Curative Education
GA 317
3 July 1924, Dornach
Lecture VIII
To begin with, dear friends, I want to show you the drawings done by this boy here, of whom we shall be speaking later on. He makes very good pictures. He has a feeling for detail; the drawings give evidence of a clear grasp of detail. Notice in this one, for instance, how accurately he has perceived everything. Here is another, where you can see how he plans and arranges his picture. Evidently he likes to do things in the way he learns to do them at school. And this is how it is done in our school here; and then each child is left free to fill in the picture in his own way. As you will see, we are economical and always use both sides of the paper. (Turning to the boy) Allow me now to draw you on the blackboard. There, that is what I wanted you for!
(Another child is brought in.) Bring the little one over here; that will be best—so.
Just look how tremendously large the head can become in a hydrocephalic child! We will discuss presently how that happens. The head actually measures 64 cm. When we first admitted the child, the measurement was 44 cm.1If accurately reported, this must refer to the earlier time when the child was first brought to the Clinic for advice. On the 25th February it was nearly 54 cm, by the 7th April it had increased to 56 cm, and between the 7th and 11th it grew still bigger. On the 19th April the measurement was more than 58 cm, on the 28th May it had risen to nearly 61 cm and on the 1st July to 64 cm. Otherwise, the child's bodily development has not been at all abnormal; he is just like any other child. He takes hold of things, he has a very good appetite, and with the exception of one crisis he has been cheerful and happy.
You can get an idea of the size of the head by looking at the little ears which are of course of ordinary size; you will at the same time notice just where the enlargement begins. It begins, you see, here, and then continues in this direction. The face is not affected; it is a little swollen and puffy, but not enlarged. As you look at the child, you will very likely think that he is perceiving things with his eyes. As a matter of fact, he has no more than a general impression of light—no precise impressions at all.
And now we have to take note of the tragic fact that just before I came here to give these lectures I received a telegram to say that the father of the child has died of a heart attack.
If you look at the child as a whole, and compare it with the form and proportions of an embryo, you will find that you have in this child nothing else than a giant embryo! You can see quite plainly that he has remained at the embryo stage, his growth in the post-embryo stage continuing to accord with the laws of growth of the embryo stage. That we have not up to now succeeded in achieving any reduction in the size of the head must be attributed to the extraordinary strength with which the internal tendencies that make for enlargement are working. I am however quite hopeful that after a certain point has been reached, we shall be able definitely to bring the head more nearly into harmony with the rest of the body. The child is in all other respects quite a jolly little fellow.
A striking fact that comes home to us when studying the riddles of human nature is that abnormalities of this kind throw great light upon the life of man as a whole—not only upon the life of man, but upon the life of the entire universe.
(Some extracts from the history of the case are read out.) The child was six months old when he came to us. He was born in August last year, and received from me his name; it was just in the time when I was away in England. The birth was normal. The mother was strong and healthy throughout the time of pregnancy. Please note these facts carefully; later on we shall have to find their interpretation. And let me ask for your special attention to what I said last—that the mother felt particularly well during the pregnancy. In this time she did a great deal of typing. There was nothing strange or unusual to be seen in the child at birth. Mark that well: at birth—that is to say, immediately on his being let go, as it were, from the embryo condition—the child showed nothing unusual. The embryo condition had, you see, been normal throughout; not until after the child started breathing with the lungs did abnormality begin. The umbilical cord was wound round the neck; the amniotic fluid contained meconium. The baby weighed 5 ¾ lb. Two weeks after birth he had convulsions—a solitary attack; an important fact to note, for it provides the first clear evidence that the ego organisation and the astral body are finding it impossible to make their way into the physical and the ether body. The child hit out around him with his arms and got blue in the face. Blueness is always a sign of inability to dive down into the physical body. If it is very marked, it has a more individual significance. It may mean nothing else than that the astral body had at birth a strong and pronounced configuration. For this, you know, can happen; as it did with Goethe, who was born quite blue and could only after some time be induced to receive into him the astral body and ego organisation. In the child now before us, the convulsions (and blueness) occurred of course later. Development is said to have been entirely normal during the first half year. It was not entirely normal; but the lack of right relationship between head and limbs escaped observation in the earliest months, and was noticed only later on. The child was breast-fed. The head was at birth noticeably small, which goes to show that the causes of the trouble are not to be sought in any weakness of the nerves-and-senses organisation. From September onwards, we are told, the size of the head began very gradually to increase. It began of course earlier than this. The mother did not yet consider the head abnormal at a time when it must already have grown to a considerable size. The enlargement of the head was noticed only when the discovery was made that in one week the child had put on weight to the extent of nearly 1 lb. In the middle of December the head measured 19 inches. The child was quiet, and did not cry much; he was apathetic. The fontanels were taut. Appetite was good. Blisters filled with pus began to form on the skin of the head. Appetite and evacuation of the bowels were good. And then the child was brought to us.
What we have to do, when such a case is brought to us, is to take the facts as they lie there before us—and among them the most important of all are of course whatever we can observe for ourselves by simply looking at the child—and then, working from these, win our way through to where we can “behold” also the spiritual in the child. Following this line of investigation we were able to see that the child carries in him an astral body which bears clearly and unmistakably the characteristic features of the astral body of the mother. The mother was of course present at the time. Seldom indeed does one come upon such a striking resemblance as here stood revealed! The same cannot be said of the ego organisation. The ego is still no more than rudimentary; it reminds one of an ego organisation such as children have in the sixth or seventh month of pregnancy. The child has in fact remained at that stage. Owing to the astral body being so extraordinarily strongly developed, the ego organisation seems to have missed sharing in the life and development of the last months of pregnancy. And now, after birth, the child retains within him, thanks to this powerful astral body, all the forces he had in the embryo time.
