The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fifteenth Lecture

[ 1 ] Today I would like to begin with a comment that was made to me yesterday during the lecture—I should say, by someone who is quite knowledgeable in this regard—namely, that these lectures here are among the most difficult to understand of all anthroposophically oriented lectures. Within certain limits, one must certainly admit this; but on the other hand, one must also admit that it cannot easily be otherwise. Yet I believe we can learn an extraordinary amount precisely from the validity of this remark. Let us take a case where what I am saying is very easy to understand; there can even be two cases—one that is obvious, the other one that is admittedly somewhat more distant from present-day humanity. The obvious one is that people of today’s cultural epoch are certainly justified in finding such matters, as they must be presented here, difficult to understand. The blackbird does not; it would find this extraordinarily easy to understand. In fact, it provides practical proof that it finds the matter extraordinarily easy to understand. It is not exactly an ascetic animal and therefore occasionally eats cross spiders. But when it has eaten a cross spider and begins to feel quite uncomfortable—for the blackbird does feel quite uncomfortable when it eats a cross spider—and if there is henbane nearby, it goes straight to the henbane and seeks out the appropriate remedy there. It is a remedy, for if there is no henbane nearby, the blackbird suffers convulsions and dies amid the most terrible spasms and twitches. It is saved from this by its own healing instinct, which leads it, when henbane is nearby, to go to the henbane and peck out the appropriate remedy there. This is the process that, I would say, is quite obvious.

[ 2 ] But the other process—one that is even further removed from modern humans—is related to this. It is the fact that humans in a certain prehistoric era developed similar healing instincts; that their instincts already contained elements of what we later encounter, in a more or less concentrated form, in Hippocratic medicine. It is interesting, in light of yesterday’s very valid remark, to study a little the wisdom of the blackbird or other birds that can do the same thing in numerous cases. For what actually happens when the blackbird eats a cross spider? The cross spider, in its entire organism, is deeply embedded in certain cosmic connections of an extraterrestrial nature. And it is precisely from this entanglement in such extraterrestrial processes that the entire structure of the cross spider’s limbs and its markings originate, so that, if I may put it this way, the cross spider contains a great deal of planetary life within itself. The cross spider contains extraterrestrial planetary life. The bird, however, has lagged behind in this shared experience of planetary life; it has shifted it more toward the inner workings of its organism. When it eats the cross spider, the planetary forces make themselves felt within it. There, the planetary forces—which still have a tendency to take on form—seek to penetrate the bird, and he must struggle against this. The moment he has eaten the cross spider, he becomes, through his inner will, a reflection of extraterrestrial life. And so it makes its way to the corresponding plant, which in turn—by growing out of the ground and even by retaining something as poison that it cannot fully process under planetary influence—has become similar to the opposite of the planetary, namely, the earthly. The animal makes its way to this plant and seeks help. This, in turn, is due to the fact that the very moment the cross spider’s venom takes effect in the blackbird, this very action of the venom itself triggers the opposing instinct—the defensive instinct. It transitions immediately from the attack instinct to the defensive instinct, so that in the entire phenomenon we are witnessing nothing other than a very vividly manifested development of what we do when a fly lands on our eye and we close our eye or move our hand in a simple reflexive motion.

