Geist ist im Menschen Eigenwille und Mitgefühl
Das Selbstbewusstsein zwischen Selbstverwirklichung und Selbstüberwindung
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Abstract:
The consideration presented here begins with Rudolf Steiner's theory of the senses, which, using the example of the sense of touch, shows that the participation of the self-will must be perceived in the experience of touching, if the result of touching is to be objective. This exemplifies that the epistemological investigation of the sensorial processes has been a weak point of European philosophy since the rise of rationalism at the end of the Middle Ages up to our time and accounts for its unawareness concerning the spiritual nature of man. In a second step, the psychology of European antiquity is examined to see whether it could be the reason for the spiritual unawareness of contemporary European philosophy. Surprisingly, however, exactly the opposite is the case. Due to the adversary powers in the form of the Vatican putting the spirituality of man under taboo, European mankind has turned entirely towards the material cosmos and has lost in the process its original knowledge of the soul. The above-mentioned discovery of man's self-will now becomes the key to understanding the morphological signature of his embryonic development and the psychological steps of his postnatal ontogenesis, whereupon the appearance of the capacity for rememberance, self-consciousness, school maturity, sexual maturity, and the birth of the I when reaching full legal age can be understood as revelations of the will. Consequently, the I is the nucleus of a tripartite soul, the constituents of which correspond to the tripartite being of man, consisting of body, soul and spirit. These three constituents also yield the key to understanding the tripartite nature of the human organism, in both a morphological and a functional sense, with the consequence that there are no special organs of the soul, but each constituent of the organism is itself a medium for the soul. In conclusion, the freedom of will of the I is also at issue, which is completely on the wrong track, since the experts involved do not realize and, above all, do not give practical effects to the difference between freedom of will and freedom of choice. Freedom of will, as it is understood by anthroposophy, is a freedom that recognizes all reasonable objections against a certain behavior. Finally, the overcoming of Alzheimer's dementia by a group of nuns is discussed, for which there is no coherent explanation so far. In the context of the freedom of will as characterized here, however, this could be considered as a spiritual force, which comprises not only reason but also compassion for other people. If reason can already be regarded as a spiritual force, then altruism, as a self-disciplining of the I, could be the source of strength sought for the prevention or even the cure of elderly dementia. A major obstacle to the future development of humanity towards freedom and of society towards a form that allows for human brotherhood, tolerance and creativity, so that each individual can develop, is the still existing tendency of the medical profession to orient its methods of observation and therapy on natural scientific principles and thus to view and treat human beings according to criteria, which cannot do justice to their personal attributes as spiritual beings. The fact that the reality deemed by this attitude still has great power to determine our social conditions is particularly evident in the current international management of the Corona pandemic, which can still impose an untimely, but by no means self-willed end to the existence of billions of people on earth, if no spiritual awakening occurs in this respect, as is preconceived in Goethe's scientific writings (compare Rudolf Steiner: Complete Edition, Vol. 1).
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