in this — that the moment man lifts himself out of his ordinary Earth consciousness and attains a consciousness of a higher kind, he is at once faced with the event that I have described in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, where I said how man must then expect his consciousness to be torn into three, his whole being to be rent asunder, so that he is divided into a thinking man, a feeling man, and a willing man. Split up, as it were, into these three soul beings — that is how man feels when he sets out on the path to a higher consciousness.

We have thus on the one hand the three times seven-membered man, and on the other hand, as soon as we take a step beyond ordinary consciousness, we have at once a division of this consciousness into three, which means that every aspirant after occultism who becomes clairvoyant must, as you will know from the book already quoted, strive with all his might to hold together the three members of his consciousness, that he may not fall to pieces in his inner life of soul. It were indeed a tragic destiny for his inner being if that were to happen. While in ordinary life we are continually tempted to bring together the whole nature of man — which is threefold — into a unity and see it as a single and whole human form, for our inner life of soul on the other hand, the moment we step beyond ordinary consciousness we are immediately made aware that we are in reality a threefold being, and are in imminent danger of being torn into three in our inner life of soul.

We shall best understand how matters really are in this connection if we take our start once again in quite an elementary way from certain facts of everyday life which manifest themselves in full clarity to the occult pupil, but are not at all generally observed. For it is indeed so that already in ordinary life the three soul powers of man — or rather, the several qualities of consciousness that correspond to them and that we are quite accustomed to distinguish one from another — do themselves direct our attention to what we learned to understand yesterday as the three-membered human being.

Look at man as he stands before you in everyday life! What has to take place in him for everyday consciousness to come about? For everyday consciousness to be there — the consciousness that you carry around with you as thinking Earth man — impressions from without must work upon your senses. The senses, in so far as they give us information of Earth life, are principally situated in the head, and the content of consciousness is in the main derived from these senses. Of the three men whom we learned to recognize yesterday in the human being, it is especially the head man, the upper man, that receives the daytime impressions — the impressions of ordinary consciousness. They make themselves felt inasmuch as man is able to bring to meet them the instrument of his brain, indeed of his whole head.

A little reflection will quickly show you that man as Earth man cannot possibly be a head man alone. We saw yesterday that for occult consideration man falls into three parts, quite distinct from one another; and for man to stand before us as Earth man, the head must obviously be maintained in life by substances and forces which are continually being sent up into it from the second (middle) man. By means of the circulation of the blood, nourishment must flow for the sustenance of the brain. Then the brain is able to meet the external sense impressions in such a way that by means of the instrument of the brain thoughts and ideas arise in man as a result of these sense impressions. Man experiences in ordinary consciousness what arises in this way through the instrumentality of the brain.

You know also that this ordinary consciousness ceases when man is asleep; the external sense impressions are not there any more, they have no longer any influence upon him. When man is asleep and the external sense impressions no longer work upon the brain that is sustained by the middle man, naturally the influences that work from the middle man upon the upper man, from the second man upon the first — influences, that is, upon the brain — still go on. For in this middle man breathing is maintained, even during sleep, and the other activities of the middle man continue. Blood is carried up into the brain when man is asleep as well as when he is awake — though with a difference; for the way in which the instrument of everyday consciousness is sustained by the middle man is not quite the same in waking and in sleep. The difference finds expression in the fact that during sleep the number of breaths we take is considerably less in proportion than when we are awake, and the quantity of carbonic acid gas in our breath is reduced by about one fourth; the manner and method of nourishment also changes during sleep. When, under certain circumstances, the process of nourishment does continue to work in the same way during sleep, it can have very bad results. This is well known from the fact that after an excellent meal one does not generally sleep well; the brain is disturbed in its rest if a heavy meal is taken immediately before going to sleep. There is, therefore, a difference between the conditions of sleep and waking even in the way the middle man works up into the upper man.

Can we see, in ordinary Earth man, any result of this difference? The fact that man shuts himself off from the external world, and that only inside his body — wholly within what we have described as the form or figure of man — an influence is exerted by the forces of the middle man in the direction of the upper man, has the result that ordinary daytime consciousness is extinguished; so that, although during sleep man still has his brain, he does not perceive the influences that are at work from the middle man upon this brain. The influences go on just the same, but they are only present to what we generally term dream consciousness.

This dream consciousness is very complicated. You will, however, have no difficulty in recognizing that a particular class of dreams is wholly connected with what takes place in the middle man, and owes its origin to the fact that the brain is able not only to perceive the external world when the sense impressions work upon it, but able also in some way to perceive influences proceeding from the middle man, beholding them in the form of dream pictures that make use of all kinds of symbols. If something is wrong with the heart, it can easily happen that one dreams of it in the symbol of a burning hot fire. If all is not in order in the intestines it may happen that one dreams of snakes. The character and condition of man's inside will often determine the dream, which can then be an indication of what is going on there. Whoever will take the trouble to observe this remarkable connection and study it with the help of external science will come to the conclusion that irregularities in the middle man are perceived symbolically in dream pictures.

There are also, as you will know, people who have much more far-reaching experiences with dreams of this kind, people who are able to perceive in definite symbolic pictures the oncoming of certain illnesses. A clear connection can frequently be traced in such cases between dream pictures of a symbolic character recurring with absolute regularity and a disease of the lungs or heart or stomach which makes its appearance later.

As it is possible very often to establish, by means of accurate examination on awaking, that when one has dreamed of a burning stove one's heart is beating more quickly than usual,  similarly it is possible for diseases of the lung or disorders of the stomach — in fact, for all manner of illnesses that have not yet shown themselves outwardly — to announce their approach symbolically in dream pictures. The human brain, or rather the human soul, is not sensitive only to external impressions that are communicated through the senses but also to the bodily inside — with this difference, that in the latter case it does not receive correct and true ideas but builds up for itself imaginary and symbolical ideas of what is going forward in the middle man.

The explanation that has been given enables us to recognize the fact that in dreaming man perceives himself. We can truly say: In my dreams I behold myself. We are not, however, aware of this during the dream. We perceive our heart, but we do not know that it is our heart we perceive. We perceive instead a burning hot fire — that is to say, an object outside ourselves. Something that is inside us is projected outwards and stands there, outside, for our perception. In dream consciousness, therefore, man has to do with the interior of his own body; this means that in dream consciousness he is divided, he is rent asunder. As you know, in the ordinary run of everyday life we concern ourselves as a rule only with waking and sleeping.

Now, it is not only conditions of the middle man that are perceived in dreams, but also conditions of the upper man, the head man. There are, to begin with, the dreams that owe their origin to some disorder in the head itself. Through what is perceived as a disorder in the head, the brain — or I, should rather say the soul — perceives itself by means of the instrument of the brain. The upper man perceives himself. Such dreams are always extraordinarily characteristic. You have a dream and wake up with a pain in your head; the dream is in this case a symbolical and fanciful reflection of the headache. As a rule such dreams will take the form that they lead you out into vast distances, or you find yourself in a great vault or cave. Especially characteristic of these headache dreams is the experience of an immense vault above one. Something is creeping or crawling in the roof of the cave, or perhaps spiders' webs or some dirt or dust is clinging to it. Or you may dream you are in a great arched palace! In such cases you perceive yourself as upper man — but again you transpose what you perceive into the world outside you. You go out of yourself and place outside you what is in you, in your head. So here once more we have a kind of division of the human being; he is, as it were, split asunder, he loses himself, extinguishes himself.

