XVIII
I THINK
that it may after all be necessary to introduce into our medical
and biological study what we might term an inquiry into tho real
origins of pathological conditions. Of late there has been a cumulative
tendency to disregard the origins proper, and to fix attention on
superficial appearances and events. And with this superficiality is
bound up the habit in current medicine and pathology of beginning the
description of a disease by stating what bacillus caused the disease
by invading the human organism. Of course it is very easy to refute
arguments and objections against the invasion of micro-organisms, for
the simple reason that we no longer need to point out that these
micro-organisms really exist. And since they have different
characteristics in different diseases, it is again quite
comprehensible that stress is laid on these differences, and specific
diseases linked with specific types of micro-organisms.
Now an obvious error enters this whole point of view, namely, that
attention is diverted from the primary element. Suppose that in the
course of an illness, bacteria appear in considerable numbers in some
bodily area. It is only natural that they should cause symptoms such
as are the result of any foreign body in the organism, and that from
the presence of these bacteria all manner of inflammations arise. But
if all these results are ascribed wholly to the action of the
bacteria, attention is actually directed only to the activity of these
micro-organisms. Attention is thus drawn away from the true origin of
the disease, for whenever lower organisms find suitable soil in the
human frame for development, that soil has been made suitable by the
real primary causes of the disease. And attention must be directed to
the region of these primary causes. We must therefore return to the
paths of thought we have already traversed and for a short time give
them our attention.
Consider the stratum of plant life that covers the earth's soil, i.e.
the entire content of vegetation. We must understand that this flora
which grows outwards from the soil towards cosmic space, is not only
sent out from the earth, but is also drawn outwards by forces that are
in continuous operation, and as essential to the growth of plants as
the forces working from the earth itself. There is a constant
interaction between the forces passing into the plant from the earth,
and those acting on the plant from the cosmos outside the earth. What
is the essential factor in this interaction that permeates our whole
environment? Should these cosmic forces attain their full expression
and take full possession of the plant, and should the planets not
ensure that these forces can withdraw again, then the plant in its
growth from the stalk to the blossom and seed would have the perpetual
tendency to become animal. There is a tendency towards animalisation.
But this tendency, which expresses Cosmic forces passing into the
plant, is counteracted and balanced by the opposite tendency towards
suppression of the plant-nature in mineralisation.
I would thus emphasise the essential nature of plants: it holds the
balance between the tendency to salification, to the deposit of
mineral constituents within the vegetable substance, i.e., to
mineralisation; and on the other hand to self-ignition, to
animalisation. This is what is perpetually at work in external nature.
This same counteraction, however, goes on, interiorised and
centralised, in the human organism itself. By virtue of its lungs the
human organism is a genuine earth in miniature, and all the pulmonary
processes work downwards in the same manner as the forces of earth
work upwards into the plant, passing from the earth to the plant's
organisation. All that comes to meet the inner metabolism of the
lungs, from the breathing and heart activity, has the same method of
operation as the external cosmic forces.
Now there is a special requirement of the human organism: all that is
focused from out of the organism, in the heart's action, must be held
apart from the forces that organise and concentrate themselves in the
internal metabolism of the lungs. These two sets of activities may
only interact through the barrier — if I may so express myself — of
an etheric or even an astral diaphragm. They must be kept separate
from one another. And so we come to the question: Does this diaphragm
— and I only use the term in order to give a picture — really exist?
Is there such a diaphragm, which prevents the activities of head,
throat and lungs from blending with those of abdomen and breast,
except through the external rhythm of the breath? Yes — there is such
a diaphragm, and it is nothing less than the rhythm of breathing
itself. Here you find the attunement of the upper with the lower
sphere in man. What is termed rhythmic activity in man, the rhythmic
pulsation, whose external physical manifestation is in the rhythm of
the breathing, continues into the etheric and astral activities and
holds apart the telluric forces of the upper human being, which centre
in the lung, and the cosmic forces of the lower human being. The
latter forces, with their expression ultimately in the heart, work
upwards from below, just as cosmically they work from the periphery
inwards, towards the earth's centre.
