The Rudolf Steiner Archive

I am somewhat anxious about what I have to say today, for if I could spare three months in which to develop the aspects of my subject, it could not easily be dismissed as fantasy. But I must offer you a mere cursory introduction, within the limits of an hour, in order to make the following special problems of healing quite clear. Therefore much will seem without foundation. Nevertheless I will try to show in the presentation of the subject, that these matters are indeed well-founded—even better-founded than those on which the natural science of today has been built.

Let us first consider the formative process of plants as such, in its relationship to the cosmos. We have already pointed out that in man the opposite process to that of plant formation is active in a functional sense. Therefore, in order to find the direct correspondence in man, we must at least indicate in outline the formative process of plants As is apparent, there are two distinct and quite opposite tendencies in this process. One tendency is earthwards, and I have already suggested that in trees the main stem forms a sort of excrescence of the earth, so that the flowers and leaves are rooted in the trunk, just as herbs and plants of lower types are rooted in the earth. There is this tendency of the plant towards the earth; but on the other hand, the plant has an impulse upwards, away from the earth. The plant strives to escape from the earth, not merely mechanically by virtue of a force opposed to the pull of gravity but also in its whole formative process, internal as well. The processes in the flower become different from those in the root; they become far more dependent on extra-terrestrial or extra-telluric forces than the root. This dependence of the flower formation upon forces originating outside the earth must first be considered and we shall find that the same forces utilised by the plant to initiate the formation of flower and seed are also necessary to the human hypogastrium, because of the functional reversal of the plant process in man. They are utilised through the abdomen as well as in all functions of evacuation secretion and the physical base of sex. So if we examine the complementary relationship of man and the plant, we find special correspondences to the extra-telluric as well as to the telluric.

Please notice here that what I maintain has not been derived from the medical works of the past, but is based entirely on contemporary spiritual-scientific research. I only try to use sometimes the terms of the old literature of medicine, as modern literature contains no suitable vocabulary. But it would be a complete mistake to suppose that any item of my course here is simply derived from archaic sources.

Observe the growth of the plant as it rises upwards out of the earth. You must take note of the spiral sequence in the actual formation of the leaves and of the flower. You might say that the formative forces follow a spiral course around the central stalk. This spiral course cannot be explained by internal forces of tension in the plant. No; its origin is to be sought in the influence that works from the extra-telluric sphere, and chiefly in the influence of the sun's apparent path through the heavens. (Let us say “apparent,” for the respective motions of earth and sun can only be taken relatively.) There are indeed points of view better than the mathematics of Galileo, from which to study the paths of the heavenly bodies; they trace themselves in the sequence of formative processes in the plant. For what the stars do is faithfully copied by the plant.

It would be quite mistaken, however, to reckon only with the vertical upward impulse in plants, that depends upon the sun. The stars co-operate in a resultant with movements caused by the sun. If the sun's action were the sole operating force, it would take complete possession, so to speak, and the plant would be drawn upwards into the infinite. (See Diagram 9). The solar force is, however, counteracted to some degree by that of the outer planets, in their spiral courses. For planets as a matter of fact, do not move in an ellipse; their orbits are spiral. It is time today that the whole Copernican system was re-examined and superseded by another. The so-called outer planets are Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. (Uranus and Neptune are only members of the solar system in an astronomical sense; they do not really belong to it by origin; they are foreign bodies that have become attracted and attached to our system. They are guests, invited to our planetary system, and we are right to omit them.) The forces of the superior planets deflect the plant's upward tendency, so as to bank up the formative forces which cause the formation of flower and seed. So if you consider the plant's upward development, from the region of formation of the foliage, you must ascribe it to the combined action of of the Sun's influence and that of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

There are not only these two elements in co-operation. Marshalled against them are the influences from the Moon and the so-called inferior planets, Mercury, and Venus. The Moon, Mercury and Venus cause the earthward, downward tendency in the plant, which manifests itself most characteristically in the formation of the root. Thus all that seems essentially earthy is really a joint product of the action of the Moon, and that of the inferior planets. So I would say that the plant expresses and bears the imprint of our whole planetary system. Until we know this, and learn also how to recognise the planetary manifestations in man as well we cannot thoroughly understand the relationship between the plant structure and the human structure.

Now consider the fact that plants with a prevailing tendency towards root-formation leave much more ash when they are burnt than is left by plants that tend towards the formation of blossoms or even by mistletoe and, tree-plants. This difference is caused by the greater influence of the inner heavenly bodies, Moon, Mercury and Venus, on plants with great root development. And if you search in their ashes, iron, manganese, and silicon will be found, all of them substances with direct remedial qualities, as is shown when any portion of the plant is used.

But if plants of the opposite type are exposed to the action of fire, there is but little ash. And in these different results of the same process of incineration, we have something I would describe as an external document of the plant's relation to the whole cosmic order, and not to forces ruling on earth alone.

Now consider the plant world more closely. In the case of annual plants, growth stops abruptly at a certain season of the year with the formation of seed. As we have seen, seed formation is mainly governed by extra-terrestrial forces. But its course is interrupted and it is given over to the earth again. It must, as it were, continue at a lower stage in the new year, what had reached a higher stage in the old year The course of plant life and growth is a remarkable one. Take the earth's surface; the plant emerges from the soil, reaching out to its fullest extent towards the extra-terrestrial spheres. But then what has developed extra-terrestrially is sown again in the soil, and the cycle begins anew. (See Diagram 10). Thus every year the heavenly forces sink into the ground, mingle with the forces of the earth, and again complete their course. Year by year the seed of the flower is returned again to the root region, to complete the rhythmic cycle to which all plant life is subject.

This rhythmic cycle is proof that what we term the flora of earth is in truth a manifestation of the whole earth's interaction with the extra-terrestrial cosmos. This interaction, therefore, is not restricted to the form of our planet, but extends to its internal chemistry and its whole system of organic life. Just as what is earthly in the mechanism in the form is overcome by the cosmic forces, so also is the terrestrial chemistry in plants overcome by the forces outside the earth; and when this overcoming has reached a certain point, the process must return again to earth and display earthly chemistry. From these facts it is not a farfetched conclusion that the specific chemistry of the earth is revealed in the ashes; it is represented in the refuse, the dross of the living sphere. This dross and ash is subject to gravity, whereas the upward urge and growth of the plant is a continual conquest of gravity, and of other earth-bound forces, so that we may properly speak of a polar opposition between gravity and light. Light is that which continually overcomes gravity. And the plant is so to speak set into the tension of this combat between light and weight, between that which strives towards ashes and that which strives towards fire. And this polar contrast between what becomes ashes and what is revealed in flame, is the opposition of ponderable and imponderable elements. There we have revealed the cosmic place and role of plant life.

What of man? We have already maintained that we shall not understand him aright, unless we recognise his polar orientation also. I have pointed out that the part that grows upwards from below, in man grows downwards from above; the sexual and excretory processes in man correspond to the flowers and seed vessels, whereas his root formation points upwards. In man, however, it remains in the realm of functions; in plants it becomes a material process.

So man presents us with manifestations that are the direct opposite of those of the plant. In him we have not only the manifestations, but the bearer of them. So you must distinguish in man the functions sending their roots upwards, and the functions tending downward; and as surrounding sheath of both, his material body, which in its turn has an upward tendency. That which happens artificially and externally in respect of plants—the removal from the upper sphere and implanting into the lower level—in man becomes a continuous process. In him there is a constant double current in every process from above downwards and from below upwards, and the relationship of these currents is the core of health and disease. We cannot begin to understand the complex processes in man, if we do not consider the facts I have just described. On the one hand is a material carrier working upwards from the earth, and on the other, something else, working from above downwards, is inserted into the carrier.

It is easy to see that the interaction of these forces determines health or disease in man, especially when, half in despair, so to say, one meets the most important fact, that the human organism has to be treated quite differently according to whether the upper region or the “sub-cardiac” regions are affected. They must be viewed according to quite different principles.

Let us cite an example; the relationship of common rickets to cranio-tabes, which to many people is quite mysterious. These two afflictions seem so closely related if the human individual is viewed as a unity, whereas in truth they should be considered in the in the light of perfectly different principles, as they originate in regions of man that are polar to one another. This has an important bearing upon the healing process. Medical men who obtain certain favourable results in cases of rickets, through some form of phosphoric application, will probably fail completely in cases of cranio-tabes, which require an opposite therapeutic method, probably an application of some form of carbonate of lime. But this is a mere illustration of a truth that is quite general; though its statement is apt to be unwelcome. Where the treatment of human beings is in question in the domain of medicine, it is a fact that whatever remedy is prescribed, and whatever rule is laid down, their exact opposites may also be true and efficacious in certain cases. A very annoying circumstance! It is perfectly possible to prescribe a thoroughly sound and effective method of treatment for such and such a case; and then if it is applied to what appear to be the very same symptoms, to find that it proves no remedy, and that the exact opposite must be applied. Thus it is always possible to meet, and even beat, one theory of treatment with another on the medical field; for most people are not aware that only one part of man can be treated remedially according to any one method, and that another region requires a different method, this is the point we must grasp here.

Now let us carefully examine the sphere that in plants appears visibly separated in two, whereas in man it forms one aspect of his whole constitution. I referred to the three formative impulses which are in some degree inherent in external nature; the impulse to saline formation the impulse to mercurial formation and the tendency peculiar to certain substances such as phosphorus and sulphur to conserve within themselves the imponderable forces to become their carriers.

What is the difference between these formative impulses of external nature, in so far as our present subject is concerned? All that is saline in its process tends to saline formation, leading our internal processes in to the realm of gravity. Those who study the medical works of the past would do well to keep in mind, wherever they find references to the “salification” of substances, that by this process the substance in question is subjected to the force of gravity, and by the opposite process, the light process, it is liberated from gravity; that is, the imponderables are so liberated. Accordingly if we accept light as the representative of all other imponderable forces, we must conceive the whole of external nature as involved in the struggle between light and gravity, between the force that strives towards the extra-terrestrial and the force that makes earth's substances tend towards the centre. We have here the polarity between light and gravity; and in between, that which perpetually seeks the balance between the two and manifests mercurially For the mercurial element is simply something that continually seeks to maintain a state of equilibrium between light and gravity.

We have to visualise the place and office of the imponderables working between the saline, the phosphoric, and the mercurial elements in the whole cosmic scheme, i.e., in gravity, in the light forces, and in that which ever seeks an equilibrium midway between them. Now into the very centre of these mighty forces and tensions is placed in a remarkable way the whole activity of our human heart. It is an appalling feature of the current natural scientific view, that quite apart from the pump-theory, which is untenable, as I have already demonstrated, all heart functions are thought to be enclosed within the limits of the individual being's skin. It is assumed that the heart is somehow connected with the substances that pulsate rhythmically within the limits of the body. But in truth, man with his organic system is inserted into the whole process of the universe, and the human heart is not merely an organ pertaining to his organism, but belongs to the whole world process. That tension of opposite forces which we have traced in the plant, that alternation and interplay of super-solar and infra-solar forces, is also manifest in man in the movements of the heart. The heart movements are not only an imprint of what takes place in man, they are also an imprint of extra-human conditions. For in the human heart you may see reflected as in a mirror, the whole process of the universe. Man is individualised merely as a being of soul and spirit. In other aspects of being, he is inserted into the universal process, so that, for instance, the beats of his heart are not only an expression of what takes place within man, but also of that contest between light and gravity that fills the whole cosmic stage.

I have often had occasion to put this cosmic-human interaction before laymen, in a rough and obvious way, by means of the following calculation. Let us assume that the human being draws breath eighteen times in the course of one minute. In one day of twenty-four hours, this will amount to 25,920 breaths. Now take one day of human life and note further that there are 360 or 365 days in the year assume that the human individual attains average old age, that of seventy-one years (one may, of course, become much older). In that case we shall find as many days in the course of life, as there are breaths in one day of twenty-four hours: namely 25,915. Now take the path of the sun through the constellations of the Zodiac, the platonic year, namely, the time necessary for the point of sunrise to return to Aries at the Vernal Equinox; this amounts to 25,920 of our terrestrial years. Here you have a remarkable example in numbers of the human relation to the whole universe. The course of the sun through the heavens in the platonic year is expressed by the same number as the days of a human life. This is easily reckoned, but it points the way into profound depths of the foundations of the world. Bear in mind—as we have had occasion to stress in Anthroposophy—that in sleep the ego and the astral body of man leave the physical and etheric bodies, and that on awakening, they return to them again. Visualise these exits and re-entries as exhalations and inhalations of the soul and spiritual element by the physical body; you will find that there are 25,915 or 25,920 of such “breaths” in the course of a normal life (the difference of five is due to leap-year days), which obviously must represent a “day” in relation to some other rhythm. And again there must be something in the cosmos which is inserted according to the same numerical terms into the solar revolution. Here is a rhythm in world occurrences that manifests on a large scale; it manifests also in an individual human life, and in the function of respiration during the day. You will no longer find it unaccountably strange that the ancient world, out of their old clairvoyance, spoke of the days and nights of Brahma, the in-breathing and out-breathing of the world; for these ancients had found the breathing of heaven reflected in the mirror of the everyday life-process of man.

Because of these concrete facts, and not because of any sympathies or antipathies, we arrive at a true reverence for primeval wisdom. I can assure you that I should not reverence the ancient wisdom, had I not had the proof in countless cases, that we can re-discover today things already contained in it, things that had been lost and forgotten between the knowledge accumulated of old and that which we are now able to attain. The reverence for ancient wisdom that grows on the seeker after real knowledge is not the result of any vague general inclination, but springs from the comprehension of certain quite concrete conditions and facts.

If we are in quest of the forces akin to light, we must turn to the outer planets of our system, to Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. And as all that happens on earth is in some degree the effect of extra-terrestrial agents, we must look here for the effects of what happens in the cosmos. This leads us to examine the various substances in the earth, but not to look for the causes of their configuration or general consistency in the abstract and fantastic manner of the molecular physics and molecular atomic chemistry of today. This atomic chemistry which looks, as it were, into what is impenetrable to our vision, into the inmost recesses of the constitution of matter. devises all kinds of fine guesswork about atoms and molecules. It then proudly talks of “astronomical recognition” of what goes on in the interior of material structure: or rather, it did so twenty years ago, and does so perhaps less often today. That was a subject of discussion some time ago; today these processes are photographed, as I mentioned in a recent public lecture, and in spiritualistic circles photography is also called in to depict spirits!

Just as scientific investigators are disinclined to believe in “spirit” photography, so must they permit us, who see through these things from another angle, to reject their atomic photography as well. For the same delusion is at work here also.

In plants, it is not forces bound to atoms and molecules that we have to consider, but those that affect the earth by their impact from without, and permeate its substances. Not those tiny demons, the molecules and atoms, but the cosmic forces, shape the internal and external structure of matter. Let us take an example. Suppose that a planet in extra-terrestrial space is in an especially favourable position for working on a certain portion of our sphere. Assume Saturn to be the planet in question and that Saturn can best exercise its full influence when the direction of other planetary influences strike the earth as far away as possible from its own, and do not mingle with nor deflect them; (See Diagram 11) i.e., when the Sun, Mars, and other bodies are not in or near a line from Saturn to the earth. Then the Saturnian force impinges directly on our planet. And if conditions are favourable in the portion of earth directly under Saturn's influence, that Unmixed and undeflected Saturnian influence causes a structure to he formed there differing from that due to the action of Mars under similar conditions.

Earth's substances are the combined result of forces from the stars In the case cited as illustration, the effect of such action is shown in the production of lead. This is why we must associate certain substances in the earth—especially metals—with certain planetary positions in the extra-telluric universe. What the ancient wisdom of mankind offers us, can only be truly understood when it is discovered afresh. It is impossible for anyone accustomed to think in modern chemical and physical terms to read the ancient writings. This is shown by the following example. In a history of alchemy an extremely clever Norwegian scholar described a process, which, as he quite truly remarks, is mere nonsense according to modern chemical concepts, for it gives no result. It is a process concerned with lead. But he failed to see that this process explained the process of seed formation! He referred the statements to a laboratory experiment, which, of course, made nonsense. He did not realise that the terminology of archaic alchemy must be transferred, so to speak, to another plane, and that many of its expressions must be read in a wholly different sense. Therefore he made nonsense of the passage. His opinion was, of course, both right and wrong. Thus we cannot but assume a relationship between terrestrial substances and the forces impinging on the earth from the surrounding world.

The study of metals in particular, on the lines indicated, leads to concrete relationships, so that we must ascribe their formations as follows. Lead results from the unimpeded action of Saturn, tin from that of Jupiter, iron from Mars, copper from Venus, and what is now termed quicksilver from Mercury. Similarly we must recognise a relationship between everything of the nature of silver, all that is silvery—I use this term with intention—and the unimpeded action of the Moon. It is pleasantly amusing to read in contemporary books that the reason why the ancient world associated silver with the Moon, was because of the Moon's silvery radiance—merely because of this external appearance! Anyone who is aware how careful and minute were the studies made of old as to the properties of the various metals—along their own lines, naturally—will not fall into such error. Moreover, the conception I have given leaves, as you will perceive, ample room for other substances than the six most distinctive metals (lead, tin, iron, copper, quicksilver and silver) to come into being through the combination of planetary forces. This joint action of planetary forces means that various other planetary influences combine with the typical ones which we indicated. In this manner, the less representative metals originate. And in any case, earth's wealth of metals is the result of forces acting on the earth from without. Here is the link between the workings of metals and the formation of plants. If you summarise the agencies contained in lead, tin and iron, you have there everything connected with flower and seed formation in plants; inasmuch as these processes take place extra-terrestrially above the surface of the earth. And all that is of the nature of copper, silver or mercury, must be related to everything connected with the formation of plant roots.

As on the one side, the mercurial element acts as an equalising agent, you will certainly look for a corresponding equilibrium on the other side. The mercury element is the balancing factor between the telluric and that which is to some degree supra-telluric. But our whole universe is permeated with spirit. Thus another polarity arises. The terrestrial and extra-terrestrial poles represent the polar opposite of gravity and light. This offers only one possibility—the existence of a state of balance between the terrestrial and the extra-terrestrial elements. But there is another state of equilibrium between that which permeates all matter equally, whether it be terrestrial or extra-terrestrial, and matter itself; an equilibrium between the spiritual and the material, whether the latter be ponderable or imponderable. At every point of the material world, the balance must be held between it and the spiritual, and equally so in the universe. For us, the first and nearest agency that holds the balance in the universe, is the Sun itself. The Sun holds the balance between the spiritual in the universe and the material in the universe. Thus the Sun has a twofold aspect; as a heavenly body it establishes order in the planetary system, but at the same time it maintains order among the forces that permeate the material system. Just as we are able to link the individual planets with the metals as I have already described, so can we also establish the relationship of the Sun to gold. The ancients actually prized gold, not for its material value, but on account of its relationship with the Sun, and with the balance between spirit and matter.

We should recognise that all that we divide and separate on earth, both in our thoughts and in our actions, in nature is actually united in some way or another. In our thoughts we separate what is subject to gravity, and therefore tends to salt formation, from that which bears the light and is therefore akin to the workings of light; and we separate both these categories from what is contained in the state of equilibrium between the two. But in nature there are no such absolute divisions. All these ways of working are connected one with another, adjusted to one another, so that they form highly intricate constructions, and one of these intricate structural systems is shown in the lustre of the metal gold; for it is through gold that the spiritual realm looks, as it were, right into the external world. This directs your attention to possibilities with which I will deal parenthetically—for you may be able to do fruitful work, by utilising in contemporary literature suggestions obtainable from ancient literature. In doing the scientific papers suggested yesterday, you will be able to make use of indications in the ancient literature, if you can understand it aright. Thus it is most important to notice how in old writings all these primary principles, salt, mercury and phosphorus, were seen to be in every substance in different combinations, and to note the diligence with which it was sought to liberate and extract these three principles from a given substance. The ancients believed that lead was formed in the manner described above, but lead—like gold or copper—contains all three principles, salt, mercury and phosphorus. So, in order that we may be able to treat man with one or all of these, we must be able to extract or separate it in some way, from the substances with which it is united. In the chemistry of ancient times, the most meticulous care was devoted to this process. It was found to be particularly difficult in the case of gold, hence the Roman proverb which may well lead us to reverence the ancients: “Facilius est aurum facere quam destruere” (It is easier to make gold than to destroy it). For they held that in this metal, the three primary natural constituents, salt, mercury and phosphorous, were so firmly united that to extract them from gold was hardest of all.

Now we must readily admit that we should not get much further in the matter today, if we took the very same measures as the men of old times. But let us leave them, for we are dealing with the methods and medicine of today, and only occasionally referring to the light thrown by the past. Consider what we are now in a position to investigate. In order to extract the requisite amount of the three primary principles characterised yesterday and today, from the raw materials of nature, it will be necessary to subject these to combustion, in order first, to isolate the fire-bearing, light-bearing parts, then to try to extract the mercurial portions so that the portions with a saline tendency remain. These can be treated with some acid substance, which extracts them and produces an effective saline therapeutic remedy, whether of vegetable or mineral derivation. I shall give further details later on. Thus we shall either have to seek for the light-bearing substances in nature, in order to get extra-terrestrial factors, or try to remove the extra-terrestrial from earthly substances, and to retain the telluric; then we shall have a genuinely saline residue. Or finally we can try to attain something midway between the two poles.

Here we have a choice of two paths, each different in kind, and each taking us part of the way to our goal. We can take the standpoint of the ancient physicians, who always began by extracting the essentially phosphoric, saline or mercurial from various substances, and then made use of the result. In the opinion of these physicians, the specific action of the remedies they obtained depended on the matrix from which they had been extracted. What was obtained from lead acted differently from what was obtained from copper, for example. They laid most stress on origin: salt derived from lead was essentially different from salt derived from copper. So that when they spoke of salt, they knew that in it they had something common to all salts. Because it was salt, it was of the earth, yet because salt derived from the various metals is something extra-telluric, it has relationships to the most diverse parts of man. This we can consider in more detail in the next lecture.

This method is a possible choice, for instance, for the production of saline material in therapeutics. But there is the other way, chosen after the ancient method had ceased to work, and chosen in definite awareness of the fact that man is something more than a chemical apparatus. This way simply tries to take the substances as found in nature and to make available through “potentising” the forces hidden in them. This is the way chosen by Hahnemann's school, representing a new departure in the whole of man's medical researches. It left the archaic way, now blocked because of the ignorance concerning the extra-telluric and other relationships.

This is what causes—I would almost say—the despair of modern medicine; that people have ceased to pay attention to the extra-terrestrial that is really the basis of the earthly elements. The extra-terrestrial sphere is ignored and the earthly sphere is treated as all-sufficient. The homeopathic system strives to get beyond this; so does the “open-air treatment,” which uses light and air directly, because it has lost the secret of how to make right use of the light-bearer, phosphorus, and the air-carrier mercury. That of course is a third possibility. But a genuinely favourable and hopeful way will only be found when mankind has learnt, through spiritual science, the respective inter-relationships of the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms to extra-telluric forces. And as I indicated yesterday, the animal sphere is near—dangerously near to mankind. The ancients, knowing this, set a boundary which we will investigate anew in the light of our later knowledge. They thought as follows: plants remain within the realm of the planetary system; minerals are also within that sphere: but with the animal kingdom we leave the planetary system, and deal with something much more serious. We may not deal here with things as though we were still within the planetary extra-telluric domain. Those forces that lead to the formation of animals, and further to that of mankind, lie scattered farther and wider in the universe than do those that shaped minerals and plants. And so the ancients, knowing this, set a boundary which we will investigate anew in the light of our later knowledge. They thought as follows: plants remain within the realm of the planetary system; minerals are also within that sphere: but with the animal kingdom we leave the planetary system, and deal with something much more serious. We may not deal here with things as though we were still within the planetary extra-telluric domain. Those forces that lead to the formation of animals, and further to that of mankind, lie scattered farther and wider in the universe than do those that shaped minerals and plants. And so the ancients traced the Zodiac in the heavens as a warning not to seek remedial forces beyond the boundary of minerals and plants; or at least to be aware that beyond is perilous ground.

But this perilous ground has been entered upon, as I have already begun to tell you in outline. This must be elaborated when we come to deal with pathology and serotherapy. The methods in question often bring startling results in individual cases, and arouse illusory hopes, completely masking the danger in the background.

I have drawn your attention to certain fundamentals in human adaptation to telluric and cosmic conditions. The indications referred mainly to space, but we must relate space to time. For man must be considered as a whole;—the whole human being is, so to speak, child, adult and old man, and is so organised that these three time-members of his being are present in every individual. The results of our present inquiry we shall have to combine with the results of super-sensible research, and then we shall be in a position to proceed to more special studies.

Just as educational theory and practice for the young have to take note of the different epochs in the child's life, i.e., from birth to the change of teeth; from this to puberty, and so forth, so also must medicine contemplate human life and constitution as a whole from birth until death. In dealing with this I shall begin by using the anthroposophical terminology familiar to us, and then consider how this vocabulary may best be rendered for a more unprepared audience. It will be easier for us to translate thus after having proceeded further in our inquiry.

It is most important to grasp that in childhood the functional content of both the ego proper and the astral body—to use our terms—has to be fitted into the human being. During the period of childhood, this functional content becomes fitted into the organism, so that later on it can really work with the supple and plastic organic substance. Therefore it can occasion no surprise that the disturbances associated with this permeation of the higher human elements into the lower, occur in childhood, especially from the seventh to the fourteenth, fifteenth or sixteenth year, for at this period the etheric body has to struggle for its right place in relation to the physical body, so that sexual maturity may come about. And there is a frequent risk of the elasticity of the physical and etheric bodies not coinciding. To equalise and balance these two comparative elasticities is in the main the duty of the astral body. If they do not work harmoniously together, the astral body often has to intensify its energies; and if its forces are insufficient for this extra call, morbid symptoms result, which must be met by external measures, and so you will find that in childhood there are forms of illness which break out in physical manifestations, as, for instance, in chorea. All diseases and disturbances culminating in this complex of symptoms, that is, accompanied by psychic disturbance, in addition to the organic manifestations, are linked up with the unaccustomed effort and strain on the astral body, in the task of bringing about an equilibrium between the elasticities of the etheric and the physical bodies.

