The Rudolf Steiner Archive

First Lecture

[ 1 ] Good morning, gentlemen! Have you thought of any more questions?

People are asking, with regard to the political situation: whether the English are truly sincere toward Germany, or whether they are merely a front, and the French are in fact working hand in hand with the English to destroy Germany; on the one hand, the French are attempting to fight Germany through reparations, and on the other hand, there are the big capitalists. And the same is true now in Russia. On the one hand, it is well known that Germany has concluded an economic agreement with Russia; but now one reads again that the French are also said to have concluded an economic agreement with Russia, possibly to thwart the German agreement?—and other matters pertaining to Germany. Might Dr. [Name] perhaps be in a position to offer some insight?

[ 2 ] Yes, you know, that may well be the reason why we’ve been talking more about scientific matters lately—I’d say out of a certain shared understanding—which, in the current climate, is actually much wiser than talking about political matters, simply because all these circumstances, all these issues you’ve touched on, don’t really lead anywhere. In reality, nothing at all comes of all these things. You just have to consider that the situation is such that, at the moment, basically none of us really knows what to do in the future. And all these things that are happening are really just products of fear—true products of fear. Much more important than all these things—which, for example, are simply based on the fact that England doesn’t know what to do at the moment—because, on the one hand, it can’t quite bring itself to break away from France, given that the prevailing opinion in England is that one must keep one’s promises—much more important to people are entirely different matters. That is a common belief there: one must keep one’s promises. Isn’t it true that whether there is sincerity or insincerity in that is something that doesn’t really have much to do with the actual circumstances; that is a matter for individual people—whether they are truthful or untruthful. But in public life, one can only say: The principle prevails that one must keep one’s promises, one must play fair—that is, one must act honorably. So, naturally, England stands firm on the position that it cannot break away from the old Entente. On the other hand, this, in essence, contradicts the very purpose that was associated with this war effort from the very beginning. For this war effort was, after all, calculated to gradually shift production entirely to the West and to suppress production in Eastern and Central Europe, in order to have these regions serve primarily as markets. That was, in fact, the original intention. Production in Central Europe—and this would have extended to Eastern Europe as well—had simply become too abundant for the people in the West. They did not want it that way.

[ 3 ] Well, now the prevailing view in England is this: if Germany is completely subjugated, there will be no market for German goods. They want to keep it afloat. The French, however, are feeling above all their lack of money, of finances—in short, their lack of financial power. Above all, they want to use force to wring something out of Germany again. Well, isn’t that right—England finds itself caught between a rock and a hard place. And so it just swings back and forth. Nothing much comes of it. Once they think they’ve hurt Germany too much, they do something here and there to improve the mood a little. Added to this are the affairs in the East, where France and England are sharply at odds with one another, because England must currently push back the Turks—since it wants to rule the world in one fell swoop. That it takes the Christians under its protection—well, in reality, it does that too; to what extent that’s sincere, there’s no need to examine. But France, which currently attaches no importance to that, since it wants above all to recoup its money, therefore supports the Turks. Thus, in the Orient, the two powers stand in sharp opposition to one another. So, basically, everything in the world today is chaos when it comes to high politics.

[ 4 ] There’s something else to consider as well. This is particularly evident in England right now. There, people are getting to the heart of what really matters. It is very important that many people see what really matters. All the things that are being discussed like this—they don’t really matter at all. Look at what Lloyd George is proposing, or whatever anyone else is saying—it doesn’t matter at all, because it all misses the point—not intentionally, since people believe they’re talking about the facts, but they’re not talking about the facts at all; rather, they’re talking right past the facts.

[ 5 ] But there is another matter that is far more important. You see, there is currently a major struggle in England over Lloyd George—whether he should stay at all or step down. Why can’t this man, who is, after all, capable of articulating the most beautiful words in the world, hold on to power? He cannot hold on because he no longer has a party large enough. All he has are small parties. He can no longer hold on because he no longer has enough large parties. If one wanted to replace Lloyd George now, one couldn’t really do so. One could continue to put a minister in charge, but that person would very soon be removed as well. And so it is impossible to put someone else in Lloyd George’s place. So one must keep him! And that is what the whole situation hinges on. There is currently no new blood. Everywhere, one has to resort to those people about whom one still knows: “Yes, he used to be someone.” But to look at anyone and see if he understands anything, if he’s capable of anything, if he has a grasp of the situation—that’s no longer the case with anyone.