Suppose now that this rhythm is disturbed and does not work normally.
In that case, the symbolic diaphragm, to which I have referred —
which has no physical existence, but which results from the interplay
of the rhythms — is not in order. Then there may ensue a process
analogous to excessive action of the earth on vegetation.
If the earth's saline action on plants became excessive,
the plants would become too mineral. And the result is that the etheric
plant inserted into the lung, that grows out of the lung so to speak
as the physical plant springs from the soil becomes the cause of
pulmonary sclerosis. Thus we find that the trend of the plant towards
mineralisation may become excessive even in the organism of man.
And the contrary trend towards animalisation may also exceed
normality. When this happens, a region is created in the upper portion
of the organism which should not exist. In this region the affected
organs are embedded as in an etheric sphere, and this favours the
multiplication of what should not multiply in our organism, namely the
minute forms of life between animal and plant. We need not trouble to
inquire whence they come. We need only interest ourselves in the
factors which create a favourable sphere of life for them. This
favourable sphere of life should not exist for them. It should not
arise as a specially enclosed sphere; it should permeate and operate
throughout the whole organism. If it does so, it sustains the life of
the whole organism. If it works only within a small enclosure, it
becomes the appropriate medium for the presence and multiplication of
little plant-animals, of microscopic forms of life, which can be
detected in much — if not in all — that causes illness in man's
upper organic sphere.
So in going back to the rhythmic activity and its disturbance we must
trace the emergence of a special area within the organism, and thus
solve the riddle of the working of bacilli in it. But unless we go
back to the spiritual causes, we shall not reach the solution of the
riddle.
Just the same processes as work on the life of plants — in the
external sphere of the earth that is to say — are also at work in the
same region on the external life of animals and of man. These forces here
(see
Diagram 27 — orange)
at work on animal and man, come from the
extra-telluric cosmos, and are met and opposed by forces that come
from within. The latter, coming from the interior of the earth, are
localised in man in certain organs of the upper bodily sphere; whilst
the forces that pour on to the earth from outside are localised in man
in organs belonging to the lower bodily sphere, again, if I may so
express myself, a dividing wall must be set up between the two forms
of action. The regulation of this separation is normally achieved
through the activity of the spleen, and in this connection we again
find rhythm active in the human organism, but a rhythm different from
that of respiration. The rhythm of the breath is in short pulsations,
and it continues throughout life; it must be in order, if illnesses
of the upper sphere — or such diseases as can affect that upper sphere
only — are not to develop. Bear in mind that there may be illnesses
which affect the upper sphere yet have their original in the lower —
for the process of digestion extends both above and below. This we
must clearly realise. We cannot picture man divided diagrammatically
into compartments, but the various members interpenetrating one
another. At the same time, there must be a barrier between that which
works from above as though coming from the earth, and that which works
upwards from below, as though from celestial space. For we do indeed
send the forces of our lower sphere out against those of our upper,
and there must be a regulated rhythm for each human individuality
between these two sets of forces; a rhythm manifesting in a proper
alternation between waking and sleeping. Every time we wake, there is
in a certain way the one beat of this rhythm, and every time we sleep,
there is the other beat. And this rhythm of waking-sleeping
waking-sleeping, is intersected with other minor rhythmic oscillations
which are due to the fact that in the waking state, we wake in our
upper sphere but sleep in our lower. There is a continuous rhythmic
systole interplay, between the upper and lower man, which is only
captured so to speak in major rhythms through the alternation of
waking and sleeping.
