The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fourth Lecture

[ 1 ] The discussion here yesterday afternoon was certainly extremely interesting, but in connection with the question I now see before me, I am compelled—as I have already done—to emphasize once again that a sufficient method for determining the relationship between individual remedies and individual disease symptoms will only be possible once we have first resolved certain preliminary questions in these considerations, which will enable us to assess the scope of our understanding regarding the relationship between human beings and the non-human world—including that non-human world from which the remedies are derived. In particular, it is not possible to discuss the relationship between individual remedies and individual organs without first resolving such preliminary questions, for the simple reason that this relationship is not entirely straightforward but rather somewhat complex, and its true meaning can only be grasped once we have resolved certain preliminary questions—which we will address today and perhaps, in part, tomorrow as well. Then, however, the opportunity will arise to truly examine a concrete relationship between individual remedies—and specifically therapeutic methods—and individual organ diseases. In particular, however, I would like to say something right away today by way of introduction, which I ask you to accept for the time being simply because it might shed some light on certain matters. And because such things are naturally shocking at first, I must emphasize that they are indeed somewhat shocking. Following up on what was discussed here yesterday afternoon, I would like to ask you to consider the other side of the matter.

[ 2 ] To our great satisfaction, numerous highly instructive cases of very specific cures were presented here yesterday. Now I can suggest a very simple remedy that would make these cures increasingly rare. But I mention this remedy for one reason only: so that you do not actually use it—even though it would be so tempting to do so. Of course, I can only speak of this remedy within a circle of individuals with a background in anthroposophy. This remedy would consist of your doing everything in your power to make Rittier’s therapy a matter of general practice. When considering the successes of these cures, you do not take into account that you stand as individual physicians. Yes, perhaps the individual may certainly be aware that you stand as individual physicians, struggling against the vast majority of the medical profession, and that the moment you make Ritter’s therapy a university-wide practice—the moment you ensure that you are no longer in opposition, but that —I don’t even want to say everyone—but by a great many people, you would find that your healing successes would decline considerably. That’s how strange things are in real life. For things are sometimes quite different from the mental image one has of them. As an individual physician, one naturally has the greatest interest in healing the individual person, and modern materialistic medicine has even, I might say, chosen a kind of legal basis for itself in this way, so that it simply must set out to heal the individual person. Yes, but this legal basis consists in saying: There are no diseases at all, only sick people. Of course, if people were as isolated with regard to disease as it appears to be on the surface today, then this legal basis would be a genuine one. But what is actually happening is that people are not in fact so isolated that such things carry great significance—as you, Dr. Ederle, pointed out yesterday—that certain pathological tensions encompass vast territories, and that when you have healed one individual, you can never determine how many others you may have, in effect, saddled with the disease in another instance. You do not place the individual case of illness within the context of the entire process, and therefore such things are extraordinarily striking when viewed in isolation. But the one who has the whole of humanity’s healing in mind must, I would say, speak from a different perspective.

[ 3 ] This is precisely what makes it necessary not to adopt a one-sided, purely therapeutic approach, but rather to derive the therapy entirely from the pathology. This is exactly what we are trying to do here: to introduce a certain degree of rationality into what would otherwise be merely empirical-statistical thinking.

[ 4 ] Today, let us begin with a well-known fact that is, however, largely overlooked in the context of scientific medical thinking and which can serve as the basis for an assessment of the relationship between human beings and the non-human natural world. This is the fact that human beings, as threefold beings—as nervous-sensory beings, as circulatory beings (that is, rhythmic beings), and as metabolic beings—stand in a negative relationship, through their metabolism, to what takes place outside in nature, in the plant world. Please bring to mind the fact that out in nature—if we initially observe only the plant world within nature—a tendency is evident in the flora to, so to speak, concentrate carbon, to make carbon the foundation of the entire flora. We are surrounded—in that we are surrounded by plants—by organisms, by forms whose very nature is based on the concentration of carbon. Do not forget that what underlies this formation also occurs in the human organism; however, the human organism has it in its very nature to suspend this formation—in a sense, in a more advanced state of nascent development—to destroy it, and to replace it with the opposite formation. We have the beginning of this process within us in what I have called in recent days the “lower human.” We shed the carbon, begin—as it were—the process of becoming a plant out of our own powers, and must, prompted by our higher organization, resist this process of becoming a plant. We counteract it by setting oxygen against the carbon, converting it into carbon dioxide, and thereby developing within ourselves the opposite process of becoming a plant.