[ 6 ] That’s no longer the case with the Social Democratic Party either. It, too, just props up its old bigwigs and doesn’t let the new ones in. So everywhere, people have lost the ability to even tell whether someone understands anything or not. And that’s why we’re forced to have old people—who know absolutely nothing about the present—in positions of power everywhere. Naturally, nothing can come of that anywhere! So today it doesn’t matter at all whether someone belongs to this or that party when they somehow end up in a position; what matters is that we bring about a time again when there are people who understand the circumstances—people who actually speak based on the facts, rather than always talking and acting at cross-purposes with the facts. Every day, people are less and less able to recognize what is actually supposed to happen. It’s getting worse every day. And that’s why, fundamentally speaking, it’s still completely pointless today to say: “Yes, wouldn’t it be wiser if the English did this, or the French did that, or the Germans or the Turks did such and such?” — Isn’t it true that whatever happens based on old points of view is something that yields absolutely no success,

[ 7 ] Take any fact from the very last few days. One fact: Isn’t it true that Germany has been suffering tremendously lately from so-called currency speculation? Even schoolboys were buying foreign currency, “making money on currency.” Here’s how it worked: If someone had 50 marks, he’d buy foreign currency, and the next day he’d have 75 marks. You could make an enormous amount of money through currency speculation. So what does the German government do? It passes a law—as you know, an emergency law has been enacted against this currency speculation—so the government passes a law: Foreign exchange speculation is to be controlled. Let’s assume the government is smart enough in its decision-making—which I don’t believe yet—but let’s assume it can actually speculate in foreign exchange: it will then achieve favorable results. Let’s assume that. Then, in the coming weeks, there will be less foreign exchange trading in Germany. As I said, it’s no exaggeration that thirteen- and fourteen-year-old schoolboys have been speculating in foreign exchange. So let’s assume that this is curtailed for a few weeks. What will happen? There will be a huge disparity between the cost of food and other necessities and the money people will have to pay for them. So take, for example, a cigarette that costs 7 marks in Germany today. Well, people are buying it. Why? Because of foreign exchange speculation. After all, an old man can’t buy a cigarette today; it’s the young people who buy them—those who make a lot of money through all kinds of foreign exchange speculation. Now let’s assume they’re no longer making money. Yes, now, in the coming days and weeks, no one will buy a good cigarette. This is just an example. Another point: It then goes without saying that cigarette manufacturers will be forced to cut wages again. And then you have this: Goods still carry their old prices; no one can afford them. A new crisis has arrived. That is the next crisis that will come.

[ 8 ] Everything that is to come is shaped solely by the very next moment. People see only what is immediately ahead, and that is why it is always ensured in this way that one crisis flows into the next. You can’t possibly reach a solution this way. It’s completely impossible to escape these chaotic circumstances today except by once again having capable people who can achieve some kind of result. The most important thing is that capable people are back in the picture. And that’s just how it is—as the present times show—truly capable people are not being brought forward. So we must ensure that we once again have an era that brings capable people to the fore. We can’t move forward with the old clichés. Everyone spouts the old clichés. That’s why they have absolutely no value. If you pick up any newspaper today, no matter which party it represents, you’ll read all sorts of things—you might even be pleased that the newspaper speaks for a party to which you yourself belong—but the so-called facts presented to you there have not the slightest value. Nothing comes of it at all. So one can say: It’s almost a waste of time today to concern oneself with all these things that circulate in the world as “political.” Nothing comes of it! And if anything is to be addressed, it is only that capable young men be educated once again. That is the only thing one can strive for; for no one knows anything today.

[ 9 ] After all, those who are in direct contact with Europeans know the most. The Turks, for example, know exactly what they want. The Japanese also know what they want. But they all want to promote their own culture—their own culture! And Europeans, of all people, couldn’t care less about their own culture! And that is precisely what makes it impossible today to say anything meaningful about politics. It’s just like when you sit down in a group and listen for a while, only to realize that people are really just spouting empty platitudes. Then you’ll say: “I’m not getting involved in that.”—That’s pretty much how it is with politics today.

