Lecture IV
Dornach, April 14, 1921
Yesterday I said that certain complexes of
symptoms are condensed in the phenomena of falling asleep and
awakening. It is most important first to study the symptoms
that are condensed in the process of falling asleep. To fall
asleep inadequately always indicates that the astral body is
clinging to the physical and etheric organs, especially to
the latter. (I will use these terms this time since you are
now all quite familiar with them.) The astral body is too
strongly bound up with these other members. This clinging of
the astral body is at once evident to the spiritual
investigator because, when sleep should appear, the physical
and etheric organs continue to function as in the waking
state, whereas in the normal person their function is clearly
dampened down.
Ordinarily we
cannot learn the real significance of this inadequate falling
asleep; hence we must acquire a comprehensive view of the
phenomena in the waking state that accompany this inadequate
falling asleep. We then may notice that everything revealing
an involuntary functioning of the organism is a concomitant
of falling asleep inadequately. Thus any involuntary
twitching of the lips or blinking of the eyelids, any
excessive movement of the
fingers and the like — any movement that is not an
expression of an inner process, any fidgeting — all
these are waking concomitants of not falling asleep properly.
Obviously this process can be observed only when it manifests
outwardly. When such fidgetiness occurs with regard to the
internal organs, a certain capacity to perceive such things
must be acquired so that one understands how to relate ertain
phenomena.
For example,
in patients suffering from anemia you may hear rushing sounds
in the blood vessels on the right and left sides of the neck.
These murmurs or bruits are noticeable in every person when
he turns his head far to the left or right, therefore
initiating a powerful unfolding of his astrality. Such an
unfolding of astrality always arises when a movement that
would normally be carried out voluntarily is carried out
involuntarily. Whenever an otherwise voluntary movement
— that is, a movement dependent on the ego — is
made involuntarily, the astrality is too strongly exerted,
too strongly engaged, is too strongly pressed into the organ.
This is what we are dealing with in fidgety movements. Thus
through such indirect observations, attention can be directed
to the fidgetiness of the internal organs.
Now we must
add that in patients who fall asleep inadequately there is
always an underlying irregularity that cannot be countered by
direct, outer methods. This irregularity is not closely
connected with what I had to say yesterday about magnetic and
electric fields, for example. Such things have very little to
do with everything accompanying inadequate sleep. Thus in
such cases it is necessary to make use of remedies. If we
encounter a complex of symptoms that can be grouped together
under the formula, “falling asleep inadequately,”
we must apply remedies, and in particular plant substances in
which processes must first be called forth by cooking,
burning, etc. Such remedies will play a large role in cases
of inadequate falling asleep, when the disease is in the
human thoracic cavity, because there we always find an
irregular clinging of the astral body to the organs. All
remedies obtained by combustion, by reducing the substance to
ashes, or extracted from the roots by boiling will be very
valuable here. Everything that remains as force in root
extracts and plant ash should play a very important part in
such cases.
On the other
hand, everything that I described yesterday will play a
significant role in cases of inadequate awakening. To wake up
inadequately always shows that the astral body enters too
little into the organs. In diseases of the chest, this
incomplete penetration by the astral body means something
different from what it means in generalized diseases of the
human organism. In the latter, one must try to bring in the
entire astral body. This has to do with what I said about the
effects of arsenic. Arsenic is effective when we have to
treat an astral body already permeated by the ego, whereas
when we want to treat the astral body alone, it will be
especially important to apply the methods about which I spoke
yesterday. In cases of inadequate awakening, we will always
find something accompanying the waking process, what might be
called numbness, a tendency to hold on to a dulled state of
consciousness. Thus the symptoms that accompany inadequate
awakening are essentially soul phenomena. Therefore it is
particularly important in cases that show some defect or
other in the chest organism — and at the same time the
accompanying soul phenomena — to use the magnetic or
electric fields curatively.
