The "I" expresses itself in the aura, the more dominant the "I" is the more richly colored is the aura. As the human gathers experiences of body and soul in the "I", so does he cause the thoughts of truth and goodness to stream into the "I".
The "I" lives in the body and soul, but the spirit lives in the "I". The spirit is eternal, for the "I" receives its nature and significance from that with which it is connected. It lives in the physical body and is subjected to the laws of the mineral world, through the ether body to the laws of propagation and growth and by virtue of the sentient and intellectual souls to the law of the soul world.
The laws of the mineral world construct, come into being and vanish, the spirit does not become nor perish.

Pugh! This paragraph was a bit confusing...
Next paragraph:" The “I” lives in the soul. Although the highest manifestation ..."

On the previous paragraph:

Steiner is laying the groundwork for speaking of the higher "bodies" of the human being in this paragraph. It makes more sense if you think of it in that context.

The I is eternal, on one level, but it dwells in a physical body and therefore must fit into the laws of the physical world, it dwells in an ether body (life body) and is therefore subject to the laws of reproduction and growth, it dwells in the soul and must fit in with the behavior of the realm of feelings.

In the next paragraph, Steiner uses this groundwork to speak of some of the higher bodies. The only one that is generally "around" at this point is the consciousness soul. The other bodies are pending further development on our part.

Onward:
Our I dwells chiefly in our soul, especially in the Consciousness soul, but it fills our entire soul. Within this I lives the spirit and this spirit is called the spirit self (note from Deb, this spirit self mostly hasn't happened yet, it is potential, not reality). This spirit self is developing the I from the inside and the experience of the physical world shapes the I from the outside.

The consciousness soul sort of bumps up against truth, the spirit self has absorbed it and individualized it. The I can become immortal by taking in the spirit self which carries the truth.

Next paragraph begins: The spirit self is a revelation of the spiritual world within the “I,”

Thank you Deborah, this makes much more sense to me now the way you are explaining it! I understood the rough outline of the text, but it was just pretty confusing and took me a while to decipher, why can he not explain it more simple...


The next paragraph is already well summarized in the following paragraph, therefore I shall work on the next three paragraphs:
Steiner states that in color, light/dark and soft/ hard etc. sensations are evoked from the corporal world and in what is true and good the spiritual world is revealing itself to man.

Through color, sensations are created that would not be possible without the use of the physical eyes, just as there would be no intuition without the higher thinking of the spirit self.
As a plant creates a sensation through its color, so does intuition create spiritual realities stemming from knowledge.

Through sensations and intuitions the ego of man draws from the physical world and creates his individualized spirit world for his own soul.
The soul or "I" opens itself towards the corporal side as well as the spiritual.

Next paragraph begins with:"Now the physical world can only give information about itself..."

In order to encounter the physical world we have to have a body made of physical substances which our soul can enter and with organs which the soul can employ to perceive the physical world. In order to encounter the spiritual world we have to have a body made of spiritual "substances" which our sould can enter and with organs which the soul can employ to perceive the spirtual world.

Next paragraph:
The physical body is separated out as a separate entity within the physical world (we don't blend in) and the same is true within the spiritual world for the spirtual body. In both cases there is an inside and an outside. We take in physical nourishment. We take in spiritual substance and make it part of ourselves. Steiner calls this the spirit body (geistesmensch).

Start here: If we investigate the human physical body, it is found

Thank you Deborah for that German word at the end! Maybe I should rather read this text in German, I think it would be a lot easier for me to understand!

Back to the paragraphs...
The physical body of man is made of the same materials that can be found in the surrounding physical world, this body keeps man separate from its surroundings, just as the spiritual skin keeps the spirit man separate from the spirit world. Through mans physical body external feelings and influences are digested and sent onto the spirit man feeding its spiritual being, his spirit sheath, which keeps continually expanding with the advancement of human evolution, so that the spiritual individuality of man (auric sheath) is able to extent limitless.

As the spirit man lives within the spirit sheath, the spiritual life force is built up the same way in man as the physical life force, therefore the spiritual nature of man is composed of an ether spirit, called life spirit as well as the spirit man and the spirit self.

Next paragraph: "For one who is a seer in the spiritual regions, ..."

Ladies, I am ashamed to say that I forgot all about this discussion. I think when Maggie changed my email address, I indeed stopped getting the notifications, and it completely slipped away. Life intervened, in the form of that horrible flu that's been going around (we had to for about 2 weeks) plus now my husband might need to find a new job! At this point I think I would not want to come back in the middle. Sorry.

Do not worry about it Henitsirk, things happen. I think you read on the e-mail message that we will be finishing this chapter and than look for something smaller to work on.

