Man as Symphony of the Creative Word
Part Four. The Secrets of the Human Organism
GA 230
9 November 1923, Dornach
Physical natural laws, etheric natural laws, are the characters of a script which depicts the spiritual world. We only understand these things when we are able to conceive them as written characters from spiritual worlds.
Lecture X
In the lectures which I have given recently you will have seen that everything was directed towards so bringing together world-phenomena that eventually a really comprehensive knowledge of man might result. Everything we have been studying here has had the knowledge of man as its goal. Such a knowledge of man will only become possible when it begins with the lowest forms of the world of phenomena and relates them to everything that is revealed to man as the material world. But what begins in this way with the study of the entire world of matter must end with the study of the world of the hierarchies. It is in proceeding from the lowest forms of material up to the highest forms of spiritual existence that we must seek to discover what will eventually lead to a true knowledge of man. For the present we will use the lectures I am now able to give you to make a kind of sketch of such a knowledge of man.
We must be quite clear about the fact that what we now recognise as man is a product of that long cosmic evolution which I have always synthesized as the Saturn-Sun-Moon-and-Earth-evolution. The Earth-evolution is not yet completed. But let us be clear about what man owes to this Earth-evolution in the narrower sense, to the epoch, that is to say, which is subsequent to the evolution of old Moon. You see, when you move your arms and stretch them out, when you move your fingers, when you carry out any kind of external movement, everything in your organism which enables you to move your arms and legs, your head, your lips, and so on—and the forces upon which man's external movements depend enter into the most inward parts of the human organism—all this was vouchsafed to man by Earth-evolution in the narrower sense. If, on the other hand, you look into everything connected with the development of the metabolism, which is enclosed by man's outer skin, if you look at all the metabolic functions within the physical body, here you have a picture of what man owes to the Moon-evolution. And you have a picture of what man owes to the old Sun-evolution when you look into everything within him which involves some kind of rhythmic process. Breathing and blood-circulation are of course the most important of these rhythmic processes, and these man owes to the old Sun-evolution. Everything comprised in the system of nerves and senses, which in men of today is distributed over the whole body, this man owes to the old Saturn-evolution.
In regard to all this, however, you must bear in mind that the human being is a whole and that world-evolution is a whole. When today we draw attention to the old Saturn-evolution in the way I did in my “Occult Science”, we mean the period of evolution previous to the primordial epochs of the Sun-Moon-and-Earth-evolution. But this is only one Saturn-evolution, that from which the Earth resulted. But during the period in which the Earth was evolving, a Saturn-evolution also came into being. This Saturn-evolution is included in the Earth-evolution; it is, so to speak, the youngest Saturn-evolution. The one that did not reach the Earth-evolution is the oldest. The Saturn-evolution which was inserted into old Sun is younger; the one inserted into old Moon is younger still. And the Saturn which today imbues the Earth, and is actually responsible for certain aspects of its warmth-organization, this Saturn is the youngest of all. We, with our human nature, are a part of this Saturn-evolution.
Thus are we placed into cosmic evolution. But we are also placed into what surrounds us spacially on the earth. Take, for example, the mineral kingdom. We live in a state of reciprocal action with the mineral kingdom. We take the mineral element into ourselves through our food. We absorb it in other ways, too, through our breathing, and so on. We assimilate the mineral element.
But all evolution, all world-processes, are different within man from what they are outside him. I have already mentioned that it is a real absurdity when people today study chemical processes in laboratories, and then think that when a person eats certain foodstuffs these processes will simply continue inside him. Man is not some kind of confluence of chemical actions; inside him everything is altered. And from a certain standpoint this alteration appears in the following way.
Let us suppose that we take into ourselves something of a mineral nature. Every such mineral substance must be so far worked upon within the human being that the following result is brought about. You know that we have our own individual temperature; in the healthy person this is about 98 degrees Fahrenheit (37° centigrade). In the warmth of our blood we have something which exceeds the warmth outside us. Everything which we take in as mineral substance must, however, be so transformed, so metamorphosed in our organism that, where the warmth of our blood exceeds the average warmth of its external environment, where it rises above the average external warmth of our surroundings, this excess of warmth absorbs with satisfaction the mineral element within us. If you eat a grain of cooking-salt, this grain of salt must be absorbed by your individual warmth, not by the warmth which you have in common with the outside world. It must be absorbed with satisfaction by your own individual warmth. Everything mineral must be transformed into warmth-ether. And the moment a person has something in his organism which prevents any kind of mineral from being changed into warmth-ether, at that moment he is ill.
Now let us proceed to the plant-substances which man takes into himself. Man takes in plant-substances; he, too, belongs to the plant kingdom inasmuch as he develops the plant-element within himself. He contains what is of a mineral nature; this, however, continually has the tendency to become warmth-ether. The plant element continually has the tendency in man to become airy, to become gaseous. So that man has the plant element within himself in its aspect of air. Everything of a plant nature which enters man, or whatever he himself develops as inner plant organisation, must become airy, must be able to assume the form of air within him. If it does not assume the form of air, if his organization is such that it hinders him from letting what is of a plant-nature within him pass over into the form of air, he becomes ill. Everything of animal-nature which man takes in or develops within himself must—in time at least—assume the fluid, the watery form. Man may not have what is of an animal nature within him, whether inwardly produced or absorbed from outside, unless at some time it submits to the process of becoming fluid. If man is not in a position to liquidize either his own or foreign animal substance so as to transform it further into the solid, then he becomes ill. Only that in man which is indigenous to the purely human form, which arises from his nature as a being who walks upright, having within him the impulses to speak and think, only that which gives man his real humanity, which raises him above the animal—and this is at most a tenth of his whole organism—may enter into solid formation, into actual form. If anything of animal or plant nature invades the human solid form, man is ill.
Everything mineral must eventually become warmth-ether in man. Everything vegetable must undergo a transitional airy stage in man. Everything animal must pass through an intermediate watery stage in man. Only what is human may always retain within itself the earthly-solid form. This is one of the secrets of the human organization.
And now to begin with let us leave aside everything that man has from the Earth-epoch—thereby making our further studies of this all the more fruitful—and let us take the metabolic system as such, which, though certainly developed as an Earth-organization, nevertheless received its germinal beginnings from the epoch of old Moon. Let us therefore take digestion in the narrower sense of what takes place inside the human skin—in which we must of course include the excretory processes—and we shall find that all substances become altered in the intake of food. The food-substances, which at first are outside man, enter into him, and merge themselves with the digestive system. This digestive system now converts what belonged to man's surroundings into what is essentially human. Everything mineral begins to assume the condition of warmth-ether, everything vegetable the gaseous-airy-vaporous condition, everything animal, including what is self-produced, begins to assume the fluid condition; and all begin to build what is now essentially human into a firmly organized structural form. All this is inherent in digestion. And digestion is consequently something of remarkable interest.
If we ascend from digestion to breathing, we notice that man produces carbon out of himself, and that this is to be found everywhere within him. This is sought out by oxygen, becomes changed into carbonic acid, and is then exhaled. Carbonic acid is the combination of carbon and oxygen. The oxygen, which is drawn in through breathing, masters the carbon, absorbs the carbon into itself; carbonic acid, the product of oxygen and carbon, is then exhaled. But before exhalation occurs, the carbon becomes the benefactor, so to speak, of human nature. This carbon—in that it combines with the oxygen, in that it combines to a certain extent what the blood-circulation brings about with what the breathing produces—this carbon becomes the benefactor of the human organization, for, before it leaves the human organization, it disperses through it an out-streaming of ether. Physical science merely states that carbon is exhaled with carbonic acid. This, however, is only one side of the whole process. Man exhales the carbonic acid; but in the process of this exhalation something of the carbon taken up by the oxygen is left behind in his whole organism, namely ether. This ether penetrates into man's etheric body, and it is this ether, continually being produced by the carbon, which makes the human organization capable of opening itself to spiritual influences, of absorbing astral-etheric forces from the cosmos. This ether, which is left behind by the carbon, attracts the cosmic impulses, and they in their turn work formatively upon man, so preparing his nervous system, for instance, that it can become the bearer of thoughts. This ether must continually permeate our senses, our eyes, for example, so that they may see, so that they may receive the outer light-ether. Thus we are indebted to carbon for the supply of ether within us which enables us to come into contact with the outer world.

All this is already prepared in the metabolic system. But the metabolism as a human system is so placed into the whole cosmos that it could not exist for itself alone. Isolated in itself the digestive system could not exist. This is why it was the third system to have its rudiments implanted in man. The rudiments of the system of nerves and senses took form in the epoch of old Saturn; the second system, the rhythmic system, was laid down during the epoch of old Sun. Only after these other systems had come into being could the metabolic system be produced, because in and for itself this system could not exist. The metabolic system, if at first we omit its involuntary movements, is intended, in its cosmic connection, to provide for human nutrition. But these processes of nutrition cannot function independently. Digestion is necessary to man, but in and for itself it cannot exist. For if we study the human metabolic system in isolation—in the forthcoming lectures you will again see how necessary it is for the whole human organism—we find it constantly imbued with every kind of tendency towards illness. And the origin of internal illnesses—not those caused by external injury—must always be looked for in the metabolic system. Anyone, therefore, who wishes to put forward a rational observation of illness must start with the metabolic system; and in regard to every metabolic phenomenon he must really ask: Now where did you come from? When we consider all the phenomena, from the taking of food into the mouth, from the way the food is worked upon so that we transform certain substances into starch, sugar and so on, when we take the enveloping action of ptyalin in the mouth, when we go further and take the pepsin process in the stomach, and the assimilation of the products in digestion, following all these as far as their passage into the lymphatic vessels and into the blood—then we realize that each single one of these processes must be investigated—and their number is legion. The mingling of the products of digestion with the secretions of the pancreatic glands, the further mingling of these substances with the secretions from the gall-bladder, and so on—to each single process the question must be put: What is it that you really want? And it will answer: If I am alone I am a process which always makes man ill. No digestive process in human nature may be carried to its conclusion, for every digestive process which is carried to its conclusion makes man ill. The human constitution is only healthy when the metabolic processes are checked at a certain stage.
It might at first seem a folly in world-organization that something should begin in man which, if not checked halfway, would make him ill; but in the next lectures we shall learn to recognize this as something of the utmost wisdom. For the time being, however, let us study the actual facts, and discover what the answer of the separate digestive processes would be if we were to question their inner nature. We are always on the way to making our whole organism ill. Every digestive process, if unchecked, causes illness in the organism. If, therefore, digestion is to exist at all in man, other processes must exist whose germinal beginnings date from earlier times. These are the processes which are present in circulation, the circulatory processes. The circulation continually produces the processes of healing. So that we may really describe the human being by saying: During the old Moon evolution man was born as patient, and the doctor within him was already sent in advance during the epoch of old Sun. In regard to his own organism man was already born as doctor during the evolution of old Sun. It shows great foresight on the part of world-evolution that the doctor came into existence before the patient, for the patient in man himself was only added on old Moon. And if we are to describe man rightly, we must work backwards from the digestive to the circulatory processes, including, of course, all those impulses which underlie the circulatory system. Speaking broadly one substance induces quicker, another substance slower circulation. We have also quite small circulatory processes within us. Take any mineral substance, gold, let us say, or copper. Every such substance when induced into man—by the mouth, by injection, or in any other way—is endowed with the power of causing something to be formed or altered in the circulation, so as to work in a curative way, and so on. And what one must know, in order to gain insight into the essential healing processes in man, is what each single substance in his world-environment releases in man through alterations in his circulation. Thus one may say that circulation is a continual process of healing.
You can if you wish work this out for yourselves. Recall how I told you that on an average man draws eighteen breaths a minute. Here we find a remarkably regular agreement with the cosmos, for the number of breaths man draws in a day equals the number of circulatory rhythms carried out by the sun in its course through the solar year. As regards its rising, point at the vernal equinox the sun traverses the entire zodiac in the course of 25,920 years. In middle life man draws on an average 25,920 breaths a day. The pulse-beats are four times as many. The other circulation, the circulation which is concentrated more inwardly, is influenced by the digestion. Breath-circulation brings man into outer intercourse with the surrounding world, into reciprocal relationship with it. This breath-rhythm must continually restrain the rhythm of blood-circulation, so that it remains in its proportion of one to four, otherwise man would come into a quite irregular rhythm, not reaching the number 103,680. This corresponds to nothing in the cosmos; it would completely sever man and cosmos. His digestion tears him out of the cosmos, estranges him from the cosmos; the rhythm of his breathing continually pulls him back into it. In this holding the rhythm of circulation in control by the rhythm of breathing, you see the primal healing process which is continually at work in man. In a certain delicate way, in the case of every internal cure, we must assist the breathing process, continued as it is into the whole body, and this in such a manner that everywhere in the human being the process of circulation is held in control, is brought back into the general relationships of the cosmos.