[ 5 ] I ask you to pay attention everywhere to these counter-processes against external nature. For if you pay attention to them, you will arrive at an ever deeper and deeper understanding of the real human being. You do not understand the human being as such if you weigh him—speaking only symbolically here of the other kind of examination using physical methods of investigation— but you will immediately gain some insight into the mechanics of the human being when you consider that the brain has its well-known weight of, say, an average of 1,300 grams, yet it cannot exert this weight downward onto the base of the skull; for if the brain were to press down with its own weight, we would immediately crush all the fine blood vessels that extend there. At most, the brain exerts a pressure of about twenty grams on its base. This is because, according to the well-known Archimedean-hydraulic principle, the brain experiences buoyancy—since it actually floats in cerebrospinal fluid—so that the vast majority of the brain’s weight simply does not exert a force but is counteracted by buoyancy. Just as gravity is overcome in this way—and we do not live in the physical weight of our organism, but in the counteraction, in the force opposed to physical weight—so it is with the other processes of the human being. In fact, we do not live in what physical nature does to us, but in what is counteracted by physical nature. And so, in truth, we do not live in the processes that are perceived as processes also found in external nature—processes that find their culmination in the plant kingdom—but rather we live through the counteraction of the process of plant growth. This is, of course, a crucial consideration when we seek to build a bridge between the human organism in its state of illness and plant remedies.

[ 6 ] Now, one could—I would say—elaborate on this matter in a beautifully novelistic way. One could say that when we turn our gaze to all that surrounds us as the beautiful flora of the world, we are deeply delighted—truly, deeply delighted—and rightly so. It is different, however, when we cut open a sheep and, immediately upon doing so, encounter a different kind of flora—one that most certainly has causes of origin similar to those of the external flora—and when, by cutting open a sheep after death, we are met by the full stench of decay emanating from the sheep’s interior; in that case, we are certainly less delighted by the origin of the intestinal flora, the intestinal flora, certainly less pleased. And it is necessary to focus one’s primary attention on this. For it is glaringly obvious how easily the very same causes that give rise to flora in the non-human natural world must be combated within humans—how the intestinal flora must not be allowed to develop. For this opens up an extraordinarily broad field of research, and I would like to recommend to young medical students who are still in school that they devote a great deal of their doctoral theses to this area—above all, to the field of comparative research on intestinal structure across various animal species, from mammals up to humans. This will prove to be an extraordinarily rich field, for there are still many extremely important aspects in this area that have not yet been researched. Above all, try to figure out why a sheep, when we open it up, emits such a terrible stench of decay due to its intestinal flora, and why this is not the case even with scavenging birds, which, when opened, actually smell relatively pleasant.

[ 7 ] There is an immense amount in these matters that has not yet been thoroughly examined from a scientific perspective. Furthermore, there is much in this field to be explored regarding the structure of the intestines. Consider, for a moment, that the entire avian kingdom exhibits a fundamental difference from the mammalian kingdom and also from humans. In birds—and materialist physicians, such as the Parisian doctor Metchnikoff, have made the greatest errors precisely regarding these matters—the bladder and large intestine are exceptionally underdeveloped. Only when birds become ratites do we see that the large intestine develops specific shapes, including certain bladder-like protrusions. This points us to the important fact that birds do not have the opportunity to store their waste, retain it in the organism for a while, and then expel it at will; rather, there is a continuous balance between intake and excretion.

