Man's life development

This section will include:

Aspects

childhood

• development of the Embryo in the womb before birth
• the sense of authority between the 7th and 14th year
  • between the 7th and 14th/15th year there lives in the child an ability, that could be described as 'the power to act on authority'. There is nothing better for the child, than to undertake something out of veneration for the person who says: that’s good, that needs to be done. Nothing is more detrimental for the child than acquiring the habit of forming its own judgment at too early an age, before having reached sexual maturity. In the future, the sense of authority between the 7th and 14th year should be developed much more intensively than in the past. Education in these years will increasingly need to be consciously focused on developing a pure feeling for authority in the child; because what the child acquires in these years, will form the basis for experiencing the equality in the social organism that every person deserves. Equal rights will only arise in this way, because people will never mature as adults towards a feeling for equal rights, when they do not develop a sense for authority during childhood. In the past, a much less strong feeling for authority might have been enough; in the future, it will not be sufficient. (1919-08-09-GA296)

late age

• dementia, alzheimer
  • old people become mentally weak because the physical body, which is the instrument of the soul, the reflection mirror, deteriorates and can no longer reflect (1907-03-16-GA097)
  • for mental diseases, see also Schizophrenia

Development of the I during human life

• growing up and I-consciousness (see ao Schema FMC00.244, 1909-06-17-GA107, and more on Human 'I')
  • premature awakening of I-consciousness
    • due to Luciferic and Ahrimanic influences around 2,5 and 9 years (see Seven year rhythm#1919-12-06-GA194)
    • developing the human faculties of: Walking Speaking Thinking (WST)
  • development of the I-principle and threefold soul in the period of 21 to 42 years (see ao Human character - the I and threefold soul)

Rhythms

• Yearly rhythm, see temporarily:
  • Rhythm of a year
  • Christ Module 17 - The experience of the year
• Seven year rhythm or phases of 7 years (and the link with the spiritual hierarchies)
• Eighteen year rhythm or phases of 18 years, also called the lunar nodes (and the link with the moon's nutation)

Full life

• Biography work
• for longitudinal studies of people's lives, see 'Further Reading' section below, eg George E. Vaillant and the Harvard Grant study
• the two halves of a human life
  • "during the first half of life, a Man is unable to acquire self-knowledge through his original being; he has to acquire it through Lucifer, while his original being goes on developing further. The Luciferic infuses him with self-knowledge during the first half of life. In the second half of life this brilliant self-knowledge is clouded over by Ahriman." (1918-10-05-GA184)

Other

• the language of astrology (transits - rhythms of returns, birth chart reading, ..)
• life transitions and karma

Inspirational quotes

Jorge Luis Borges

from "Twenty-Four Conversations with Borges", a collection of interviews conducted by Roberto Alifano between 1981 and 1983

All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.244 illustrates the premature awakening of I-consciousness due to Luciferic and Ahrimanic influences, before the actual work of the normal Spirits of Form (SoF) between age 21 and 42. In the original plan, Man would have remained in a spiritual conditions outside of this period. Illustrations from 'The human life' by George O'Neil.

For consciousness at around 2,5 and 9 years, see ao Seven year rhythm#1919-12-06-GA194

Lecture coverage and references

1907-03-16-GA097

Question: Why do old people become mentally weak, even if the soul cannot change?

Answer: The soul, indeed, does not change. It never descends from the stage once reached. But its instrument has become weak, like a great pianist who can no longer play as he played formerly, if he has a bad instrument. You will say the soul no longer knows its own stage. Yes, the soul does not see itself as long as it is in a physical body.

In the physical body is only to be found the reflection of the soul, the mirror image. Now the mirror becomes clouded or broken.

Then it can no longer reflect.

1919-08-10-GA296

see: Meaning of life#1919-08-10-GA296

What helps to prepare people for life is

• the opportunity to imitate during the first seven years of life;
• that he can follow a worthy authority up to the fourteenth year;
• and that up to the twenty first year he learns to love in the right way

... because these forces can no longer be developed later. What human beings miss when certain forces that need to be developed during specific years of youth, are not awakened, turns them into problematic personalities.

Development of the I during human life

1909-06-17-GA107

We know that Man's development is a gradual and very complicated process. We have repeatedly emphasised that in the first seven years of his life, up to the change of teeth, man develops in quite a different way from the later period up to fourteen, and again from the fourteenth to the twenty-first year. We will only touch on this today, for you already know it.

According to spiritual science man passes through several births. The human being is born into the physical world when he leaves his mother's body and frees himself of the physical maternal sheath. But we know that when this has happened he is still enclosed in a second maternal sheath, an etheric one.

During the first seven years of his life the child's etheric body is completely enveloped in external etheric currents that come from the outer world, just as the physical body is enveloped until birth in a physical maternal sheath.

At the change of teeth this etheric sheath is stripped off, and not until now, at the age of seven, is the etheric body born. Then the astral body is still enclosed in the astral maternal sheath that is stripped off at puberty.

After this the astral body develops freely until the twenty-first or twenty-second year, which is the time when strictly speaking the actual I of man is born. Not until then does the human being awaken to his full inner intensity and the I that has evolved through the course of his earlier incarnations work its way free.

To clairvoyant consciousness a very special fact becomes apparent here. If you watch a very young child for several weeks or months, you will see the child's head surrounded by etheric and astral currents and forces. However, these currents and forces gradually become less distinct and vanish after a while.

What is really taking place there?

