Man as a threefold being

Man is a threefold being in that three subsystems arose as part of the previous planetary stages in evolution [1]. Hence three 'subsystems' can be distinguished:

• the nerve-sense subsystem
• the rhythmic subsystem
• the metabolic-limb subsystem

These three 'functional' subsystems

• perform generic functions [2] that can also be found in other kingdoms of nature, such as the plant (see Schema FMC00.111 below)
• can be described by the alchemical processes in nature [3], and
• map to the substance and work of different spiritual hierarchies [4] (see eg Schema FMC00.058 below)

Note that:

• the functional sub-systems 'cut across' Man's bodily principles (hence see the 4x3 view on Man: an integrated view)
• although these subsystems can be related intuitively and predominantly to three areas of Man's physical body (upper, middle and lower part), the subsystems are really functioning throughout the whole body.

For more info on how these subsystems work together, see Threefold working in Man

Aspects

evolutionary

• With regards to past and future evolution of Man, the head nerve sense part is the oldest part and is 'dying off', whereas the metabolic-limb part is the newest and 'coming into existence' - see Schema FMC00.666 and Schema FMC00.448

• Origin of the different subsystems of the human being (1923-11-09-GA230)
  • Nerve-sense subsystem from Old Saturn
  • Rhythmic subsystem from Old Sun
  • Metabolic-limb subsystem:
    • Limb system from the Earth
    • Metabolic system from Old Moon
• balance between the three subsystems as a condition for health
  • metabolic-limb or nerve-sense can be too strong and overcome and work in the area where they are not supposed to, eg nerve-sense forces overcoming and working in area metabolic-limb subsystem causes typhus (1920-10-09-GA314, see Man: an integrated view#1920-10-09-GA314)

three influences

• the three subsystems are the realization of elements of the realms of an imaginative, inspired and intuitive world (1921-04-03-GA204)
  • in the nerve-sense substem: we find the confluence of the realized imaginative, inspired, and intuitive elements
  • in the human rhythmic subsystem: realization of the inspired and intuitive elements
  • in the metabolic-limb subsystem: realization of a cosmic intuition
• three different activities in the human organism superimpose: first from the higher spirit world (intuition) building it up out of the world's substances; then chiming in the influences from the lower spirit world (inspiration) fitting the rhythmic subsystem into the metabolic-limb subsystem, and finally from the astral world (imagination) the building of the nervous system. (1921-04-03-GA204)
• link with three group soul influences (from 1923-NB86 entry, see below) - see illustration on Schema FMC00.215B
  • astral part of human head nerve-sense subsystem <-> ‘bird’ <-> Saturn, Jupiter, Mars <-> Eagle
  • etheric part of human rhythmic subsystem <-> ‘lion’ <-> Sun
  • physical part of human metabolic-limb subsystem <-> 'bull' <-> Venus, Mercury, Moon <-> Bull
• three groups of zodiacal formative influences: see Schema FMC00.256 (and link with form - Schema FMC00.257)
• see also Schema FMC00.665 and Schema FMC00.670

three kinds of human beings

• evolving humanity (and what is in the sub-consciousness of every human being) goes through stages of development that are similar to those that individual men go through .. what happens in individual men takes place in the whole of humanity throughout its various racial and national evolutions, and "this points to a real cultural secret of the present, which is that there are three kinds of men": 1) cloud men (primarily thinking), 2) rainbow men (primarily feeling), and 3) fiery footed men (primarily willing) (1924-09-18-GA346)
• related, the four group of initiates in the ancient Mysteries, see Mystery School tradition#segmentation in four groups; this comes back in the four evangelists and Gospels.
• "Man is set into the universal connections of Earth, Sun, Moon: the Sun working more on the nerves-and-senses system; the Moon working more on the rhythmic system; the Earth, inasmuch as she gives man of her substance as nourishment and makes substance directly active in him, working upon the metabolic system, working tellurically." (1921-01-02-GA323)
  • examples: "Goethe was altogether a Sun-man; he let the influence of the solar life work upon him. With Schiller or Byron this was reversed. Schiller preferred to write his poetry when the Sun has set, that is to say when the solar life was hardly active any more. And he stimulated himself with something which takes thorough hold of the metabolic system, with hot punch. The effect was quite different from that obtained by Goethe from wine. It worked into the whole metabolism. Through the metabolism the Earth works upon man; so we can say that Schiller was essentially tellurian—an Earth-man. Earth-men work more through the emotions and what belongs to the will; the Sun-man works rather through calm and contemplation." (1921-01-02-GA323)