[ 8 ] It is one of the most superficial views to regard the entire flora—and, as we shall see, also the fauna—found in the intestine, or indeed anywhere in the human organism, as the cause of illness. It is truly appalling when one approaches the study of pathological literature today and encounters the same thing in every chapter: “The bacillus has been discovered for this disease,” “The bacillus has been discovered for that disease,” and so on. These are all extraordinarily interesting facts for the intestinal botany and zoology of the human organism, but as far as illness is concerned, they have no significance other than, at most, that of a distinguishing mark—a distinguishing mark insofar as one can say: If this or that form of disease is present, then the human organism provides the opportunity for these or those interesting small animal or plant forms to develop on such a substrate—but nothing more. This development of the small fauna and flora has very little to do with the actual disease, at most only indirectly. For you see, the logic unfolding here within modern medicine is a most peculiar one. Just imagine you discover a landscape in which you find a large number of exceptionally well-fed and healthy-looking cows. Would you then say: because these cows somehow flew in here, because the landscape has been infected by these cows, is everything you see there exactly as it is? That would hardly occur to you, would it? Instead, you would be compelled to investigate why there are hardworking people in this landscape, why the soil is particularly suitable for this or that type of animal care—in short, you would consider every possible cause for the presence of well-cared-for cows. But it would never occur to you to say: What is happening there is due to the fact that the countryside has been “infected” by the arrival of well-cared-for cows. — Yet this is precisely the logic that modern medical science has actually developed with regard to microbes and the like. The presence of these interesting creatures suggests nothing more than that there is good topsoil, and one must, of course, focus one’s attention on examining that topsoil. That one thing or another might then occur indirectly—for example, if one were to say: “There are well-cared-for cows in this area; let’s add a few more, and then perhaps a few more people will be inspired to work diligently as well”—this can, of course, happen incidentally. It can, of course, happen that well-prepared topsoil, stimulated by the arrival of bacilli, may in turn begin to undergo certain disease processes. But this current focus on the nature of germs actually has absolutely nothing to do with the actual consideration of illness. If one were to focus solely on developing sound logic, something like what is currently emanating from officially sanctioned science—to the detriment of sound thinking—could never actually arise.

[ 9 ] What is particularly significant is that a certain relationship between the upper and lower aspects of the human being—as I have characterized it in recent days—can actually be the cause of an imbalance in the proper interaction between the upper and lower aspects. Consequently, if the upper part of the human being exerts too little counterforce, forces may become active in the lower part that are unable to halt—I might say—the predisposed and unchecked process of vegetation, the process of becoming a plant. This also creates the conditions for the development of an abundant intestinal flora, which then serves as an indication that the human lower abdomen is not functioning properly.

[ 10 ] Now, what is peculiar is that in humans, the activities that are supposed to take place at lower levels are held back if they cannot occur there. Thus, if it is impossible for certain processes—for which the lower abdomen is designed—to take place there, these processes are pushed back. This may sound like layman’s terms to some, but it is expressed more scientifically than much of what is found in the pathologies commonly used today. These processes, which are normally supposed to take place in the lower parts of the human body, are pushed back into the upper parts; and one must even trace the origin of secretions from the lungs and other upper structures—such as the pleura and the like—by examining the normal or abnormal secretory processes of the human lower abdomen. It is of the utmost importance to properly grasp this displacement of organic processes from the lower abdomen to the upper abdomen—that is, to recognize that much of what may occur in the upper abdomen is nothing other than the displaced processes of the lower abdomen. If the proper interrelationship between the upper and lower parts of the human body does not exist, then these processes are displaced.

[ 11 ] Now consider something else in addition to this. You surely know from everyday experience that there is a fact—again, a fact that is simply not sufficiently analyzed—and the analysis of this fact is what matters in sound science. It is a fact that the moment you have thoughts about a specific organ—or, more precisely, thoughts related to a specific organ—a certain activity occurs in that organ. Study—and here again is a rich field for future doctoral dissertations—study the connection between certain thoughts that arise in humans and, let’s say, the secretion of saliva, the secretion of mucus in the intestines, the secretion of milk, the secretion of urine, the secretion of semen—study how certain thoughts arise that occur in parallel with these organic phenomena.