Thus we may say: We pass over from nutrition to healing inasmuch as from below upwards man always has the tendency to become ill, and therefore in his central organism, in his organism of circulation, he must continually develop the tendency to remain well. And in that in our central organism healing impulses continually arise, they leave something behind in the head-nerve-senses system. Thus we are brought to the third part of our organism, the system of nerves and senses.
What kind of forces do we find in the nerve-senses system? We find those forces which, so to speak, the doctor in us leaves behind. On the one hand he works down into the metabolism in a health-giving way. But through this curative working upon the digestive process he actually does something which affects the whole cosmos. What I am saying is nothing fantastic, but an absolute reality. This process, which continually works downwards in us in a healing way, calls forth a feeling of pleasure in the higher hierarchies. It constitutes the joy of the higher hierarchies in the earthly world. They look down and continually feel the uprising of illness out of what streams upwards in man from the earthly, from what remains of the earthly attributes of the substances. And they also see how the forces which work away from the earthly, the forces which lie in the encircling air, and the like, are continually active as processes of healing. This arouses satisfaction in the higher hierarchies.

And now try to gain an idea of what may be studied in regard to that cosmic body which, as the spiritual object most deserving of study, is situated at the outer boundary of our planetary system. In the centre of this body we find those forces concealed which, if you think of them as concentrated upon the earth, are the illness inducing forces, and surrounding this same body the encircling forces reveal themselves as the forces which bring about healing. Anyone sensitive to such things will see encircling health in the rings of Saturn, and this in a more distinct way than it can be perceived in what surrounds the earth, because there we stand in the midst of it. A Saturn ring is something essentially different from what astronomers have to say about it. It is encircling health, where-as the inner part of Saturn develops illness; it is the illness-inducing element seen in its most radical concentration.
Thus we see in Saturn, which is situated at the outer-most boundary of our planetary system, the very same process at work which we continually bear within ourselves through our digestive and circulatory organism. But we also find, when we look at all this, that our spiritual gaze is directed further to the worlds of the first and second hierarchy, to the beings of the second hierarchy, Kyriotetes, Exusiai, Dynamis, and to the beings of the first hierarchy, Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones. If with our spiritual eye we are attentive to Saturn and its ring, we shall be led to these upper hierarchies, as they survey with satisfaction the illness-inducing and health-restoring processes.
And this satisfaction is in itself a force in the universe. It streams through our system of nerves and senses and forms within it the forces of the spiritual evolution of mankind. These are the forces which blossom forth, as it were, from the healing-process which is continually at work in man. Thus in the third place we have the forces of spiritual evolution.
1. | Digestion | Nutrition |
2. | Circulation | Healing |
3. | System of nerves and senses | Spiritual evolution. |
And if we now describe man in the epochs of Saturn, Sun and Moon, we must say: In the first place man is born out of the cosmos as spirit, he then develops within himself the “healer”, and thus enables himself to deal with the cosmic “patient”. And through the inter-working of all these activities man came into being upon the earth possessed of full freedom of movement.
Every single branch of human knowledge must in a certain sense be inspired by what I have said here. Let us suppose that someone wishes to found a system of healing, a really rational system of healing. What would this have to contain? In the first place, naturally, the processes of healing. But these healing-processes, from where must they take their start? They must take their start from the metabolic processes; and everything else can at most be supposition—we shall have something further to say about this later—anatomy too, even in a delicate form, can at most be a starting point, because it is concerned with the formed and solid. This immediately expresses the human element. But it is the digestive processes which must be studied in the first place by a rational system of medicine, and this in such a way that one always perceives in them tendencies leading towards the inducement of illness. A modern system of medicine must always take the metabolic system, that is to say the normal processes of digestion, as its point of departure; and starting from there it must deduce how internal illnesses, in the widest sense, can arise from the metabolism. Then, through an intimate knowledge of the action of the rhythmic processes, the true nature of therapy must be discovered. A modern system of medicine must, therefore, be founded on a study of the metabolic processes, and then, from this initial study, the transition must be made to everything which can make its appearance in the sphere of the rhythmic processes in man. Further, a kind of crowning of the whole will be attained in that one shows how a sound development of man's spiritual possibilities presupposes a knowledge of what arises from the healing forces. Today you will find no true pedagogy—no art, that is to say, of the sound development of man's spiritual nature—if you do not take your start from the processes of healing; for these healing processes are nothing other than applying to the central nature of the human being what must already be made use of in pure thinking when developing the spiritual processes of man.
The artist in education must work in a spiritual way with the forces which, whether concentrated in the physical or concentrated in the etheric, are processes of healing. Whatever I may do to a child in the sphere of education is a process which has something spiritual as its basis. If I transpose this process, so that what was an activity in the spirit I now carry out in such a way that I make use of some kind of substance or physical process, then this process or substance becomes a remedy. So that it may really be said that medicine is the treatment of man in the spiritual sphere metamorphosed downwards into the sphere of the material. If you call to mind the way in which I dealt with things in the teachers' course held some time back for English visitors, [* See Lectures to Teachers, a report by Albert Steffen.] you will see how I everywhere drew attention to the fact that the work of the teacher is the beginning of a kind of general therapy, and I showed how this or that set of educational ideas can be the initial cause of unhealthy conditions in the excretory processes or of digestive irregularities in later life. So that what the teacher does, projected downwards, gives us therapy. And the antithesis of this therapy—what works from below upwards—this is brought about by the process of digestion.
Here you also see why a system of medicine today must be born out of a knowledge of man as a whole. And this is possible. Many people feel it. But nothing can really be achieved until such a system of medicine is actually developed. Today this must be counted among the most urgent of necessities. If you look at modern text-books of medicine, you will see that, with the rarest exceptions, they do not take their start from the metabolic system. But this must be the point of departure, otherwise one does not learn to know the real nature of illness.
You see, the whole matter proceeds in such a way that the processes of human nutrition can pass over into processes of healing, these again into spiritual processes; and, working backwards, spiritual processes can pass over into healing processes. If, on the other hand, spiritual processes are the direct cause of digestive disturbances, these spiritual processes must again enter into a condition in which they must be cured by the central system of man. All these things pass one into the other in man, and the whole human organization is an example of continual and wonderful metamorphosis. Take, for example, the processes inherent in the whole marvelous circulation of the human blood. What kind of processes are these?
To begin with, separating it entirely from the rest of the organism, let us gain an idea of the human blood, how it flows through the veins; and let us consider the human form, the system of veins, the muscular system in its connection with the bony system, all the solid structure of the body and what flows through it as fluid. And first let us confine ourselves in the fluid condition to the blood. There are, of course, other fluids present, but let us confine ourselves to the blood. Now what are the processes which are continually happening in this streaming fluidity? These processes in the flowing blood can seize hold, in one direction or another, on the walls of the organs, on the bony structure, on anything which can take on a solid formation in man: then what belongs to the blood enters into the walls of the vessels, into the muscles, into one or another of the bones, or into any containing organ. What does it become there? It becomes the impulse towards inflammatory conditions.
What we find here or there as impulses towards inflammatory conditions is continually to be found as normal processes in the flowing blood. What appears as inflammation is something in the wrong place; that is to say processes which must always be present in the fluid blood have trespassed into the solid structure. A perfectly healthy normal process, displaced, transferred to another situation where it does not belong, becomes a process which induces illness. And certain illnesses of the nervous system consist just in this, that the nervous system, which in its whole organization is the polar opposite of the blood-system, is subjected to invasion by processes which are normal in the blood. If these processes which are normal in the blood-channels invade the paths of the nerves even in the slightest degree, then the nerves are attacked by inflammation in its initial stages; and this can develop into the most diverse forms of illness in the nervous system.
I mentioned that the processes in the blood are entirely different from those in the nerves; they are the antithesis of each other. In the blood-processes the urge is towards the phosphorizing element. When these phosphorizing processes take hold of what encloses or is adjacent to the blood, they lead to inflammatory conditions. But if the processes in the paths of the nerves themselves deviate into the adjacent organs and even into the blood, then impulses towards every kind of swelling arise in man. When these processes are carried over into the blood so that they affect the other organs in an unhealthy way, the formation of swellings or tumours makes its appearance. Every swelling or tumour is a metamorphosed nerve-process wrongly situated in the human organism.
What has its course in the nerve must remain in the nerve, and what has its course in the blood must remain in the blood. If what belongs in the blood trespasses into what is adjacent to it, inflammatory conditions arise. When what belongs in the nerve trespasses into what is adjacent to it, all kinds of formations arise which can be grouped together under the designation of swelling-formations. The aim must be to establish the correct rhythm between the processes in the nervous system and the processes in the system of the blood.
Not only have we in general the rhythm of breathing contrasted with the rhythm of the blood, but we have delicate processes in the circulation of the blood, which, when they depart from the blood, become the causes of inflammation. These delicate processes must also enter into a certain rhythmic connection with what is proceeding in the adjacent nerves, just as breathing must stand in a certain connection with the circulation of the blood. And the moment something is disturbed between blood-rhythm and nerve-rhythm it must once more be brought into adjustment.
Here again, you see we come into the domain of therapy, of healing. All this serves to show you how everything must be present in man, how above all an element of illness must be present so that in another situation it may become an element of health; it has only been brought into the wrong situation through an incorrect process. For if it were not there at all man could not exist. Man could not exist if he were unable to get inflammations, for the inflammation-inducing forces must continually be present in the blood. This was my meaning when I often said that everything one gains in the way of knowledge must be won from a real knowledge of man. Here you see the reasons why an education carried out in an up-in-the-air, abstract fashion is really something absurd. Education must in fact be so carried out that everywhere the start is taken from certain pathological processes in man, and from the possibility of curing them.
If one understands a brain-illness and the means by which brain-illness may be cured, then, to put things bluntly—from a certain point of view this is of course also a subtle matter, but I put it “bluntly” because we are dealing with a physical process—then, in the treatment of the brain, we are concerned precisely with what must be applied in the art of education. It is therefore the case that, if we ever came actually to founding a training college for teachers we should have to introduce the pathological-therapeutical aspect to the teachers, and here their thinking should be schooled by means of more perceptible things, because these are more rooted in the material, so preparing them to grasp things concerned with actual education. On the other hand, nothing is of greater assistance in therapy, particularly in the treatment of internal illnesses, than to know the effect produced by the way in which this or that aspect of the art of education is handled. For if one finds the bridge from this to the material, then, from the very way in which one should act in education, the remedy is also to be found.
If, for example, one discovers the right educational means of treating certain lethargic conditions in the children, arising from certain disturbances in the metabolic system, one develops quite remarkable inner faculties. It is necessary, of course, really to immerse oneself in the education, and not have such an external approach that, when school is over, one prefers to spend all the evening in a convivial club and forget all about what happens in the classroom. From the very way one handles a lethargic child one gains the faculty to perceive the whole working of the head-processes, and their relation to the processes of the abdomen. And further, when in mineralogy one studies the processes which take place in copper when it gives rise to this or that formation in the earth, then what copper does in becoming one or another kind of copper ore makes one say to oneself: The copper-force in the earth actually does what you as teacher do with a boy or a girl! In what is accomplished by copper one sees an image of what one carries out oneself. And it is extraordinarily fascinating for a teacher to develop an instinctive, an intuitive clarity of feeling in regard to what he himself does, and then to have the delight of going out into nature in order to see what nature accomplishes in the way of education on an immense scale. There he may see, for example, how, wherever harmful results might ensue from some lime-process, a copper-process is introduced into it. Yes, in these copper-processes, in these ore-forming processes, which have their place within the other processes of the earth, remedial effects are continually present. If somewhere or other one finds pyrite-ores, or the like, it is fascinating to be able to say: Yes, this is exactly the same as when a patient receives the right treatment. But here the treatment is accomplished by the spirits of nature, from the hierarchies down to those elemental spirits about which I have spoken to you, in their capacity as healers of all the destructive, illness-inducing processes which can appear in life. This is in fact nothing more than reading from nature. For if one sees what is happening outside, if one accepts this or that substance as a remedy or prepares it as such, one has only to ask oneself: Where do the foodstuffs grow? Where does this or that metal appear in the veins of the earth? Study their environment and you will always find that, wherever some form of metal appears here or there, which has been dealt with by nature in one or another way, a remedial process is at work within it. Only appropriate this and continue it on into the human organism and you will create a therapy which nature has demonstrated to you in the world outside.