You can actually discover what is happening, even without clairvoyant vision, although clairvoyant vision confirms what we are about to say. Immediately after the birth of a human being his brain is not the same as it will be a few weeks or months later. The child already perceives the outer world, of course, but its brain is not yet an instrument capable of connecting external impressions in a definite way. By means of connecting-nerves running from one part of the brain to another, the human being learns by degrees to link together in thought what he perceives in the external world, but these connecting nerve-strands develop only after birth. A child will hear and see a bell, for instance, but the impression of the sound and the sight of the bell do not immediately combine to form the thought that the bell is ringing. The child learns this only gradually, because the part of the brain that is the instrument for the perception of sound and the part that is the instrument for visual perception become connected only in the course of life. And not until this has happened is it possible for the child to reach the conclusion: ‘What I see is the same thing that is making the sound’. Connecting-cords like this are developed in the brain, and the forces that develop these connecting-cords can be seen by the clairvoyant in the first weeks of the child's development as an extra covering round the brain. But this covering passes into the brain and subsequently lives within it, no longer working from outside but from within. What works from outside during the first weeks of the child's development could not go on working at the whole development of the growing human being were it not protected by the various sheaths. For when that which has been working from outside passes into the brain, it develops under the protecting sheath first of the etheric body then of the astral body and only when the twenty-second year has been reached does that which first worked from outside become active from within. What was outside the human being during the first months of his existence and then slipped inside, is active for the first time independently of sheaths in the twentieth to the twenty-second year; then it becomes free and awakens into intense activity.

[development of the I]

But up to the age of twenty-one, when the I is born in Man, his development is comparable to that of the animal. This must not lead to the conclusion that human development up to the age of twenty-one is identical to that of an animal, for that is not the case.

The I is already within the human being from the beginning, right from conception, and it now becomes free.

Hence, because there is something within Man from the beginning that becomes free at the age of twenty-one, he is from the outset no animal being, for the I, although not free, is nevertheless working in him from the start.

And it is essentially this I that can be educated. For it is this I, together with what it has accomplished in the astral, etheric and physical bodies, that passes from one incarnation to another. If this I received nothing new in a further incarnation, Man would not be able to take anything with him at his physical death, from his last life between birth and death. And if he were not able to take anything with him, he would be at exactly the same stage in the following life as he was in the previous one. Through the fact that you see Man going through a development in life, and acquiring what the animal cannot acquire, because the animal's possibilities of development do not go beyond its inborn capacities, Man is constantly enriching his I, and reaches higher levels from one incarnation to another.

It is because Man bears within him an I that has already been at work, although it only becomes free at his twenty-first year, that education is practicable, and something further can be done with him beyond his original possibilities. The lion brings its lion nature with it and lives it out. Man not only brings with him his nature as a member of the general human species, but also what he has attained as an I in his previous incarnation. This can be transformed more and more by education and life, and it will have acquired new impetus by the time man passes through the portal of death and has to prepare for a new incarnation. The point is that man acquires new factors of development and is constantly adding to his store.

1922-01-02-GA303

discusses the second seven year period. Upto the ninth-tenth year the muscular system cooperates with the soul which has an intimate relationship to breathing and blood circulation. This changes towards the twelfth year in such way that the muscles now incline more to the skeleton. The formative forces of the head pass to the muscular system, then into the skeleton.

Related pages

• Man - the human being
• Cosmic breathing
• Seven year rhythm
• Eighteen year rhythm
  

References and further reading

• Friedrich A. Kipp: Die Evolution des Menschen im Hinblick auf seine lange Jugendzeit
• Rudolf Meyer: 'Das Kind' Vom Wunder der Menschwerdung und von der Pflege der Kinderseele (1927, 1974)
• Norbert Glas
  • Conception, Birth and Early Childhood (1983)
  • Lebensalter des Menschen (3 Volumes)
    • Band 1:
      • Frühe Kindheit. Ein Führer für alle, die an der Entwicklung kleiner Kinder interessiert sind (1954, 1985)
      • Early childhood: Guidance for all who are interested in the development of young children (1953)
    • Band 2: Jugendzeit und mittleres Lebensalter. Wege und Hemmnisse. Betrachtungen und Ratschläge eines Arztes (1960, 1990)
      • 14. bis 21. Lebensjahr und mittlers Lebensalter
    • Band 3:
      • Lichtvolles Alter. Ein Wegweiser für jüngere und ältere Menschen (1956, 1992)
      • The Fulfillment of Old Age (1986)
• Hans Erhard Lauer: 'Der Menschliche Lebenslauf' (1952)
• George and Gisela O'Neil: The human life (published 1977-1981, first book edition 1990, third edition 1998)
  • in FR as 'La vie humaine - saisir le sens de son parcours terrestre' (1996)
  • in DE as 'Der Lebenslauf: Lesen in der eigenen Biographie' (2014)
  • in ES as 'La Vida Humana: Comprender tu biografía' (2019)
• Bernard Lievegoed: Phases - The spiritual rhythms of adult life (2008, first EN in 1979, first in NL in 1976 as 'De levensloop van de mens')
• Beredene Jocelyn, Rick Jacobs: 'Citizens of the Cosmos' Life's Unfolding from Conception Through Death to Rebirth (1981, 2009)
• William Bryant: The Veiled Pulse of Time: Life Cycles and Destiny' (1993, also in DE as 'Der verborgene Puls der Zeit: vom Geheimnis kosmischer Rhythmen im Lebenslauf')
• George E. Vaillant:
  • Aging well - surprising guideposts to a happier life from the Landmark study of adult development (2002)
  • Triumphs of experience - the men of the Harvard Grant study (2012)
• More information about longitudinal studies (following the lives of hundreds of people over a 75 year period) such as the Harvard Grant study, see Harvard Study of Adult Development.
• Signe Eklund Schaefer, Karen Gierlach: Elder Flowering - Lived Experiences of Growing Older (2024)