II
Illnesses Occurring in the Different
Periods of Life
Gentlemen, at our last session I started to answer your
question about the inner organs of man. Of course, this
subject must be seen from a broad perspective and treated
from its foundations. We saw how William Windom, who died while
delivering a speech, expressed his own inner condition by
reading it off, as it were, from his body. After citing another
case, we found in examining certain facts about the course of
human life that the mortality rate is highest in man's infancy,
that human beings die most frequently in their early years. In
the period from birth up to the change of teeth at age seven,
the mortality rate is at its peak, though it diminishes with
the third, fourth and fifth years.
The
human being is healthiest from the time of his change of teeth
to puberty. This is indeed so, and if we ourselves are careful
to prevent the causes of ill health, such as bad posture,
which can lead to curvatures, and foul air, which can afflict
the internal organs, we can count on children to be healthiest
during their school years. The illnesses that do befall them
then are for the most part due to external causes. Not until
the teens does the danger again arise when man can fall ill
from processes arising within his own constitution.
These
illnesses, however, are quite different from those of early
childhood.
I have
mentioned that infants are highly susceptible to suppuration of
the blood. It can become so purulent that symptoms of jaundice
appear. In children, irregular digestion frequently
results in diarrhoea. They also get thrush — those little
white pustules in various places — and another,
completely different kind of illness, so-called infantile
convulsions. A childhood disease that is particularly
prevalent these days is infantile paralysis, which can also
affect adults. It is extremely damaging; the children cannot
move their legs and become quite paralyzed. This disease is
increasing rapidly. Perhaps you have read that schools have had
to be closed in the province of Thüringen because of an
epidemic there.
Thus,
we can see that childhood illnesses have a distinctive
character; they are quite different from the diseases man gets
in later life. Scarlet fever and measles are specifically
childhood illnesses, though adults, too, can contract the
latter. But we must now ask ourselves why children are
particularly susceptible to all these illnesses.
We can
explain this susceptibility only if we know how forces work in
the human body. When we examine the human embryo in the first,
second or third months of pregnancy, we see that it is utterly
different form what the human being later becomes. In the first
and second months the child is all head; the other organs are
only appendages to the head. What later turn into limbs, hands
and feet are little stumps, and the actual lung and abdominal
region are not yet functioning.
You
see, if you take the human embryo (a sketch is drawn here) it
looks like this. It is enclosed in a kind of sack, to which are
attached blood vessels from the body of the mother. These blood
vessels penetrate throughout the embryo, which the mother
supplies with blood and nourishment. The other matter is
supplementary and is later discarded. In comparison to the rest
of the body the embryo's head is huge. See (pointing to the
drawing), this is the head; the rest consists of appendages not
yet functioning. This part will later become the heart and
digestive system. The blood circulation is provided from
outside, from the mother. These little stumps will develop into
hands and feet. So we can say that the embryo is all head. Its
other organs are insignificant because the mother's system
provides all the nourishment and air. Hence, during the first
few months, the embryo consists primarily of a head.
People
are surprised that mental illnesses are hereditary. In fact,
mental illnesses are always based on physical ailments;
they arise from a malfunctioning of the body. Neither the
spirit nor the soul can fall ill. Though mental illnesses are
always rooted in physical problems, people wonder how they can
occur through heredity, which indeed they can do. If a parent,
particularly the mother, suffers from tuberculosis or another
disease like arteriosclerosis, which admittedly occurs
rarely in younger persons, the children do not necessarily
become afflicted with these illnesses but instead can suffer
from mental deficiencies. People are surprised about this, but
need it puzzle us, gentlemen? Whatever the child can
inherit must be inherited first of all from its head.
Therefore, if the mother is consumptive, one need not be
surprised that her condition is not passed on to the lungs of
the unborn child, which, after all, are not even functioning
yet. The condition is rather carried over into the head and
comes to expression in the brain. Thus, nobody should be
surprised that the disease inherited is quite different from
that of the parent. Venereal disease, for example, can appear
in children as an eye disease. It is no wonder, for when the
child's head is developing, its eyes are exposed to what
afflicts the parents; its eyes are in an environment that's
venereally diseased! So it is not at all surprising.
When
the child is born, everyone knows that the most completely
formed part of it is its head. In the succeeding years it is
the rest of the body that grows the most; the head has much
less growing to do than the other organs. This fact tells us
how, in reality, the inner organs of man function.