Now suppose that the barrier set up by this rhythm between the upper
and lower man is broken through. What happens in such a case? As a
general rule, what happens is that the activities of the upper sphere
break through into the lower. This means that an etheric breach takes
place. The forces that should only act etherically in the upper
organic sphere of man penetrate downward into the lower. It is a
breaking through of more subtle forces; but by this fact a special
area is created in the abdomen, which should not be localised there,
but should permeate the whole body. The result is a species of
poisoning, a toxication of the lower abdominal
regions. The functions proper to the lower abdominal sphere can no
longer be adequately performed under this intrusion of the upper
sphere. Moreover, this new sphere creates a favourable condition for
lower organisms of the type intermediate between animal and plant. So
you may sum up as follows: Through the downward escape of forces from
the upper sphere, something is provoked in man that becomes abdominal
typhus. The creation of this atmosphere provides, as a by-product, the
suitable soil for the typhus bacilli.
In this way you have a clear-cut distinction between what is primary
and what is secondary. You will realise that it is necessary to
distinguish between the original causes of such illness and the
secondary phenomena, which are simply inflammatory and due to the
proliferation of legions of intestinal fauna — or flora, especially
in the smaller intestine. All the physical manifestations include the
working of the bacilli whether vegetable or animal — we need not
trouble ourselves with their precise origin — for they could neither
in the smaller intestine represent the reaction to this escape of the
upper activities of the human organism into the lower activities.
These physical manifestations include the working of the bacilli
whether vegetable or animal — we need not trouble ourselves with
their precise origin — for they could neither vegetate nor
“animalise” if an atmosphere had not been suitably prepared. All this
is a result, a secondary phenomenon. And the curative effect must be
sought not in the treatment of the secondary manifestations but of the
primary. We shall discuss this later, for it is only possible to speak
about these things if one is in a position to trace their true causes.
This is hardly possible within the boundaries of the official
medicine of today for current medicine excludes a point of view that
passes from the material process to that of the spirit. But beneath
and behind all material existence, there is spirit. And you will
easily envisage the symptomatology of typhus abdominalis if you keep
in mind what has just been put before you. Remember that this
particular disease is very often accompanied by disturbances of
consciousness. The symptoms of pulmonary catarrh appear because the
upper sphere is deprived of what emerges in the lower. In the same
way, the organs mediating consciousness in the upper human sphere, can
no longer work properly if what should be mediator to their activity
has broken through into the lower sphere. If you once grasp this
primary causation, you will have the whole picture of typhus
abdominalis before you.
The whole series of external and apparently independent symptoms,
which otherwise are only perceived from without, so to speak, become
so clearly evident that they might almost be painted in their inner
relationships. And in certain circumstances, the human consciousness
may be so strongly impressed that there arises an urge to objectify
prophetically this picture before it portrays itself in the organism.
In such cases, a person will feel compelled to depict or symbolise the
elements of which his upper organic sphere is deprived, by painting
blue spots of colour on the wall, and to represent the elements of
which the lower sphere is deprived by spots of red. In the case of an
individual with a belief that his vocation is art, as distinct from
tailoring or shoemaking, but with little knowledge of the craftsmanship
of painting, you may find that if at the same time he is robust enough
to repress the constantly arising tendency to diseases of the lower
abdomen, these diseased conditions are exteriorised and “thrown off”
on wall or canvas, instead of developing internally. The paintings of
the expressionist school supply examples of this remarkable activity.
Examine much of what comes to light in these paintings, in the red and
yellow colors; there you can trace the painter's condition in the
lower abdominal sphere. And in the blue and blue-violet parts you can
find a clue to his condition in the upper bodily sphere, in the lungs,
and all that moves rhythmically upwards towards the head. If you study
such things carefully, they will lead you to discover a remarkable
harmony between the general type of action of a given individual and
his internal organisation. You will be in a position to form a certain
intuitive impression of the functional conditions of his body from his
way of living and behaving. For as a matter of fact it is wholly
erroneous to believe that the soul activity of a man in the external
world, through actions and behaviour, is only connected with his
nervous system. It is connected with the whole man, and is an image of
the whole man. We can grasp intuitively in children how man's
intellectual part behaves and how it strives towards the later age. We
only have to consider, e.g., how somebody may be doomed in later life
to cope with all the embarrassments of an arrested growth; and how in
childhood he showed plainly that the forces that did not allow him to
complete his growth make him clumsy and rough in his behaviour. From
the way in which the child behaves, as for instance whether he puts
his feet lightly on the ground or strongly, you may form an intuitive
picture of the way of its growth. Numerous other manifestations
suggest that the whole gesture and behaviour of the individual is
nothing else than the interplay of internal organic parts, transferred
into movement.