[ 10 ] You see, Lloyd George gave a speech a few days ago. If you want to illustrate that speech using straws that still have individual grains of wheat left in them, the image no longer applies; it must be completely threshed straw; the very last grain of wheat must have been threshed out—only then does it serve as an image of the speech Lloyd George delivered a few days ago. Nevertheless, I have no hesitation in saying that it is the most significant speech any statesman has delivered in recent weeks. For, isn’t it true that if there is absolutely nothing left inside, then the only thing that remains is the fist? One senses—even if he does not actually do so—how he must have been pounding the table at every moment. He is capable of that. There is something inside the fist. But there is nothing inside the words.

[ 11 ] And it’s like that everywhere. I don’t read Wirth’s speeches anymore because the few lines at the beginning of the *Basler Nachrichten* are enough for me. That gives you a good enough idea of the content, and you can clearly see that what he said amounts to nothing. So the whole affair is absolutely disheartening. And so it is that it’s actually completely unnecessary to get excited or disheartened about any particular side. That’s just the way it is. So anyone who is honest and sincere about humanity today must really tell themselves: It all comes down to finding capable people who, in turn, understand something about the world—who are capable of thinking at all, of truly thinking.

[ 12 ] After all, if you look at Lloyd George—perhaps he really is the most capable of them all—but he’s never had a single thought. And that’s precisely how he gets by: by not having any thoughts. He can keep wavering back and forth in this direction and that, and he’s actually talking nonsense. But isn’t it true that as soon as he were to express a thought, the Unionist Party, or the Conservative Party, or the Labour Party would see where they stand with him? As soon as he expresses any thought at all, then you know where you stand with him. Then, of course, you cut him down once you know where you stand with him. His whole art lies in the fact that you can’t know where you stand with him. But if someone constantly spouts meaningless drivel, no one knows where they stand with him—not a single person knows. And his great art lies in the fact that he actually has no thoughts. He is able to practice this art precisely because he himself doesn’t know where he stands.

[ 13 ] That’s just the way things are today. But that wasn’t the case a few years ago. Two or three years ago, people were always saying: Something has to be done before it’s too late. Today, it’s too late in that regard. There’s nothing more to say. It’s too late—it’s too late. Today, what matters is that capable people once again rise to the surface. That is all I can tell you. Because, after all, you can sign as many treaties as you like between Germany and Russia; nothing will come of it. It is not a matter of signing treaties, but of developing economic life.

[ 14 ] Take the Stinnes Group. It’s a prime example. Do you believe for a single moment that Stinnes could somehow do anything with, let’s say, the German working class? You surely don’t believe that! That’s out of the question. He’s a major business magnate who has built himself up by skillfully managing his foreign currency reserves over a long period of time. He knows nothing else but how to build himself up this way. He knows nothing else. Isn’t it true that a great many people now simply see that nothing can be done with the government? It can sign as many treaties as are humanly possible, but nothing comes of it in economic life. Now these people say: If Stinnes does this without the government, it might turn out better. But they have no other reason than that Stinnes operates skillfully in both Germany and France. That is the only reason. But, gentlemen, if you study the Stinnes agreements, you must realize that if they are to be implemented, they must be financed. What Stinnes intends to do must, after all, be financed. Now, the situation is already roughly such that, if one were to finance these things, one would really have to clear-cut almost all the forests in Austria! Isn’t that right? You can say you’ll do it, but you can never actually carry it out. It’s not possible. As soon as you look at these things in terms of how they’re supposed to be carried out, it just doesn’t work anymore. Well, people have seen that it won’t work with government agreements; no economic activity will come of it. Stinnes is doing it without the government; that’s how it will work. — It won’t work that way either. Stinnes is doing it with big capitalists, of course. But nothing will come of it there either. There’s no way to make it happen, because even Stinnes can’t find the financial resources to make anything happen there. So that’s no good either.

[ 15 ] It’s actually quite interesting for anyone who simply wants to write a feature or a newspaper article to observe this incredibly fascinating spectacle of someone playing around with all sorts of series of numbers. Yes, gentlemen, writing editorials or features today imposes no obligation, no responsibility. You can do it quite nicely, because—I beg you—read for yourself now—you may not keep your newspapers—but read the articles written in 1912 and compare them with the articles in the same newspaper today, and you’ll find a curious picture. Isn’t that right? Newspaper articles—they vanish; no one cares about them later. That’s why, of course, you can make all sorts of interesting observations there. But anyone who speaks with a sense of responsibility—who doesn’t churn out newspaper articles on a whim, but wants to speak responsibly—cannot, of course, speak on a whim. They know that it’s all just hot air. That’s just the way things are, and that’s how you can talk about everything. It’s just disheartening when people don’t have any new ideas. And what we need above all else are new ideas. If we don’t come up with new ideas, everything goes down the drain—I don’t know if that’s how you say it here—everything goes down the drain. A toothbrush now costs 215 marks in Germany. Well, yes, but what’s 215 marks? That’s not even a franc; so it’s a cheap toothbrush. But, isn’t that right, where are you supposed to get the 215 marks in the end? And all the other things are correspondingly more expensive. No one can afford an umbrella at all these days. So there’s nothing to be done about it.