The conditions I have been describing are dream conditions, and they show us quite clearly that in dream consciousness man falls asunder; his ego consciousness, his unity of consciousness, does not remain intact, and his dream is in reality always a reflection, a symbolical reflection of what is going on inside his bodily nature.

For the disciple of occultism it is by no means merely a question of passing from ordinary waking consciousness to dream consciousness — there would be nothing unusual in that, No, he must make the transition to a totally different condition of consciousness. By practising the exercises outlined in earlier lectures of this course — through suppression, that is, of the intellect, the will, and the memory — he has to get free of himself and attain to a completely new consciousness.

Although, as I have said, this new consciousness is not a dream consciousness, yet if one has no knowledge of clairvoyant consciousness, dream consciousness can help one to come to a fairly good understanding of it. For we can approach it in the following manner. Suppose we ask ourselves: What is it within him that man perceives in dream? then we must answer: Whatever is painful or out of order. A moment's reflection will show us that ordinary normal conditions are not perceived by dream consciousness. If a man is perfectly healthy in his upper and middle man, if everything is in order there, then he sleeps a normal healthy sleep; one cannot in ordinary circumstances — observe, I say advisedly, in ordinary circumstances — expect that his peaceful sleep will be forcibly interrupted with dreams.
Now, the path that has to be taken by clairvoyant consciousness is one that leads through stages and conditions that are similar to those of dream consciousness. Only, these stages are attained instead by occult training, and it is actually the case that in clairvoyance man does not merely come to a knowledge of the ordinary external painful conditions of his inside, but succeeds in perceiving also its normal conditions, which usually disappear from our consciousness in peaceful sleep. The pupil in clairvoyance comes to a knowledge of these conditions. In other words, he learns to know his brain, his head man, by learning to perceive it inwardly. Similarly, he comes to know his middle man. In the same way as in certain dreams man perceives when asleep his head and middle man, so has the pupil in clairvoyance to attain in the course of his training to a knowledge of his middle and upper man.

Let us now give our special attention to this middle man. If you consider a little, you will have to acknowledge that you find nothing in the middle man that can be immediately and specifically referred to the external world. In the head we have the eyes and the other sense organs that are in direct connection with the external world. Through the sense of touch the middle man has of course the possibility of coming into connection with the external world, for the sense of touch is, as we know, extended over the whole skin. The perception of the external world by the middle man is nevertheless slight and insignificant in comparison with the knowledge of the external world that we acquire through the head man. Even the perception the middle man receives of warmth affects in the main only his own inner experience, his inner sense of well-being. The middle man seems therefore to be a self-enclosed entity, with inner processes that are of very great importance for himself but that have little bearing on his relationship to the outside world.

If, however, we go on to enquire whether this inner man has not perhaps some connection with the outside world that is not so obvious to ordinary consciousness, we shall discover that this inner, middle man has, after all, a connection of no little importance with the outside world. Everything depends on the fact that the middle man is adapted to Earth conditions. He has to breathe the air of the Earth, he needs for his nourishment the substances that are produced on the Earth. From this point of view the middle man and the Earth belong together. Were the substances that are necessary to maintain his life not present in his earthly surroundings, then this middle man could not be as he is. So you see, we are obliged to look upon the middle man as part and parcel of what Earth existence gives to us; we must reckon him as belonging definitely to our existence here on Earth.

Nor is this all. For it is not a question only of what the Earth can give to man. The Earth could be there for a long time, and yet no middle man come into being! If the Sun did not come to the help of the Earth and cause to flourish and ripen upon it what the middle man needs, then the middle man could not exist. This middle man takes the substances he requires for nourishment, and these substances — apart from the air, which is of course essential for his sustenance in life — all these substances that nourish him are dependent on the working of the Sun upon the Earth. Whatever man receives into himself as nourishment is produced by the Sun in man's earthly environment. This means, in effect, that when we study the middle man we have to take account not only of a direct influence of the Earth upon man but also of an indirect influence of the Sun. Were it not for the physical sunlight that illumines the Earth, the middle man would not exist. All that is to be found in the middle man has come into him through the influence of the light of the Sun upon the Earth.

This remarkable fact — that the middle man is a product of the light of the Sun — comes to expression in the following way. When the pupil in occultism becomes clairvoyant, when he develops, that is, a clairvoyant consciousness, then, whereas in dreams pictures arise which are the expression of some disorder in man's inner organs, in the case of clairvoyant consciousness the pictures the pupil receives express what the Sun is doing in the middle man, they show the regular normal activity of the Sun in the middle man. When the pupil becomes clairvoyant and a perception arises in him of his own inner being in its healthy normal state, then he has before him the flowing light; all around him he sees the flowing light. As the dreamer is surrounded by pictures of disorders in his inner man, so is the aspirant after occultism surrounded by phenomena of flowing light. He has, to begin with, this perception of the activity of the Sun in his own inner being.

Compare for a moment ordinary external consciousness with this special consciousness that arises in the clairvoyant. When man, as upper man, directs his gaze to some object of Earth, he looks at it — it is, as you know, generally speaking, the sense of sight that predominates in perception — by means of the sunlight that is thrown back from the external Earth. External, everyday consciousness perceives what the external sunlight does to the things of the Earth; But now it is what the sunlight does to him, what it does in making possible his own middle man, how it penetrates the middle man with its activity — this it is that reveals itself to man as flowing light when he becomes a pupil of occultism. He beholds the Sun in himself, in the very same way that he sees the Sun outside him from the time when the day begins for as long as it lasts And as he sees objects around him through the fact that sunlight is thrown back from them, so now he sees, when he has reached a certain stage of clairvoyance, something that is of the nature of Sun reflected back from his own inner being. It is the form of the middle man that shows itself thus illuminated. That is, then, one experience.

If you were to go back into olden times and study what was done and experienced in the ancient Mystery schools, you would find that the aspirant after occultism learned to perceive the Sun in its reflection in his own middle man — learned, that is, to perceive the workings of the Sun that continue even when man is asleep, and that escape him during waking consciousness because his attention is entirely claimed by the external consciousness. Man as a Sun being — that was what the pupil came to perceive at a particular stage of initiation in the Mysteries. He learned to recognize the Sun being in himself, in his very own being, he learned how the Sun works not only outwardly in the objects, in the reflected light, but works also within the bodily form of man.

But now the pupil who is beginning to be clairvoyant has to learn something else. He has to discover something that is comparable with the dreams of the brain, those dreams that reflect back disordered conditions of the brain, where, as I told you, in typical cases man always perceives symbols, imagining, for example, that he is in a cave or a palace, having over him a great vaulted roof into which he is gazing. When the pupil in occultism is led on to perceive not only the conditions of his middle man but also the conditions of his upper man (in so far as the latter has form and figure), the conditions of the interior of the head man, then he never has the same experience as he has in his perception of the middle man. Instead he has now before him — I am simply relating the facts — what appears like a perfectly well-ordered and regular extension of the dream that is connected with excitement or irritation of the brain. Only, it is experienced in full consciousness. What man perceives when he has closed all his sense organs and has no external perception, when he directs all his attention in clairvoyant consciousness upon himself inwardly — upon the upper man, the brain man — is in very fact the starry heavens. He beholds the great vault of heaven with the stars.