Let me at this point remind you that in the first few months after birth, the orientation of the embryo time virtually continues, with the result that in these first months the development of a child outside the body of the mother still bears a strong resemblance to its development in the embryo time. How are we to account for this? The radical change which the bodily nature of the child undergoes at birth is concerned, first or all, with the breathing system. The child comes into connection with the outside air. But now this connection with the air does not establish itself all at once, but only slowly; a considerable time has to go by before it is extended over the whole organism. The connection with the air has its influence upon the organism from the beginning, as we very well know. Nevertheless, the complete establishment of the connection throughout the organism is a gradual process. Consequently, in the earliest months, since the embryonic forces continue to work as before, there may frequently be no sign of any such devastation as can show itself in the organism later on, if infantilism goes so far as it does in the child before us; for we have in him an extreme instance of infantilism, where the embryo organisation is simply retained and continued.
Now, the characteristic feature of the embryo organisation is, as you know, that we have there to do with an immense head organisation and a small body. The head organisation owes its origin entirely to the co-operation of cosmic forces. Almost everything that takes place with the head organisation in the embryo condition is to be regarded as a work of cosmic forces. The mother's womb provides the place where the work that is going on can be protected from the intrusion of earthly forces. You must think of the mother's womb as a bodily organ that encloses a space, shutting away this space from earthly influences, so that it can be reserved for cosmic influences alone. Thus we have in the womb of the mother a space that stands in immediate connection with the cosmos, a space within which cosmic influences have free play. And there, in that enclosed space, the development of the head organisation goes forward.
When the time comes for the human forces of the mother's womb, in so far as these do receive the child at all—when the time comes for these human forces of the womb to work upon the child, then the metabolism-and-limbs organisation begins to let itself be orientated into these forces. In this child, the cosmic forces have simply continued their working into the post-embryo condition. The cosmic forces have had here the ascendancy over what should have been provided for by the strength and forces that normally a child receives in addition for his earthly development, notably for the development of the system of metabolism and limbs. What follows from this is obvious. For suppose the child had remained longer in the womb of the mother. It is of course an absurd hypothesis, but suppose the child had remained there beyond the ten months, what would have happened? The head would have gone on growing, and the limbs would not have been able to develop. For there, in the mother's womb, it is the extra-earthly, the cosmic, in the human being, that alone is given opportunity to grow.
And now we have to ask ourselves the question: What has led to this condition? And here I must say, it is most significant, it is indeed quite startling, that in the very moment when we are going to speak together about this whole strange case, a telegram is handed in, telling that the father has died of a heart attack. The following became clear to me and I confirmed it afterwards from the mother's memory. For I felt it necessary to ask her: “Did you not have a rather special feeling in your soul during pregnancy?” I even worded the question as follows: “Were you not sorry that the child did not remain within you instead of coming into the world?” The mother assented to this. She had founded her whole connection with the child upon the close association of the embryo period; as far as her feeling was concerned, the situation was that she was sorry she could not keep the child with her in the womb, she was sorry when it was torn away from her by the event of birth. This feeling on the part of the mother points on the one hand to an extraordinarily strong karmic connection between her and the child; on the other hand it has provided the conditions under which the forces that are active in the embryo time have been able to remain in the child. The abnormality of soul begins, you see, in the mother, and as one would naturally expect with such a deep karmic connection, transfers itself to the child.
The relationships of life are very complicated, and it is not at all easy always to see everything in its right connection. Many a time, however, the facts themselves will place the things together for our perception; and they do so here. Look at what has happened! Not a year has gone by since the child was born, and the father dies of a heart attack. There is always some connection to be found in such events; they don't just “happen”. The father had for a long time been suffering from a diseased heart. Now, you know what a strong connection there is between heart disease and the condition of the limbs. Under the influence of certain kinds of heart disease, the organisation of the legs will grow weak at once; for just the most important and essential part of the limbs, namely the tissues of the joints and the synovial fluid, suffer in consequence of heart disease. And then you must remember that, in the relationships of heredity, it is the limb organisation that is more strongly influenced by the father, and the head organisation by the mother. Now imagine, conception takes place. In certain circumstances it can happen that an incapacity on the part of the father to bring the forces of his organisation into the limbs is transferred to the child; in which case the head organisation, which is under the influence of the mother, is bound to undergo an inordinate development. And now you have the explanation of the fact that the mother loved to have the child in her womb. It was because the child received but little of heredity forces from the father, and the mother was accordingly able to make the main contribution.
There you have then a description of the case that is before us. And you must know that such a case is typical of a great number of children suffering from abnormality. For what you have observed in this child is an extreme instance of infantilism—an infantilism, namely, that goes back to the embryo condition; and you will find infantilism in all possible forms throughout the stages of child development. Here it is the embryo condition which, like an overgrown plant, spreads itself out over the later development; but the first epoch of life may do the same, extending its working beyond the change of teeth. Or again, just as there can be this failure to grow and develop rightly into the post-embryo condition, so can it also happen that a boy or girl does not grow into the third epoch of life in the right way. There are children who attain puberty in the outward sense, but do not with their full and entire constitution grow into the epoch that lies between puberty and the beginning of the twenties; such children retain instead during that epoch the orientation of the forces that work between the seventh and fourteenth year. Actually a whole succession of infantilisms can be met with. We have here the absolutely radical example; and it is fortunate from a medical and educational point of view that you should have opportunity to observe in this extreme case what you will be able to detect, to a lesser extent and in less pronounced form, in a vast number of backward children.
Our purpose in today's lecture is to make adequate preparation for passing on tomorrow to the therapy and pathology of the cases in question; I will accordingly confine myself to giving descriptions of the cases, and then tomorrow we will carry our consideration of the same to a conclusion and speak also of their pedagogical aspect.