[ 16 ] You see, when I was in Vienna, I took a ride in a car once because I had to get somewhere pretty quickly. It was a holiday, and I had to get somewhere in a hurry. It was about as far as driving from here to Dornach—just to Dornach, Oberdornach, no further. Yes, gentlemen, when I asked how much it would cost, it was 3,600 crowns! That’s ten times as much today; today the same trip would cost 36,000 crowns. You can see the recklessness in these things because it confronts you every day. But this recklessness is present in everything else as well; people just don’t see it. So what do people do? After all, if a car costs 36,000 crowns for a short distance, people would just have to print 500,000-crown bills, and if it costs 360,000 crowns, they’d just print 1-million-crown bills! But that doesn’t change the situation at all! Nothing changes at all, except that the people who have some money in their pockets today will have nothing tomorrow, and those who have speculated skillfully will have twice as much tomorrow. But speculating in money really accomplishes nothing. It accomplishes nothing in the world. In reality, foreign exchange trading achieves nothing other than allowing anyone to acquire money without a second thought, to acquire money without working. Of course, if work ceases to exist in the world and is overwhelmed by currency speculation, then everything simply falls apart. So this is not the way forward. It all comes down to finally realizing that there must once again be people who understand something about the world—who truly understand something about the world. There is no other way.

[ 17 ] But to do that, you have to start in school. It’s absolutely essential to start in school. Because there, it’s necessary to really understand these things. I recently read a schoolbook that recommends an arithmetic problem for teachers. I’d like to share this arithmetic problem with you, and you’ll say: “That’s a trifle.” But this arithmetic problem, as presented in this schoolbook, is one of the most important things in the world. It is this:

[ 18 ] There is a person who is 5 2/12 years old
another person who is 18 7/12 years old
another person who is 36 4/12 years old
another person who is 33 5/12 years old.

[ 19 ] How many years do these four people have combined?

[ 20 ] Now the children are supposed to figure that out! That’s what the textbook recommends. Now I ask you, gentlemen: If the children calculate this—and the children dutifully do so, coming up with a total of 173 6/12 years—what do these 173 6/12 years mean? What are they in the grand scheme of things? Who ever finds themselves in a situation where they have to calculate that? If you were to think that this might have even the slightest significance, it would have to be the case that the first person dies precisely as the second is born at that very moment, and the second dies here as the third is born, and so on; then at least one would know how many years have elapsed from the birth of the first to the death of the last. But it will never happen in this world that anyone would even calculate that. So just imagine: if children are made to do this, it is surely the most pointless arithmetic one could make them do. It’s completely pointless arithmetic! And the children have to use their minds to calculate such unreal nonsense.

[ 21 ] So the guy who came up with this once heard that you can add things up. But let’s take someone who was born at a certain time, went to school until he was 14½ years old; then he had an apprenticeship lasting 5½ years; then he spent another 3 years traveling as a journeyman; then he got married, had a son after 4 years, and when he died, his son was 22 years old. If you add these things up, you get the person’s age: 49 years. That is a reality, a fact. Children should be given arithmetic problems like this. It introduces them to real life when you give them these calculations drawn from real life. And that applies to all situations.

[ 22 ] Otherwise, the children spend an hour working on a calculation that can’t actually be applied in real life. But if you tell someone that today—well, it doesn’t shock them! They’ll say: It doesn’t really matter whether the children learn arithmetic through this or that. They don’t think it’s terribly important at all. But that is what matters most of all! Because when such nonsense is in the textbooks, the people who are taught from such textbooks will later go out into the world and talk nothing but nonsense, unimportant stuff. From this you can see that it is by no means just some vague, wishy-washy idea when we speak today of a renewal of the educational system. In the educational system I’m talking about, the aim is to base everything on reality, right from the very beginning, so that people grow into reality. These are the things that really matter. And that’s why we can say: We can be absolutely certain that if people keep going the way they are now, the same old story will just continue; they can do whatever they want. They can found as many new newspapers as they like—if they are written in the same spirit, it’s all just chaos. That is why it is so important today to focus on what makes people think again, so that there are no such textbooks and no such teachers in schools who simply add up the numbers (the first exercise in the textbook).