Yes, all the goings-on of the world are in reality a true education in all questions of nutrition, of healing, of the spiritual; for in nature illness is continually being induced and is continually being cured. They are there outside, the great cosmic processes of healing. We must only apply them to man. This is the wonderful inter-working of the macrocosm with the microcosm. What I have said to many of you in one context or another is profoundly true:
Willst du dich selber erkennen,
Blicke in die Welt nach allen Seiten.
Willst du die Welt erkennen,
Schaue in alle deine eigenen Tiefen.Wouldst thou know thyself,
Look into the world on every side.
Wouldst thou know the world,
Look into the depths of thine own being.
You can, however, apply this to everything. Wouldst thou heal man, look into the world on every side, see how on every side the world evolves processes of healing. Wouldst thou know the secrets of the world in the processes of illness and healing, look down into the depths of human nature. You can apply this to every aspect of man's being, but you must direct your gaze outwards to the great world of nature and see man in a living relationship with this great world.
People today have accustomed themselves to something different. They depart as far from nature as possible. They do something which shuts their own sight off from nature, for what they wish to examine they lay beneath a glass on a little stand—the eye does not look out into nature, but looks into the glass. Sight itself is cut off from nature. They call this a microscope. In certain connections it might as well be called a nulloscope, for it shuts one off from the great world of nature. People do not know, when something under the glass is magnified, that for spiritual knowledge it is exactly as though the same process were to take place in nature herself. For only think, when you take some minute particle from the human being for purposes of observation under a microscope, what you then do with this minute fragment is the same as if you were to stretch the man himself and tear him apart. You would be an even worse monster than Procrustes if you were to wrench man and tear him asunder in order to enlarge him as that minute particle is enlarged under the microscope. But do you believe that you would still have the person before you? This would naturally be out of the question. Just as little have you the reality there under the microscope. The truth which has been magnified is no longer the truth; it is an illusory image. We must not depart from nature and imprison our own sight. For other purposes, this can of course be useful; but for a true knowledge of man it is immensely misleading.
Knowledge of man in the true sense must be sought in the way we have indicated. Starting from the processes of nutrition, it must be followed through the processes of healing to the processes of human and world education in the widest sense. Or we can put it thus: from nutrition, through healing, to civilization and culture. For all that is concentrated in the nourishment of man is the groundwork, as it were, of his physical processes; the healing processes are derived from what continually encircles man, they are concentrated in the rhythmic system; and what comes from above is concentrated in man in the processes of the nerves and senses. Thus world-structure is erected on three levels.
This is what I wished to give you in the first place as a kind of foundation. We can now build further upon it. We shall see how, from such points of departure, we can actually progress to the business of practical affairs; and from thence we can lead over to a knowledge of the hierarchies.


Zehnter Vortrag
Sie werden gesehen haben, daß in diesen Vorträgen, die ich in der letzten Zeit gehalten habe, alles dahin drängt, die Welterscheinungen so zusammenzufassen, daß zuletzt dadurch eine wirkliche umfassende Menschenkenntnis herauskommt. Nach Menschenkenntnis drängt alles, was wir betrachtet haben, hin. Eine Menschenerkenntnis wird erst möglich sein, wenn sie beginnen kann mit den untersten Formen der Erscheinungswelt, mit alldem, was sich dem Menschen offenbart als die stoffliche Welt. Und was so beginnt mit der Betrachtung dessen, was sich als die stoffliche Welt offenbart, das muß schließen mit der Betrachtung der Hierarchienwelt. Von den untersten Formen des stofflichen Daseins bis hinauf zu den höchsten Formen des geistigen Daseins, bis zu der Welt der Hierarchien muß dasjenige gesucht werden, was dann zur wirklichen Menschenerkenntnis führen kann. Augenblicklich werden wir eine Art von Skizze entwerfen für eine solche Menschenerkenntnis in den Vorträgen, die ich jetzt vor Ihnen halten kann.
Wir müssen uns klar darüber sein, daß dasjenige, was als Mensch heute vor uns steht, das Ergebnis jener langen kosmischen Entwickelung ist, die ich immer zusammengefaßt habe als Saturn-, Sonnen-, Mond- und Erdenentwickelung. Die Erdenentwickelung ist noch nicht vollendet. Aber seien wir uns darüber klar, was eigentlich der Mensch der Erdenentwickelung im engeren Sinne, die also auf dieMondenentwickelung gefolgt ist, verdankt.
Sehen Sie, wenn Sie Ihre Arme ausbreiten und bewegen, wenn Sie die Finger bewegen, wenn Sie irgendeine äußere Bewegung ausführen: alles, was in Ihrem Organismus dazu notwendig ist, daß Sie Arme und Beine, den Kopf, die Lippen und so weiter bewegen können - und die Kräfte zu solchen menschlichen Äußerungen gehen ja in die innersten Partien des menschlichen Organismus hinein -, alles das ist dem Menschen durch die Erdenentwickelung im engeren Sinne beschieden. Sehen Sie dagegen hinein in alles, was Stoffwechselentwickelung ist, in den Raum, der von der äußersten menschlichen Haut abgeschlossen ist, sehen Sie auf alles das, was da im physisch-körperlichen inneren Menschen vor sich geht als Stoffwechselentwickelung, dann haben Sie darin ein Bild von dem, was der Mensch der Mondenentwickelung verdankt. Und Sie haben ein Bild von dem, was der Mensch der alten Sonnenentwickelung verdankt, wenn Sie auf alles das hinschauen, was im Menschen irgendwie ein rhythmischer Vorgang ist. Atmungsvorgang, Blutzirkulationsvorgänge sind ja die wichtigsten rhythmischen Vorgänge; alle diese rhythmischen Vorgänge verdankt der Mensch der alten Sonnenentwikkelung. Und alles, was Nerven- und Sinnesentwickelung ist, wiederum über den ganzen Körper des heutigen Menschen ausgebreitet, das verdankt der Mensch der alten Saturnentwickelung.
Aber bei alledem müssen Sie ins Auge fassen, daß der Mensch ein Ganzes ist, und daß die Weltenentwickelung ein Ganzes ist. Wenn wir heute so, wie ich es in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß» getan habe, auf die alte Saturnentwickelung hinweisen, so meinen wir diejenige Entwickelung, die vor uralten Zeiten einmal der Sonnen- und Monden- und Erdenentwickelung vorangegangen ist. Aber das ist im Grunde genommen nur die eine Saturnentwickelung, die es bis zur Erde gebracht hat. Während sich die Erde entwickelt, entsteht ja auch eine Saturnentwickelung. Diese neue Saturnentwickelung ist in der Erdenentwickelung darinnen; sie ist sozusagen die jüngste Saturnentwickelung. Diejenige, die bis zu der Erdenentwickelung gekommen ist, ist die älteste. Diejenige, die als Saturnentwickelung in der alten Sonne gesteckt hat, ist die jüngere; die im Monde gesteckt hat, ist wieder jünger; und der Saturn, der heute die Erde ausfüllt, der im wesentlichen gewisse Wärmeorganisationen der Erde in Anspruch nimmt, der ist die jüngste Saturnentwickelung. Aber wir stecken mit unserem Menschen in dieser Saturnentwickelung drinnen.
So stecken wir in der kosmischen Entwickelung drinnen. Aber wir stecken auch in dem, was uns räumlich auf Erden umgibt. Nehmen Sie zum Beispiel das mineralische Reich. Wir stehen mit dem mineralischen Reich in Wechselwirkung. Wir nehmen die Mineralität durch Nahrung auf. Wir nehmen sie auch sonst auf durch die Atmung und so weiter. Wir verarbeiten das Mineralische in uns.
Aber alle Entwickelung, alle Weltenvorgänge sind anders im Menschen als außerhalb des Menschen. Ich habe schon bemerkt: es ist die reine Lächerlichkeit, wenn wir heute im chemischen Laboratorium chemische Vorgänge studieren und dann uns denken, daß diese chemischen Vorgänge sich einfach, wenn der Mensch die Nahrungsmittel ißt, in das Innere des Menschen hinein fortsetzen. Der Mensch ist nicht irgendein Zusammenfluß von chemischen Wirkungen; da ändert sich ja alles, innerhalb des Menschen. Und von einem gewissen Gesichtspunkte aus erscheint diese Änderung in der folgenden Weise.
Nehmen Sie an, wir nehmen Mineralisches auf. Alles, was wir an Mineralischem aufnehmen, muß im Menschen so weit getrieben werden, daß folgendes Geltung hat. Sie wissen, wir haben eine Eigenwärme; wir haben in unserer Blutwärme beim gesunden Menschen ungefähr siebenunddreißig Grad. Wir haben in unserer Blutwärme etwas, was die äußere Wärme im Mittel überragt. Alles, was wir mineralisch aufnehmen, muß aber in unserem Organismus so verwandelt, so metamorphosiert werden, daß das, was in unserer Blutwärme über die mittlere Wärme der äußeren Umgebung geht, was höher ist als die mittlere Wärme der äußeren Umgebung, daß das wohlgefällig das Mineralische aufnimmt. Wenn Sie ein Bröselchen Kochsalz genießen, so muß dieses Kochsalz von Ihrer Eigenwärme, nicht von der Wärme, die Sie mit der äußeren Welt gemein haben, sondern von Ihrer eigenen Wärme aufgesogen werden, muß wohlgefällig aufgenommen werden. Alles Mineralische muß sich in Wärmeäther verwandeln. Und in dem Augenblicke, wo der Mensch in seinem Organismus etwas hat, was irgendein Mineral verhindert, daß es sich in Wärmeäther verwandelt, in dem Augenblicke ist er krank.
Gehen wir weiter, gehen wir zu dem Pflanzlichen, das der Mensch aufnimmt. Das Pflanzliche nimmt der Mensch auf; er selber gehört der Welt an, indem er das Pflanzliche auch in sich entwickelt. Der Mensch enthält Mineralisches, das aber hinneigt, fortwährend hintendiert, Wärmeäther zu werden. Das Pflanzliche tendiert fortwährend hin im Menschen, luftig zu werden, gasartig zu werden. So daß der Mensch das Pflanzliche in sich hat als Luftreich. Alles, was im Menschen von Pflanzen hineinkommt, oder was er selbst als innere Pflanzenorganisation entwickelt, muß luftig werden, muß in ihm Luftgestalt annehmen können. Wenn es nicht Luftgestalt annimmt, wenn seine Organisation so ist, daß sie ihn verhindert, alles, was pflanzlich sein will in ihm, in Luftgestalt übergehen zu lassen, ist er krank. Alles Tierische, das der Mensch aufnimmt, oder das er selber in sich ausbildet als Tierisches, alles das muß im Menschen, wenigstens zu irgendeiner Zeit, die flüssige, die wäßrige Form annehmen. Der Mensch darf nichts in sich haben von Tierischem, nicht von innerlich erzeugtem Tierischen, nicht von aufgenommenem Tierischen, das nicht in ihm den Vorgang durchmacht, daß es einmal in ihm flüssig wird. Ist der Mensch nicht imstande, sein eigenes Tierisches oder fremdes Tierisches flüssig zu machen, um es dann wiederum in Festes überzuführen, dann ist er krank. Nur das, was im Menschen die rein menschliche Form gebiert, was beim Menschen davon herkommt, daß er ein aufrecht gehendes Wesen ist, daß er in sich Impulse zum Sprechen und Denken hat, nur das, was ihn zum eigentlichen Menschen macht, was ihn über das Tier hinaushebt, das darf in das feste Irdische - und das macht nur zehn Prozent unserer Gesamtorganisation höchstens aus -, das darf in das Feste, in das Festgestaltete, in die Form hineingehen. Geht irgend etwas vom Tierischen oder Pflanzlichen in die menschliche feste Form hinein, so ist der Mensch krank.
Alles Mineralische muß im Mensch einmal Wärmeäther werden. Alles Pflanzliche muß im Menschen das Durchgangsstadium des Luftartigen durchmachen. Alles Tierische muß im Menschen das Durchgangsstadium des Wäßrigen durchmachen. Alles Menschliche darf allein die irdisch-feste Form in ihm immer behalten. Das ist eines der Geheimnisse der menschlichen Organisation.
Nun lassen wir zunächst dasjenige weg — die spätere Betrachtung wird das um so reichlicher machen -, was der Mensch von der Erde hat, nehmen wir das, was im Menschen Stoffwechselorganisation ist, was er allerdings während der Erdenorganisation umbildet, aber in der Anlage aus der alten Mondenzeit hat, nehmen wir also das, was sich als Stoffwechsel im engeren Sinne vollzieht innerhalb der menschlichen Haut, wobei wir die Ausscheidungen durchaus mit zum Stoffwechsel zu rechnen haben, so wird dieses, ich möchte sagen, fortwährend geändert durch die Aufnahme der Nahrungsstoffe. Die Nahrungsstoffe, die zunächst außerhalb des Menschen sind, gehen in den Menschen ein und gliedern sich zunächst diesem Stoffwechselsystem ein.