other

• for another way of segmenting, see the related and complementary view with the four human bodily principles with Schema FMC00.158 on human temperaments (choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic, sanguine)
  • note also potential link with
    • Jung's 'Psychological Types' (1921) based on two attitudes (extraversion/introversion - orientation primarily towards external/internal world) and four functions of perceiving (sentation/intuition) and judging (thinking/feeling),
    • extended in the 1940s to the Myers-Briggs type indicator (MBTI)
    • and David Keirsey's grouping of the 16 MBTI categories in four temperaments: NT (rationals), NF (idealists), SJ (guardians), SP (artisans)
• for broader context and perspective of the segmentation and differentiation of humanity, see description to Schema FMC00.653

various

• link with levels of cognition: A study of the head is an Imaginative process, projected into the sense-world; a study of the rhythmic system must be truly Inspired, though active in the realm of sense-observation, within the sense-world; a study of the metabolic-limb system must be Intuitive, a super-sensible activity in the sense-world (1924-05-10-GA236)
• the threefold nature of Man was already described by Robert Fludd and Jacob Boehme around the 1620s (see Schema FMC00.280 and book references below)
• Threefold Man as related to the various types of animals (1923-08-13-GA307)

Illustrations

Three subsystems

Schema FMC00.670: illustrates Man as a threefold being in relation to the three worlds, with a picture and description used recurrently by Rudolf Steiner. The 'head' nerve-sense subsystem and 'limb' metabolic-limb subsystem are polar opposites, the first most and the latter least spiritualized, while the middle rhythmic subsystem modulates and balances the two. The influences of the different etheric formative forces are depicted with the open sphere at both ends,

On the left, focus is on the human head with the 'empty' part (see Schema FMC00.045) and connection with the spiritual. Connect this with the schemas and descriptions on etherization of blood, the human brain, and matter is destroyed in the brain to develop an imaginative insight of this point in the human brain between the pineal and pituitary glands. For another angle, see also Schema FMC00.463 and Man's new organ.

Schema FMC00.007 illustrates the three subsystems in Man, see also FMC00.282 below

Schema FMC00.111 illustrates 'Man as an inverted plant', that is: how the three functional subsystems in Man (left) correspond to the same subsystem functions in a plant (right). See also Christ Module 6 - Principle in image and story

Schema FMC00.603: is a graphical illustration of the fact that Man's bodily principles work to a different extent in the three subsystems of Man as threefold being, as explained in 1921-04-11-GA313. The head or nerve-sense subsystem is essentially physical body only and thus the 'dying' part, opposite to which the metabolic-limb subsystem is the more spiritual coming into being part.

Tabular views

FMC00.282 illustrates the three subsystems in Man as a threefold being, see also Schema FMC00.007.

A complementary description of this, connecting the left and right sections, is given in 1921-11-04-GA208

See also Thinking Feeling Willing.

FMC00.026 illustrates the three subsystems in Man, their primary location in the physical body (though each of them extends to the whole organism, so they are not spatially separate but interpenetrate ) and link to Man's bodily principles and the stages of Solar system evolution.

FMC00.058 shows how the three subsystems in Man map to three different worlds and the formative activities and substance of three different groups of spiritual hierarchies.

Schema FMC00.392 shows the elements of the physical body that relate to the three subsystems in Man as a threefold being, and the three worlds from which they are built by the three main triads of the spiritual hierarchies. See also the Bull, Lion and Eagle influences, see Sphinx.

Formative forces

Schema FMC00.257 shows how current threefold Man, that rises upright on Earth, gets form and life from three groups of zodiacal influences and three groups of planetary influences. Starting left, the embryo is formed in the womb, and the baby then rises upright (second drawing) as Man did in the Lemurian epoch. Compare the three groups of zodiacal influences to FMC00.256 below, see also Discussion area.

On the right, quoting from 1921-10-30-GA208 how the soul life comes about:

Man develops an independent etheric life towards the head because they raise that part out of both the zodiac and the movements of the planets. Then the astral body and the I enter and are able to take part in the thought and idea activity of the ether body.

Schema FMC00.256 illustrates the three groups of zodiacal influences on Man (see lecture extract below). Compare with FMC00.257, see also Discussion area. See also Zodiac Man and Zodiac clock.

FMC00.260B shows the four groups of cosmic spiritual influences of Earth and the elemental world, the planetary spheres, and the fixed stars.

Compare with Schema FMC00.280 (Fludd) and the BBD illustration Schema FMC00.260 (and variants)

Schema FMC00.294 considers Threefold Man as a warmth mechanism (see the Human 'I') and makes the link with the alchemy of the four seasons in Nature.

Compare with Schema FMC00.107.

Various illustrative

Schema FMC00.448 is an illustration of the threefold nature of Man, and the different forces working in the upper and lower parts of Man.

This image is taken from the casket from the grave of Tutankhamon. For more see also the work of Frank Teichmann from which the picture on the left was taken.

Compare this polarity of extremes also with the Moon and Sun on the right of Schema FMC00.542 (described o.a. in 1921-09-24-GA207)

Schema FMC00.112 illustrates that the aspects of the threefold nature of Man can be named head, chest and limb, but denote subsystems that run throughout the physical and etheric bodies of Man.

