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The plant world receives its forms from the starry heavens, and the animal
world its form from the zodiac. Human beings receive their form from the
whole sphere of the heavens, not from the single constellations, just as we
also bear in our head an image of the entire stellar universe. Again we find
the human being as the synthesis, the perfect embodiment of the entire
cosmos. (Vreede, 2001, p. 287)
In other words, a tulip is created by a certain group of spiritual beings‘ forces, while the lily
is created by another group of beings, whereas, animals get their form from the gods of the
Zodiac. All beings in the cosmos make up man. Man is the world and the world is man.
Macro-microcosmic thinkers perceive the world from inside and outside of their bodies,
rather than objectively from within their skulls. Their world is animistic, teeming with
spiritual beings whose powers create and regulate the physical world. In March 1910,
Steiner gave a series of sermons on the topic of Macrocosm and Microcosm, addressing his
audience: ―I have tried to make it clear that in the microcosm, in the nervous system, in the
brain, men are mirror-images of the activities and beings of the macrocosm‖ (Steiner, 1968,
p. 147).
Steiner taught that the physical human being is comprised of an etheric body, astral body,
and an ―I‖ body. This belief gives Anthroposophic believers the ability to leave their physical
bodies during their day-to-day earthly existence in order to commune with spiritual beings
in the cosmos. In Waldorf education, Steiner‘s ―True Nature of Man‖ —more commonly
known by the uninformed as his ―child development model‖ —is based on his concept of
man as physical, etheric, astral, and ―I‖. It is extremely helpful to be familiar with Steiner‘s
conclusions about these soul and spirit bodies of man in order to understand his pedagogy.
For example, the emphasis on delaying first grade and reading until the etheric body enters
(signaled by growth of secondary teeth), and delaying intellectual thinking until after the
age of fourteen when the astral body supposedly incarnates. According to Steiner, these
spiritual bodies incarnate in seven-year increments, after birth, as the physical body grows.
They are believed to leave the physical body after death and reincarnate after a period of
cosmic existence spent with spiritual beings in the universe. The physical body is the
hereditary body of flesh and bones. Beings in the cosmos cause the physical body to grow
as well as hold it together. Beings that live in the chest move the blood as the heart is not a
pump. Plants, minerals, man and animals have physical bodies.
The etheric body incarnates around the age of seven. ―It is visible to the seer and has
approximately the same form as the physical body. It is a body of forces‖ (Steiner, 1981b,
p.22). ―A whole people‖ (ethnic and ―racial‖ groups) share the rudiments of a common
etheric body (Steiner, 1981b, p. 47). The etheric body in the male is female, and visa versa.
It appears as ―a form of light extending everywhere, but only slightly, beyond the form of
the physical body‖ (Steiner, 1981b, p. 23). The loosening of baby teeth and growth of
secondary teeth is a sign that the etheric body is incarnating. The etheric body never leaves
the physical body until death, ―except during certain states of Initiation‖ (Steiner, 1981b, p.
33). It loosens if a person gets a fright or sneezes. If a body part falls asleep and tingles it
is because the etheric body temporarily has left that part of the physical body. ―If a hand,
for instance, has gone to sleep, the seer can perceive the etheric part of the hand
protruding like a glove parts of the etheric brain also protrude when a man is in a state of
hypnosis‖ (Steiner, 1981b, p. 34). Man, plants and animals have etheric bodies.
Humans and animals have astral bodies that bear feelings such as sorrow or joy. The astral
body whirls about in space seeking the appropriate parents for the reincarnation process. To
a ―seer,‖ it resembles a bell-shape opening downwards (Steiner, 1981b, p. 46). ―A whole
people‖ share a common astral body that ―lives within a kind of astral cloud and is the body
of the Folk-Spirit‖ (Steiner, 1981b, p. 47). It is released into the physical body between
fourteen to twenty-one years of age. Steiner taught that all human astral bodies leave the

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physical body during sleep. They ―wind their way, in spiral form, out of the physical body‖
into the cosmic community of spiritual beings, returning to the physical body upon waking
(Steiner, 1959, p.104). While united with planetary beings, the astral body drinks the forces
of beings associated with Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Venus, Sun etc. These planetary beings
give the astral body what it needs to exist. During sleep, the astral body is in ―union with
the starry world, the astral world‖ (p. 105) and returns to the microcosm when the person
wakes.
