The Rudolf Steiner Archive

7. The Nature of Healing Effects

[ 1 ] The overall human organization is not a self-contained system of interlocking processes. If it were, it could not be the carrier of the soul and spirit. This can only have the human organism as its basis in that it continually disintegrates in the nervous and bony substance and in the processes into which these substances are incorporated, or sets out on the path of lifeless, mineral activity.

[ 2 ] The protein substance decomposes in the nervous tissue. But it is not rebuilt in this tissue, as in the egg germ or in other structures, by entering the area of the effects radiating onto the earth, but it simply decays. Thus the etheric effects that radiate from the things and processes of the external environment through the senses, and those that are formed by using the organs of movement, can use the nerves as organs along which they are transmitted through the whole body.

[ 3 ] There are two processes in the nerves: the decomposition of the protein substance and the flow of ether substance through this decomposing substance, which is stimulated to flow by acids, salts, phosphorous and sulphur. The balance between the two processes is mediated by fats and water. In essence, these processes are disease processes that continually permeate the organism. They must be balanced out by equally ongoing healing processes.

[ 4 ] This balancing is achieved by the fact that the blood not only contains the processes that make up growth and metabolic processes, but that it also has a continuous healing effect that is opposed to the pathogenic nerve processes.

[ 5 ] The blood has in its plasma substance and in the fibrous material those forces that serve growth and metabolism in the narrower sense. The origins of the healing effect of blood lie in what appears as iron content when examining the red blood cells. Iron therefore also appears in gastric juice and as iron oxide in lactic juice. Sources are created everywhere for processes that have a balancing effect on the nervous processes.

[ 6 ] Examination of the blood reveals that iron is the only metal within the human organism that has a tendency to crystallize. It thus asserts the forces that are external, physical, mineral forces of nature. They form a system of forces within the human organism that is oriented towards external, physical nature. This, however, is continually overcome by the ego organization.

[ 7 ] We are dealing with two systems of forces. One has its origin in the nerve processes; the other in blood formation. Pathogenic processes develop in the nervous processes to such an extent that they can be permanently cured by the counteracting blood processes. The nervous processes are those which are effected by the astral body on the nervous substance and thus in the whole organism. The blood processes are those in which the ego-organization in the human organism confronts the external physical nature that is continued in it, but which is forced into the shaping of the ego-organization.

[ 8 ] The processes of illness and healing can be directly grasped in this reciprocal relationship. If intensifications of those processes occur in the organism which have their normal degree in what is excited by the nervous process, then disease is present. If one is able to contrast these processes with those that present themselves as intensifications of external natural effects in the organism, then healing can be brought about if these external natural effects are mastered by the ego-organism and have a balancing effect on the processes oriented in the opposite direction to them.

[ 9 ] Milk contains only small amounts of iron. It is the substance which, as such, represents the least pathogenic in its effects; the blood must continuously endure everything that is pathogenic; it therefore needs the organized iron, i.e. the iron absorbed into the ego organization - the haematin - as a continuously effective remedy.

[ 10 ] When a remedy is to act on a diseased condition occurring in the inner organization, even on such a condition that is caused from outside but runs within the organism, it is first important to gain knowledge of the extent to which the astral organization acts in the sense that a decomposition of the protein occurs at some point in the organism in the same way as this is initiated by the nervous organization in the normal way. One assumes that one is dealing with stagnations in the: abdomen. In the pain that occurs, one may notice a superfluous activity of the astral body. Then one is dealing with the characterized case for the intestinal organism.

[ 11 ] The next important question is: how can the increased astral effect be compensated for? This can be done by introducing substances into the blood which can be seized by that part of the ego organization which is active in the intestinal organization. These are potassium and sodium. If these are added to the organism in any preparation or in a plant organization, e.g. Anagallis arvensis, then the astral body is relieved of its excessive nervous effect and what the astral body does too much of is transferred to the effect of the above-mentioned substances from the blood, which is seized by the ego organization.

[ 12 ] If the mineral substance is used, it will be necessary to ensure that these metals are correctly introduced into the bloodstream by additional doses, or better by combining the potassium or sodium in the preparation with sulphur, so that the protein metamorphosis is stopped before decomposition. Sulphur has the peculiarity that it serves to stop protein decomposition; it holds the organizing forces in the protein substance together, so to speak. If it enters the bloodstream in such a way that it remains in contact with the potassium or sodium, then its effect occurs where the potassium or sodium have a special attraction to certain organs. This is the case with the intestinal organs.