Schema FMC00.280 below depicts threefold Man with illustrations by Robert Fludd (1619).

on the left: two diagrams showing the three realms as they manifest in Man.

• To the highest heaven corresponds the head, with its three functions: the Deific Ray or Mind (Uncreated Light), the sphere of Light or Intellect: (Created Light) and the sphere of Spiritus: Reason (the Empyrean)

• The planetary spheres or ethereal heaven correspond to the thorax or breast, in whose center rules the heart, equivalent to the Sun in the 'sphere of life'.
• The elemental spheres of fire, air, water and earth are marked both on the diagram and beneath: A Choler (gall bladder), B Blood (liver and veins), C Phlegm (belly), D Faeces or dung (viscera) .

On the right: The diapason closing full in Man

The body is formed of food, hence of the four elements. This inert matter is vivified by the soul, which is of another order of existence altogether. The wonderful harmony of these two extremes is brought about by the Spiritus Mundi, the limpid spirit, represented here by a string. It extends from God to the Earth, and participates in both extremes. On it are marked the stages of the soul's descent into the body, and its re-ascent after death.

The three worlds are shown as concentric circles, marked on the left:

• 'Empyrean Heaven of the Microcosm',
• 'Ethereal Heaven of the Microcosm' and
• 'Elemental Heaven'.

They correspond respectively to Man's head, chest and belly, or on the mental plane to intellect, imagination and sense.

Lecture coverage and references

1918-01-29-GA181

Man's double nature: Man and the rest of the body

synopsis contains:

• The original causative forces for the formation of man's head work from cosmos, and man's head is its image; the rest of the skeleton is from heredity.
• Man's outer form has a twofold origin. Man is twofold in perception — head and heart.
• Between death and re-birth we work on the head, and there is added something for the rest of the organism. The older we grow the younger the etheric, but in youth we must learn to supply spiritual ideas as future youthful forces.

1919-08-30-GA295

In other words, when you fall asleep everything related to your soul passes out of your body; these soul elements (the I and the actual soul) reenter your body when you awaken.

You cannot very well compare the plant world with the body that remains lying in your bed; but you can truthfully compare it with the soul itself, which passes in and out. And when you walk through fields or meadows and see plants in all the brightness and radiance of their blossoms, you can certainly ask yourselves: What temperament is revealed here? It is a fiery temperament! The exuberant forces that come to meet you from flowers can be compared to qualities of soul.

Or perhaps you walk through the woods and see mushrooms or fungi and ask: What temperament is revealed here? Why are they not growing in the sunlight? These are the phlegmatics, these mushrooms and fungi.

So you see, when you begin to consider the human element of soul, you find relationships with the plant world everywhere, and you must try to work out and develop these things further. You could compare the animal world to the human body, but the plant world can be compared more to the soul, to the part of a human being that enters and “fills out” a person when awaking in the morning. If we could “cast” these soul forms we would have the forms of the plants before us. Moreover, if you could succeed in preserving a person like a mummy, leaving spaces empty by removing all the paths of the blood vessels and nerves, and pouring into these spaces some very soft substance, then you would get all kinds of forms from these hollow shapes in the human body.

The plant world is related to human beings as I have just shown, and you must try to make it clear to the children that the roots are more closely related to human thoughts, and the flowers more related to feelings — even to passions and emotions. And so it happens that the most perfect plants — the higher, flowering plants — have the least animal nature within them; the mushrooms and the lowest types of plant are most closely akin to animals, and it is particularly these plants that can be compared least to the human soul.

You can now develop this idea of beginning with the soul element and looking for the characteristics of the plants, and you can extend it to all the varieties of the plant world. You can characterize the plants by saying that

• some develop more of the fruit nature — the mushrooms, for example
• and others more of the leaf nature, such as ferns and the lower plants, and the palms, too, with their gigantic leaves.

These organs, however, are developed differently. A cactus is a cactus because of the rampant growth of its leaves; its blossom and fruit are merely interspersed among the luxuriant leaves.

1920-05-15-GA201

DLNB p 25

1920-11-26-GA202

the head-formation is an outcome of the Old Saturn, Old Sun and Old Moon evolutions; whereas the limb-man is a starting-point for the Future Jupiter, Future Venus and Future Vulcan evolutions.

1921-04-03-GA204

In considering these three systems in the human being, we have, first of all, pointed out the fundamental difference between them.