Materialistic science cannot form an accurate conception of
this because it fails to realize that all growth proceeds from
the head. In the child everything is regulated from the head.
We can see this most clearly in the embryo, which is nothing
more than a head. But even after birth all inner processes are
regulated from this part of the body. The digestion, the blood
circulation and all other activities in human
organization are directed by the head.
Suppose that a child is born whose blood circulation is too
slow. For some reason, through some hereditary factor, it can
happen that the child's blood circulation is too slow. Let us
imagine this case. (See drawing.) Here is the child's heart,
and here, its arteries; through both the blood is travelling
too slowly. The heart is being formed from the head, but even
when the head functions perfectly, the circulation can still be
too slow. Thus, even though the heart is properly developed,
the blood doesn't flow into it correctly. This is often the
case in earliest infancy. The head is perfectly developed, but
the blood flows too slowly into the heart. Poor circulation may
result simply from keeping the child in stifling air. It cannot
breathe properly, and its circulation slows down. The blood
circulation may slacken also if the baby is not properly
nourished. Then its blood cannot thoroughly penetrate the
body. The head may be in excellent shape and try to form the
heart aright, but the blood circulation remains sluggish.
What happens in such instances is that, because the blood is
not circulating well enough, certain substances that normally
would be pushed down from the heart into the kidneys and
expelled remain in the body; they stay in the blood. When these
substances that should have been discharged stay in the system,
the blood suppurates.
In the
seventh, eighth or ninth years, this danger is not so acute as
it is in the earliest years of childhood. You see, the fact
that a child has its second set of teeth shows that its body is
sufficiently strong; if it were not, the teeth would not come
in properly. Why? Well, you must understand that what is
contained in a tooth comes out of the whole body. The second
teeth emerge from within the whole system; they are the product
not just of something in the jaw but of the whole body. This is
true only of the second teeth, however, for the first teeth,
the so-called milk teeth, are completely different. They are
the result of heredity, of the fact that the child's mother and
father have teeth. Only after the milk teeth are expelled in
the course of the first seven years does the child get its own
teeth. The body must make the second teeth for itself.
Actually, a child nine or ten years old already has its
second body. It has already completely discarded the one
it had inherited, and comes into possession of its own body
only around the age of seven. During these first seven years it
demonstrates that it was born with enough resistance to
tolerate air and nourishment. After it has built up its
body and produced its second teeth, the danger of falling ill
is no longer so acute. The danger is most acute in earliest
infancy while it is learning to cope for itself in breathing,
eating, that is, everything that once was done for it within
the protection of the mother's womb. In these early years the
head is actually in good shape; only with age does it become
less perfect. In old age the head doesn't work as well as it
did in infancy. It must think and occupy itself with the
surroundings and so something often goes amiss. But the infant
does not yet need to learn anything, go to school or possess
skills. The head works only on the child's own body, and in
most cases it does this quite well. During these tender years,
however, when the human being is just becoming used to the
world, the rest of the body is quite vulnerable. Modern science
also has described these matters but not quite as I have, for
what I tell you is exact. Popular science does not really
comprehend the whole process and cannot explain why the human
being is most vulnerable in its earliest years. It cannot come
to terms with this fact because it explains away the soul and
spirit.
In
reality, soul-spiritual elements are united with the child,
mainly with the head, while it is still in the mother's womb
and after birth. The forces that work on the child from within
the head are invisible soul-spiritual forces. Should any of you
think that this is merely an arbitrary opinion, you would be
committing the same error as one of the following men. Suppose
one man says, “Here is a piece of iron,” and the
other says, “Fine! I'll shoe my horse with it.” The
first man then says, “No, it would be stupid to shoe your
horse with this. It's a magnet, and it has a hidden force.
Magnets are used for quite other things than for shoeing
horses!” The one man thinks the piece of iron should be
used for a horseshoe, while the other knows that it is a
magnet containing an invisible force. Well, the person who
says, in accordance with materialistic science, “The head
is nothing but a bit of bones and brains,” is just like
the fellow who says of the magnet, “This is a
horseshoe.” Indeed, it is not a horseshoe, nor is
the head of the infant just flesh and bone. Within it invisible
forces are working like a sculptor to build up the whole
organism. The human form is among those things the child keeps
as an inheritance, but the forces that, during the first seven
years, tirelessly build up this form from the head are brought
into the world not from the parents but from quite another
source.