[ 3 ] It is extremely important to observe these processes in the animal kingdom and also in the plant kingdom. For through them, one is also healed of something else—namely, the belief that what constitutes intellect and reason is contained solely within the skull. Intellect and reason, in fact, fly about, for this is a perfectly rational behavior that operates in the instinct to attack and the instinct to defend in birds. It is external reason and external intellect that are at work here, and we humans have only the gift of participating in this effect of external intellect and external reason. We participate in it; we do not carry it within us. It is nonsense to say that we carry it within us; rather, we participate in it. The bird does not yet participate in such a way that it appropriates what constitutes the instinct to attack and the defensive instinct for a specific part of the body. It understands even more of what lies within it through the respiratory system—more than we humans, who already understand it through the head system—and it, in turn, brings forth the defensive instinct against Hyoscyamus through the respiratory system, because it thinks less at the periphery and more from the very core of its being. We have thus torn our thinking away from the lungs and from the rhythmic system. Perhaps we will be able to speak even more precisely about how we, as human beings, think. In any case, however, we no longer think in such a centralized way—that is, we no longer think primarily through the lungs and the heart and so on, connected to the cosmos, as the bird does. These are the things that must be reclaimed. If you ask: Who has driven out the last remnant, the very last remnant, of these instincts from all of us—through which we are connected to nature?—then we must say that our school education has torn it out, and our university education has torn out the very last remnant, for these and everything associated with them are thoroughly predisposed to prevent human coexistence with the whole of nature. On the one hand, things are driven one-sidedly toward a refined intellectuality, and on the other hand, toward a refined sexuality. What was still central to early humanity is simply driven apart into these two poles in modern humanity.

[ 4 ] Now you see, our return to a sound understanding of the world will determine whether we can regain a healthy approach to our scientific pursuits. With such a healthy approach to science, we will have to study many things that, unfortunately, are currently being studied only through a flawed scientific approach.

[ 5 ] Today, following up on what was said yesterday, let us consider a few things that align with the idea of viewing human beings in such a way that this very act of observation contains an indication of the healing process. Among early humanity, this was, in fact, highly developed. The moment primitive man saw something abnormal in a person, he was immediately made aware of the healing process. These are things that have been lost to modern humanity. And so modern man rarely arrives through intuition at what, for example, ancient man arrived at through instinct. But that is the course of development: from instinct, through intellectualism, to intuition. Among all the fields that suffer most from purely intellectualistic development, we must include physiology and medicine in particular. They are the least able to thrive in an atmosphere of intellectualism. For let us take a concrete case—let us take, for example, the diabetic. What, in fact, does the diabetic represent in his entire abnormal development? One can initially gain a proper understanding of diabetes only if one knows that it involves a weak ego—a weak ego-organization that is not suited to managing the entire process that is supposed to take place in sugar formation. One need only interpret what is present in the correct way. It would be entirely wrong to believe, for example, that because sugar is being produced, there is an ego that is too strong. No, it is a too-weak ego, for it is precisely an ego that has developed in such a way that it does not participate strongly enough in the organic process to ensure the proper regulation of the organism’s sugar metabolism. That is, first and foremost, what is actually at play. Everything that can ultimately contribute to diabetes is connected to this. Isn’t it true that we can already experience, I would say, a hint of a tendency toward diabetes when someone consumes too many sweet foods and then drinks alcohol—that first hint, which of course can pass again, but which merely shows how, because the “I” is weakened in this case, it cannot cope with the process that is actually supposed to take place, and how this process is thereby triggered. Then it is a matter of taking a look at everything that might be at play here, and in doing so I come to a concept that has not yet featured prominently in these considerations, but which appears on very many question sheets and which we will also address in more detail during the remainder of our lecture time. You will see that everything listed on the question sheets will be taken into account, but the necessary preparations must first be made. This brings me to the concept of hereditary predisposition, which plays a major role, particularly in the case of diabetes.

