Theosophy

Module 1 of 2022
Theosophy, by Rev. Michaël Merle

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Reported by John-Peter Gernaat

This is an overview of what Rudolf Steiner understood by the term “Theosophy” and what we can understand by this term. Rudolf Steiner wrote a book titled “Theosophy”. It is not the aim of the module to cover the entire book. The aim is to form a picture that will enable everyone to begin reading this book and then be able to place the book in context through the process of the weekend.

The word Theosophy is a word in Koine Greek devised from “Theo”, meaning God, and “Sophia” meaning wisdom. Theosophy, therefore, means ‘the wisdom of God’. What does this mean? It has a specific reference: through history groups of Christians have use the word and meant something specific. Rudolf Steiner makes clear in his introduction that: “As human beings we call the highest thing that we can look up to ‘the Divine’ and we must imagine that our highest aim and calling have something to do with this divine element.” Thus, in a spiritual upward gaze we can refer to the highest thing that our gaze encounters as ‘the Divine’. This would be for us the ultimate picture of that which exists out of which everything else comes. It is ‘that which is, out of which everything else is able to be’.

There are other philosophies and other religions that have other names for ‘the Divine’. The intention is to use an expression that is above the divisions of language and religion when referring to “the highest thing we can look up to”. The name of the universal Divine entity in Sanskrit is Brahman. This is the name for the ultimate, Divine, universal principle.

Continuing the quote from Steiner: “… and we must imagine that our highest aim as human beings, and our calling, have something to do with this Divine element.” Thus, what we are aiming to achieve and what we are called to is in some way connected to this Divine entity. We are called to reconnect with Divine, to re-establish a relationship. This is a central component in the word religion – ‘religare’ (Latin meaning to bind together), to reconnect. When we are born onto the earthly world we forget where we have come from. “This may well be why wisdom that which transcends the sense perceptible world reveals to us both our essential nature and our destiny and this is called ‘theosophy’, or Divine wisdom.” Therefore, to understand the essence of being human is to understand theosophy. How can one say that the human being, flawed and incomplete, is the wisdom of God? We can say this because the Book of Genesis reveals to us that we are “made in the image and likeness of God”, therefore the human being is an image of the wisdom of God. Theosophy, therefore, is about the essence of the human being. What is the human being and how is the human being constituted? This is a Divine wisdom made manifest as a living being. It is a being that we refer to as human.

The theme of the seminary modules in 2022 is: “Deepening an understanding of Anthroposophy”. Koine Greek will provide the understanding that this word means: ‘the wisdom of the human being’. The constitution of the human being is not anthroposophy, it is the wisdom of God, theosophy. The way in which we, each, unfold this wisdom of God – the way in which we develop and come to understand who we are; the path of self-development that each person can follow – that is the wisdom of the human being; that is anthroposophy.

In considering the Koine Greek word ‘anthropos’, the word is not just the human being, but it is the countenance of the human being. Countenance is a word with several meanings and all of these meanings apply. The most basic is ‘a face’, meaning that ‘I can face you’, ‘I can see you’ and ‘I can come face to face’; ‘I recognise you because you have a face’. Having a face makes each human being quite distinct, even identical twins. The countenance is not just the face, but also how each person presents themselves. What shines through the face is quite individual. Countenance also means ‘something one can confirm’, ‘something we can allow’: e.g., “He would not countenance any violence.” It means that as human beings who have a countenance, a face through which we can express something of who we are; we also have the capacity to say “yes” and to say “no”, in a conscious way, disconnected from the sympathies and antipathies that reign in our feeling life. We are able to reflect on our choice. ‘Anthropos’ is even more than the countenance of the human being because the suffix ‘an’ suggests that in this word exists a directionality, which is ‘up’ – ‘ana’. Therefore the word ‘anthropos’ means the ‘countenance of the human being that looks up’. As Steiner said: “As human beings we call the highest thing that we can look up to …” This is an inner, soul activity of looking up.

Theosophy, then, is that which constitutes the human being. We can go back to ancient texts and scriptures and find descriptions of the human being. The oldest we can find come to us from the Vedas, written in Sanskrit centuries after then were spoken. They come from a well-preserved oral tradition of the words that were spoken by the Rishis, shared as great wisdom. The Rishis were known as ‘the wise ones’ who understood the full wisdom of creation and the cosmos. They understood, one could say, the wisdom of Brahman, the universal principle of the Divine. The Vedas form the basis for the understanding of the world that is the philosophy of Hinduism. The picture in the Vedas of the human constitution is quite complex. It is very helpful for us today to understand how the human being understood themselves many centuries ago. It allows us to see what concepts have been added to the picture and where it takes up today in our understanding of the constitution of the human being. The ancient Vedic picture describes three bodies:

1. The Gross Body – it is in fact the physical body with mass and physical dimensions. It is present until death and even at death we can still determine its dimensions. However, without life this Gross Body breaks down. We can speak of it separately from the energy that keeps the Gross Body alive.
2. The Subtle Body – it cannot be seen. It is the energetic body – a body of energy.
3. The Seed Body – this was a sense that the ancients had that they were not complete. They carried within them the seed for the future development of the human being. It was the future unfolding.