[ 23 ] And it is the same in other subjects. This is how people learn language, this is how people learn science, and finally, this is how they learn social studies. Everything, everything is outside of reality!

[ 24 ] I’ve told you: In England, when you earn a “Master of Arts” degree, the university there gives you a medieval robe—that’s a medieval custom. At least centuries ago, that was a reality; it meant something. But today, it means nothing if someone is a state councilor or something like that; it means nothing. That is the difference. In countries that have undergone a revolution, things haven’t gotten any better—not at all. You must realize that it all comes down to fundamentally changing education and instruction. That is what is necessary.

[ 25 ] Does anyone else have a question related to social issues?

Question: Regarding appendectomies: It is claimed that it is not at all harmful to a person’s health when organs are surgically removed—simply taken out. It is striking that organs are so frequently removed during surgeries today, and since the importance of internal organs has been discussed, the questioner would like to know what happens when these organs are missing.

[ 26 ] Dr. Steiner: I can't answer that question until we've discussed something else first. I'd be happy to do that now.

Another question: The recent lectures discussed the influence of the planets on human beings; can we hear a little more about that?

[ 27 ] Dr. Steiner: That brings us to the heart of the matter. So today I will begin to answer these questions and see how far we can get. First, I would like to tell you a story that may draw your attention to what we now wish to pursue further as knowledge and insight. It was in the early 1890s—so perhaps thirty or thirty-one years ago—when a North American trade and transportation company, an official trade and transportation company, held a conference, and a financial heavyweight was also invited to this conference: the man’s name was William Windom. He was indeed a very clever man in the eyes of the people who had gathered there—someone whom you could tell at a glance was an authority on the subject. And it was expected that he would give a speech at this trade and transportation convention. And he did. He began his speech by saying: “We need a reform of our entire trade and transportation system, because there is something unhealthy about the way trade and transportation are organized today.” He then went on to explain to the audience, in a brief speech, what money is and what it means—though, of course, these were only brief hints as to the meaning of money. He said: “Yes, gentlemen, I have now explained economic matters to you. But what matters is that you also realize that this whole system doesn’t work. No matter how much money rolls through the channels of commerce, passing from hand to hand, that is not what actually makes an economy healthy. For what makes an economy healthy are the moral concepts that people hold.” And unless these moral concepts flow through the channels of commerce and money circulates in such a way that moral concepts are also associated with it—without that, we will get nowhere.” —- That is what he said. And he went on to say: “When immoral concepts are present in commercial and economic life, it is just as if poison were flowing through human veins and making the blood unhealthy.” Everything that flows as money through the channels of commerce and economic life—if, instead of moral concepts, immoral concepts flow through them—is just as if poison were flowing through the veins, driving a person to illness because of this poison, for it takes its toll. Thus, the economic body becomes ill when poison—that is, immoral concepts—is driven through its veins.

[ 28 ] Now it struck the people who were present at his speech that he looked a little pale when he used this metaphor about his veins and applied it to economic life. Moreover, people were surprised that the man who had previously spoken only about economic life and finance—which is, after all, how he had begun—now suddenly used this actually quite beautiful metaphor, which he then elaborated on in detail. He described it as something that flows through the entire bloodstream. This sudden description of moral concepts felt like a departure from the topic. And as soon as he uttered the sentence: “In economic life, it is as if a poison were coursing through the veins of economic transactions”—he collapsed. The blow had struck him! And he is dead.