Suppose a man received these forces from his parents. Well,
gentlemen, if a parent is a genius, does that make the child a
genius as well? Or if a child is a genius, does that mean the
parents were also highly gifted? Not at all! Goethe, for
example, was certainly a genius, but his father was a dreadful
philistine, and his mother was a kind and pleasant woman who
could tell a good story but surely was no genius. Goethe's son
was rather stupid; he was no genius either. Whatever pertains
to the soul and spirit is not hereditary; it is brought into
this world from quite other realms and then is united with the
part that is inherited. Aside from the time he spends in his
mother's womb, man lives before birth as a being of soul
and spirit.
The
only reason people disavow this today is that all through the
Middle Ages the Catholic Church forbade anyone to ascribe
to man a life of soul and spirit before birth. It assumed that
the soul was created at birth by a God whose nature was also
assumed. So throughout the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church
forbade the concept of pre-existence, as it was called, meaning
“existence before, prior to birth.” Modern
materialistic science has merely followed suit and then
congratulated itself on its cleverness. Now people think they
are extraordinarily clever to hold this opinion;
unfortunately, they fail to realize how they were
conditioned to do so.
In
truth, man not only inherits a physical existence from his
parents and forebears but also brings into the world a
soul-spiritual element that works within him. If one does not
acknowledge that the soul-spiritual aspect is present before
birth, one cannot see that the same soul and spirit remain
after death; at most, one can believe it. Knowledge of the
immortality of the soul is dependent on knowledge of its
existence before birth. If one maintains that the soul came
into being with the creation of the body, then, of course, a
divine creator would have the privilege of letting the soul
disappear upon the body's dissolution. If, however, it is
the soul that builds up the body in the first place, then it
certainly remains unaffected when the body dies.
Thus,
the existence of the human soul follows readily from all the
aspects that one can correctly observe. Indeed, how could the
soul die, since it is the soul itself that builds up the
physical body! One would have to investigate far
different regions to discover whether or not the soul can
perish. In future lectures we shall consider this question and
find that it cannot die in these realms either. It obviously
cannot die with the body because it is the soul that built it
up.
We
have now become acquainted with illnesses that originate
because the soul-spiritual element works out of the head, and
the body is malfunctioning. But the blood circulation can
also be too slow. Stagnation sets in and the blood then
suppurates. Still, something entirely different can
happen, too. The infant may be too weak to absorb
nourishment through its intestines into its blood. Because the
body is too weak, nourishment does not pass through the villi
and the child becomes afflicted with diarrhoea. What should
have been absorbed to remain longer in the body is expelled.
Because the food was not properly digested, diarrhoea results,
and the substance is discharged unchanged. This is connected
with something else. Obviously, a child can get diarrhoea in
different degrees, and it may even get summer cholera.
Whatever the degree, however, it is only the first stage. If
the child cannot digest its food for a considerable
length of time, its inner organs cannot be built up properly.
The head constantly wants to work on them, but the inner organs
cannot be correctly constructed because the necessary
substances are lacking. Say you were working on a statue
and ran out of clay but continued to make empty-handed motions
in the air. In a like manner the head starts to move and fidget
around when the child lacks the substance from which its organs
can be built. It wants to form the heart or stomach but can
only aimlessly fidget about because the substances the head
should have received have been eliminated causing
diarrhoea.
The
educated but materialistic scientist faces a complete puzzle
here. He examines the child, discovers diarrhoea and prescribes
some medication to stop it. As a result, food will merely
accumulate in the intestines because they cannot be absorbed,
and the child will get nothing more than a swollen stomach. If
one were to examine the organism further, one would discover
that the heart is malformed, that it is an empty pouch, or that
the lungs are empty sacks. They want to be formed but lack the
necessary substances. The forces originating from the head that
penetrate into the lungs, which may now be empty sacks, need
something to grasp and work with. I can grasp this chair and
shake it or, without having taken hold of it, I can
merely fidget about like an idiot. But what happens when the
head forces fidget about in the lungs? Convulsions occur. A
rational explanation of convulsions must acknowledge that
the head is fidgeting around and finds no support. Diarrhoea
may be explained materialistically but convulsions can no
longer be accounted for along these lines.
All
this demonstrates that in the infant the soul-spiritual
processes are at their height of activity. Later, this activity
subsides. Up to the child's sixth or seventh years, however,
these spiritual forces are so active that they can separate
minute amounts of matter from food that will constitute the
second teeth. Imagine having to do that yourself! You would
have to be clever enough to distinguish the magnesium salts and
carbonates contained in the food. Even if you could do that you
would first have to analyse the teeth chemically and learn from
them themselves. The teeth made artificially today are
not living teeth; no one really knows how teeth are produced.
