IX
The Relationship of the Planets to the Metals and their
Healing Effects
Dr. Steiner: Do any of you gentlemen have a question you
would like to have discussed?
Question: I would like to ask what the world was like in
primeval times. Had the planets Venus, Mercury, and so on
deposited various metallic substances?
Dr. Steiner: If this is considered simply in the way it
is frequently stated in old books — in the new ones
nothing is said about it, except in our anthroposophical books
— that the planet Venus has something to do with the
copper deposited in the earth, for example, then this is merely
a matter of belief. People gain nothing but a mental image of
it by being told that though it was once known by men of old
nothing is really known about it today. When something like
this is to be discussed, one must really go into it in detail.
I would like to call your attention to the fact that modern
medicine also no longer knows much about these things. Only a
few centuries ago when symptoms of illness appeared in people,
the great majority of remedies were based on the use of a metal
or one of the plant substances.
Nothing has remained of this knowledge except that for certain
symptoms, which appear particularly in syphilis, quicksilver,
or mercury, must be employed as a remedy. One therefore makes
use of mercury. Please note that nobody in medicine today can
really explain why mercury is effective; it is used simply
because it has been seen to be effective. Regarding this effect
of mercury on syphilitic diseases, one must also mention that
in recent times a number of other medications have replaced
mercury. The not entirely irreproachable effectiveness of the
famous new remedies that have replaced mercury today has
already been recognized, and medicine will soon return to the
mercuric remedies.
You
can be convinced in a remarkable way that the instinct for
healing — not today's science but the instinct for
healing — works in mercury in a very strong way. There
are certain regions in which people who were not doctors but
acted out of their instinct for healing treated a syphilitic
illness in the following way (today this rarely happens, but
three or four decades ago it still occurred). They took animals
that live partly underground and that therefore take in some
dirt along with their food, animals such as salamanders, toads,
and similar creatures. People took these animals, dehydrated
and pulverized them, and then gave this preparation to
syphilitic patients. This was a kind of remedy.
Now, on the face of it, this is completely incomprehensible. It
becomes comprehensible only when one knows that in some regions
these toad remedies do not help syphilitics while in other
regions they are most effective. When one investigates these
regions where it is effective, mercury mines are found in them.
It is curious that in regions where mercury is present, the
animals absorb it with their food, and it is the mercury that
effects the cure. It is not the toad but the mercury that the
toad has consumed and assimilated into its body that has the
healing effect.
You
become aware of two things from this. First, that a remarkable
instinct for healing is present in people who are not as yet
spoiled by ordinary science; second, that if a living creature
absorbs something — and a toad is indeed a living
creature — it permeates its whole body, it spreads
through its whole body. This is true to an even greater extent
in the case of humans. Since we used the example of
mercury-based remedies, I would like to mention the
following.
Only in the last few decades have matters terribly declined in
medicine as they have today. It was better when I was a little
boy. In Vienna, there lived a splendid professor of anatomy,
Joseph Hyrtl, who still knew a little — not very much,
but still a little — of the more ancient medicine. When,
in his clinic, he had the corpses of people available who at
one time had undergone mercury treatments, he would break their
bones open and show his students that little drops of mercury
were deposited in them. This is how a substance that a person
absorbs spreads throughout his body. It is the same in other
living creatures, and so toads that had assimilated mercury
into their whole bodies could be pulverized and used as a
remedy against syphilis.
Now
I will tell you how men hit on the idea of using mercury. for
such illnesses in earlier times when science had a totally
different character. When you observe the planetary system the
way we know it from school, the sun is here in the center; near
to the sun, the planet Mercury, a somewhat small planet,
circles the sun. A little farther out, Venus circles the sun.
Mercury is a small planet, and its orbit around the sun takes
place in a short time, about ninety days. Then comes Venus, and
it circles the sun more slowly. The next planet circling the
sun is the earth. Beyond the earth is Mars. Then come a great
number of tiny, miniature planets in orbit beyond Mars. There
are hundreds and hundreds of these tiny little planets; they
are in orbit. I would have to sketch a lot of planets, but they
are not that important and lack the great significance of the
larger planets. After these planets come Jupiter, circling the
sun, and still farther out, Saturn. Then come Uranus and
Neptune, but these two planets were discovered most recently. I
need not sketch them, since they circle much farther out and
their orbits exhibit such irregularities that in reality they
cannot be counted among the planets even today. This is how the
planets circle the sun, just as our moon circles the earth. It
circles the earth just as the other planets circle the sun.