If you observe in pregnant women symptoms of the same kind as in chorea, you will be well able to understand their origin, for the harmony of elasticity in physical and etheric bodies is of course interfered with by pregnancy, and the astral body has to shoulder the same extra responsibility as fell to it in childhood. Therefore it will be necessary to reinforce and stimulate the whole range of the astral body's activity in the illnesses peculiar to the early years of life, and sometimes synchronising with the pregnant state as well. We must see that the functions of the astral body are so directed as to act as a balancing factor between the elasticity of the physical and that of the etheric. (The necessary measures will be discussed in the lectures to follow.)

On the other hand and this is why I have emphasised the need of taking age into consideration—you will find that diseases tending to Polyarthritis and the like, generally appear from the fourteenth, fifteenth or sixteenth year, till the end of the twenties. In this period of life the astral body has to put itself into the correct relationship with the physical and etheric, and if it has not been adequately prepared for this by the necessary treatment in childhood, it will not be able to establish the correct relationship. The result will be the appearance of morbid symptoms, either in the period from the middle teens to the end of the twenties, or in the following period. The important point is, to give great weight to the time-factor in the study of disease, and—if I may express myself in a somewhat superficial manner—not to assume that nature has made the human organism with a special eye to our convenience, so that we may easily and conveniently read off from it the curative measures necessary. But the human organism has not been made with a view to ease and convenience in the discovery of cures. And there is too much inclination to assume that such is actually the case. Of course there is a certain truth in the axiom “Like is cured by like.” But it may happen that the main group of symptoms—which is taken to be the “Like” to be cured by “like”—has arisen in another period of life: for instance, a complex of symptoms may be present before the age of twenty, possibly provoked by external measures; and these same external measures which provoked the morbid process at the earlier age, may become a remedy, to some extent, after the twenties have been left behind.

In visualising the general health of any individual, we must bear in mind that man lives in two life-epochs, which are in some respects polarised. In youth he is under other influences than he is later on. The dominant influences in youth are those of the outer planets, Jupiter, Saturn and Mars, and in later life the inner planets, Venus, Mercury and the Moon, to give them the titles already mentioned. But the earliest and most conspicuous influence of all is that of the Moon.

Thus we have to complete the consideration of Space by the consideration of Time. Only by these means can we learn correctly to estimate and appreciate certain phenomena of human life and constitution. We shall, when we go more into detail, give some indication of how to proceed if one wants to see the facts in the light of the true knowledge of man.

The influences that mould man begin their work before birth, and indeed even before conception. In the course of my investigations, I have often wondered why so many morbid processes have been described as “of unknown origin” in current medical literature; that is, as matters whose origin cannot accurately be determined. The cause of this uncertainty is the neglect of that whole complex of forces which we have recognised as extra-telluric, which is already at work while man approaches—not only his birth—but his own conception. Acting thus on man, they also provoke opposite reactions later on, so that certain processes that actually antedate conception, have reactions after conception or after birth. Sometimes it is only possible to observe and record the post-natal effects, which are a species of defensive reaction against what was present before conception in the whole system of nature.

These considerations apply particularly to all the processes of ossification and sclerosis Not only sclerosis, but bone formation in itself, is a reactive process: both react to processes operative before conception. They are quite normal contrary or defensive reaction is included among the formative forces and counteracting the processes of dispersal and diffusion that act in man before conception. It is extremely important to bear that in mind. It is impossible to control the tendency to sclerosis without reference to extra-telluric factors working from birth or from conception onwards, and without referring this tendency to an extra-human and extra-telluric process dating from before the time of conception.

All these processes are liable to go over a certain limit, to swing over their normal level, as it were. Ossification or sclerosis, e.g., swing towards a medium position, and can overleap it and become too strong. They then take the form of “dispositions,” which reveal much that is most significant in the inner being of man. When the particular factor that manifests itself normally in bone formation or sclerosis, and only becomes abnormal with advancing age, in its own sphere, swings over to the opposite half and works into other organs outside its proper sphere, then indeed we have a symptom that is the morbid antithesis of a pre-natal process, and that manifests in the various kinds of carcinoma formation.

It is only by including man's whole course of being and becoming in our sphere of vision, that we can grasp these phenomena. For otherwise the development of carcinoma must always remain a mysterious factor in the life of man, if we cannot relate it to some process necessarily at work in man that exceeds its limits and invades other regions.

Another phenomenon can be considered in a similar way—the cases of hydrocephaly we often observe during childhood. We all have the tendency to become hydrocephalous, and this tendency is a necessary one; otherwise we could never attain adequate development of our brain and nervous system. For these must, as it were, be formed from out of the fluid element present in man. Thus we can observe a prolonged struggle during childhood between hydrocephaly and another factor that enters the human organisation in order to oppose the hydrocephalous tendency. We ought to have a definite term for this polar opposite, as well as for hydrocephaly itself; the opposite is a deficiency of liquid in the brain. It is neglected as a morbid condition today, but it is the antithesis of hydrocephaly. As young children, we oscillate perpetually between hydrocephaly and its unnamed antithesis which appears later on.

But we may be liable to overlook an important factor in Time, the exact moment, which always exists, even if not apprehended, in which the hydrocephalous tendency may be allowed to cease. (We shall deal later with the therapeutic aspect.) Ignoring this time factor, we may remove the hydrocephalous tendency too soon, either through education, or dieting, or special treatment in childhood, and especially in early infancy. Thus a normal tendency is obliterated too soon. And the results illustrate the harm of too short a view of the whole course of human life.

Legions of medical doctoral theses could be produced if adequate study were devoted to the association between the course of hydrocephaly in infancy and childhood, and syphilis, or the disposition to this disease in later life. The search for microbes is not really helpful here. Help and light come from consideration of the factors already mentioned. It would be of immense help to the prophylactic treatment of syphilis, if attempts were made to immunise man in earliest childhood against the forces that later on may manifest in the various symptoms of syphilis—for these are various,

In diagnosis it is particularly necessary to remember these relations, and to refer back to the proper causes, which lie in the whole process of man's coming into being. Here is another matter of extreme significance. The whole organic process, as it were, advances against the heart, both from the upper bodily sphere, and from below upwards through the hypogastrium. The whole formative process of man presses towards the heart, from both sides; the heart is the real barrier, or organ acting as a dam. This organic pressure on the heart takes place at different ages. Let us consider the symptoms, which appear at an early age and may reach a culmination in pneumonia or pleurisy in youth.

If we consider carefully all that contributes towards them, they will be perceived as a process that has been advanced, the same as that which in still earlier youth manifests itself as hydrocephaly. Hydrocephaly has simply been shifted downward in the body, and appears here as a disposition to pneumonia or pleurisy, together with all the effects related to these in childhood.

These manifestations in childhood have their contrary processes in later years; they may recur later on, but do so in their polar form. And in the case of Endocarditis, e.g., even in acute cases, the physician would do well to inquire whether there were any morbid symptoms at an earlier age, having any connection with pneumonia or pleurisy. And the lesson should be: beware of suppressing such phenomena as pneumonia and pleurisy in children by hasty and intensive treatment. Of course, it is obvious that parents and teachers are most anxious that such symptoms should vanish; but it is highly advisable to leave them to take their course. The medical man should watch over the case and avert possible harmful by-effects, but allow the process to “work itself out.” Particularly in such cases, a kind of “physical” treatment, or, as it is now termed, Nature-healing, is to be recommended; this may be desirable in other cases, of course, but in none more so than in diseases of the type of pleurisy or pneumonia during childhood. This means, one should try to ensure the most normal course of the process of disease; the course is neither accelerated nor stopped too early.

If such a process is shortened before the proper time, the result is a comparatively early disposition to cardiac diseases with all their accessories, especially a susceptibility to polyarthritis so it is urgently necessary to beware of interfering with the process of disease in this region. The tendency to cardiac diseases would be removed in many individual cases, if what we may term the intention of pneumonia or pleurisy were not disturbed.

In all these instances we can see the inter-relationships in the whole process of man's growth and development. In this connection one should also remember the case in which the patient is only slightly affected and in which a cure is easier, but in which it is sometimes impossible to be sure whether it has been achieved or not. In such a case one may be compelled to tell the patient not to be anxious, that his condition will soon be relieved, etc., for it would also be of the greatest benefit if we did not try to cure so much! The cure of disease as such is certainly an excellent thing. But it should be borne in mind that there are many people who have passed through every sort of disease—according to their own account, at least—and have also tested every method of treatment. These people, when they have reached a good age, are not easily satisfied by another remedy for their complaints, for they are always “invalids,” It would be a good thing to make people aware that most of them are really not so ill as they believe. Of course there are drawbacks in such an attitude. But it may well be brought forward in the present connection.

All these things must be considered in the light of the complexity of man's being. He has, to begin with, his physical organisation; then his etheric organisation, which takes such great trouble to work its way into the physical organism between the seventh and fourteenth years. This etheric body is expelled again during certain processes, such as gestation. After the fourteenth year there begins the active installation of the astral body, and later that of the ego itself.

The ego must not be visualised, however, as external to the body in previous stages of growth. It is never external to the body in the waking state, but its “installation” means that the collaboration becomes intensified. Therefore every organic disturbance occasions difficulties and obstructions for the ego in maintaining its position. Contemporary medical science, without knowing it, even shows in diagrams and graphs these difficulties of the ego in coping with the other three vehicles. Of course, living and moving in a materialistic age, one does not fully see this combat in these diagrams. But whenever you trace a proper “fever curve,” you are recording an exact expression of this struggle of the ego. For studying this struggle, therefore, there is hardly anything more instructive than the temperature chart. Of course this may be less significant for therapy than for pathology. But we must know of these matters and understand them, at least in their main outlines. For we can only gain a true insight into the nature of, e.g., pneumonia or abdominal typhus, if we can visualise the course of its temperature curve. Let us suppose we are studying the two main types of temperature curve in pneumonia, and comparing the curve in critical, and in less serious cases. How different in the two cases is the effort of the ego whose intervention in the organisation is impeded! How differently does the ego carry out its counter-attack! In pneumonia, for instance, the temperature curve shows first the struggle, and then the collapse to a temperature below normal, in critical cases. (See Diagram 12). It becomes possible to carry out the counter-attack because of the previous efforts and exertions. In the other type (the lytic case), it is less possible to counter-attack out of the forces of the individual; so the more irregular drop of temperature is actually more dangerous.

The temperature curve in typhus is still more illuminating as regards the working of the ego upon the three other human vehicles. It presents a graphic and definite record of what the ego has to surmount. Such examples can prove how the introduction of natural-scientific methods into medicine compels us to know about the manifold human organisation. The confusions that have arisen in medical science originated in the materialistic phase, which made science limit its observation to the physical body. These processes in the physical body, however, are never autonomous, and above all they are never all of equal significance. For some of these manifestations may be due to the action of the etheric body, others again to that of the astral body, or the ego. They are all physical processes, but specialised and differentiated according to their origin. Their character differs widely, according to which of the higher members of man is operative within the physical body.

Now, if you bring together all that was said yesterday as to human dependence on the extra-telluric and telluric forces, and what I added today about human development extending into time, you will be able to form a conclusion that may be of help in the investigation with which we are now concerned. You will be able to postulate that certain forces are continually in action on man. These forces (if we consider the physical and etheric bodies) are extra-telluric as well as telluric, which work against them. They may be subdivided into those of the outer planets, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars; and those of the inner planets, Venus, Mercury and the Moon. These latter forces, as a matter of fact, change into telluric influences. (See Diagram 13 arrow pointing outwards.) The interaction of Earth and Moon is complex and deceptive in certain ways, and easily misinterpreted. Man is apt to think: there is the moon, above, whence its influence must descend. But this view is incomplete. The moon is not merely earth's satellite circling around her; the same force that dwells within the moon and works upon the earth, is also contained within the earth itself. The earth has its own lunar principle working outwards from within. (See Diagram 14). Physical manifestations such as the tides and many allied phenomena are not essentially telluric, but lunar; nevertheless they are not directly due to lunar influence (as recent theories claim), but to the lunar principle in the earth itself. There is an apparent correspondence between these effects and the moon, but there is, at least generally, no immediate connection in time. So when we trace the influence of the inner planets, we must look for their counter-image in the earth itself, so that the physical effect, the effect upon the physical, comes via the earth. And on the other hand, to the outer planets must be ascribed effects in the realm of soul and spirit.

We may define the Moon's action thus: it throws, as it were, certain formative forces down to the earth, and they manifest themselves in the human activities, especially those of creative fantasy and imagination. The lunar influence on the imaginative and creative powers of the soul is immense. These things should be studied; they are, of course, not adequately investigated and recorded in this age of materialism. But that they exist, is irrefutable. The moon affects directly the soul and spirit, promoting creative imagination. The Moon's counterpart, the lunar influence on all organic life, starts from the earth, and from there acts on the human organisation. This (twofold) action must be taken into account. The same rule holds good for the inner planets, which lie beyond the moon.

Thus man is affected in the most diverse ways, by telluric forces—call them terrestrial if you so prefer—and by extra-telluric forces If we wish to study these forces, we must look at the result of their co-operation in the whole human entity. They cannot be traced in any isolated part of man, and least of all in the cell—please note especially, in the cell least of all. For what is the cell? It is the element that obstinately maintains its separate existence, its own separate life and growth, contrary to the whole of human life and growth. Picture to yourselves, on the one hand, man built up in his whole frame by the telluric and extra-telluric forces, and on the other hand, the cell as that element which intervenes in the operation of these forces, upsets their ground-plan and conception, and even destroys their working by developing its own urge towards independent life. Actually we wage a ceaseless war in our organism against the life of the cell. And the most impossible of conceptions has just arisen in that Cellular Pathology and Cellular Physiology which find cells as the source and basis of everything, and regard the human organism as an aggregate of cells. Whereas, in truth, man is a whole in relationship with the cosmos, and has to wage perpetual war against the independent life and growth of the cells.

In fact the cell is the ceaselessly irritating and disturbing factor in our organism, not the unit of construction. And if such fundamental errors enter into the general scientific view, it is not to be wondered at if the most mistaken conclusions are drawn regarding the nature of man in all its implications.

So we may say that the formative process of man and the process of cell formation represent, as it were, two opposite sets of forces. The individual organs are right amidst the action of these forces; they become liver or heart and so forth according to whether the one or the other set of forces prevails. They represent a continuous balance between two poles. Some of the organs tend towards the cellular principle, and the cosmic factors have to counteract this tendency. Or again, in other organs—which we shall presently specify—the cosmic action dominates the cellular principle. In the light of this knowledge, it is especially interesting to observe all the organic groups that lie between the genital tract and the excretory tract on the one hand, and the heart on the other. These organs, more than any others, resemble the actual state towards which cellular life tends to develop. This resemblance is noticeable in comparison with all the other organs of man. And we must draw the following conclusion as to the essence of the cell. The cell develops—let us exaggerate somewhat, but consciously, and in order to make our point clear—an obstinate and antagonistic life, a life of self-assertion. This obstinate life centred in one point meets the resistance of another force, external to it. And this external element counteracting the cellular process, takes away the vitality from its formative forces. It leaves untouched its globular shape as of a drop of liquid, but sucks the life from it, as it were.

This should be an elementary piece of knowledge familiar to all; everything on our earth that is globular in form, whether within or external to the human frame, is the result of the interplay of two forces, one urging towards life, the other drawing life away.

If we examine the concept of the mercurial in ancient medicine we learn that it was held that the mercurial has been deprived of life but retains the globular form. This means that the mercurial element must be visualised as tending obstinately to the condition of a living drop of matter, i.e., to a cell, but as prevented by the planetary action of Mercury from being more than a corpse of a cell—that is to say, the typical quicksilver globule. Here is the condition midway between the saline and phosphoric; and here is also a glimpse of the very intricate road we must follow in order to understand the living working of planetary forces in the earth's substances. Were it not for the planet Mercury, every drop of quicksilver would be a living thing. And all the parts of the human frame which tend most definitely to the cellular principle—that is, the region specified above—need more than any other to receive the proper influence of the planet Mercury. This means that the region below the heart and above the organs of evacuation, depends very much on the preservation of a certain inherent tendency to maintain the cellular process, without letting it get so out of hand that it is quite overwhelmed by life forces. That is, it depends on making the cellular process remain under the devitalising life-paralysing Mercury condition; otherwise the activity of the organs under discussion would at once tend to become exuberant.

Now to follow up these facts, further and further, to the relationship between these organs and the metal mercury or quicksilver: the representative of the mercurial condition. As you will observe, this path you are following represents a perfectly rational train of thought, and what has been found through super-sensible vision will have to be confirmed by external and sense-perceptible facts, for the humanity of the present and future. Therefore it is advisable to follow up in clinical observation and in literature the detailed effects upon the human organism of the minerals and metals themselves, and of the minerals and metals contained in plants or animals. We can begin such an investigation with some particularly significant and characteristic facts. Thus I have already referred to a tendency originating before conception, that has to be counteracted by the process of ossification or sclerosis. But there is a complete counterpart to sclerosis and ossification; to produce it one would only have to induce lead poisoning in a man. Of course the experimental tests must not go so far as to set up serious plumbism, for the purpose of studying arterio-sclerosis. But it is most important to be able to follow up cases in which nature itself makes the experiment, in order to find out the inner relationship between lead and the phenomena produced in the human organism through the same forces as are formative in lead. It is possible to trace by close study the correspondence between the process working in lead, and the process of ossification and sclerotisation in man.

A parallel study could be made of the inter-relationship of the processes inherent in the metal tin, and all that I have already described as the balance between hydrocephaly and its counterpart. This would reveal that this whole complex in childhood, which tends to establish the right ratio of density between the bony part and the soft parts of the head, is due to the action of the same forces as those belonging to tin.

As we have seen, this process moves towards the lungs in later life, So we come to this—that we need only collect and collate material that has been recorded in medical literature for centuries, in order to see the deep relationship between this process, with its accessory symptoms in pneumonia and pleurisy, and the forces proper to iron. Then we have to follow this relationship to the normal process that comes about through the normal action of iron in the blood. You can follow up the same process working between iron and the blood, until it approaches the lungs and their accessories, and you will get an intuitive conception of the efficacy of iron in cases where the balance between hydrocephaly and its opposite has progressed as it were. Thus do these forces work with and into one another. Only by recognising this continuous interaction, and by reference to the extra-human processes, can we be in a position to ascertain the healing effects of remedial substances.

It it were actually found worth while to consider human nature from this angle, the observer would indisputably develop a sense of intuition of great importance in all diagnosis. For diagnosis really depends on the “seeing together” of so many elements. In every diagnosis, the physician should visualise the position and attitude of the patient to the world; the manner of his earlier life, his probable future way of life. There is already in the man of today the germinal disposition of what he will live through and experience, especially in the organic sphere, during the rest of his life.

The connection between what we have stated as to the effects of lead, tin and iron on the human organism, and the effects of the influence of other metals, is to be found in the polarity between the metals referred to and the workings of copper, mercury and silver.

What I have said does not mean any “pushing” of certain remedies. But it has to be presented to you, in order to establish the very definite inter-relationships between the configurations of forces in the metals—and of course other substances—and the formative forces of the human organism. This is why certain forces, as, for instance, those inherent in copper, work in a particular way against those inherent in iron. We must bear this opposition in mind, so as to know what substances to apply or use, if a certain type of force—e.g., that of iron—becomes too active and predominates. In some diseases the forces of iron are obviously too strong; there we must have recourse to copper or copper products, which can also be derived from the vegetable kingdom, as you will see later on.

Perhaps with this survey I have asked you to assimilate too much in many respects. I hope, however, that if you examine my statements in detail, you will recognise the need of following up these things and the possibility of very fruitful results for the transformation of the study of medicine and the whole medical practice and life.

The mode of expression in which we use to abridge or to simplify somewhat our ideas, when we say etheric body, astral body, etc., can be traced back to the imprint of these higher bodies in the realm of physical functions. Nowadays, people are not very ready to link up expressions in the realm of physical functions with the spiritual foundations of existence. But this must be done if medical thinking and conception are to become permeated with Spiritual Science. For instance, it will be necessary to study in detail the exact manner of the interaction between what we term the etheric body and what we term the physical. You have learned that this interaction is at work in man and we have just dealt with its coming into a kind of disorder in relation to the influence of the astral body. But the same interaction also takes place in extra-human nature.

Think this out thoroughly to its conclusion, and then consider that you are gazing profoundly into the relationship between man and nature. Man is surrounded—let us choose this one thing to begin with—by all the earth's flora in their many species, which he perceives through his different senses. You can at least admit the possibility of an interplay between the flora and all that our earthly atmosphere contains, in the first place, and all that lies outside this earthly sphere, in the planetary and astral regions, in the second place. In considering the flora, suppose the earth's surface to be here (See Diagram 15)—then we can say that the plants refer us to the atmospheric and astral regions (in the literal sense of a pointing to the stars, to the extra-telluric). And even apart from occult research, we can intuitively sense a living interchange between what manifests in blossom-bearing and fruit, and what flows into them from the whole wide universe. (Of course you must make use of a certain intuition here; but as I have already remarked, you will not get very far in medicine without intuition.) Let us Suppose that having realised the external cosmic interplay, we turn our thoughts to our own inner being. There, too, we shall find a certain relationship to that which surrounds us. Just as the etheric and the physical are closely united in in the plant-world, so must we surmise a certain kinship between this union and the manner of connection of the etheric and the physical in man himself.

How then can we speak concretely about this relationship of the etheric with the physical? From the abstract point of view, we can say that the etheric is nearer to the astral than to the physical; for the etheric is open to the forces from above. But we must expect also some relationship between the etheric and the physical. So we must take this two-sided kinship and must look for something which guides us to it. I shall try to do this in the most concrete manner possible.

Walk through an avenue of lime trees in bloom, and try to visualise what happens as you pass between the trees, enveloped in the scent of the lime blossoms. Realise that something is taking place between this fragrance of the limes in flower and, so to speak, the nerve ramifications in your olfactory organs. Turning your conscious thought to this process of perception, you become aware of a certain opening-out or release of the capacity for smelling, which meets the scent of the lime blossom. And you conclude that a process takes place through which an internal sphere in yourself opens to meet something outside, and that the two combine in some way to produce something by virtue of their inner kinship. So you must say that what is diffused in the air as scent from the lime trees—arising without a doubt from an interplay between the flowers and the whole extra-terrestrial environment as they open out towards it—is inwardly felt by you through your sense of smell. There you undoubtedly have something that passes from the etheric body to the astral, for otherwise you could not perceive it, and there would only be the mere process of life. The perception of smell itself proclaims the participation of the astral body. And that which reveals the kinship with the external world, simultaneously shows that the production of the sweet fragrance of the lime blossoms is the polar process to that taking place in your olfactory organs. The fragrance flowing from the blossoms shows the interaction of the plant-etheric with the astral element that embraces it and fills the surrounding universe. So in our sense of smell, we have a process that enables us to take part in the relationship between the plant-life of the earth and the astral element outside the earth.

Now take the sense of taste, and, as an example, something not unlike the scent of the lime blossom, though appealing to another sense, say the flavour of liquorice or of sweet ripe grapes. Here we have to do with a process in our taste organ in contrast to that of smell. You know how closely related they are; and you will also realise the resemblance between what happens functionally in the two cases. But you must, at the same time, understand that tasting is a much more organic and internal process than smell. Smelling is far more a surface activity; a participation in extra-human processes widely diffused in space. But that is not so with taste. Taste reveals certain properties inherent in the substances themselves, and therefore closely interwoven with matter. You can learn more of the internal quality of plants by taste than by smell. Call some intuition to your aid and it will help you to know that all connected with the solidification of matter in plants, and all that is revealed in the organic processes of solidification, is disclosed if we taste the contents of the plant. The essential nature of the plant defends itself against solidification and this is manifested in the tendency of the plants to be fragrant. So you really cannot doubt that taste is a process associated with the relationships of the etheric and the physical.

Now compare smell and taste. As you react to the plant-world through both these senses, you experience the twofold relationship which the etheric has to the astral on one side and to the physical on the other. You literally enter the etheric, or its expression, if you study these two processes of taste and smell. Where they occur in man, there is a physical revelation of the etheric in its dual relationship to the physical and the astral. When we examine what takes place in the acts of tasting and smelling, we live, so to speak, near the surface of man. Our task today is to pass beyond the abstract, mystical view and to approach the concrete grasp of spiritual truth, so that a true science may be fertilised by spiritual science. What can it avail people to listen to perpetual talk of the need to grasp the Divine in man, if they only understand by that a purely abstract Divinity? This method of approach only becomes fruitful if we can consider concrete instances in detail, and trace, say, the interiorisation of outer processes. For example, if we trace in smell and taste the etheric element which is external yet related to man, we perceive, in what is, perhaps, the crudest of our upper sensory processes, the interiorisation of external processes. It is so extremely important for our time to get beyond mere abstract and mystical notions.

Now you are fully aware that in nature every process tends to pass over into another, to be metamorphosed into some other process. Take what we have just said, for instance, that the sense of smell is located more on the surface of our organism, (See Diagram 16) while that of taste is more inward (we are speaking here with reference to the plant-world). Both these sense activities occur within the etheric, which opens into the astral on the one hand and solidifies into the physical on the other. The sense of smell reaches outwards towards the evanescent scent of the flowers, while that of taste lives in the process that opposes aromatisation, and interiorises that which externally produces solidification. When we carefully examine smell and taste, we find that in them the outer and the inner merge, as it were.

But in nature, all processes merge into others. Consider again the aromatic qualities of plants, through which, in a certain sense, they tend away from solidification and towards diffusion even so to speak, going beyond their limits in striving towards the active the amateurish term—into the atmosphere, so that this bears in itself some of the plant existence in the aroma. The phantoms of the plants are still bound up with the aroma. What actually happens when the plant pours its fragrant phantoms into the air, frustrating the process of solidification, and sending forth from the blossoms something that tended to become blossoms too? Simply a process of combustion held back. If you picture to yourself the further metamorphosis of this aromatic activity, you reach the conclusion that it is a combustion that is held back. Compare the process of combustion proper, with the aromatisation of plants. They are two metamorphoses of the same unity. I would even say that combustion is aromatisation on another level.