Yet minute portions of the nourishment the child receives up to
its seventh year are withdrawn to make the second teeth.
Furthermore, to correctly separate the various substances you
would need to know not only the chemical composition of food
and teeth but also the activity in the stomach. What happens to
the minute particles secreted in the second or third years? How
do you retain them long enough in the blood stream so that, at
just the right time, during the sixth and seventh years, they
will penetrate the jaws to build up the teeth? All this that
must be accomplished is done unconsciously by the child's soul
and spirit. No one here would feel insulted if I said that you
cannot produce or make one hair grow on your head. But a child
can. It drives the proper substances to the spot where the hair
takes root and then offers them to the light, for hair grows
under the influence of light. All this occurs in the
child, but modern science is unwilling to consider these
aspects. It leaves people in the dark by refusing to
acknowledge that soul-spiritual forces work within the organism
that originate, not from the parents, but from the spiritual
world.
Let us
return to this matter of hair. Man normally grows hair only on
certain parts of his body, but once, ages ago, he was covered
completely with a shaggy growth of hair. Why did he lose it? I
will not give you a theory, which anyone can dream up, but
merely point out some facts. Consider another creature, the
pig. When pigs are free in nature, they are covered with hair,
but domesticated pigs lose it. In their natural habitat
wild boars grow thick coats of fur; when they are domesticated
and in surroundings not originally their own, they lose it.
Man, like the domesticated animals, did not originally live
under today's conditions. But there was a time when, under the
influence of light and warmth, he grew hair all over his body,
and we may witness this fact today in an embryo a few months
old. During the first months of pregnancy the whole
embryo, insofar as it is only a head, is covered with hair.
Later, the hair disappears. I have already explained how plants
in their first stage of growth utilize light and warmth from
the previous year. Likewise, the child has hair on account of
the light and warmth emanating from the mother. Only later is
it lost. So a consideration of hair, too, can show us how
forces of soul and spirit work on the body.
I have
said that the human being is most healthy during the school
years, between the ages of seven and fourteen. Why is this so?
Only those children who can develop those strong forces that
produce the second teeth survive. During that period, the child
unfolds vigorous forces, but they must first be acquired in the
earliest years through radical adaptation. Everything that the
head accomplishes within the organism is most pronounced during
those early years. Though the child is unaware of its activity,
the head must really exert itself and be a great artisan. It
has to overcome the body's constant resistance all by itself
because it gets no support in its continual and taxing efforts
during the first seven years. This tremendous strain causes all
those illnesses I have told you about.
Let us
now suppose that the circulation of the blood is
malfunctioning, not on account of its absorbing too little
nourishment, but because it absorbs too much. This can also
happen. Indeed, the parents, who often think it is best to
stuff the baby with food, may not be as wise as the organism.
They can hardly be reproached for this practice, though,
because it is usually quite difficult to tell when the child
has had enough. Children know their limits, as a rule, through
their own inherent wisdom and instinct. If the mother
produces too much milk, however, and it is fed to the
child, its instinct will become uncertain through eating too
much. Now, if too much food is absorbed by the system, the head
cannot keep up; it cannot handle too large an amount and will
try to eliminate the surplus. The food has already been
absorbed into the blood through the intestines, however, so the
head cannot eliminate the surplus in the normal way. What does
it do then? It discharges the superfluous substances through
the skin. Measles and scarlet fever are the result.
These
illnesses differ completely from diarrhoea and
convulsions. A child gets the latter because it does not
receive enough food and its forces fidget around aimlessly
within the body. When too much food is absorbed, however, it
must somehow be eliminated, occasionally even through the
lungs. Diphtheria and pneumonia are the body's defence measures
used to rid itself of substances it cannot otherwise eliminate
through the skin. When one understands the human being and the
processes that occur in the body, one finds it quite natural
that an infant is susceptible to these illnesses.
A
child can be afflicted with yet other diseases. Take the case
of a child who is too weak to produce his second teeth. His
milk teeth were inherited and required no effort from his
system. Now, it can happen that the forces unable to
produce the new teeth are diverted into the lungs. The
lungs become inflamed and the child gets pneumonia. You see,
the human body is extremely complicated, and when a child falls
ill with pneumonia the doctor should examine the
condition not only of the lungs but also of the kidneys,
stomach, etc. When an illness arises, one must always examine
the whole body and not just the part immediately affected.