It was a great moment in the life of the pupil, especially in the more ancient Mysteries — we shall hear later to what extent it underwent change in the later Mysteries — it was a great moment when the pupil perceived his own inner being, in so far as this inner being comes to expression in the human form. When he saw the upper man, it was as though he saw the heavens with all the shining stars; he looked out into the wide world — in spite of the fact that he had no physical senses open. The picture of the starry heavens stood before him.
And then came the greatest moment of all, when this pupil of occultism observed not what is, so to speak, on the upper surface of his head, but when he looked down from the upper man, from the head, to the middle man, when he perceived, without opening any of his senses, the lower surface of his brain and from it saw the middle man irradiated with light. Himself in total darkness (for his senses were closed, and to outward appearance he was like a man who is asleep), he perceived, looking downward inwardly, the Sun in the night, in the midst of the dark surface of the heavens. This is what was called in the ancient Mysteries “seeing the Sun at midnight” — seeing, that is, the flowing sunlight within the stars, whose influence in relation to the Sun seems so small. These experiences were important milestones in the life of every aspirant after occultism.

Having come so far, the pupil was then able to apprehend a truth of great significance. He could say: “In the same way as I perceive through the medium of myself, by beholding my middle man, the flowing sunlight, the true and real working of the Sun, so now can I perceive through the medium of the upper man the heavenly spaces with their stars. That I can see the stars, that all is not wrapped in darkness, is due to the fact that the brain is adapted to the stars, as the middle man is adapted to the Sun.” Thus did the pupil come to the knowledge that even as the middle man is sustained by the Sun, even as its whole being depends on the Sun and belongs to the Sun, so does the upper man, the brain man, belong to the whole cosmos and its stars.

When the pupil had had this experience, then he could go to those who possessed only a day-consciousness but who, nevertheless, felt an impulse — springing from a deep inner need, from a longing of their soul — to find relationship with a consciousness that should reach out beyond Earth man. In other words, the pupil in occultism could go to men who were religiously inclined, who were able in some way to feel their connection with the great cosmos, and say to them: “Man as he stands on Earth is not merely a being belonging to this Earth, he is a being that belongs in part, namely in breast and trunk, to the Sun—and belongs also, as head man, to the whole of cosmic space.” This was what the pupil could tell the religious man, imparting it to him as information; and in the religious man it turned into prayer, into worship.

The disciples of occultism came in this way among men as founders of religion, and according as was the relation of the people to whom they came to the one or other part of man's nature, so they were able to speak more of the one or the other. To people who were more particularly disposed to experience a certain happiness in the sense of well-being in the inner man — people, that is, who were inclined to make their whole mood in life depend on the bodily well-being of the middle man — to such the pupils in occultism could come as founders of religion and say: “Your sense of well-being depends on the Sun.” These people then became, through the influence of the pupils in occultism, followers of a Sun religion. You may be quite sure that all over the Earth, wherever lived people of the kind I have described, for whom it mattered above all that they should have their attention drawn to the source of their sense of well-being, there a Sun worship arose.

To think that men just happened to become Sun worshippers without any deeper reason for it is a mere flight of imagination on the part of all obstinately materialistic science. When the scholars of our time speak of how this or that section of mankind came to be Sun worshippers, they are really only demonstrating their own powers of imagination and fantasy. The materialists of today are quite mistaken when they accuse theosophists of an inclination to be fantastic, implying that they themselves are the true realists. Taken as a whole, materialism is certainly not lacking in a tendency to be fantastic, as we can see in this case when it sets out to explain how certain peoples became Sun worshippers. For it builds up an imaginary picture and comes to the conclusion that through the working of certain external conditions or circumstances the people, moved by some unaccountable impulse, hit upon the idea of worshipping the Sun; whereas the truth of the matter is that the initiates, the aspirants after occultism, knew in the case of certain peoples: — We have here a people who manifest especially the virtue of courage, a people in whom one can see a striking development of the middle man; we must teach this people how in the supersensible one can behold the fact that this middle-man is a product of the working of the Sun. And the initiates in occultism then led such people, in whom the middle man was of greatest importance, away from the mere sense of well-being, the mere living within themselves, to prayer and worship, teaching them to look up in religious devotion to the Being who was the source of this middle man. Thus did they guide these people to a worship of the Sun.

This one example can serve to show the tendency there is in materialism to build up fantastic theories. Other striking examples could be brought forward. We have, for instance, had perforce to read — for they have been thrust under our very eyes — all manner of descriptions of our Munich building. Through an indiscretion it came about that the project found its way into the newspapers, and the materialistic man of today has formed his own idea of what the building is and what its purpose. A profusion of fantastic information has been spread abroad, quite enough to demonstrate that fantasy is a quality of present-day thinking. When it is a matter of speaking or writing about things of which he knows absolutely nothing, the man of today does not hesitate to have recourse to the wildest fancies in order to construct an explanation. This is so in ordinary everyday life, and it is so too in the realm of science. The majority of the explanations put forward by the scholars of today are sheer fantasy; and the attempt to describe or account for Sun worship is certainly no exception.

Other peoples on the Earth had less inclination to develop the middle man and were more disposed to think, to have ideas — that is, to develop the upper man; and to them another kind of appeal had to be made. The occultists who went forth into the world as founders of religion turned the attention of these peoples to seek the source of the instrument whereby they were able to produce thoughts, to live in thoughts and in ideas. The occultists said to them: “If you want to have knowledge of the source of your life of thought, then — since you are not able to gaze into the supersensible worlds of the heavens (of course the initiates did not say this, I am adding it) — you will have an external reflection of this source if you remain awake during the night and look up in prayer to the star-strewn heavens.”

A genuine Star worship — a worship, one can also say, of the Night, for the truth was often clothed in such a way that instead of speaking of the starry heavens the night was substituted — such a Star or Night Worship prevailed among peoples who were more given to thought. Peoples of ancient times who were fond of thinking and pondering and delving deep into things — for them religions were founded that pointed them to the source of the instrument of their thinking — the source, that is, of their upper man. And many of the names borne by the most ancient Gods of certain peoples have to be rendered in modern languages by the word “Night.” The Night was the object of worship, the Night in all the mystery of her appearance as the Mother of the Stars, who brings them forth that they may shine in the heavens. For the initiates in occultism knew that the instrument of the brain is really and truly a product of the star-strewn Night.

Similarly, we will often find that the people who were Sun worshippers were not only guided to look to the Sun; but as man was led from the stars to the Mother Night and many old-time words for the ancient Gods are to be interpreted as meaning Night, so in the case of the Sun man's attention was drawn to the fact that the Sun gave rise to the Day, that the Sun made Day. In consequence, many words used for Sun worship among peoples who specifically worshipped the Sun as the highest divine Power are to be translated with the word “Day.”