Thus, the ancients saw the human being as a physical body, a body of life and emotions – everything that is alive in the human being – and a potential for future growth and development. The Vedas were considered to be essential manuals of knowledge when they were written, they were not written as sacred writings. They were a totality of everything the human being needed to know to live life. They gave instruction on what to eat, how to farm, how to maintain health and restore health, how to manage society, how to organise daily life, how to live in a society – they were an encyclopaedic body of knowledge on how to be human and to live as a human being. The Vedas explained how the three bodies interact. They saw the three bodies as existing states.

1. The physical body was described as being in a state of wakefulness.
2. The subtle body was described as being in a dream state.
3. The seed body was described as being in a state of sleep.

​There were other layers also described.

1. The physical body had only one layer of activity:
   • a food sheath
2. The subtle body had three sheathes:
   • The vital sheath – energy
   • A mind sheath – that contains all the emotions that we express. It was not seen as the rational thinking mind. It was the emotive body and therefore closer to what we call the heart.
   • Intellectual sheath – the capacity to think. It recognised that thinking was a different element to feeling.
3. The seed body had only one sheath:
   • The bliss sheath – it protected the seed and would bring future happiness.

We may, still today, feel that this is a fair description of the human being. We can acknowledge that there is more to us than a physical body. We definitely have an energetic body. Quite a few of our emotions are not conscious. Something seems to stir up in us; it feels a bit like a dream, suddenly one feels happy or suddenly one feels a bit sad without being really conscious as to why these feelings have arisen. There is also a sense that there is more to us, and even that there is more to come in the future, not just in our lifetime; but when we consider the future evolution of the human being and especially the development of human society, the whole human experience is probably going to develop further. We may feel that we have developed this seed body a little beyond what the ancient civilisations experienced, especially the intellectual sheath may have developed, and we may feel that further development lies ahead. We can sense an evolution of the human constitution. This picture remained in various forms for many stages of cultural development.

We are able to traverse time to the ancient Greeks who had an additional picture that speaks to us of different aspects of being human. This is a consideration of the writings of Aristotle, but he was a pupil of Plato who in turn was a student of Socrates. Thus, we can read into Aristotle the input of those who came before. He speaks about the human being in a three-fold way. He uses specific terms for the three-foldness of the human being. This was an idea that we can also read in the New Testament where St Paul uses the same words to describe aspects of the human being.

These words still have expression in the English language.

1. Soma – in biology we speak of somatic cells – those cells that belong to the body. Soma means body. The description is a physical body.
2. Psyche – which we may translate as soul. This expressed the energetic and emotive part of the human being.
3. Pneuma – which can be translated as breath. It can also be translated as spirit. It was a Divine aspect of the human being that has an interplay with the soul and the body but is in itself separate.

Paul writing to the Thessalonians wrote: “Take care that no one repays evil with evil, rather always strive to do good to one another both within your own circle and also towards other people. Have joy within yourselves always. Do not neglect your practice of prayer. In all things cultivate the sacramental mood of thanksgiving. Then God’s will shall work in your will through the power of Christ. Let not the flame of the spirit be quenched. Do not let the power of prophecy wither away for lack of care and practice. Test everything. Hold fast to what is good. Keep clear of the evil in whatever form it appears. May God himself, the source of all peace, make holy your whole being. May your complete and undivided being, your spirit, your soul and your body remain pure and clean at the coming in the spirit of Jesus Christ our Lord.” Paul is clear in placing soma, psyche and pneuma right next to each other: body, soul and spirit. He refers to three distinct aspects of the human being that are unmistakable. “May your complete and undivided being, body, soul and spirit remain pure and clean at the coming in the spirit of Jesus Christ our Lord.” This is a very clear picture of the concept of a three-folded human being.

This is theosophy. The human being is body soul and spirit. But the human being is more than just body, soul and spirit. Just as the Vedas opened up the three bodies into sheaths and how they operate. Aristotle relayed what Plato said that the human being has more than one capacity in the soul. This is still studied in philosophy as it forms the basis of Western philosophy.