It would indeed seem wise to include these subjects in the medical
curriculum. When a medical student is about twenty the most favourable
conditions obtain for this kind of knowledge. In the thirties one
loses this gift; it becomes harder to enter into these things. But it
is possible to educate and train oneself to enter into such intuitive
knowledge. In spite of the devastating routine of the intermediate and
later states of our university education, it is possible (by means of
a return to the forces active in childhood) to train this insight into
the human being. But if organised medical study attached due weight to
the more intimate aspects of plastic anatomy and physiology, it would
be of immense assistance in the whole treatment of mankind.
So too must those diseases which can appear as epidemics be studied
according to their primary causes. To take an example: in all persons
with a disposition to disturbance and damage of the head and breast
rhythms, which find their crudest expression in the respiratory
rhythm, there is a tendency to be much affected by a certain
atmospheric and extra-telluric conditions. Others again, in whom the
respiratory system is congenitally sound, are able to resist such
influences. Of course we must make allowances for additional
influences, and other factors of a complicated kind, but this brief
and bare outline may make the principle understood.
Let us suppose a winter season, in which there is a powerful influence
on the solar activity — and note please, not the operation of light,
but the solar action — through the outer planets, Mars, Jupiter and
Saturn. A constellation of that description in the winter operates
quite differently from the unimpeded action of the Sun, when Mars,
Jupiter and Saturn are at a greater distance. In such a winter the
atmospheric conditions will differ from the norm; and there will be a
remarkable influence (on persons constitutionally so disposed) upon
the rhythmical activity between chest and head, of which the most
conspicuous is the act of breathing itself. We may state, however,
that such cosmic conditions considerably strengthen the inclination to
make this rhythm regular in people who have been born from sound
conditions, and who are inwardly robust — though their external
appearance may be very slight and delicate. In the case of such
persons the respiratory rhythm is very well regulated and so also is
the whole rhythm between chest and head. Such a stabilised inner
rhythm is not easily disturbed from outside; serious injuries are
required to affect it. But on persons with an irregularity of this
rhythm, the external influences referred to work very strongly to
disturb still more the already disturbed rhythm. Thus everyone with
this disposition and resident in those parts of the earth under the
special influence of the constellation in question, become liable to
the complaints grouped as influenza and grippe. These conditions and
factors must be in operation, in order to create favourable soil for
such ailments as influenza.
The following example is of a more complex nature. The whole rhythmic
activity within man is a unity; although the one continuous rhythm
which has its crudest expression in breathing, and that other and
wider rhythm determined by the alternation of sleep and waking, form a
separate unity in themselves. It may come to pass that owing to a
weakness of the upper rhythm in breathing, that other and wider rhythm
determined by the alternation of sleep and waking, form a separate
unity in themselves. It may come to pass that owing to a weakness of
the upper rhythm (between chest and head), the lower rhythm becomes
relatively too pronounced. It follows that the upper process, already
enfeebled and out of gear, is made more so by the powerful impact of
the lower, which is focused in the splenetic function, as well as in
others of which we shall treat later. If this lower rhythm is working
too strongly upwards, it causes a tendency to a kind of hypertrophy of
the upper digestive process, with all its sequelæ. Again a most
favourable sphere is created for certain lower organisms. There ensue
phenomena of inflammation and paralysis in the upper organisation,
even rudiments of organic malformation, new organic formations; in
short we have the picture of diphtheria. Diphtheria might be termed a
sort of break through from below upwards, an inversion of the typhus
breaking through from above downwards, and its main origin is as I
have described. Of course, in all these conditions, the age of the
individual must be taken into account.