Let us now see what is in plants that produces flavour. It is more deep-seated and does not urge the dispersal of formative forces into the air like a phantom, but gathers them together that they may be used to build up the internal structure. If you follow up this formative activity with your taste, you come to the process lying below solidification in plants, i.e. to salification, which is a metamorphosis, on another level, of solidification (See Diagram 16). In plants, therefore, we find a strange metamorphosis. The aroma-process directed upwards is, in a certain sense, suspended combustion, which may lead to the initial stages of combustion (for processes of efflorescence are combustion processes). While in the downward tendency you have solidification and salification, and what you taste is something that is held back on the way to salification. But if saline substance is deposited in the tissues of the plant itself, it is something that has gone a step beyond the path of plant-formation; the plant has pressed the phantom of its form down into its actual being.

Here we have the “ratio” for finding remedies and light is thrown on the whole plant-kingdom because one now begins to realise what takes place there. I must again emphasise that this consideration of concrete facts is the only thing that can help us.

To find the next step, you need only remember that wherever it is possible, and from motives of opportunism in a higher sense, I shall link up what I have to explain with current ideas. Thus you should be in a position to build the bridge between what spiritual science is able to give and what is taught by external science. Naturally the contents of the following paragraphs could be stated in a more strictly spiritual-scientific way. But I will connect my remarks with the customary ideas of modern science, because they exist. The physiologist today keeps to the material that lies before him; the spiritual scientist does not need this material before him in the same way, for he does not use the method of dissection. We need not imitate the methods which over-rate anatomical inspection, yet we must reckon with the fact that they have been used and that their results have been established for some time. They will only cease to be employed when natural science has been fertilised to some extent by spiritual science.

Let us examine the close relationship, to which spiritual science will give the key, between the process taking place within the eye, and the processes of smell and taste—particularly of the latter. Let us compare the ramifications of the nerve of taste into neighbouring tissues, with the optic nerve within the eyeball. The relationship is so close that we could hardly avoid looking for an analogy with the process of taste, if we wanted an inward characterisation of the process of sight. Of course the nerve of taste is not continued into anything like the highly intricate structure of the eye, which is situated in front of the retina, and therefore sight is in many ways different.

But what begins as the process of sight, behind the wonderful instrument of the physical eye, has a close inner relationship to the process of taste. I mean that in the act of seeing, we are performing a transformed tasting, metamorphosed because the organic processes of taste are supplemented by the processes due to the intricate structure of the eye. In each one of our senses, we must distinguish between what our organism brings to meet the outer world and what the outer world brings to meet our organism. We must look at the inner process that takes place when the blood runs into the choroid of the eye, where the organism works into the eye. This process is more pronounced in certain animals, which not only have our ocular apparatus but the pecten and the xiphoid processes as well. Now the latter are organs of the blood circulation thrusting the ego forward into the interior of the eye, whereas with us, the ego recedes leaving the eyeball inwardly free. But by means of the blood, our whole organism works through the eye into the whole process of vision. And there, within the process of vision, the transmuted tasting is present. Therefore we may call sight metamorphosed tasting. And in our diagram (See Diagram 16), we have to put sight as metamorphosed tasting above taste and smell.

The processes of taste and of sight correspond to something external that co-operates with something internal. Thus the, process of taste must metamorphose itself upwards; sight is the upper metamorphosis of taste. Now there must also be a complementary downward metamorphosis of the process of taste, diving down into the lower bodily sphere. In the visual process we raise ourselves to the external world; the eye is enclosed in a bony socket, it belongs to the outside; it is a very external organ, built in accordance with the external world. Now we turn to the opposite direction and imagine the metamorphosis of the process of taste downwards into the depths of the organism. Here we come to the opposite pole of the sense of sight; we find, as it were, what corresponds in the lower part to the visual process in the upper part of the body. And this will throw much light upon our further inquiries.

In tracing the metamorphosis of the process of taste downwards, we find the digestive function.

You can only come to an inner understanding of this function, by recognising it, on the one hand, as a metamorphosed continuation of the process of taste, and on the other, as the complete polar opposite of the exteriorised process of sight. For the exteriorised visual sense enables you to recognise what in the outer world around you corresponds to digestion, of what digestion is an organic interiorisation. On the other hand, you become aware to what extent digestion must be called akin to the process of taste. It is not possible to understand the more intimate activities of our organism, in so far as they focus in the digestive process, unless you visualise that entire process as follows: good digestion is founded on capacity to taste with the whole alimentary tract, and bad digestion results from an incapacity of the whole tract to carry out this function of tasting.

Let us remember now that the process we are considering divides itself into taste and smell. As we have pointed out, taste is more involved in the relationships of the etheric with the physical: and smell, on the other hand, in those of the etheric with the astral. The continuation of the process of taste downwards into the organism is likewise bifurcated. This appears in the tendency of the digestive function towards faecal excretion, while on the other hand, we have excretion through the kidneys in the form of urine.

The two bifurcations, upper and lower, are exactly complementary. There are two polar opposites, one dividing upwards into taste and smell, while downward you have the division into digestion proper, and into that function which separates from mere digestion and is based on the more intimate activity of the kidneys and is accessory to their work in the body.

Thus it becomes possible to regard all that happens within our bodies, bounded by the surface of our skin, as an introverted external region. Every continuation upwards leads into the external world; man opens himself up to the exterior in this region.

Now we can follow the matter up in another way. There is, again, a faculty in us which lives in our soul, but is bound to the organism, not bound indeed in any materialistic sense, but in that peculiar sense of which you know from other lectures. For in thinking and the forming of “representations,”¹ (see Diagram 16) we have a metamorphosed seeing, once more turned inward in a certain sense.

Just consider for a moment how many of the representations you use in thinking are simply continuations of visual images; compare for a moment the soul-life of the congenitally blind or deaf person with your own! In thinking we have an interiorised continuation of seeing. And we may even find light thrown upon the remarkable interaction between the anatomy of the head and brain, and the process of thought itself. (This would furnish fine material for medical essays!) When we carefully examine our thinking processes, especially the connection between the powers of combination and association and the cerebral structure, we come upon formations resembling a transformation of the olfactory nerve. So we may say that from an internal point of view, our discontinuous, analytic thinking is very like its counterpart, seeing. But the combination of “things seen,” the association of representations, resembles smell in its internal organic formation. This contrast is expressed in a remarkable way in the anatomical structure of the brain.

Thus we find thinking and representation as the one end of a metamorphosis. What then may be regarded as the complementary interiorised process? Remember the power of representation can be termed a transformed sight; something that is exteriorised in sight and radiates back into the interior in thought. In thinking we try to reverse our vision, as it were, and to direct it again into the organism. So its polar opposite will be a process that does not in any way try to lead into the interior, but to lead out. This polar opposite is the process of evacuation—the conclusion of digestion. (See Diagram 16). Thus evacuation becomes the counter-image of representation. Here you have in a more intimate aspect what I have already dealt with from the standpoint of Comparative Anatomy, when I tried to show the close relationship between the so-called mental (spiritual) capacities of man and the regulated or non-regulated process of excretion; basing my argument on anatomical structure and the existence of the flora of the intestines.

Here is the same truth revealed by another approach. In thought we have an internal continuation of sight, and in evacuation an external continuation of digestion. Now refer to what we said before, that the aroma process in plants is a suspended combustion, and their solidification a suspended salt-process. This again throws light on what takes place within the body! Only—we must be clear that a reversal takes place. In representation, we have the sense of sight reversed and turned inwards, while in the lower bodily sphere there is a reversal towards the outside. So we have to recognise the relationship of the upper process to salification and of the lower to combustion, or to “fire.” (See Diagram 16). So if you apply a suitable remedy containing aromatisation and suspended combustion in plants, to the hypogastrium, you will help and relieve it. Conversely, if you apply to the upper part of man what tends to keep back or to interiorise the salt-process within the plant, you will give help in this sphere also. This rule we shall have to discuss and apply in detail.

Thus the whole external world may reappear in our human interior. And the more deeply internal the process, the greater the need to find its external analogue. We must see something very closely akin to the aromatic and combustion processes—but akin in the sense of polarity—in the activities of the digestive organs, especially of the kidneys. Again in the upper region, from the lungs upward, through the larynx into the head, we must see something related to the tendency to salt formation in the plant; all this tends to salification in man. We might even say, or rather we can say, that if we have once acquired a knowledge of the different ways in which plants absorb and collect salt, we need only look for their analogies in the human organisation. We have dealt with this in general today, and we shall go on to consider it in detail.

With this you have a basic principle for the whole of plant therapy. You have a general picture of the whole process of mutual action and reaction between the interior and the exterior world. But you will already be able to see some specific applications. Take, for instance, some of the odours which even as such are linked with taste, so that they may be fully experienced if the plant is not only sniffed, but chewed. Then we find a synthesis of smell and taste, aroma and flavour, as for instance in balm or ground ivy. In such cases we find that in the scent there is already an element of salification; there is a collaboration between the saline and aromatic tendencies. And this is an indication of their correspondence in the organism, an indication that balm, for instance, is suitable for the external organs and the chest, whereas such very fragrant forms as lime or rose blossom are akin to that which lies deep within the abdomen or in the neighbourhood of the abdominal wall.

All the organs and functions of our upper sphere in the regions of the smell and taste activities, are interlocked with a life-process, which can be so termed in a deeper sense—i.e.—respiration (See Diagram 16). Let us look for the polar complementary activity; it must be something branching from the digestive process, before digestion passes into evacuation, and be the polar counterpart of “representation.” Yet it must be something organically adjacent to the process of digestion, just as respiration is organically adjacent to the process of smell and taste. So we find the converse of respiration in the lymph and blood processes, in the process of blood formation and especially in what branches off and is pushed inward from the digestion, i.e., the processes in the lymphatic glands and similar organs contributing to blood formation. Here then are two polar processes; the one branching from the digestive system, the other from the more external sensory processes; one, respiration, in the second line behind the sensory organs; and the other situated just in front of where the digestive process leads to excretion—the process of blood and lymph. It is remarkable how, starting from actual processes, we come to an insight into the whole human being, whereas in current medicine man is studied only from the organs, considered externally. Here, however, we take our start from the processes and we try to understand the individual person out of the whole relationship between man and the external world. We find interactions that directly depict the etheric activities in man; and these have been our object of study today. And the two processes of breathing and blood formation meet again in the human heart itself. The whole outside world (including man) appears as a duality that is dammed up in the heart, and in it strives for a kind of equilibrium.

Thus we come to a remarkable picture, the picture of the human heart, with its interiorising character, its synthesis of everything that works from outside into our bodies. Outside in the world there is an analysis, a scattering, of all that is gathered together in the heart (See Diagram 17). You come here to an important conception that might be expressed thus: You look out into the world, face the horizon and ask:—What is in these outer surroundings? What works inwards from the periphery? Where can I find something in myself that is akin to it? If I look into my own heart. I find, as it were, the inverted heaven, the polar opposite. On the one hand you have the periphery, the point extended to infinity, on the other you have the heart, which is the infinite circle concentrated to a point. The whole world is within our heart. To use an illustration, perhaps one that is somewhat crude:—Picture to yourselves man standing looking on into the infinite expanses of the world; perhaps standing on a high hill, looking out and around. And suppose that the tiniest dwarf imaginable is put in the human heart. Try to realise that what the dwarf sees within the heart is the complete inverted image of the universe, contracted and synthesised. This is perhaps purely a picture, a kind of imagination. But if righty conceived and taken up, it can work as an orderly regulative picture, a regulative principle, that is able to guide us, and to help us rightly to combine our isolated attainments of knowledge.

Most of the foundations for our special studies and inquiries have now been laid down, and they will be the basis for answering the many questions you have addressed to me.

• 1. The term “representation” renders the German Vorstellung better than the usual translation “idea,” which is ambiguous.

We discussed yesterday what may be termed the approximation of the human organism to the external world. One can see in the interplay between the two senses, smell and taste, how human nature enters into a closer connection with the occurrences of extra-human nature. We make these investigations because it is important for spiritual science to co-ordinate remedial methods and human organic processes, as closely as possible. In healing, the main consideration is always the correct perception of the particular factors contained in what we apply to the body, whether by chemical, physiological or purely physical measures; and which factors are contained in the healthy functions of the organism and are missing in the morbid state. One must “think together” both processes, that external to, and that within, the human organism.

These two processes approach most nearly in the perception of taste and smell. In all that concerns the remaining senses, they lie further apart. For example there is considerable distance within the human body, between seeing and digestion—even using “digestion” in the more limited sense of what goes on between the chewing of the food within the mouth and its being worked up by the glandular activities in the intestines. The remaining region of the digestive apparatus I comprise within elimination, which may occur within the body (by absorption) and evocation which disposes externally of waste matter. The functions which occur below the great glands I would classify under the heading of elimination.

The sense of sight perceives those external objects which as it were lock up in themselves what comes to the surface in smell and taste. It is that element in the process of smell which leaves the extra-human nature in order to become perceptible to man. In other cases, this element locks itself up in the substance, and then we look at it from outside. If we contemplate the forms of visible things we have before us externally the formative principle which in the olfactory process reveals itself in substance only. I would even suggest that you follow up the phenomena revealed in smell, not only into the vegetable world but into the mineral kingdom as well. You will find that the same basic principle as appears in smell is at work in the formative processes outside us. Its polar opposite is the digestive process. This latter appropriates as it were the elements revealed to our sense of taste; and hides, secretes within our bodies, what is thus revealed in taste. It is significant that we have hitherto had to describe extra-human nature, as being almost wholly situated in the unconscious region. True, the connections with the whole universe are present in man: man is related to Saturn, Jupiter, etc.; but the relations are concealed in the depths of our organisation. At the risk of offending current modes of thought, I would suggest that the astronomical affiliations form the most deeply unconscious region in man, they are transmuted into the most secluded of his organic processes.

But we have also organs that open in a way our human organism from within; and thus bring man into relationship with what happens at a certain nearness to our earth's surface; that is to say, into relationship with the meteorological world, in its widest meaning. And if we do not limit our healing efforts to mere substances with curative properties, but extend them to tracing the curative processes, we must include within our purview the relationships of man to the meteorological processes—again in the widest sense of the term.

We are already able to distinguish what is associated mainly with the astronomical world from what is associated mainly with the meteorological world, in our organism. This distinction, to be sure, needs a more delicate method of observation. At first, no doubt, these statements may shock your preconceptions, but I hope to convince you in time that the classification above mentioned is the best of foundations for curative treatment. As a general rule we find that the organs which open to the meteorological sphere are those farthest from the surface and most deeply internal. The chief amongst them is the liver, and all the vesicular structures, especially represented by the bladder itself, the bladder being extremely important pathologically, even one of the most important of our attributes for pathological purposes. Another member of this group is the lung: which opens externally in order to mediate breathing. Then again, we must include the heart in this group, and if you have correctly interpreted much that has been said in our previous lectures, you will easily understand this fact. And indeed all these organs are associated with by going thoroughly into the problems of the human relationship to the world without, and especially into the connection of the human activities with the world environment.

I would urgently suggest that you make a thorough effort to trace back all the cases of cardiac lesions brought to your consulting rooms, to disturbance of human activity. Definite investigations should be made into the differences—and they are considerable—between the heart action of—for instance a peasant, who cultivates his bit of land, and has very few occasions for getting away from it, and the heart action of persons whose profession implies a good deal of motoring or at least a good deal of railway travel. It would be of utmost interest to obtain adequate comparative data on this topic. For you will find the tendency to cardiac complaints mainly dependent on the sedentary immobility of the person who, while thus sitting still, is carried forward by forces outside himself, whether in a railway carriage or a motorcar. This passive abandonment to motion is the cause which as it were deforms all processes dammed up in the heart.

All this acting and reacting between man and the external world, is dependent on the manner in which he develops warmth. Here you see the relationship of the heart's activity with the impulse of warmth in the world belong to man; and you conclude that if enough warmth is generated by man through his own activity, the sufficient amount of warmth developed in the process of life, is itself the measure of the soundness of the human heart. Therefore it is important for the treatment of cardiac cases, to provoke spontaneous movements that are fully permeated with life and soul. I am convinced that after perhaps no more than fifteen years have gone by, people will think more clearly and justly in these matters, than they do today. They will say—“It is certainly curious that cardiac cases have acquired sound heart action through the practice of Eurhythmy!”¹—for Eurhythmic practice mainly regulates the spontaneous movements permeated with soul and even according to law. So it is perhaps permissible to mention these truly remedial exercises derived from Eurhythmy (curative Eurhythmy), in the treatment of all irregularities of the cardiac functions.

Now let us turn to all the manifestations of sub-normal vesicular action in man. What I am about to suggest may appear somewhat amateurish, but it is not so; it is built on foundations more scientific than what passes for science today. The bladder is mainly an organ of traction or suction; I might say that its operation is that of a cavity vacuum in the body, it draws in or sucks. Its function really depends on our organism being hollowed out in this very region; its action on the rest of the organism is exactly that of a gas globe in a vessel of water. If you have a gas globe, that is a sphere containing a thinned out substance, surrounded on all sides by water, a substance of greater density, the effect proceeding from this globe of tenuous substance is similar to that of the bladder on the human organism. This is why the essential functions of the bladder are disturbed in persons who have not the opportunity to perform their internal movements sufficiently; persons who e.g., do not take sufficient care to chew their food properly, who gulp it down instead of masticating it, thus unduly over-taxing the whole apparatus of digestion; or who do not take care to secure the proper mixture of movement with rest, during the digestive process itself and so forth. All that impedes the interior mobility also impedes and injures what might be termed the functional life of the bladder. Is it not the nature of man to accept and even try some form of movement, permeated with soul if you prescribe for “heart trouble”; but he is unwilling to accept suggestions for regulating internal movements. You will, however, at once succeed with a patient who is not inclined to give the body the necessary rest and who devours his food and disturbs his digestion in some other way, if you cure him “meteorologically,” i.e., by bringing him into an atmosphere richer in oxygen, so that his respiration becomes quicker and deeper and he must give more (though unconscious) care to the breathing process. This quickening and regulating of respiration passes over into regulation of the other organic processes and you will find that “change of air” (whether by artificial means or better still by natural ones) into a more highly oxygenated atmosphere, causes a certain improvement in cases of bladder disturbance, simply through this change of life habits.

Most important is the third organ, the liver, which is linked up with the external “meteorological” conditions in the widest sense. Although apparently secluded within the organism, the liver is in a high degree correlated to the world outside. A proof of this is the dependence of the liver's health and activity on the special quality of the water in a given locality. In order to comprehend the exact state of liver health of any local group of persons, the composition of the local water ought to be studied.

The activity of taste is beneficial to the healthy development of the liver, but if indulged to excess, degeneracy follows. Degeneracy of the liver is synonymous with too gross and too constant feeding. The internal enjoyment of taste, the prolongation within of sensations which should be limited to tongue and palate, whether the sensations be pleasant and attractive, or repelling, leads to degeneration of the liver. Therefore one should try, in the case of liver disturbances (which are often difficult to find out), to induce patients to cultivate the sense of taste, and try to distinguish flavours as such, and appreciate them. Of course there will be considerable difficulties in the thorough study of the relationship between the functional life of the human liver and the composition of the water in any particular locality; for the dependence is extremely subtle, and it must be borne in mind that in districts with a water supply full of lime, e.g., the whole life of the liver will differ from that of districts with water poorer in lime. It would be well to pay heed to these factors, noting that the functions of the liver are promoted by water from which the lime has been withheld. Of course, the ways and means to carry this out must be found.

And again, the lung and its life are closely connected with the conditions set up by the geology and geography of the given locality. There is a great difference according to whether the soil is mainly limestone, as here in Dornach, or siliceous, as in the mountains of “old rock”; that is to say, the lungs are essentially dependent on the earthy and solid structure of the region in question. One of the first tasks of any medical man beginning practice, is to study the geology of his district thoroughly; for such study is identical with the study of its inhabitants' lungs. And it should be fully realised that almost the most unfavourable case is when the lung is totally unable to adapt itself to the environment.

Do not misunderstand the view just stated. I refer to the actual internal structure of the lung; I do not mean the function of breathing, although this function is, of course, in its turn affected by the adequate or defective structure of the lung. We are dealing with the dependence of the inner lung structure on environment; whether the lungs tend to encrustation (hardening) or to becoming mucoid (slimy), is mainly due to the nature of the environment. Moreover the lungs are peculiarly dependent on corporeal exertion, and are certainly injured in persons who are obliged to do physical work to exhaustion.

These are the relationships which lead us to the dependences of such organs which, as lungs, liver, bladder and heart, open themselves to the influences of the “meteorological sphere.” Curative treatments of illness in any of this organic group should therefore be sought by “physical” methods. [e.Ed: i.e., open air, light, warmth, etc.] For the results in such cases are—I would say—in certain respects permanent. It is the greatest of services to a patient with weak lungs, and resident in an unsuitable district, to induce him to change his abode and move to a district which suits him more. Indeed those organs situated above the lungs are often helped in an extraordinary manner, by complete change of locality and manner of life. Change of district and daily habit can do comparatively little to relieve morbid conditions in the sphere from the heart downwards but they are extraordinarily beneficial to the lungs and all that is situated above them. It must only be kept in mind that all functions in the organism are interdependent, and that one must find out whether or not a hidden interplay may be at work. For instance, we may find degeneration of the cardiac vessels: then we have to inquire whether there may not be a tendency to degeneration of lung in the same subject, and whether the cardiac symptoms should not be treated from the aspect of the pulmonary condition.

These are at least hints as to the meteorological dependencies of man. Behind the meteorological sphere, as it were behind a screen, there is hidden the astronomical domain in the external world as well as in the interior of man The distinctions here are as follows: the meteorological sphere within us comprises that which appertains to lungs, liver, bladder and heart; in the external world, it comprises the solid earth and the realms of air, water and warmth. Behind and beyond this region, lie the formative processes in the plant and mineral realms; and to these formative processes, which are so closely akin to the extra-telluric, i.e. the astronomical domain, there is a polar opposite in man, viz., the organs situated more deeply within our bodies than the four systems of organs mentioned above. As the relation of the processes in plant and mineral to what lies behind lung, liver, etc., is not so obvious, the study of the healing processes in this realm becomes far more difficult. The rational path of investigation is the clear comprehension of man's organic tendency to perform and produce, somewhere, the exact opposite to the happenings of external nature.

Take, as a concrete instance, the processes proper to silicic acid (silicon). These processes are especially conspicuous wherever silicates are being formed, as quartz or similar minerals. They have their counterpart within the human organism. And it is these processes which extend their work to certain occurrences (which receive far too little attention at present) within the soil, between the arable soil and the siliceous element in the earth, on the one hand, and those plant organs which grip the earth; the roots. Again all the substances derived from the ashes of plants, are closely related to the siliceous process outside ourselves.

This external siliceous process has its counterpart within us; namely in those organs situated—if I may so express myself—above the cardiac activity towards the pulmonary; I mean the inner organic formative activity, which moulds the lungs and is directed upwards towards the head region. In this formative activity which takes place above the heart we find the polarity to the formation of silicates in external nature. The particular internal organic process consists essentially in producing a high degree of homeopathic distribution—to use this term again—of the external siliceous process.

Suppose you are in charge of a case in which all the symptoms point to the seat of disease as situated above the heart—one of the obvious symptoms would be profuse secretion from the lungs, and meningitis is an equally pronounced indication. The results may be all sorts of other morbid manifestations in the body: for pulmonary disturbances act upon disturbances of the cardiac vessels, since everything in the organism is interdependent. Those disturbances which involve a tendency to inflammatory states of the brain, may not manifest directly but can reappear in inflammatory conditions in the digestive apparatus or its ancillary organs, and it is all important to be able to locate the origin of all these symptoms; we shall have to deal with this in later discussions. In all such cases we must introduce something which disperses and dilutes the action of the external siliceous processes to the highest degree. This particular connection is extremely significant and characteristic, proving the necessity of transforming the siliceous process which plays one of the leading roles in external nature, by dispersing, dividing, and triturating, in cases of marked symptoms in the upper portion of the body. But suppose we find injuries and morbid symptoms produced by organic interaction in the lower parts as, e.g., in the heart itself? Then benefit may be derived from introducing the process already transformed by such plants as are rich in silicates, either by directly using the plant substance or through a further preparation of it. In all plants rich in silicates, careful investigation should be made, to determine their effect on all the processes of our organism below the heart—those processes having, of course, their repercussions on the upper part as well.

The complete opposite of silicon formation is contained is all that we will term the process of carbon dioxide formation in external nature. The two are in certain respects true polarities. Therefore it is so necessary to follow up the carbon dioxide process in curative treatment of all cases of the opposite disturbance to that just dealt with, namely in everything connected with digestion or having its starting—point in the digestive system. All carbon dioxide preparations have remarkable remedial success in this class of illness, especially if used in the form moulded by nature namely, straight from the plants.

Here a certain connection must be kept in mind. Consider for a moment the substances with their characteristics of taste and smell: smell points to the outside visible world, taste to the hidden depth of the organism. Then examine the digestive process from this point of view and you will find that at the beginning of digestion, the substances merge together; they mingle and mix. But as the organic process goes on we are engaged in separating what again had been mixed; there is a renewed division, not so much of substances as of processes. This renewed division after merging and mixing is an outstanding task of the organism. First there is the principal bifurcation of excretion, on the one side through the bowels and in the other side in liquid form, as urine.

This bifurcation brings us to the consideration of an organic system which has more than any other to be approached by medical intuition in curing; this is the kidney system, with its remarkable ramifications which extend also to its special processes. We shall deal with these later on. Here I would only remind you of the interrelationship, already mentioned in these discussions, between intestinal evacuation or excretion, and the activities in the head. There is a similar interrelationship between urinary excretion and all the processes that take place around the heart, in the cardiac system. The formative process of intestinal evacuation is, in effect, a human copy of the siliceous process, and the process of urine formation is a copy of the carbonic acid process. Such connections are able to build the bridge from the process happening in the healthy individual to the process in the unhealthy. Herewith we have laid special stress on the relation of the processes proper. But they must not be viewed in isolation. And we shall see that it is only through mastery of these correspondences and relationships that we can arrive at a proper use of what Dr. Sch. recently described in his extraordinarily illuminating address, [Ed: A lecture delivered by a medical man attending Dr. Steiner's course.] as the Law of Similarity.