Now, astronomy today looks at such a planetary system without
paying much attention to the influences that these planets have
on the beings living on the earth. One calculates the position
of a planet for a given time so that a telescope can be turned
toward it. This can be calculated. One can also figure out how
fast a planet moves. One can calculate all this. It is with
these calculations that people are concerned today.
Diagram 1.
You
see, however, that in the evolution of an entire universal
system, a few millennia are not a long time, and it was only
twenty-five to thirty-five hundred years ago that people looked
upon the planets in a completely different scientific way. At
that time the following was done. Illnesses, for example,
appeared in which, due to thickened blood — I shall tell
you why directly — people were afflicted with problems of
the intestines. I can't go into detail concerning these
critical illnesses now, because when these observations were
made in ancient times, they were not as extensive as they are
today. But in an illness of which observations were made in
Babylonia, Assyria, Nineveh, and so on, even in Egypt, people
became afflicted with an intestinal disorder that was due to
thickened blood, to abnormal processes in the blood. Blood was
present in the stools; typhoid-like diseases were after all
much more common in ancient times than they are nowadays. Let's
assume that the ancient doctors, who were also philosophers,
had to study such diseases. They didn't wait until the patient
was dead, because they knew that once a person had died, the
cure was not applicable. So they did not examine those who had
died of typhoid but proceeded differently. They noticed that
patients suffering from cholera, typhoid, dysentery, or such
felt better at certain times, and at others their overall
condition took a turn for the worse. So they concluded that
typhoid sometimes take? a good and sometimes a fatal course.
There are some people who, when they fall ill with typhoid or
cholera, occasionally undergo terrible attacks of dizziness
almost to the point of losing consciousness; then events take a
most critical turn. Some patients retain consciousness,
however, and their heads remain clear. These patients can be
helped.
Now, the ancient doctors maintained that man not only lives and
depends on the earth but is also dependent on the entire
universe. They therefore made the following observations. We
can use here the planetary system taught us in school. Here is
the earth with the sun's rays shining on it. The sun's rays
fall on the earth. As you know, man depends much on sunlight,
and we have always used this as a basis of our studies here.
Now, these ancient doctors didn't put such great emphasis on
the sun, because they felt that its effects were quite obvious,
but they observed people who had severe diarrhea, for example,
and they noted that some of them suffered attacks of dizziness
at certain times; their heads became foggy. The heads of others
who suffered from severe diarrhea remained clear, and they only
became a little dizzy. These doctors realized that this
difference was related to the time the illness occurred. At
certain times, nothing could really be done for these patients;
without fail, they became very dizzy and then died. At other
times, the diarrhea took a lighter course.
So
these doctors began to observe the stars and found that in
those times when these typhoid-like illnesses took a good
course, the planet Venus always stood in such a position that
it was blocked by the earth. If the earth is there (see sketch
on left), Venus can be located here. If a person is located
there on the far side of the earth, no rays from Venus reach
him. Since the light of Venus can't pass through the earth, the
earth covers Venus for him. The ancients, of course, recognized
this, since they could not see Venus, as it was blocked by the
earth. Now, they continued their observations and discovered
that the prognosis was good for a person ill with typhoid in
the times when Venus was blocked by the earth. When Venus was
not blocked, however, the typhoid patient was subject to
Venus's light in addition to sunlight (see sketch on right).
Then the prognosis was bad; the head became dizzy, and the
typhoid could not be cured.
Diagram 2.
Having learned this, these doctors said that since Venus'
shining rays pass through the earth, something must be
contained in the earth that alters Venus' rays. Now they began
to experiment, not with dead people but with patients who were
still alive. Nothing happened to those ill with typhoid when
lead was given. Regardless of Venus' position, remedies of iron
also made no difference. When a typhoid patient was given
copper, however, it had a remarkable effect. It offset the
dizziness, and the patient began to recover. Aha, said these
ancient doctors, copper must be contained within the earth
somehow. This copper works within the earth and influences the
course of typhoid in a way opposite to that of the detrimental
influence of Venus' rays. When these rays hit a typhoid patient
directly, they aggravate the effects of the disease, but when
copper is given to them, it impedes the progress of typhoid.
They now concluded that Venus in a certain way is connected
with copper. It was not as if they had held seances and a
medium had told them to use copper in cases of typhoid.
Instead, they made observations of a kind no longer made today,
which were based on an ancient instinct and functioned just as
scientifically. So they concluded that in the earth there is
copper. This copper is related to the force emanating from
Venus. This is seen in the special effect it has on this
illness.