[ 12 ] What kind of fact do you have here? Isn’t it true that certain thoughts arise in your inner life: organic phenomena occur as parallel processes. What does that mean? What arises in your thoughts is fully present within your organs. So when you have a thought and some parallel glandular secretion, you have extracted the activity underlying the thought—the activity underlying thinking—from the gland. You carry it out separately from the gland; you leave the gland to its own devices, and the gland devotes itself to its own activity: it secretes. This secretion is prevented—that is, what would otherwise be released by the gland remains united with the gland because the thought has united it. So here you have, I might say, a tangible example of the image-forming activity stepping out of the organ and into the thought. You can say to yourself: If I hadn’t thought that way, my gland would not have secreted. That is to say, I have withdrawn the gland’s power, transferred it into my soul life—this power—and the gland secretes. — There, in the human organism itself, you have the most obvious proof of what I have said in the preceding reflections: that what we experience in the spiritual-soul realm is actually nothing other than the secreted formative forces for what we have before us in the rest of the natural order. What takes place out there in the rest of nature—through what develops in the external natural world as external flora in parallel to our intestinal flora—simply contains within it the formative forces that we draw from our intestinal flora. When you look out at the flora of the mountains, at the flora of the meadows, you must actually say to yourself: The same forces are at work there that you develop in your thoughts when you live in a mental image and feeling. — And your intestinal flora is different from the flora outside precisely because the thoughts do not need to be removed from the flora outside. They remain embedded within the plants, just like their stems, leaves, and flowers. Here you gain an understanding of the kinship between what reigns in the flowers and leaves and what takes place within you when you develop gut flora—from which you do not allow the formative forces to remain, but rather take them away, since if you did not take them away, you would not be a thinking human being. You take away from your gut flora what the flora outside possesses.

[ 13 ] The same is true of the fauna. Just as one cannot understand the connection between human beings and plant remedies without insight into these matters, one cannot gain a proper understanding of the use of healing serums without an awareness that, as human beings, we deprive our own intestinal flora of the forces that shape the animal world outside.

[ 14 ] You can see from this that a rational framework, a systematic understanding of these things, is only possible when one truly takes into account the relationship between human beings and their environment. But I would also like to draw your attention to something else that is extraordinarily significant. I don’t know if many of you were around to witness just how utterly dreadful it became when, some time ago, the most ridiculous “no spitting” rules were enforced everywhere. As you know, these “no spitting” rules were intended to combat tuberculosis. Well, these spitting bans are ridiculous for the simple reason that everyone should know that even the most ordinary, diffuse sunlight kills the bacilli—the tuberculosis bacilli—in the shortest of times; so that if you examine sputum after a short while—after a very short time—there are no longer any tuberculosis bacilli in it. Sunlight kills these bacilli immediately. So even if the premise of conventional medicine were correct, even then this ban on spitting would still be something extraordinarily ridiculous. Such bans make sense, at most, for ordinary cleanliness, but not for hygiene in the broadest sense.

[ 15 ] But for those who are now beginning once again to evaluate facts correctly, this has a very, very great significance, for it points out to us that the member of the tubercle fauna or flora—the bacillus—cannot survive in sunlight. It cannot survive in sunlight. It does not suit it. When can it survive? When it is inside the human body. And why is it able to survive there? Not that it is the actual agent of harm, but whatever is active there—that is what we must seek out. And yet we overlook something. We are constantly surrounded by light—the light that, as you have likely retained from natural science, is of the greatest significance for the development of non-human beings, namely, of the greatest significance for the development of the entire non-human flora. We are surrounded by this light. But at the boundary between us and the outside world, something very significant happens to this light—that is, to something purely etheric: it is transformed. And it must be transformed. You see, just as the process of plant formation is halted by the human being—as this process, I might say, is interrupted and counteracted by the process of carbon dioxide formation—so, too, is that which belongs to the life of light interrupted within the human being. Therefore, when we seek the light within the human being, it must be something else; it must be a metamorphosis of the light. At the very moment we cross the inner boundary of the human being, we find a metamorphosis of light. This means that the human being transforms within himself not only the ordinary, external, ponderable natural processes, but also the imponderable—the light. He transforms it into something else. Now, if the tubercle bacillus thrives within the human being, whereas it perishes immediately in sunlight, then such a fact, when properly evaluated, simply testifies that the element of life of this bacillus is already present in the transformed product of light that occurs within the human being; that is to say, if it thrives too much there, something must be amiss with this transformed light. And from this, you gain insight into the fact that among the causes of tuberculosis there must also be something happening within the human being with this transformed light—with this metamorphosis of light—that should not actually be happening; otherwise, the person would not absorb too many of the tubercle bacilli, which are, after all, always present. They are always there, of course, but normally they are present in insufficient numbers; they are present in abundance when a person succumbs to tuberculosis. Otherwise, the tubercle bacillus would not be found everywhere if there were not something abnormal regarding the development of this metamorphosed sunlight.