• I have already drawn your attention yesterday to the fact that, by means of the same drawing, two men with entirely different world views wanted to clarify matters relating to the human head organization as well as to the processes of human thinking. I pointed out that it so happened that I was once present at a lecture given by an extreme materialist. He wished to describe the life of the soul, but he actually described the human brain, the individual sections of the brain, the connecting fibers, and so on. He arrived at a certain picture, but this picture he drew on the blackboard was, for him, only the expression of what goes on materially and physically in the human brain. At the same time, he saw in it the expression of soul life, particularly the conceptual life. Another man, a philosopher of the school of Herbart, spoke of thoughts, of associations of thoughts, of the effect one thought has upon another, etc., and he said he could make use of the same picture on the blackboard. Here, quite empirically, I should say, we encounter something most interesting. It is this that somebody for whom the observation of the soul life is something quite real, at least in his thoughts—this must always be added in case of Herbartianism—clarifies to himself the activity of the soul life by using the same picture employed by the other lecturer, who depicts the soul life by trying to set forth only the processes in the human brain.

Now, what lies at the foundation of this?

The fact is that in its plastic configuration the human brain is indeed an extraordinarily faithful replica of what we know as the life of thought. In the plastic configuration of the human brain, the life of thought really does express itself, we might almost say, in an adequate manner. In order to follow this thought to its conclusion, however, something else is needed. What ordinary psychology and also Herbart's psychology designate as chains of thoughts, as thought associations in the form of judgments, logical conclusions and so on, should not remain a mere idea. At least in our imagination—even if we cannot rise to clairvoyant Imaginations—we should allow it to culminate in a picture; the tapestry of logic, the tapestry presented to us by psychology of the life of thought, the teaching of the soul life, should be allowed to culminate in a picture. If we are in fact able to transform logic and psychology in a picture-like, plastic way into an image, then the human configuration of the brain will emerge. Then we shall have traced a picture, the realization of which is the human brain.

On what is this based? It is based on the fact that the human brain, indeed the whole system of nerves and senses, is a replica of an Imaginative element. We completely grasp the wonderful structure of the human brain only when we learn to investigate Imaginatively. Then, the human brain appears as a realized human Imagination. Imaginative perception teaches us to become familiar with the external brain, the brain we come to know through psychology and anatomy, as a realized Imagination. This is significant.

Another fact is no less important. Let us bear in mind that the human brain is an actual human Imagination. We are indeed born with a brain, if not a fully developed one, at least with a brain containing the tendencies of growth. It tries to develop to the point of being a realized Imaginative world, to be the impression of an Imaginative world. This is, as it were, the ready-made aspect of our brain, namely, that it is the replica of an Imaginative world. Into this impression of the Imaginative world we then build the conceptual experiences attained during the time between birth and death. During this period we have conceptual experiences; we conceive, we transform the sense perceptions into thoughts; we judge, we conclude, and so on. We fit this into our brain.

What kind of activity is this?

As long as we live in immediate perception, as long as we remain in the interplay with the external world, as long as we open our eyes to the colors and dwell in this relationship with colors, as long as we open our organs of hearing to sounds and live within them, the external world lives on in us by penetrating our organism through the senses as through channels. With our inner life, we encompass this external world.

But the moment we cease to have this immediate experience of the outer world—something I already called your attention to yesterday—the moment we turn our eye away from the world of colors, allow our ear to become inattentive to the resounding of the external world, the moment we turn our senses to something else, this concreteness—our interplay with the external world in perceiving—penetrates into the depths of our soul. It may then be drawn to the surface again in the form of pictures by memory.

We may say that during our life between birth and death insofar as our thought life is concerned, our interplay with the external world consists of two parts: the immediate experience of the external world in the form of perceptions and the transformed thoughts. We surrender, as it were, completely to the present; our inner activity loses itself in the present. Then, however, this immediate activity continues. To begin with, it is not accessible to our consciousness. It sinks down into the subconscious but may be drawn to the surface again into memory. In what form, then, does it exist in us?

This is a point that can be explained only by a direct view attainable in Imagination. A person who honestly pursues his way in his scientific striving cannot help but admit to himself that the moment the riddle of memory confronts him he cannot advance another step in his research. For due to the fact that the experiences of the immediate present sink down into the subconscious, they become inaccessible to ordinary consciousness; they cannot be traced further.

But when we work in a corresponding way upon the human soul by means of the soul-spiritual exercises that have frequently been discussed in my lectures, we reach a stage where we no longer lose sight of the continuations of our direct life of perceptions and thoughts into conceptions that make memories possible. I have often explained to you that the first result of an ascent to Imaginative thinking is to have before your soul, as a mighty life-tableau, all your experiences since birth. The stream of experience normally flows along in the unconscious, and the single representations, which emerge in memory, rise up from this unconscious or subconscious stream through a half-dreamy activity. Those who have developed Imaginative perception are offered the opportunity to survey the stream of experiences as in one picture. You could say that the time that has elapsed since birth then takes on the appearance of space. What is normally within the subconscious is then beheld in the form of interconnected pictures. When the experiences that otherwise escape into the subconscious are thus raised to direct vision, we are able to observe this continuation of present, immediate perceptual and thought experiences all the way into conceptions that can be remembered. It is possible to trace what happens in us to any sort of experience we have in our mind, from the point in time when we first lose sight of it until the moment we recall it again. After all, between experiencing something and remembering it again something is taking place continuously in the human organism, something that becomes visible to imaginative perception. It is possible to view it in Imaginations, but it is now revealed in a quite special way.