They made other observations as well. Take, for example, the
case of a patient with problems of vision, a disturbance in the
eyes. People can get ailments of the eyes in which vision can
become blurred; the pupils can contract. One can have any
number of eye ailments. Now, the ancients again experimented
and discovered that when the earth blocks Jupiter, eye problems
improve more than if Jupiter shines directly on the earth. They
explored further and asked what it is that is in the earth that
counteracts Jupiter, and they found that it was tin,
particularly when tin was extracted from plants.
Gradually, based on the effects on the human being, they thus
discovered the correspondence between the planets and the
metals contained in the earth. They found that Venus is
connected with copper, Jupiter with tin, and Saturn with lead.
They found that cases of bone diseases, which can also appear
in lead poisoning, have something to do with the rays from
Saturn; so, for Saturn, they discovered the effects of
lead.
For
Mars, which has something to do with ailments of the blood, it
was easier to find the corresponding metal, iron. Therefore,
Mars = iron. For the moon, which stands in a completely
different relation since it orbits the earth, they discovered
something similar, namely, silver: moon = silver.
Now, this way of looking at things was completely abandoned
later on. Do not assume, however, that it was long ago that
such observations were abandoned; it was only three or four
hundred years ago that these observations were no longer made.
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries these observations
were still made. What was the conclusion? People told
themselves that everything that is now separated into the
different planets was once contained within one primordial mash
[Urbrei], one universal mist. This concept is quite
accurate; it is only wrong to picture that everything can
develop out of such a universal mist without spiritual
influences. Otherwise one imagines the great universal
schoolmaster who controls everything, as I have told you
earlier! No, but it was once known that everything was at one
time dissolved in a kind of primordial mash. p here was no sun,
moon, or earth; they were all dissolved in the primordial mash
and separated only later.
Through the copper contained within the earth, the planet Venus
still exerts an influence. When Venus was still dissolved in
the primordial mash, it had a special affinity with copper. It
was at that time that this bond between them arose. When the
moon was still dissolved in everything, silver stood in a
special relation to the moon. This knowledge was not a divine
revelation, however, nor was it based on arbitrary,
authoritarian dictation. Rather, it was founded on ancient
observations.
It
was due to special circumstances that syphilitic illnesses came
into being; in modern centuries, the so-called civilized
peoples came into contact with primitive peoples, and there was
an interbreeding, a sexual interbreeding of the civilized with
the primitive peoples. These syphilitic illnesses were less
prevalent when the peoples of the earth were more segregated
into races. The way illnesses have arisen, as with syphilitic
illnesses, is that something first causes them, but then they
reproduce themselves. They become contagious. Something
originally must have caused them to arise. The syphilitic
illnesses arose through individuals of different races
interbreeding sexually with one another. A syphilitic infection
cannot occur, for example, except through a small, concealed
lesion or worn tissue through which the contagious substance
may enter the blood stream. The contagious syphilitic substance
can be smeared on the skin, but if the skin is completely
impermeable an infection can't occur. An infection can arise
only when the skin is so worn or broken in some spot that the
infectious substance can enter through it. You can understand
that the infectious substance of syphilis must first have
originated where contrasting foreign bloods intermingled. After
that, the poison naturally reproduced, but it arose originally
when a great interbreeding increasingly occurred among
different peoples. It would probably be interesting to explore
the statistics of case histories of this illness in a certain
part of Europe that employs various exotic peoples, since the
occurrences of sexual excesses with them cannot always be
prevented.
You
see, isolated cases of syphilis have also occurred in the past,
but the more numerous incidents are of recent date. They also
occurred, however, in that age when something was still known
of the ancient science. Observations then showed that
syphilitic patients improve when Mercury is blocked by the
earth. So it was discovered that quicksilver, or mercury, is
related to the planet Mercury. In this way the metals were
gradually assigned to the planets:
Mercury
|
-
|
quicksilver, or mercury
|
Venus
|
-
|
copper
|
Jupiter
|
-
|
tin
|
Saturn
|
-
|
lead
|
Mars
|
-
|
iron
|
Moon
|
-
|
silver
|
|
People told themselves that when everything was dissolved in
the primordial mash, it was the Venus substance that caused
copper to be deposited in the earth, and it was the moon that
caused silver to be deposited in the earth.