[ 16 ] Now, it will not be difficult to determine—once again through a sufficient number of dissertations and private lecturer theses in this field—the empirical material will simply come flooding in for the points that I can, of course, only present here as perspectives—that what occurs when a person becomes a suitable breeding ground for the tubercle bacilli consists in the fact that the person is either insufficiently capable of absorbing sunlight or, due to their lifestyle, does not receive enough of it, so that there is no proper balance between the sunlight entering their body and their processing of that sunlight into a metamorphosis; rather, they are compelled to draw on reserves from the metamorphosed light that is always stored within them.

[ 17 ] I ask you to bear in mind that human beings, simply by virtue of being human, constantly possess stored, transformed light within themselves. This is necessary for their physical organization. If the exchange process between a human being and the external sunlight does not take place in the proper way, then—just as weight loss deprives the body of the fat it needs—such influences deprive the human being of the transformed light. And in such a case, the human being faces a dilemma: either to cause the upper part to become ill or to deprive the lower part of what it needs for the upper part—that is, to cause the lower part to become ill by depriving it of the metamorphosed light.

[ 18 ] You can see from this that human beings do not simply require, for their organization, only the ponderable substances that come from outside and are transformed; rather, a proper consideration of the human being shows us that imponderable substances—etheric substances—are also present within them, albeit in a state of metamorphosis. From this, however, you can see how, through such foundational principles, we create the possibility of developing a correct understanding of the healing effect of sunlight—for example, on the one hand, by exposing the human being directly to sunlight in order to regulate the disrupted process of interaction with the surrounding sunlight, or, on the other hand, by exposing them internally to substances that counteract the irregularities arising from the withdrawal of the metamorphosed light. This withdrawal of the metamorphosed light must be counteracted with what can be derived from the remedies. This allows you to gain insight into the human organism.

[ 19 ] Now, for anyone who is even capable of observing the world, the peculiar thing is that—forgive me if I put this somewhat undiplomatically—after a while — though this is entirely objective, meant without any sympathy or antipathy, even though one might seemingly contradict what I’m saying — one actually develops a certain anger toward all microscopy, toward all examination of the minute, because microscopy actually tends to lead us away from a healthy understanding of life and its disturbances rather than toward it. For all the real processes that concern us in human beings—in their health and in their illness—we can study much better on a macroscopic level than on a microscopic one. We need only seek out opportunities in the macrocosm to study these things.

[ 20 ] I would ask you to note that, due to their underdeveloped bladder and large intestine, birds maintain a constant, continuous balance between intake and excretion. A bird can excrete while in flight; it does not retain food residues within itself, nor does it store them. It has no opportunity to do so. And if it were to store them, it would immediately result in an illness that would ruin it. Insofar as we are human beings—physical human beings—we have, so to speak—as one might say in a way that accommodates today’s view—advanced beyond the bird in our development; or, to put it more accurately, we have descended below the bird. For the bird, it is indeed not necessary to develop those intense struggles against intestinal flora that do not even exist within it, as is necessary in higher animals or in humans. But with regard to what I would call a somewhat higher activity within us—such as the transformation of the etheric, for example, which I have just discussed, or the metamorphosis of light—in this respect, we stand on the same level as the bird. We have a physical large intestine and a physical bladder, but we are like birds in terms of our etheric body as far as these organs are concerned. They do not actually exist dynamically in the cosmos. We are therefore dependent on immediately processing the light as we receive it and then excreting the waste products. And if a disturbance occurs there, it is a disturbance to which no organ corresponds—one that we therefore cannot readily endure without harming our health. So when we observe the bird with its small brain, we must realize that, in the macrocosm, it is a reflection of our finer organization. Therefore, if you wish to study human beings in terms of how their finer organization is reflected in their coarser organization—which has descended to the level of the bird—then you must study the processes of the bird world from a macrocosmic perspective.