[ 6 ] It must be said that it is precisely this hereditary predisposition that contributes to a weak ego. We can always establish a connection between a weak ego—or, one might say, an ego that is not functioning with all its complex capacities—and the predisposition to suffer from the hereditary predisposition. For if we were all simply predisposed to suffer from the hereditary predisposition, then we would all suffer from it. The fact that we do not all suffer from this hereditary predisposition is essentially due to the fact that those who have a well-functioning ego suffer less from it. However, it cannot be overlooked that psychological causes are present to a greater or lesser extent in diabetes, and that the emotional upheavals a person experiences—especially if they are easily agitated—can be closely linked to the onset of diabetes. Why is this so? The “I” is actually weak, and because it is weak, it confines itself to being active more on the periphery of the organism, developing a strong intellectualism through the brain. But this “I” is incapable of penetrating deeper into the organism, particularly into those parts of the organism where the actual processing of protein takes place—that transformation of plant protein into animal protein. The activity of the “I” does not extend into those areas. Instead, the activity of the astral body begins all the more vigorously in these areas into which the ego does not currently extend. For the activity of the astral body is most vigorous precisely where—I might say—the middle organizational process takes place in the human being, between digestion, blood formation, and respiration. This central organizational process is left to its own devices due to the lethargy of the “I.” It begins to develop all sorts of self-willed processes connected not with the whole human being but with the central human being. And one can say that the predisposition to diabetes is present precisely when the “I” excludes itself from the inner processes. Now, these inner processes—namely, the inner secretory processes—are in turn closely connected to the formation of the mind and the formation of feelings. While the ego seeks its primary occupation through the brain, all activity that is secretory in nature—namely, an oscillating, circulating activity—remains neglected by the ego. And this is why a person loses control over certain psychological influences that manifest as emotional influences. Why, then, do we remain calm when something exciting happens in our surroundings? We remain calm because we are able to direct our intellect into our gut; because we are truly capable of not merely remaining in the brain, but of engaging the whole person. When we think, we cannot do this. If we engage in one-sided, intellectual activity from the brain alone, the inner being of the person follows its own course. A person is then particularly susceptible to agitation, and the result is that this agitation triggers organic processes—even on an intellectual level—as if it were agitation, whereas it should actually be doing something else. They should not, as mere emotional stirrings that affect the feelings, bring about their own organic processes; rather, they should first be permeated by the intellect and, once tempered by reason, then act upon the inner being of the human being.

[ 7 ] Now, in a case like this, it is a matter of clarifying what is actually at hand. There is a lethargy of the “I.” In human beings, the “I” is most closely related to that which is most extraterrestrial—that which first acts upon the human being—that is, to that which is most peripheral in relation to the Earth. In fact, everything that acts upon our “I” comes to us from far beyond the Earth. We must therefore try to understand those processes that are related to the processes connected with our ego—those found in the non-human realm—so that we may be able to place the ego in a sphere through which it learns, as it were, to participate in the non-earthly realm as it should.

[ 8 ] Now, in the earthly realm, the same process through which the “I” is prompted by the extraterrestrial to work on its inner organization, on its central organization, is at work wherever this same extraterrestrial prompts the Earth—whether the mineral Earth or the plant-covered Earth—to form essential oils, or to form oils in general. This is the path we must follow. Just as the human “I” is active in the eye—where it truly enters into a direct relationship with the outside world in this “frontline” region—so must we relate the “I” to the process of oil formation. We can best do this by attempting to incorporate finely atomized oil into the bath and treating people with oil baths. It would be highly desirable, above all, to investigate what degree of atomization is needed, how often, and so on—how these procedures should be carried out. But this is the path to combating diabetes, which attacks the organism so devastatingly. You can see from this how observing the external process and integrating this external process with the internal human process actually creates a human-transhuman physiology—which is at the same time a therapy—and this is the path by which one must achieve something.

[ 9 ] From there, I would now like to draw your attention to how—that is, once again, now that we have gained a more concrete understanding—human beings are actually connected to their environment. Consider once more the flora of the Earth; consider the entire plant kingdom of the Earth as it strives upward from the soil, so to speak, dispersing its forces in the flower and gathering them again in the fruit, and consider the myriad strange variations of this process—how that which would otherwise sprout entirely from the seed can be held back in the formation of leaves, causing the leaves to become herbaceous and thick, just as the seed coats may first become thick by holding back certain forces just before the very end—you have all manner of variations there.