Spiritually advanced man has an individual ―I‖ body. This separates him from animals and
lower humanity, making him divine. The ―I‖ leaves the physical body and accompanies the
astral body during sleep. The ―I‖ is the body that can be trained to remember past lives in
Greece and Atlantis, etc. The spiritually advanced will develop ―I‘s‖ that can remember past
lives, and, after death, this body will be able to locate those that it worked with during a
previous life on Earth. ―The anthroposophical movement is to help and guide people to
remember in the right way‖ (Steiner, 1990, p. 14). Anthroposophists who have developed
their ―Is‖ reincarnate in core groups that have been spread around the globe and will
instruct others who have not developed their ―Is‖ in what they may ―think, feel, will and
do‖. The ―earth and all it can yield will belong to those‖ who develop their ―Is‖ (pp. 23-24).
One of the more influential yet eccentric medieval alchemists to embrace the micro-
macrocosmic theory of ancient Greece was Paracelsus (1493-1541). His writings have
exerted an influence for centuries right up to modern branches of Theosophy and
Anthroposophy (Roob, 1997, p. 15). Claiming to have visited with magicians in Egypt and
Arabia, he is said to have traveled to India before settling in Basle, Switzerland, where he
taught medicine at the university and developed his version of alchemy which incorporated
Cabala, astral magic and Christian mysticism. All Cabalistic signs, according to Paracelsus,
could be reduced to two—the macrocosm and the microcosm. He taught that the sign of the
macrocosm is a six-pointed star the sacred symbol of Solomon‘s Seal. The microcosm, a
five-pointed star or pentagram, represented man and all occult forces. These signs had
magical power over supernatural beings. (Spence, 1996, p. 257 &p. 276). Likewise, Steiner
taught his pupils about star magic as documented in the book Rosicrucianism and Modern
Initiation: Mystery Centres of the Middle Ages. In the lecture recorded in chapter five he
claimed that once, while on a spiritual journey in the spirit world, he became aware of a
lonely occult school in Central Europe that imparted the ―overpowering‖ and great wisdom
of the meditation known as Solomon‘s Key. According to him, this wisdom goes right back in
history through the Middle Ages to Aristotle in Greece: the tradition originated in Asia and
Alexander the Great brought it to Greece via Macedonia. This symbol played a major role in
the Central European mystery school that Steiner clairvoyantly discovered while in the
spiritual world. Supposedly, the master of the occult school would instruct pupils to make a
star with their bodies by standing with their feet apart and their arms stretched out above.
By assuming this position the pupils ―became conscious that they really do exist‖ (Steiner,
1965, p.64). After deep meditation the pupils learned that they could write themselves into
space and feel the very marrow in their bones. They went so far inside of themselves that
they left their bodies and they learned to know the lines of force that the gods had drawn to
establish and found the world (p. 67). Having discovered the paths to the gods through Man
and by placing themselves in the spirit-being of man, the pupils learned to look back into
past Atlantean times and even further (p. 68). ―The teacher would say to the pupil: ‗Behold,
Man is a Microcosm he imitates in his organism what goes on in the great Universe‘‖
(p.69). This concept of man as pentagram was a favorite topic of study for medieval wizards
and alchemists. The image is found in numerous Renaissance magic textbooks and
alchemical sources. It reappears in Steiner‘s Anthroposophical teaching today, and,
remarkably, in the lesson books and classroom rituals of Waldorf pupils.