You
see, such observations can be extended. It is remarkable how,
at a certain time, it became fashionable in particular circles
to make a secret of this ancient science. To this day there are
books that a person without knowledge of anthroposophy cannot
really read, because he wouldn't be able to make anything of
them. All kinds of things are written in them, but people no
longer know how to read them today. A Swedish scientist, for
example, obtained such a book by Basilius Valentinus, which is
rather old, and, in writing about it from the standpoint of
today's chemistry, he said that what Valentinus had stated was
the purest nonsense. He is right to say this, of course,
because chemists today use the terms mercury, iron, and so
forth, in such a way that they have no reference at all to the
human being. A chemist, therefore, though he may be a genius,
cannot make anything of what is written in books such as those
by Basilius Valentinus. He cannot help thinking that he is
quite right in saying that it is complete nonsense.
This is not really so, however, because Valentinus still wrote
in an age when, for example, it was known that a woman's period
occurs every twenty-eight days, as does the full moon. The
ancients were certainly clever enough not to attribute a
woman's flow of blood to the moon's influence. They told
themselves, however, that its rhythm was the same, so there
must have been a connection somehow in earlier times. Now man
has freed himself from this connection. This is something they
knew, but they realized that a woman had a similar rhythm to
that which the universe has in the moonlight.
They also knew that when a woman who is having difficulty
giving birth and has been in labor for a long time is given a
medication containing silver, the labor pains become less
severe. This was known. It was also known that if there were no
visible moon, it being blocked by the earth, as it were, a
woman who might have a difficult time giving birth would not
have such a painful labor. The influence of silver thus was
seen to be connected with the moon.
In
Basilius Valentinus' books, “moon” is often written
in the place of “silver,” and “silver”
instead of “moon.” When this Swedish scientist
reads that, he obviously can make nothing of it, regardless of
how well informed he is about silver and how it works in a
chemical process. It is a complicated matter. You see, the one
who wrote the works of Basilius Valentinus was a Benedictine
monk. Such things as this science were nurtured to a
significant degree in Benedictine monasteries in past times,
and Benedictine monks were extraordinarily clever in such
things.
Today, a Father Mager, who is also a Benedictine monk, travels
from one German city to another giving everywhere the same
lecture against anthroposophy. Everywhere in the German cities
this Father Mager harangues against anthroposophy. Just
recently he was in Cologne. The enemies of anthroposophy differ
greatly from one another. When the Jesuits speak against
anthroposophy, it differs from what the Benedictine monks say
against anthroposophy.
Indeed, this is how it is today. The Church suppresses a
science that reaches beyond the earth. Gentlemen, do you know
what began in a particular time? In a particular time, the
Church authorities began to conceal and gradually suppress this
science that had flourished in the monasteries. Such a science
requires a great deal of time, but the monks had this time;
they cultivated this science and thereby were quite useful to
humanity in the past. Gradually this was suppressed, however.
This suppression of the spiritual science often came about in
this way.
Today's secular scientists now condemn this ancient science
without realizing that a direct line leads from such monks of
the Church to them. When monists stand up against
anthroposophy, they naturally also object to the Church, but
they do not realize that they are its proper pupils. Today's
scientists are, in a certain sense, truly Benedictine or Jesuit
pupils. They never attended Jesuitical seminars, because such
thinking really can be absorbed in the outside world. This is
naturally something that must also be taken into
consideration.
From what has been said, you can see that the earth on which we
live and that yields its various metals to us was crystallized
from the primordial mash. What we behold outwardly as the
planets, however, has remained behind as metals in the earth.
What the earth once did together with Venus has remained in the
metal copper. To heal with copper — this is what is
accomplished specifically through Venus.
Metals extracted from plants today are especially effective in
healing. A metal deposited in the earth has hardened and has
lost some of its potency, although it is still effective
against head ailments. But copper from the leaves of a plant
known to contain quite a bit of it — the amounts are
always small, but one can say “quite a bit” —
is especially effective. There are such plants in the leaves of
which copper is dissolved. If remedies are then made from such
plants, they are particularly useful in intestinal disturbances
that are due to a thickening of the blood and that lead to
typhoid, dysentery, and the like.
This is how healing is related to what can be known about
plants. You can see that today things are no longer in order
when even the thickest book on botany, although containing all
kinds of information, nevertheless lacks the most important
instruction medical men should have; that is, there is no
mention in these books of the metals that are dissolved in
blossoms or roots. If at all, they are noted only in passing.
This is a most important point, however, because it shows us
that a plant that still contains copper today, for example, is
related in its growth process to the planet Venus; it actually
opposes the force of Venus and develops its own Venus force by
absorbing copper into itself.