The thoughts that have lost themselves, as it were, in the subconscious region an activity connected with our life-impulses, our impulses of growth; they stimulate an activity in us that is related to our impulse of death. The significant result revealing itself to Imaginative perception in the way I could only allude to today is the following: Human beings do not connect the memory-activity, leading to the renewal of thinking, of thought and perceptual experiences, with what calls us into physical life and maintains digestion in this life, so that substances that have become useless are replaced by usable ones, and so on. The power of memory that descends into the human being is not related to this ascending life system in man. It is linked to something we also bear within us ever since our birth, something we are born with just as we are born with the forces through which we live and grow. It is connected with what then appears to us, concentrated into one moment, in regard to the whole organism in dying.

Death only appears as a great riddle as long as it is not observed within the continuous stream of life from birth to death. Expressing myself paradoxically, I might say that we die not only when we die. In reality, we die at every moment of our physical life. By developing within our organism the activity leading to memory as recollective thinking—and in ordinary physical life every form of cognition is actually linked up with memory—insofar as this cognition is developed, we die continuously. A subtle form of death, proceeding from our head organization, is forever going on within us. By carrying out this activity that continues on into memory, we constantly begin the act of dying. But the forces of growth existing in the other members of the human organism counteract this process of death; they overcome the death forces. Thus we maintain life. If we only depended on our head organization, on the system of nerves and senses, each moment in life would really become a moment of death for us. As human beings we continuously vanquish death, which streams out, as it were, from our head to the remaining organism. The latter counteracts this form of death. Only when the remaining organization becomes weakened, exhausted through age or some kind of damage, thus preventing the counteraction against the death-bearing forces of the human head, only then does death set in for the whole organism.

Indeed, in our modern thinking, in the thinking of today's civilization, we really work with concepts that lie side by side like erratic blocks, without being able to correctly recognize their interrelationship. Light must enter into this chaos of erratic blocks constituting our world of concepts and thoughts. On the one hand, we have human cognition which is so intimately tied to the faculty of memory. We observe this human cognition and have no idea of its kinship to our conception of death. And because we are completely ignorant of this relationship, what could otherwise be deciphered in life remains so enigmatic. We are unable to connect the experiences of everyday life with the great extraordinary moments of experience. The insufficient spiritual view over what lies around as fragmentary blocks in our conceptual world brings it about that despite the splendid achievements of the nineteenth century life has gradually become so obscure.

[rhythmic subsystem]

Let us now consider the second system, the second member of the human organization, the rhythmical organization. It is also present in the human head organization. The interior of the human head breathes together with the breathing organism. This is an external physiological fact. But the breathing process of the human head lies, as it were, more within; it conceals itself from the system of nerves and senses. It is covered over by what constitutes the chief task of the head organization. Still, the human head has its own concealed rhythmical activity. This activity becomes evident mainly in the human chest organization, in those processes of the human organism that are centered in the organs of breathing and in the heart.

When we observe the outward appearance of this organization, unlike in the case of the head organization, we cannot see in it a kind of plastic image for what exists as its counterpart in the soul, namely, the life of feeling. When we observe the soul experiences, our feelings manifest as something more or less undefined. We have sharp contours in our thoughts. We also have clear concepts of thought associations. In the details pertaining to our life of feeling we have no such sharp outlines. There, everything interpenetrates, moves and lives. You will not find an Herbartian who, in making an outline of the life of emotion, would characterize this in a sketch that might resemble one drawn by an anatomist or a physiologist for the lungs or the heart and circulatory system. Here, you find that such a relationship does not exist between the inner soul element and the outer aspects. This is also the reason why Imaginative cognition does not suffice to bring before the soul this relationship between the soul's life of feeling and the rhythmical system. For this we need what I have characterized in my books as Inspiration, Inspirative perception. This special form of perception through Inspiration attains to the insight that our emotional life has a direct link to the rhythmical system. Just as the system of nerves and senses is linked to the conceptual life, so the rhythmical life is linked to the life of feelings.

But, metaphorically speaking, the rhythmical system is not the wax impression of the emotional life in the same way that the brain's configuration is the wax impression of the conceptual life. Consequently we cannot say that our rhythmical system is an Imaginative replica of our life of feeling. We must say instead that what unfolds and lives in us as the rhythmical system has come about through cosmic Inspiration, independently of any human knowledge. It is inspired into us. The activity carried out in the breathing and in the blood circulation is not merely something that lives within us enclosed by our skin; it is a cosmic event, like lightning and thunder. After all, through our rhythmical system, we are connected with the outer world. The air that is now within me was outside before; it will be outside again the next moment. It is an illusion to believe that we only live enclosed within our skin. We live as a member of the world that surrounds us, and the form of our rhythmical system, which is closely connected to our movements, is inspired into us out of this world.

