Rosicrucianism: The ninefold constitution of the human being
The ninefold constitution of a human being, according to Rosicrucian wisdom.
Rudolf Steiner, when lecturing on Rosicrucianism, believed it important to begin by considering the ‘several members of which the human being consists’. And that, ‘only by advancing step by step and omitting nothing shall we be able to get an organic view of the whole’.
The physical body
Any beginner to spiritually, let alone any intermediate initiate into spiritual or esoteric wisdom, will be no stranger to the Truth (with a capital T) that the nature and being of each human is much greater and far more complex than our sense perceptions perceive. Generally speaking, the large majority of humanity, thus the greater portion of human consciousness, has its human being entirely identified with its human mind in its (ironic) ‘awake’ state; awake insofar as the human is not asleep. In esoteric wisdom, this consciousness that is widely identified with is merely the ego - the “I”. This is the most recently evolved and adapted part of the human brain - the prefrontal cortex with its connection to the left hemisphere of rationalisation and its purpose of facilitating the human body’s perceptions with its five senses in its immediate environment. An analogy often used in psychology to differentiate between the human body and the human psyche is that of the horse and the rider. To build on this and to further understand the dangerously oversimplified and misunderstood nature that is prevalent in those that only know their life to be their chimp brain’s perception of things in their day-to-day waking state, I will liken that aforementioned existence directly to that of the horse’s. ‘The physical body is that member which the human being has in common with the whole of physical nature consisting of minerals, plants and animals’. Thus, if we’re identified in entirety with the physical body and its perceptions in its environment, we’re believing we’re more sentient and special than animals like the horse, while living out our lives as nothing more than a self righteous animal in their arena - the animal kingdom. How can we be more special if we’re not being more special? How can we be more special if we do not know how we are more special?
From the esoteric point of view, the physical body as we see it before us is permeated by the ether and astral bodies. These three bodies are united, and only when the other two are removed do we have the real physical body before us. In fact, the physical body is only ever alone in its constitution when it stops being a physical body and becomes a corpse. Thanks to the ether body’s lifelong and never erring companionship with it. Through this understanding of the physical body being, in short, a container for a soul. And, more complexly, being a container for the higher spiritual bodies, can we understand that ‘the only correct view of the physical body is to the say that it corresponds with the extent of the human being’s kindship with the surrounding mineral kingdom’. Steiner stresses the importance of understanding that the human being should not be conceived as separate from the cosmos. Instead, the forces working within the physical body that create the phenomena of the physical body on the physical plane pour into the body from the wider cosmos. Thus, we must look into the whole surrounding universe for the forces which hold the physical body together. This search for where these forces exist take us into the different spiritual dimensions where the different bodies that make up the ninefold constitution of the human being exist.
“Think of a rainbow. If a rainbow is to appear, there must be a particular combination of sunlight, rainclouds and so on. The rainbow cannot be absent if this combination between sunlight and rainclouds exists. The rainbow is therefore a consequence, a phenomenon brought into being from without. The physical body, too, is in a way a pure phenomenon.”
— Rudolf Steiner, Rosicrucian wisdom: an introduction
When spiritual researchers speak of higher worlds they mean worlds that are around us all the time, only the senses for perceiving them must be opened just as the eyes must be opened for the perception of colours in our physical world. When senses of the soul that lie one degree higher than the physical senses are opened - we become able to access the astral world with our consciousness. In Rosicrucianism, this world is called the Imaginative World or the ‘elemental world’ due to it being a plane of pictures and colours. The three names of ‘astral world’, ‘Imaginative world’ and ‘elemental world’ are therefore interchangeable.
One degree higher than this, revealed to even higher senses, is that of the ‘harmonies of the spheres’. This world penetrates through the world of pictures and colours and is called ‘Devachan’, ‘Rupa Devachan’ or the ‘mental world’. In Rosicrucianism it’s known as the world of the ‘harmonies of the spheres’ or the ‘world of Inspiration’ because musical sound is the medium of inspiration when the corresponding senses have been opened. This sheds a lot of light on why alchemists since time immemorial, like Pythagoras, have talked about receiving ‘downloads’ from engaging their senses in the cosmos. This world is also called the ‘Rupa-Devachanic’ world, as well as the ‘heaven world’. All names are interchangeable.
“There is geometry in the humming of the strings. There is music in the spacing of the spheres.”