Speaking generally, we can say that where peoples felt themselves strong and courageous and ready for war, we find them to be in the main Sun worshippers or Day worshippers, because their initiates directed them to the Sun, to the Day, for their object of worship. The more thoughtful and enquiring peoples, on the other hand, are Night or Star worshippers, because they have been guided that way by their initiates.

We come, finally, to still another kind of people. For there are peoples who do not experience in so characteristic a manner the sharp division between Day consciousness and Night consciousness. When we go back into olden times, we find many peoples who had preserved middle or in-between conditions of consciousness, who did not merely alternate in their life between Day and Night, between consciousness and unconsciousness, but who had an old clairvoyant consciousness which came about through the merging of Day with Night consciousness into a kind of semi-consciousness. We find therefore this third condition of consciousness.

These people also divined through their condition of consciousness a connection between man and something outside the Earth. How was it they came to have such a feeling? To answer this question we must realize that they were possessed of a peculiar faculty or quality in the very form of their bodily nature. They were, as we have said, endowed — as in olden times almost all men were endowed, the world over — with an ancient clairvoyance, and they had the peculiar faculty of being able to perceive in certain conditions of consciousness their “symmetry” man — not, however, as symmetry man, but they could perceive this middle man in its working upon the upper man.

If you want to form a picture of what took place in such a person, then you must imagine a picture of the middle man in the brain. In ordinary normal life on Earth, the sense impressions from without work upon the brain, and the brain throws back pictures; it places, that is, its own being in the way and holds up the pictures that come from outside. Our idea of the world comes about in this way as a reflected picture thrown back by the brain. For that is what all ideas of the outside world really are — pictures thrown back, reflected by the brain. When you look at the world, then the outer impressions pass through the eye up to a certain place in the brain and are there caught. That an idea can come into being is due to the fact that the impressions are caught up at a certain point, not allowed to pass through — not, at all events, in their entirety — but reflected back. And when a man becomes clairvoyant, it is no longer external objects alone that make impressions on the brain — impressions are made from the middle man, which can then be reflected back by the brain.

What I have just now described — the impressions made by the middle man upon the brain and the reflection by the latter of these impressions — is still very far from the process I described as taking place in the true aspirant after occultism. The latter has direct and immediate perception of his middle man, he does not merely perceive it through the brain. He looks into himself and sees there what belongs to the Sun, sees too in his brain what belongs to the Stars. The clairvoyant state, on the other hand, of which we are now speaking, where the processes inside man, the Sun nature in the middle man, are reflected by the brain — even as the outer impressions that come through the senses are reflected by the brain — is characteristic of the old clairvoyance of men in ancient time. For them, perception took place by way of the middle man. They did not, to begin with, perceive external things at all. They perceived only the Sun-like that was present in themselves and they perceived it in reflection, for it was held up by the brain and they perceived it as an idea of the Sun nature within them.

There have been peoples of this character who in certain naturally clairvoyant states caught hold, as it were, with their brain of the Sun nature within them and made of the perception an idea.
How did it then appear to them? It was projected outwards, but was not perceived like the ideas to which we are accustomed, and which have their source in the world outside; it appeared like inner sunlight — yet as coming from without. And when investigation was made into the source of the appearance, when the aspirants after occultism set out to learn how it was that they found themselves in such conditions, then they were made clearly aware of the Sun nature that is in the middle man. Man has this Sun-like element in him, because he is himself a Sun being. That which manifests in the instrument of the brain is connected with the fact that man is a star being, that he is in very truth formed and shaped from out of the whole of cosmic space. What he now perceives, however, has relation to the fact that the Earth has revolving around it the Moon, and that the Moon in her revolution around the Earth has a powerful influence on the being of man.

In those olden times man was so constituted that the Moon had a particularly strong influence on his brain. The consequence was that the ancient clairvoyance was very dependent on the phases of the Moon, and showed itself for the most part in connections that found expression in the phases of the Moon. For a space of fourteen days clairvoyance increased, and then for fourteen days it decreased again. Its influence was thus greatest in the middle of such a Moon period.
There were times when men knew: We are Sun beings. They knew it because they could perceive the Sun through the inner idea formed in the brain. But this came about through the influence of the Moon. The old clairvoyance often worked in the way I indicated. Man gave himself up throughout the whole twenty-eight days to the waxing and waning of the Moon. There were days when the influence of the Moon was particularly strong and when in consequence clairvoyance was present in everyone; inner clairvoyant consciousness made itself felt in all men. When initiates in occultism came to people of this kind with the mission of determining for them the character of their religion, then for the same reason that other peoples were made Sun (or Day) worshippers and Star (or Night) worshippers, the initiates made this third kind of people Moon worshippers. Hence the worship of the Moon that is to be found among many ancient peoples.

Moses learned to know this Moon worship in its original form from the Egyptian initiates, and was himself one of the greatest of those who made Moon worship into the religion of a people. For Moses made it the religion of the ancient Hebrew people. The Jahve worship of the ancient Hebrew people is a highly spiritualized Moon worship. And it enabled the Hebrew people to retain into later times the consciousness that man is connected with what is outside and beyond the Earth, that his being is not confined to the Earth.

Now, it was so with the Moon worshippers of very olden times, as it was also with the Sun and Star worshippers, that there was very little knowledge among the people themselves of how stars, Sun, and Moon appeared to the clairvoyant — spiritualized, that is, and not at all as objects that are seen with external organs. The people of olden times would not have understood if they had been told: “Pray to what is the source and origin of your middle man, but do not imagine it like the picture of the Sun that can be perceived with the senses; think of it as something supersensible that is behind the Sun.” Just as little would the star worshippers have understood if they had been told that the organ of their thinking had its origin in the far cosmic spaces, but that they were not to imagine that this meant: in the picture of the starry heavens as it can be perceived with the outer eye; they were to think rather of the invisible that is behind the starry heavens, the multitude of spiritual beings that are in the stars. This was known to the initiates, but it could not be said to the Sun and star worshippers.

Similarly it would have been of no use at all to say to the Moon peoples: “Imagine to yourselves an invisible being who has as it were his outer body in the Moon.” It was, however, possible to say something else, and this is what Moses did say to the Hebrew people. It could not have been said to the more ancient Moon worshippers, but only to the ancient Hebrew people. For Moses did not direct his people to the visible Moon, but to the being in whom lay the origin of the ancient clairvoyance of all peoples. This clairvoyance had been given to man — as a kind of compensation, when he was placed into the condition of having to alternate with his consciousness between day and night; and it brought him a knowledge of the world that resembled what comes to expression in the reflected rays of the Sun. The reflection of the Sun could only be something external for man, could only give him an Earth consciousness — a day consciousness, and a night consciousness that at most was aware only of the external visible world of stars — and so a clairvoyance was given to the man of ancient times as a compensation; it was given him through the possibility of alternation in this day and night consciousness — an old clairvoyance that is derived from the spiritual being of the Moon and has also relation, locally, with the Moon.