[ 10 ] Now, this process of plant formation is truly not merely what one can observe from the perspective of physical forces—such as those emanating from the Earth—or even the counteracting forces of light; but just as it is true that the plant contains within itself the physical body and the etheric body, it is equally true that above, where the extraterrestrial, so to speak, meets the earthly, a cosmic-astral aspect is connected with this entire plant life that is embodied in the physical and etheric bodies. One could say: the plant grows toward an animal formation process, which it does not, however, attain. The Earth is, I would say, permeated at its core by the process of plant formation, and where the atmosphere exists—toward which the plants grow—it is permeated by a process of animal formation that simply does not come to fruition, toward which the plant grows but which it does not attain. This process, which we see unfolding—I would say, weaving its way over the flowering plant world—and which has a circular character in relation to the entire Earth, this entire process is centralized everywhere within the animals themselves; there it is transferred to the inner being. Animals, so to speak, extract from the plant world that which takes place above the plants, transfer it into their inner being, and the organs with which they are endowed in advance of the plants are actually nothing other than what they claim for themselves: the ability to unfold, centrally from a single point, that which is otherwise directed peripherally from the outside toward the plant.

[ 11 ] Now, this same process—the animal-forming process—is also present in human beings, but in humans it is located more toward the center of the entire physical organization. It is located more toward all that takes place between digestion, blood formation, and respiration. It is in this regard—the process of human formation—that human beings most closely resemble the animal-forming process as it exists today. This is why this inner, physically inner human being is most closely related to all the life tendencies of the plant kingdom, and why we can always count on reaching this inner human being precisely through what manifests as life tendencies in the plant kingdom. But now, human beings simply have a certain advantage over animals, which is based on the fact that they not only undergo the process of transition, as animals do, between the plant realm and the astral realm, but that they undergo the process of transition between the mineral realm and that which is supra-astral—which is thus even more peripheral than the merely astral. Thus we can say: What is characteristic of human beings in the current stage of Earth’s evolution is precisely that they participate in the mineral formation process. And just as a transformation of protein takes place in the animal realm, so a process is continually taking place that is actually not taken into account at all by science, a process that has a more peripheral tendency than the animal transformation of the protein-formation process and that takes place, if we may say so, between the heavens and the mineral kingdom. If we wish to give it a name, we can call it—based on its most characteristic feature—the desalination process.

[ 12 ] You see, there is a continuously active process of desalination within the organism—that is, within our human organism—a tendency to transform salt formation into its opposite, and this is actually the foundation of our humanity, above all our human thinking, which transcends the animal realm. As peripheral human beings—not as central human beings, who are similar to animals—we resist salt formation. We counteract salt formation in the same way that animals counteract the ordinary earth-forming forces of plant protein. In this opposition lie the forces that we must now seek out for the human being primarily within the mineral kingdom itself, so that we may heal certain conditions that we cannot address with plant remedies alone. I would say that one simply regards the human being too much as a mere animal when one seeks to treat him solely with plant remedies. We honor the human being when we expect him to participate in this more intense struggle—the one waged in the earth’s environment against the earth’s mineralization—and when we must enable him to take part in this more intense struggle, allowing the “I,” so to speak, to participate in it.

[ 13 ] But you see, actually every time we treat a person with flint, we appeal to their power to shatter pebbles, to their ability to overcome this hard mineral substance, and in doing so we place the “I” in a position where it participates very strongly in what no longer happens on Earth at all, but rather outside the earthly realm, where forces are at work that cause everything solid on Earth to be shattered in outer space. Outer space, after all, has the peculiarity of shattering everything that becomes solid in the planetary realm—everything that clumps together there—into the tiniest fragments. We rarely do this in ordinary life; we seldom participate in it. And those who most actively participate in what is otherwise done only by outer space are the mathematical minds—those who accustom themselves to living largely through figures and to thinking largely in mathematical forms. For this kind of thinking is based on the shattering of the mineral realm. Whereas people who have a certain aversion to mathematics and wish to limit themselves to a mere process of desalting cannot become inner mechanics of this chopping up. That is the difference between mathematical natures and non-mathematical natures. This counteraction to the Earth’s process of mineralization underlies, after all, a great many ideas about healing processes.

[ 14 ] These, in turn, were things that were simply part of the old humanity’s instinct to insult and defend itself. Whenever the ancient human being sensed even the slightest sign that his thinking was growing weak, he would turn to some mineral substance, which he ingested, and through the shattering—the inner shattering—of this mineral substance, he would once again acquire the ability to attune himself to extraterrestrial beings far removed from Earth.