You saw, at the beginning of the lecture, the boy of whom you may well be inclined to ask: Why ever is he brought forward for demonstration? A sensible question, for when you make his acquaintance in an ordinary superficial way, you can hardly do otherwise than find him a kindly disposed and friendly little boy, who learns painting just as other children do, who answers you quite properly and with perfect friendliness when you speak to him, a little boy, in fact, with whom you could quite happily converse by the hour. Is it not so? Those who have to do with him will tell you that it is as I have said. You would not be able to notice anything abnormal about the child, and would perhaps say to yourself: “Strange people these Anthroposophists! They put their children in a clinic for treatment, when all the time they are children who might well be held up as an example to other children!” The fact is, the boy is a kleptomaniac. You would never think it! But that is due to a characteristic feature of kleptomania—namely, its almost complete isolation from the rest of the soul life. And in this boy you will find that consciousness—which should, generally speaking, send its light into all the events and doings that occur in the life of man—is simply shut out from his kleptomaniac actions. You will have the distinct feeling that he himself has very little knowledge of what he is doing, in spite of the fact that he carries it out—and please note this!—in a most clever and crafty manner. He had to be expelled when he went to school in Berne, and again also when he attended a school in another town; and he had arranged everything so slyly, that the authorities had to go to no end of trouble before they could establish grounds for his expulsion.
The boy is not at all egoistic in the matter. He is quite capable of making presents to his friends of the things that he steals in this wily manner, or of spending it all on some jollification in order to give them pleasure. The whole situation leads to the development of a special form of not altogether conscious lying; for he does not himself know exactly what has happened, the details of the event not being shone upon by the light of consciousness. He will relate the most incredible stories to explain how he has come by some object, which he has of course simply stolen. He will show you, with real shyness, just how he found the things and just where they all were, making a long story of how it all came about. There is really something impish about the way these thefts take place. If I understood Frau Dr. Wegman aright, quite a long time can elapse during which it seems as though the boy has become a perfectly well-behaved little fellow, and then suddenly one day, without our knowing that he has taken anything it will transpire that something is missing out of someone's pocket. In a curious way different people will begin to make the discovery that things of theirs are simply disappearing. So then we would be confronted with these two facts side by side. On the one hand, the strange report of the dematerialisation of things in the Clinic, and on the other hand the knowledge that the boy had been compelled to leave one school after another. For that was known to us from his past history. These two facts stood there together, side by side.
It is, moreover, you will agree, an unpleasant situation suddenly to be placed under the necessity of supposing that it might also be some adult who had taken the things! We have in the Clinic at present fifty-two persons, and it might be this one or that one, one simply did not know. What one did know was that a spiritualist would have had here a grand opportunity to make a full and thorough explanation of how things dematerialise! A whole theory of the dematerialisation of objects could have been built up.
We have the child here with us in the Clinic, and I would like you to observe him and notice how firmly the head organisation is compressed here (at the temples) and how it goes apart here (towards the back of the head). As to the spiritual findings, they are to the effect that the parts of the astral body belonging to the several organs are extraordinarily strongly developed, particularly here on the left side. Externally, you will not find much else to note about the boy.
And now be so good as to bring in the other child. We will speak about methods of treatment tomorrow.
(The next child is brought in.) Look at her! A dear little girl! Charming, is she not? Look at her lovely fair hair. An interesting incident has taken place with this little girl. One day the children were left alone together for a short time. They were on very friendly terms with one another; and presently the boy whom you saw the day before yesterday got the idea that he must go and find some scissors. It was this little girl of course who made him fetch the scissors. Being a polite and obedient little gentleman, he brought them to her. What did she do, but cut off all her hair! As you see, not at all a conventional young lady! And now I would especially draw your attention to her lovely blue eyes, and then to her fair hair with its beautiful lustre. You can see at once, the child is very sulphurous. And she is so in her behaviour too—extraordinarily sulphurous. A dear child, but with this strongly marked sulphurous quality. She is always on the go and full of vigour. (The girl bites at Dr. Steiner's arm.) She is only biting my sleeve. She weighed at birth a little under 4 ¼ lb., but had been carried in the womb for the full nine months. Thus the embryo period had been gone through in the regular manner. The child was breast-fed for seven months, and when a year old learned to walk. That is a comparatively early age to learn to walk, but not abnormal. She learned also to talk at the right time. Development continued to give the appearance of being normal. By the time she was a year and a half the child had ceased to wet the bed, although she still wet herself during the day, but never any more at night. Here, you see, is already an abnormality, in the fact that this weakness in the child's organisation makes itself evident only when the astral body is present, and not when the astral body has been removed.
A year and a half ago, when she was three and a half years old—note that this is exactly half-way through the epoch of the first seven years and is a moment of great importance, as is also the corresponding moment in the second epoch, half-way between the seventh and fourteenth years—when three and a half years old, the child had headaches with high fever, and immediately afterwards measles. She was a child who readily caught illnesses. Since that time, she has been particularly restless and excitable. The mother too was ill at the same time with influenza and has also been restless since, and easily upset. You see the parallelism between mother and child. The child's appetite is always poor. And yet she is a fine, sturdy little girl, with powerful limbs. As you know, however, the organisation of the limbs is not built up, so far as substance is concerned, from food, but from the cosmos via the breathing and the activity of the senses. It is in the head that you will find the results of this poorness of appetite. A poor appetite, which means then of course impaired nutrition, affects the activity of the child's head. The little girl is lively and imaginative; she is restless, not merely in her body, but in her thoughts too. It can plainly be seen in her that her imagination and fantasy come not from the head but from the limbs. Her head organisation is very weak, her limb organisation particularly strong. Clearly, her life of fantasy comes from her limbs.
The child often has restless dreams. Now, it is important to take careful note of how she dreams—in particular, whether the dreams occur just after falling asleep or before waking up. Up to now, according to this report of her case, it is the former alone that have been observed. But the waking-up dreams must also come under observation. If we can bring her now and then to relate these, they will be found to reveal much that is of very great interest for us when they are in this way recalled to memory. We must get her to tell them to us.
These then are the three cases I wanted to put before you. Tomorrow we will meet again at 8:30 and speak about methods of treatment.