Dieses Stoffwechselsystem verarbeitet das, was menschliche Umgebung ist, in Menschliches hinüber. Es beginnt alles Mineralische dem Wärmeäther anzunähern, alles Pflanzliche dem Gasig-Luftförmig-Duftigen anzunähern, es beginnt alles, was tierisch ist, namentlich was eigentierisch Erzeugtes ist, dem Wäßrigen anzunähern, und bildet als eine organisierte Formgestaltung das eigentlich Menschliche zum Festen. Das alles liegt der Tendenz nach im Stoffwechsel. Und der Stoffwechsel ist in dieser Beziehung etwas, was außerordentlich interessant ist.
Wenn wir den Stoffwechsel heraufverfolgen bis zum Atmen, so finden wir, daß der Mensch aus sich herausgestaltet den Kohlenstoff, der überall im Menschen zu finden ist. Er wird vom Sauerstoff aufgesucht, wird in Kohlensäure verwandelt, die dann der Mensch ausatmet. Die Kohlensäure ist die Verbindung des Kohlenstoffes mit dem Sauerstoff. Der Sauerstoff, der durch die Atmung eingesogen wird, macht sich über den Kohlenstoff her, nimmt den Kohlenstoff in sich auf; der Mensch atmet die Kohlensäure, die Verbindung, die der Sauerstoff mit dem Kohlenstoff eingegangen hat, aus. Aber bevor die Ausatmung geschieht, wird der Kohlenstoff sozusagen noch zum Wohltäter der menschlichen Natur. Denn dieser Kohlenstoff, indem er sich mit dem Sauerstoff verbindet, indem er gewissermaßen verbindet, was die Blutzirkulation bewirkt, mit dem, was die Atmung dann aus der Blutzirkulation macht, dieser Kohlenstoff, er wird zum Wohltäter der menschlichen Organisation; denn bevor er den menschlichen Organismus verläßt, verbreitet er in dem ganzen menschlichen Organismus eine Ausströmung von Äther. Die physische Wissenschaft sagt bloß: der Kohlenstoff wird mit der Kohlensäure ausgeatmet. Das ist aber nur die eine Seite des ganzen Vorganges. Der Mensch atmet die Kohlensäure aus, aber in seinem ganzen Organismus wird durch das Ausatmen zurückgelassen von dem Kohlenstoff, der in Anspruch genommen wird von dem Sauerstoff, Äther. Dieser Äther dringt in den Ätherleib des Menschen ein. Und dieser Äther, der immerzu von dem Kohlenstoff erzeugt wird, ist dasjenige, was nun die menschliche Organisation geeignet macht, sich den geistigen Einflüssen zu öffnen, was die astral-ätherischen Wirkungen aus dem Kosmos aufnimmt. Da werden von diesem Äther, den der Kohlenstoff zurückläßt, die kosmischen Impulse angezogen, jene kosmischen Impulse, die wiederum gestaltend auf den Menschen wirken, die zum Beispiel sein Nervensystem so bereiten, daß es der Träger der Gedanken werden kann. Dieser Äther muß fortwährend unsere Sinne, zum Beispiel unser Auge, durchdringen, damit die Augen sehen können, damit die Augen den äußeren Lichtäther aufnehmen können. Wir verdanken es also dem Kohlenstoff, daß wir eine Ätherbereitung in uns haben, die der Welt entgegenkommen kann.

Alles das wird schon im Stoffwechselsystem vorbereitet. Aber das Stoffwechselsystem ist als menschliches System in den ganzen Kosmos so hineingestellt, daß es für sich selbst nicht bestehen könnte. Das Stoffwechselsystem könnte nicht für sich selbst bestehen. Daher ist es auch erst als Drittes im Menschen gebildet worden in der Anlage. Die erste Anlage für das Nerven-Sinnessystem wurde gebildet während der alten Saturnzeit, die zweite Anlage für das rhythmische System während der alten Sonnenzeit, und erst, nachdem diese anderen Systeme da waren, konnte das Stoffwechselsystem im Menschen bewirkt werden, weil das Stoffwechselsystem für sich nicht bestehen könnte. Das Stoffwechselsystem ist, wenn wir zunächst die willkürlichen Bewegungen auslassen, im kosmischen Zusammenhang für den Menschen für die Ernährung berechnet. Aber diese Ernährung kann nicht für sich bestehen. Diese Ernährung braucht der Mensch, aber sie kann nicht für sich bestehen. Denn wenn man das Stoffwechselsystem beim Menschen für sich studiert — Sie werden in den nächsten Vorträgen sehen, wie notwendig das wiederum für die ganze menschliche Organisation ist -, so ist es fortwährend von allen möglichen Neigungen durchdrungen, den Menschen krank zu machen. Den Ursprung der inneren Krankheiten, die also nicht durch äußere Verletzungen entstehen, den müssen wir immer im Stoffwechselsystem suchen. Wer daher wirklich eine rationelle Krankheitsbeobachtung anstellen will, muß ausgehen vom Stoffwechselsystem, und er muß eigentlich jede einzelne Erscheinung im Stoffwechselsystem daraufhin fragen: Auf welchem Weg bist denn du? - Wenn wir alle Erscheinungen von dem Aufnehmen der Nahrung im Munde, von dem Verarbeiten der Nahrung, indem wir gewisse Stoffe in uns in Stärke und Zucker und so weiter verwandeln, wenn wir das Einhüllen der Speisen im Munde durch Ptyalin nehmen, wenn wir weitergehen, wenn wir das Einpepsinieren im Magen nehmen, wenn wir weitergehen und die Verarbeitung der Stoffwechselprodukte wiederum im Verdauungssystem nehmen, bei ihrem Übergang in die Lymphgefäße, bei ihrem Übergang ins Blut, dann müssen wir jeden einzelnen Vorgang suchen, und es sind unzählige Vorgänge, die da in Betracht kommen. Die Vermischung der Stoffwechselprodukte mit dem Sekret der Bauchspeicheldrüse, die dann noch hinzukommt, die Durchmischung der Stoffe mit der Gallenabsonderung und so weiter, jeden einzelnen Vorgang müssen wir fragen: Was willst denn du eigentlich? - Und er wird uns antworten: Wenn ich allein bin, so bin ich ein solcher Prozeß, der immer den Menschen krank macht. -Kein Stoffwechselvorgang darf in der menschlichen Natur bis zu Ende kommen, denn jeder Stoffwechselvorgang, wenn er zu Ende kommt, macht den Menschen krank. Die menschliche Natur ist nur gesund, wenn die Stoffwechselvorgänge auf einer gewissen Stufe gestoppt werden.
Wir werden dieses, was vielleicht zunächst als Torheit der Weltorganisation erscheinen könnte: daß da im Menschen etwas beginnt, was, wenn es nicht auf halbem Wege aufgehalten würde, den Menschen krank machen würde, wir werden das als etwas vom Weisesten in den nächsten Vorträgen kennenlernen. Aber jetzt wollen wir es einstweilen der Tatsächlichkeit nach betrachten, wollen in Betracht ziehen, daß uns die Einzelheiten der Stoffwechselvorgänge, wenn wir sie innerlich ihrem Wesen nach studieren, antworten würden: Wir sind auf dem Wege, den ganzen Organismus krank zu machen. Jeder Stoffwechselvorgang, fortgesetzt, macht den Organismus krank. Es müssen eben schon, wenn überhaupt Stoffwechsel im Menschen sein soll, andere Prozesse da sein, die vorher in ihren Anlagen entwickelt sein müssen, und das sind die Vorgänge, welche in der Zirkulation vorhanden sind; das sind die Zirkulationsvorgänge. Die Zirkulationsvorgänge enthalten fortwährend heilende Prozesse. So daß der Mensch tatsächlich auch so beschrieben werden kann, daß man sagt: Der Mensch ist während der alten Mondenentwickelung als Patient geboren worden, und ihm ist vorausgeschickt worden in seiner eigenen Natur während der alten Sonnenentwickelung der Arzt. Während der alten Sonnenentwickelung ist der Mensch in bezug auf seine eigene Natur als Arzt geboren worden. Es ist sehr vorsichtig gewesen in der Weltenentwickelung, daß der Arzt vor dem Patienten entstanden ist, denn während der alten Mondenentwickelung ist der Patient im Menschen selber dazugekommen. Man muß, wenn man den Menschen richtig beschreiben will, aufrücken von den Stoffwechselvorgängen zu den Zirkulationsvorgängen, natürlich zu alledem, was als Impulse den Zirkulationsvorgängen zugrunde liegt. Der eine Stoff bewirkt schnellere, der andere langsamere Zirkulation im weitesten Sinne. Wir haben ja auch ganz kleine Zirkulationsvorgänge in uns. Nehmen Sie irgendwelche mineralischen Stoffe, nehmen Sie Gold, nehmen Sie Kupfer, alles ist, wenn es dem Menschen auf die eine oder andere Weise innerlich oder durch Injektion oder sonst irgendwie zugeführt wird, die Veranlassung, daß irgend etwas in der Zirkulation sich gestaltet, ändert, gesundend wirkt und so weiter. Und was man kennen muß, um hineinzuschauen in die eigentlichen Heilungsprozesse des Menschen, das ist, was jeder einzelne Stoff der Weltumgebung des Menschen auslöst im Menschen in bezug auf Zirkulationsänderungen. So daß wir sagen können: die Zirkulation ist ein fortwährender Heilungsprozeß.
Sie können es, ich möchte sagen, errechnen, wenn Sie es wollen. Bedenken Sie, was ich Ihnen gesagt habe: im Durchschnitt hat der Mensch achtzehn Atemzüge in der Minute. Das gibt in außerordentlich regelmäßiger Anpassung an den Kosmos während des Tages so viel Atemzüge, als der Zirkulationsrhythmus der Sonne beim Durchgehen durch das Sonnenjahr ausmacht. Da aber geht die Sonne in ihrem Frühlingsaufgangspunkt in 25920 Jahren durch das Ganze durch. Der Mensch hat in seinem mittleren Alter am Tage durchschnittlich 25 920 Atemzüge. Die Pulsschläge sind viermal mehr. Die andere Zirkulation, die mehr innerlich konzentrierte Zirkulation, ist beeinflußt von dem Stoffwechsel. Die Atmungszirkulation ist das, was dem äußeren Verkehre des Menschen mit der Außenwelt entspricht, was das Wechselverhältnis zur Außenwelt ist. Dieser Atmungsrhythmus muß fortwährend den Zirkulationsrhythmus bändigen, daß er bei seinen vieren bleibt, sonst kommt der Mensch mit seinem Zirkulationsrhythmus in einen ganz unregelmäßigen Rhythmus, nicht in die Zahl 103680 hinein. Das ist etwas, dem nichts im Kosmos entspricht. Da reißt sich der Mensch ganz aus dem Kosmos heraus. Sein Stoffwechsel reißt ihn aus dem Kosmos heraus, macht ihn fremd dem Kosmos, und der Atmungsrhythmus reißt fortwährend in den Kosmos hinein. In diesem Dividieren und in diesem Bändigen des Zirkulationsrhythmus durch den Atmungsrhythmus sehen Sie den Urheilungsprozeß, der fortwährend in dem Menschen ausgeführt wird. Aber in einer gewissen feineren Weise muß man mit jeder inneren Heilung dem Atmungsprozeß, der sich ja in einer gewissen Weise in den ganzen Körper hinein fortsetzt, so zu Hilfe kommen, daß er überall im Menschen den Zirkulationsprozeß bändigt, ihn zurückführt auf die allgemeinen Verhältnisse des Kosmos.