[ 29 ] Well, you see, this is one of those experiments of nature I’ve often told you about—ones from which one can learn a great deal; for here, what happened is plain as day. Of course, the man wasn’t killed by the speech, because he didn’t get all that terribly worked up about it. Of course, the man would have suffered a stroke at the very moment he had been doing something else somewhere else. The conditions were already present within him. So I won’t claim for a moment that he suffered a stroke because he gave the speech. That is certainly not the case. Perhaps the excitement caused it to happen an hour earlier. That can certainly happen. But in any case, it had long been a predisposition within him. It lay within him. He would have suffered a stroke elsewhere as well. But what actually happened is that he suddenly veers off his topic—though still in a perfectly logical way—and describes his own state of mind at that moment, right in the middle of his speech. So imagine: the man is standing before his audience, dutifully speaking to them about a purely economic topic. Suddenly he digresses, just as he’s starting to sound a bit dull, and describes what’s going on inside him! Except that he remains mindful of his economic speech. For what he described there was his own state of mind before death, and that’s what he digressed to. The fact that he structured his speech this way was a consequence of his state of mind. And one can learn an immense amount from such an incident. For it happens in other contexts as well, even if not in such a stark manner.

[ 30 ] And now let's suppose it happened that the man lost his train of thought. Well, I’ve seen speakers more than once who’ve lost their train of thought during a speech. They usually—even though they’d been standing there proudly just a moment before—would make a slight movement and glance down—they’d placed their top hat in front of them: there was the speech underneath! That’s how they found their train of thought again. Things like that do happen. I once saw a mayor who got stuck after the first ten words; so he took his bowler hat and bravely read the speech from it! Well, he certainly knew how to read. If he had kept talking off the cuff about whatever else might have occurred to him at the time—well, you see, nothing would have come of it; only cabbage would have come of it.

[ 31 ] Well, what about William Windom—how did it go for him? You see, the stroke had struck him, was inside him. And whether a stroke strikes you right then and there, with the symptoms preceding it already present, or whether you’re like that mayor back then—who was constantly in a state of mind where a stroke could strike—it doesn’t make much difference in terms of a person’s overall constitution. Well, the mayor could still read. And the man who suffered a stroke shortly afterward could still read as well, but where was he reading? He was reading his own body. He was reading what was happening inside his own body.

[ 32 ] From this, however, you can see that what we learn through anthroposophical Spiritual Science is correct: that whenever we speak, we are actually always reading something from our own body. Of course, we speak based on our external experiences. But we mix into that what we read within ourselves. It’s just not always as sad as what happens when we’re struck by a sudden realization right afterward. But in fact, what we say is derived from our own inner bodily processes. Every single time—even if you say just five words—it is derived from your own bodily processes. If you wrote something down five days ago, and you take out your notebook today and read it, you’re reading it from the outside. If you write it down from memory, it’s written within you by that script that exists inside—we’ll come to understand this little by little—but you’re reading it from within. It is exactly the same whether you read from a book or from within; only the direction in which you look is different. So it really doesn’t matter whether you’ve written down in your notebook, say: 5 nails, 7 staples—or whether you’ve stored that in your brain. If you’ve written that down in the book, you read it from the page where you wrote it down. But if, because you wrote that down in your brain five days ago, a cell that produced the “five” has intertwined with another cell, and that in turn with yet another cell—thereby producing the “seven”—and that has in turn intertwined with another: Heftel, a whole tangle has formed inside you as a result of what you’ve experienced. And unconsciously, without even realizing it, you look at this tangle that has formed inside you and read it.

[ 33 ] So this is what you are practically led to conclude when you have such a striking example as that of this William Windom.

[ 34 ] I’ve already told you another example. Let’s briefly recall what Dr. Ludwig Schleich recounted, having experienced this himself. One day, a man came running toward him at breakneck speed and said: “I just pricked my hand with a pen.” See, there’s still ink in it. You have to amputate my hand along with my entire arm, otherwise I’ll die of blood poisoning.”—Schleich, whom I knew well—he passed away only recently—told me this himself. He said to the man, “What on earth are you thinking? As a surgeon, I can’t take responsibility for amputating your arm right now! “We just need to suck it out; it’s a completely trivial matter. It’s nonsense that I should have to amputate your arm!” The man replied, “Yes, but then I’ll die! You have to amputate my arm; otherwise I’ll die!” — Then Schleich said, “I can’t do it; I can’t just amputate your arm for nothing!” — “Well then,” said the patient, “I’ll die.” — Schleich sent him on his way. But the man ran to a second doctor and demanded that he amputate his arm. Of course, the doctor didn’t do it either—not at all—and the man spent the whole evening running around saying he’d die that night. He’d told Schleich that, too.