— Pythagoras (569–490 BCE)
The highest world of all is known in Rosicrucianism as the world of true Intuition, but ‘Intuition’ here has a much higher reality than is contained in the word as used in everyday life on the physical plane. True intuition is a merging into other beings, so that they are known from within. This world is also known as the ‘world of reason. It is so far above the ordinary world that it casts only a shadow image into the world of humans. Intellectual concepts that we can consider in our minds are but faint and feeble shadow images of the realities in this higher world.
So, behind the physical world are three other worlds and forces that come from them to hold our physical world together. We can form an even clearer conception of the human and its constitution of we consider the mineral kingdom from this point of view. The human being has a consciousness of the ego - ‘I’ consciousness. We say that a mineral is without consciousness, but this is true only on the physical plane. In the higher worlds, the mineral is not without consciousness. The ego of the mineral world lies within the highest of all worlds - the world of Intuition in Rosicrucian philosophy. Steiner uses your finger as an example here. Just as your finger has no consciousness of its own, for its consciousness lies in your ‘I’ or ego, so the mineral is connected with its ego by currents that lead into the very highest realm of existence. A finger nail is part of the human organism as a while with its consciousness in the ‘i’ or ego. A finger nail is related to the organism as the mineral is related to the highest spiritual world. There is one ‘i’ or ego belonging to the whole living organism, and the nails, like the mineral, are an outermost manifestation of what has hardened within the world we live in.
The human physical body has this in common with the minerals - it’s worked on from above. What fashions your physical body is not within your control. Just as it’s the ‘i’ or the ego that moves your hand, so is your physical body worked upon from a higher world and the ego consciousness belonging to the physical body gives rise to the physical processes of the body. The only way to attain power over ones physical body is to become an initiate of the higher world and become a companion to the spiritual beings who govern and direct his physical body.
The ether body
The human being has his second member, the ether body (or life body) in common with the plants and animals. If you could think away the physical body, the ether body would be left as a body of forces, a body permeated with lines of force that have built up the physical body. In Rosicrucianism, it’s believed that the ether body of a man is female and the ether body of a woman is male. Much like Carl Jung’s concept of the male’s inner counterpart, the anima, and the female’s inner counterpart, the animus. The ether body appears to the seer like a form of light that extends slightly beyond the shape of the physical body. The forces that hold the ether body together, much like the physical body, belong in the higher worlds. In the case of the ether body, the forces are found in the heaven world or the world of inspiration. In this world, too, lies the ego consciousness that pervades the human ether body and lives within you without your being aware of it.
The astral body
In Rosicrucian terminology, the astral body is sometimes called the ‘soul body’. The astral body is the bearer of feeling. All happiness, suffering, joy and pain are found within the astral plane. Emotions and passions, wishes and desires, too, are anchored within the astral body. Human beings have the astral body in common only with animals. The animal world, like the human world, has a consciousness. However, while in the case of the human being we speak of an individual soul, in the case of an animal we speak of a group soul which is to be found on the astral plane. Therefore, if you are to meet an animal in the astral plane, it is not just one animal - it is the animal. If we use a lion as an example - in our world, there are many and in the astral world there is one, which is the lion’s group soul. Strands, as it were, come forth from the lion’s group soul in the astral plane and come into incarnation into individual animals on the physical plane. An entire species of animals is a single being on the astral plane. A single astral being with whom our ego consciousness, in control of our astral body, can converse with - just like we do with another being here on earth. The astral being of both humans and animals is held together by forces which have their seat in the ‘world of imagination’ or the ‘elemental world’.
Just as the human being has an individual ego, in every astral body there lives group egos such as animal egos. The human being cannot become independent of these animal egos until he develops astral sight and becomes a companion of astral beings. Which is when the group souls of the animals confront him on the astral plane.
“Although there is no exact similarity, the group souls are not incorrectly characterised in the second seal of the Apocalypse where they are divided into four classes: Lion, Eagle, Bull, Man (i.e. the human being who has not yet descended to the physical plane). These four apocalyptic animals are the four classes of group soul which are closest to the human being in his individual soul on the astral plane.”
— Rudolf Steiner, Rosicrucian wisdom: an introduction
The ego
The ego is the thing that the human being does not have in common with the world around him. By virtue of this fourth member, the human being is the crown of physical creation. Just as mineral consciousness exists within the world of inspiration, plant consciousness exists in the heaven world and animal consciousness exists on the astral plane - the human’s ego consciousness exists within the physical world. Thus, we have the fourfold primeval constitution of the human being - controlled by the ‘i’ at the crown of physical creation.