This Law of Similarity contains something very significant. But the Law must be constructed upon all the elements obtained by the taking heed of the relationships we are about to ascertain. For behind all the interactions to which reference has been made, there lies the connection between man and the realm of metals. If we speak on the one hand, of the silicon principle, as the force which forms us, and of the carbonic acid principle, as the force that dissolves us—this perpetual tendency to mould, to dissolve represents the process of life. In contemplating the formative forces of silicon, we must not forget that the regions of our bodies most akin to silicon are those related to all the metallic group comprising lead, tin and iron and thus related for reasons already indicated in previous lectures. Indeed we may say that in considering the region from the heart upwards, we must consider the workings in man of the silicon process on the one hand and of what is at work from the part of the metals, lead, tin, and iron on the other. The iron forces are connected preferably with the formative process of the lungs, those associated with tin with the formative principle of the head and those associated with lead, with the formative principle localised in the bony skeleton. For the formation and the growth of the bones are determined from the upper organic sphere, and not from the lower.

Furthermore, one has to learn how to weigh the co-operating factors, e.g., how to blend a remedy containing silicates with a metal which must bear a resemblance to the three metals aforesaid: iron, tin and lead. In treating the lower organic sphere, on the other hand, one must keep in mind the affinity with copper, quicksilver, and silver, and in applying carbonic acid processes we must consider how to combine in some way either these metals themselves or those of similar nature, with processes yielding carbonic acid.

In this way we build the bridge between what is of metallic nature in the terrestrial sphere (conditioned by extra-terrestrial forces) and what is of non-metallic, rock-forming nature; just as we combine what is formed under the control of the carbonic acid-principle and what is formed under the influence of the silicon forming principle. Thus we gradually become able to grasp concretely in external nature the substances which we have to introduce into the human organism in order to heal in a particular case.

Again, it should always be borne in mind that all substances working to a lesser extent on the lower senses, as, e.g., taste and smell, and thus not advertising their nature—so to speak—loudly and conspicuously, can for that very reason be effective in very strong dilutions, whereas much weaker dilutions are advisable where the substance proclaims its inner nature insistently to taste and smell. Substances of powerful odour and flavour are often excellent medicinally, without any additions, or combinations, especially if their healing effect is not counteracted by the habitual diet of the patient concerned. We must only clearly understand what is the point in the curative effect.

Before we can penetrate still more into these matters, let us realise that every one of the senses in man has fine shades of differentiation; and that the best material for tests to ascertain the reactions here, is the human being. Of course it is difficult to ascertain reactions to substances with no perceptible taste or smell. But may I draw your attention here to the possibilities of self education—a form of self-education of great value for medical smell especially—which consists in developing possible capacities of sensation which may give a sensory response even to—for instance—the process of silicon formation in external nature. Consider that there must be a meaning in the fact that quartz exhibits very regular crystal formations, and at the same time that this mineral and its allies so regular in their formations, tend nevertheless to the widest possible variety of crystallisation, for there is immense diversity in the crystals of all the silicates. He who can grasp these things can also perceive the action of a dispersing element in the possibility of all these different formations. There must of course be a fundamental dispersive force if there is the potentiality of such structural diversity as external nature reveals in the silicates. This is an indication for the therapeutic use of silicates in a “scattered” form. It is desirable to develop a capacity of sensation in these matters, such a sense will lead to a certain valuation concerning remedies. On the other hand, man must educate himself to become a suitable reactive instrument, and acquire sensory capacities for the fact for example—that the odours have a sevenfold classification just as the colour sensations. We have only to acquire the sense of difference between the sweet smell, the pungent smell and so forth to discover seven main nuances of smells, and the same is equally true of flavours. Moreover, if we acquire the power to differentiate all the odours in this olfactory scale—or olfactory spectrum if it may be so termed—we educate ourselves in the perception, e.g., of all the manifestations of burning and combustible substances. We penetrate into their essential nature. We shall see tomorrow how this can be done. If we also cultivate our capacity of taste and can perceive the difference between the faintest degrees of sweetness and of saltiness in flavours—and all the five shades between—we grow akin to the salt forming forces in external nature. And if we acquire this inner kinship, we also get a direct sensation from the natural sensory impression, as to which sphere or portion of the human organism this or that substance will benefit. Although the base must be careful and exact scientific investigations, it is most important that those scientific results should be accompanied by subjective perceptual experience; so as to develop a certain intimate feeling of kinship to the world of nature.

• 1. Eurhythmy is a new art of movement created by Dr. Steiner. See Eurhythmy as Visible Song: Eurhythmy as Visible Speech. Rudolf Steiner Publishing Co.

It is natural and obvious that in these lectures we should seek the method by which the study of medicine can be fertilised and quickened, and that we do not lose ourselves here in atomised details which can have a merely relative importance. The methodical study of relationships between external nature and man may well tend to equip every human individual with the means to observe nature independently. So we will cite some concrete examples which may indicate a pathway in a certain sense, to a particular realm.

Of course the spiritual-scientific investigation proper in yielding regulative principles, can find out many things which can be verified in the sense pointed out yesterday in Dr. S.'s address. On the other hand, if one applies these principles methodically they prove to be elucidating for many experiences. I should like to put a few illustrative instances before you which can be of great significance. Let us keep to the vegetable world for the moment; and consider the general effect of aniseed (Anisum Vulgare) on the human organism. We shall find its characteristic effects to be the increase and excitation of the secretory functions, primarily in the secretion and excretion of urine, of milk and also of sweat. How is this effect produced? We shall find with this particular plant, that this effect is linked with the minutely distributed portions of iron or iron salts, which aniseed contains. So we can observe, for ourselves, that the curative efficacy of aniseed depends on the fact that it takes away from the blood the forces working normally by means of the iron, and pushes them for a while to the region below the sphere of the blood.

The study of certain plants which act preferably upon the middle (rhythmic) system (i.e., between outside and inside, or between the surface of the body and the heart) shows us especially clearly how their effects extend to different regions; and this provides us with guiding threads to find out in a rational way the curative remedies. Study, for instance, a plant which is in this respect an instructor in the realm of nature; Cichorium intybus, the chicory. From this plant we may learn a variety of facts about our human bodies, if we only take the trouble to do so. We find that Cichorium intybus is not only an antidote to digestive weakness but also to weakness in the organs immediately exposed to the external world. Its second beneficial peculiarity is a direct influence on the blood itself, it prevents the blood from being slack in essential processes and prevents it from admitting disturbances in the composition of the blood fluid itself. Finally, and very valuably, the curative effects of Cichorium intybus reach to our periphery and under certain conditions may affect the organs of the head but especially of the throat and chest, and the lungs. This wide range of strong action on every part of the human being makes Cichorium intybus such an interesting subject for inquiry. One finds its effects extending fan-like in so many directions. We may ask, for instance: what is the origin of the counteraction to weak digestion? We shall find that this effect is due to the bitter substance extracted from the plant, which so strongly affects our sense of taste. This bitter extract, which still preserves its nature as a plant substance, has affinity to those substances in man which are not yet properly worked up and are still resembling their original external appearance.

We must remember that the substances we take in, are at first comparatively slightly modified in their passage as far down as the stomach. They are then further altered by the intestines, pass into the blood and have their farthest stage of transformation in the human periphery, the skin, as well as in the bone, nerve and muscular systems. All extractive substances are strongly akin to the external raw materials, before they have been transformed.

Cichorium intybus contains also alkaline salts, e.g., Potassium. It is here that we must see the source of its effects on the blood. Thus we can watch in this plant how the working forces diverge. The forces situated in the extractive substances are drawn into the organs of digestion by natural affinity. The forces inherent in the alkaline salts, are drawn by natural affinity into the organs related to the blood or the blood itself. Cichorium intybus also contains silicic acid (silicon) to a considerable degree. This substance operates through the bloodstream and beyond it, into the peripheral organs until it reaches the bony structure via the nervous system and the muscle system. So Cichorium intybus really says to us “here am I and I let myself be divided into three, so that I have effect on all three divisions of the human organism.” Such are the experiments of Nature itself, and they are always much more valuable and significant than those made by man; for Nature is far richer in its purposes than we can be, as we put our questions to it in experimental form.

Another plant full of interest in this direction is Equisetum arvense (the Horsetail). Here, too, we find strong effects as antidote against weak digestion and also strong effects on the periphery of the human frame. If we ask to what are these peripheral effects due, we again find they are due to the silicon content of the plant. And these two examples can be multiplied many times over, by any thorough study of medicine and of botany. Such comparative study will prove always and everywhere, that all substances which keep close to the plant nature, as extracts, are related to the digestive tract; and that the substances which tend to the mineral kingdom, i.e., silicic acid, work automatically and irresistibly outwards, from the centre of the human being to its periphery, and have their curative effect on that periphery.

Another superbly efficacious plant, simple and humble but infinitely instructive, is Fragaria vesca, the little wild strawberry of the woods. Its medicinal properties have only been obscured because it is eaten; and in this case the organisation of the eater masks as it were the plant's effects. But it would be well to test the plant on persons who are still sensitive, susceptible, and do not often eat strawberries. In such persons, the amazing value of the wild strawberry would reveal itself at once. It is on the one hand especially potent in normalising the formation of the blood. It may even be prescribed with benefit in cases of diarrhœa for this reason; the forces in the lower organic sphere which are deflected from their normal course can be, as it were, restored to their proper path, viz., into the blood system itself. Here, then, is, on the one hand, a force which is essentially active in blood formation. On the other hand, the wild strawberry also contains silicic acid, which promotes stimulation of all the periphery. The wood-strawberry is indeed a splendid multum in parvo. It tends, through its siliceous content, to stimulate the action of the periphery in our organism. Then, as this peripheral stimulation means a certain risk, if too much silicic acid is conducted to the periphery that there is not a simultaneous current of nutritive substances in the same direction, and that the bloodstream is not simultaneously sufficiently enriched to nourish these areas stimulated by the silicates—the wild strawberry itself prepares the blood which has to be transmitted. It expresses and manifests in a remarkable form, just what should be done, in order to balance and help the processes activated by siliceous compounds in the periphery of our human organism. Thus nature gives us, in single examples such as this—which could be considerably multiplied—remarkable glimpses of possibilities which may become practice, if we have the intuition to seek Nature aright.

From the same point of view, I will call your attention to another example. Study the rather extensive field of action of such plants as—for instance, Lavandula (Lavender). On the one hand, the constituents of lavender are powerful remedies for what I may term “negative conditions of the soul,” appearing as fainting fits, neurasthenia, paralysation etc. Thus, lavender operates towards the human surface and extremities, expelling the astral body which has overpowered the physical.

In considering the application of herbal remedies—and in fact all substances—which have proved of benefit in cases of what we may term negative soul states, we should do well to inquire whether opposite negative conditions exist, such, for example, as amenorrhoea in women. It will invariably be found that the same substance is effective in both directions. A plant of this description is Melissa the balm-mint, which is a remedy against vertigo and fainting fits, and at the same time a powerful ecbolic.

These examples have been cited in order to show the possibility of following the process occurring in the plant through its resemblance to the internal process in man. We must, however, keep in mind this reservation: the plant is really akin to a part only of the nature of man. I should like to ask all those who restrict themselves (with a certain degree of fanaticism) to plant remedies alone, to bear this in mind. Man is so constituted as to comprise and contain all the kingdoms of nature in himself; in addition to the human kingdom, there has been a kinship during the periods of man's formation, in his evolutionary stages, with all the other kingdoms of nature. Indeed in the course of evolution, we have, so to speak, put these nature kingdoms outside, and are able to reabsorb what is needful for us once more. Yes—it is really a process of reabsorption—of return. And this fact of reabsorption and return is very significant.

The elements most recently detached in the course of evolution, must be the soonest reabsorbed in any curative process. We will, for the moment, leave the animal world for later consideration. It is clear that in the course of evolution we have detached the mineral kingdom proper at a later date than the vegetable and therefore it is obvious that seeking the relationships to the plants alone is simply one-sided. Nevertheless the vegetable kingdom retains for us its instructive significance, and not least because if plants heal us, they do so, not only through their essential nature as plants, but also through those ingredients in their composition which appertain to the mineral kingdom. At the same time, we must bear in mind that the plant modifies and transforms a portion of its mineral elements and that the portion thus modified is not curative in such a high degree as the unmodified mineral residue. Thus the Silicic acid (silicon) which has been “overcome” and absorbed into the plant's processes, is not so powerful a remedy as silicon in its mineral form, for in this case the human organism is much more stimulated and requires greater effort in assimilating and taking it into the human unity, than in the assimilation of silicon in its modified vegetable form.

It must always be emphasised that man must evolve greater forces to cope with the greater forces he encounters. And the forces inherent in mineral substances, which are to be assimilated and overcome, are incontestably greater than those in vegetable matter. (May I interpolate here the emphatic statement that I am not making propaganda for anything whatsoever, I am only stating facts.) The difference between animal and vegetable diets is based on the principle just stated. If we live on exclusively vegetable food, our own human being has to take over all that portion of the process which the animal performs for us, after it has eaten and assimilated plants, and brought the substance a stage further. We may put it thus: the process brought to a certain stage by the plant itself, is then carried further by the animal. The formative process of the animal organism stops at this point, (see Diagram 18, red) whereas in the plant it stops here (Diagram 18, white).

The meat-eater dispenses with the particular digestive process performed within the animal; he leaves it to the animal to do it for him. Therefore the meat-eater does not develop those particular energies that must be and are developed by vegetable substance, which he must lead himself to the necessary point. So the organism has to mobilise quite other forces in order to deal with plant food than is the case with meat food. These forces, these potential forces for overcoming, whether used or not, are there: they exist within us and if not used they recoil, as it were, into the organism, and are active—with the general effect of causing great exhaustion and irritation to the individual. Thus it becomes necessary to emphasise strongly that there is considerable relief from fatigue, if a vegetarian diet is adopted. Man becomes more able to work because he gets used to drawing on inherent sources of energy which he fails to do but makes sources of disturbance by a meat diet. As already made plain, I am not “agitating” for anything. I know that even homeopathic physicians have repeatedly assured me that persons induced to abandon meat food are thereby exposed to consumption. Yes, that may be possible. Nevertheless the stark facts just stated, remain unaffected it is so, beyond all dispute. I will, however, quite freely admit that there are human organisms among us today that cannot tolerate purely vegetable food, that require meat in their diet. This depends on the individual case.

When we admit the need for creating a relation to the mineral realm and the mineral forces in the curative process, we are led to consider a further therapeutic requirement. We are led to consider a subject which has been much discussed, but which in my opinion can only be solved—or even really understood—if approached from the viewpoint of spiritual science.

In order to grasp the nature of the curative process it is most important, as it seems to me, to deal with the question of the comparative value of prepared, i.e., cooked food and food in its raw state. Again I must ask you—and on this theme most especially—not to take me for an agitator, either for or against either method! But we must examine, in a perfectly unbiased manner, the actual facts of the case. If people eat cooked and prepared food, and assimilate the forces left within it, they are externally performing an office which must be performed by the organism itself in the case of raw food. Man throws upon the process of cooking, in all its forms, something which his organism should do. Moreover man is so constructed, that in our periphery we are interrelated with the whole of outer nature, but in our “centre”—to which our digestion essentially belongs—we separate ourselves from nature and cut ourselves off as individuals. Let us try to represent this difference, in the form of a rough sketch. (See Diagram 19). Through our periphery (green in Diagram), we are closely interwoven with the cosmos, and we individualise ourselves in the digestive process up to the formation of the blood (red in Diagram); so that this digestive tract is the scene of several processes independent of the external processes of nature, in which man maintains his individual entity as distinct from the external processes—at least more so than in the polaric region where man is wholly inserted into the external processes. Perhaps I may make this more comprehensible if I add the following: I have already described how man is included in the whole cosmos through the operation of the formative forces of lead, tin and iron within the regions here colored green. In the regions marked red, the formative forces of copper, quicksilver and silver are active. The equipoise is held by gold, those forces mainly localised in the heart. To refer to man in this way means to look on him somewhat as a finger which is an organ of the whole cosmos. It implies an interaction and integration with the whole cosmos. But in the tract marked here (see Diagram 19) lies the contradiction contained in the fact that man, in digestion and in the allied functions, separates himself from the general world process—and the same is true for the complementary process of thinking and vision, where he once more individualises himself. This is why man tends to display, as it were, obstinate individual requirements in all things appertaining to digestion; and this instinctive self-assertion shows itself in the habit of cooking [i.e., changing] the raw materials of our food. This instinct demands that what is estranged from nature shall be used for human consumption. For were it consumed in the raw state, the average human being would be too feeble to work it up. To use an apparent paradox to eat would be a perpetual process of remedial treatment, if we did not cook our foodstuffs. And so to eat raw foodstuffs is far more of a remedial process than to eat cooked foodstuffs—the latter being much more merely nutritive. In my opinion there is extraordinary significance in the fact that the consumption of raw food is much more a remedial process than the consumption of food that has been cooked. Raw food diet is much more in the nature of specific curative treatment, than cooked food. I may add moreover that all cooked food is somewhat held up in its efficacy and remains within the region marked red in the diagram (see Diagram 19); whereas the substance introduced into the body, in its natural uncooked state, such as fruit, acts beyond the alimentary tract, and comes to manifest itself on the periphery, e.g., causing the blood to bear its nutritive power into the peripheral region.

You may confirm these statements in the following manner, and indeed such tests ought to be made. Suppose you are attempting curative treatment with siliceous substances; then put your patient for a while on a diet of raw food and you will see how materially the effect of the silicon is increased, because you are contributing further forces to its peripheral operation; you support its formative activity, its tendency to harmonise deformations. Of course I do not allude to gross malformations showing in anatomical deformities, but I mean deformations which remain in the physiological realm. To clear up these is the trend of the silicon, and here you support the trend by the administration of suitable nourishment, while the cure is proceeding. These combinations are what I wish to emphasise in our study of methods, for their operation is so extremely significant and because—as I believe—till now, so little studied and understood. They are studied to some extent it is true, but empirically, without any search for a “ratio”; and therefore we can find so little occasion for satisfaction in considering the work already available in this field.

In all these respects, individuality has to be taken into account. That is why I have already taken the opportunity to point out that it is hardly possible to make any assertion, in this field, which is not on the other hand incorrect in some way. But we must take the things referred to as our guiding lines, although in a particular instance we must be able to say; in this case I cannot prescribe raw diet, for it would produce this or that, in that particular individual constitution. Here it is advisable—there again it would do harm. The main lines of cause and effect, however, are as we have here described them. Only through such interactions, is it possible to see deeply into the human constitution as a whole. We must particularly distinguish between the periphery, where man is more embedded into the whole cosmos and can only be affected by the introduction of minerals—which are so remote from man—and, on the other hand, the regions I have designated red. These red regions may be influenced and cured by vegetable remedies, as well as by administering substances which are efficacious because of their inherent saline quality: that is, all the carbonates; whilst all alkaline compounds are as it were the median point and balance between the two. (See Diagram 19, yellow). Thus we have in a sequence: carbonates, alkalis, and silicates, or siliceous acid itself.

These, then, are the factors indicating mankind's relationship to nature around us. We visualise man, split into two parts, as it were, and we find a middle region in him, which causes the swing of the pendulum between these extremes. And we must acknowledge that this discrimination between the peripheral man and the more central individualised man, leads us into the depths of nature. Man is akin to all extra-terrestrial things through his periphery, as is shown by the efficacy of the mineral substances, which are in turn under the dominion of the planets and stellar constellations. Centrally, as an individual he is related to all earthly things. Through this earthly affinity, most fully expressed in the digestive system, man is also this concrete human individual that has the power to think and is able to evolve as a man.

We may consider the dualism in man as a dualism of the extra-terrestrial, the cosmic elements in him, and those which pertain to earth. There is a distinct cleavage in the human organism between the cosmic and telluric and I have already drawn your attention to how the peripheral, the extra-terrestrial region is mirrored, as it were, in man, in his possessing a spiritual organisation, and at the same time, the polar opposite, a digestive organisation. All that has to do with the elimination of the digestive products and all that has to do with elimination in the brain, and provides the foundation for mental activity—all these things alike refer to the peripheral, the celestial man. However strange and contradictory it may seem—this is the case. On the other hand, all the processes in man, whether fluid or more gaseous in their nature, which are connected with the formation of either urine or sweat—are indications of the terrestrial man as a being which individualises itself. These two polarities of human nature, which strive asunder, must strike us as very significant.

So far as I know this particular human duality has not been alluded to or treated, in modern times, in any therapeutically valuable manner. For, as you perceive, all the subjects of our inquiry are intended to bring therapeutics and pathology together; therapeutics and pathology ought not to be two separated domains. For that reason the themes of these discussions have a therapeutic orientation; what is pathologically apprehended makes us think in therapeutical terms. That is the reason for the method of my putting forward things here, and of course objections may easily be made, by those who disregard this therapeutic orientation.

For example, anyone who studies the external origin of syphilis must certainly get clear how far there must be infection (approximately at least) in order to develop syphilis proper. Merely to state this abstractly leads us to an emancipation of pathology. Please forgive a somewhat crude comparison—the actual infection or contagion in syphilis is of no more significance than the fact that in order to raise a bump on the head, it is necessary to receive a blow from a stone or some other hard object. Of course, there will be no bump, if there is no blow, nor injury from a falling tile etc.; but this particular statement remains unfruitful regarding treatment. For—to continue our comparison—the circumstances of an injury from stone throwing or so forth, may be of great social importance, but these circumstances mean nothing at all in the examination of the organism with a view to its cure. We must examine the human organism in such a way as to find within it the factors that play a part in therapeutics. In the treatment of syphilis, the factors above mentioned play prominent roles, and throw light on the curative process. What is put before you here and now, is so put before you, not so much for the sake of pathology as for the foundation of the bridge between disease and cure.

I assert this, in order to characterise and define our work here, its spirit and attitude; this latter will become more evident with every day that passes. In our age there is a tendency to treat pathology more and more as an isolated subject, and without reference to therapeutics. Therefore thought is deflected from things fruitful and—if followed up in the right way—of great significance in the search for all curative procedures. Think, e.g., of our question: what is the true meaning of this duality in the human organism, between the cosmic-peripheral—so to speak—and the terrestrial or telluric-central man? Both these aspects of man are complexes of forces, manifesting in different ways. All peripheral working manifests as formative powers. And I would even say that the last formative “deed” of this peripheral principle manifests as the ultimate periphery of the human frame and completes our human semblance. Examine, for instance, the relation of human hair to silicic acid; notice how in the peripheral region of man the human formative forces co-operate with the formative forces of silicon. You may actually measure the impact of alien influences which man permits or resists, from the dominance or the reverse—which is allotted to silicic acid in the head formation! Of course we must take the rest of the individual's stature into consideration as well; but if we merely go along the street nowadays, and can “see together” the bald heads, one finds out how far a man is tending to admit or to reject the impact of the siliceous formative process upon himself. This is a result of immediate observation which can be attained, without actual clairvoyance, but by careful investigation of nature's own ways. The forces in question—they are not at work inside the cells but control the total shaping of man—find their last expression in man's structure which of course includes the configuration of the skin together with its greater or small amount of hair growth and so forth. On the other hand, the more centralised region, which is more associated with carbon and carbon dioxide—bears in itself the dispersive forces, those which dissolve and even destroy the shape. We exist as men by virtue of our tendency perpetually to de-form the shape, which in turn is deprived perpetually of its deformations through forces proceeding from the cosmos. This is a duality inherent in man: moulding and deforming. This duality is a continuous organic process. Now, visualise on the one hand, the cosmic peripheral formative forces (See Diagram 20, arrow pointing downwards) which operate on man from outside. In the human heart these forces encounter the telluric forces; and we have already dealt with the equilibrium brought about through the heart. And assume that the peripheral forces acting upon man which reach their tidal mark, so to speak, in the heart, are held back before being dammed up in the heart. (See Diagram 20, arrow pointing to the left).

They diverge and form a diverticulum before reaching the great dam of the heart itself. And in so doing they form something within our organism, that testifies, though imperfectly, to the operation of the cosmic formative through the digestive organs and their allies towards the heart, also form a diverticulum before they reach the heart (See Diagram 20, right hand side). Then taking these two diverticulums, we should have here a concentration of all that is both spiritually and physically formative in man, and at the same time associated with all the secretory activities in the head and the intestines; a reservoir of forces that do not come to meet the action of the heart, but creates beforehand a kind of accessory heart that functions alongside the heart. Here, on the other hand, we have a kind of accessory digestive action, formed by a divergence of the forces originating in the earth and its substances and acting in man, deforming and dissolving his shape. Then duality in man would be organically established and expressed; this is how here the female sexual organs, the female sexual principle arises, and there the male principle. (See Diagram 20). Indeed, this gives a possibility to study the female sexual organisation in the light of its dependence on the cosmic peripheral formative forces. And there is the possibility to study the male sexual organisation, even its specific forms, if we regard it as dependent on the telluric forces of shape-dissolution.

This is the approach for really scientific comprehension of our human constitution down to these regions. Here is also the way of discovery of vegetable remedies, e.g., rich in formative power, which may be found efficacious in restoring paralysed and defective formative forces in the uterus. If you study the formative forces in this way you will find also the formative forces in plants and minerals This will be considered more particularly, but for the present I must outline the relationship on a large scale. If in the future these things will be clearly seen, then we shall really begin to have a science of Embryology. Today we have no such science, for there is no realisation of the strong impact of the cosmic realm at the beginning of embryological development. The cosmic forces are as fertilising in their operations as the male seed itself. The first stages of human embryological evolution must be studied wholly as part of the relation of man to the cosmos. What was, so to speak, injected with the male seed emerges as time goes on, for the formative forces which the cosmos tends to project into the female organism are so deformed by the operation of the male element, that the cosmic tendency towards a total shape is differentiated in the direction towards separate organs. The role of the female organisation goes to the totality of man's structure; the role of the male organisation, through the operation of the male seed, is specialisation, differentiation, i.e., the moulding of the several organs, and thus the deformation of the original uniform whole. We might say: through the feminine forces, the human organisation tends to the spherical or globular form; through the masculine, the human organism tends to specialise this globe, and divide it into heart, kidneys, stomach and so forth. In the male and female element we have before us the polarities of the earth and of the cosmos. And this is again a subject which leads its students to deep reverence for the primary wisdom, and to listen with very different feelings to the legends of Gaea fertilised by Uranus, of Rhea fertilised by Kronos, and so forth. There is something here quite different from vaguely mystical feelings, in the veneration with which we receive these ancient intuitions, in all their significance. At first one is amazed at such a comment as the following, which comes from scientists upon whom these truths dawn: “The old mythologies have more physiology in them than modern science has.” I can understand the shock and surprise; but the remark has its deep core of truth.