Achter Vortrag
Meine lieben Freunde! Ich werde zunächst nur die Zeichnungen von diesem Jungen zeigen. Er macht sehr schöne Sachen; er hat Sinn, die Details der Dinge so stark aufzufassen; gerade hier sehen Sie, wie er sich alles genau anschaut. Da ist ein Blatt, woran Sie sehen, wie er einteilt; er hat wohl gerade eine Neigung, diejenigen Dinge zu machen, die er in der Schule lernt. Er macht das in der Schule drüben, wo das so eingeteilt ist, daß jeder seine eigenen Sachen macht. — Bei uns wird ökonomisch vorgegangen. Es werden alle zwei Seiten benutzt.
Zu dem Jungen gewandt:
Du wirst gestatten, daß ich dich auf die Tafel zeichne. So, das habe ich von dir gebraucht.
Von dem Jungen wird später gesprochen. Es wird ein neues Kind hereingebracht.
Wir werden das so machen, daß wir das Kind hierher bringen. — Nun sehen Sie sich die ungeheure Vergrößerung eines kindlichen Kopfes als Hydrozephalus einmal an. Wir werden das nachher besprechen. Er hat jetzt einen Umfang von 64 Zentimeter, als wir ihn bekommen haben, hatte er 44 Zentimeter. Am 25.Februar hatte er 54 1/2 Zentimeter, bis zum 7. April war er auf 56 Zentimeter gewachsen, vom 7. auf den 11. April ist er wieder gewachsen, am 19. April hatte er 58 Zentimeter, am 28. Mai hatte er 61 Zentimeter, am 1. Juli hatte er 64 Zentimeter. Das Kind hat im übrigen den Körper nicht unnormal entwickelt, es ist durchaus so, wie ein anderes Kind. Es greift die Dinge an, hat sehr guten Appetit und ist eigentlich — mit Ausnahme einer Krisis — absolut munter. Sie sehen die ungeheure Größe, wenn Sie sich die Öhrchen anschauen, die er natürlich in der entsprechenden Größe hat, so daß Sie sehen, wo die Vergrößerung des Kopfes einsetzt. Sie setzt hier an und geht hier weiter. Das Gesicht nimmt daran nicht teil, es ist etwas aufgetrieben, es nimmt nicht teil. Das Kind ist durchaus so, daß Sie, wenn Sie es jetzt ansehen, wohl vielleicht empfinden können, daß es mit den Augen wahrnimmt; es ist aber eben nur ein ganz allgemeiner Lichteindruck, kein präziser Lichteindruck.
Nun liegt das Tragische vor, daß ich, bevor ich hinaufgekommen bin, ein Telegramm bekommen habe, daß sein Vater an Herzkrampf gestorben ist.
Wenn Sie sich das ganze Kind anschauen und vergleichen es mit einer Embryonalbildung, dann werden Sie gar nichts anderes haben als ein Riesenembryo, so daß Sie unmittelbar daran sehen: das Kind ist im Embryonalstadium geblieben und hat die Wachstumsgesetze des Embryonalstadiums beibehalten und setzt sie im Postembryonalzustand fort. Daß wir bis jetzt noch keine Verkleinerung haben erreichen können, das ist darauf zurückzuführen, daß die Dinge außerordentlich stark von innen her sind. Ich hoffe noch durchaus, daß wir in der Lage sein werden, wenn ein bestimmter Punkt überschritten ist, die Harmonisierung des Kopfes bis zu einem bestimmten Grad durchzuführen. - Er ist sonst ein fideler Junge.
Es ist so mit den Menschenrätseln: die Dinge, die in solchen Abnormitäten auftreten, sind tief hineinleuchtend ins Leben, nicht nur des Menschen, sondern der ganzen Welt.
Es wird nun aus der Krankengeschichte vorgelesen.
Das Kind ist mit sechs Monaten bei uns angekommen, das Kind ist geboren im August des vorigen Jahres und hat dazumal von mir seinen Namen bekommen, gerade zur Zeit, als ich in England abwesend war. Das Kind wurde normal geboren. Die Mutter war während der Schwangerschaft immer gesund — die Dinge bitte ich Sie so zu betrachten, daß sie nachher ihre Interpretation finden müssen —, fühlte sich besonders wohl, auf diese Bemerkung bitte ich Sie, besonders Wert zu legen, sie schrieb in dieser Zeit sehr viel Schreibmaschine. Das Kind zeigte bei der Geburt nichts Absonderliches. Also halten Sie fest, daß das Kind bei der Geburt, unmittelbar nachdem es aus dem Embryonalzustand entlassen war, nichts Sonderliches zeigte, weil der Embryonalzustand dauernd normal war. Es fing an abnormal zu werden, nachdem es durch die Lunge atmete. Die Nabelschnur war um den Hals gewickelt, im Fruchtwasser war Kindspech. Das Kind wog fünfeinviertel Pfund, vierzehn Tage nach der Geburt hatte es einmal Krämpfe, bitte, das zu beachten. Also es begann sich deutlich die Unmöglichkeit zu zeigen, daß die Ich-Organisation und der astralische Leib in den physischen und Ätherleib hineinfahren. Es schlug mit den Armen um sich und wurde blau. Das Blausein bedeutet immer das Nicht-Untertauchenkönnen in den physischen Leib. Es ist dann, wenn es sehr stark ausgebildet ist, in besonderer Eigenart vorhanden. Es braucht nichts anderes zu sein, als daß der astralische Leib bei der Geburt stark konfiguriert ist. Er kann bei der Geburt stark konfiguriert sein, wie es bei Goethe der Fall war, der ganz blau geboren worden ist, der erst später dazu gebracht worden ist, daß er den astralischen Leib und die IchOrganisation aufnahm. Der Krampf trat später auf. Dann fand im ersten halben Jahr eine ganz normale Entwickelung statt. Natürlich, es war nicht ganz normal, es wurde das spätere Mißverhältnis zwischen Kopf und Gliedmaßen nicht bemerkt. Es wurde mit Muttermilch ernährt. Der Kopf war bei der Geburt auffallend klein, was bezeugt, daß die Dinge nicht so sehr gesucht werden dürfen in einer Schwäche der Nerven-Sinnesorganisation. Vom September ab begann langsam eine Zunahme des Kopfumfanges. Natürlich begann sie schon früher, die Mutter hielt es nicht für abnorm; damals, als es beträchtlich sein mußte, hielt die Mutter es noch nicht für abnorm, bis das Kind einmal in einer Woche 380 Gramm Körpergewicht zunahm. Mitte Dezember war der Kopfumfang 49 Zentimeter. Das Kind war still und weinte nicht viel; es war apathisch. Die Fontanellen waren sehr gespannt. Der Appetit war gut. An der Kopfhaut bildeten sich Eiterbläschen. Appetit und Stuhlgang waren gut. Jetzt wurde das Kind zu uns gebracht.