At this point
I will try to answer a question put to me yesterday
concerning the difference between treatment by direct current
and by alternating current. (In the course of these lectures
I will try to answer all your questions, so far as time
permits.) In cases where one is treating a weakened
individual — that is a person clearly suffering from
malnutrition or the like — where the disturbance
proceeds more from the lower portion of the middle human
being, it is better to use an alternating current. If the
disturbance clearly proceeds from the upper human being, it
is better to use a direct current. However, the difference is
not very great, and if you use one in one case and the other
in another case you cannot make too great a mistake.
You will have
noticed that in this realm of human health and illness
dietary considerations can become quite important. This is
because a subtle transition appears here from effects of a
more dynamic kind, effects applied to the human being from
outside, and those effects worked through by the human being
himself in the transformation of plant substances. However,
you will understand that because we are dealing with the
region of rhythm, with phenomena based on the rhythmic
functions in the human organism, there is no place for
fanaticism in judging the healthy or diseased individual.
There must really be no fanaticism of any kind in medical art
— for example, fanatical adherence to an uncooked diet.
A raw food diet also entails the exclusion of cooked plant
substances obtained from the part of the plant lying toward
the root, and this generally has definite consequences for
the human organism: it slowly undermines the health of the
respiratory system. A destructive influence on the human
organism of this kind can continue for a long time, since it
is not so easy to destroy this organism, but fanatical
adherence to uncooked food will in time lead to shortness of
breath or similar symptoms.
Someone may
reply, “That may be true, but I have had excellent
results with a fruit diet.” But you must then note that
fruits are not roots; fruits have been worked upon strongly
by outer sunlight. In them an extra-terrestrial process has
been intensely brought to completion. One comes very close to
the process of cooking when making use of what is dynamically
present in fruits. Thus if you let certain patients eat fresh
fruits rather than raw roots, you do much less harm. It is
best not to be fanatical in either direction; both directions
must be dealt with individually. There may well be cases in
which it can be clearly determined that the irregularity in
the chest system comes from the circulation and not from the
respiratory rhythm; it can be proven that this problem
derives from the circulation rather than the respiratory
rhythm. Then it is necessary to pay attention to what plays
into the circulation from the digestive activities. In such
cases, what is lacking can be properly assisted by a diet of
raw fruits. It is quite correct, in this individual case, a
diet of raw fruits could be indicated. On the other hand, if
I have a patient whose symptoms suggest that the cause of the
inadequate functioning of his chest system is in the
breathing, I will not be able to achieve anything by such
means, and in fact I may only do harm. In this case I must
instead prescribe a diet of boiled roots. In dealing with
this very labile system we come to realize how serious the
consequences of fanaticism can be in one direction or
another.
In this first
stage of our studies we must take into account one further
thing in order to understand this system completely and not
have to return to it. This is a process in the human organism
that frequently escapes outer observation entirely and
remains unnoticed to the detriment of human health. We should
consider this here, in the first stage of our studies, this
being the more pathological-therapeutic stage, whereas the
next part should be more therapeutic-pathological in
character.
In my more
public lectures I have had occasion to speak on philology; I
haven't had the opportunity to introduce this in the
scientific courses, but it could equally well have been
considered there. In the public lectures I said that the
peculiar processes that come to more outward expression in
the organism during puberty discharge themselves more
inwardly during the time between birth and the change of
teeth, when the child is learning to speak. These processes
that occur between the astral body and the human etheric and
physical bodies underlie the acquisition of speech and all
the changes in the human organism connected with learning to
speak. These processes should be carefully observed in the
child as learning to speak runs parallel with changes in the
rest of the organism. One ought to follow these changes
backward toward birth, that is, from the radical change at
the second dentition to the time of acquiring speech.