When in the course of evolution the time came for this clairvoyant consciousness gradually to grow dim and fade away, a more spiritual substitute was created for the ancient Hebrew folk in the invisible Moon being Jahve or Jehovah of whom Moses taught, and who, he said, must never be confused with anything that can be seen outwardly nor with any picture that is made of Him for outward vision. Therefore did Moses categorically forbid the Hebrew people to regard any picture in the outside world as a picture of Jahve; he forbade them any picture or image whatsoever that might represent something which is not a product of the outside world, forbade them also to make any picture taken from the outside world, of the invisible, supersensible God.

The Jahve religion is thus seen to stand in a remarkable relation to a Moon religion that was given by the old clairvoyance in the very earliest days of mankind. For the sake of those to whom it is of interest, we may here mention that it was H. P. Blavatsky who, on absolutely authentic grounds, pointed out that the Jahve religion was in a certain respect a kind of revival of the old Moon religion. H. P. Blavatsky, however, did not come so far in her research as we are able to do today; consequently the connection that has here been set forth was not fully clear to her. The knowledge that the Jahve religion is a Moon religion rather suggested to H. P. Blavatsky that this old Jahve religion was a little less worthy on that account. This is, however, not the case at all. When one knows that the Jahve religion of the ancient Hebrew people has its origin in the old clairvoyance and preserves, so to speak, the memory of the old clairvoyance, then one is able to perceive and appreciate the sacredness and depth of this Jahve religion.

Our study has brought us to an understanding of certain important experiences of the aspirants after occultism, who in a higher consciousness are able to learn by real experience that man belongs in his being to the entire world, perceiving how the middle man is in reality a Sun man, and the upper man a star man. And we have also seen what occultism is able to recognize in the external religions, namely, that they were in great measure given to mankind as very ancient religions and even as ancient theosophies. For when the man of olden times developed a need for worship and prayer, in that moment something of the old clairvoyance began to stir within him, so that he had no need merely to believe what the old initiates told him but was able to comprehend it even though he could not actually see it. The ancient religions are thus to a great extent theosophies. And the theosophical teachings that were given by the occultists were determined according to the section of the Earth which that particular people was destined to inhabit.

As you will have seen, we have for the moment had to leave out the lower man — the third seven-membered man. We shall return to it, and we shall find in what a remarkable manner the “Great Mystery” was brought before the pupil, and how the pupil undergoes still further development by means of the initiation which alone can lead to an understanding of the true nature of man.

Source: http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19120609p01.html

The Human Form: the upper, middle, and lower man

UPPER MAN
1	Upright Position	^
2	Direction forwards	_
3	Symmetry	`
4	Upper Arm	f
5	Elbow	g
6	Lower Arm	h
7	Hands	i
MIDDLE MAN
1	Head and Feet, Twins	`
2	Breast enclosure	a
3	Interior, Heart	b
4	The second Interior part of man	c
5	Balance	d
6	Organs of Reproduction	e
7	Thigh	f
LOWER MAN
7	Feet	i
6	Leg	h
5	Knee	g
4	Thigh	f
3	Organs of Reproduction	e
2	Balance	d
1	Kidneys, Solar Plexus	c

Man in the Light of Occultism, Theosophy, and Philosophy. Lecture 6 of 10
Rudolf Steiner, Christiania [Oslo], Norway, June 8, 1912:

My dear friends,

It will perhaps surprise you that in the course of these lectures we should devote so much time to considering the nature of what is after all the external part of man, his form and figure. If, however, you want to penetrate further into the knowledge which true occultism can give, you cannot omit from your study of man the aspects with which we are now dealing. Call to mind how often in the course of your studies you have met with the thought that in his outer form and figure man is a temple of the Godhead. So he is, and this is what we have all the time in mind while we study as it were the building stones of the temple, as we began to do yesterday and shall still continue doing for a little while. We shall see that when we take the trouble to search in the human figure for the hidden secrets of the spiritual world, we arrive in this way at knowledge that is of the utmost importance for the human heart and soul.

Yesterday we studied man in his twelve members. Now, these twelve members appear at first sight to form a unity. They are, however, in reality not a unity, and it is important to recognize this. For, the moment we are awake to the fact that the external unity of the human form is only apparent, the moment we realize that the whole form and figure of the body, as we see it and can have knowledge of it here in earthly life, is but a semblance — in that moment we can also begin to understand how it is with the I, the center point of man's consciousness.

We saw yesterday how this ego of ours is snatched away from us every night, and how it can therefore only be for man a picture; for no reality could be torn from him in this way in the night. Every night something of man's ego (which otherwise goes with him through the whole of Earth life) is withdrawn; and the divine powers have so ordered things that precisely what man loses in this way is given to him in the external body; it is attached instead to the body. This is how it comes about that man is able to look upon his body as a unity. In reality it is no unity. In reality it is composed of members that are built up together in a most complicated manner.

We are here approaching one of the most important mysteries of man's being, that will lead us to delve deep into the primal secrets of existence.

One of these mysteries we touch already in the external world; and it will be important for us also to take the road from without inwards in order to receive out of this consciousness the idea that has no object. Man as we see him in the world consists of three parts, and we are dealing all the time with an appearance if we simply treat these three parts of man as a unity. For man's form, which yesterday we saw to be composed of twelve members, is really divided into three, and we must learn to understand how man has in him, as it were, three men. Let us now place before us these three men in succession.

Yesterday, when we recounted in order the members of man's form, we began with what we called his upright posture; and then we went on to speak of how man is orientated in a forward direction — to express it better, for the act of speaking. We have, therefore, as second member the forward direction, the direction for speaking. The third, you will remember, was symmetry. Taking for the moment just these three members of man's nature, we have there one part of the human form as we behold it externally in space.

Let us now see whether we cannot, by following a purely external perception, find something else to which we can apply the word symmetry — and which in its external appearance offers to a careful observation many interesting problems. By symmetry we mean, of course, that man's form shows a two-sided development. This quality of symmetry is present in all the organs of the head, but as we go downwards from the head we come to a part of the human figure where it is even more particularly in evidence. You will remember that we gave to “upright posture” the name of Aries and the Sign ^, and to “orientation to the formation of sound” the name Bull (Taurus) and the Sign _, and to “symmetry” the name Twins (Gemini) and the Sign `. These are the names given to the first three members of man's organism. Then we come to something which seems to follow as a kind of continuation of the head and manifests in quite a special way the property of symmetry. I mean the arms and hands. It is to these that I will ask you now to give your consideration.

Man's arms and hands attach themselves to the head part of man in such a way as to prefigure in a striking manner what we have in the lower man as thigh, leg, and foot. If you consider the animal kingdom you will at once be struck with the similarity of these last organs with those which in man, as arms and hands, are different. You will be able to make very important observations by devoting careful study and thought to the difference there is in man between arms and legs, and between hands and feet, in contradistinction to those animals that stand nearest to him.

