Rudolf Steiner saw man primarily as a fourfold being. To understand this concept we need to consider Steiner’s views on the human being in relation to the kingdoms of nature:

Firstly consider the mineral kingdom. It is dead, inanimate – a stone does not move unless an external force is applied to it. It is physical structure only, without life of its own. Steiner called this the “physical body”. In the human body the skeleton is the most mineralized, “stone-like” part and can be likened to the mineral kingdom.

Then there is the plant kingdom. Clearly the plant has a physical body, but equally unlike a stone it possesses a life force which enables it to grow, to have shape, to live. Steiner named this the “etheric body”.

Next the animal kingdom. An animal has a physical body and an etheric body, like the plant. Animals differ from plants, however, in that they achieve a certain level of conscious awareness. They have feelings which express themselves through drives, desires, pain and pleasure. We can say, then, that animals are not only living beings, but “ensouled beings” with feelings. Steiner called this the “astral body”.

Human beings share with all three kingdoms of nature with the “physical body”, the “etheric body” and the “astral body “- but the human being is unique. Humans differ from animals in that they have self awareness. Humans, unlike other living beings, possess an “ego”. The power of this individual ego enables humans to walk erect, to speak and think, to be creative, to develop (and also to destroy) civilizations. It also enables them to enter into the spirit of things in a way that is unique among living beings. We see evidence of this in the artistic and social achievements of humanity. The human being has certain capacities which animals lack. Animals do not have a creative culture. Wasps build their nests the way they have always done, and nothing new has been consciously developed by them over the centuries. Foxes use the same technique as their ancestors did for catching chickens. They do not look back upon their history and apply what they have learned to developing new and more effective techniques. They do not participate consciously in the process of their own development and evolution.

Knowledge of man in the true sense must be sought in the way we have indicated. Starting from the processes of nutrition, it must be followed through the processes of healing to the processes of human and world education in …

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Steiner Speaks on Nutrition

The following passage is excerpted from Community Life… Lectures and Documents by Rudolf Steiner, pages 21-23.

If any of you need to be convinced of the implications of what I am saying, you are welcome to make the following experiment: Choose some topic – vegetarianism, for example – and observe how certain adherents of spiritual science talk about this topic in the outside world. Make a chart, and each time you hear spiritual scientists telling other people that they are vegetarians, jot down the reasons they give. It will soon become clear that on the subject of vegetarianism, adherents of spiritual science often say…

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