We
can thus say that once there was a connection between the earth
and all the planets that circle the sun today, and this
influence has remained behind in the metals. This is what can
be said first in reference to this question.
From the foregoing, you can see how important it is to refer
back to observations of this kind that existed in the past. We
are no longer in the same position, however, that they were in
then, because we no longer possess the instincts for healing
they once had. Only oxen, cows, sheep, and other animals, not
human beings, have really retained a marvelous healing
instinct, and they avoid eating harmful things and pass up
anything that wouldn't be good for them. This is no longer
possible for a human being, since he no longer has the healing
instinct. Today, by the roundabout way of a spiritual science,
we must once again learn to recognize how everything in the
planetary system and in the universe, is connected with the
earthly plane. Here one must begin at the beginning, one must
truly begin at the very beginning.
One
must realize the following, for example. One must begin with
illnesses that take hold of the human abdomen. If one has such
an abdominal illness, one comes to know that the substances
present in the blossoms or the highest leaves of plants are
especially helpful. Good remedies can be produced for illnesses
of the abdominal organs by extracting certain substances from
the blossoms and leaves of plants.
Substances taken from the roots of plants, however, provide
especially beneficial remedies for everything connected with
the human head. Matters are reversed with plants and with the
human being. With plants, the roots are at the bottom and the
blossoms are at the top. Man, however, is an upside-down plant.
What is root element in the plant is actually in the head of
the human being, and the blossom element is more in his
abdominal region. You can see this even in the external forms.
Man has his head at the top, and his reproductive organs are
below. The plant has its roots below, while the blossoms,
containing the organs of reproduction, are above. This drawing
will help you to understand this. Here is the human being; here
at the head I draw the root of a correspondingly large plant;
here are the stems and leaves. Then, with the blossoms, I come
to the abdominal organs. An entire plant is contained within
man. The only difference is that it grows from the top downward
in him. In a certain sense, man is also a plant. Isn't this
apparent? It really is so obvious that everyone must see it.
The animal, however, is between the two; in it, the plant is in
a horizontal position.
Diagram 3.
This is really not just a picture; the plant is truly contained
within man. Of course, it develops in accordance with the human
form. But imagine that I were to draw this plant in detail,
sketching a real bulbous root and the various branches —
in other words, a real tree. It would be inverted, however.
Here it would have its branches, and the outermost tips would
wither a little here and there; there you have the nervous
system! The nervous system is truly an inverted plant within
man that is continuously dying a little.
Now, we know that plants grow out of the earth. First, there is
winter, then come spring and summer that coax the plants from
the earth. Within the earth is the winter's force. Through this
the plant forms its bulbous root and has its root force. Then
comes the summer's force, and the plant is coaxed upward; it is
from the earth's circumference that the plants are drawn forth.
Within are the metals — copper, let us say. The sun
cannot do anything but coax forth a plant from the earth. Then,
once the plant has emerged, it defends itself against the Venus
forces. The force of winter from the earth and the summer's
force from the universe together make the plant grow.
Diagram 4.
The
human being, however, must have this winter force within his
head in order that this root of the nervous system grow
downward throughout the year. Since a baby, for example, can be
born at any time of year, this force must be present in man's
head in summer as well as winter. In our day he cannot in
summer receive from outside the winter force in his head. This
really implies that in primeval times, when the earth was still
one with the other planets in the primordial mash, the human
being must have absorbed this winter force, which has been
handed down to this day. Man owes the winter force in his head
to those most ancient times. The head of man was really made in
ancient times and today remains the same. So we again find that
man's head must be related to what arose on earth in ancient
times and today has become completely solidified.
Go
out into the primal mountains of central Switzerland and you
will find granite and gneiss to be especially prevalent. The
most active element in granite and gneiss is silicic acid,
which is present in quartz in pure form as silicic acid, or
silica. It is also the oldest substance on the earth and must
be related to the human head forces. This is why illnesses of
the head can be most readily cured with remedies made of
silica; one can approach the human head thereby. In the age
when silica still played a particular role on earth within the
primordial mash and was not as hard as it is today in granite
and gneiss, rather flowing like a liquid, the force present in
the human head was formed — the winter force — and
it has been preserved ever since.
So
one must really present information about the human being
taking into consideration the natural history of the whole
earth. This is still connected with the question you asked,
gentlemen, and with what I wanted to tell you about it. So
long!
|