Let us now take the names we employed yesterday for the legs and feet and apply them in a corresponding manner to the arms and hands, which are joined on to the head and which — as quite a superficial observation will enable you to see — have spiritual connection with the whole thought world of the head. You will not find it unreasonable or inappropriate if we now apply to these arms and hands that are connected with the head the same terms that we used yesterday for legs and feet, and name this symmetrically extended continuation of the head in the following way. First we have, as fourth member, the upper arm, and to this we give the same designation as we gave to the thigh — Archer (Sagittarius)

f.We note a difference between the elbow and the knee, there being no development in the elbow to correspond to the kneecap, but in spite of this the similarity is sufficiently obvious. And so we give to the elbow the sign and the name we gave to the knee, — Goat (Capricorn) and g. We allot to the lower arm the same sign as we took for the leg, the sign of Waterman (Aquarius) h, and the hands are denoted with the same sign as we gave to the feet — the sign of Fishes (Pisces) i. And now if we take these members of man's nature all together, by themselves, comprising as they do the whole head and arms, we have a seven-membered man. That is an important perception. When you reflect on how this complete sevenfold man receives nourishment — the nourishment is of course brought up to it from the rest of man — then the idea will not be utterly grotesque if we imagine for a moment that this sevenfold man might receive its nourishment from without, like a plant which finds nourishment prepared for it in the world outside, and merely receives it and works upon it. We could quite well imagine that the same thing happened for this sevenfold man, and that it did not get whatever it needs for the maintenance of the brain and so forth from the other parts of man's nature, but instead directly from the external world. This sevenfold man would then be directly and immediately linked with the external world.

It is essential for the occultist to come to an understanding of this sevenfold man if he is to raise himself in a right way to the level of a higher consciousness. What we have just been describing must at some time find place in his mind — this possibility of a sevenfold man, from which one thinks away all the remaining parts and members of the present-day human being.

Let us now go on to consider the second man. We shall best understand the second man if we pursue the following train of thought. The essential organ of the head is, as you will easily see, the brain. Now, man has something else in his form that is similar to the brain. It differs from the brain of the head in what is apparently a detail, but really a point of great significance. Man has actually something like a second brain: it is the brain of the spinal cord, which is enclosed in the spinal column.

I will ask you to dwell for a little on this thought. Try to imagine that the spinal cord is nothing else than a strange and peculiar brain. It is quite possible to feel it as a brain that has been elongated and has become like a slender staff — just as we can also see the brain as an inflated spinal cord. It will help us here if we picture man assuming for the moment the same posture in the world as the animals still have today — that is to say, with his spine not vertically upright but parallel with the surface of the Earth. Then you would have a brain that has simply been pulled out into the form of a staff. And now observe the human being as you would then have him before you, parallel with the surface of the Earth, his back lying horizontal in space. In this position the spinal cord can very well pass for a kind of brain. And now we note something very strange and remarkable — namely, that we have again appendages right and left, though of course exceedingly different from the arm appendages we had before. But imagine a condition where man had not developed symmetry as far as he has today (when the two arms are very nearly alike) but here one arm had experienced a peculiar development of its own which distinguished it very clearly from the other. In the present day there is even a tendency — and it is a foolish one! — to discard righthandedness and cultivate an equal left- and right-handedness. But imagine now that the left arm were on the contrary to grow into a completely different organ; then it will not seem to you impossible or absurd to refer in the way we shall now do to two other appendages.

Consider the human being in this position, with his spinal column above, lying horizontal, and joined on to it on one side the head and on the other side the feet. You have there before you two appendages, as you had previously in the arms. You can regard the head as one arm and the two feet together as the other arm. At first hearing, it sounds very strange: but when you reflect that in the lower animal kingdom forms occur which are not very different from what I have described, the idea will perhaps not strike you as so grotesque after all.

As a matter of fact, this idea must find place in our mind, if we are to have understanding of the whole being who is in truth a three-membered being. Then we can actually say that we have here appendages — only unsymmetrically formed; twins, shall we say, that are not alike. In effect, we come to perceive that we have before us something like a repetition of the first sevenfold man.

Let us begin then by assigning to this horizontal man the two dissimilar Twins. For we can again call the two side appendages Twins (Gemini). In the horizontal man, head on the one side and feet on the other belong together; they are arranged in a mutual relationship, and we denote them in this connection with the name Twins (Gemini).

And now we must go back to what we have seen to be a brain. Remember what we said before. We only get the picture of man at which we're now looking by turning him. We have before us the middle part of man, the body as such. This we must regard as a world enclosed in itself, and moreover as a world which we are thinking of as containing within it the second man. Thus we have the covering-in or the enclosing of this second man, and within, above, a kind of brain. The enclosure — the shroud or encasement, as it were — we designate as Crab (Cancer). The whole enclosure of the breast takes on quite a new character through the fact that we have turned man in order to obtain a correct picture of it.

Now let us see what members we can find within this enclosure of the breast. We have only to follow the members as we took them in their sequence yesterday, as far as the place where it ceases to be possible still to reckon them as part of the breast or middle man. There is no question about the whole interior, to which we gave the name of Lion (Leo)

b and which is concentrated in the heart. This is the third member. Then you will remember we saw how man is really divided within into two members, an inner content that is enclosed by Crab (Cancer) a and an inner content that is enclosed by the wall of the abdomen. Anatomically man's body is quite exactly divided off by the diaphragm into an upper and a lower cavity; what is below the diaphragm has also to be reckoned in with the middle man. We call it by the name Virgin (Virgo) with the sign c.

We come then to the place of balance, where man begins to be no longer shut away within his own form but to open himself to the world outside. When he uses his legs he is making contact with what is outside him. The place of balance is the boundary where the entirely “within” comes to an end. This fifth member is called Scales (Libra) and is given the sign

d.

From the whole way in which the organs of reproduction are placed in man, you will see they must obviously be counted in with the middle man; and so we have, as sixth member, the reproductive organs, Scorpion (Scorpio) with the sign

e.

And now nothing remains to be done but to define the appendage that forms the second of the Twins. If you consider what the thigh is for man, and observe how its movement is conditioned by the nature of the middle man (for the thigh is closely connected with the whole muscular system of the middle man), you will see that we must reckon it also as a member. As far as the knee, man is middle man; the forces of middle man enter into the thigh and extend to the knee. Moreover, we have already included the thigh as one of the Twins. The head on one side and the thigh on the other constitute the pair of Twins. The thigh, then, we denote with the sign

f and we call it Archer (Sagittarius).

When you go further and consider the feet, you find that whereas the thigh still preserves an intimate connection with the middle man, knee and leg and foot require the support of the earth. The thigh, it is true, uses this support, but the leg and the foot are only there at all because man has to stand firm and upright on the Earth. In the thigh we have still to do with a continuation of the middle man. If it were not adapted to the other members of leg and foot, the thigh would, in fact, be able to assume a different form and enable man to be a creature of the air. Quite different organs might then be developed beyond it, appropriate for swimming or flying. These would be set in motion by means of the thigh, but everything else about them would have to be adapted to their purpose.

You see, therefore, that the remaining parts of man's form do not require to be reckoned in with the middle man, so that we have now again a sevenfold man. It is the second. If you look at the difference between the two, you will find it is quite astounding. In the first seven-membered man we have, to begin with, all the important sense organs, situated in the head. And when we count in with this first sevenfold man, as indeed we must, the arms and hands, then we have included in it organs that have a distinctive quality which none but a purely external and materialistic observation could fail to recognize. For the organs we call arms and hands would, if we studied them seriously, reveal in a high degree the sublime significance of the nature of man.

