Berlin
January 31st, 1907
Spiritual Science especially must have something to say about
the so-called spiritual illnesses (diseases of the mind),
Firstly the name is not chosen correctly — one should not
speak of spiritual diseases Further, the greatest errors have
spread in the lay-world, especially in this sphere, both in
learned and unlearned circles, and their literature. The
phenomenal forms are regarded as the things themselves. One
speaks of illusions of grandeur, persecution, religious mania,
etc. These ideas all designate symptoms. No one can become
demented through a religious idea. One can e.g. read the
extraordinary sentence —
Hölderlin
was diseased
through the discord between the modern and antique world-view.
If Hölderlin had not been a poet, the same dementia would
probably have come over him, only it would have expressed
itself differently, in different ideas. If one lives in
religious ideas, and then becomes ill, his religious ideas are
distorted. If he lived in materialistic ideas, then these are
confused. The bases for spiritual diseases lie deep in human
nature. The medicines of to-day create nothing positive in this
sphere. It has only hypotheses, doubts, surmises. Of course, it
is difficult indeed impossible, for materialists to get clarity
in those questions. Many things which the Doctor no longer
regards as mental disease, yet belong to it, e.g. frantic
complaining, also religious sectarianism, and fanaticism. The
latter live under an idea, as if under a fixed idea (compelling
idea), which exercises a great suggestive power on weak
natures, so that fashionable (?) diseases and thought-epidemics
arise.
How
can such things as insanity root itself in the being of man?
For this we must keep in mind the four lower members of man;
physical body, life body, astral body, and ego. The ego works
at the other three members of man's being. Above all it
ennobles and purifies the astral body by compelling it to
follow its own impulses no longer blindly. But the ego also
works into the life body and especially through the great
impulses of life, especially through ART. As in the astral
body, through the work of the Ego: 2 parts arise, a purified
and impurified, so the life body also now becomes two-fold. And
gradually that part which has been worked over by the ego
becomes ever greater and greater. The ego also works in the
physical, but unconsciously. Only a higher pupil of the
Initiates can do that consciously. In order to be able to
answer our question now we must call to mind re-incarnation. On
sleeping, something similar happens to us as is the case of
death. The astral body and the ego separate from the physical
body in sleep.
All
impulses and feelings then sink into an unconscious dark. The
physical and etheric bodies remain behind in the bed. The
etheric or life body also separates from the physical body at
death. In the next hours while man's being remains in the
etheric body, the former life passes before the soul in great
pictures for such a time, until the etheric body also is
released from it and. passes over into the general world-ether.
But only the substantial part of the etheric body dissolves.
The memory picture remains as an essence for all following
times united with the astral body and ego. At first it passes
over into the Kamaloka condition with them. Kamaloka, the place
of desire is the condition in which everything is stripped off
the astral body which still clings to earthly life.
Everything which has not yet been ennobled, dissolves. The rest
is taken up into all future time. Parts of the physical body
also go thus in quite a small measure, but only with very noble
human beings. On re-incarnating, man takes to himself again the
unennobled parts, in order to work further at their
purification. The more often man appears on earth, the firmer
becomes his character; the more refined his conscience, his
talents and powers all the greater and more numerous.
We
need above all the Hermetic Basic Sentence for the explanation
of mental diseases. Everything above is as below, and
everything below as above. The cheerfulness of man expresses
itself to us in the smiling countenance without anything
further. Tears announce inner grief of soul. Cheerfulness and
grief in this case we will call “the above.”
laughter and tears, which represent the material image
cheerfulness and grief, “the below.” A rightly
educated man sees the whole world differently. A flower is for
him the expression of the grief or joy of the Earth-Spirit. And
that is just as little merely a poetical thought. The
Earth-Spirit lies at the base of the earth as “the
upper.” All material is condensed spirit, just as ice is
merely condensed water. As one can melt ice and it becomes
water, so one can also transform matter so that it becomes
spirit. We distinguish the following physical parts in man,
which correspond to his upper members: —
-
Purely physical, which is built
according to purely physical laws, above all the
sense-organs.
-
Everything connected with growth,
digestion and procreation. That which builds crystals could
also build the human body, but it would then be a dead
organism. The etheric body is the architect, which builds
organs of digestion, etc.
-
Nervous system (brain and spinal
cord). The astral body is its architect.
-
The blood. The ego dwells in this
and is at the same time the architect of the
blood-system.
Blood circulation ------------------ Ego.
Nervous System ------------------- Astral Body.
Procreation ------------------------- Etheric Body.
Physical ---------------------------- Physical Body.
Everything physical is subject to the laws of physical
heredity; but also, the procreative organs, nerve system and
blood circulation. The individuality must unite itself with the
physical body. The ego with its ennobled astral and etheric
bodies, indeed even parts of the physical body, must harmonise
with what is inherited; together they must form a harmony.
Almost always a harmony also is really formed, for the physical
adapts itself to the spiritual (transforms itself). How, if
such an adaptation is not possible? How, if the astral body
gets a nervous system which it cannot employ straightway?