So daß wir sagen können: Wir gehen von der Ernährung über in die Heilung, indem der Mensch von unten herauf immer eigentlich die Tendenz hat, krank zu werden, und in seinem mittleren Organismus, in dem Zirkulationsorganismus fortwährend die Tendenz entwickeln muß, gesund zu bleiben. Indem so in unserem mittleren Organismus fortwährend die Impulse der Gesundung entstehen, lassen sie etwas ge Tafel 17 rade nach dem Kopfnerven-Sinnessystem zurück; und wir kommen dann als Drittes zu dem Nerven-Sinnessystem. Was für Kräfte finden wir dann im Nerven-Sinnessystem? Wir finden im Nerven-Sinnessystem diejenigen Kräfte, die sozusagen der Arzt in uns zurückläßt. Er wirkt auf der einen Seite gesundend hinunter auf den Stoffwechselprozeß. Aber indem er gesundend auf den Stoffwechselprozeß wirkt, tut er ja etwas, was im ganzen Kosmos nun einer Beurteilung unterliegt. Und ich sage Ihnen nichts Phantastisches, sondern ich sage Ihnen etwas, was durchaus eine Realität ist: Es ruft dieser Vorgang, daß fortwährend in uns Gesundungsprozesse nach unten stattfinden, das Wohlgefallen der höheren Hierarchien hervor. Das ist die Freude der höheren Hierarchien an der Erdenwelt. Die schauen herunter und fühlen fortwährend das Aufsteigen der Krankheit aus demjenigen, was hinaufströmt in den Menschen vom Irdischen, was dableibt von den irdischen Eigenschaften der Stoffe. Sie sehen, wie die Impulse der aus dem Irdischen wirkenden Kräfte, die in der umkreisenden Luft und so weiter liegen, fortwährend Gesundungsprozesse sind. Das ruft das Wohlgefallen der höheren Hierarchien hervor.

Jetzt stellen Sie sich vor, was Sie studieren können an demjenigen Weltenkörper, der gewissermaßen als das würdigste geistige Studienobjekt an die Grenze unseres Planetensystems hingestellt worden ist. Da steht in der Mitte dasjenige, was in sich birgt die Kräfte, die, wenn wir sie auf Erden konzentriert denken, krankmachende Kräfte sind, und in der Umgebung zeigen sich die kreisenden Kräfte des Gesundmachens. Und wer für solche Sachen Empfänglichkeit hat, der sieht an den Saturnringen in einer solchen Ausprägung, wie man sie in dem, was die Erde umgibt, nicht wahrnehmen kann, weil man darinnen steht, das, was die kreisende Gesundheit ist. Dieser Saturnring ist noch etwas wesentlich anderes, als was die Astronomen von ihm sagen. Dieser Saturnring ist kreisende Gesundheit, und das Innere des Saturns ist das Kränkende, das Krankmachende, in reinster Konzentration gesehen.
Und so sieht man an dem Saturn, der an das äußerste Ende unseres Planetensystems hingestellt ist, den gleichen Prozeß sich abspielen, den wir fortwährend durch unseren Stoffwechsel und durch unseren Zirkulationsorganismus in uns tragen. Aber wir sehen auch, wenn wir auf das hinschauen, wie unser geistiger Blick hingelenkt wird auf die Welt namentlich der zweiten Hierarchie und der ersten Hierarchie; der zweiten Hierarchie: Kyriotetes, Dynamis, Exusiai; der ersten Hierarchie: Seraphim, Cherubim, Throne. Wenn wir aufmerksam sind mit dem geistigen Auge auf den Saturn und seinen Ring, werden wir hingelenkt auf diese oberen Hierarchien, wie sie, ich möchte sagen, wohlgefällig auf dieses Krankmachende und Gesundende hinblicken.
Dieses Wohlgefallen, das ist nun eine Kraft im Weltenall. Dieses Wohlgefallen der höheren Hierarchien durchströmt dann unser Nerven-Sinnessystem und bildet darinnen die Kräfte der geistigen Entwickelung des Menschen. Das sind die Kräfte, die gewissermaßen hinausblühen aus der Heilung, die fortwährend im Menschen vor sich geht. So daß wir drittens die geistige Entwickelung haben.
1. Stoffwechsel Ernährung
2. Zirkulation Heilung
3. Nerven-Sinnesorganisation Geistige Entwickelung
Wenn wir jetzt den Menschen durch Saturn-, Sonnen- und Mondenzeit beschreiben, dann müssen wir sagen: Der Mensch ist zunächst aus dem Kosmos herausgeborener Geist, der in sich den Heiler entwickelt, der dadurch dann aufnehmen kann den kosmischen Patienten. Und durch die Zusammenwirkung von all diesem wird dann das hergestellt, was auf der Erde der in willkürlicher Bewegung befindliche Mensch ist.
Jedes einzelne Glied der Menschenerkenntnis muß, ich möchte sagen, in einer gewissen Weise inspiriert sein von demjenigen, was zugrunde liegt dem, was ich hier gesagt habe. Nehmen Sie an, es will jemand ein System der Heilkunde aufstellen, ein wirklich rationelles System der Heilkunde. Was wird denn das enthalten müssen? Natürlich in der Hauptsache die Heilungsprozesse. Aber die Heilungsprozesse, wovon werden die denn ausgehen müssen? Sie werden ausgehen müssen von den Stoffwechselvorgängen, und das andere kann höchstens Voraussetzung sein, wir werden darüber auch noch zu sprechen haben; das Anatomische, selbst das feiner Anatomische, das kann nur, weil es das Festgestaltete ist, der Ausgangspunkt sein. Das macht sich schon selbst menschlich. Aber die Stoffwechselvorgänge müssen zunächst von einem rationellen System der Medizin so studiert werden, daß man in ihnen immer die Tendenz wahrnimmt, wie sie zum Krankmachenden hingehen. So daß ein heutiges System der Medizin, das aufgestellt werden kann, durchaus mit dem Stoffwechselsystem, das heißt, zunächst mit den normalen Stoffwechselvorgängen zu beginnen hat, und daß von da aus geschöpft werden muß die Erkenntnis der Möglichkeit, wie nun innere Krankheiten aus dem Stoffwechsel heraus im weitesten Sinne entstehen können. Dann muß sich daraus durch eine intime Erkenntnis dessen, was die rhythmischen Prozesse machen, das ergeben, was die eigentliche Therapie ist. So daß bei einem heutigen System der Medizin begonnen werden muß mit dem Studium der Stoffwechselvorgänge, und dann von da aus der Übergang gemacht werden muß zu alldem, was im Bereich der rhythmischen Vorgänge im Menschen vorkommen kann. Und dann, möchte ich sagen, wird eine Art von Krönung des Ganzen erreicht werden, indem man zeigt, wie ein gesundes Entwickeln der geistigen Anlagen des Menschen voraussetzt die Erkenntnis desjenigen, was aus den heilenden Kräften kommt. Sie können heute gar keine Pädagogik, das heißt, keine Kunst der gesunden Entwickelung der Geistesnatur des Menschen finden, wenn Sie nicht ausgehen von den Heilungsprozessen; denn die Heilungsprozesse sind nichts anderes, als auf die Mittelnatur des Menschen das angewendet, was schon im reinen Denken verwendet werden muß bei der Ausbildung der geistigen Vorgänge des Menschen.
Der pädagogische Künstler muß auf geistige Art durchaus arbeiten mit den Kräften, die, ins Physische verdichtet, oder ins Ätherische verdichtet, Heilungsvorgänge sind. Tue ich irgend etwas an einem Kinde in pädagogischer Kunst, so ist das ein Vorgang, dem etwas Geistiges zugrunde liegt. Wenn ich mir diesen Vorgang übersetze, so daß ich das, was ich da im Geiste ausführe, jetzt dadurch ausführe, daß ich irgendein Stoffliches oder einen Prozeß anwende, so ist dieser Prozeß oder dieser Stoff ein Heilmittel. Man könnte auch sagen: Medizin ist die Metamorphosierung der geistigen Behandlung des Menschen hinunter ins Stoffliche. Wenn Sie sich erinnern, wie ich die Dinge angedeutet habe in dem Lehrerkursus, der dazumal für die englischen Besucher abgehalten wurde, so werden Sie sehen, wie ich überall darauf aufmerksam gemacht habe, wie in dem, was der Lehrer tut, mit einer Art allgemeiner menschlicher Therapie begonnen wird, wie diese oder jene pädagogische Maßnahme im späteren Lebensalter ungesunde Stoffwechselablagerungen oder Aufsaugen des unregelmäßigen Stoffwechsels verursachen kann. So daß das, was der Pädagoge tut, nach unten fortgesetzt, Therapie gibt. Und das Gegenbild der Therapie, das, was von unten nach oben strebt, das sind die Stoffwechselvorgänge.
Sie sehen also auch, wie ein System der Medizin heute herausgeboren werden muß aus einer gesamten Menschenerkenntnis. Das kann es. Das fühlen manche. Aber etwas erreicht wird erst sein, wenn tatsächlich ein solches System der Medizin ausgebildet ist. Und es gehört in der Gegenwart schon zu dem Notwendigsten. Wenn Sie heute Handbücher der Heilkunde ansehen, so werden Sie sehen, daß in der Regel nicht mit dem Stoffwechselsystem oder wenigstens in den seltensten Fällen mit dem Stoffwechsel begonnen wird. Aber davon muß ausgegangen werden, sonst lernt man nicht erkennen, worin überhaupt die Natur der Krankheit besteht.
Sehen Sie, diese ganze Sache ist wiederum so, daß tatsächlich Ernährungsvorgänge in Heilungsvorgänge, Heilungsvorgänge in geistige Vorgänge und wieder zurück geistige Vorgänge in Heilungsvorgänge übergehen können; oder wenn die geistigen Vorgänge direkt Stoffwechselstörungen bewirken, so gehen geistige Vorgänge auch wiederum in ein Stadium über, wo sie durch den mittleren Organismus des Menschen geheilt werden müssen. Alle diese Dinge gehen im Menschen ineinander über, und die ganze menschliche Organisation ist fortwährend eine wunderbare Metamorphose. Nehmen Sie zum Beispiel die Vorgänge, die in dieser ganzen wunderbaren Zirkulation des menschlichen Blutes liegen. Was sind denn das für Vorgänge?
Nun, fassen Sie zunächst ganz abgesondert vom übrigen menschlichen Organismus das Blut auf, wie es durch die Adern strömt, fassen Sie auf die menschliche Gestalt, also sagen wir, das Adernsystem und das, was als Muskelsystem sich anschließt, Knochensystem und so weiter, also das, was feste Bildung ist, und das, was flüssig da durchströmt. Bleiben wir beim flüssigen Zustand, beim Blute, stehen; es sind ja auch andere Flüssigkeiten da, aber bleiben wir beim Blute stehen. In diesem strömenden Flüssigen, was geschehen denn da drinnen fortwährend für Prozesse? Es spielen sich fortwährend Prozesse ab. Dieselben Prozesse, die sich abspielen im flüssigen Blut, die können nun nach irgendwelchen Seiten hin das, was nur Wandung oder Gerüst oder irgend etwas Festgebildetes, Gestaltetes im Menschen sein kann, ergreifen, dann ist das, was ins Blut hineingehört, in der Gefäßwandung oder im Muskel oder irgendwo im Knochen drinnen oder in irgendeinem Umhüllungsorgan. Was wird es denn da? Da wird es der Impuls für Entzündungserscheinungen. Was wir als die Impulse von Entzündungserscheinungen da oder dort finden, wir finden es fortwährend im flüssigen Blute als die normalen Vorgänge. Was da an Entzündung erscheint, das sind an unrechte Stellen, das heißt, an die gestalteten festen Stellen hingedrängte Vorgänge, die fortwährend im fließenden Blute stattfinden müssen. Ein absolut normaler, gesunder Prozeß disloziert, an eine andere Stelle gestellt, wo er nicht hingehört, ist ein krankmachender Prozeß. Und gewisse Krankheiten des Nervensystems bestehen gerade darin, daß das Nervensystem, das polarisch entgegengesetzt ist in seiner ganzen Organisation dem Blutsystem, die Einwanderung der im Blute normalen Prozesse erfahren muß. Wenn diese Prozesse, die in den Blutbahnen normale Prozesse sind, sich hinüberdrängen in die Nervenbahnen, dann werden die Nervenbahnen, und das geschieht beim leisesten Eindringen, von Entzündungen ergriffen, die ganz im Anfange der Entzündlichkeit stehen, und wir bekommen die verschiedenen Formen des kranken Nervensystems heraus.
Ich sagte, in den Nerven sind ganz andere Vorgänge als im Blute, die entgegengesetzten Vorgänge. Im Blut sind nach dem Phosphorigen hindrängende Vorgänge, Vorgänge, die eben, wenn sie als phosphorige Vorgänge das das Blut Umgebende oder das dem Blute Benachbarte ergreifen, zu Entzündlichem führen. Wenn Sie die Vorgänge in den Nervenbahnen verfolgen und diese auswandern in die anderen benachbarten Organe oder auch ins Blut hinein, dann entstehen die Impulse für alle Geschwulstbildungen beim Menschen. Wenn das ins Blut hinübergetragen wird, so daß das Blut dann in ungesunder Weise die anderen Organe versorgt, dann entstehen die Geschwulstbildungen. So daß wir sagen können: Jede Geschwulstbildung ist ein metamorphosierter Nervenprozeß an unrechter Stelle im menschlichen Organismus.