If we wanted to speak of art in Nature — and the whole of what man rightly regards as the Temple of God is wonderfully imbued with Nature's art! — we could find no better expression of it than in the marvellous construction of man's hands and arms. Take the corresponding organs in other creatures that are related to man. Look, for instance, at the wings of a bird — an animal far removed from man. The wings are the fore-limbs of the bird, they are comparable with what we have in man as hands. The bird could not fly without wings. Wings are organs that are useful and necessary for its existence — in the fullest sense, organs of utility. The human hand is not in the same sense an organ of utility at all. True, we can develop it to become so, but it requires development. We cannot fly with it, nor swim with it, and it is even clumsy at climbing, at which the fore-limbs of the ape — the animal that is most nearly related to man — are very clever. We might almost say that, looked at purely from the standpoint of utility, there is very little meaning or purpose in the form of the hands. If, however, we observe all that man has to do in the course of evolution with his hands, we find them to be most precious possessions. When it is a matter of bringing to outward expression what the mind and spirit are able to achieve, then the hands show their value.

Think of the most simple and elementary movements of the hand. Does not the hand, when it accompanies the word with gesture, turn into a most expressive organ? In all the different movements and positions of the hand do we not often see revealed something of the inner character of the human being? Suppose for a moment that the hands were adapted for purposes of climbing or swimming; or suppose man needed his hands to help him move about on the Earth. The world might be so ordered that we did not have to learn to walk, but made use of our hands to help us. For note, we have to learn to walk by making movements that are quite unsuited for the purpose — pendulum-like movements with both legs. We do not generally remark how ill-adapted for the end in view are the movements of the leg; there is no single animal that does not have its legs much more usefully placed and adjusted than man has! And as for our hands, they have nothing whatever to do with this realm of our existence. But now suppose it were not so, suppose man found it easier, more natural, to move about with the help of his hands. In that case you would have to think away the whole of human culture! What does an artist not do with his hand? All art would be simply non-existent, had the hands been organs of utility.

This is a fact that has to be brought home to the aspirant after occultism, — that in arms and hands we have wonderful organs deeply and strongly connected with the spiritual life that is lived by man on Earth. When we consider how man has a sense contact with the external world in his head where the sense organs are chiefly localized, and then works with the external world by means of his hands, when we consider how he can prepare in his head what he then shows to the external world with his hands and bequeaths to it as art and culture — then we begin to see the true character of this first sevenfold man. It is the essentially spiritual man, it is man in his connection with the external world. If we look at these seven members and see how they form a self-contained whole then we behold how in this sevenfold man the Earth process becomes conscious for man. This first seven-membered man is thus to be regarded as the spiritual nature of the human being; it is the spiritual being of man, in so far as he is Earth man.

Let us now look at the second man. The fact that the middle man has Twins which show such totally different developments on the two sides gives it a double relation with the outside world It is connected with the outside world on the one hand through the head — for it has knowledge in the head; and on the other hand, through the fact that man is a creature that moves about on Earth and can direct his motion from within. Finally it is also connected with the outside world by means of the reproductive organs which make possible the physical continuity of man. Were it not for these three members — the Twins on the two sides, with the reproductive organs — there would be no connection with the outside world. These three members in the middle organism enable man to have connection on the one hand with the Earth process and on the other hand with the continued evolution of Earth man, with the sequence of the generations and the reciprocity of sex.

When, however, we turn to those middle members that we denote with the words Cancer, Leo, Virgo, and Libra, we find that they are only there for the inner man himself — I mean of course “inner” in the bodily sense. This bodily inner nature of man has, it is true, continuations in two outward directions in what are for it the Gemini; but for the rest it is entirely occupied with the inner organism For man's inner organism it is of the very greatest significance that he has a heart, but it is of very little interest for external nature, and of just as little interest that he has an abdomen.

We have, therefore, three members that are of importance for external Earth nature and four others that serve especially man's own inner organism. While the head man lives essentially in the outside world, by virtue of the senses as well as by virtue of the mechanism of arm and hand, here we have paramountly a life inside the organism. Far-reaching differences thus exist between these two men, the middle man and the head man.

We must now pass on to consider a third man. To enable us more easily to form a mental picture of this third man, we will take it in the reverse order, beginning from the other end. We shall find that this third man separates itself off from the other two in a perfectly natural and obvious manner.

Let us begin with the seventh member, the feet. We know from yesterday's lecture that we confer upon the feet the name of Fishes (Pisces) and the Sign

i. The human form is here wholly adapted to the outside world. If you think it over a little you will find there is no question about it. For it is essentially the form of the foot that makes it possible for man to be a creature who moves about on the Earth. Everything else required for walking man has to learn. It is in right accordance with nature that man has to place upon the Earth the broad sole of his foot, so that the extended surface of the foot is not directed inwards but to the Earth. And now since what we call the leg belongs to and corresponds to this foot nature, we must reckon as sixth member the leg, to which we give the name Waterman (Aquarius) and the Sign h.

We come then to the fifth member, the knee, which is here to be regarded in no other way than as forming a necessary mechanical resting place for the thigh. Because man has to bring his whole middle man into connection with the lower man — the foot and leg — therefore must there be this partition at the knee. Think how difficult it would be to walk if the lower leg and foot were not separated off in this way. Walking would be a still more difficult matter than it is if leg and thigh were made of one single piece! If we did not need to walk, the middle man would not concern us. As it is, however, we need the middle man and consequently also require the knee as connecting member. We call it Goat (Capricorn) with the Sign

g. This is the fifth member.

The fourth, the thigh, we have already considered and we have seen that it belongs to the middle man. The thigh would have to be there even if man had another kind of movement. If, for instance, he were to fly or swim, he would still need the thigh, though it might have to assume another form. If man is to be able to walk on the Earth, not only must the foot and leg and knee be adapted to the ground but also the thigh must be in right relation and proportion to these members. It must be so formed as to correspond in the right way to the three lower members, You will recognize this when you observe that in so far as the thigh is in correspondence with the middle organs it is of the same kind in birds, in four-footed animals, and in man; in man it is only differently developed. Thus, the thigh belongs to man in so far as he has an animal nature. We give it the name of Archer (Sagittarius) and the Sign

f.

It can easily be seen that the organs of reproduction are on the one hand formed from within, and on the other hand in their functions are adapted to the work outside. Let me say in passing, we must speak of these things quite objectively, and consider aspects of them that can only be considered when the subject is treated with scientific seriousness. The reproductive organs are adapted to external nature in the sense that they relate one sex to the other. The organ of the male is not only formed from out of the middle man, but it is also given an outward direction and its form adapted to the reproductive organ of the female. We have, therefore, to speak of the reproductive organs as the third member, which we name Scorpion (Scorpio) and denote by the Sign

e.