Summing this up, we can say: As the basis of the human head we have, first of all, the realization of an Imaginative world. Then, in a manner of speaking, below what thus realizes itself as an Imaginative world, we have the realm of the rhythmical system, an Inspired world. Concerning our rhythmical system, we can only say: An Inspirative world is realized within it.

[metabolic-limb subsystem]

How do matters stand in regard to our metabolic system, our limb-system?

Metabolism belongs together with the limb-system, as I have pointed out already. Our metabolic processes stand in a direct relationship with our volitional activity. But this relationship reveals itself neither to Imaginative nor to Inspirative perception. It discloses itself only to Intuitive cognition, to what I have described in my books as “Intuitive knowledge.” This explains the difficulty of seeing in the external physical processes of metabolism the realization of a cosmic Intuition. This metabolism, however, is also present in the rhythmical system. The metabolism of the rhythmical system conceals itself behind the life-rhythm, just as the life-rhythm conceals itself behind the activity of nerves and senses in the human head.

In the case of the human head we have a realized Imaginative world; hidden behind it a realized Inspirative world in regard to the rhythm in the head. Still further behind this, there is the metabolism of the head, hence a realized Intuitive element. Thus we can comprehend our head, if we [see] in it the confluence of the realized Imaginative, Inspired, and Intuitive elements. In the human rhythmical system the Imaginative is omitted; there we have only the realization of the Inspired and Intuitive elements. And in the metabolic system Inspiration, too, is omitted; there, we are dealing only with the realization of a cosmic Intuition.

In the threefold human organism, we thus bear within us

• first the organization of the head, a replica of what we strive for in cognition through Imagination, Inspiration, and Intuition. In trying to understand the human head, we should really have to admit to ourselves that with mere external, objective knowledge gained through the observation of the outer sensory world, which is not even Imagination and does not rise up to the Intuitive element, we should stop short of the human head. For the inner being of the human head begins to disclose itself only to Imaginative knowledge; behind this lies something still deeper that reveals itself to Inspiration. In turn, behind this, lies something that makes itself known to Intuitive knowledge.
• The rhythmical system is not even accessible to Imagination. It reveals itself only to Inspirative cognition, and what is concealed beneath it is the Intuitive element.
• Within the human organism, we certainly ought to find metabolism incomprehensible. The true standpoint in regard to the human metabolism can be none other than the following. We can only say that we observe the metabolic processes of the external world; we try to penetrate into them with the aid of the laws of objective perception. Thus we attain knowledge of the external metabolism in nature. The instant this outer metabolism is transformed and metamorphosed into out inner metabolism it becomes something quite different; it turns into something in which dwells the element that discloses itself only to Intuition.

We would therefore have to say: In the world that presents itself to us as the sensory realm, the most incomprehensible of all incomprehensible problems is what the substances, with which we become familiar externally through physics and chemistry, accomplish within the human skin. We would have to admit: we must rise up to the highest spiritual comprehension if we want to know what really takes place within the human organism in regard to the substances we know so well in their external aspects in the world outside.

Thus we see that in the structure of our organism there are, to begin with, three different activities.

• First of all, something that discloses itself to Intuitive knowledge is active in the structure of the human organism, building it up out of the world's substances.
• In addition something is active in this organism that reveals itself to Inspirative knowledge; it fits the rhythmical system into the metabolic organism.
• Finally, something is active in the human organism that reveals itself to Imaginative knowledge; it builds in the nervous system.

And when this human organism enters through birth into the external physical world, all that is ready-made, as it were, by virtue of its own nature, then evolves further inasmuch as human beings develop objective knowledge between birth and death.

1921-11-24-GA209

recapitulates the sketch from 1921-10-30-GA208 regarding Threefold man and zodiac forces

The human form is a most marvellous structure.

• Think of the head. In all its parts, the head is a copy of the universe. Its form is spherical, the spherical form being modified at the base in order to provide for the articulation of other organs and systems. The essential form of the head is a copy of the spherical form of the universe, as you can discover if you study the basic formation of the embryo.
• Linked to the head-structure is another formation which still retains something of the spherical form, although this is not so immediately apparent: the chest-structure. Try to conceive this chest-structure imaginatively; it is as if a spherical form had been compressed and then released again, as if a sphere had undergone an organic metamorphosis.
• Finally, in the limb-structures, we can discover hardly anything of the primal, embryonic form of man. Spiritual Science alone will make us alive to the fact that the limb-structures too, still reveal certain final traces of a spherical form although this is not very obvious in their outer shape.

When we study the threefold human form in its relation to the Cosmos, we can say that man is shaped and moulded by cosmic forces but these forces work upon him in many different ways.

The changing position of the Sun in the zodiacal constellations through the various epochs has been taken as an indication of the different forces which pour down to man from the world of the fixed stars.