The further we advance, the more insistently we realise the inadequacy of contemporary methods—that ignore all the interrelations we mentioned—as guides to the understanding of the human organisation.

I will take this opportunity of repeating what has already been stated: namely that the contents of these lectures have not been derived from any study of ancient lore. What is here stated, is gained from the facts themselves: occasionally I have alluded to the coincidence with the primary wisdom; but my statements are never gained from it. If you study the processes in question with care, you will be led to those conceptions which remind us of some elements of ancient wisdom. I should never myself consider it admissible to investigate any subject by studying the works of Paracelsus. But I am often strongly inclined to “look up” in his books how a discovery which I have made may sound in his language. This is the sense in which I should like you to receive what I attempt to give. But it is a fact that as soon as we look deeper into human nature from the standpoint of spiritual science, we come to a great reverence for primary wisdom. But that is a question which naturally must be considered in other fields of knowledge than the medical.

Yesterday we reached a domain very far distant from our starting point. Let us again begin with something quite concrete and material and build upon and around it. You will agree that we must approach our task indirectly and by a circuitous route, because of the shortness of our time, and because of the nature of our themes. We cannot follow the method that begins with the axioms and ascends to more and more complex ideas.

Today, I have undertaken to lead you a stage further on our way, starting from the nature of vegetable carbon, carbo vegetabilis. We have already considered the chicory, the wild strawberry and other plants; in like manner we have now to examine the attributes of this remarkable substance, which can be found almost anywhere, but is nevertheless one of the most remarkable materials in the world. This will give the most cogent illustration of the need to widen the horizon of our observations if we wish to obtain a real insight into nature.

It was most interesting to hear Dr. K. maintain in last night's lecture that the chemistry of the future must become quite different from what it is now and to note how often he used the term “Physiology”—in token of the bridge to be built between physiological and chemical science.

I was often reminded of many matters that cannot as yet be dealt with explicitly in public lectures, as a public audience still lacks the predisposition for understanding. We find carbon in extra-human nature—or in what I might term the nature that appears extra-human to man. For what in the whole of nature's immensity is really extra-human? Nothing indeed. For all that is external to our being in those portions of the world we are able to observe has been expelled or removed from man in the course of human evolution. Mankind has had to pass through stages of development only possible because certain essential processes take their course in the outer world he is faced with, and he is thus enabled to take certain other processes into himself for his own use. So that there is always a complementary polarity and kinship between certain external and certain internal processes.

I have found a remarkable inner convergence between the remarks of Dr. K. on the necessity for chemistry to become physiological and the interesting lecture of Dr. Sch. the other day on the need for a spiritually scientific concept of the aim and purpose of homeopathic preparation Perhaps I do not express this adequately, but those who have heard these lectures, especially Dr. K.'s, will grasp my meaning. His final sentences were most noteworthy. He made use of a term, with which I have been concerned for decades, a term often heard: he said that even homeopathic practitioners are somewhat afraid of becoming “mystical”; i.e., chary of being reputed mystics.

My reason for studying that subject was due to very definite opinions, which were firmly based on facts. The essential thing striven for in homeopathic treatment (do not misunderstand me, it is necessary to use somewhat drastic terms in order to state the case clearly) is not found so much in the substances employed, as in the processes to which these substances are subjected, in the course of preparing the medicaments: for example, the preparation of silicon or of vegetable carbon. The process of preparation contains the clue.

I have made many investigations into what actually happens in the attempt to prepare homeopathic remedies; including for our present purposes, and as corroborated by Dr. R., the Ritter Method (although Fräulein Ritter herself will not admit this). What does in fact occur, when homeopathic preparations are made? For it is the preparation which matters. Take, for instance, silicic acid, and treat it so as to raise its potency to a very high degree. What is it that you do? You work towards a certain point; and in nature everything is based on rhythmic processes. You work towards a certain zero point, through a scale in which the specific attributes of the substance, i.e., those which appear first of all, are revealed. Just as the spendthrift, who has a fortune and wastes it recklessly until he passes the zero point, comes to a condition in which there is no more positive fortune, but a negative factor, namely debts, so the essential qualities of external substances can be treated. We reach a zero point, where the effects of the substance in ponderable amounts are no longer perceptible. What if we proceed farther? The results do not simply vanish into nothingness; but the opposite effects are produced and are introduced into the surrounding medium. I have always had the experience of perceiving the opposite effect to what is normal to the substances in question, whatever medium was used to receive the minutely subdivided doses of the substance. This medium adopts a new configuration; just as one who changes from the status of owner to that of debtor, becomes a different factor in social life, so a substance changes to a state opposite to the normal, and imparts this condition, which was formerly hidden inside it to its environment. If a substance during its subdivision displays certain characteristics, it changes at a certain point in this subdivisional process, acquiring another character; it becomes able to permeate its environment with the former characteristics, and to activate the medium in which it is treated in the same direction.

This activating process may take various forms. The “opposite reaction” above mentioned may be directly provoked. But it may also happen that this opposite reaction may take the form of causing the substance affected to become fluorescent or phosphorescent, either later on or under exposure to light. The reaction provoked has thus taken the form of irradiation into the environment. These facts must be given due weight. There is no question here of a plunge into mysticism; it is a question of observing nature in its real activities, so as to enter into its rhythmic course even where we study the qualities of the substances. I might almost call this study a leit motiv, a main theme in the search for the effects of substances. Increase potency and you will reach a zero point; beyond that point opposite effects appear. But this is not all; the further path on the negative side leads to another zero point for these opposite effects. Passing the second zero, you will come to a higher form of efficiency tending in the same direction as the first sequence, but of quite a different nature. It would be valuable and appropriate to plot out the different effect of potencies by means of curves. But it would be necessary to construct these curves in a special manner; first to delineate a curve and then, on arriving at the point where certain lower potencies cease to work and are superseded by the working of higher potencies, to turn sharply at right-angles and continue the curve into space. We shall deal further with these subjects in this course; they are interwoven with the whole kinship of man to extra-human nature.

Let us return now to carbo vegetabilis. Anyone considering the obvious qualities of this substance would say that, if taken in large doses, vegetable carbon produces a very definite set of disease symptoms. These definite symptoms, according to the views of the homeopathist, may be combated by administering the same substance at a higher degree of potency.

The spiritual scientist views vegetable carbon as something impelling him to turn to extra-human nature and to study the nature of these carbon products, the coal deposits of the earth, which have advanced more in mineralisation. He finds that the main role of carbon in the earth process is in connection with oxygen consumption. The earth's carbon content regulates the oxygen content of the atmospheric environment. One arrives at a direct insight into the fact that the earth—as indeed must be the case—is an organism, with a function of respiration, and that the carbon content of the earth has something to do with the breath the earth draws. The kind of chemistry demanded in the lecture yesterday will only develop if—so to speak—the “coal being” is considered in connection with the respiratory function either in mankind or in animals. For in the process which links the carbonisation of the earth and the oxygen process in the atmosphere, there operates something spiritual science recognises as the tendency towards animality; yes, literally, the tendency to become animal. This tendency can only be characterised in a way sure to be found startling. For we must needs state that there is a force at work in the interactions between the carbonisation of the earth, and the processes appertaining to the oxygen content of the atmosphere, that calls for the real beings, etheric beings, which, however in contrast to the animal kingdom, are in perpetual motion away from the earth, striving away from the earth's surface. We can only begin to comprehend animality itself by considering it as something held together by the earth in reaction to this process of “de-animalisation” of the earth. The animals and their processes are the outcome of this reaction of the earth.

To introduce vegetable carbon into the human organism, is, therefore, nothing less than to introduce an element with an urgent tendency towards animality. All the symptoms that ensue, from flatulence to distensions, to ill-smelling diarrhœa and so forth, even to the formation of hæmorrhoids, and on the other hand, all manner of acute and burning pains, have this one origin. That animality which has been expelled from mankind in the course of evolution, in order that mankind might attain the full human nature, is being re-absorbed into man. So we are definitely able to say that if we give a patient vegetable carbon in large doses, we thereby urge and impel him to defend himself against the alien process of animality which has invaded him. He does so by strengthening just that principle which he owes to the expulsion of animality in the course of evolution.

This expulsion of animality in the course of evolution, is linked with another potential faculty:—it is amazing but true, that man in his organism actually produces primary light. In our upper man we really generate light independently. In the lower sphere we possess those defensive organs against complete animalisation which are necessary to enable the upper sphere to produce original light. There we have one of the profound differences between man and the animal world; the animals share the other higher spiritual processes equally with mankind; but they are not capable of generating sufficient light in their interior.

Here I must touch on what can only be called a really painful chapter of our modern natural science. However painful, this chapter cannot be concealed from you, for the simple reason that it is essential to the understanding of human relationships with the extra-human world The main obstacle to an objective assessment of the operation in the human organism of substances in general, and curative substances in particular, is the law of the so-called conservation of energy, and the law of the conservation of matter. These laws have been enunciated as universal laws of nature, but are in absolute opposition to the process of human evolution. For instance, the whole nutritive and digestive function is not what it is assumed to be in the materialist conception. This takes the view that the substances in question—let us take carbon as our example—were quite external to ourselves, before being taken in as food; this is consumed, and passed on, though modified in our organism, and re-absorbed eventually so that we carry with us, distributed though it may be, the matter taken from the world outside us. And this same matter we carry about within us. There is no difference, in this theory, between the carbon in the external world, and the carbon within our organism. But this theory is mistaken. For there is within the human organism the potentiality of completely destroying extra-human carbon through the action of the lower sphere; of expelling this substance from space and then re-creating it anew independently through reaction. Yes, it is true; within us there is a crucible for the creation of extra-human substances and at the same time a power to destroy them. Of course, the science of today will not admit this; not being able to think of the substances in any other way than as a wanderer, in microscopic amounts (restless as Ahasuerus). It knows nothing of the life of matter, of its origin, of its death, nor of how substances die and are re-born, within our human organism. This reanimation of carbon is connected with what manifests as the generation of light in normal human beings. This internal generation of light meets the operation of the light from the external world. Our upper organic sphere is designed so as to enable external light and internal light to counteract one another, to operate alternately; and it is the main factor in our human constitution that we have the power of holding these two sources of light apart, so that they only work upon each other, without being welded into one another. Let us suppose that we are standing exposed to the light from the external world, receiving it either through our eyes, or through our whole skin. There is a screen, so to speak, between the internal, inherent light within us and the light that operates from without. This external light has actually only the value of an activator for the generation of internal light; thus in letting light pour upon us from outside we activate ourselves to produce inner light.

Now examine this whole process some way further. Consider the region in us which is engaged in the decomposition of carbonic substances. This comprises the kidneys and the whole urinary apparatus and all the related organs situated above the kidneys. We approach the renal process within man, if we envisage the process associated with carbon in extra-human nature. And concurrently we find the way in which to apply substances such as vegetable carbon to man. First let us take the minor forms of illness and reason as follows: we have first and foremost in vegetable carbon, the possibility of counteracting that animalisation in man which provokes nausea: and all the diseased phenomena for which dosage with vegetable carbon is indicated, are forms of nausea, and that nausea continued into the interior regions of our bodies. Against the processes there in operation and their products, the effective polar opposite process is the function of the kidney system. Thus if the patient exhibits the symptoms that can be artificially provoked by heavy dosage of vegetable carbon, you can stimulate and promote the whole kidney process with higher potencies of vegetable carbon and in this way counteract the particular diseased process which resembles the effect of vegetable carbon upon man. Thus it must be essential to consider the response of all renal activities to the increase of potencies of this remedy.

The kidney process may also operate in such a way as to accentuate its polarity to the digestive process; that is to say that in the case of a disturbed digestion (the result of the symptoms distinctive of vegetable carbon) the polar effect appears, of the morbid process in the diseased digestion in the intestine. In short, the result and reactions of administering vegetable carbon, are in opposition, on the one hand, to the generation of light. You will realise the meaning of these comments, if you visualise the following conditions. Here, then, is the earth, (see Diagram 21) surrounded by air, and over or outside the atmosphere is something different again. The outer layer beyond the atmosphere is first of all what may be described as a sort of warmth mantle round the earth. If we could ascend straight from the earth through the atmosphere, we should enter a zone of very different warmth conditions, surprisingly different from what we know on the earth's surface. At a certain distance from the earth in space, the contents of this warmth sphere perform much the same office as the atmosphere itself within and below that zone. What of the region beyond? Here (see Diagram 21) we represent the extra-telluric warmth sphere, and here the atmosphere; and beyond, the polar complement of the atmosphere, a region wherein conditions are the complete opposite of those within the atmosphere. In that region, in a state of—if I may coin the word—de-aeration, where the very existence of air is annulled, is the source of what shoots up through the de-aeration and is sent towards us as light.

It is a grave error to suppose that our light on earth comes from the sun. That is only a somewhat fatal fantasy on the part of physicists and astronomers. Our light on earth comes from this outer zone. There it springs up, there it is generated, there it grows as plants grow in the soil of the earth. And so we are entitled to say: if man has the power to generate original light of his own, it is due to the power he has reserved to his own formative process, to execute something that is done—apart from him—only in this upper and outer region; he bears the source of an extra-telluric activity within himself. This cosmic source of power operates on the whole of plant life as well as upon mankind; but it affects the vegetable world from outside, whereas man holds something within, which links him with this upper sphere. (See Diagram 21).

Now let us ask ourselves; suppose we approach the earth more closely than the atmospheric envelope—do we then penetrate again into man, by that way? Yes: for as we approach the earth out of the atmosphere, we come to all that is fluid, to the watery element, and we may correctly envisage a fluid zone beneath the zone of air. The fluid zone has also its counterpart, which lies beyond the light-generating stratum. There again, all conditions are the polar opposites of those obtaining in the watery belt round the earth; and there, too, forces spring to life and operate on the earth, as light is born in and operates from the zone immediately below. There are the chemical forces working down into the earth, and it is an absurdity to seek for the chemical effects observed on earth, in the various substances themselves. (See Diagram 21). You will seek them there in vain. They come down to meet the earth from these regions outside.

But again man bears within him something analogous to this extra-telluric region. If I may so express it—man contains a “chemicator.”

He has within him something of the celestial sphere that contains the source of chemical action. And this function is highly localised in us, in the liver. I ask you to study the remarkable scope of the functional activity of the liver. On the one hand, it exercises what I might call a form of suction, determining the composition of the blood; and on the other hand, by means of the secretion of the gall, it regulates the process leading to blood formation. Consider these manifold activities; and you will have to recognise something which, if carefully studied, leads to a proper chemical science. For the external chemistry of outer science is not to be found on earth; it is a reflection only of the extra human “chemical sphere” above. But there is a means of studying this extra-telluric sphere in all the wonderful workings of the human liver.

Now let us return to vegetable carbon and its “internal” attributes, by combining vegetable carbon with the alkalis, for instance with potassium itself (Kali Carbonicum), and studying the resultant effects on the human organism. All alkaline substances (of the nature of lye) operate towards the interior of the organism, affecting the processes of the liver; whilst all substances akin to vegetable carbon tend to affect the kidneys and urinary tract. We shall be able to trace a distinct interaction between all that is of the nature of lye and all the processes associated with the liver. Careful study of such substances would prove that, just as all carbonic substance is linked with “animalisation,” so all that is akin to lye, is associated with the “vegetable tendency” in man and with the casting off of the vegetable kingdom from mankind.

In previous lectures, I have pointed to a process which can help us read the human processes from the activities of Nature. I have referred to what we may simply term the formative process of the oyster shell. In that process, we pass from the resultant of combining carbon with potassium, to the combination with calcium. But the effects that would follow the combination of carbon and calcium, without any third element, are much modified by the powerful phosphoric forces at work in the oyster shell. All these forces are mingled in the oyster shell with certain others, found in the marine environment. And the consideration of the formation of these shells, leads us a step further into the relationship between external nature and man. Let us pass downwards through the watery zone round the earth, (see Diagram 21) and come to the actual earth formation, to what we might term the solidification. (We should not have any hesitation today in referring to earth, water, air and fire—if the terms linked in association had not become unfashionable and unpopular, as having been used by ignorant folk of old! But among ourselves, surely, we are at liberty to refer to these things.) This solid structure of earth has also its counterpart in the cosmos; and this is the realm of vitalisation, the source of all life formation. The vital forces come to us from a further distance even than the chemical, and within the extra-human earth—that is in the “earthly sphere” proper—they are completely killed. (See Diagram 21).

Moreover, our earth would come to exuberant growth and would form ebullient living outgrowths of carcinomatous nature, if this hypertrophy were not checked by the workings of the extra-telluric Mercury (the planet) which develops the mercurial process. It is of value, even once to have realised and thought over this matter. The formative force active in earth formation, in the formation of earth substance, we may see retarded as it were, held back at an earlier stage, in the formation of the oyster shell. The Oyster shell is withheld from becoming part of the earth's structure, by its ancient and persistent link with the sea, and thus preserves the formative earth process at a more primitive stage when it solidifies. Earthworms cannot do this as they have no shell. But the same forces proceed from them ceaselessly and therefore it is entirely true to say that if there were no earthworms, there would be no formative forces inside the earth. These worms play a leading role in the process of earth formation. The whole world of the earthworms represents something that passes beyond the formation of the oyster's shell, and has just as much a relationship to the whole earth as the oyster shell. And so the shell formation is suppressed and there arises instead the processes in arable soil and all related processes.

In seeking for the next process, situated still more deeply in the interior of man than that related to the chemical forces and the liver, we come to another human organ—no other than the lungs. The lungs have a dual aspect and office in the human body. The lungs are, of course, the organs of respiration. But however strange this may sound, they are organs of respiration only in what I might term their external aspect. They are at the same time regulators of the internal—the deeply internal—process of earth formation within man. If we follow a way passing from outside the body inward, beginning with the nutritive and digestive process, through the successive formative processes of kidneys, liver and finally lungs:—i.e., to the actual internal formative process of the lungs, apart from their function of drawing breath—and if we examine this process, we find the polar opposite of that which manifests in the oyster as shell formation. The human constitution has interiorised in the formative process of the lungs that which lies outside and above the chemical zone (See Diagram 21) in the outer universe.

Consider the actual symptoms in man, following certain effects of calcium carbonate, and you will again see the strong resemblance and relationship to those activities essential to the vital processes of the lungs in which they manifest their separate life. It is, of course, difficult to distinguish these activities from those entirely ruled by the process of respiration. So it is especially necessary to bear in mind that the lungs serve the human constitution in two directions and in two ways: they have a functional office towards the external world, and a functional office towards the internal as well. Degenerative conditions of the lungs must be sought in processes similar to those proper to shell formation in oysters or similar creatures, such as, for instance, the shell structure of snails.

Today we have approached yesterday's theme from the other side, as it were. The circle we completed yesterday was more perfect, but we shall continue and hope to complete today's line of reasoning in the succeeding lectures. We have learnt to see the activities of kidneys, liver and lungs respectively as the counterparts to the external activities in the air, in water and in solid earth. The aerial activities correspond to all that appertains to the kidney system in its widest sense, including all the urinary functions. The innermost part of this functional system, the kidney itself, is connected with the air supply and thus shortness of breath can arise and this symptom you will note among the after effects of dosage with vegetable carbon. So we may say that the deeper causes of respiratory disturbance and shortness of breath, must be sought for in the kidney system.

All that is associated with the fluid (watery) element has its deeper causation in the liver system. Just as the shortness of breath and its regulation are associated with the kidneys, thirst is associated with the liver. It would be an interesting investigation, to study the interactions of the various qualities and peculiarities of thirst in man, with the operations of the liver. And the manifestations of hunger and all its accessory symptoms are intimately connected with the internal condition of the lungs, with their internal metabolism as it were. On the one hand, of course, hunger, thirst and the need to draw breath, are associated with the ponderable factors, air, water and earth. With their counterparts in the cosmos many other factors are associated. It is understandable, for instance, that if we need the activating stimulating influence of light—because the force within us that generates the “juvenile,” original light has abated, we can best obtain such stimulation from light itself. This is the justification of the light treatment. But light-baths are not always exactly and only light-baths, and this “not only” is important. They are really an exposure to the powers of the chemical zone, an exposure much greater in extent than is normal in the course of our daily life. The really effective factor in most light-baths, is the external “chemism” pouring earthwards concurrently with light itself. And behind the chemical forces, as may be seen in the rough sketch plan before us, (see Diagram 22) are aligned the vital forces themselves, which are also in attendance, as it were, if man is exposed to increased light and increased chemical influence. Thus both the action of chemical forces and the action of vital forces, carried by the light, are extraordinarily beneficial, provided always—and this is all important—the dose is correctly estimated, and care is taken to avoid excessive exposure.

One final comment; you surely need no longer find it strange that current natural science has not succeeded in forming a conception of the genesis of life itself. For in all the regions in which current natural science conducts its search, there is only life's polar opposite, thanks to the action of Mercury; there is only death. Life must be sought outside the earth, in regions into which contemporary natural science is not willing to go. Contemporary science refuses to enter the extra-telluric region. And if it cannot be avoided—well, then, that too is interpreted in materialistic terms. There has been a very fine translation into materialism of the operation of extra-telluric vital forces. It runs as follows; the germs of life have been brought to our earth from other celestial bodies. So these germs of life have been brought through all distances and hindrances, with such beautiful efficiency, to appear safe on earth at last; and indeed some scientists have believed meteors and meteorites to have been the high-powered motor cars that brought them here! You see, people actually think that anything can be explained by means of such a materialistic theory. People are used to shift the explanation of phenomena observable on the visible (macroscopic) scale into the microscopic or ultra-microscopic realm, in theories of molecules and atoms; so they believe they have also explained life simply through shifting its origin to another place.

Everyone who has the task to heal should acquire a fundamental feeling for the surprising connections between extra-human and intra-human facts. For significant intuitions can emerge from such study, particularly in Materia Medica and therapeutics. To take an obvious example, let me remind you of such substances as Roncegno-water, or Levico water, which are as though compounded by some beneficent spirit—to speak figuratively—preparing ready for use in the world of nature so many diverse ingredients capable of acting favourably within us. We shall later on deal with these matters in greater detail, but if we bear in mind the remarkable manner in which the two forces of iron and copper blend and temper one another in the water from these spas, and the addition of arsenic, as though to make their mutual compensative operation even wider and more firmly based, we must say to ourselves: here in external nature is something just prepared for certain conditions in mankind. Of course it can happen that these substances have an extremely unfavourable effect on certain individual cases. But the general validity of the main principle is shown even in negative cases, and corroborated. It is advisable, especially at the present time, in dealing with these subjects to remember the possibility of meeting and counteracting such morbid symptoms as have not manifested themselves until our age. Do not let us forget that objective observers on all sides are recognising that peculiar conditions are beginning to affect certain regions of the earth's surface and bringing peculiar forms of disease in their wake. And do not let us forget another current development of great relevant interest; even such a disorder as grippe (influenza) has indisputably acquired strange features in its recent form; the power of rousing previously latent sicknesses to which the individual organism has a tendency, but which might otherwise remain hidden throughout life. These latent morbid trends are uncovered, as it were, when the patient is attacked by influenza.

These matters compose a bundle of questions, upon which I will base our next lectures. The most fruitful approach will be from the consideration of another remarkable circumstance, which perhaps only the spiritual scientist can fully appreciate. As you are aware, oxygen and nitrogen are mingled in our atmosphere; they are loosely mingled in a manner which cannot be exactly defined, either in the terms of physics or of chemistry. And we, as men and as earthly beings, are wholly enmeshed in the combined activities of these two elements, oxygen and nitrogen, and one can therefore assume from the outset that there is some significance in the relation of oxygen to nitrogen in our atmosphere, and in their normal ratio.

Spiritual Science shows us this significant fact: every change in the composition of the atmosphere which alters the normal proportion of oxygen to nitrogen, in either direction—is associated with disturbances in the process of human sleep. That leads us to inquire into this hidden relationship more definitely. You know that in Spiritual Science we have found it necessary to state that man consists of the following four members: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body and the ego. You know that we have been led by the facts themselves, further, to maintain that when sleep begins ego and astral body separate, in a sense, from the other vehicles, though this separation takes place more in a dynamic sense, and return again when the individual awakes. Thus you must conclude: in the state of sleep there is a bond between the astral body and the ego, and another bond between the etheric and physical bodies; so even in the waking state, we must accept a less intimate connection between astral body and ego on the one hand and etheric body and physical body on the other, than between the ego and astral body or between the etheric and physical bodies. This looser link between the two groups, the upper human entity, ego and astral body and the lower human entity, etheric and physical bodies—is a true mirror-image of the loose admixture of oxygen and nitrogen in the external atmosphere. Both correspond in a remarkable and astounding way. The composition of the external atmosphere is of such a nature as to furnish the ratio for the connection between astral and etheric bodies, and concurrently between their partners, the physical body and the ego.

This will also naturally make us attentive as to how we have to act in regard to the composition of the air, how we must notice whether we are in a position to give men air or whether to deprive them of it. Now you are able to take a more physiological approach, and to note the working of this correspondence. Pass in review all the substances at present known to us, and active in the human organism; and you will find that (with two exceptions) all these are found in combination with other substances within the human organism: as a rule we find compounds and solutions. Two only appear in their pure state within us; these are oxygen and nitrogen. So these main components of the atmosphere play also particular parts within our human bodies. Their interactions form as it were the very core of the substances in us. Oxygen and nitrogen are linked with the functions of the human organism; and they act as the only elements operating in their pure state, and not modified or deflected by other substances combined with them in the human organic sphere. So there is not only great significance in the actual presence of external substances, traceable within the human organism; we must also follow up the manner of their occurrence, and consider whether their operation remains free, or is bound up with something else. For the peculiar thing is that within the human organism, matter acquires special affinities to other forms of matter, and specific kinship. So if we introduce a substance into the organism which already contains a certain other substance, these affinities can become apparent. Follow this up, and you will come to a quite definite revelation, which spiritual science must point out. You are aware that vegetable, animal and human organisms are alike based on proteins, on albuminous substances. You know that, in the terms of contemporary chemistry, the main ingredients of albumen are the four main natural substances, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, and, in addition, sulphur, as, so to speak, a homeopathic agent in the operations of the other four.