Spirit-self (manas)
In the remote past, during their first incarnation(s) on earth, human beings were entirely under the sway of every emotion and desire. Although they had an ego consciousness, they behaved entirely like animals.
“The difference between a wild individual and a highly evolved idealist lies in the fact that the former has not yet worked from his ego upon his astral body. The next step in evolution is for human beings to work on their astral body. The result of such work is that certain fundamental properties of the astral body are brought under the individual’s own control. The average European allows himself to follow certain impulses and forbids himself to yield to others.”
— Rudolf Steiner, Rosicrucian wisdom: an introduction
The part of his astral body that an individual has managed to bring under the control of the ego is what we call the spirit-self or manas. In it’s substantiality, the spirit-self is identical to the astral body. There is simply a different ordering of what was originally in the astral body but has been transformed into manas. The purpose of incarnations is to go through a great process of learning on behalf of your the higher spirit body - the astral body. Of course, this takes place over each incarnation. However, that which you transform during each incarnation has its effect on the ether body that’s coupled with your physical body. Thus, the esoteric power of existence lies here, for this indicates that the ego is working upon the ether body in the ‘now’ - not only on the astral body in the ‘always’.
Life-spirit (buddhi)
Whatever the ego has transformed in the ether body is present in the human being as life-spirit. In Rosicrucianism life-spirit is known as buddhi. Buddhi is nothing other than the part of the ether body that has been transformed by the ego.
Spirit-man (atma)
When the ego becomes so strong that it is able not only to transform the ether body but also the physical body - the densest of the principles in the human being - then the human being is developing what is the very highest member of his being, the spirit-man or atma. As we know, the forces for transformation of the physical body lie in the highest world of them all. The transformation of the physical body begins with the transformation of the breathing process, for atma is breath. This is why at the heart of Rosicrucianism lies a secret sacred breathing practice which is known as preparing the philosopher’s stone. Acts of breathwork cause changes in the constitution of the blood which works upon the physical body. Here, the human being on the physical plane is intentionally and directly working upwards into the very highest spiritual world.
The nine gets reduced to seven
The Rosicrucian method speaks of three times three = nine members.
The three primeval members of our being are the physical body, ether body and the astral body - then the ‘I’ or the ego. It is the ego that first brings about transformation within these three primeval bodies. The ‘I’ or the ego lights up in the soul and then the work on the bodies begins. In the past, the egos of humanity have already worked to bring about the sentient soul, intellectual soul and consciousness soul. Outwardly regarded, two of these members - the sentient soul and the life- body - are as though one inside the other, like a sword in its sheath. This is the same with the spirit-self and the consciousness soul. So, the inner constitution of the human being has, in reality, nine members, although in two cases two of these coincide. Thus, the Rosicrucian method speaks of three times three = nine members. Which, then, gets reduced to seven because of those two pairs that coincide.
The source of this information
Rosicrucian wisdom: an introduction by Rudolf Steiner; a collection of fourteen lectures given by Steiner in Munich between May 22nd and June 6th 1907. Published by Rudolf Steiner Press 2000. Previously published in English as Theosophy of the Rosicrucian by Rudolf Steiner Press and originally published in German under the title Die Theosophie des Rosenkreuzers (volume 99 in the Rodulf Steiner Gesamtausgabe or Collected Works). Translation by J. Collis.
About Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was born in 1861 in Donji Kraljevec, Croatia and died in 1925 aged 64 years old in Dornach, Switzerland. Steiner called his spiritual philosophy ‘anthroposophy’ meaning ‘wisdom of the human being’. As a highly developed seer, he based his work on direct knowledge and perception of spiritual dimensions. He initiated a modern and universal ‘science of spirit’, accessible to anyone willing to exercise clear and unprejudiced thinking. From his spiritual investigations Steiner provided suggestions for the renewal of many activities, including education (both general and special), agriculture, medicine, economics, architecture, science, philosophy, religion and the arts. Today there are thousands of schools, clinics, farms and other organisations involved in practical work based on his principles. His many published works feature his research into the spiritual nature of the human being, the evolution of the world and humanity, and methods of personal development. Steiner wrote some 30 books and delivered over 6000 lectures across Europe. In 1924 he founded the General Anthroposophical Society, which today has branches throughout the world.