Even our mechanistic astronomy today speaks of the fact that the Sun rises in a particular constellation at the vernal equinox, that in the course of the coming centuries it will pass through others, that during the day it passes through certain constellations and during the night through others. These and many other things are said, but there is no conscious knowledge of man's relationship to the universe beyond the Earth.

[Aries]

It is little known, for example, that when the Sun is shining upon the Earth at the vernal equinox from the constellation of Aries, the solar forces streaming down into human beings in a particular part of the Earth are modified by the influences proceeding from the region in the heaven of fixed stars represented by the constellation of Aries.

o  Neither is there any knowledge of the fact that these forces are peculiarly adapted to work upon the human head in such a way indeed, that during earthly life man can unfold a certain faculty of self-observation, self-knowledge and consciousness of his own I.

o  During the Greek epoch, as you know, the Sun stood in the constellation of Aries at the vernal equinox. In the Greek epoch, therefore, Western peoples were particularly subject to the Aries forces. The fact of being subject to the Aries forces makes it possible for the head of man to develop in such a way that I-consciousness, a faculty for self-contemplation, unfolds.

o  Even when the history of the zodiacal symbols is discussed today, there is not always knowledge of the essentials. Historical traditions speak of the zodiacal symbols — Aries, Taurus, Gemini, and so forth.

o  In old calendars we frequently find the symbol of Aries, but very few people indeed realise the point of greatest significance, which is that the Ram is depicted with his head looking backwards. This image was intended to indicate that the Aries forces influence man in the direction of inwardness — for the Ram does not look forward, nor out into the wide world — he looks backwards, upon himself; he contemplates his own being. This is full of meaning.

[Three groups of forces]

Once again, and this time in full consciousness not with the instinctive — clairvoyance of olden times — once again we must press forward to this cosmic wisdom, to the knowledge that

• the forces of the human head are developed essentially through the forces of Aries, Taurus, Gemini and Cancer. The human head receives its spherical form from the in-working forces of Aries, Taurus, Gemini and Cancer — forces which must be conceived as radiating directly down, from above downwards.

•  the forces of the chest-structure are subject to those of the four middle constellations — Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio whereas the zodiacal forces to which the chest-organisation of man is essentially subject (Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio), work laterally.

• The other four constellations lie beneath the Earth; their forces work through the Earth, from below upwards. They work upon the limb-structures, and in such a way that the spherical form cannot remain intact. These are the constellations which in the instinctive consciousness of olden times, man envisaged as working up from beneath the Earth. and working upon the limb-structures.
  • Thus, according to the wisdom of the stars, a man might be a hunter — one who shoots; the constellation which stimulated the corresponding activity in his limbs, making him a hunter, received the name of Sagittarius, the archer.
  • Or again, a man might be a shepherd, concerned with the care of animals in general. This is implied in Capricorn, as it is called nowadays. In the true symbol, however, there is a fish-tail form. The Capricorn man is one who has charge of animals, in contrast to the hunter, the Sagittarius man.
  • The third constellation of this group is Aquarius, the water-carrier. But think of the ancient symbol. The true picture of this constellation is a man walking over hard soil, fertilising or watering it from a water-vessel. He represents those who are concerned with agriculture — husbandmen. This was the third calling in ancient times when there was instinctive knowledge of these things: huntsman, shepherd, husbandman.
  • The fourth calling was that of a mariner, In very early times, ships were built in the form of a fish, and later on we often find a dolphin's head at the prow of vessels. This is what underlies the symbol of Pisces — two fish forms intertwined — representing ships trading together. This is symbolical of the fourth calling which is bound up with activities of the limbs — the merchant or trader.

We have thus heard how the human form and figure originate from the Cosmos.

• The head is spherical; here man is directly exposed to the forces of the heavens of the fixed stars or their representatives the zodiacal circle.
• Then, working laterally, there are the forces present in the chest-organisation which only contains the human figure in an eclipsed and hidden form — Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio.
• And lastly there are the forces which do not work directly but by a roundabout way, via the earthly activities, through the influence upon man's calling. (For example, the archer — Sagittarius — is also portrayed as a kind of centaur, half horse, half man, and so forth).

Again in our time we must strive for a fully conscious realisation of man's place in the Cosmos. The form and shape of his physical body are given by the Cosmos. The upper part of his structure is a product of the Cosmos; the lower part a product of the Earth. The Earth covers those constellations which have a definite connection with his activities in life. Not until man's connection with the whole Cosmos is thus recognised and acknowledged will it be possible to understand the mysteries of the human form and its relation to earthly activities. And at the very outset the human form leads us to the zodiacal constellations.

1923-08-13-GA307

describes how Man's three subsystems can be seen related to mammals, fishes and lower animals

1923-11-09-GA230

from the synopsis

Origin of the different systems of Man:

• Limb system from the Earth
• Metabolic system from Old Moon
• Rhythmic system from Old Sun
• Nerve-senses system from Old Saturn.