[ 35 ] Schleich was, of course, very concerned about the man; he couldn’t, of course, remove his arm, since there was absolutely no reason to do so, but he inquired the very next morning about the man whose small wound he had sucked clean. That’s, of course, a minor matter when someone pricks themselves with a quill; it’s quickly taken care of by sucking it out. But when Schleich arrived the next morning, the man was dead—he had died! Well, what did Schleich say? The man died of autosuggestion; he talked himself to death and died because of his own thoughts. Isn’t that right? That’s what they call it: autosuggestion, self-suggestion.

[ 36 ] I said to Schleich: “All sorts of things can happen through autosuggestion, but a death like that doesn’t occur through mere autosuggestion; that’s nonsense.” But Schleich didn’t believe me.

[ 37 ] But what actually happened? You see, only someone who truly understands human nature can see what really happened in this case. Isn’t that right? The doctors, of course, then performed an autopsy, found that there was not the slightest trace of blood poisoning, and were satisfied with that: death by autosuggestion, because there was nothing there at all. But what actually happened was that the man had in fact also been struck by a stroke that was very difficult to diagnose. But the stroke had already been building up for days, as you can see, because of course that doesn’t happen all at once; the stroke had been developing in the finer organs for days. Then he saw within himself—just as Windom sees at the very last moment how the poison, which has entered through some food, is coursing through his veins—he saw: my body is dying. Outwardly, of course, one can go about for a long time, completely unchanged, while inwardly death is already taking shape. He saw that, and it made him nervous. The fact that he stabbed himself in the hand was merely a result of that nervousness. He would not have stabbed himself at all if he hadn’t been so nervous inside. Because he hadn’t made that clear to himself inwardly, he didn’t know it beforehand. Now that he has pricked himself, he has said what he naturally could not say before—and what no one else says either: “I feel it deep inside that death is approaching,” even though he otherwise feels like a healthy person—but he has now said this, attributing it to entirely false causes: “I’m going to die from this pen prick!” - That was not a case of autosuggestion, for he would have died the very next night in any case. He simply became nervous and pricked his hand with the pen, and as a result, the thought came to consciousness in a completely distorted form. He consulted the doctors; but even Schleich, who was a very intelligent man, did not believe it, thinking instead that it was a case of autosuggestion. So he believed that the man had talked himself into death. But that is nonsense. The cause of death was already there, and this pen prick was merely the result of his nervousness.

[ 38 ] But from this you can see that a great deal is going on internally. And if one does not study these things properly, one simply cannot gain clarity about the origin of humankind and about the way in which humans already lived in ancient times, when the ichthyosaurs, the plesiosaurs, and the megatheres were swimming around in a thick broth. One cannot even begin to understand how it all fits together unless one goes back and studies humankind properly. One must study humans thoroughly.

[ 39 ] But here, once again, we have to rely heavily on other sources. At what age do the vast majority of people die? Well, we know that infants die most frequently in the very first few months, and mortality gradually decreases. Children still suffer from childhood illnesses until around the time their baby teeth fall out. And then, if people were more sensible, very few illnesses would occur during school age—though some are also caused by poor posture and so on. Between the ages of seven and fourteen, very few illnesses occur. Then it starts again. But there is a big difference between the illnesses that occur in early childhood and those that occur during puberty. If we consider the illnesses that ruin children in the very earliest years of life, the first is always a very specific type of blood suppuration. The blood becomes purulent. A child living in precarious conditions dies very soon, and therefore it is not determined what the outcome of such suppuration would have been. The child would simply develop jaundice. If an adult contracts the same condition as the child, it progresses to jaundice, which in most cases can even be completely cured. But the child does not even reach the stage of jaundice; instead, it dies before that.

[ 40 ] Diarrhea is a common illness among children. And here’s the important point: If you try to treat diarrhea in a child the same way you would in an adult, you won’t achieve anything. One must treat it with an enema, using only external interventions—at most, compresses—but certainly not by administering medication. That achieves nothing in a child. And so it is that children develop the familiar little blisters—the blisters that burst open, particularly on the tongue—and later the well-known childhood illnesses that erupt from within, as if the entire interior were in bloom: scarlet fever, measles, and so on. Certainly, older people can also contract these illnesses, but they are primarily childhood diseases. And the susceptibility to these childhood diseases ceases once a person has developed permanent teeth. From then on, these diseases—which must therefore be treated primarily from the outside and for which children must be given the most careful diet—no longer occur in this form.