However, in addition to the change of teeth there is an
equally significant change, only it is more inward and does
not express itself as obviously as the change of teeth or the
acquisition of speech, which can be observed by anyone
because they appear outwardly. This other change is almost
more important than these in human health and illness, though
they are given more attention because they are outwardly
manifest. This other change is actually much more significant
and occurs between the change of teeth and puberty. It is a
process that lies midway between those events and is due to
the fact that the ego — which, in the sense explained
elsewhere, is completely born exoterically only around the
twentieth year — is born inwardly in the same way that
the astral body is born in the acquisition of speech. This
process reaches its culmination between the ninth and tenth
years of life.
Please
consider now the following: What is latent in the human being
regarding his ego, waiting to unfold, is almost entirely
overlooked. The ego dwelling in the human organism really
does something quite special. Everything else — the
physical, the etheric, and also the astral in the human
being, which only comes into contact from within with what is
outside the human being by means of oxygen — all these
components of the human entity are very strongly bound to the
inner aspects of the human being. During sleep the ego takes
only the astral with it out of the human organism. The astral
body has a strong affinity for the physical, and especially
for the etheric body. But this is not the case with the ego.
It is here, taking into account the ego especially in its
relation to the outer world, that the far-reaching difference
between the human being and the animal is revealed.
In taking up
nourishment we introduce substances from the outer world into
ourselves. These must be transformed within us. What is it
that brings about this fundamental transformation of outer
substances? What brings this about? In truth, this is brought
about by the ego. The ego alone is sufficiently powerful to
stretch out its feelers, you could say, right into the forces
of outer substances. To put it schematically, an outer
substance possesses certain forces that must first be
destroyed (dekombiniert) if they are to be
re-constituted in the human organism. The etheric and astral
bodies only walk around the substances, as it were; they have
no power to penetrate to the inner aspect of the substances,
so they just circumvent them. It is the ego alone that really
has to do with the penetration of substances, with truly
entering into the substance. If you introduce food substance
into the human organism, it is at first inside the human
being. But the ego overlaps the entire human organism and
enters directly into the food substance. The inner forces of
the food substance and the ego begin to interact. Here the
outer world in regard to chemistry and physics and the inner
world in regard to “anti-chemistry” and
“anti-physics” overlap. This is the essential
aspect.
Now in a
child, this penetration of substances is regulated from the
head until the change of teeth begins. The child is born in
such a way that forces received by way of his head during
embryonic development are then active in the human being in
working through substances from within. But in the period
between the change of teeth and puberty, which culminates
between the ninth and tenth years, the ego that works from
out of the lower human being, the lower ego, must meet the
higher ego. In the child it is always the ego working from
the upper man that works through the substances until the
time indicated. Of course, I am referring to the instruments
of the ego. The ego is indeed ultimately a unity. But the
instruments of the ego, the polarity of the ego — that is
the meeting of the lower ego with the higher — only
establish a proper relationship in the way I have described.
Thus the ego must enter the human organization at this time
in the same way that the astral body must penetrate the human
organization in learning to speak.
With all this
in mind, observe the phenomena that can be seen in children
from about the eighth or ninth to the twelfth or thirteenth
year. Study from this viewpoint just those phenomena that it
is so necessary to observe in children of elementary school
age. You will find their outer expression in a seeking of the
human organism for a harmony, a harmony that must be
established during life between the substances taken in and
the inner organization of the human being. Observe carefully
how the head can be reluctant, at this time, to take in the
inner forces of the substances, and how this comes to
expression in headaches at about the ninth, tenth, or
eleventh year. Observe further the accompanying metabolic
disturbances in the secretion of gastric acid, for instance.
Observe all this, and you will see that there are children
who suffer continually from this inadequate adjustment of the
ego from below and from above.
If such
matters are carefully noted, one learns how to deal with them
and as a rule they then disappear. They correct themselves
gradually after puberty, when the astral body appears and
makes good what the ego cannot do. They die away gradually
between the fourteenth or fifteenth year and the twentieth or
twenty-first year. Children who are sickly between the change
of teeth and puberty can afterward become extraordinarily
healthy. It is very instructive to observe this. You will
often have found that sickly children, especially those whose
illness is manifested outwardly in digestive ailments, in an
irregular digestion, become quite healthy later if carefully
treated. It is especially important in dealing with such
cases to be extremely careful as to the diet prescribed.