When a
child has reached the age of seven, however, its breathing
processes have become sufficiently developed to function
without the intervention of the head. In the infant the head
must constantly regulate the breathing. It must not only build
up the teeth but also care for the organs of breathing.
When the head has been relieved of these tasks at age seven or
eight, the child is now in a position to breathe
properly. It is of utmost importance to realize that with
the second teeth the child can bring order into its breathing,
and can receive its second lungs and bronchi, as it were, which
have by now been built up. The child no longer breathes with a
weak inherited organism but with the new one that has been
built up. Now it is in quite a different situation; now it has
support. It is one thing if the child has inherited from, say,
a weak mother and father, a breathing apparatus that must be
directed from a head that is too weak, and it is quite another
thing if it has properly built up a second apparatus suited to
its needs. A head that is too weak simply cannot build up the
lungs properly. Thus, because from age seven to fourteen the
organs of breathing are in such fine shape, the individual is
then at his healthiest. The positive aspect of these years is
that the breathing process is at its best. With the onset of
puberty, however, some of the nourishment is now diverted to
this development. In the younger child substances are not yet
absorbed through the later processes of puberty, but now
digestion must take a completely new form. The reason is easily
understood, for something completely new has come into play and
its food is diverted in a new direction. From the age of
puberty onward the mature organs of breathing cause the
digestive organs to readjust so that the right counter-pressure
is exerted from the stomach and intestines, since some of what
earlier constituted the overall pressure was diverted. Now, the
proper counter-pressure must come about. No wonder that anaemia
and other illnesses afflict girls of this age since the organism
must take time to adjust.
From
age seven to fourteen the child enjoys its greatest protection
from illness. In earlier years the head must make a tremendous
effort to work into the rest of the organism and it must adjust
to this task. Then, during the school years, the child is at
its healthiest. The second breathing system is unhindered
and can freely distribute the oxygen to the benefit of both the
brain and the digestion. As I have mentioned before, things can
be upset only through outside causes — activities in
school and the like.
But
now the child reaches puberty. Look at a boy. Up to this point
he has perfected his body and is as healthy as a human being
can be. He has successfully renewed his organism and
everything has gone smoothly. But with the onset of puberty his
metabolism begins to affect his whole body. The processes of
digestion begin to work upward into his breathing system
and, as a result, his voice changes. At the age when he must
again reform his organism, the metabolic system becomes
influential. This is expressed in a deepening of the voice. He
must make new exertions and again illnesses threaten.
You
see, only when we observe the human being in this manner are we
able to answer the question one of you gentlemen posed
last time. Otherwise, we cannot even think about it, let alone
learn anything. But knowing now that it is the head that works
the most during the first seven years, what conclusion may we
reach? You must understand that, while the head is developed in
the mother's organism, it is not merely formed by conception
and substance but by the whole universe. The mother's
substances represent only the foundation on which the
form occurs. The head is a representation, an image of
the universe. Its roundness indicates the working of the whole
universe, and it is no idle fancy that the starry heavens work
upon the skull, which is sometimes covered by a stupid looking
hat. It is as true as this fact that I've mentioned to you
before. Suppose we have a compass; the magnetic needle always
points north, not just anywhere. Now, no one thinks that the
needle contains the forces that determine its position.
Everyone agrees that it is the magnetic forces of the earth,
and that the needle takes its direction from these earthly
forces. Everyone comprehends that. Yet, in regard to human
embryonic development, men falsely think it all arises from
conception. It would be just as clever to think that the
direction pointed to by the magnetic needle was determined by
its own forces.
The
human head represents the whole cosmos, and this it is that has
worked upon it. In addition, these forces bestowed by the
universe continue to work within the child through its head. To
build up the lungs, for example, the head must receive
the right forces from the universe. To perfect the
kidneys, forces must be received from far-off regions,
from Jupiter, for instance. This is no idle fancy. It can be
investigated just as other, physical matters can be
investigated. Thus, when a child is born, it carries within its
head all the forces of the universe.
Of
course, it is nonsense to say that the moon, sun or Jupiter
have an influence on an organ, or to cast a horoscope thinking
the planet Jupiter, for example, is dominant. The head is
formed from the whole universe, and the forces that work on the
human being during the first seven years have been given to the
head from the cosmos. During the next seven years, man becomes
increasingly accustomed to the earth's atmosphere, so that
whereas before he was influenced by the stars, he is now
influenced by the air.