[ 15 ] Well, one can actually examine non-human nature in such a way that one, I would say, can clearly see how justified such things are. They can actually be verified quite well through observation. To follow this process of verification, consider a plant that is exceptionally interesting in this regard: Betula alba, the white birch. The white birch actually resists the ordinary process of plant formation in two ways; it does not participate in the ordinary process of plant formation. The ordinary process of plant formation would become apparent if you could combine what takes place in the birch bark with what takes place in the birch leaves—specifically in the young spring leaves, which still have that brownish tinge. If you were to combine these two distinct processes—so that what is at work in the birch bark were to interact in one place with what is at work in the birch leaves—then you would obtain a marvelous, herbaceous, flower-bearing plant. The birch tree arises simply because the processes that occur in the formation of living protein are carried into the leaves to a greater extent than is otherwise the case; the protein-forming process is, so to speak, concentrated in the leaves, while in the bark the process involved in the formation of potassium salts is preserved. These two processes, which in other plants—those that do not become birches but remain herbaceous—flow together in such a way that, in the root, the process involved in the formation of potassium salts is already intertwined with the protein-formation process. The birch expels what the root draws from the earth outward into the bark and sends what the other plant would otherwise mix with what it draws from the earth into the leaf, after first expelling what was drawn from the earth into the bark. In this way, the birch directs itself toward two aspects, to act upon the human organism in different ways: through its bark—which thus contains the corresponding potassium salts—it is directed to act, particularly when a person needs to be guided toward detoxification, for example in cases of skin rashes, so that, I might say, what shoots downward into the bark in the birch shoots outward in the human being and exerts a healing effect there. Take the leaves, which preserve the protein-forming forces; in this way, you extract from the birch that which is directed specifically toward the central being and influences it, and which can prove to be a good remedy for gout and rheumatism. And if you then wish to intensify the process, delve into the mineral aspect of birch formation: take birch wood and prepare vegetable charcoal from it, and you will obtain powerful healing forces for everything that, so to speak, acts both internally and externally—on the outer aspect of the inner self, on the intestines, and so on. One must learn to observe the plant’s external form to understand how it affects the human being. If you study Betula alba, you can actually say to yourself: This birch is actually such that if we wanted to transform it into an image within the human being so that it heals the whole person, it would be as if we turned it inside out—above all, incorporating its forces that strive toward the wood and bark into the skin, into the periphery of the human being, and turning what it directs outward inside out toward the interior. Then we would turn the entire birch tree inside out into the human being—as an image, there should be an image—so that we can actually observe in this image of the birch tree: This has healing power for the human being.

[ 16 ] If you find plants that, I would say, develop their root systems very vigorously—that is, develop their root power to such an extent that the root forces deposit potassium and sodium salts within them—then you can find in this tendency, so to speak, to anchor the roots within the herb, the very tendency that has a healing effect on bleeding, but also on the formation of stones, kidney stones, and so on. One such plant that would be very useful in this way for bleeding—for internal bleeding, kidney stones, and everything in between—is Capsella bursa-pastoris, shepherd’s purse.

[ 17 ] Now try to really imagine what a plant like this is like—for example, the common spoonwort, Cochlearia officinalis. This plant is also interesting to study. This plant, in fact, contains sulfur-like, sulfur-bearing oils. Because it contains these sulfur-bearing oils, the sulfur acts directly on its protein. Now, in the mineral kingdom, sulfur is what acts on protein in such a way that its forces—its formative forces—are stimulated. In fact, when the protein-forming process proceeds too slowly, it is accelerated by the added sulfur process. This is essentially all that a plant such as spoonwort has organically formed within itself. Because spoonwort grows in certain locations, because it is integrated into nature in a very specific way, it is destined to develop protein processes that act too sluggishly; and through a marvelous natural instinct, a balance is created by the sulfur-containing oils within it, which counteract these sluggish protein processes.