— as a rule, we do not reckon sense-illusions among
mental illnesses. A book of the Vienna criminal anthropologist
BENEDICT can here offer us many interesting things although it
is not written in an Anthroposophical sense. Benedict there
gives us his own experiences. He had a partial cataract in the
left eye so that he saw with some irregularity. If he looked in
the dark in a quite definite direction, he saw ghosts of a
quite special kind. He was once so horrified that he took up
arms. This is to be explained thus: a healthy man is not
conscious of the inner constituents of his eye. Whoever has
irregularities in the eye will become conscious of them in such
a way that they appear to him externally in mirror-images. We
will now extend that to the entire human being. We are not at
all conscious of our own inner being, but only of what is
transmitted to us from outside. If harmony prevails between the
ABOVE and the BELOW, then man is not at all conscious of inner
processes. If one has, e.g. an unwieldy head which the astral
body cannot use, then this disturbance which the astral body
suffers expresses itself outwards just as the disturbance in
the eye does. Then the astral body will become conscious of
itself because it is disturbed. It then sees itself projected
outwardly, hopes, wishes, desires, meet it in forms from
outside. Delusions, manias, hysteria, are connected with this
everything where man cannot bring his FEELINGS into harmony
with the outer world. But the etheric body too can suffer inner
abnormalities. It is the bearer of image-like ideas. If the
etheric body is unconscious of itself, then the images of the
outer meet him truly. If the disturbances of the etheric body
reflect. the images externally, then delusive ideas (paranoia)
arise. If the physical body itself is diseased, (which should
be in harmony with the physical environment,) — if the
physical body becomes conscious of itself, then idiocy appears.
If the physical body is too heavy so that the astral body
cannot dominate it, — cannot leave it, then what one
calls dementia appears. If the physical organs are too moveable
so that they cannot clearly express the soul — activity,
then paralysis arises. Yet there exists here a multiplicity of
oases which can have quite different origins, especially Ideas
of delusions:
-
Out of the projection of the astral body.
-
Out of disease of the same.
then the effects become so strong that frenzy, delirium arises.
These imprint themselves in the etheric body, and hence arise
delusions. These delusive ideas are like scars on the wound in
the astral body. They are much more difficult to cure than
delirium. Cataract of the pupil is a preparation for mania.
Only the fewest doctors know all this.
We
will now call to mind that man is born more than once. At first
physically but then at the change of teeth, the etheric body is
born, then at puberty the astral body. It can how happen that
first with the birth of the astral body, the discord is
noticeable between the ABOVE and the BELOW. Previously the
surrounding astral veil-maintained HARMONY. After the astral
birth, the astral body is left to itself and now appears the
discord between it and the physical body. This kind of insanity
expresses itself by the young person often giving the same
answer to quite different questions. He can also suffer with
fixed (compelling) ideas. One calls this disease
“Youthful imbecility.” Yet this does not appear
suddenly, but slowly prepares itself from the age of 11 to 12.
Conditions of depression, liability to fatigue, not getting on
with one's environment, headaches, disturbances in digestion
and sleep are the forerunners. It is sad if one considers that
most parents still punish their children for such ills, while
they regard these conditions as “peculiarities.” It
is just this youthful imbecility that is most difficult of all
to cure. But the spirit, as such, cannot be ill; for it is
always healthy.
It
is only disturbed when the BELOW does not accord with it. If
one looks at oneself in a distorting mirror, one sees a
caricature of oneself. No one concludes however from the
caricature that his true likeness is also distorted, thus it is
also with spiritual diseases. The forms of mania are
caricatures of the spirit in the physical. Hence a healing is
never possible on the path of logic, of abstract thoughts. Such
endeavours are utterly worthless. Even our bodily organs are
condensed spirit, even if not our spirit. And empty logical
forms stand furthest removed from the spirit, condensed to the
physical; nearest of all, however, are the imagelike
ideas of Imagination, saturated with Passion. These can drive
from the field the disease-producing power of other images. One
must give counter-ideas through the force and power of
another personality. One cannot demonstrate the illogicality to
the diseased through propositions, but one can work through
living presentation. The power of the personality must prove to
the diseased that, e.g. he yet CAN do what he believes he
cannot.
In
this sphere of the so-called mental diseases (spiritual
illnesses) ordinary science will one day have to unite with
Spiritual Science. An exhaustive study is necessary to have
always ready the necessary counter-ideas. Spiritual Science is
not devoid of deeds, it does not creep away to distant worlds.
It will co-operate practically. Because spiritual forces lie at
the basis of the world, we must learn to know them if we will
work in the world. Our material world is a copy of the
spiritual. We must get to know this, in order to understand the
physical. Heldenbach indeed says: What does all this
spirit-stuff concern us? We, however, will say: Yet this human
stuff does concern us and since human beings are united with
the SPIRITUAL WORLD, we will find the bridge between the
two.
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