[ 41 ] When a child has pus-filled blood, one can never really say for certain where it comes from. It simply comes from the very depths of the child's being. —- A common childhood illness is convulsions, the so-called childhood convulsions.

[ 42 ] The illnesses that people contract once they reach sexual maturity are of an entirely different nature. One need only think of the illnesses that girls develop when they reach sexual maturity: pallor, for example. In that case, the problem originates directly from the blood; we know that the body is not properly nourishing the blood. When a child develops hemoptysis, the blood is corrupted by something else inside the body. When a girl develops pallor, the blood itself becomes diseased. It is one thing when there is something inside the body that corrupts the blood, and quite another when the blood itself becomes diseased—as happens when the blood thickens in a girl or boy, leading to hemorrhoids.

[ 43 ] It is therefore a fact that a person is particularly susceptible to causes of illness twice in their life: first during their first seven years, and then during their third seven-year period. In between, a person is predisposed to good health. It is important to note that human beings are not always equally predisposed to illness and health, but rather vary greatly at different times, and these illnesses also have very different characteristics at these different times. This can provide us with an even deeper insight into the human inner being than what we have already discussed. By viewing it in this way, one comes to understand the organs.

[ 44 ] You see, on the one hand, you have Mr. William Windom, who suddenly starts talking about his organs when death is approaching. On the other hand, when we examine illnesses in early childhood and later childhood, they reveal to us that different processes are at work during the successive stages of life. But we must learn to read what is going on inside a person. We must learn to read. For example, if a child develops thrush in the mouth, or if the child develops red spots on various parts of the body, we must learn to read what is happening inside. And only then can one develop a true understanding of human nature—by learning to read. And this is certainly true: If you simply place a person on the dissection table after they have died and then examine individual organs—organs that, when removed, have no particular effect—for example, the spleen—that is the kind of organ that can be surgically removed when it becomes diseased, and the person can indeed benefit from the operation, he’ll be healthier for a while than if he still had his diseased spleen inside him—well, gentlemen, if you simply look at the spleen after it’s been surgically removed, you simply won’t be able to tell the difference between the spleen and, say, the stomach. Of course, if you remove a person’s entire stomach, he’ll have a very hard time. It’s practically impossible. In the long run, such a person with an artificial stomach will never be cured. But there are simply organs that cannot be removed—for example, the lungs and so on—and least of all the brain—there’s a specific point there; if you just pierce it with a needle and hit that exact spot, the person will drop dead immediately.

[ 45 ] The elephant, for example, also has this organ. If you pierce it and hit this particular organ—you don’t even need to remove it—the entire large animal will collapse and die. Of course, if you want, you can remove an elephant’s spleen: it will still live for years. That’s where you see the difference. It really does matter whether you remove a person’s spleen, appendix, or something else. To understand this, however, it is necessary to study the human body properly. Now, remember that I told you: these little brain cells—the ones I drew for you as a reminder—are still soft and alive in a child, and they only gradually harden, so that these brain cells must harden during the first years of childhood, up to the age of seven. In fact, they are not fully hardened until a person has gone through the process of losing their baby teeth. When a person reaches sexual maturity, the other cells—the ones I told you about that move through the entire bloodstream—become much more mobile; up until then, they are at least sluggish, moving slowly through the blood until sexual maturity. There are two occasions when one is prone to illness: the first is when the body—or rather, the soul within the body—must exert itself to properly stiffen the brain cells up until the age of seven. The second is when, upon reaching sexual maturity, it must exert itself to make these creatures, which are swimming around in the blood, more mobile.

[ 46 ] If one were to describe this in layman’s terms, one might say: Imagine you’re building a house and you’re using mortar that doesn’t harden properly—it just won’t work. That’s what happens when brain cells aren’t hardened properly. And that’s the case with children who develop this or that illness. We’ll describe these causes of illness in even greater detail next time. After puberty, you’re dealing with an entire flock—a huge flock of millions of such white blood cells. Up until then, they’re sluggish, and if it were a real flock—a flock of millions—there would have to be a great many shepherds behind it, driving them on so they’d become more diligent. Yes, this driving force must be present. If it is not, anaemia results. And so it depends on these factors that, in early childhood, there is one starting point for a certain type of illness, and in late childhood, at puberty, there is another starting point.

[ 47 ] But that is how one must study human beings; then one gradually comes to understand how things are connected. In general, you cannot accomplish anything in social life either if you do not know these facts of natural science.