[ 21 ] I would just like to say—and let this be noted in parentheses—: life for human beings would indeed be very sad if, in their etheric organism, they possessed the same characteristic toward the bird species as they do in their physical organism, since the etheric organism cannot be isolated from the outside world in this way. If, for example, the metamorphosed light were to be deposited—even if there were olfactory organs for it—something truly dreadful would result in human coexistence. But, as I said, this is merely a side note. What would occur is what we experience when we cut open a sheep after its death and are then confronted with its entrails, whereas in reality, with regard to our etheric bodies as human beings, we face one another in a way that can be compared to the by no means unpleasant odor that arises, for example, when opening even a scavenging bird—relatively speaking, everything is relative—compared to the odor that arises when we cut open a ruminant in particular, but also an animal that merely possesses the predisposition to be a ruminant, such as the horse—it is not a true ruminant, but its organism contains the predisposition to be one.

[ 22 ] The task now is to examine the correspondences between what is happening in the external flora and fauna and what is happening in the human organism—specifically, in the intestinal flora and fauna—but which must be combated. And if we wish to establish the connection between a particular remedy and an organ, we must move from the general characteristics we have developed today to the specific characteristics discussed in the following lectures.

[ 23 ] But now, starting from here—just as we had to address, on the one hand, the inner human, intestinal fauna and flora by finding, within the circulatory process, something that opposes the emergence of plant life—let us now turn to the actual nervous-sensory human being. After all, this human being is far more significant for the totality of human life than is generally believed. Because science has been elevated to such a level of abstraction, we have not had the opportunity to take this into account in an appropriate way: that this nervous-sensory human being—through whom, for example, light and the warmth associated with it actually penetrate—is intimately connected with inner life, because the imponderables that penetrate with the light must be metamorphosed in the organs, and these imponderables are just as organ-forming as that which exists in the ponderable realm. No consideration has been given to the fact that the nervous-sensory human being is of particular importance for the organization of the human being. But while, as we descend deeper into the lower human being, we move from the force that forms the intestinal flora to the force that forms the intestinal fauna, as we ascend further into the human being, we move from the region where the inner flora is combated to the realm where the mineralization of the human being—I would say, the sclerotic transformation of the human being—must be continually combated. There, I would say, you can already observe externally—in the increased ossification of the head—how the human being, the more he develops upward, tends toward mineralization precisely because of his constitution.

[ 24 ] This process of becoming mineral, however, is of great significance for the entire human organism; for, you see, this is where one must repeatedly draw attention to the fact—I have even done so in public lectures—that when one divides the human being into the three parts: head-human, torso-human, and limb-human—one must certainly not think that these three parts stand side by side and have external spatial boundaries. The human being is, of course, entirely a head-human, in a qualitative sense. That which is the head extends throughout the entire human being, though it is primarily located in the head. The same is true of the others—circulation, limbs, and metabolism—which always extend throughout the entire human being. So, naturally, what must be present for the head-human is present as a predisposition throughout the entire human being, and this predisposition toward becoming mineralized must be counteracted throughout the entire human being. There is indeed an area where, when modern people open old works that arose from atavistic clairvoyance, they can no longer understand anything at all. After all, very few people today can make sense of what they read when they encounter the salt process in Paracelsus. But the salt process lies within the realm I am now describing, just as the sulfur process lies within the realm I described earlier.

[ 25 ] So the point is that human beings have within themselves a tendency to mineralize. Now, just as the process underlying the development of flora and fauna can, in a sense, become autonomous, so too can this tendency toward mineralization become autonomous for the human being as a whole. How can this tendency toward mineralization be counteracted? It can only be counteracted by shattering it—by, so to speak, continually driving small wedges into it. And here you have the area where you must make the transition from serum therapy through plant therapy to mineral therapy, without which you simply cannot manage, because it is only in the relationship between minerals and that which seeks to become mineral within the human being itself that you have a point of reference to support everything that must be supported in the human being’s struggle against the mineralizing tendency, against the general process of sclerosis. You cannot get by here—and this chapter must then be discussed in detail—by simply introducing the mineral in its external state into the human organism. This is where what points to some homeopathic principle in some form comes into play—namely, that it is precisely from the mineral kingdom that those forces must be brought to light which are opposed to the effects of the external mineral kingdom.