Sorry to hear that you all have been ill and now your Dh has to find a new job as well. We will cross our fingers for him!
That flu has just arrived at our house last week and is still going strong, actually worse now than at the beginning of the week. Hope we will get it behind us soon! We all are in desperate need of sleep!

Regarding the board notifications, could you check again your settings and let me know if you receive this? Oh my,...do you remember what you did last time to fix it?

A seer can view and follow the growth of a mans life spirit, as this is nourished from the external spiritual world. As the physical nature of man is limited in it's growth the spiritual nature can grow without any limits.

Spiritual nourishment has eternal value. The human aura consists of two parts, color and form are given through his physical existence and by his spiritual existence. The ego of man separates them by surrendering its physical element after its own manner surrenders itself and builds a body that allows the soul to live within. The "I" surrenders itself and allows the spirit to develop in it, which fills the soul and its aim toward the spirit world. Through the body the soul is enclosed in the physical and through the spirit man can learn to move in the spiritual world.

Next paragraph: "In order to comprehend the whole man one must think of him as put together..."

Man is permeated with life force and becomes the life body through which it opens itself through the senses towards the outer world and becomes the soul body. The sentient soul permeates this and unites with it. The sentient soul does not only receive outer sensations but also enriches it through thinking and becomes an intellectual soul. Through opening up towards the outer sensations and inner/ spiritual intuitions man becomes a consciousness soul. "In this unity the spirit man lives as life spirit in the same way as the ether body forms the bodily life basis for the soul body. Thus, as the physical body is enclosed in the physical skin, so is the spirit man in the spirit sheath."
These are the members of the whole man:

1. Physical Body
2. Ether or life body
3. Soul body
4. Sentient soul
5. Intellectual soul
6. Consciousness soul
7. Spirit self
8. Life spirit
9. Spirit man

Soul body and sentient soul are a unity in the earthly human, just as consciousness soul and spirit self are a unity. This is how there are seven members in the earthly man:

1. Physical body
2. Etheric or life body
3. Sentient soul body
4. Intellectual soul
5. Spirit-filled consciousness soul
6. Life spirit
7. Spirit man

The "I" becomes the bearer of the spiritual human. Thus man participates in the the physical, the soul and the spiritual world. He is rooted in the earthly world by his physical, ether and soul body and through the spirit self, life spirit and spirit man in the spiritual world. The connecting stalk that roots in one and flower in the other is the soul itself.

I will do the last two paragraphs in the next couple of days, so we can get this chapter finished and start something new if there is any interest.

Hi Maggie (and anyone else who may be trying to follow this),
Sorry I disappeared like that. Life just buried me. Taxes had to be done, plus I had a meeting to go to out of town, plus piles of extra work around moving my library. I just got back from the meeting late last night.

I'll try and do the last two paragraphs tomorrow, when I should be a bit fresher.

Doing online study can be pretty challenging sometimes.
Deborah

Hi Deborah,

Thank you!!! I would much appreciate it if you could do the last two paragraphs, we have a pretty bad situation here at our house at the moment, there are various bad health related news from family and Dh has caught the chickenpox on one of his last business trips...., thank goodness I already had it as a child! It is really bad having it as an adult! He is miserable, kidney pains, stomach pains, all his muscles and bones hurt like ...., well you get the picture.
I guess now ds is going to be next, I am surprised he has not gotten it already, as Dh has been ill since Thursday and ds is still in the clear?

All this after our two week long coughing misery...
Thanks again!

Final paragraph (very long in the German, broken into multiple sections in the English).

The arrangement of bodies can be simplified as follows: all of the different soul aspects interpenetrate one another and could be called the astral body (containing the sentient soul, mind soul [also called the intellectual soul] and consciousness soul). We can then look at the human being as having a physical body, a life body (etheric) and an astral body.

There is an interplay and transformation process between the Spirit Self and the astral body, with the Spirit Self gradually transforming and developing the astral body and mastering drives and desires. Such an astral body will appear divided to a seer, with one part transformed and the other part still in the older form.

The Life Spirit will work on the etheric or life body in a similar way and there, too, a transformed life body will become visible.

Even the physical body is capable of further development by the work of the I with the Spirit Body.

Here is Steiner's ending picture:
1. Physical Body
2. Life Body
3. Astral Body
4. The "I" as the soul's central core
5. Spirit Self as transformed Astral Body
6. Life Spirit as transformed Life Body
7. Spirit body as transformed physical body

---------------------------------------------------

Steiner says it better

Thanks for that nice finish Deborah!

I think now that we finished the chapter we could stop here with Theosophy for right now and take up some suggestions from other group members who would like to read or study a specific text or article that interests them.
What do you all think?

I'm fine with that.

At the moment I'm very busy with library and vaccine stuff, so I'd be very appreciative if some other people could step forward and participate in the discussion. We are not judgemental and no one is going to dump on anyone for asking questions, honest!