You need only keep in mind that during childhood the whole interaction
of the upper and lower spheres, and of the rhythmic action that links
the two, must differ widely from that of later life; e.g., during
childhood there must be much more powerful and pronounced action of
the upper human being upon the lower than in maturity. Actually the
child “thinks” very much more than does the adult. This may sound
strange but it is true; only, the thoughts of the child are not
conscious thoughts, they are absorbed into the organism, manifesting
in its growth and formation. Especially in the earliest years of life,
thinking activity is used mainly for the formative processes of the
growing body. Then there comes a stage wherein the body does not need
to use up so much of the formative forces, and thus they are, as it
were, dammed back, and become the fundamental forces of memory. So
memory emerges only when the organism requires less formative force
for itself. The forces which supply the organic foundation of memory
are the transformed growth forces and formative forces plastically at
work at the beginning of life. Everything is fundamentally based on
metamorphosis. That which we observe as a spiritual element, is only
the re-spiritualisation of what worked in a more bodily way when the
spirit incarnated into the material. So it can be understood that
there must be strong defensive forces in the child to cope with
particular processes of the lower abdominal sphere. This sphere is the
special scene of action for cosmic-celestial forces, that is to say,
for extra-terrestrial forces.
Now turn again to the regions outside the earth; let us assume that a
special constellation results from the position of Sun and planets,
which gives rise to a powerful reflection in the lower abdominal
organs of man. What will be the result? It will be relatively
unimportant in adults, for in them the upper and lower organic rhythms
have reached a certain equipoise. But in children there will of
necessity be a vigorous resistance to the cosmic conditions that seek
a mirror and replica in the abdominal parts. So if the cosmic
configurations act forcibly on the lower abdominal sphere in the
child, the upper bodily sphere must defend itself with all its powers.
From the convulsive exertion of powers which should not be used so much
in the immature upper organic sphere, Cerebral Meningitis can result
— Meningitis cerebro-spinalis epidemica. Here, then, you have
an illustrative example of the influx of such diseases into man from
extra-human nature. If you keep these origins in the background of
your thought, as it were, you will be able to reconstruct the whole
clinical picture of meningitis, including the typical rigidity of the
muscles in the nape of the neck. For this strain and effort of the
upper organic sphere in the child, is bound to lead to inflammatory
states of the upper organs in the membranes of the brain and spinal
cord, and these acute inflammations provoke the other symptoms typical
of meningitis.
We need above all to sharpen our perception for seeing and as a whole
both as regards the interactions of his organic parts, and as regards
the interactions of human functions with the external world, and even
with the extra-terrestrial world. These hints are not meant to
increase the meddling with horoscopes and so on, which I consider the
greatest nonsense in the form it takes today; but we should realise
the origin of the forces in question; such knowledge is necessary for
the healing art. It is not so important to be able to trace this or
that condition to the quartile aspect of such and such stars — that
knowledge can sometimes help towards a cosmic diagnosis, but the main
matter for us is to be able to cure. So tomorrow I propose to pass
from our present inquiry to the consideration of substances in
external nature that are defensive, i.e., contain defensive powers
against the extra-telluric influences pouring into the human organism.
It would seem necessary that this distinction between the upper and
lower organic spheres in man should receive recognition in medicine,
for I suggest that such recognition would promote greater co-operation
within the profession in the interests of human health. Too often, a
physician loses interest in man as a whole, if he specialises in one
direction. Far be it from me to suggest that physicians should not
specialise; the manifold technique evolved in the course of time,
necessitates a certain amount of specialisation. But if specialisation
has occurred, then, as an equipoise, the socialisation, the
co-operation of the specialising experts should steadily increase.