One capacity of soul we share with animals; they emote and react to their environment – this is the sentient soul level. This was a soul of the senses according to the Greek philosophy.

Human beings have another level of soul that they called mind soul (an intellectual soul, a rational soul). The human being is able to abstractly imagine their environment. This, according to Aristotle, made us human, that ability to rationalise with any human being. We still fall under the misconception today that reason is the highest soul capacity of the human being; that it provides resolution to all differences. However, reason is individual and therefore there is more to be added to this picture.

Rudolf Steiner said that this picture is absolutely true. It is another version of the Vedic picture that is thought through somewhat differently. Steiner said that since the time of Aristotle we have developed a new level of soul that has emerged from the seed form that the Vedas imagined. This is the consciousness soul.

Thus the soul operates on three levels:
Sentient
Rational
Consciousness
Steiner is very specific about when the Consciousness Soul Age started. The Consciousness Soul became evident from the beginning of the 15th century. We have had this capacity of consciousness soul developing for 600 years. This is a relatively short period of time. This is a new picture that Steiner brings.

Steiner also brought a further concept of the human being. It adds to theosophy, the picture of the wisdom of God made manifest in the created image and likeness that is the human being. There is more to come. There are elements that have not yet manifested and are still lying seed-like in the human being, but that will develop. For this Steiner went back to the words of the Vedas. Steiner said there are bodies to come.

We know that the body has a physical component and a living component which prevents it being a corps. We can describe this living component as an energetic, forming force body that Steiner gave the name, the etheric body. This makes our body.

How do we express our soul: our sentient, rational, consciousness nature? We express it because we have the energetic forming force. We express it because we also have a capacity for emotions and expression. It comes through the energy and expresses itself. Steiner called this the astral body. He also described it as a sentient body – a body of sense and expressions. Together with the energetic force body the astral body expresses the soul.

Then we have a part that comes to us from the Divine which Steiner refers to as an ‘I-organisation’. It is an essential self. Steiner used the Latin word ‘Ego’, but this same word was used to mean completely different things by Sigmund Freud. Freud suggests the ego is the part of us which we must suppress while Steiner referred to the Ego as that which makes us human, because it arises from the Divine. It is our ability to say “I” of ourselves.

There is more to come, which is the spirit expressing itself further. Steiner used Sanskrit words:

• Manas – meaning thought, a capacity to have thought.
• Buddhi – means a discernment to hold a certain consciousness.
• Atman – means higher self.

We are theosophy, but theosophy not yet fully expressed. There is another side of us, our higher self – the higher ‘I’, the Atman – not yet expressed. In the Vedas there are two essential principles: Brahman, the universal principle of the Divine, and Atman, the high self of the human individual. Atman only exists because of Brahman. Atman is possible only because of Brahman. Atman expresses something of Brahman. ‘Man’ in these words is the same word that also provides us with Manas, which is thought, the ability to hold a certain expression, a certain consciousness.

Steiner renamed these:

• Manas – the Spirit Self of the human being that we have not yet realised.
• Buddhi – Life Spirit.
• Atman – Spirit Human Being – the ultimate aim when our higher self can live in the constitution that manifests itself on earth.

This is the whole picture of the human being:

• Physical
• Etheric
• Astral
• Ego
• Spirit Self
• Life Spirit
• Spirit Human Being

This is what the module of the Africa Seminary explored. During the work the participants looked at pictures of a four-fold, seven-fold, nine-fold, a new seven-fold picture of the human being working with the concepts discussed above.

When we return to the Vedic picture we can see that we have:

• A physical body,
• A vital sheath
• An emotive expressive body
• When we combine the intellectual sheath with what was developing in the seed body we have the ‘I’.

​There is a four-fold picture but expressed at a different time in human history. Then there were further body to come in the seed body. Therefore, we can experience that this is a picture of the human being that humanity has carried for centuries. In other cultures where we can study the traditional concepts and traditional wisdom the same picture becomes present in different forms. The same picture keeps emerging. Rudolf Steiner has developed the picture to show us more clearly where we are going. When we observe the picture of body, soul and spirit we can realise that it is Paul’s picture in the New Testament. Thus, the entire picture can be seem as being part of the picture that Paul presents in the New Testament. The same seven-fold picture emerges through the names used for Solomon in the Old Testament (see the article on Solomon). We discover it also through the description of the human being through qualities that manifest a seven-fold manifestation of quality in the Book of Revelation. They are always a description of the picture of the wisdom of the Divine made manifest in the created human being: theosophy.

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