Sie sehen, was im Nerv läuft, muß im Nerv bleiben, was im Blute läuft, muß im Blute bleiben. Geht, was dem Blute angehört, hinüber in die Nachbarschaft, entstehen Entzündungen. Geht, was dem Nerv angehört, hinüber in die Nachbarschaft, so entstehen allerlei Bildungen, die man nur unter dem Trivialnamen Geschwulstbildung zusammenfassen kann. Aber es muß gerade zwischen den Vorgängen im Nervensystem und zwischen den Vorgängen im Blutsystem ein richtiger Rhythmus stattfinden.
Wir haben nicht nur im allgemeinen den Atmungsrhythmus in Kontrast mit dem Blutrhythmus, sondern wir haben im zirkulierenden Blute feine Vorgänge, die, wenn sie aus dem Blute herausgehen, Entzündungsvorgänge werden. Diese feinen Vorgänge müssen ebenso in einem gewissen rhythmischen Zusammenhange stehen mit dem, was im benachbarten Nerv vorgeht, wie die Atmung in einem Zusammenhange stehen muß mit der Blutzirkulation. Und in dem Augenblicke, wo das gestört ist zwischen dem Blutrhythmus und Nervenrhythmus, muß es wiederum hergestellt werden.
Sie sehen, da kommen wir wieder hinein in ein Gebiet der Therapie, der Heilungsprozesse. Das alles zeigt Ihnen, wie im Menschen alles da sein muß: das am meisten Kranke muß da sein, damit es an anderer Stelle ein Gesundes sein kann; es ist nur durch einen unrechten Prozeß an eine falsche Stelle gekommen. Denn wäre es gar nicht da, könnte der Mensch nicht bestehen. Der Mensch könnte nicht bestehen, wenn er nicht Entzündungen kriegen könnte, denn die Entzündung erregenden Kräfte müssen fortwährend im Blute sein. So ist es gedacht gewesen, wenn ich oftmals gesagt habe: aus einer wirklichen Menschenerkenntnis heraus muß alles entstehen, was der Mensch eigentlich an Erkenntnis erwirbt. Sie sehen da, worin die Gründe liegen, warum eigentlich eine Pädagogik, ich möchte sagen, so obenauf, abstrakt getrieben, ein ziemlicher Unsinn ist. Eigentlich müßte man Pädagogik so treiben, daß man überall ausgeht von gewissen pathologischen Prozessen im Menschen und von der Möglichkeit ihrer Heilung.
Wenn man eine Gehirnkrankheit und die Möglichkeit der Heilung der Gehirnkrankheit kennt, dann hat man im Groben - das ist wieder nach anderer Art fein, selbstverständlich, aber in bezug darauf, daß es ein physischer Vorgang ist, sage ich «grob» — in der Behandlung des Gehirns das, was genau just ausgeführt werden muß in der pädagogischen Kunst. Daher ist es so, daß eigentlich, wenn man einmal ein wirkliches pädagogisches Seminar einrichtet, man auf der einen Seite den Lehrern Pathologisch-Therapeutisches beibringen müßte: da würden sie ihr Denken schulen erst an Anschaulicherem, weil mehr im Stoffe Wurzelndem, für das, was sie nun begreifen sollen in der eigentlichen Pädagogik. Und wiederum ist nichts nützlicher für die Therapie, namentlich für die Therapie der inneren Krankheiten, als wenn man weiß, wie das oder jenes in der pädagogischen Kunstbehandlung wirkt. Denn findet man die Brücke hinüber zum Stofflichen, so findet man gerade an der Art und Weise, wie man im Pädagogischen behandeln soll, auch das Heilmittel.
Wenn man zum Beispiel die richtigen pädagogischen Mittel findet, um gewissen Trägheitserscheinungen bei Kindern pädagogisch zu begegnen, die von Störungen im Verdauungssystem herrühren, dann bekommt man ganz merkwürdige innere Tendenzen; wenn man so wirklich drinnen lebt in der Pädagogik, natürlich nicht, wenn man so äußerlich lernt und eigentlich lieber, wenn die Schule aus ist, am Abend im «Gemeindestübel» sitzt und vergißt, was in der Schule vorgeht. Man bekommt von der Behandlungsweise, die man da angedeihen läßt einem solchen Kinde, die Tendenz, das ganze Wirken der Kopfvorgänge, den ganzen Zusammenhang der Kopfvorgänge und der Unterleibsvorgänge, ich möchte sagen, zu sehen. Und wenn man dann wiederum in der Mineralogie studiert zum Beispiel die Vorgänge, die in dem Kupfer vor sich gehen, indem das Kupfer im Erdreich dies oder jenes bildet: dann ist es fast so, daß in alledem, was das Kupfer ausführt, indem es zu dem oder jenem Kupfererze wird, daß in diesem Werden der Erze zu dem Kupfererz oder zu den anderen Erzen es einem dann so erscheint, daß man sagt: Da tut ja die Kupferkraft in der Erde dasjenige, was du als Pädagoge mit dem Knaben oder dem Mädchen tust! Man sieht förmlich ein Abbild von dem, was man selber tut, in den Kupferprozessen. Und es ist außerordentlich reizvoll, als Pädagoge sich eine intuitive, eine gefühls- und instinktmäßige Klarheit zu verschaffen über das, was man tut, um dann entzückt in die Natur hinauszugehen und zu sehen, wie eigentlich da draußen die Natur im Großen pädagogisch handelt; wie überall dort, wo durch irgendeinen Kalkprozeß etwas Schlimmes geschehen könnte, irgendwie ein Kupferprozeß da hineingefügt wird. Ja, in diesen Kupferprozessen, in diesen Erzbildungsprozessen innerhalb der übrigen Erdenprozesse liegen auch fortwährende Heilungen. Und es ist entzückend, wenn man irgendwo Pyriterze oder irgend etwas anderes findet, nun sich zu sagen: Das ist gerade so, wie wenn man in der richtigen Weise Menschen behandelt. Da behandeln die Geister der Natur von den Hierarchien herunter bis zu jenen Elementargeistern, von denen ich Ihnen gesprochen habe, als Heiler das, was auch eben im Leben als störende, krankmachende Prozesse auftreten könnte. Es ist eigentlich dann schon gar nicht mehr etwas anderes als ein Ablesen. Denn wenn man sieht, was da draußen geschieht, wenn man dann diesen oder jenen Stoff als Heilmittel anspricht oder ihn verarbeitet als Heilmittel, dann stellt man sich einfach hin und frägt sich: Wo erscheint das Eisen? Wo erscheint dieses oder jenes Metall in den Adern? studiert dann die Umgebung, und man findet dann immer, wenn irgendein Metallisches da oder dort erscheint in dieser oder jener Verarbeitung von der Natur: da drinnen ist ein Heilungsprozeß; nimm ihn nut, setze ihn fort, hinein in den menschlichen Organismus, dann schaffst du eine Therapie, die dir die Natur draußen vorgezeigt hat.
Ja, alles Gehen durch die Welt ist in Wirklichkeit ein richtiges Studieren des Ernährenden, des Heilenden, des Geistigen; denn in der Natur wird fortwährend krank gemacht und fortwährend geheilt. Da draußen sind sie, die großen kosmischen Heilungsprozesse. Wir müssen sie nur anwenden auf den Menschen. Das ist das wunderbare Zusammenwirken des Makrokosmos mit dem Mikrokosmos. Es ist in der Tat tief wahr, was ich zu manchen von Ihnen in dieser oder jener Form gesagt habe:
Willst du dich selber erkennen,
Blicke in der Welt nach allen Seiten.
Willst du die Welt erkennen,
Schaue in alle deine eigenen Tiefen.
Das können Sie aber auf alles anwenden: Willst du den Menschen heilen, blicke in die Welt nach allen Seiten, blicke hin darauf, wie die Welt nach allen Seiten Heilung entwickelt. Willst du die Geheimnisse der Welt als Krankheits- und Heilungsprozesse erkennen, so blickeinalle die Tiefen der menschlichen Natur hinunter. - Sie können das auf alles anwenden, was Menschenwesen ist. Aber Sie müssen den Blick hinausrichten auf die große Natur und den Menschen in lebendigem Zusammenhang sehen mit dieser großen Natur.
Man hat sich heute etwas anderes angewöhnt. Man geht weg von der Natur, so weit als möglich; man macht etwas, was einem selbst den Blick von der Natur abschließt, denn das, was man untersuchen will, das legt man unter ein Glas da unten auf ein kleines Tischchen; das Auge, das blickt nicht hinaus in die Natur, sondern blickt da hinein. Selbst der Blick noch ist abgeschnürt von der Natur. Man nennt das ein Mikroskop. Man könnte es ebensogut in einer gewissen Beziehung ein Nulloskop nennen, denn man schließt sich ab von der großen Natur. Und man weiß nicht, wenn man da unten das vergrößert hat, daß man in der Tat für die geistige Erkenntnis dasselbe hat, was geschehen würde, wenn der Vorgang in der Natur sich abspielte. Denken Sie doch nur einmal, wenn Sie irgendein kleines winziges Dingchen vom Menschen da drinnen vergrößern, damit Sie es beobachten können, so vollführen Sie ja mit diesem Winzigen des Menschen dasselbe, was Sie mit dem Menschen vollführen würden, wenn Sie ihn so weit auseinanderzerren und -reißen würden! Sie wären etwas viel Schrecklicheres noch als der Prokrustes, wenn Sie den Menschen so auseinanderzerren und -reißen würden, damit er so vergrößert ist, wie da dieses winzige Dingchen da unten unter dem Rohr vergrößert ist. Aber glauben Sie, daß Sie da den Menschen noch hätten? Es ist natürlich keine Rede davon, daß Sie den Menschen noch hätten. Ebensowenig haben Sie die Wahrheit da unten unter dem Mikroskop. Die vergrößerte Wahrheit ist nicht mehr die Wahrheit, ist ein Scheingebilde. Man darf nicht weggehen von der Natur und sich selbst noch den Blick einsperren. Gewiß, das alles kann für andere Dinge nützlich sein, aber für das, was eine wirkliche Menschenerkenntnis ist, ist es zunächst etwas, was ungeheuer von dieser wirklichen Menschenerkenntnis hinwegführt.
Die wirkliche Menschenerkenntnis muß so gesucht werden, wie wir es angedeutet haben. Sie muß führen von den Ernährungsvorgängen durch die Heilungsvorgänge zu den Vorgängen der Menschen- und Weltpädagogik im weitesten Sinne, wir können sagen, von der Ernährung durch die Heilung zu der Zivilisation und Kultur. Denn es ist alles wie eine untere Grundlage der physischen Vorgänge, die im Menschen in der Ernährung konzentriert sind; der Heilungsvorgänge, die aus dem, was immer umkreist, hervorgehen, was im Menschen in den rhythmischen Vorgängen konzentriert ist; und desjenigen, was von oben kommt, was im Menschen durch die Nerven-Sinnesprozesse konzentriert ist. Dreistufig richtet sich so die Welt auf.
Das wollte ich Ihnen zunächst als eine Art Grundlage geben. Wir wollen dann darauf weiter aufbauen. Wir wollen sehen, wie wir wirklich von solchen Ausgangspunkten hinaufkommen können in etwas, was sozusagen die Handhabung der Sache im praktischen Leben ist und was dann übergeführt werden kann zu dem, was Hierarchienerkenntnis ist.


Tenth Lecture
You will have seen that in these lectures which I have given recently, everything is pushing towards summarizing world phenomena in such a way that ultimately a truly comprehensive knowledge of human nature emerges. Everything we have looked at pushes towards knowledge of man. A knowledge of man will only be possible when it can begin with the lowest forms of the phenomenal world, with all that reveals itself to man as the material world. And what thus begins with the contemplation of that which reveals itself as the material world must conclude with the contemplation of the world of hierarchies. From the lowest forms of material existence up to the highest forms of spiritual existence, up to the world of hierarchies, that which can then lead to the real knowledge of man must be sought. At the moment we will sketch a kind of outline for such a knowledge of man in the lectures which I can now give to you.
We must be clear about the fact that that which stands before us today as man is the result of that long cosmic development which I have always summarized as Saturn, Sun, Moon and Earth development. The earth evolution is not yet complete. But let us be clear about what man actually owes to the earth evolution in the narrower sense, which therefore followed the moon evolution.