It is necessary to form an idea of how the internal function of albumen is brought about; how is protein made? Contemporary chemical science must obviously and conformably to its premises reply:—Oh well, any such substance has the configuration proper to its inherent forces. It follows that one identifies things which are actually not at all the same, or that are not similar as much as is assumed. Sometimes a certain dissimilarity is recorded, and in any case the identity is invalid. In consequence of the application of atomistic theory to the structure of albumens, vegetable albumen and animal albumen have been viewed as very much alike, and up to a certain degree at least chemically identical. But that is absolutely not the case. A closer and more exact study of our human organism recognises the fact that vegetable albumen neutralises animal and more especially human albumen; that the two are in fact polar opposites, and that each annihilates in an intimate way the effects of the other. It is strange indeed that we must admit: animal albumen is of such a nature in its functions that these functions are impaired, abolished partially or even wholly abolished, by those of vegetable albumen. And this leads us to the question: Well, what is the exact difference between what appears as albumen in the animal organism or especially in that of man, and what appears as the same substance in the organism of plants? It is in your recollection that I have had frequently to mention the important part played in relation to all extra-telluric meteorological processes by the four organic systems, bladder, kidneys, liver, lungs, and their complement, the heart. Those four organic groups are most important in determining how man is affected by the meteorological happenings in the external world. Now: What is the significance and office of these four systems.

These four organic systems are nothing less than the creators of the structure of human albumen. So we must study them, and not the atomistic and molecular forces in the albumen substance. In our inquiry “Why is albumen what it is?” we must conceive of its internal structure as the resultant of forces emanating from these four organic systems. Albumen can be called the product of this fourfold co-operation. With this we state a remarkable fact in respect of the interiorisation of external forces within man. What contemporary chemistry looks for in the actual structure of the substance in question, we look for and find in the organic systems of the human body. Therefore the characteristic structure of human albumen cannot conceivably exist in the external terrestrial sphere; it cannot remain unless it is under the influence of these four organic systems. In other conditions it is bound to change its structure.

But it is otherwise with vegetable albumen. Vegetable albumen is, so it seems, not controlled by any analogous group of organs, but it is under another influence; namely, of the four elements, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon, and also under that of the meteorologically omnipresent mediator between these four main elements, namely sulphur. In vegetable albumen, these four elements dispersing themselves throughout the atmosphere, perform the same office as the lungs, heart, liver and so forth, within man. External nature contains in these four substances the same formative forces as are individualised in the human organism through the four main groups. It is important to remember that in speaking of oxygen, hydrogen and so forth, we should not limit their meaning to the inherent forces and attributes recognised by modern chemistry, but that we should conceive these elements as possessing formative forces, with activities which affect one another mutually, and by which they contribute to the furnishing of the earth sphere. If we consider them separately and in detail, we must identify the external operation of oxygen with the internal operation of the kidney and urinary system. What is done in the outer world, by the formative forces of carbon, we must identify internally with the pulmonary system: not regarding the lungs however as organs of respiration, but as possessing particular formative forces. We must identify nitrogen with the liver system, hydrogen with the cardiac system (see Diagram 22). Hydrogen is indeed the heart of the outer world; and nitrogen the liver of the external world, etc.

It would be well, my friends, for humanity today, not only to let itself be persuaded to recognise these things, but to work them out for itself. For example, in recognising the association of the heart system with the formative forces of hydrogen, you will readily admit the essential importance of hydrogen circulation for the whole upper bodily sphere in man. For with the metamorphosis of hydrogen towards the upper bodily sphere, the lower and more animal region is changed into the specifically human, tending towards the developing of concepts, etc. And I have already indicated that there we shall have to deal with an extra-telluric influence to be identified with the metal lead. You will remember that lead, tin and iron have already been classified as forces possessing special affinities with the upper sphere in man. At the present time there is no great inclination to admit these interrelationships Nor will there be, as yet, much wish to go outwards from man into the external world, recognising the specific working of lead, as something associated with the fact that hydrogen is made ready by the heart, and then serves as carrier for the preparation of the apparatus of thought. Nevertheless the unconscious progress of human evolution is compelling mankind to recognise this fact. For today it is no longer possible to deny that lead plays some role in the external world, even if only from the functional standpoint; as lead has been actually found among the products of transmutation which Röntgenology has discovered; lead has been actually found as a final product formed by way of helium, not with the usual atomic weight, as a matter of fact; but still it has been identified as lead. Furthermore, as lead has been discovered, so shall we also find tin, and iron as well, iron that as the only constituent of external nature, impinges directly upon our human constitution. Surely today we need to give heed not only to the science of Röntgen rays, however wonderful as a guide and finger-post to the cosmos external to ourselves, because it speaks not only of the crude metallic ores within the earth, but of the metal forces playing upon us from the extra-telluric sphere. That must be said nowadays. For the emergence of new types of disease shows the necessity of taking these factors into account.

What interests us here is the fact that the function performed in the external world by carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and their mediator sulphur, is being individualised in man through the four organic systems. Correct estimation of this fact will lead you deep into the core of man. Then you will no longer find it strange to bring the involuntary elements in our nature—i.e., those which seem to be under the control of the spiritual functions—into association with the whole extra-human world. For on the other hand, observe this truth also. Man is so constructed as to have, for instance a certain system of organs which we know as the kidneys. But each of the four systems has an urge to become the whole man: the kidneys have an urgent tendency to become the whole man; the heart has the same tendency, so has the liver, so have the lungs. In order to convince oneself of such facts, it is helpful to turn one's eyes—or rather one's sensitivity—to observe certain workings of extra-human realities in one's being. It is hardly possible to avoid drawing your attention to the borderline where Natural Science passes over Spiritual Science. For, indeed, if you continue your practice both in medicine and in meditation, and learn to put yourself more and more in tune with the life of meditation, feeling yourself as a meditating human being, you will gradually arrive at a concrete and real self-knowledge. Such a self-knowledge is not to be despised if it comes to such positive tasks as the cure of disease! If you attain further progress in meditation you will become aware of things in your own bodies which were originally quite beyond consciousness. You have only to become conscious of this new awareness, in order to learn what it is as yet difficult to mention and describe in public lectures or even before lay audiences, because of the tendency which then arises. I shall presently refer to one of these elements, elementary as it is. But if these matters were to be broadcast indiscriminately in wider circles today, among mankind in its present moral condition, there would at once arise the query: “Well, why are these powers not utilised?” Followed by the conclusion: “Yes, I should have to practise meditation—and I can get the same result more easily by simply incorporating this or that substance.” It is more convenient to diet or inject, than to practise meditation. By taking that course, mankind decides in a certain sense on moral ruin. But with their contemporary moral constitution, people would not hesitate—you will see the core of my argument presently—to reject meditation in favour of some external remedy, which would, we must admit, help them, on the first steps of the road, to results similar to the fruits of meditation. And it is certainly the case that such partial substitutes exist. For example, if you have practised genuine meditation for some time, and are disposed to register its effects, you will observe that you have become aware of the radiating iron forces, just as you are normally aware that you have hands with which you take hold and feet with which you walk. It is indeed the case that the awareness of the iron working comes as clearly as the normal awareness of our legs and arms, or our heads, to move and turn etc. Yes—what emerges is the consciousness of ourselves as a framework phantom of iron. The consequent danger to which I have referred is that most people would reason thus: “So far, so good: then it's possible to augment one's sensitivity to iron, the susceptibility to the iron within one's self, by means of some remedy, that will have the same effect as meditation.” Up to a certain point this is completely accurate. But there is danger in the experimentation on such lines, in order to attain what is termed clairvoyance easily. Such experiments have been made occasionally. If they are made as, in a sense, exploratory sacrifices on behalf of mankind, the case is different, but if they are made out of curiosity, they undermine the whole ethical structure of the human soul. Now Van Helmont was one of the sages who experimented widely and boldly on himself, in this direction, and discovered many things, through such experiments; and you can read these results in his writings, to this day. He differs from Paracelsus; for with the latter one feels that his understanding rose in an atavistic way from within and that he carried elements of the super-earthly world into the ordinary world. Whereas Helmont repeatedly received remarkable illuminations as a result of self administration of various substances. This is shown by the way in which he presents his subject; moreover, I believe he makes quite definite statements to this effect, in some passages. This, then, is the first possible attainment (through meditation); the internal sensitivity for the radiant force of iron, for that unique working which comes forth from the upper bodily sphere, and ramifies into all the limbs. One gets the definite conception—I say expressly the conception—that one is dealing internally with iron, that is with its function and its forces.

In attempting a graphic representation of this iron radiation, I must mention that by its very nature it is not adapted to act beyond the human organism. The feeling persists: what is radiating forth is nevertheless localised within us, and remains so. There is a counteracting force from all sides, which dams and (see Diagram 23) stores up the iron forces. It is as though the iron rayed outwards to the human periphery with positive force; and there met a negative radiance from something which hits back, advancing as it were in concentric spheres. This is what can be perceived; the one element radiating forth and the other coming to hold it up; we therefore feel that we knock against something and cannot pass beyond the bodily surface.

And gradually we realise that the negative and opposing radiance is the force of albumen. Thus the iron introduces into our organism a display of functions which are opposed by all that comes from the four organic systems to which I have already referred. These systems resist the iron rays; and the struggle goes on continually within the organism. This is as it were the first thing which becomes perceptible to the inner sight. When we begin to study the spiritual history of mankind, we can plainly see that the Hippocratic School of Medicine, and even that of Galen as well, still used conceptions which are relics of such internal observations. Galen Was no longer in a position to observe much in this way but he recorded all sorts of traditions from earlier ages, still current in his day. If we can read him aright we shall find that the archaic atavistic medical wisdom, whose decline begins with the advent of Hippocrates, still shows through much of Galen's writings, and is the source of many valuable views on the healing processes of nature contained in them.

In pursuance of these phenomena, we find we must study on the whole these two polarities throughout the organism, these radiations and that which opposes them and dams them up. There is need to keep this distinction in mind, for all that tends to form albumen, in the manner described above, is associated with the damming up action, and all of a metallic nature introduced into our bodies, has to do with the radiating forces. Certainly there are exceptions and characteristic exceptions, but they are so distinctive as to reveal other aspects of this whole amazing complex of forces, assembled from all the ends of the universe and focused in our human organism. In order to comprehend their scope it is necessary to follow up somewhat the indications already given here in outline, which you may work out in detail. Thus, I need only mention this fact: The carbon content of plants—for instance the vegetable carbon already dealt with—is lacking in an ingredient which is generally—practically always—present in animal carbon: that is a certain amount of nitrogen. This is the reason why animal and vegetable carbon react differently especially when exposed to fire. This latter feature in turn, makes animal carbon inclined to play a part in the formation of such substances as gall, mucus, and even fat. This difference in the action of vegetable and animal carbon respectively, draws our attention to the further difference in the action of metals and non-metals in general within the human organism. In other words, the action of the radiating out and the damming up substances.

This polar interaction gives the clue to many important things. We have often had occasion to mention the various periods of human life; the period of childhood lasting till the cutting of the permanent teeth; the period between second dentition and puberty, and then the period from puberty to the beginning of the twenties. These periods are linked with intimate happenings within the human organism. The first period, ending with the cutting of the permanent teeth, means, as I have had occasion to point out, a concentration of the whole organic activity on the formation and insertion of the solid scaffold into the body; this process reaches its culmination in the teeth which protrude from the solid scaffold. Now it is evident that this crystallisation of solid substance within the still largely fluid young human body must have to do with the whole building up of the human shape, especially towards its periphery.

We must attribute much of the result achieved to two substances, which receive far too little attention in their effects within the human organism: these are fluorine and magnesium. In the—so to speak—rarefied form in which they occur within us, both fluorine and magnesium play prominent parts, especially in the process of shape formation in the child, up to the change of teeth. The forming and fitting of the solid framework in the human organism takes place through continuous interaction between the forces of magnesium and fluorine respectively; in this interplay, the forces of fluorine act plastically, mould as a sculptor moulds, fill out contours and bar the way to the forces of radiation, whilst magnesium acts as a radiating force and constitutes the fibres of tissue, etc., into and along which the substance arranges itself. It is not a senseless phrase, but wholly in accord with the course of nature to say that a tooth is formed thus: It is shaped, as far as its circumference and its cement is concerned, by the activity of the plastic artist “fluorine,” and magnesium pours into it the forces which have to be shaped to a plastic form.

So it is necessary to keep even balance between the supplies of these two substances in early childhood, and if this balance and proportion are not achieved, it will always be found that the teeth become defective at an early age. As soon as the first tooth appears, the particular formation of the teeth should be noted carefully, and whether the child develops a weak enamel cover or the teeth are too small and sparsely set—we shall deal with these symptoms in detail, but at present we are approaching the subject gradually—any defects should and can then be counteracted by means of administering either magnesium or fluorine in suitable compounds.

This affords a direct glimpse into the formative process of man. Even in the earliest years of life, there is this interaction between fluorine and magnesium, that is an interaction in which the agents are of a decidedly extra-human character in the constitution of their substance—for during the first years of life, man is mainly a link inserted into the external world. So fluorine comes from the external world, to counteract the centrifugal radiance of the metal.

For the third vital epoch, a similar importance adheres to the even balance between iron and albumen, the whole formation of albumen. If there is not the requisite even balance, and there are not strong beneficial counter-agents against the effects of disproportion between iron and albumen, we have all the symptoms externally typical of anæmia. It simply does not suffice merely to note the presence of this symptom or that; decayed or misshapen teeth which have been directly caused by faulty conditions in early youth, for instance, or the blood chemistry characteristic of anæmia. We must penetrate into the secret depth of the human organism as a whole, if we would understand what exactly happens to man in sickness.

You already know, more or less, the particular metals which share in the upbuilding—the interior upbuilding—of the human organism They do not include—with one exception, namely iron—those to which I have referred as in some way the most important ones: lead, tin, copper, quicksilver, silver and gold are not directly engaged in the functioning of the human organism, but have their part in us, nevertheless. Take, for instance, that substance which contributes to the peripheral formations of the human frame; we refer to silicon, with which I have dealt already. Now the processes within us are not bounded by our skins; man is interwoven with the whole web of universal processes. Just as the substances mentioned above are of significance internally, so also the main metals enumerated here, are effective upon man although external to our organism. The part of the mediator is given to iron. Iron plays the mediating role between the sphere within the boundary of the human skin, and that outside this boundary We may therefore maintain that the whole pulmonary System—“pulmonary man,” possessing the urge to become a whole man—is strongly linked with the whole human relationship to the universal life of nature. If we regard only what becomes visible in dissecting the body, we are taking for the whole, what is only a part. The visible body is not the whole, it is that part of man which is opposed to extra-human agencies; to the operation of lead, tin, copper and so forth, which are external to our bodies. Even if we look at the human organisation only from the point of view of natural science, we must never regard man as bounded by the epidermis. We must take into account not only the workings acting from within, outwards, but also all these workings which give a general direction to his organic processes. That the latter play an important part may be realised in the light of the following facts.

You know that certain substances operate in the human organism simply through being bound up with either bases or acids; or appear, to use the technical term, neutrally in the form of salts. Thus bases and acids act as complexes of antagonistic forces, which neutralise each other in salts. But this is not all. How does this triad, acids, bases and salts, operate within the human system of organic forces? We shall find that all bases have a tendency to support such human processes as begin in the mouth and continue through digestion, i.e., from front to rear; and indeed all other processes with the same line of action. And as the basic substances have to do with this direction, so the acids are equally associated with the reverse. Only in studying the opposition of “front man” to “rear man” one understands the polar opposition of bases and acids. And saline substances stand at right angles to the two opposites, pointing vertically earthwards. All processes directed from above downwards centripetally are those into which the saline element thrusts itself. Thus we must keep these three spatial directions clearly in our minds, if we seek to determine how man enters into the triad, bases, salts and acids. Here again is an instance of the manner in which the purely external chemistry of metals is linked with the physiological, through the observation of man, for here you see clearly the directive forces. Here, too, you have the whole relationship of salt nature to the earth, as well as the direction of basic and acid substances. We can summarise the whole thus. If we imagine the earth's surface, the saline substances tend downwards towards the earth, and bases and acids tend to spin around the earth in circles. And simply by learning something of the spatial directions of the organic functions, we are in a position to intrench upon them. Here an essential curative measure is the external application of remedies, through friction, by means of ointments, and so forth. One must find out what operates in a certain direction after external application. Under certain conditions, the vigorous action of mustard plasters, or of certain metallic ointments—suitably compounded of course—is as effective for the whole organism, as is internal treatment. But—as you will deduce from what has been put before you—we must be careful to choose the right method of application. For it is not at all the same whether the plaster or ointment is applied to this or that part of the body. It is essential to choose the spot of application so as to stimulate counteraction against injurious forces. It is not always the most efficacious way merely to put the remedy directly on to the seat of the pain or irritation.

It is possible that the more materialistic tendency in medicine may assume a more spiritually scientific orientation, in respect of three groups of facts; we shall now consider certain of these groups. The first includes all facts connected with the origin, development and possible cure of tumours. The second includes the so-called mental diseases, and their really rational treatment. And finally there is the field of externally applied remedies, ointments, salves, and so on.

We can hardly hope to reach the understanding of tumorous growths, with their culmination in cancer, by means of merely physical methods, unless the insight given by spiritual science serves at least as a guidance. And contemporary psychiatry is in such a sorry state, mainly because there is no conscious bridge between it and the usual pathology and therapeutics—though such bridges abound everywhere in nature—that it is probable that these two special fields will be the first to approach the standpoint of spiritual science. They will need to mark all that spiritual science can tell them, and even now you have only to refer to my publications, to realise that spiritual science has already told them a good deal. It will be necessary, in fact, to talk of the intervention of the etheric body, within the physical organism.

For indeed no one should merely assert that clairvoyance is needed in order to show how the etheric body acts within the organism. It is possible to see that the etheric body is not active in a certain way—or is not adequately active—through the observation of very many processes which are opposed to the action of the etheric body. In order to obtain valid representations here, we must take into consideration all the manifestations associated with inflammation or developing out of inflammation, and also all that is associated with the formation of tumours, and spreads its destructive activity through the human body. In the case of tumorous growths there is today a very justifiable effort to dispense with the surgeon's knife in the treatment of tumours. This endeavour is, however, blocked and often frustrated by social, especially hygienic, conditions which should, and must, be changed. But we must find a substitute for surgery: both for what it certainly achieves in some respects, and again fails to achieve in others. Doubtless there are many persons who at present advocate operative surgery, for the simple reason that they know of no alternative, but who would be converted immediately if and when the alternative were available.

There is no need for me to analyse the whole nature of inflammatory processes, in their specific forms as affecting the different human organs. All that I can take as already familiar to you. But the unifying process, which is common to all inflammations, is not a matter of familiar knowledge. This unifying common process is perhaps best characterised as follows: in all cases of inflammation, whether very slight or very acute, and leading possibly to ulcers, spiritual science finds that the etheric body of the patient remains as a whole in working order. Thus we may be sure of being able to do something to restore the full efficiency of this etheric body, which has become impaired or impeded in a particular direction; to redistribute its workings, so as to make it a healing source. Our aim is to direct the activity of the etheric body in definite directions, whereas the healthy etheric body acts throughout the organism and permeates it in all directions. It is possible to set up reactive processes—we shall deal with them presently—which have power to stimulate the etheric body in regard to a system of organs in which its activity has become slack; so that, provided the etheric body as a whole retains a certain measure of health, it resumes its universal efficiency in this special direction.

But tumorous formations of every kind are a different matter. They arise primarily from the actual enmity of certain processes within the physical body, against the action of the etheric body; these processes rebel as it were, so that the etheric body ceases to act in certain regions of the physical body.

The etheric body, however, has very great powers of regeneration and the methods of spiritual science reveal that if it is possible to remove the hindrance and to expel the inimical action, the tumour can be overcome. We may lay down the rule that in cases of tumour, it will be necessary to simulate through the forces of nature, the removal of the counteracting physical processes which oppose the etheric body, so that the etheric body may once more extend its working to the region where it had temporarily receded.

This principle is particularly important, let us say, in the treatment of carcinomatous growths. Carcinoma, if objectively studied, shows plainly, in spite of its great diversity of form, that it is essentially a revolt of certain physical forces against the forces of the etheric body. For instance, the characteristic indurations, which are so perceptible in the case of deep-seated carcinomatous growths, and though less perceptible still present when the growths are nearer the surface of the body—these reveal the preponderance and the encroachments, so to speak, of the physical structure over the etheric structure, which should be there in the particular region. Careful study of their contrasting characteristics will lead us to the conclusion that inflammations, abscesses, and ulcers on the one hand and tumours on the other, are polar opposites. Of course, I must remind you that it is quite possible to take a carcinoma situated on or near the surface of the body, for an ulcer, at least in some features. As the similarity may be misleading, we must study more closely the essence of this polarity.

Certain not precisely old but somewhat medieval technical terms are misleading and unhelpful in this respect—and when I use the phrase medieval, I refer not to the Middle Ages but to those times which we have only just passed through. It is not quite correct to refer to tumours as neoplasms. They are “new” only in the trivial sense of not having been there before, but they are not “neoplasms” in the sense of sprouting on the actual soil of the organism, i.e., on its boundary, the skin. But owing to the vehement opposition developing in some special process of the physical body, as against the etheric, the body of man becomes subjected to the outer nature inimical to man; the formation of a tumour provides an easy passage for all manner of external influences; and thus we should not neglect the study of the complementary opposite of this whole phenomenon. For this I refer you to the study of the extra-human world, let us say, to the formation of the mistletoe to begin with.

First of all we must observe the precise manner in which the varieties of mistletoe (viscum) develop on the soil of other plants. But this is not the main factor under consideration. For the botanist, of course, the parasitism of such plants as mistletoe is the essential point. But for the study of the inter-relationships of extra-human nature to man, it is far more significant that the mistletoe as it grows on trees is compelled to follow a different yearly rhythm from that of other plants, its blossoms have been formed before the trees which are its hosts, begin to put forth their leaves in spring. Thus the mistletoe is a kind of winter blooming plant, protecting itself under the shelter of alien foliage, from the extremes of the summer sun's rays, or better, from the light workings of summer; there is something of an aristocratic attitude about the mistletoe. (See Diagram 24). The sun must be taken—in the sense of the XI lecture—as being the representative only of the light workings: but this subject forms a chapter of physics and does not interest us here; it is unfortunately impossible to avoid phrases introduced into our language by an incorrect conception of nature. The whole manner in which the mistletoe attaches itself to other plants in order to grow and thrive is the essential point: it acquires and appropriates particular forces which may be described as follows. Its nature is to oppose all the tendencies of the straight course taken by the organic forces, and to urge towards all that to which the straight course taken by the organic forces is opposed. Let us try to elucidate this by means of a rough sketch, (see Diagram 24) representing an area in the physical body of man which revolts against the whole access of the etheric forces, so that the latter are, as it were, dammed up and stopped and thus what appears to be a “neoplasm” is formed; and the mistletoe counteracts this “pocketing” which has been formed and draws the forces again to the area which they do not want to enter.

You may corroborate this statement by means of a test which can only take place as occasion offers. You can study the tendency of the mistletoe against the straight-lined organising forces, by its effect on the after birth. Mistletoe prevents or delays the emergence of the after birth from the human body, that is to say, it opposes the straight course of the organic process. And that is its most characteristic and significant property, to prevent the normal course of organic forces. But quite the same tendency of opposition is to be found in the mistletoe-effect in general.

The counteraction of mistletoe against the etheric body's refusal to take hold of the physical body may lead one to a certain administration of viscum; it may happen, then, that the physical body is taken hold of too strongly by the etheric body, and convulsions may result. Other cases, on being treated with mistletoe, have the peculiar sensation of falling (vertigo.) And these symptoms are in line with a further pharmaceutical effect of mistletoe, i.e., its stimulation of seminal pollutions.

Thus in all its manifestations, e.g., in connection with epilepsy also, mistletoe works “against the stream” in the organism of man. And this is due, not so much to its parasitism, as to its inherent contrariety: it claims always special indulgencies from nature as a whole. This plant, for instance, will not thrive in the normal course of the seasons, blossoming towards the spring and then bearing its fruit, but during an unusual time, in winter. By so doing, it conserves those forces which counteract the normal course of events. If it were not giving too much offense, one might say that nature had “gone mad” and did everything at the wrong time, in reference to the mistletoe. But this is just what must be made use of, if on the other hand the human organism becomes physically mad, i.e., in formation. Here the need arises to cultivate the understanding of precisely these connections.

Mistletoe provides, beyond question, a means which—when given in potencies—should enable us to dispense with the surgical removal of tumours. The point is only to find out how to treat the mistletoe fruit in combining it with other forces of the mistletoe plant, in order to arrive at a remedy. The peculiar “madness” of this plant is shown in its method of fertilisation, which depends on transport by birds from one tree to another. The plant would become extinct were it not for this service of the birds. In a curious way, the fertilising elements of the mistletoe choose the path through the birds, and are excreted on another tree trunk or branch, where they “take root” anew. All these peculiarities illuminate the whole formative process of the mistletoe. The task is to blend the glutinous substance of the mistletoe in the right way with the triturating medium, and so increase gradually the potency of the viscum substance to a very high degree. Having ascertained the main formula, we should vary it, specialising according to the requirements of this or that organ; and also bearing in mind the particular tree on which the mistletoe grew; I shall make further suggestions in that matter. Another important point will be to arrive at a co-operation of this glutinous substance with certain metallic substances this effect can of course be arrived at also by the metallic ingredients of other plants. But the co-operation, for instance, of mistletoe from an apple-tree, with triturated silver salts, could produce something eminently capable of counteracting all cancers in the hypogastric regions.

These things must be brought forward with caution at the present time. The trend of which they are manifestations is correct, beyond question, and based on well-established research in spiritual science. But on the practical side, we are dependent on the actual blending and preparation of the mistletoe substance, and have not yet sufficient knowledge for successful carrying out. Here spiritual science can only work to our full benefit if it is in continuous contact with clinical experience. And this interrelationship of spiritual science and medicine is made very difficult, for the opportunities for clinical observation and the investigations of spiritual science are kept widely apart by our contemporary social institutions. But just this can show that we can only succeed in these matters if and when both lines of procedure co-operate. Thus it is urgently desirable to collect experience in this direction, for it will hardly be possible to convince general public opinion in these matters, unless you can provide at least verification by external reports from clinics, etc. It is not so much an internal necessity to obtain such evidence; but it is an imperative external necessity.