We come next to what is called the Scales (Libra), the place of balance in man. The external form of the region of balance is sufficient evidence that we have here a member of the middle nature of man. Bear in mind that it is because man has become upright that he had to have here this organ of balance. It must be developed in such a way as to enable him to become an upright being. Compare the region of balance in a four-footed animal with the same in man, and you will recognize that this member of balance is different according as the upper part of the body has an upward direction or rests horizontally on the legs and feet. Thus, the place where the balance is situated and which we designate as Libra has to be reckoned as the second member of the lower man.

And now we come to something that cannot but meet with misunderstanding on the part of present-day science. We have so far considered a sixfold man; we have studied the third man beginning from below upwards and found in him these six members. When we considered the other two, the first and the second sevenfold man, we took as our starting-point in each case a brain. In considering the head, we began with the brain and that led us to the arms and hands. Then we learned to see a second brain, a brain that is like an elongated staff but yet is truly brain: the spinal cord. As you will know, the difference between the spinal cord and the brain of the head, though apparently only small, is really very great. The spinal cord is the instrument for all movements that man is obliged to perform; the movements that we call involuntary movements are controlled by the spinal cord. When, on the other hand, we employ the instrument of the brain, thought inserts itself between perception and movement. In the spinal cord all connection with thought is lacking. There movement follows directly on perception. In the case of the animal the spinal cord plays a greater part than it does in the case of man, and the brain a lesser part. Most animals perform their actions quite involuntarily. Man, however, by virtue of his superior brain, wedges in thinking between perception and movement; consequently his deeds show a voluntary character.

Let us now try to picture the third man in such a way that in it too we discover a kind of brain. As you know, there is in man a third system of nerves, distinct from those of the brain and of the spinal cord. It is the sympathetic nervous system, the so-called solar plexus, situated in the lower part of man and sending its fibers upwards, parallel with the spinal cord. It is a nervous system that is separate from the other two and, in relation to the brain proper, may be regarded as a peculiar, undeveloped brain, When we follow the human form upwards beyond Libra we find this remarkable sympathetic nervous system, the solar plexus, extended like a brain of the third man. With the special organs we have already enumerated there is thus connected also what we have to regard as a kind of third brain: the solar plexus.

Now, a vital connection exists — and this is what external science cannot but find difficult to accept — between the solar plexus and the kidneys. As the substance of the brain in the head and the fibers of the nerve tracks belong together, so do the kidneys belong to the brain of the abdomen, the solar plexus. In fact, the solar plexus and the kidneys form, together, a peculiar kind of subordinate brain. Reckoning this brain as part of the lower man, we can designate it with the term Virgin (Virgo)

c. We have therefore now our seventh, or rather our first, member, made up of the connection of solar plexus with kidneys; and at this point we reach the termination above of the third sevenfold man.

Man is thus found to be threefold in his composition. These three men work into and with one another, and no understanding of the nature of the human being is possible until one knows that in him three human beings are in reality active. Three sevenfold men work together in man.

The last-named brain takes extraordinarily little interest in the external world. Its sole purpose is to maintain man's inner parts in an upright position. All the rest of the organs in the lower man are adapted to the external world — although in quite a different manner from the head man. Man's relation in his head to the external world is expressed in the fact that he re-forms the Earth world to a world of human culture. On the other hand, in the outer as well as the inner organs of the lower man we have to do with something that belongs to and serves the human being himself. It is only because we do not take the trouble to think accurately on these matters that we fail to observe the enormous difference there is between these three men within the whole human being.

Occultism has always given the name of Mysterium Magnum, the Great Mystery, to the wonderful secret of man's nature, the outer aspect of which we have here been considering. This aspect of the Mysterium Magnum is visible in the external world; only, we are not as a rule in a position to understand it, because we do not from the outset distinguish, in what appears to be a unity, a three times sevenfold being.

We may now pass on to consider the other aspect of this mystery. We spoke earlier of the ego nature of man, and we said how it has the appearance of being a unity. We saw also how this unity is continually being broken, continually being interrupted by sleep. If you will read Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment you will find a remarkable fact described, how when the disciple of occultism takes the step that leads him out of his ordinary consciousness a strange thing happens with his ego, with his consciousness. He is divided into three members, and so effectually that he is overpowered by these self-dependent members within him — the thinking soul, the feeling soul, and the willing soul. In ordinary life these three things — thinking, feeling, and willing — are united in the ego-nature, in the ego-consciousness. In our ordinary everyday consciousness they play into one another. As soon, however, as we take one step towards a higher consciousness, thinking, feeling, and willing fall apart. This is a fact to which the aspirant after occultism must give heed. When he passes out beyond his consciousness, he finds himself divided into three, he finds his ego unity split up into a thinking man, a feeling man, and a willing man.

There you have the other aspect of the Mysterium Magnum. When man takes the plunge, as it were, when he really steps right over the bounds of his consciousness, then his ego unity divides into three, just as the apparent unity of the external human figure, as soon as we come to study the body more closely, divides into three — into three seven-membered men.

Thus our inner ego-nature, no less than our external form, is a unity that is divisible into three. Outer man divides into the seven-membered head man, the seven-membered middle man, and the seven-membered foot man. Correspondingly, the inner ego of the human being divides, as soon as it takes the first step into the occult realm, into three parts or members — the thinking man, the feeling man, and the willing man, who stand each over against the other in complete independence. That is the second aspect of the mystery.

Both of these facts must be recognized by the disciple of occultism when he takes the first step into a higher consciousness. (We shall speak further tomorrow about the meeting with the Guardian of the Threshold.) For as consciousness is then divided into three parts, so too if we go forward in the right way, we learn to perceive in the manifest external form of man a three times sevenfold being. We have here two aspects of a many-sided and many-membered mystery — the Mysterium Magnum. Of other aspects we shall have to speak later. For the moment we have indicated the very first and most elementary beginnings of this great and wonderful mystery. This is why, when you come to a particular stage in occult development, you are met on all sides with the formula (expressed in many different ways): The great secret is — “Three are one and one are three.” For the occultist this formula signifies what I have here described to you; herein it has its full and true meaning. Only when people misunderstand it and make it into a materialistic dogma is its true meaning lost. If, however, you will take it in the sense I have explained, it can be a right symbol for the truths with which we have been dealing today. The formula becomes then an expression of the Mysterium Magnum. If we want to find our way aright into the realm of occultism — and this is what we are attempting here, in many connections — then we must learn to understand this mysterious and apparently contradictory formula: Three are one and one are three. To the mediaeval disciple of occultism again and again were the words spoken: “Give heed to what is said to thee; so mayst thou understand the mystery of how the Three can be at the same time One, and the One at the same time Three.”

UPPER MAN
1	Upright Position	^
2	Direction forwards	_
3	Symmetry	`
4	Upper Arm	f
5	Elbow	g
6	Lower Arm	h
7	Hands	i
MIDDLE MAN
1	Head and Feet, Twins	`
2	Breast enclosure	a
3	Interior, Heart	b
4	The second Interior part of man	c
5	Balance	d
6	Organs of Reproduction	e
7	Thigh	f
LOWER MAN
7	Feet	i
6	Leg	h
5	Knee	g
4	Thigh	f
3	Organs of Reproduction	e
2	Balance	d
1	Kidneys, Solar Plexus	c

Source: http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19120608p01.html