You see, when you spread out and move your arms, when you move your fingers, when you perform any external movement: everything that is necessary in your organism for you to be able to move your arms and legs, your head, your lips and so on - and the forces for such human expressions go into the innermost parts of the human organism - all this is given to man through the earth evolution in the narrower sense. If, on the other hand, you look into everything that is metabolic development, into the space that is closed off from the outermost human skin, if you look at everything that takes place in the physical-bodily inner man as metabolic development, then you have a picture of what man owes to the moon development. And you have a picture of what man owes to the old solar development if you look at everything that is somehow a rhythmic process in man. Breathing processes and blood circulation processes are the most important rhythmic processes; man owes all these rhythmic processes to the ancient development of the sun. And everything that is nerve and sensory development, again spread over the whole body of today's human being, man owes to the old Saturnian development.
But in all this you must bear in mind that the human being is a whole, and that the development of the world is a whole. When we refer today, as I did in my “Secret Science in Outline”, to the old Saturnian evolution, we mean the evolution that once preceded the evolution of the sun, moon and earth in ancient times. But this is basically only the one Saturnian evolution that made it to Earth. While the Earth is developing, a Saturnian development is also taking place. This new Saturnian evolution is part of the Earth evolution; it is, so to speak, the most recent Saturnian evolution. The one that has come up to the earth evolution is the oldest. The one that was in the old sun as a Saturnian evolution is the younger one; the one that was in the moon is younger again; and Saturn, which fills the earth today, which essentially takes up certain heat organizations of the earth, is the youngest Saturnian evolution. But we are in this Saturnian evolution with our human being.
So we are involved in the cosmic development. But we are also involved in what surrounds us spatially on earth. Take the mineral kingdom, for example. We interact with the mineral kingdom. We absorb minerality through food. We also absorb it in other ways through breathing and so on. We process the mineral within us.
But all development, all world processes are different in the human being than outside the human being. I have already remarked that it is pure ridiculousness when we study chemical processes in the chemical laboratory today and then think that these chemical processes simply continue into the interior of the human being when he eats food. The human being is not just some confluence of chemical effects; everything changes within the human being. And from a certain point of view, this change appears in the following way.
Suppose we take in mineral substances. Everything that we absorb in terms of minerals must be driven in the human being to such an extent that the following applies. You know that we have an intrinsic heat; in a healthy human being our blood heat is about thirty-seven degrees. We have something in our blood heat which on average exceeds the external heat. But everything that we take in mineral must be so transformed in our organism, so metamorphosed, that what in our blood-heat exceeds the average heat of the external environment, what is higher than the average heat of the external environment, that it takes up the mineral in a pleasing way. If you enjoy a crumb of table salt, this table salt must be absorbed by your own warmth, not by the warmth you have in common with the outer world, but by your own warmth, must be absorbed pleasantly. Everything mineral must be transformed into warmth ether. And the moment a person has something in his organism that prevents any mineral from transforming itself into heat ether, that is the moment he is ill.
Let us go further, let us go to the vegetable matter that man absorbs. Man absorbs the vegetable; he himself belongs to the world by developing the vegetable in himself. The human being contains mineral matter which, however, tends to become perpetually etherized, heat ether. The vegetable tends continually in man to become airy, to become gaseous. So that the human being has the vegetable within him as an airy realm. Everything that comes into man from plants, or what he himself develops as inner plant organization, must become airy, must be able to take on air form in him. If it does not take on airy form, if his organization is such that it prevents him from allowing everything that wants to be plant-like in him to take on airy form, he is ill. Everything animalistic that man absorbs, or that he himself forms in himself as animalistic, all this must, at least at some time, assume the liquid, the watery form in man. The human being must have nothing of the animalistic in him, not of the inwardly produced animalistic, not of the absorbed animalistic, which does not undergo the process of becoming liquid in him. If the human being is not able to make his own animal matter or foreign animal matter liquid in order to transform it into solid matter, then he is ill. Only that which gives birth to the purely human form in man, that which in man comes from the fact that he is an upright walking being, that he has in himself impulses to speak and think, only that which makes him the real man, that which lifts him above the animal, that may enter into the solid earthly - and that makes up only ten percent of our total organization at most - that may enter into the solid, into the solidly formed, into the form. If anything from the animal or vegetable enters the human solid form, the human being is ill.
All that is mineral must become heat ether in the human being. Everything vegetable must pass through the aerial stage in the human being. Everything animal must pass through the watery stage in man. All that is human must always retain its earthly, solid form. This is one of the secrets of human organization.
Now let us first leave out that which man has from the earth - the later consideration will make this all the more abundant -, let us take that which is metabolic organization in man, which he certainly transforms during the earth organization, but which he has in the plant from the old moon time, let us therefore take that which takes place as metabolism in the narrower sense within the human skin, whereby we must certainly count the excretions as part of the metabolism, so this, I would like to say, is constantly changed by the absorption of the food substances. The nutrients, which are initially outside the human being, enter the human being and are initially incorporated into this metabolic system.
This metabolic system processes what is the human environment into something human. It begins to bring everything mineral closer to the heat ether, everything vegetable closer to the gaseous-airy-scented, it begins to bring everything that is animal, especially that which is produced by animals, closer to the watery, and as an organized shaping forms what is actually human into something solid. The tendency of all this lies in metabolism. And metabolism is something that is extraordinarily interesting in this respect.
If we trace the metabolism up to breathing, we find that the human being forms out of himself the carbon that is to be found everywhere in the human being. It is sought out by oxygen, is transformed into carbonic acid, which man then exhales. Carbonic acid is the combination of carbon and oxygen. The oxygen, which is drawn in through breathing, is absorbed by the carbon, takes the carbon into itself; the person exhales the carbonic acid, the compound that the oxygen has formed with the carbon. But before the exhalation takes place, the carbon becomes, so to speak, the benefactor of human nature. For this carbon, by combining with the oxygen, by combining, as it were, what the blood circulation does with what the respiration then makes of the blood circulation, this carbon, it becomes the benefactor of the human organization; for before it leaves the human organism, it spreads an outpouring of ether throughout the entire human organism. Physical science merely says that the carbon is exhaled with the carbonic acid. But that is only one side of the whole process. Man exhales the carbonic acid, but in his whole organism ether is left behind by the exhalation of the carbon, which is taken up by the oxygen. This ether penetrates into the etheric body of the human being. And this ether, which is constantly produced by the carbon, is that which now makes the human organization suitable for opening itself to spiritual influences, which absorbs the astral-etheric effects from the cosmos. From this ether, which the carbon leaves behind, the cosmic impulses are attracted, those cosmic impulses which in turn have a formative effect on the human being, which, for example, prepare his nervous system so that it can become the carrier of thoughts. This ether must continually penetrate our senses, for example our eyes, so that the eyes can see, so that the eyes can receive the outer light ether. We therefore owe it to carbon that we have an ether preparation within us that can meet the world.

All this is already prepared in the metabolic system. But the metabolic system, as a human system, is placed in the whole cosmos in such a way that it could not exist on its own. The metabolic system could not exist for itself. That is why it was only formed as a third system in the human being. The first system for the nervous-sensory system was formed during the old Saturnian period, the second system for the rhythmic system during the old solar period, and only after these other systems were there could the metabolic system be brought about in the human being, because the metabolic system could not exist on its own. The metabolic system, if we leave out the arbitrary movements for the time being, is calculated in the cosmic context for the human being for nutrition. But this nutrition cannot exist on its own. Man needs this nutrition, but it cannot exist on its own. For if one studies the metabolic system in man for itself - you will see in the next lectures how necessary this is again for the whole human organization - it is perpetually permeated by all kinds of tendencies to make man ill. We must always look for the origin of internal diseases that do not arise from external injuries in the metabolic system. Therefore, anyone who really wants to make a rational observation of illness must start from the metabolic system, and he must actually ask each individual phenomenon in the metabolic system: Which path are you on? - If we take all phenomena from the intake of food in the mouth, from the processing of food by transforming certain substances in us into starch and sugar and so on, if we take the enveloping of food in the mouth by ptyalin, if we go further, if we take the pepsinization in the stomach, if we go further and take the processing of the metabolic products again in the digestive system, in their passage into the lymph vessels, in their passage into the blood, then we must look for every single process, and there are innumerable processes that come into consideration. The mixing of the metabolic products with the secretion of the pancreas, which is then added, the mixing of the substances with the bile secretion and so on, we must ask each individual process: What do you actually want? - And he will answer us: If I am alone, I am such a process that always makes man ill. -No metabolic process in human nature may come to an end, because every metabolic process, when it comes to an end, makes man ill. Human nature is only healthy if the metabolic processes are stopped at a certain stage.
We will get to know this, which might at first appear to be a folly of the world organization: that something begins in man which, if it were not stopped halfway, would make man ill, we will get to know this as something of the wisest in the next lectures. But for the time being let us look at the facts, let us consider that the details of the metabolic processes, if we study them inwardly according to their nature, would answer us: We are on the way to making the whole organism ill. Every metabolic process, continued, makes the organism ill. If there is to be metabolism in the human being at all, there must be other processes that have to be developed in their systems beforehand, and these are the processes that are present in the circulation; these are the circulation processes. The circulation processes constantly contain healing processes. So that the human being can in fact also be described in such a way that one says: The human being was born as a patient during the old moon evolution, and the physician was sent before him in his own nature during the old sun evolution. During the old solar evolution man was born as a doctor in relation to his own nature. It was very careful in the evolution of the world that the doctor came into being before the patient, for during the old lunar evolution the patient came into being in man himself. If we want to describe the human being correctly, we have to move on from the metabolic processes to the circulatory processes, of course to everything that underlies the circulatory processes as impulses. One substance causes faster circulation, the other slower circulation in the broadest sense. We also have very small circulation processes within us. Take any mineral substance, take gold, take copper, everything, if it is supplied to the human being in one way or another internally or by injection or in some other way, is the cause that something in the circulation takes shape, changes, has a healthy effect and so on. And what we need to know in order to look into the actual healing processes of the human being is what each individual substance in the human being's world environment triggers in the human being with regard to circulation changes. So that we can say: circulation is a continuous healing process.
You can, I would like to say, calculate it if you want to. Remember what I told you: on average a human being has eighteen breaths a minute. That is as many breaths during the day, in an extraordinarily regular adaptation to the cosmos, as the circulation rhythm of the sun in its passage through the solar year. But the sun passes through the whole in its spring rising point in 25920 years. In his middle age, a person has an average of 25,920 breaths per day. The pulse beats are four times more. The other circulation, the more internally concentrated circulation, is influenced by the metabolism. The respiratory circulation is that which corresponds to the external circulation of the human being with the outside world, which is the interaction with the outside world. This respiratory rhythm must continually restrain the circulatory rhythm so that it remains at its four, otherwise the human being with his circulatory rhythm comes into a completely irregular rhythm, not into the number 103680. This is something that nothing in the cosmos corresponds to. Man tears himself completely out of the cosmos. His metabolism tears him out of the cosmos, makes him alien to the cosmos, and the rhythm of his breathing continually tears him into the cosmos. In this dividing and in this taming of the circulatory rhythm by the respiratory rhythm you see the primal healing process that is continually being carried out in the human being. But in a certain finer way, with every inner healing, the breathing process, which continues in a certain way into the whole body, must be helped in such a way that it tames the circulation process everywhere in the human being, leading it back to the general conditions of the cosmos.
So that we can say: We pass from nourishment to healing, in that the human being from below always actually has the tendency to become ill, and in his middle organism, in the circulatory organism, must continually develop the tendency to remain healthy. As the impulses of recovery continually arise in our middle organism, they leave something behind for the head-nerve-sense system; and we then come thirdly to the nerve-sense system. What kind of forces do we then find in the nervous-sensory system? In the nerve-sense system we find those forces that the doctor leaves behind in us, so to speak. On the one hand, he has a healing effect on the metabolic process. But by having a healing effect on the metabolic process, he does something that is now subject to judgment in the entire cosmos. And I am not telling you anything fantastic, but I am telling you something that is quite a reality: this process, that healing processes are constantly taking place downwards in us, evokes the pleasure of the higher hierarchies. This is the joy of the higher hierarchies in the earth world. They look down and constantly feel the rising of illness from that which flows up into man from the earthly, that which remains from the earthly qualities of the substances. They see how the impulses of the forces working from the earthly, which lie in the surrounding air and so on, are continually processes of healing. This evokes the pleasure of the higher hierarchies.

Now imagine what you can study on that world body which has been placed at the boundary of our planetary system as the most worthy spiritual object of study. At its center is that which contains within itself the forces which, if we think of them as concentrated on earth, are pathogenic forces, and in its surroundings the circulating forces of healing are revealed. And those who are receptive to such things will see in the rings of Saturn in a form that cannot be perceived in what surrounds the earth, because we are standing within it, that which is circular health. This ring of Saturn is something essentially different from what astronomers say about it. This ring of Saturn is circling health, and the interior of Saturn is that which is ailing, that which causes illness, seen in its purest concentration.
