The Human Soul

The Human Soul

Modern psychology has laid open our drives, attitudes, and traits, but it has stripped the human being of all wonder and beauty, of all meaning in pain and joy. Stripped of soul, the human being is pale and deathly.

The nature of the human soul is certainly difficult to describe or quantify, but it is nonetheless something that we all know exists in the depths of our being. In this classic work, Karl König considers the various characteristics of the soul. He looks at pain, anxiety, fear, shame, and anger, and he distinguishes four stages of consciousness: normal day-consciousness, dreaming, sleeping and deep sleep.

The Human Soul is a fascinating exploration into the mysteries and complexities of the soul, as well as a detailed study of the human psyche—emotions, moods, the senses, consciousness, and dreams. Written in the early 1960s, it is as refreshing today as when first published.

About the Author

Karl König (1902–1966) was born in Vienna, in Austria-Hungary, the only son of a Jewish shoemaker. He studied medicine at the University of Vienna and graduated in 1927, with a special interest in embryology. After graduating, he was invited by Ita Wegman to work in her Klinisch-Therapeutisches Institut, a clinic in Arlesheim, Switzerland for people with special needs. He married Mathilde Maasberg in 1929. Dr. König was appointed paediatrician at the Rudolf Steiner-inspired Schloß Pilgrimshain institute in Strzegom, where he worked until 1936, when he returned to Vienna and established a successful medical practice. Owing to Hitler’s invasion of Austria, he was forced to flee Vienna to Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1938. Dr. König was interned briefly at the beginning of World War II, but on his release in 1940 he set up the first Camphill Community for Children in Need of Special Care at Camphill on the outskirts of Aberdeen. From the mid-1950s, König began more communities, including one in North Yorkshire, the first to care for those beyond school age with special needs. In 1964, König moved to Brachenreuthe near Überlingen on Lake Constance, Germany, where he set up another community, where he died in 1966.