It is quite possible to prove that the therapeutic effect of the mistletoe is really based on the fact just put before you. It will only be necessary to proceed methodically. For, as I have already pointed out the trunk formations of trees are really practically outgrowths of the proper substance of the earth; they are only little mounds containing still the vegetable element and from them the other essential parts of all trees sprout forth. Now, suppose a mistletoe grows on the tree trunk, it sends its roots earthward, although it takes root on the tree. Now consider those plants which share the mad “aristocraticism” of mistletoe without sharing its “bohemianism” of living parasitically. One can expect to make similar experiences when testing such plants. This is bound to be so. Examine and test winter flowering plants with reference to their contrariety, their anti-tendency against the normal tendencies of the human organism, including, of course, the normal tendency to discase. We must expect the plants which flower “out of season” to have effects similar to that of the mistletoe. Extend the experiments to Helleborus niger, the hellebore, and similar effects will be found. It is, however, necessary to take notice of the contrast, already outlined, between the male and female respectively, Helleborus niger will hardly produce any effect—or any visible effect—if administered to women. But on men it will show appreciable influence in the case of tumours, if it is applied in a higher potency arrived at in the way already suggested for mistletoe.

In choosing plants for therapeutic purposes, it is necessary to bear in mind whether they flower in winter or summer, and whether their inherent effects are more due to their tendency to the earth itself than are those of mistletoe. Mistletoe shuns the earth but hellebore likes the earth and is therefore more in affinity with the male system which is akin to earth itself, whereas the female system of forces, as I have already stated, is more akin to the extra-telluric sphere. These differences must never be underestimated. We must learn to get a certain insight into the processes of nature themselves. This is why I have attempted to characterise with the help of such images as bohemians, aristocrats, madness and so forth: for such concepts are not entirely inadequate in describing the forces in play.

After having formed such concepts one will also find out the characteristic difference between the efficacy of a remedy from outside and one from within. Before considering this difference, we must form certain ideas which will lead us to understand this difference. It will be necessary to study the new forms of disease. already alluded to yesterday, from the therapeutic point of view. One can, e.g., try to expose vegetable carbon to the action of marsh-gas for some time, to immerse it in marsh-gas and then when it is sufficiently saturated, to produce the trituration. One will in this way obtain something which is efficacious when prepared as an ointment, especially in combination with other favorable ingredients. The technical method of such a thing has to be discovered. If this is done and talcum suggests itself in this connection, there is no doubt that an ointment compounded on these principles would have most useful properties. It is, however, necessary to penetrate such a process. We shall not penetrate it until we have cleared our vision by learning to think on sound lines in the matter of psychiatry, as well.

Believe me, the exponent of spiritual science finds the mere phrase “mental disease” [Ed: In German: Geisteskrankheit, spiritual disease.] go against the grain; for it is folly simply to use the expression “mental disease”; the spirit is always healthy, and cannot fall sick in the true sense of the term. To talk of mental diseases is sheer nonsense. What happens is that the spirit's power of expression is disturbed by the bodily organism, as distinct from a disease of the spirit or the soul itself. The manifestations in question are symptoms, and symptoms only.

Now one must sharpen one's eye for the concrete separate symptoms. Perhaps you will be in a position to see the primary tendency or disposition, and then the further development of, for example, a religious mania:—of course the technical terms here are none of them precise. There is great confusion of terminology in this field, but let us for the moment use an accepted term. As I have said, these manifestations are only symptoms. But let us assume that this condition develops—we must be able to form some picture of how it develops. And, having found this picture, we shall require to keep a sharp look-out for any abnormalities in the formative process of the lung of those individuals who display this symptom of “religious mania.” Note; not anomalies in the process of breathing but in the process of lung formation, in the pulmonary metabolism. For even the current term “brain disease” is not wholly correct; “mental disease” is a wholly false and misleading term, and “brain disease” at least half mistaken; for all phenomena of cerebral degeneration are secondary. The primary elements are never manifested in the upper organic sphere, always in the lower. The primary factors always lie in the organs belonging to the four main groups or systems, the liver, kidneys, heart and lung systems. In the case of an individual inclined to those forms of insanity in which all interest in the external world and active life dies out, and man begins to brood and follows delusions, it is before all things necessary to obtain precise knowledge of the pulmonary process. This is extremely important.

Again, take such persons as are conspicuous for what may be termed obstinacy, stubbornness, self-righteousness and all the other facets of a certain conceptual rigidity, a blind sticking to a certain system of concepts; in their case we should try to ascertain the state of the liver process. In such cases, there is always a defect in the internal organic chemism. Even what is commonly known as “softening of the brain” is a secondary manifestation. In all the so-called mental diseases, the primary cause lies in the organic system, although this is often very hard to detect. And for just this reason it is sad to note how ineffective so-called mental and mental and spiritual treatment often proves; so that there is more chance of obtaining a cure in organic diseases through treatment of the mind and spirit, than in the diseases termed “mental.” Yes, we must learn to treat mental diseases with physical remedies. That is a matter of major importance, and the second field in which external medicine will have to let its path be sought and found: the path leading to spiritual science.

The suitable observer in this field will always be the thoroughly trained and competent psychologist. The life of the soul with its immense diversity, with its way of often working by mere indications, is able to reveal very many things and one has to acquire gradually a capacity to observe it. Take one example! Man is so constructed that in respect of his faculties and capacities—including the faculties and capacities based upon the bodily organisation which becomes the implement of the spiritual organisation—he is not all of one piece, not of a single mould. It is absolutely possible for an individual to exhibit qualities which compel us to treat him as mentally inferior, feeble-minded: nevertheless the same person may utter things—which are full of life and wit to the point of genius. That is quite possible. And why? because of the extreme suggestibility associated with certain types of mental inferiority; a suggestibility open to all the mysterious influences of the environment and reflecting them as a mirror. In the field of pathological-cultural history one can make the most interesting observations. In giving the results one naturally need not mention names; to refrain may be to undermine confidence in the statements, but it is not well to mention names. Especially in the profession of journalism it happens that mentally inferior people may have success because their mental inferiority enables them to record the opinion of their time, rather than to maintain their own restricted view. The opinion of the time is mirrored. For this reason, the writings of mentally inferior journalists are much more interesting than that of strong-minded, independent members of the profession. The former reveal to us much more what mankind thinks than those who form their own views. The result is—it is only an extreme case but it often occurs—a masking of the true nature of the case; one fails to recognise an actual mental inferiority, because one is faced with utterances which may even bear the stamp of genius. In the course of everyday life this does not much matter, for why should not our newspapers be composed by mental weaklings—provided, of course, that their “news” is good! But in more extreme cases, the borderline may easily be crossed and definite morbidity result; and in such cases the healing profession needs an unbiased—a very unbiased-eye for the diagnosis of conditions which come under the classification of psychiatry. Here we cannot always judge from the masks in which the soul's activity disguises itself; but we must probe for deeper and less obvious symptoms. And error here is the more possible, because it is of prime importance for diagnosis, not only to note whether the individual gives utterance to clever thoughts, but to observe (granted that such be the case) whether there is a tendency to repeat these clever thoughts more often than the context requires. The “how” of expression of thoughts is important. If thoughts are very often reiterated, or on the other hand omitted, so that there is nothing consecutive or continuous, we have symptoms of far greater importance than if the thoughts expressed are either intelligent or stupid. It is possible to be a very intelligent person and yet at the same time stupid: physiologically stupid of course, not pathologically so. It is possible to utter clever ideas, and yet tend to “mental” disease so-called, and even suffer from it. This condition can be perceived sooner by the following symptoms than by any others; firstly the omission of thoughts and secondly their frequent repetition. The individual who suffers from frequent repetition, has always certain organic tendencies associated with a defective formative process of the lungs. The individual who suffers from omission of thoughts has always certain tendencies associated with defective function of the liver process. The remaining manifestations stand midway between.

These conditions may be studied from life itself. Take such substances as have already established themselves as either foodstuffs or luxuries, but not, as yet, as therapeutic remedies in the accepted sense of the term. Amongst them I have already often had occasion to mention coffee—at least in certain circles—as possessing a very definite effect on the whole symptomatic process of the soul. Now it is inadvisable to put one's trust in such effects—for if they are habitually relied on they merely make the soul inert; but they certainly exist. It is quite possible to supplement a lack of logic in thought by means of stimulation through coffee: that is to say, a certain amount of coffee will stimulate the organism, so that it yields more forces of logic, than without coffee. Therefore it should be a part of the habits of journalism—which are based on accepted opinions—to absorb large amounts of coffee in order not to have to gnaw their pens too much in order to link up their thoughts!—So much for one part of the phenomenon.

The habit of tea drinking, on the other hand, helps us to avoid linking up pedantically one thought to another like a professor. For certain professions which are now in decline, but in their ancient state were based on wit, there could be given a remedy which would make people extremely witty—not, indeed, internally witty but quite externally through a beverage: namely tea. Just as coffee is the drink for journalists, tea is a remarkably effective drink for diplomats, materially conducing to the habit of making aphoristic remarks and hints, which create the impression of intelligence and wit.

These matters are needful to know, for if we know how to estimate them aright, and possess the requisite ethical attitude, we recognise that in any ethically responsible life, intelligence and efficiency must be promoted by other means than this or that form of diet. But in order to recognise certain connections in nature, such knowledge is very important. There are also significant cultural aspects. For example, we may refer to the very small amount of sugar consumed in Russia up to the present time, as contrasted with the lavish consumption of sugar in the Western world of the English speaking peoples. And we may conclude that (if and when soul development does not neutralise physiological effects) the mental behaviour of men bears the definite imprint of the substances they eat or drink. Thus the Russian in a way gives himself up to the surrounding world and has a comparatively slight ego-feeling, unless it is artificially-supplemented by some theory; these attributes being associated with their small intake of sugar. The Englishman, on the other hand, has a strong feeling of his own Self, and the organic basis for this quality is associated with a large intake of sugar. Nevertheless in such cases, the fact of taking in is less important as an indication, than the urge for a certain diet. For the fact of habitual consumption of any special food develops from the urge and therefore the urge is the main factor to be remembered.

Finally; if you fully realise that the real origin of the so-called mental or spiritual diseases is to be sought in the lower organic systems of man, you will be made unmistakably aware of interactions within man which cannot be neglected in the practice of pathology or therapeutics. These interactions between what I have termed the lower and the upper man, must be considered always and equally, both in pathology and therapeutics; otherwise it will not be possible to form an opinion of the manner in which external influences will affect the patient. For instance: there is a very great difference between the application of heat or of water to the head, or to the feet respectively. But we can find no fundamental principle here, unless we are aware of the great differences of function in the two bodily spheres of man; the upper and the lower. For this reason, we will now proceed to discuss external influences affecting man, so far as is possible within the scope of these lectures.

I have carefully considered for some time whether or not to include today's chapter in this lecture series, for its subject matter can only be presented in outline. But I have decided to include it, even if only to prove once more how greatly such things may be misunderstood. For on the one side, some people have long endeavoured to prove that Anthroposophy and its doctrines are muddled nonsense. Recently, however, it appears to have dawned on some other people that this opinion can no longer be held, but that Anthroposophy appears to correspond with the results of additional research into the ancient mysteries. So the attack is now from the other side: I am represented as a betrayer of the mysteries. Thus people can always find a possibility of accusation and attack, whether on one score or the other. If they can no longer state that these things are false they can at least maintain that it is extremely wrong to say them.

I must first of all repeat that the exclusively physical study of man only surveys a part and a comparatively small part of human nature This is for the simple reason that man contains the etheric body, the astral body and the ego, which are constantly working upon and moulding the physical organism, yet entirely inaccessible to external physical judgment—I use this term with intention and reference to what follows. At the same time it is not impossible for the human being to educate himself and evolve (granting steadfast effort) to the point of acquiring and assimilating a certain degree of clairvoyance into the operation of intellect and judgment. This will not yet mean the attainment of a proper clairvoyance associated with definite visual images, but it will be possible to attain a type of judgment capable of strong and reliable coincidence with the results of clairvoyance.

Now consider this. Let us begin with the ego—as it were the opposite extreme from the physical. The ego works upon the other human vehicles, and at the present stage of evolution its main sphere of action is on the physical body. In mankind today the ego has as yet comparatively little capacity for governing the etheric body. During childhood, it has such power strongly but unconsciously. This ceases later on. Only in those who retain in later life a vivid imagination or fantasy, is there a strong ego influence over the etheric body. In general, however, in all persons who develop their intelligence as distinct from their imagination and become dry intellectualists, there is a strong ego-influence over the physical body and only a slight influence over the etheric.

If you try to visualise this influence over the physical body, you will not need to go much further in order to picture in your minds as the work of the ego an intricate framework extending throughout the bodily organism; a delicate, weblike scaffolding. This scaffolding in the physical body, like a kind of phantom of man, is always present. We human beings carry with us through life, a framework imprinted into us through our ego-organisation; its structure is most delicate, and indeed it is the forces of the etheric body that insert it into the physical. But in the course of our lives, we gradually forfeit the power of consciously contributing to this structure. Only in people with creative imagination we find a half-conscious, dreamlike remnant of such power.

As you will have easily conceived, this weblike framework which the ego “timbers” into the organism of man is actually in some sense a “foreign body.” And there is a constant tendency to resist it. Every night during sleep, the human organism seeks to tear down this structure. Although we remain unaware of it in everyday waking life, do not let us forget this tendency. For this continuous tendency on the part of the ego-framework to break up, to fall to pieces in the organism, is the secret and permanent source of inflammatory conditions.

The concept of this kind of phantom-structure inserted by the ego into the human organism is of great importance, as is the realisation of the constant organic defensive reaction against it as a “foreign body,” and its continuous tendency to break up within the physical organisation. You will arrive at a visualisation which helps your judgment if you study psycho-physiologically the organisation of the human eyes. For all that takes place as between the eye itself and the external world, that is to say, between the soul and the external world by means of the eye, represents par excellence the erecting of this scaffold. There is an intimate interaction between the ego-framework proper and the results of the interplay of the eye with the world around it. I have often had occasion to study this interaction of eye and ego, in blind-born persons and in those who had lost their sight. Such cases reveal very plainly the mutual reactions of that phantom—normal to most people—which becomes incorporated in the organism by the mere fact of sight, and the other phantom which is the result of the ego's activity in the organism.

Suppose that an attempt be made to represent all this in graphic form. Through sight, through the visual process, a phantom is incorporated into the organism: and the other ego-structure lies a little deeper within, a little more inward. (See Diagram 25. Yellow portion and white portion.) The latter, more deep-seated structure is so constituted as to be perceptibly tinged with physical forces. It is an almost physical phantom that the ego inserts and erects; a real scaffold, but what the eye transmits is still etheric. And here we come to a striking difference between short-sighted and long-sighted people. In people of short sight, these two frameworks approach one another; the portion coloured white in the diagram moves inwards, closer to the yellow. In long-sighted persons, on the other hand, the white framework moves outwards, away from the yellow. In fact, if you study the organisation of the eye in any human being you will have the material for a sound judgment of the person's etheric body; the etheric body which is so like what I have just termed a framework. You cannot better train yourself to divine something of the nature of an individual etheric body, than by attentive study of the organisation of the organ of vision. Having once grasped this, you will find that the rest will be easy. Acquire the habit of observing whether individuals focus their gaze at a distance or near by, and let this impression work on you; and you will cultivate a sensibility to the perception of the etheric body. Call meditation to your aid, and it will no longer be so difficult to ascend from a devoted attention to the effects of the eye-organisation to the contemplation of the etheric body itself.

This will convince you that the process linked with the eye organisation is continuous, and it is the normal form of a process which may appear in an abnormal form. It is normal in the life of everyday, and it has its abnormal counterpart in cases of inflammation, indeed in all inflammatory conditions. So that you are justified in stating that a too vigorous development of this framework (which in the physical body is similar to the etheric) give rise to inflammations and to all the sequelæ of the inflammatory states. You can confirm your convictions in this matter by the external use of an animal product, formic acid. The best manner of studying the application of this substance is in its highest possible dilution, e.g., sprinkled in bath water. If the mildest dilution of formic acid is made to work on the human being through bath water, you will cause a consolidation of the ego-scaffold coloured yellow in the Diagram. (See Diagram 25). This consolidation takes place because by means of the formic acid the ego is forcibly compelled to approach the framework so that it becomes penetrated with the ego. And thus it is possible to counteract the tendency to inflammation for the framework only inclines to disintegrate in the inflammatory process if it is not properly permeated by the ego and restrained by it; for the ego and this framework belong together. They may be brought together by the use of bath fluid, but in extremely high dilution—for this stimulates the peculiar properties of formic acid.

A certain amount of attention to symptomatology is necessary, if you wish to enter into these matters. For instance: observe carefully in treating inflammatory conditions, whether or not they appear in persons with a concurrent tendency to obesity. For it is only in such cases, where you find both sets of symptoms, the tendency to inflammations and also to adipose deposits, that any real benefit can accrue from the external formic acid treatment just described. You will always attain extremely good results, if you have sound reason to believe in the disintegration of the ego-framework—which may be deduced from other symptoms, to be described presently—and if there is a simultaneous tendency to excessive fat.

For Spiritual Science is aware of something that shocks and offends contemporary mankind in its simple enunciation. It knows that what has to happen in the human organism, in order that the eyes shall be formed, and formed in the manner indispensable to human evolution—of course in the long run of this evolutionary history—is really a permanent process of inflammation, which is continually transferred into the normal and does not break out. Think of the processes inherent in inflammations, think of them held up, slowed down, and telescoped together, so to speak, and you will have before you the formative process of the human eye in the human organism. You are even able to obtain an idea of individual tendency to inflammatory conditions, or the reverse, by looking at the person's eyes. It is possible to see this if one trains one's judgment. Indeed the experiences we may meet with regard to human sight are closely linked with the observation of the etheric body of mankind. In referring to the existence of the etheric body and its conscious perception, we must distinguish two methods of approach. There is of course that inner process which leads to genuine clairvoyance, by way of meditation. And there is also an educative process working from outside. If we take the trouble to see and estimate the processes of nature aright, we shall acquire a visualisation of these things which is based on judgment. The actual organs of clairvoyance must be developed from within; but judgment is developed in contact with the world outside ourselves. If we develop the finer shades of judgment in the external world, this highly evolved judgment will come towards that more intimate process which passes outwards from within, in meditation.

Perhaps some of you will ask—and quite justifiably ask—“Well, but cannot all these manifestations and reactions be observed in the animal world?” My friends, the fact is simply that the things that concern man cannot be found through the study of animals. I have often stressed this difference in public lectures, and should like to emphasise it still more here. People are in the habit of thinking: an eye is an eye, an organ is an organ, lungs are lungs, a liver is a liver, and so forth. But that is not so, the eye in man is the organ which also exists in the animal world as eye, but with a modification: it is changed by the fact that in man the ego has been incorporated. The same is the case with all other organs. And for the occurrences within the organs, especially in cases of disease, the permeation by the ego is of much greater importance than what happens in the animal's organs, where there is no such permeation. This essential difference is still far too little regarded and men persist in off-hand pronouncements of this sort: “here I have a knife; well, a knife's a knife, isn't it? One knife is the same as another, so both, being knives, must have the same origin.” But suppose that one of these “identical” knives is a table knife, the other a razor. In that case the simple proposition that “a knife's a knife” becomes untenable. It is making the same mistake to explain the human eye and the animal eye by the same methods and terms. It is simply nonsense to seek for the explanation of anything in its mere external aspect; moreover such an approach is entirely barren as a foundation for study. Study founded on animal “material” simply hinders the adequate study of certain conditions in mankind; for it is only possible to form a just estimate of the dissimilarity here, by realising that in man it is precisely the peripheral organs which are the most permeated by the ego and moulded by it.

In a completely different way is the human ear formed. It is possible to train oneself to a discriminative grasp of the human ear, just as in the case of the eye. And in this manner we then approach the clairvoyant apprehension of the etheric body. We can train ourselves to understand the fact that the ear is incorporated into man as it is in animals, but that its structure is permeated by the human ego. If with this faculty we study the formation of the ear we shall find that it is connected with a process in the deeper interior of the human organism, in the same manner as the eye formation of the etheric body is connected with some more peripheral process. Thus we arrive at the insight that the ego is concerned in the formative process of the ear, just as in that of the eyes. The ego incorporates yet another framework into the organism, differing somewhat from that already described; and akin to this framework is the whole process lying at the base of the ear formation. In order to keep these separate frameworks distinct, I will colour the one just mentioned blue; it lies more inward than the yellow, and it extends less into the limbs, so that if it could be extracted and revealed to the light of day, it would have only stumps in the place of arms and legs. Thus we might say that this framework in its formation has remained at the stage of childhood. It is also much less differentiated towards the head than is the other one. But we shall find that it corresponds to the basic principle underlying the formative forces of the human ear and the whole process of hearing. This latter principle I will color violet in the Diagram. (See Diagram 25). This framework has also its specific characteristic in the human organism. It can become abnormal if the ego works too strongly; i.e., if its activity works too much internally. We have already touched on the reverse case, when the ego's activity is too strong in the periphery.

The following suggestions may be of use, in the study of the problem before us. Again take the external symptoms as a starting point: consider cases where the tendency is to become more or less thin, and never put on fat. In these cases you see before you human beings in whom the ego works too strongly internally, and intensifies this latter framework. This framework, however, has a different tendency from the other one: the tendency to internal exuberance. The first framework inclines to disintegrate or to splinter itself; the last to exuberate internally.

The treatment of this scaffold can proceed on two lines. Firstly, it can be so developed that exuberance does not ensue, because the ego as it were, shimmers out of it. For both exuberance and disintegration of the scaffolds always arise from the inadequate permeation by the ego, from it shimmering away from it. If the ego does this and at the same time is strong enough to keep itself at work within the organism, there arise certain consequences for the soul and the body. The consequence for the soul is hypochondria; for the body, constipation and similar phenomena.

This is the one aspect. On the other hand it may be that the ego is too feeble to hold itself together when it glitters away from the scaffold, that it collapses in its essential quality as ego; and not owing to the faults in its physical vehicle, the scaffold, but to its own. Consider how strange this is: the ego is so feeble that its debris as it were become embedded in the organism. And this occurs because individuals of this particular constitution, when they fall asleep, are not able to take with them the whole of what shimmers and glitters away. Thus the debris remains within the body and proliferates as a sort of soul-like ego. And this type of individual constitution with these exuberations of the soul-like ego, which develop especially during sleep, is one that inclines to tumorous formations. This process is of infinite significance. Persons with tumorous tendencies are those who do not sleep properly, for the reason that remnants of the ego remain after they fall asleep. These remnants and debris are the real excitants of tumours, including malignant growths, and these growths are linked up with the whole complex of symptoms which I have just enumerated. It is a fact that we are faced on the one hand by hypochondria and constipation, and on the other hand, if the organism cannot help itself by making the individual suffer from hypochondria and constipation, it exuberates inwards and the most malignant growths appear. We shall deal with this subject further, but for the moment we are considering merely the general principle.

You can reach the conviction that this is how things stand from a study of the external side, in indications given in a preceding lecture. As I have already remarked, it is possible to deal with the formative tendencies to inflammation by the use of very highly dispersed animal formic acid, in bath water. That is an external application; now try the same substance, suitably diluted, internally, and observe the effects it will have on thin people. It will disperse the tumorous tendencies in thin persons, and counteract the formation of growths.

These matters must be observed macroscopically and they afford striking proof of the need to acquire this macroscopical view. One must learn to have a comprehensive vision of the whole stature and physique of a man, and the many marks of his individual constitutional type, and combine this with all the phenomena emerging in sickness. Thus we shall acquire also a sense of how to divide the treatment into external and internal respectively. To test and trace the effects of the same substance by the two different routes, will furnish most interesting information. Here again, spiritual science reveals something extremely enlightening in respect of these two parts of the organism. It knows that all the formative forces of the human ear are at an early stage on the same path of development as those forces which, finally, when they are allowed to go too far lead to the formation of internal tumours.

The fact that we have a human auditory organ, is due to a process which is kept normal because the tumour-forming force has emerged in the right place. The ear is an internal tumour extended into the region of the normal. Just as the evolutionary process of the eye's formation is akin to the process of inflammation, so that of the ear's formation is allied to the tumorous. It is indeed a wonderful relationship between disease and health in man; for the processes are the same in both, only in the case of normal health they proceed at the right rate, and in the case of disease at an abnormal rate. If the inflammatory process were abolished in nature, no living creature would be able to see. Living creatures have the power of sight only because the inflammatory process is inserted into the whole of nature. But it has a certain velocity, a definite tempo. If it proceeds at a wrong speed then the abnormal process of inflammation results. Similarly, the process of tumorous formation has its significance in nature, at the right rate of development. If it were abolished no being in the world would be able to hear. If the rate is wrong, there results all that happens in cases of myoma, carcinoma, sarcoma. We will deal with this later.

Those who are not in a position to find and recognise the healthy counterpart of every morbid process, cannot understand its place within the human organisation. For the human organisation is founded on the fact that certain processes dispersed throughout the periphery of nature become interiorised and centralised in man.

Many things are discussed in our physiological text books: we should fix our attention elsewhere, on subjects whose existence is admitted but whose significance is constantly under-rated. Here is one instance. You are able to observe—quite macroscopically and as it were in a commonplace way—that the epidermis covers the human body, and has various inward folds or pockets; and its continuing membrane lines the parts situated to the interior. This is very important—the reversal of functions, as, e.g., we find it in passing from the cheeks and the external parts of the face, over the edge of the lips to the interior. There indeed one finds, in the external formation of man, the vestige of the process which where all development really proceeds by means of folding inwards and invaginations. In following up the differences in the reaction of the upper epidermis and the internal mucous membrane to preparations of formic acid, and fully realising the delicate differences in these results, one would reach tremendous results. For all the facts I here set before you are really nothing but specialisations of the elementary structural principle indicated. The study of these facts will bring before you the whole polar opposition of that external lining (also etherically) of the human organism and that which goes inside and becomes central in the same organism.