1924-05-10-GA236

for longer quote and link, see: Metabolic-limb subsystem#1924-05-10-GA236

• A study of the head is an Imaginative process, projected into the sense-world;
• a study of the rhythmic system must be truly Inspired, though active in the realm of sense-observation, within the sense-world;
• a study of the metabolic-limb system must be Intuitive, a super-sensible activity in the sense-world.

1924-09-18-GA346

The spirit comes from the spirit world, the soul from the soul world and the physical body from the physical world. These members of the human being come from three different worlds and they are integrated in Man. And when Man leaves the physical world with his consciousness, his inner elements split up, and the one becomes three.

However, what happens in individual men in this way ... takes place in the whole of humanity throughout its various racial and national evolutions, although not everyone has to participate in it.

One can say that the evolving humanity which is present in the sub-consciousness of every single human being and which doesn't become noticeable to ordinary consciousness, goes through stages of development that are similar to the ones individual men go through.

….

One could say that this points to a real cultural secret of the present, which is that there are three kinds of men, and not that each Man is split into three parts.

1. One can see this very clearly today. We have cloud men who can only think, whereas the two other parts—rainbow and fiery feet—remain stunted.
2. We have rainbow men where the main development is in the feelings. They can only grasp anthroposophy with their feelings and not with their minds. ... this type is also present in the outside world (not just in the anthroposophical society). They can only grasp the world with their feelings. These people's feelings are well developed but their thinking and will are stunted.
3. Then there are people today who act as if they only had a hypertrophically developed will; their thinking and feeling are stunted; they charge like bulls and act in accordance with direct, outer impulses, they're the fiery footed men.

1925-GA026 - LT36 and LT37

• In the head of Man, the physical organisation is a copy, an impress of the spiritual individuality. The physical and the etheric part of the head stand out as complete and self-contained pictures of the spiritual; beside them, in independent soul-spiritual existence, there stand the astral and the I-part. Thus in the head of Man we have to do with a development, side by side, of the physical and etheric, relatively independent on the one hand, and of the astral and I-organisation on the other.
• In the limbs and metabolic part of Man the four members of the human being are intimately bound up with one another. The I-organisation and astral body are not there beside the physical and etheric part. They are within them, vitalising them, working in their growth, their faculty of movement and so forth. Through this very fact, the limbs and metabolic part of Man is like a germinating seed, striving for ever to unfold; striving continually to become a ‘head,’ and — during the earthly life of Man — no less continually prevented.
• The rhythmic Organisation stands in the midst. Here the I-organisation and astral body alternately unite with the physical and etheric part, and loose themselves again. The breathing and the circulation of the blood are the physical impress of this alternate union and loosening. The inbreathing process portrays the union; the outbreathing the loosening. The processes in the arterial blood represent the union; those in the venous blood the loosening.

and

• If we contemplate the human head from this spiritual point of view, we shall find in it a help to the understanding of spiritual Imaginations. For in the forms of the head, Imaginative forms are as it were coagulated to the point of physical density.
• Similarly, if we contemplate the rhythmic part of Man's Organisation it will help us to understand Inspirations. The physical appearance of the rhythms of life bears even in the sense-perceptible picture the character of Inspiration.
• Lastly, in the system of the metabolism and the limbs — if we observe it in full action, in the exercise of its necessary or possible functions — we have a picture, supersensible yet sensible, of pure supersensible Intuitions.

1923-10/11 - NB86

notes to a sketch in notebook 86 of end 1923

The astral part of the human head [nerve-sense subsystem] is treated by the cosmos as ‘bird’.

In the ‘bird’, the cosmic astrality acts, which also touches the plant (at the blossom).

In the planetary system, this astrality is active through Saturn, Jupiter, Mars.

See also: Eagle-worship

The etheric part of the human rhythmic [sub]system is treated by the cosmos as ‘lion’.

In the ‘lion’, the cosmic etheric unit acts, which is retained to the plant through air humidity.

In the planetary system, this etheric unit is active through the Sun.

See also: Lion-worship

The physical part of the human metabolic-limb sub]system is treated by the cosmos as “bull".

In the ‘bull’, the physical cosmos is active, which is held back from the plant by the moist-cold earth.

In the planetary system, this physical cosmos is active through Venus, Mercury, Moon.

See also: Cow-worship in India

Related pages

• Threefold working in Man
• Sphinx
• Group souls of humanity
• Man - the human being
• Christ Module 6 - Principle in image and story

References and further reading

• Jacob Boehme: 'The Threefold Life of Man' (1620 in DE as 'Vom dreifachen Leben des Menschen')
• Lothar Vogel: 'Der dreigliedrige Mensch : Morphologische Grundlagen einer Allgemeinen Menschenkunde' (1967)
• Johannes Rohen: 'Functional Threefoldness in the Human Organism & Human Society' (2011)