Nun handelte es sich darum, über einen solchen Fall aus dem Vorliegenden, wo natürlich das Allerwichtigste die unmittelbare Anschauung, auch die Anschauung des Geistigen ist, eben eine Anschauung des Geistigen zu gewinnen. Nun ergibt sich bei diesem Kinde, daß es einen astralischen Leib an sich trägt — die Mutter war dazumal auch da -, der ganz deutlich mit einer ungeheuren Klarheit die Züge des astralischen Leibes der Mutter trägt. So auffällig, wie das da ist, ist das etwas sehr Seltenes. Man kann nicht sagen, daß die Ich-Organisation auch diese Züge trägt, das ist nicht der Fall. Das Ich ist einfach noch verkümmert, es weist Sie hin auf eine Ich-Organisation, die sonst Kinder haben im sechsten, siebenten Monat der Schwangerschaft; da ist er stehengeblieben. Die letzten Monate der Schwangerschaft scheint die Ich-Organisation nicht mitgemacht zu haben wegen des außerordentlich stark entwickelten astralischen Leibes. Nun behielt das Kind nach der Geburt alle die Kräfte in sich durch diesen astralischen Leib, die es während der Embryonalzeit gehabt hat. Nun müssen Sie nur denken, daß namentlich in den ersten Monaten der post-embryonalen Entwickelung die Orientierung der Embryonalzeit im wesentlichen fortdauert, daß man in der Tat in den ersten Monaten beim Kinde auch außerhalb des Mutterleibes noch eine starke Ähnlichkeit dieser Entwickelung mit der Entwickelung im Embryonalzustand hat. Das kommt davon her, daß ja die radikale Umänderung, die das Leibeswesen des Kindes erfährt, im Atmungssystem zunächst liegt. Das Kind kommt mit der äußeren Luft in Verbindung, aber diese Verbindung mit der äußeren Luft, die muß sich erst langsam einleben und ergreift erst nach einiger Zeit den ganzen Organismus. Wir wissen, sie beeinflußt ihn ja schon von Anfang an, ergreift aber doch erst nach und nach den ganzen Organismus. Es ist dadurch in der ersten Zeit wegen des Fortwirkens der Embryonalkräfte immer noch nicht zu bemerken, was dann später für Verheerungen im menschlichen Organismus eintreten, wenn der Infantilismus so weit geht, wie wir es hier mit einem radikalen Fall von Infantilismus zu tun haben, wo er eben so weit geht, daß die Embryonalorganisation beibehalten ist.
Nun wissen Sie ja, sie ist dadurch charakterisiert, daß wir es zu tun haben mit einer mächtigen Kopforganisation und mit einem kleinen Körper. Diese mächtige Kopforganisation, die ist durchaus das Ergebnis des Zusammenwirkens kosmischer Kräfte. Dasjenige, was zunächst im Embryonalzustand mit der Kopforganisation vor sich geht, ist in seinem ganzen Umfang fast ein Werk kosmischer Kräfte. Der mütterliche Uterus gibt die Stätte ab, wo gegen die irdischen Kräfte geschützt ist dasjenige, was geschieht. Sie müssen sich den mütterlichen Uterus als ein Organ vorstellen, welches den Raum abschließt, der die Wirkung der irdischen Einflüsse nicht einläßt, so daß der Raum ausgespart wird für kosmische Wirkungen. Wir haben einen Raum, der unmittelbar mit dem Kosmos in Verbindung steht, in dem sich kosmische Wirkungen abspielen. Nun, da geht die Entwickelung der Kopforganiisation vor sich. Wenn die menschlichen Kräfte des Mutterleibes, insofern die menschlichen Kräfte des Mutterleibes das Kind in Empfang nehmen, auf es wirken, dann beginnt die Stoffwechsel-Gliedmaßenorganisation in diese Kräfte sich orientieren zu lassen, so daß Sie sehen: bei dem Kinde sind einfach für den post-embryonalen Zustand die kosmischen Kräfte geblieben. Sie behalten die Überhand über dasjenige, was an Stärke hätte mitgegeben werden sollen, an Kräften, die sonst das Kind bekommt für die irdische Entwickelung, für die Entwickelung des Gliedmaßen-Stoffwechselsystems. Nun, die Folge davon ist ganz klar. Würde das Kind länger im Mutterleibe sein — das ist eine absurde Hypothese —-, würde es länger da sein als zehn Monate, so würde der Kopf fortwährend wachsen und die Gliedmaßen würden nicht zur Entwickelung kommen können. Da ist nur Gelegenheit gegeben, Außerirdisches, Kosmisches wachsen zu lassen.