This is of importance in the following. To what corresponds the second phantom indicated in the rough sketch? (See Diagram 25). The blue phantom is that physical framework within the organism, which tends to exuberate unduly. Its normal form is associated with the formation of the ear. Educate yourselves, train yourselves in the study of man so far as to have regard to this ear organisation and especially its interiorisation, and at the same time to the characteristics of the organ of sight. Then remember that the process of sight occurs in the etheric, the process of hearing in the air. This is a considerable difference. All that lies comparatively low in the ascending scale of ponderable and imponderable is associated and linked with the more deep-seated organs and functions in the interior of man's organism. All that is more akin to the etheric and imponderable, is situated towards the surface and periphery.

The outlines coloured violet (See Diagram 25) define nothing less than that which lives in the human astral body. If you train your power of judgment, through the study of the ear, for the observation of man, you get a kind of substitute or preliminary apperception for the clairvoyant vision of the astral body. To learn to observe sight is training for the observation of the etheric body. To learn to observe hearing is training for the observation of the astral body.

The most interesting observations can be made in persons who have been deaf from birth or have lost their sense of hearing; deeper connections of nature are then revealed. I suggest that you should try to study children who have been born deaf: if they had not been born with that defect, they would develop the most terrible tumours even at that early age. We stand here before outlets supplied by nature itself, and they are rooted not only in the single individual organisation between birth and death; but they reach out into and must be understood from the repeated earth lives in which the compensation is brought about. If we follow up these phenomena beyond a certain point, we shall arrive at some apprehension of repeated lives on earth.

If you attempt to stimulate the peripheral areas in man, you will reinforce what has been dealt with in explaining the relationship of the ego to its framework. If you find it necessary to reinforce the human ego, there is a choice of methods; therapeutic or educational. Wherever it is possible to observe a tendency to inflammation, you will find that it will be necessary to re-invigorate the ego's activity in the individual. If this be done, the ego will insert itself in the proper way into its phantom, its framework; for this framework will not disintegrate where the ego adequately takes hold of it.

An appreciable reinforcement and stimulus to this activity of the ego may be obtained, e.g., by baths containing a very finely distributed solution of rosemary—that is, of the juices extracted from the leaves of the rosemary. This solution stimulates the periphery to such a degree that the ego can act and function better in that which approaches man through the finely distributed rosemary juice. The results are quite remarkable.

Now let us consider the human eye, and its specific insertion into the human organism. The process of sight depends on the power of the human ego to penetrate this isolated part in our organism. There is very little of the animal process in the eye, the sense of sight depends on the fact that man with his soul and spirit nature penetrates a region which has ceased to be animal; so that man can identify himself with the external world, not only with his internal processes. If you identify yourself with a muscle, you identify yourselves from inside, with the formative process of man. But if you identify yourself with the eyes, you really identify yourself with the external world. For this reason, I have already called this organ a gulf which the external extends physiology to neglect the facts, thereby engendering those foolish fairy stories of “subjectivity” and so forth. For it is the fashion today to ignore the fact that “objectivity” is intruded upon us and that within this “objectivity” we share in a part of the processes of the external world. For the last century and a half, every sort of sensory physiology has been founded upon subjectivity because there has been no inkling of the entry of the external world into these organic gulfs, by which we participate, through our senses, in the processes outside ourselves. To understand this rightly means also to understand the action of some foreign substance in this fine dispersal.

Take the human skin, and its pores and all the processes linked with the pores. (See Diagram 26). Sprinkle very mild dilutions of rosemary juice in a bath, immerse the patient in it and you will not be surprised to know that a sensory interaction is set in train between the skin and the minute drops of the Rosemary juice. Through this stimulation, an effect is produced upon the sensory process. This stimulation of the sensory process works on the human ego and it becomes more closely inserted into its framework. A further benefit may accrue from the same method, if it is used in time and not postponed till too late. If the skin of the head is exposed to the stimulation of diluted rosemary juice, you may be able to arrest the peripheral process of loss of hair. Only, of course, it must be applied in the correct manner. Well, there again you have something active on the surface and periphery of the human organism.

Let us suppose now, that the collaboration of the ego with the human organisation suffers a rupture from the outside world. The ego is, of course, not only a point, but a point active around itself; and this working abroad signifies the formative force of the whole human organisation; the ego-organising force spreads throughout the human organisation, permeating it throughout. Let us suppose that an external injury is inflicted on some area, interrupting this mutual action of ego and human organisation; in such cases it will be necessary to attract to this place something springing from the astral organisation (which stands a step below the ego-organisation); something which, working from out of the astral organisation, may so permeate the human organism as to enable the ego to develop its curative forces at the seat of the external injury. The astral body as I have indicated (See Diagram 25) lies nearer the centre of the total organism. Call it to your aid; not this time by means of immersion in any bath, but by a compress of arnica in woolen cloths—a proper arnica compress. The application of arnica compresses to any sprain or dislocation or similar lesion ‘ wherever the injury may have been inflicted—which impairs the efficiency of the ego's function, summons the astral body from inside; calls to it to come to the aid of the ego, and has a compensating effect on the peripheral area.

In these phenomena we have a standard for comparison of the different substances available in the external world. They may have a great tendency towards expansion, and thus be of benefit to the peripheral regions, if administered in baths, for the support of the ego's action. Or again, they may belong to the group which includes especially arnica and are thus indicated when we wish to summon the astral body and draw on its power for the indirect support of the ego.

It is impossible to understand the operation of such substances except as summoners of help from the ego and astral body. To recognise this principle must be indeed fundamental for a theory of therapeutics. both for internal and external treatment.

My starting point today will be a comment made to me from a very competent quarter, to the effect that the present course of lectures are among the most difficult to comprehend of all lectures presenting the anthroposophical point of view. And within certain limits this must certainly be admitted; at the same time, our critics must allow that this can hardly be otherwise. The undeniable accuracy of this criticism should teach us a very great deal. Take an illustrative case, or rather two cases, one of everyday occurrence, the other more remote from the experience of contemporary civilisation. The first case is the following: our contemporary critics are certainly entitled to complain that our considerations here set out are difficult to understand; but the blackbird does not find them difficult—but easy and a matter of course. And this bird gives the most practical proof of its easy understanding. For the blackbird is not exactly an ascetic and therefore it occasionally devours garden spiders. And when feelings of discomfort begin—for the discomfort is soon considerable in such circumstances—and a black-henbane plant is near at hand, the blackbird makes a straight line for the henbane, and seeks the appropriate remedy. And it certainly is a remedy for if there were no henbane available, the blackbird falls into convulsions and dies in the most violent paroxysms. If the plant is near at hand, the bird is saved from a painful death by its own protective instinct which makes it pick and devour the remedy. This is the everyday occurrence which furnishes an illustration.

And the more remote instance has substantial similarity with the case of the blackbird and henbane. Mankind must have developed certain protective and remedial instincts at a very primitive epoch, and these instincts must have supplied some of the contents which were more or less concentrated in the Hippocratic School of Medicine. Let us consider in the light of the criticism quoted at the beginning of this chapter, the wisdom of the blackbird—or of other birds, who act in the same manner under similar circumstances. What really happens if a blackbird devours a spider? The spider is in its whole organisation very much interwoven with certain cosmic interactions outside the earth; the creature's bodily structure, the shape of its limbs and characteristic markings are due to this involvement in extra-telluric processes, so that—if I may so express the facts—the spider has much planetary life: yes, extra-telluric planetary life the garden spider bears within him. Now the bird has not attained such a degree of kinship and sharing of planetary experience; but has removed its share more to the interior of its organism. When the bird swallows the spider, the internal planetary forces begin to stir. These planetary forces which still have the urge towards assuming shape tend to permeate the body of the bird which has to struggle against them. For from the moment of devouring the spider, the blackbird in its inner tendencies becomes a replica of extra-telluric life. Therefore the bird has recourse to the appropriate medicinal plant, which has become similar to the terrestrial sphere, as contrasted with the planetary in two respects; both by its growing upwards from the soil and by its retention of a substance which it cannot wholly work up under the planetary influence but stores up as a poison. The bird seeks help from the henbane. And why? Because in the very moment that the poison begins to work, the working calls into activity the defensive and protective instinct, the instinctive awareness of injury passes over into the instinct of defence. And so, in this phenomenon we have a very plastically evolved development of what we ourselves do, if a fly settles on our eyelid and we instantaneously close our eye and brush it off with our hand, by a simple reflex action.

We may learn a very great deal from these instinctive actions of animals and plants. Their observation will help to cure us of another error; namely the conviction that everything deserving the name of intelligence or reason has its seat in the skull only. Intelligence and reason hover everywhere, so to speak, for the bird's instinct for injury and self-protection affords a quite intelligent behaviour. External reason and external intelligence sharing in this working of the external powers. We share in it, we do not contain it within ourselves. To say we do so is nonsense, but we participate in it. The bird does not yet participate in it in such a way as to appropriate the instincts for injury or protection in a special portion of the body, namely the brain; birds' understanding operates more through their pulmonary system than ours—for mankind understands through the head system, and the defensive instinct leads the bird through the pulmonary system to the henbane or Hyoscyamus, because the creature thinks less in its periphery than at the centre of its being. Mankind has reft the power of thought away from lungs and the rhythmic system. Later on perhaps we may consider our human instruments of thought in more detail. But it is beyond question that we no longer think so centrally—that is with heart, lungs and so forth, in unison with the cosmos, as birds still think. These are aptitudes that we must re-acquire. And if you ask: Who has expelled the last vestige of those instincts which link us to the whole of nature? The reply must be: the education given us at school and at the university—for both of them and all that is connected with them are eminently suited to uproot the living together of man with the totality of nature. They act in a one-sided manner, promoting a refined intellectuality on the one side, and a refined sexuality on the other. The force which was in existence centrally in primeval mankind, is driven apart in modern man towards these two polar opposites.

To find the way back to a right and sound understanding of the world will be the criterion as to whether we in our pursuit of science become sound again. With such a sound pursuit of science many a thing will have to be studied which at present alas is studied only with unsound methods of pursuit.

Let us now turn to the possibility referred to yesterday of studying man in such a way that we get some hint of the curative process. In archaic times this was a highly developed instinct. When primitive man saw anything abnormal in man he was at the same time led to the healing process. Modern mankind has lost these capacities, and therefore only very rarely reaches by intuition what ancient mankind reached instinctively. But that is the course of evolution, from instinct through intellectualism to intuition. And both physiology and medicine are among the subjects most grievously affected by a development on exclusively intellectualist lines; in the atmosphere of intellectualism these can thrive least of all. Take a concrete example, that of a sufferer from diabetes. What does he represent in his diseased development? We can only judge these cases aright, if we know that they arise from a weak ego, an ego-organisation insufficiently strong for the dominance of the process of sugar formation. It is a matter of correctly interpreting the phenomena. It would be wholly wrong to suppose that the passage of sugar out of the organism indicates too strong an ego. It is just the contrary it means that the ego does not take adequate part in penetrating the organism with the necessary supply of sugar. Such is the essence of the diabetic disturbance. And therewith is associated all that can promote diabetes. We may perceive initial symptoms, so to speak, of this complaint, in those who eat too much sweet food, and then drink alcohol. But that is only all initial “touch” which may pass off and only serves to show that in such cases the ego weakened and its power to control the necessary natural process which regulates the excretion of sugar, is impaired. Furthermore, we are led to consider all the elements contributing to the diabetic tendency, and we are confronted by a concept that has hardly appeared as yet in these discussions, though often in the questions sent up to me, and that will occupy more of our time in the latter half of this course. For all matters raised in question papers will receive attention, but the ground has to be prepared. I refer particularly to the concept of hereditary affliction, which plays a prominent role in diabetic cases.

And let me say at once that an hereditary affliction is especially effective in the case of a feeble ego. We can always trace a connection between a feeble ego—or let us say an ego not adequately in control of all its complexes of force—and the liability to suffer from hereditary taints. For if we all had an equal liability to suffer in this direction—well we should all be perceptibly tainted with morbid inheritance. The fact that we do not all do so, in equal measure, is in the main because an efficient ego-function helps to make those who enjoy it exempt.

Furthermore, we must not overlook the psychological causes frequently present, whether in a mild or pronounced form, in cases of diabetes; nor forget that in excitable individuals, excitements may be connected with the beginning of diabetes. Why does this happen? The ego is feeble; and because it is feeble it limits its sphere of action more to the periphery of the organism and develops strong intellectual capacities through the brain. But it is incapable of penetrating the inner recesses of the organism especially those regions in which albumen is treated and transformed, where the vegetable albumen is metamorphosed into animal albumen. These regions are beyond the range of the ego's action. But in them there begins, and the more strenuously for the ego's absence, the activity of the astral body. This astral body is most vigorously active in the regions where between, so to speak, digestion, blood-formation and respiration the process of the middle organisation takes place. And the feebleness or apathy of the ego leaves this “middle process” very much to its own devices, and so this region begins to develop independent processes, out of harmony with the whole man, and restricted to the central area. The diabetic tendency arises if the ego excludes itself from the inner organic processes. These internal processes, especially such as involve internal secretion, are in their turn closely interlinked with the forming of feelings and emotion. While the ego seeks its main occupation through the brain, it leaves untended all the secretory activities which are circulatory and oscillatory. The result is that the patient loses control of certain soul influences which manifest themselves in the feeling life. Why do we retain our composure if something very exciting happens in our neighbourhood? Because we are able to send our reason into the intestines, and do not remain cerebrally encased, but are in possession of our whole being. If we only reflect, we cannot do this. If we are active in a one-sided intellectualistic fashion from our brains alone, the interior of man moves in its own way. The patient has then a particular tendency to excitement with the result that even in the intellectual sphere these excitements provoke their characteristic organic processes. Strictly speaking they should not produce immediately—i.e., as excitements stirring the feeling life—their organic counter-processes; but should become permeated with the intellect, tempered by the reason and only then act on the interior of man.

What is the fundamental cause of such manifestations? Nothing less than a slackness of the ego. In man the ego is akin to the regions farthest of all from the earth, to those forces which affect man from out of the most “peripheral” region. Indeed all the influences at work in our ego come to us from very far away. And so we must try to learn something of the processes akin to our ego, in the extra-human world, so that we may be able to put the ego in an environment which will teach and enable it to take the part it should in the telluric outside the earth.

On the earth, the equivalent of that urge by which the extra-telluric sphere causes the ego to work upon its own central organisation—this equivalent exists wherever the extra-telluric forces cause the mineral and plant-bearing earth to produce ethereal oils; or oils in general. This indicates the path to guide us. Just as certainly as the human ego is active in the eye, and makes direct contact with the external world by way of this gulf; with quite equal certainty we must bring the ego into contact with the process of oil formation. This will probably be best effected by preparing minutely dispersed oil in the bath water and treating the patient by means of oil-baths. It is most desirable that tests should be made as to the degree of sub-division of the oil, the frequency of the treatment and so forth. But that is the way by which we can succeed in combating that devastating affliction, diabetes. As you will see, the insight into the external process and its combination with an internal process of the human being, creates a physiology which is at once both human and extra-human, and which at the same time leads to therapeutics. And that is the way through which we must attain our results.

Let me then remind you—after we have gained some more concrete concepts—of the nature of man's kinship to the environment. Consider once more, the whole earth's flora; the vegetation that thrusts upwards through the soil, disperses its forces so to speak in the blossom, and re-marshals them in the fruit and the manifold remarkable variations of this process. Variations such as the possible retention in the foliage of forces which would otherwise pour themselves forth into the seed, how the leaves thus become herbaceous and thick; how the seed husk may perhaps become pulpous by the retention of certain forces at the eleventh hour so to speak—all variations are to be found.

But the process of plant formation is not a process which can be regarded only as a result of the physical action of the earth or of the counteracting forces of light. It goes further than that: just as the plant in very truth contains both the physical and etheric bodies in itself so also in the upper region where the extra-telluric sphere and the earth sphere meet, there is, connected with that vegetable nature, a cosmic-astral principle. We might express it thus: the plant grows and tends towards a formative animal process which it, however, does not attain. The interior of the earth is so to speak saturated with the formative plant process, but where the atmosphere meets earth there is also a pervading formative animal process which is not carried to its end, a process which the plant grows towards but fails to reach. This process we may behold in action, weaving as it were above the blossoming vegetation, and we may be aware that it encircles the whole earth. This process is centralised in the animal itself, where it is interiorised. The process which takes place weaving above the flowering plant world and which forms a circle around the earth sphere is centred in the animal itself and is removed into its interior; and the organs which the animal possesses and the plant lacks are simply what they require in order to unfold from a centre an effect that is exercised from without towards the plant.

This formative animal process is to be found in man as well; but in man it is situated more towards the centre of the whole physical organisation. It takes place more in the region between digestion, blood-formation and respiration. And in those regions man as far as the human formative process is concerned most resembles the present animal formative process. Consequently this physical internal man has the most kinship with all the life tendencies of the vegetable nature, so that we may rely on being able to influence and treat the region in question, by means of such vegetable life tendencies. Now, however, man has a power and advantage which the animal does not possess. He does not only go through the interaction between the plant and the astral element which is shared by animals also, but another interaction as well, namely that between the mineral and the “super-astral” which lies yet further beyond the purely astral realm. In fact it is especially characteristic of man in the present phase of earth's development, to share in the formative process of the mineral. Just as there is a constant transformation of albuminous substance in the animal world, there is an equally continuous process of a more peripheral tendency than the animal transformation of the albuminous process, an interaction which science at present ignores, between the heavens—so to speak—and the mineral realms. If we require a specific term for this process, let it be derived from the most characteristic feature: the process of de-salification. Within our human organism there takes place continually a process of de-salting, a tendency to change salt formation into its opposite; and on this our being man really rests, and above all our human thinking which goes beyond the animal range. As peripheral man—not—be it noted—as central man, for there we resemble the animal formation—but peripherally we fight against salt formation. We oppose salification just as the animal opposes the normal earth formation of vegetable albumen. In this opposition the forces are to be found which for man we must search for in the mineral kingdom itself, in order to cure certain ailments which we cannot get at with mere vegetable remedies. I would even say that to treat human complaints with herbal remedies only, is to regard man too much as an animal. One gives really due honour to man by expecting him to take part in that sterner battle waged in the earth's environment against the mineralisation of the earth, and one must give him the opportunity to take part with his ego in this struggle.

Whenever silicon is administered, an appeal is made to the dispersive forces within all, and to his power of overcoming this hard mineral element. And we put the ego in a position to participate vigorously in processes which have ceased to take place on the earth, but continue outside the earth where forces rule whose tendency is to disrupt and shatter all the telluric solid substances in the cosmic space. Cosmic space has the peculiarity of dispersal into the most minute particles all that solidifies in the planetary realm. We share but seldom in this disruptive activity, in the course of everyday life, unless we are mathematically inclined, i.e., are used to live much in mathematical shapes and to think in mathematical forms. For this way of thinking is based on the disruption of mineral substance. On the other hand, individuals with a certain aversion to mathematics, restrict themselves more to a mere de-salification. They are not able to become internal “mechanicians of disruption.” Such is the difference between mathematical and non-mathematical minds. And counteraction of earth's mineralising process is the groundwork for many therapeutic processes and methods.

Now, these things were included in primitive man's instinctive reactions of attack and defence. If man in those primitive ages became aware of encroaching weakness of thought, recourse was had to some mineral substance which was eaten or drunk and the disruption and internal dispersal of this mineral substance helped him to restore his faculty of attunement with the extra-telluric forces remote from the earth.

It is possible to follow the processes of external nature to the point of almost tangible proof of the accuracy of such beliefs. They are quite verifiable by observation. Consider for example a tree which is most interesting in this respect; Betula alba, the silver birch, which makes, as it were, a double stand against the normal formative process of the plant. This formative process in its normal course is not shared by Betula alba. It would be so shared if it were possible to combine what takes place in the birch bark with what takes place in the foliage, especially the unfolding foliage of spring, while the leaves are still tinged with brown. Were it possible to mingle these two distinct and differently localised processes, so that the functions of cortex and foliage were blended uniformly throughout, the result would be a magnificent herbaceous plant, with profuse blossoms. The silver birch is as it is, because the processes associated with living albumen formation are carried more into the leaves and concentrated there than is generally the case with plants; and on the other hand the process which consists in the formation of potash salts, is conserved in the bark. In plants which remain herbs, the two processes join so closely that in the root the essence of the potassium salt process is permeated with the formation of albumen. But the silver birch thrusts what the root draws from the soil, outwards into its bark and sends what other plants mingle with the earth's contribution, into its leaves, after having thrust the earth's contribution into the cortex. Thus the birch prepares itself to affect the human organism in different directions. The bark containing the appropriate potassium salt ingredients, is indicated if a patient is to be guided to de-salification—as for instance in various rashes and skin affections; then the substance pushed downwards into the birch's bark shoots into the periphery in man and heals the skin affection. On the other hand, if you take the leaves, with their forces of albumen formation, you can obtain a remedy specially indicated for internal and deep-seated complaints in mankind, and very beneficial in cases of gout and rheumatism. Now suppose we wish to heighten the efficiency of these processes, let us have recourse to the mineral constituents in the structure of the birch. Take birch wood, and prepare from it vegetable carbon—we have, then, ready to hand, powerful remedies for the defects of what is external inside the body, namely the intestines, etc. One must learn to grasp, by the appearance of plants, their effects on the human being. If we contemplate Betula alba from this angle, we may conclude that if we wish to make the tree with all its valuable properties into part of man so as to heal him, we must turn it round so that the forces pouring into the wood and bark should be united with the human skin and periphery, and the parts which the birch turns outwards in foliage should be invaginated into the interior of man. Thus the tree would be not only reversed but turned inside out—so to speak, to complete the picture—in the body of man. From this picture we can read the right application of the healing properties of the birch.

As for plants with very powerfully developed roots, so that the root-forming forces deposit potassium salts and sodium salts, you will find in them the tendency to retain the root forces even in the foliage; and this means a tendency to beneficial action in cases of hemorrhage as well as gravel of the kidneys. An example of these effects strongly indicated as of use in hemorrhages in kidney troubles and all intermediate conditions, is Capsella bursæ pastoris the shepherd's purse.

Now try to enter into the peculiarities of such a plant as the common scurvy grass, Cochlearea officinalis. It is of interest also, as containing sulphuric oils or oils with a high content of sulphur. These sulphuric oils enable the plant to work upon its albumen by virtue of sulphur. Now sulphur is within the mineral kingdom that element that promotes the formative forces of the albuminous process; these are accelerated when too slow, through the addition of the sulphur process. These two processes sum up the essential nature of a plant like scurvy grass or spoon-wort. Because the scurvy grass grows on certain soils and in certain places, and because it is inserted in a certain way into the frame of nature it is doomed to develop albuminous processes at too slow a rate, while by a marvelous natural instinct this retardation is balanced by the formation of oils containing sulphur, which quicken the slack albumen process. Note, however, that an accelerated albuminous process differs from one that runs by its very nature with equal speed; this must be always borne in mind. Of course it is possible to discover albuminous processes quite as rapid as that of the scurvy grass in several other plants. But these have not been called forth by the inertia being acted upon by the accelerating principle. It is the continuous interaction of inertia and acceleration principles in the growth of the scurvy grass which so adapt this plant for use as a remedy in conditions such as scurvy, etc: for the process characteristic of scurvy is remarkably like that just described.

It is my belief that a personal training which enables us to link up the events in external nature with those inside man will show the way to these extremely significant affinities and also to an understanding of man which you can acquire in no other way. For in very truth man can only be understood through the comprehension of the extra-human sphere, and this in turn only through the human sphere. One must be able to study both concurrently. And I would beg you not to consider it superfluous to pass on to a matter which should be very useful in our next discussion, namely to the peculiar activities of the spleen in the human organism.

The function of the spleen inclines strongly to the spiritual side. So much so, that I have pointed out in a lecture cycle on “Occult Physiology,” that if the spleen is removed, the etheric body very easily takes its place; therefore the spleen is an organ most easily replaced by its etheric counterpart in man—by the etheric spleen. The spleen is less associated with metabolism as such than are the other organs of the human abdomen. The spleen is but little associated with the actual metabolic function, but closely associated with the regulation of that function. What exactly is the spleen? In the investigations of spiritual science, the spleen appears as the agent appointed to attune continuously the crude metabolism to what occurs in a more spiritual or psychological way in man. Like all our organs—some in a greater or lesser degree—the spleen is very much a strong subconscious organ of sense, it reacts in a remarkable measure to the rhythm of human nutrition. Persons who eat at all times and any time—produce in their systems a very different kind of activity from that of persons who leave intervals between their meals. This difference is specially perceptible in children, if they have the nibbling or gobbling habit; for the result is a jerky and irregular action of the spleen. This can be observed also in cases where there is no regular feeding, and then some time after the individual has fallen asleep the spleen comes to comparative repose—of course only to comparative repose according to its own nature. The spleen is the sensory organ of the more spiritualised part of man for the rhythms of nutrition and it tells man in his subconsciousness, what counter-agents to employ, in order at least to mitigate the deleterious effect of irregular nutrition. Thus the spleen's activity is directed less towards the actual metabolic process than towards its rhythmical adjustment; the spleen shares in the rhythm which must necessarily rule as between intake of substance and the rhythm of respiration. For between the rhythm of respiration and the nutritive processes which are not specially adapted to rhythm, there is, as it were, interpolated an intermediate rhythm, brought about by the spleen. The respiratory rhythm enables man to live within the strict rhythm of the cosmos. But by irregular nutrition he continually deflects this cosmic rhythm. And the spleen mediates and modifies this disharmony.

This fact is verifiable through observation of man. In the light of this fact, I beg you to study the anatomical and physiological material at your disposal. You will find corroboration, down to the most minute detail. In the fact that the splenetic artery is almost directly connected with the aorta, and also in the external relative position of the spleen in the whole organism, you will find my statements corroborated; whereas at the same time you will find morphological testimony to the nutritive relationship, in the particular insertion of the splenetic vein into the whole organism which leads into the portal vein and is thus directly connected with the liver.

Thus, these two systems, one without rhythmic pulsation, the other essentially rhythmic, coordinate and mutually regulate themselves. The spleen's activity is interpolated between the rhythmic and the metabolic systems. Much of what is due to inadequate or irregular splenetic functions, must be met on the basis of this knowledge of the interactions between the respiratory and metabolic systems or the circulatory and metabolic, as linked together by the spleen. It is indeed in no way strange that in materialistic science the physiology of the spleen has been so much neglected; for materialistic science knows nothing of the threefold human being—the metabolic human being, the circulatory human being and finally, the human being of senses and nerves.