Splendid results can be achieved if the parents or teachers
of such a child do not continually overload him with all
kinds of food and with continuous persuasion to eat. That
just makes the matter worse. Rather try to find out what the
child can digest easily and give this frequently in small
portions throughout the day. One can do these children a
great service in this way. On the other hand, it is quite
wrong to believe that anything is achieved by
overfeeding.
In addition, we must take care that these children do not
have too much school work, for this would only aggravate
their condition. Thus if we allow them the necessary rest, we
assist in this inwardly necessary digestive activity in
response to smaller portions of food. There is hardly any
area in which more transgressions are made than this one, in
relation to which the above suggestions are made. If healthy
human development in this direction is hindered, all sorts of
tendencies to illness from this stage in life may remain
throughout life.
People often
complain that we give very little homework at the Waldorf
School. We have good reason for this. A system of education
corresponding to reality does not heed the abstract
principles — or abstractions generally — applied
in many spheres of life today. Instead it takes into account
everything that has to do with the real development of the
human being, and it is important, above all, not to burden
children with homework. Homework is frequently the concealed
cause of bad digestion. These things are not always
manifested outwardly until later, but they nevertheless have
their influence. It is remarkable that super-sensible study of
the human being leads one to see an indication in an early
stage of life of what is being prepared for a later
period.
There is
always a danger of the ego not being properly interlinked
— if I may express it in this way — with the
organism from below upward. This danger is really very great
for almost all people, and especially for those in our time
who are not of robust peasant stock. There is still a marked
difference between those of peasant stock and the rest of the
earth's population. One must draw a dividing line here. The
rest of the population is very susceptible to the dangers
arising when the ego is inadequately interlinked with the
organism. The organism is then fundamentally ruined before
the ego ought to insert itself. With regard to the
respiratory system — also the head system — the
female is more sensitive to the peculiarly labile equilibrium
present there. The male is more robust regarding his chest
organs, that is, less sensitive though not more stable. The
same troubles can appear, but their outer expression is
weaker. The female is more sensitive to the troubles arising
there. What I have described as a seeking for the proper
interlinking of the ego ends in a healthy human being or in
anemia. Anemia (Bleichsucht) is a direct
continuation of everything that happens abnormally in this
way in the period from age seven onward. Anemia does not
appear until later, but it is an intensified result of what
was not observable in this direction in the preceding period
of life.
In this
regard, we must now point to an exceptionally important
distinction. When we study the circulatory system, we must
distinguish the actual circulation — which is a sum of
movements — from the metabolism which is intimately
interwoven with this circulation, inserting itself into it in
a sense. In the circulatory system there is an equilibrium
between the metabolic system and the rhythmic system, whereas
in the respiratory organism we find the equilibrium between
the rhythmic organism and the nerve-sense organism. Thus when
you study this middle aspect of the human being, the chest
system, you must realize that it is organized polarically in
two directions. Through the breathing it is organized toward
the head, and through the circulation it is organized toward
the metabolic-limb system. Everything within the metabolism
itself, or that is intimately connected with the metabolism
in man's capacity for movement — which is of great
importance especially during the first or ascending half of
life — inserts itself as metabolic forces into the
forces of circulation. This insertion upward from the
metabolism must then advance a stage further.
Hence, in the
process I have described we have to do with an advance, with
a further stage of the activity developed by the ego in
metabolism, already in the taking up of substances and then
in laying hold of their inner forces. What we are dealing
with here is a movement upward through the circulation and
breathing into the head system, and all this must be properly
coordinated in the period between the change of teeth and
puberty. The egö s grasp of forces of outer substances
must move upward through circulation and breathing to a
proper intervention in the head system. It is a very
complicated process we are dealing with here. We can really
study this process by trying to grasp its influence within
the “outer” digestive tract, where the substances
are still quite similar to their outer states, where the
substances are grasped only weakly by man's inner being. For
what is the first stage in dealing with outer substances?