Nun mußte man sich fragen: Woher ist das alles gekommen? - Und da muß ich schon sagen, es ist ganz merkwürdig, eigentlich erschütternd, daß in dem Momente, wo jetzt gesprochen werden soll über diese ganze Erscheinung, das Telegramm eintrifft, daß der Vater an Herzkrampf verschieden ist. Man kam auf folgendes, was dann durch Anamnese sichergestellt worden ist, man kam darauf, daß zum Beispiel die Mutter gefragt werden mußte: Ja, haben Sie nichts besonderes Seelisches während der Schwangerschaft gehabt? - Und ich drückte das so aus, daß ich sagte: Ist Ihnen nicht leid gewesen, daß das Kind nicht in Ihnen geblieben ist, sondern zur Welt gekommen ist? — Die Mutter bejahte das. Die Mutter hatte ihre ganze Verbindung auf jene Gemeinschaft gegründet, es war in ihrem Gefühlsleben, es läßt sich so ausdrücken, daß es ihr leid war, daß sie es nicht hat bei sich im Mutterleib behalten können, daß ihr das Kind durch die Geburt entrissen worden ist. Dieses Gefühl, das deutet auf der einen Seite auf einen ganz außerordentlich starken Zusammenhang im karmischen Sinne, und aber auf der andern Seite darauf, daß geradezu damit die Bedingungen gegeben waren, daß im Kinde blieben jene Kräfte, die während der Embryonalzeit wirksam sind. Sie sehen, hier beginnt das abnorme Seelenleben bei der Mutter, und — natürlich mit einem tiefen karmischen Zusammenhang — überträgt es sich auf das Kind.
Nun, die Lebensverhältnisse sind sehr kompliziert, meine lieben Freunde, so daß es schwer ist, immer alles zu überschauen, aber in einem solchen Falle schauen manchmal die Tatsachen die Dinge zusammen. Sehen Sie, noch nicht ein Jahr ist vergangen, seit das Kind geboren worden ist und der Vater stirbt an Herzkrampf. Solche Zustände sind ja immer zusammenhängend, sie sind ja so, daß sie sich nicht von heute auf morgen ereignen. Es lag bei dem Vater eine Herzerkrankung seit längerer Zeit vor. Sie brauchen nur daran zu denken, wie stark Herzerkrankungen mit der Beeinflussung der menschlichen Gliedmaßen zusammenhängen, und nur daran zu denken, wie die Organisation der Beine sofort schwach wird unter dem Einflusse gewisser Herzerkrankungen, wie dasjenige, was bei den Gliedmaßen das Wichtigste ist, die Gelenkgewebe und Gelenksäfte, unter dem Einfluß einer Herzerkrankung leiden. Nun dürfen wir nicht vergessen, daß in den Vererbungsverhältnissen das begründet ist, daß gerade die Gliedmaßenorganisation vom Vater am stärksten, während die Kopforganisation von der Mutter am stärksten beeinflußt wird. Nun denken Sie sich die Konzeption so, daß unter Umständen ein Unvermögen, die Kräfte der väterlichen Organisation in die Gliedmaßen hineinzubringen, schon ins Kind übergeht, daher die Kopfesorganisation von der Mutter ins Ungeheure getrieben wird. Jetzt haben Sie die Rückerklärung, warum die Mutter das Kind im Mutterleibe liebt, weil das Kind wenig väterliche Erbkräfte mitbekommen hat, weil die Mutter die Hauptsache dazu geben konnte.
Nun sehen Sie, damit haben wir einen Fall vor uns hingestellt. Sie müssen nur wissen, daß gerade ein solcher Fall das Urphänomen für eine ganze Reihe von Kindern mit Abnormitäten liefert. Dasjenige, was Sie an diesem Kinde gesehen haben, das ist nur der radikalste Fall von Infantilismus, der bis in den Embryonalzustand zurückgeht. Dasselbe haben Sie in allen möglichen Formen während der kindlichen Entwickelung. Wie hier der Embryonalzustand überwuchert alles dasjenige, was später hinzukommt, so kann nach dem Zahnwechsel die erste Lebensepoche beim Kinde überwuchern. Wie das Nicht-Hineingewachsensein in den Postembryonalzustand vorkommt, kann es auch vorkommen, daß das Kind nicht in die dritte Lebensepoche hineinwächst; die Kinder werden äußerlich geschlechtsreif, wachsen aber nicht mit ihrer ganzen menschlichen Konstitution in diese Lebensepoche zwischen Geschlechtsreife und Anfang der Zwanzigerjahre hinein, behalten die Orientierung der Kräfte, die zwischen dem siebenten und dem vierzehnten Jahre wirken. Wir haben es zu tun mit einer ganzen Reihe von Infantilismen. Das ist nun der radikalste Fall, und es ist vom medizinisch-pädagogischen Standpunkt aus günstig, daß Sie sehen konnten an diesem radikalen Fall, was Sie in entsprechenden Abschwächungen haben können bei zahlreichen minderwertigen Kindern.
Damit wir heute zurechtkommen und das Therapeutische und Pathologische morgen anführen, möchte ich heute die einzelnen Fälle vornehmen und sie morgen pädagogisch zu Ende besprechen.
Dr. Steiner bespricht jetzt das anfangs der Stunde kurz gezeigte Kind:
Sie haben vorher den Jungen gesehen, der eigentlich bei den Menschen die Vorstellung hervorruft: Warum zeigen wir ihn eigentlich? — Denn das ist so; und Sie werden kaum, wenn Sie ihn oberflächlich kennenlernen, ihn anders kennenlernen, als einen freundlich entgegenkommenden, gutmütigen Jungen, der so malen lernt, wie die andern Kinder eben malen lernen, der die gutmütigsten, schönsten Antworten gibt, mit dem Sie sich stundenlang unterhalten können. Ist es nicht so? Die ihn behandeln, werden es wissen. Sie können nichts Abnormes am Kinde bemerken und würden vielleicht sagen: diese Anthroposophen sind doch merkwürdige Leute, die geben ihre Kinder, die als Muster hingestellt werden können für andere Kinder, in ein klinisch-therapeutisches Institut zur Behandlung.