After
this period the substances of digestion and the metabolic
system play such an important part that they can even affect
the voice. What does this mean? It is all a result of what we
absorb through digestion from the earth. I have already
explained to you this process of how, for example, substances
from the earth must first be made lifeless within the
intestines. This becomes man's main task when he reaches
puberty. At that time he becomes dependent on the earth. As
males we owe our voices first of all to the air, but the
deepening results from the action of earthly substances. We can
be born on earth because originally we were beings of the
stars. After birth we let the forces we have brought with us
from the starry worlds echo within our organisms. Then we
become beings of the air. Only at puberty are we assigned to
the earth to become its beings. Only then do we become attached
to those things that fetter us to this planet. Thus, you see
the course of man's descent to the earth from the cosmos.
Often
materialists blindly fantasize about human development.
They do not realize that man gradually accustoms himself to the
earth and then, in old age, grows away from it. For what
happens in old age? The forces we possess in advanced age
we also possessed in youth. They hardened the bones while the
other parts stayed pliable. But in old age the forces contained
in the bones pass into the rest of the body, and the initial
result is arteriosclerosis. The arteries harden, and the brain
can calcify. Actually, the brain must always contain a minute
amount of what arises through calcification. The child
would be dull if its brain lacked these minute traces of
calcium secreted by the pineal gland. The soul could not act;
it would not have the substances in which to work. But if later
in old age too much calcium is secreted and calcification
occurs, the soul again cannot direct matters because it
encounters too much resistance. This can result in paralysis or
apoplexy or some other kinds of stroke. One can also become
senile, since one can no longer take hold of and use the brain.
Calcification in other parts of the body has the same effect,
lifting one out of the region of the earthly forces. Thus we
can see how man, up to the end of puberty, grows into the
forces of the earth and how, later, when the secreted deposits
become increasingly resistant and the soul's activity is
impeded, he grows away from the earth.
So you
see that it is, in fact, possible to discover what man has
received and brought down from the universe. But one must not
fall for superstitions such as a certain star is
influencing the lung of a thirty-five year old man even
though the lung has indeed been built up by the forces that
initially descended from the stars into the head of the
infant.
By
examining such things scientifically, one arrives at a real
science of the spirit. A spiritual science exists, and it can
be studied just like any other science. We can belittle ancient
times as much as we like, but in those days people did know
something. Granted, we cannot bring back the past; what was
right for people then is not so for us today. But if once again
we have men who understand the world and man, men who know that
the human head is not just produced in the mother's womb as a
kind of pinhead, then we shall also have better politicians.
You see, gentlemen, a person who knows nothing of these matters
and of the nature of the human being cannot be a good
politician simply because he will not know what people need. It
is absolutely essential that once more there be men who really
know something about the world. This is what we must strive
for.
Schools must again teach people something of value.
Today, much importance is placed on learning the skills
required for making machines. Nothing can be said against this
from the standpoint of spiritual science because it is quite
worthwhile. But the skills needed to cope among human
beings are neglected. An abstract social science, ignorant of
man's needs, was invented and this is taught instead. Above
all, one must study man as we have done here, but unhappily
what I told you is not taught. Look back on your own school
days! Where is something like this taught today? That is what
our age lacks. Teaching men the things they learn today
is about as good for them as feeding them rocks instead of
bread. Maybe the stomach of a goose can take rocks but that of
a human being cannot! To do so would ruin the digestive
system, and when you teach men what is being taught today, you
actually ruin their heads. You know that the arm becomes weak
if it is unused, and the head also becomes weak if it is not
used in the right way. While the head was developing in the
mother, it received forces from the stars. If it is told
nothing about them, if it entertains no thoughts of them, it
grows weak, just as muscles do when they are not exercised. If
the child learns nothing of the real world, it remains
weak. The worst thing about conditions today is that people
have weak heads and do not understand anything about one
another. They separate themselves according to social standing
and do not speak to those of other classes. This is like
training a man to become an athlete while neglecting his
biceps. If, in educating men, I leave their heads weak, they
will not know the very thing that matters most. This is how
things stand.
When
children have finished building up their organisms with
inherent, unconscious wisdom and have received their second
teeth, it is of utmost importance to impart to them something
that they have previously employed unconsciously. Then do
they become proper human beings, people who can direct their
thoughts properly and conceive of spiritual science in the
right way. Once social thinking is ruined, nothing rational can
be achieved. But if we make use of a genuine science of the
spirit, much can be improved in that respect.
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