What does the ego do when it first takes hold of outer
substances?
The first
activity of the ego in laying hold of the forces of outer
substances is accompanied by sensations of taste. Tasting
— that is, working through outer substances in a way
that finds subjective expression in tasting — is the
first stage of laying hold of the outer forces. It then
proceeds further inward. But tasting also extends further
inward. The “inner” digestive organism that lies
on the other side of the intestines and transfers substances
into the blood is still a tasting, but a tasting that grows
ever weaker. It extends upward until, in the head organism,
the tasting is opposed and thereby dampened down. The
activity of the head in regard to tasting consists in the
damping down of tasting, it opposes it. This process must
take place properly. Then, of course, the ego lays hold of
the substances as they proceed further; the ego grasps them
more strongly than is the case in tasting, which is
subjective and merely external. This process that takes place
in the outer digestive tract is strongly influenced by
mineral salts.
You will be
able to harmonize every aspect of what I am now saying with
what I said in the last course. You will see that what I am
now saying is essentially bringing to completion what was
said then. We have to ask ourselves, “What really is a
remedy from the outer kingdoms of nature?” This is a
fundamental question for medicine. What is a remedy?
Anything that
the organism can digest in its healthy state is not a remedy.
We can only speak of a remedy when we introduce into the
organism something it cannot digest in a healthy state but is
able to digest only in an abnormal condition, that is able to
be digested, therefore, only in an abnormal human organism.
We provoke the abnormal human organism to digest something
that the healthy human organism does not digest. The healing
process is a continuation of digestion, but a digestion
carried step by step into the interior of the human
organism.
Among the
symptoms accompanying the condition seen in its most
pronounced form in anemia we find these: fatigue, lassitude,
and inadequate falling asleep and awakening. If all these
symptoms appear, as can happen with most children during the
period of development mentioned today, then it is necessary
first to experiment with the outer digestive tract. There one
must apply the mineral element, and yet not completely
mineral. If you do this, you will obtain results. In the
first place, these things could be observed through the
symptoms that arise. For example, you may find that definite
symptoms arise, all of which point to the need for the ego to
take hold outwardly of the forces of outer substances. This
process could be assisted by carbonate of iron. Ferrum
carbonicum is a remedy that can act as a support for the
weakness when the ego ought to be taking hold outwardly.
Let us go a
stage further and consider an inadequate intervention of the
ego within the circulatory organism. We will notice that this
inadequate intervention of the ego in the circulatory
organism can be supported by ferrous chloride (ferrum
muriaticum) — that is, by a still more purely
mineral remedy.
Let us go a
stage further still, to what we encounter in the breathing
organism. Here we can find special support for the ego
through plant-acids. And if we go yet further, to the head
system, we can support the ego by pure metals. These, of
course, must not be used in their outer form as pure metals,
for they then have no proper relation to the human organism.
We must apply the finest forces of these metals. Last year I
therefore said that the human organism does not allow itself
to be treated with metals allopathically. The organism itself
acts homeopathically; it breaks up the metals itself as they
move from the digestive system to the head organism. The
organism can, of course, be supported in this activity
through potentization.
You will see,
however, that we can learn from this something about
potentization. (We will return to these things later from
another viewpoint.) First one must form a mental picture of
the real center of the deficiency. The deeper this center
lies — the farther from the head organization —
the lower the potency required. The nearer this center lies
to the head organization, the higher the potency we must
apply. Of course, what approaches the head organization can
come to expression outwardly in all kinds of ways.