Der Junge ist nun in unglaublicher Weise kleptoman. Fast wie ausgeschaltet vom übrigen Seelenleben ist die einseitige Art der Kleptomanie. Dabei hat dieser Junge gerade die Eigentümlichkeit, daß das Bewußtsein, das, ich möchte sagen, strahlen soll auf alle Lebenserscheinungen, die im Menschen zutage treten, geradezu ausgeschaltet ist für seine kleptomanischen Handlungen. Man hat deutlich das Gefühl: der weiß nicht viel über dasjenige, was er da tut, trotzdem er es - und das bitte ich Sie zu berücksichtigen - in der allerraffiniertesten Weise ausführt. Er mußte überführt werden, als er in Bern die Schule besuchte, und an einem andern Ort die Schule besuchte, da mußte man sehr viel tun, um ihn überführen zu können. Er stellt die Dinge ungemein schlau an, und er ist nicht egoistisch dabei. Er ist imstande, die Dinge, die er sich auf die raffinierteste Weise erstiehlt, einfach an Freunde zu verschenken oder mit ihnen zu verprassen, nur um ihnen eine Freude zu machen; dazu ist er imstande. Dabei entwickelt sich selbstverständlich eine besondere Form des nicht ganz bewußsten Lügens; denn da er nicht genau weiß — das Bewußtsein überstrahlt die einzelnen Erscheinungen nicht —, was da vorgeht, erzählt er die unglaublichsten Märchen, wie er zu einer Sache gekommen ist, die er einfach gestohlen hat. Da zeigt er auch in einer recht schlauen Weise, wie er die Dinge gefunden hat, wie sie da waren an diesen Orten, eine ganz lange Geschichte erzählt er, wie er zu einer Sache gekommen ist. Die Dinge geschehen wirklich koboldartig. Wenn ich richtig verstanden habe, wie mir Frau Dr. Wegman erzählt hat, so konnte man eine Zeitlang meinen, daß er ein ganz ordentlicher Junge geworden wäre, bis man eines Tages merkte - man wußte nicht, daß er etwas an sich genommen hatte -, daß aus dieser Tasche etwas verschwunden war, aus einer andern Tasche etwas verschwunden war, so daß auf eine merkwürdige Weise die Leute die Erfahrung machten: sie haben eines Tages ihre Sachen nicht mehr. Diese zwei Tatsachen hatte man nebeneinander stehen. Man hatte auf der einen Seite die merkwürdige Geschichte der Dematerialisation von Dingen im Klinisch-Therapeutischen Institut, dann wußte man von früher: der Junge ist von allen Schulen herausgeworfen worden; das wußte man von früher. Die Dinge waren bloß verschwunden. Das waren zwei Tatsachen, die nebeneinander standen. Es ist schon eine unangenehme Geschichte, wenn man plötzlich in die Nötigung versetzt wäre, zu denken, es könnte bei Erwachsenen auch da sein; ein solches Institut hat in sich gegenwärtig zweiundfünfzig Leute und, nicht wahr, es können diese und andere Leute da sein, man weiß gar nichts. Man weiß nur, daß da hier ein Spiritist die Gelegenheit hat, zu erklären in reichlichstem Maß, daß sich Dinge dematerialtisieren. Man kann eine ganze Theorie aufbauen über die Dematerialisation der Gegenstände.
Wir haben den Jungen jetzt hier, an dem Sie bitte beachten sollen, wie stark zusammengedrückt hier (an den Schläfen) die Kopforganisation ist und hier (nach rückwärts) auseinandergeht. Und der geistige Befund ist der, daß außerordentlich stark entwickelt sind die Organpartien des astralischen Leibes, insbesondere hier links auf dieser Seite, sonst werden Sie äußerlich nicht viel an ihm bemerken.
Jetzt werden Sie so gut sein und das andere Kind noch vorführen. Die Behandlungsweise werden wir morgen besprechen.
Es wird das nächste Kind, ein Mädchen, hereingeführt.
Sehen Sie einmal, wie nett Lore ist, wie prachtvoll sie ist. Sehen Sie, wie schöne blonde Haare Lore hat. Das ist doch die, bei der es so interessant war, daß die Kinder einmal allein zusammen waren für eine kurze Zeit. Sandroe und Lore hatten sich tief befreundet, und Sandroe (der hier vorgestern vorgestellt wurde) hat die Notwendigkeit verspürt, eine Schere zu holen. Sie hat ihn dazu veranlaßt, die Schere zu holen - Sandroe ist ein guter, gehorsamer Gentleman -, er hat die Schere gebracht, und sie hat sich die Haare glatt abgeschnitten mit dieser Schere. Sie ist kein Philister. Beachten Sie, das möchte ich besonders empfehlen, ihre schönen blauen Augen, beachten Sie ihre blonden Haare, die eine sehr schöne Glanznuance haben, und Sie werden da unmittelbar den Eindruck bekommen, daß das Kind sehr sulfurig ist, in seinem Benehmen auch außerordentlich sulfurig. Sie ist ein liebes Kind, aber sie hat in sich ein Sulfuriges, sie ist in sich beweglich und auch stramm.
Das Mädchen beißt in den Arm.
Sie beißt bloß ins Gewand.
