Fundamentals of Therapy
GA 27
Translated by E. A. Frommer and J. Josephson
10. The role of fat in the human organism and the deceptive local symptom complexes
[ 1 ] Fat is the substance of the organism which, when ingested from the outside, is least likely to be a foreign substance. Fat is most easily transferred from the species it comes from when ingested into the species of the human organism. The eighty percent of fat contained in butter, for example, passes through the areas of ptyalin and pepsin unchanged and is only changed by the pancreatic juice, namely transformed into glycerine and fatty acids.
[ 2 ] This behavior of fat is only possible because it transfers as little as possible of the nature of a foreign organism (of its ethereal powers, etc.) into the human organism. The latter can easily incorporate it into its own effectiveness.
[ 3 ] This is due to the fact that fat plays a special role in the production of internal heat. This warmth, however, is that in which, as in the physical organism, the ego organization lives primarily. Of every substance in the human body, only so much comes into consideration for the ego-organization as the development of warmth takes place during its activity. Fat proves by its whole behaviour to be a substance that is only a filling of the body, is only carried by it and only comes into consideration for the active organization through those processes in which heat develops. Fat, for example, which is taken as food from an animal organism, takes nothing over from it into the human organism except its ability to develop heat.
[ 4 ] However, this heat development occurs as one of the latest processes of metabolism. Therefore, fat ingested as food is preserved through the first and middle processes of metabolism and is only absorbed in the area of internal body activity, earliest by the pancreas.
[ 5 ] When fat appears in human milk, this indicates a very remarkable activity of the organism. The body does not consume this fat; it allows it to pass into a secretion product. But the ego organization also passes into this fat. The formative power of mother's milk is based on this. The mother thereby transfers her own formative powers of the ego organization to the child and thus adds something to the formative powers that have already been transferred through heredity.
[ 6 ] The healthy path exists when the human formative forces consume the fat stores present in the body in the development of heat. An unhealthy way is when the fat is not consumed by the ego organization in heat processes, but is fed into the organism unused. Such fat forms a surplus of the possibility of generating heat here and there in the organism. It is heat that interferes with other life processes here and there in the organism and is not encompassed by the ego organization. To a certain extent, parasitic foci of warmth arise which carry within them the tendency to inflammatory conditions. The origin of such foci must be sought in the fact that the body develops the tendency to produce more fat than the ego organization needs for its life in the inner warmth.
[ 7 ] In a healthy organism, the animal (astral) forces will produce or absorb as much fat as can be converted into heat processes by the ego organization, plus the amount necessary to keep the muscle and bone mechanics in order. In this case, the heat necessary for the body will be generated. If the animal forces supply the ego organization with too little fat, the ego organization will experience heat hunger. It must extract the heat it needs from the activities of the organs. This causes them to become fragile and rigid. Their necessary processes are sluggish. You will then see disease processes occurring here and there, where it will be a matter of recognizing whether they have their causes in a general lack of fat.
[ 8 ] If the other case already mentioned occurs, the excess of fat content, so that parasitic heat foci form, then organs are seized in such a way that they become active beyond their measure. This creates a tendency to eat too much, overloading the organism. It is not at all necessary for this to develop in such a way that the person in question becomes an overeater. It is possible, for example, that during the metabolic activity in the organism too much substance is supplied to a head organ and thereby withdrawn from the abdominal organs and secretory processes. Then the activity of the poorly supplied organs is reduced. The glandular secretions can become deficient. The liquid components of the organism get into an unhealthy mixing ratio. For example, the secretion of bile may become too great in relation to the secretion of the pancreas. Again, it will be important to recognize how a locally occurring symptom complex is to be judged in its emergence from unhealthy fat activity.