If you
proceed properly from this viewpoint — that is, from
the ego's laying hold of outer substances — you will be
able to gain insight into the symptoms you encounter. This
leads us back to what I have said today and have often
emphasized elsewhere: that the human organism is not simply
something we can draw with lines; that is only the solid
part. The human organism in essence is organized fluid,
organized air, organized warmth, and the ego has to intervene
in these various members of the organization.
The ego's
intervention in the warmth conditions of the body is
especially subtle and important; it does this in the
following way: When a person is born we have initially an
imprint of the ego and this is present in the head. This
imprint is active during childhood. In order to do this, the
ego must offer its being [Sein] from below upward. It must
intervene in this way. This finds expression in the
ego-imprint, that we have in the head, permeates the organism
with warmth during childhood. It has something to do with the
human organism being suffused with warmth. But this warming
follows a descending curve; it is strongest at birth, since
it proceeds from the head, and then moves in a descending
curve. As human beings we are compelled in later life to
compensate from below upward for what unfolds there in the
warmth curve. We have to maintain its proper level from below
through the ego's intervention in these warmth conditions. We
must later oppose the descending curve by this other
ascending curve. The latter depends essentially on the ego
laying hold of the ascending forces of substance gained in
food and leading them over into the circulation, the
breathing, and then into the head system.
Now imagine
that this is not taking place in the right way, that the
transference of the inner forces of the outer world's
substances into the human organism is too weak, that it is
not developed with sufficient intensity. Then insufficient
warmth is introduced into the organism by way of the ego. The
head, which is now only developing the descending curve, lets
the body become cold. This occurs at first at the periphery.
You should observe that those individuals who suffer from
this further development of the condition of lassitude, due
to all I have described, have cold hands and feet. This is
palpable, for you can sense here how the process that was
accomplished in childhood from above downward through the
imprint of the ego is not being met in the necessary way by
the active ego, by the ego that must be developed and that
carries warmth right into the outermost periphery of the
limbs.
This will
show you that we have what you could call pictures in what
manifests outwardly in this way; for as soon as you apply
yourself to perceiving things pictorially, as soon as you
take into account the interplay in the human being of the
various forces above with the forces below — if you
consider these so delicately that you arrive at a pictorial
impression — you have pictures. In cold hands and feet
you have pictures of something that is taking place in the
entire human organism and appears in this way. One learns to
make use of symptoms so that from them there springs forth a
knowledge of the whole human being. If a person has cold
hands and feet, it is a profound sign that the ego is not
intervening properly in later stages of life. If we are
attentive to such things, if only we enter into what
spiritual science has to say out of its considerations, we
gain a connection with the human organism. Otherwise we will
see that through inattention we gradually lose touch with a
real, penetrating insight into the human organism. If only we
can enter into what spiritual science has to offer, we
receive a connection with the human organism, we grow into
it.
Consider the
following, for instance: Spiritual science continually
impresses upon us the fact that in mari s power to hold
himself erect there lies something connected with the
development of the ego from below upward. This power of
holding himself erect is at first expressed only outwardly in
a certain sense. It is supported by what streams from above
downward. When the change of teeth is accomplished, when this
force of erectness has done its work in the proper way, this
elementary force of erectness comes to a full stop and now
transfers its influence to the inside. Now the balance of the
forces that work upward from below and downward from above
must be created within.
Then the
forces from above downward and from below upward appear in
contrast. They meet each other. In this one-dimensional
encounter, as you could call it, between forces from above
and forces from below, one can see especially what is taking
place in this period. Just observe what especially fatigues
people with a tendency to anemia. They become most tired when
they climb stairs, not when they walk on the horizontal. This
points directly to the phenomena that we have been studying.
People with a tendency to anemia will always complain about
climbing stairs. Thus by looking at the symptoms, by
observing what comes to living expression in a process of
becoming, we can get a hold of what stands spiritually behind
the human being. Then we can come to the point where we learn
simply to read what needs to be done in response to these
abnormal conditions from what we have gained through
diagnostic pathology. We will take this further tomorrow.
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