[ 18 ] Now, an accelerated protein process is different from a protein process that, by its very nature, proceeds just as quickly. One must always take this into account. Of course, you can find protein-forming processes in numerous plants that proceed just as quickly as in spoonwort. But they are not caused by the interaction of the principle of inertia with the principle of acceleration. This continuous interaction of the principle of inertia and the principle of acceleration in spoonwort growth is what makes spoonwort, due to its intrinsic affinity, exceptionally well-suited for use in treating such diseases in an appropriate manner—for example, in cases of scurvy—because the process that takes place in scurvy is remarkably similar to the process I have just described.

[ 19 ] Now, I believe that one can indeed go very far by adopting a personal education that integrates external natural phenomena and internal human processes in this way. Through this, you arrive at these extraordinarily important connections. But through this you also arrive at an understanding of the human being that you cannot acquire through any other means, for in truth, the human being can only be fully understood from the non-human, and that, in turn, from the human. One must be able to study both of these things together. Now I ask you not to regard it as unnecessary at all if I add one more thing today that will be of great help to us in our next considerations, namely, the peculiar functioning of the spleen in the human organism.

[ 20 ] The way the spleen functions in the human organism is one that leans very strongly toward the spiritual side. That is why I once said in a lecture on occult physiology that when the spleen is removed, the etheric body—the etheric spleen—very easily takes its place, making it the organ that can most easily be replaced in the human being by its etheric counterpart. But the spleen is less closely connected to the actual metabolism than the other organs of the human abdomen. The spleen is not closely connected to the actual metabolism, but it is, to a high degree, connected to the regulation of metabolism. What, in fact, is the spleen? To Spiritual Science, the spleen appears as that which is called upon to shape the constant harmony between the gross metabolism and all that takes place within the human being that is more spiritual and soulful. For the spleen is, in fact—as are all organs, really, though to varying degrees—to a high degree a powerful subconscious sensory organ, and it reacts with extraordinary intensity to the rhythm of human food intake. People who eat constantly elicit a very different kind of spleen activity within themselves than those who allow for breaks between meals. This can be observed in particular in the restless activity of the spleen in children when they snack constantly; this leads to highly restless spleen activity. It can also be observed in the fact that, when no food is consumed, the spleen settles into a certain state of calm to a high degree some time after falling asleep. Certainly, the spleen does settle into a certain calm—though only in its own way. For the spleen is precisely the organ through which the more spiritual human being perceives the rhythm of food intake, and it tells the person subconsciously what counteraction to develop so that the harmful influence of irregular eating habits can at least be mitigated. As a result, the activity of the spleen is directed less toward the actual metabolism in the human being than toward the rhythmic processes; it participates in these rhythmic processes, in the rhythm that must necessarily unfold between the intake of food and the actual breathing rhythm. There is simply an intermediate rhythm interposed between the respiratory rhythm and the act of eating—which is not particularly predisposed to rhythm—and this is the rhythm mediated by the spleen. Through the respiratory rhythm, human beings are predisposed to live in accordance with the strict rhythm of the world. Through their irregular intake of food, they continually disrupt this strict rhythm of the world. And the spleen acts as a mediator.

[ 21 ] This fact can be easily established simply by observing human beings. Now I ask you to use this fact as a guide to study what you can actually find anatomically and physiologically. You will find everything to be true down to the smallest detail. Because the splenic artery is connected almost directly to the aorta, you will also find, externally in the spleen’s placement within the organism, that what I have said is true, and, on the other hand, you will find that the connection to food intake is mediated by the splenic vein’s integration into the entire organism—a vein that leads to the portal vein and is directly connected to the liver.

[ 22 ] There, the rhythm and non-rhythm—partly external, partly internal—come together and regulate each other. The activity of the spleen is involved, acting as a link between the rhythmic human being and the metabolic human being. And much of what is connected with an improper functioning of the spleen must be regulated precisely by building upon this knowledge of the connection between the respiratory system and the metabolic system—or between the blood circulation system and the metabolic system—as mediated by the spleen. It is no wonder at all that materialistic science ultimately neglects the physiology of the spleen to such a great extent, since this materialistic science knows nothing of the threefold human being: the metabolic human, the circulatory human, and the nervous-sensory human.