This becomes obvious if we study a condition on which a question has
been put: Pyorrhœa alveolaris, the inflammation of the alveolar
rim. If pyorrhœa develops, it is not solely owing to some local cause,
as many suppose, but it is due to a tendency of the whole organism, a
tendency localised only in the mouth and teeth. If it were accepted as
part of the professional routine that dentists who observed the onset
of this condition were somehow to suggest to physicians that the
patient suffering from this particular alveolar inflammation was very
probably also liable to diabetes, much good could be done. For that
same process — already outlined in these lectures — which manifests
as diabetes, is also (while it remains localised in the upper sphere
and amenable to treatment) the germ of Pyorrhœa alveolaris. It
is far too little realised that the lower sphere can, as it were, seize or
invade the upper; and in consequence there is either an impoverishment
or an undue augmentation of the one sphere or of the other. If the
inflammatory tendency is first manifest in the upper sphere, one form
of disease ensues; if first manifest in the lower sphere, there ensues
its polar opposite. So very much depends on this knowledge.
It will therefore also be readily understood that the whole etheric
body, containing the forces of growth in man, must work differently in
childhood and in maturity. In childhood, the etheric body must
intervene much more in the physical functions; and must have organs as
its direct points of attack, so to say. It is especially necessary in
the foetal stage that the etheric body should have these points for
direct working upon the physical; but the need persists in early
childhood, when there is not only organic formation, but growth as
well, and during growth the plastic activity must be exercised. Hence
the need for organs such as the thymus gland, for instance (and even
to some extent the thyroid as well); these have their greatest task in
childhood, and then enter on a phase of regression, and if too much
seized upon by the physical forces, degenerate during the
retrogressive phase. During childhood, there must of necessity be a
powerful chemism at work within the body, which is replaced, at a
later stage, by the working of warmth. One might say that during the
life of the individual, man passes through something of which the
prismatic spectrum is a symbol: inasmuch as we observe the more
strongly chemical extremity (blue and violet), and then the luminous
portion (green and yellow), finally the other extremity, connected
with heat (red). For man experiences constitutional changes of this
nature and in this direction.
(see
Diagram 27).
During childhood, the human being is
more dependent on activities working chemically, then passes on to
those which act through light, and those acting through warmth. The
organs which enable the etheric body to promote the chemism in the
physical body, are such glands as the thyroid and thymus. On the
activity of these organs (to which in a certain sense the chemism is
bound) there also depends the particular individual complexion and
skin colouring — that is to say, on the etheric activity behind the
physical organs. Among the functional offices of the adrenal glands is
the determination of the complexion, and if the adrenals degenerate
there must be changes in pigmentation in consequence. As an example
you need only consider what is known as Addison's Disease, arising
from degenerative conditions in the adrenal glands — when the whole
skin becomes brown. All this strongly indicates a certain chemism in
the human organism. It is at work more especially in the foetus, while
the action of light has more importance after approximately fourteen
years of age. And then appear the activities connected with the life
of warmth. Here we have a most significant indication and gauge for
the whole course of human life. The period of childhood, and before
birth, especially the latter, the foetal stage, represents a certain
predominance of the salt-process; early middle life is predominantly a
mercurial process and later life and old age, in the relation referred
to, represent a kind of sulphur process. This implies that in
childhood most attention should be paid to the salt-process, in middle
life to the mercurial, and in later life to the sulphuric or
phosphoric, and these require regulation. Here again, if you realise
this triad of organising chemism — organised light process, organised
mercurial process and organised saline process at work in the human
organism, you will gain a conception of the manner in which the whole
of life works on man, organising him. The manner of life — not only
the diet, but the whole habit and action of life — operates
chemically on the child, impinging strongly upon the organism; the
even more strong light process has such a great influence on the very
young, that it sows a seed that may even manifest in disorders of the
soul. In youth, man is most sensitively receptive to all the
impressions of the external world. Whether at this stage of life we
encounter an external world formed regardless of reason and logic, or
one which is formed according to reason and logic, has a great
significance for the whole constitution of the soul in later life. We
shall go further into this in the next lecture, passing from the
pathological aspects just considered, to the therapeutic.
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