And so on Saturn, which is placed at the extreme end of our planetary system, we see the same process taking place that we continually carry within us through our metabolism and through our circulatory organism. But we also see, when we look at this, how our spiritual gaze is directed towards the world of the second Hierarchy and the first Hierarchy in particular; of the second Hierarchy: Kyriotetes, Dynamis, Exusiai; of the first Hierarchy: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones. If we are attentive with the spiritual eye to Saturn and its ring, we are directed towards these upper hierarchies, as they, I would like to say, look favorably upon that which makes ill and that which heals.
This pleasure is now a force in the universe. This pleasure of the higher hierarchies then flows through our nervous-sensory system and forms within it the forces of man's spiritual development. These are the forces which, as it were, blossom out of the healing which is continually taking place in man. So that thirdly we have the spiritual development.
1. metabolism nutrition
2. circulation healing
3. nerve-sense organization Spiritual development
If we now describe the human being through Saturn, Sun and Moon time, then we must say: The human being is first of all the spirit born out of the cosmos, which develops the healer within itself, which can then receive the cosmic patient. And through the interaction of all this, that which is the human being in random movement on earth is then produced.
Every single link of human cognition must, I would like to say, be inspired in a certain way by that which underlies what I have said here. Suppose someone wants to set up a system of medicine, a really rational system of medicine. What would it have to contain? The healing processes, of course. But what will the healing processes have to be based on? They will have to start from the metabolic processes, and the other things can at most be a prerequisite, we will have to talk about that too; the anatomical, even the finer anatomical, that can only be the starting point because it is the fixed. That already makes itself human. But the metabolic processes must first of all be studied by a rational system of medicine in such a way that one always perceives in them the tendency towards the pathogenic. So that a present-day system of medicine that can be established must certainly begin with the metabolic system, that is, first with the normal metabolic processes, and from there must be drawn the knowledge of the possibility of how internal diseases can arise from the metabolism in the broadest sense. Then, through an intimate knowledge of what the rhythmic processes do, that which is the actual therapy must result. So that a modern system of medicine must begin with the study of metabolic processes, and then from there the transition must be made to everything that can occur in the area of rhythmic processes in the human being. And then, I would like to say, a kind of culmination of the whole will be achieved by showing how a healthy development of the spiritual dispositions of man presupposes the recognition of that which comes from the healing forces. You cannot find any pedagogy today, that is, no art of the healthy development of the spiritual nature of the human being, if you do not start from the healing processes; for the healing processes are nothing other than applying to the middle nature of the human being what must already be used in pure thinking in the formation of the spiritual processes of the human being.
The pedagogical artist must definitely work in a spiritual way with the forces which, condensed into the physical or etheric, are healing processes. If I do anything to a child in pedagogical art, it is a process that is based on something spiritual. If I translate this process so that I now carry out what I am doing in spirit by applying some material or process, then this process or this material is a remedy. One could also say that medicine is the metamorphosis of the spiritual treatment of man down into the material. If you remember how I indicated things in the teacher's course which was then held for the English visitors, you will see how I pointed out everywhere how in what the teacher does a kind of general human therapy is begun, how this or that pedagogical measure can cause unhealthy metabolic deposits or the absorption of irregular metabolism in later life. So that what the pedagogue does, continued downwards, gives therapy. And the antithesis of therapy, that which strives upwards from below, are the metabolic processes.
So you can also see how a system of medicine today must be born out of an overall understanding of man. It can do that. Some people feel that. But something will only be achieved when such a system of medicine has actually been developed. And in the present it is already one of the most necessary things. If you look at manuals of medicine today, you will see that as a rule they do not begin with the metabolic system, or at least in the rarest cases with the metabolism. But this must be assumed, otherwise you will not learn to recognize what the nature of the disease is in the first place.
You see, this whole matter is again such that actually nutritional processes can pass over into healing processes, healing processes into spiritual processes and back again spiritual processes into healing processes; or if the spiritual processes directly cause metabolic disturbances, then spiritual processes also pass over again into a stage where they must be healed by the middle organism of the human being. All these things merge into one another in the human being, and the whole human organization is constantly undergoing a wonderful metamorphosis. Take, for example, the processes involved in this whole marvelous circulation of the human blood. What are these processes?
First of all, take the blood as it flows through the veins, quite separately from the rest of the human organism, take the human form, let us say the vein system and that which follows as the muscle system, bone system and so on, that which is solid formation and that which flows through it in liquid form. Let us stop at the liquid state, at the blood; there are also other liquids, but let us stop at the blood. In this flowing liquid, what kind of processes are constantly taking place? Processes are constantly taking place. The same processes that take place in the liquid blood can now take hold in any direction of what can only be a wall or framework or something solidly formed or shaped in the human being, then what belongs in the blood is in the vessel wall or in the muscle or somewhere in the bone or in some enveloping organ. What will it do there? It becomes the impulse for inflammatory phenomena. What we find as the impulses of inflammatory phenomena here or there, we find continuously in the liquid blood as the normal processes. What appears there in the form of inflammation are processes pushed to the wrong places, that is, to the formed solid places, which must continually take place in the flowing blood. An absolutely normal, healthy process dislocated, placed in another place where it does not belong, is a pathogenic process. And certain diseases of the nervous system consist precisely in the fact that the nervous system, which is polar opposite in its whole organization to the blood system, must experience the immigration of the normal processes in the blood. When these processes, which are normal processes in the bloodstream, push their way over into the nerve tracts, then the nerve tracts, and this happens at the slightest intrusion, are seized by inflammation, which is at the very beginning of inflammation, and we get the various forms of the diseased nervous system.
I said that the processes in the nerves are quite different from those in the blood, the opposite processes. In the blood there are processes which push towards the phosphorous, processes which, when they take hold as phosphorous processes of that which surrounds the blood or that which is adjacent to the blood, lead to inflammation. If you follow the processes in the nerve tracts and these migrate into the other neighboring organs or into the blood, then the impulses for all tumor formations in humans arise. If this is carried over into the blood, so that the blood then supplies the other organs in an unhealthy way, then the tumor formations arise. So that we can say: Every tumor formation is a metamorphosed nerve process in the wrong place in the human organism.
You see, what runs in the nerve must remain in the nerve, what runs in the blood must remain in the blood. If what belongs to the blood crosses over into the neighborhood, inflammations arise. If what belongs to the nerve passes over into the neighborhood, all kinds of formations arise which can only be summarized under the trivial name of tumor formation. But there must be a proper rhythm between the processes in the nervous system and between the processes in the blood system.
Not only do we generally have the respiratory rhythm in contrast with the blood rhythm, but we also have subtle processes in the circulating blood which, when they emerge from the blood, become inflammatory processes. These subtle processes must have a certain rhythmic connection with what is going on in the neighboring nerve, just as breathing must have a connection with blood circulation. And the moment this is disturbed between the blood rhythm and the nerve rhythm, it must be re-established.
You can see that we are once again entering an area of therapy, of healing processes. All this shows you how everything has to be there in the human being: the most ill thing has to be there so that it can be healthy elsewhere; it has only come to the wrong place through an incorrect process. For if it were not there, man could not exist. Man could not exist if he could not become inflamed, for the forces that cause inflammation must be constantly in the blood. This is what I meant when I often said that everything that man actually acquires in the way of knowledge must arise from a real knowledge of man. You can see the reasons why pedagogy, I would like to say, is quite a nonsense, driven so high up, abstractly. Pedagogy should actually be pursued in such a way that it is based everywhere on certain pathological processes in people and the possibility of curing them.
If one knows a brain disease and the possibility of curing the brain disease, then one has roughly - this is again fine in another way, of course, but in relation to the fact that it is a physical process, I say “roughly” - in the treatment of the brain what exactly just has to be carried out in the pedagogical art. Therefore, if one were to set up a real pedagogical seminar, one would actually have to teach the teachers pathological-therapeutic things on the one hand: they would first train their thinking in something more vivid, because it is more rooted in the material, for what they are now to understand in actual pedagogy. And again, nothing is more useful for therapy, especially for the therapy of inner illnesses, than knowing how this or that works in the pedagogical treatment of art. For if you find the bridge to the material, you will also find the remedy in the way in which you should treat the pedagogical.
For example, if one finds the right pedagogical means to pedagogically counteract certain symptoms of sluggishness in children that stem from disturbances in the digestive system, then one gets quite strange inner tendencies; if one really lives inside pedagogy, of course not if one learns so externally and actually prefers to sit in the “community parlor” in the evening when school is over and forget what is going on in school. From the treatment that is given to such a child, one tends to see the whole workings of the head processes, the whole connection between the head processes and the abdominal processes, I would say. And if one then again studies in mineralogy, for example, the processes that take place in the copper, in that the copper forms this or that in the earth: then it is almost so that in everything that the copper carries out, in that it becomes this or that copper ore, that in this becoming of the ores into the copper ore or into the other ores, it then appears to one in such a way that one says: There the copper force in the earth does that which you as a pedagogue do with the boy or the girl! You can literally see an image of what you yourself are doing in the copper processes. And it is extraordinarily appealing as a teacher to gain an intuitive, emotional and instinctive clarity about what you are doing, in order to then go out into nature in delight and see how nature actually acts pedagogically out there on a large scale; how everywhere where something bad could happen through some lime process, a copper process is somehow inserted into it. Yes, in these copper processes, in these ore-forming processes within the other earth processes, there are also continual healings. And it is delightful, when you find pyrite ores or something else somewhere, to say to yourself: This is just like treating people in the right way. The spirits of nature, from the hierarchies down to the elemental spirits of which I have spoken to you, treat as healers what could also occur in life as disruptive, pathogenic processes. It is then actually no longer anything other than a reading. Because when you see what is happening out there, when you address this or that substance as a remedy or process it as a remedy, then you simply stand and ask yourself: Where does the iron appear? Where does this or that metal appear in the veins? Then study the surroundings, and you will always find, if any metal appears here or there in this or that processing of nature: there is a healing process inside; take it, continue it, into the human organism, then you create a therapy that nature has shown you outside.
Yes, all walking through the world is in reality a proper study of the nourishing, the healing, the spiritual; for in nature illness is constantly being made and constantly being healed. They are out there, the great cosmic healing processes. We just have to apply them to the human being. This is the wonderful interaction of the macrocosm with the microcosm. It is indeed deeply true what I have said to some of you in this or that form:
If you want to know yourself,
Look in the world on all sides.
If you want to recognize the world,
Look into all your own depths.
But you can apply this to everything: If you want to heal people, look into the world on all sides, look at how the world develops healing on all sides. If you want to recognize the secrets of the world as processes of illness and healing, look down into all the depths of human nature. - You can apply this to everything that is human. But you must look outwards to the great nature and see man in a living connection with this great nature.
Today we have become accustomed to something different. We move away from nature as far as possible; we do something that closes off our view of nature, because what we want to examine is placed under a glass on a small table down there; the eye does not look out into nature, but looks into it. Even the view is still cut off from nature. It's called a microscope. You could just as well call it a nulloscope in a certain sense, because you close yourself off from the great natural world. And one does not know, when one has magnified it down there, that one has in fact the same thing for spiritual knowledge that would happen if the process took place in nature. Just think, if you enlarge some little tiny thing of man in there so that you can observe it, you would do to this tiny thing of man what you would do to man if you were to pull and tear him so far apart! You would be something much more terrible than the Procrustes if you were to pull and tear man apart so that he is as enlarged as this tiny thing down there under the tube is enlarged. But do you think you would still have the human being there? Of course there is no question of your still having the human being. Nor do you have the truth down there under the microscope. The magnified truth is no longer the truth, it is an illusion. You must not go away from nature and lock up your own view. Certainly, all this can be useful for other things, but for what is a real knowledge of man, it is first of all something that leads tremendously away from this real knowledge of man.
Real knowledge of man must be sought in the way we have indicated. It must lead from the processes of nutrition through the processes of healing to the processes of human and world education in the broadest sense, we can say from nutrition through healing to civilization and culture. For it is all like a lower foundation of the physical processes that are concentrated in the human being in nutrition; of the healing processes that emerge from that which always revolves around us, which is concentrated in the human being in the rhythmic processes; and of that which comes from above, which is concentrated in the human being through the nerve-sense processes. In this way, the world is organized in three stages.
I wanted to give you this first as a kind of foundation. We then want to build on this. We want to see how we can really move up from such starting points into something that is, so to speak, the handling of the matter in practical life and which can then be transferred to what is hierarchical knowledge.