[ 26 ] It has indeed been pointed out—and it is true—that one need only look at the very low mineral content of some springs that have healing properties, and in these springs there is a homeopathization process that is quite striking, which shows that, in fact, the moment one frees the mineral context from the forces we can observe externally, entirely different forces emerge—forces that must first be specifically released through the very act of homeopathization. But this, as I said, will be discussed in a separate chapter. But what I would still like to tell you today is the following. If you truly carry this out—and I especially urge the younger gentlemen to do so—by conducting comparative studies on the transformation of the entire intestinal system, say, from fish up through amphibians and reptiles—the relationships of amphibians and reptiles with regard to the intestinal system are particularly interesting— up to birds on the one hand, to mammals, and then all the way up to humans on the other hand—you will find that remarkable transformations of the organs take place: for example, the appearance of ceca—that which then becomes the appendix in humans—in lower mammals, or where the avian organism diverges somewhat and cecal rudiments appear in birds, the entire process by which the large intestine—which is completely absent in fish (one cannot speak of a large intestine in fish)—develops, through the progression through so-called more perfect orders, into what constitutes the large intestine, which then gives rise to appendix-like structures and, in humans, the appendix—certain other animals have multiple appendix-like structures—: here you will find a remarkable interrelationship.

[ 27 ] A comparative study should actually highlight this interrelationship very clearly. You might simply ask, from an external perspective—yes, you know how often this question is asked: What is the purpose, after all, of something like this, which is then closed off from the outside, such as the appendix in humans? This question is often asked. When such a question is raised, people usually fail to consider the following: that human beings actually manifest as a duality, and that what develops on the lower side is always the parallel organ for something that develops on the upper side—that certain organs on the upper side could not develop if the parallel organs, so to speak the opposite poles on the lower side, were not able to develop. And the more the forebrain in the animal kingdom takes on the form that it later develops in humans, the more the intestine develops precisely in the direction that leads to the elimination of food residues. There is an intimate connection between the formation of the intestines and the formation of the brain, and if the large intestine and the appendix did not appear in the course of the animal kingdom, then thinking human beings, in particular, could not come into being in their physical form, because human beings have their brain—their organ of thought—at the expense, entirely at the expense, of their intestinal organs. And the intestinal organs are the faithful counterpart of the brain organs. So that, on the one hand, you are relieved of physical activity in order to think, you must, on the other hand, burden your organism with that which is necessitated by the burden placed on it by the developed large intestine and the developed bladder. Thus, the highest spiritual and soul activity occurring in the human physical world—insofar as it is bound to a fully developed brain—is at the same time bound to the corresponding development of the intestines. This is an extraordinarily significant connection, one that sheds immense light on the entire workings of nature. For, even if it sounds somewhat paradoxical, you can now ask yourself: Why do humans have an appendix? — You can answer this by saying: so that they can think in a truly human way. For what develops in the appendix has its counterpart in the human brain. Everything on one side corresponds to its counterpart on the other.

[ 28 ] These are things that must be reclaimed through a new way of knowing. Of course, we cannot simply parrot the old physicians today, who still relied on atavistic clairvoyance; for that would not get us very far. But we must reclaim these things. The purely materialistic training in medicine—which does not seek such connections at all—is actually a real obstacle to reclaiming these things. For today’s natural science and medicine, the brain is simply a viscera, and so is whatever is in the abdomen. This is precisely the same mistake as saying: positive and negative electricity are simply the same thing—they are electricity—and no one pays any attention to that. And it is all the more important to observe this because, just as tension arises between positive and negative electricity that seeks to balance itself, there is a constant tension within the human being between the upper and the lower. Mastering this tension is, in fact, what one must seek above all in the field of medicine. This tension also expresses itself—I want to hint at this today; you will find it elaborated further in later discussions here—in the forces concentrated in two organs: the pineal gland and the so-called pituitary gland. All the forces that constitute the upper forces are expressed in the pineal gland and stand in tension with the forces of the pituitary gland, which constitute the lower forces. There is a genuine state of tension here. If one were always to form a view of this state of tension based on the person’s overall condition, one would have a very solid foundation for the further healing process.

[ 29 ] We'll talk more about that tomorrow. You'll see that I'll work all the questions into it. But, as I said, I just have to lay the groundwork first.