Das Kind hat bei der Geburt nicht ganz vier Pfund gewogen, war aber ausgetragen, hat ihre regelmäßige Embryonalzeit durchgemacht. Es wurde sieben Monate lang mit Muttermilch ernährt. Mit einem Jahr hat es gehen gelernt. Das ist ein verhältnismäßig frühes, aber nicht unnormales Gehenlernen. Auch das Sprechen lernte sie zur richtigen Zeit. Die Entwickelung hat einen normalen Anblick gewährt, mit anderthalb Jahren hat sie das Bett nicht mehr naß gemacht, jedoch macht sie sich jetzt noch bei Tage naß, dagegen nie in der Nacht. Sie sehen, diese Abnormität liegt vor, daß das Kind eine schwache Organisation nach dieser Richtung hin schon hat, daß aber diese schwache Organisation sich dann geltend macht, wenn der astralische Leib eingeschaltet ist, und nicht ausgeschaltet ist. Vor anderthalb Jahren, als sie dreieinhalb Jahre alt war - bitte das zu beachten, dieser Zeitpunkt ist genau die Hälfte der Siebenjahrepoche und von großer Bedeutung, geradeso wie der entsprechende Zeitpunkt in der zweiten Epoche zwischen dem siebenten und dem vierzehnten Jahre -, hatte das Kind Kopfschmerzen mit hohem Fieber und gleich darauf Masern; es war disponiert für Erkrankungen. Seither ist das Kind besonders aufgeregt, auch die Mutter war zur selben Zeit krank an Grippe und ist seither aufgeregt. Sie sehen den Parallelismus zwischen Mutter und Kind. Der Appetit des Kindes ist immer schlecht, trotzdem es so stramm in sich ist und eigentlich gerade die Gliedmaßenorganisation stark hat. Wie Sie wissen, wird die Gliedmaßenorganisation in ihrer Substanz nicht aufgebaut aus den Nahrungsmitteln, sondern vom Kosmos her auf dem Umwege durch die Atmung und Sinnesbetätigung. Dieser schlechte Appetit, der beeinträchtigt die Ernährung, muß sich ausleben in der Betätigung des Kopfes. Sie ist lebhaft, phantasievoll, sie ist nicht nur zappelig, auch mit den Gedanken ist sie es; ad oculos bezeugt sie es, daß die Phantasie nicht vom Kopf her kommt, sondern von den Gliedmaßen her kommt. Die Kopforganisation ist sehr schwach. Die Gliedmaßenorganisation ist besonders stark. Das Phantasievolle kommt von den Gliedmaßen.
Sie träumt manchmal unruhig. Was hier nicht steht, aber was noch beachtet werden muß, das ist das, daß man nun sich deutlich vor Augen halten muß, wie das Kind träumt, ob es vor dem Aufwachen oder nach dem Einschlafen träumt. Wie es hier ist, so hat man die Träume nach dem Einschlafen beachtet. Aber das Kind wird auch sehr Interessantes darbieten, wenn man es dahin bringt, ‚seine Träume nach und nach zu erzählen. Da sind es die Aufwacheträume, die bei diesem Kind außerordentlich interessant sein werden bei dem Aufrufen in die Erinnerung, und die muß man sich erzählen lassen.
Das sind die Fälle, die ich Ihnen vorführen wollte. Wir werden morgen um halb neun einen Vortrag haben, und wir werden dann die Behandlungsweise besprechen.
Eighth Lecture
My dear friends! First, I will only show you the drawings by this boy. He makes very beautiful things; he has a keen sense of detail; here you can see how he looks at everything closely. Here is a sheet of paper where you can see how he organizes his work; he seems to have a tendency to do the things he learns at school. He does this at school, where it is organized in such a way that everyone does their own work. — We take an economical approach. Both sides are used.
Turning to the boy:
You will allow me to draw you on the board. There, I have what I needed from you.
The boy will be discussed later. A new child is brought in.
We will do it this way: we will bring the child here. — Now take a look at the enormous enlargement of a child's head due to hydrocephalus. We will discuss this later. He now has a circumference of 64 centimeters; when we got him, he had 44 centimeters. On February 25, it was 54 1/2 centimeters, by April 7 it had grown to 56 centimeters, from April 7 to April 11 it grew again, on April 19 it was 58 centimeters, on May 28 it was 61 centimeters, and on July 1 it was 64 centimeters. Incidentally, the child's body has not developed abnormally; it is just like any other child's. He grabs things, has a very good appetite, and is actually—with the exception of one crisis—absolutely lively. You can see the enormous size when you look at his ears, which are of course the appropriate size, so that you can see where the enlargement of the head begins. It starts here and continues here. The face is not affected; it is slightly swollen, but not affected. The child is such that when you look at him now, you may feel that he perceives with his eyes, but it is only a very general impression of light, not a precise impression of light.
Now the tragic thing is that, before I came up here, I received a telegram saying that his father had died of a heart attack.
If you look at the whole child and compare it with an embryonic formation, you will see nothing other than a giant embryo, so that you can immediately see that the child has remained in the embryonic stage and has retained the laws of growth of the embryonic stage and continues them in the post-embryonic state. The fact that we have not yet been able to achieve any reduction is due to the fact that things are extremely strong from within. I still very much hope that, once a certain point has been passed, we will be able to harmonize the head to a certain degree. Otherwise, he is a cheerful boy.
It is like this with human mysteries: the things that occur in such abnormalities shine deeply into life, not only of human beings, but of the whole world.
The medical history is now read aloud.
The child arrived with us at six months old. The child was born in August of last year and was given his name by me at that time, just when I was away in England. The child was born normally. The mother was always healthy during her pregnancy—I ask you to consider these things in such a way that they must find their interpretation later—she felt particularly well, and I ask you to pay particular attention to this remark; she typed a great deal during this time. The child showed nothing unusual at birth. So please note that the child showed nothing unusual at birth, immediately after leaving the embryonic state, because the embryonic state was normal throughout. It began to become abnormal after it started breathing through its lungs. The umbilical cord was wrapped around its neck, and there was meconium in the amniotic fluid. The child weighed five and a quarter pounds, and fourteen days after birth it had convulsions once, please note that. So it began to become clear that it was impossible for the ego organization and the astral body to enter the physical and etheric bodies. It flailed its arms and turned blue. Being blue always means not being able to submerge into the physical body. When it is very strongly developed, it is present in a special characteristic. It need be nothing more than the astral body being strongly configured at birth. It can be strongly configured at birth, as was the case with Goethe, who was born completely blue and was only later brought to take in the astral body and the ego organization. The cramps occurred later. Then, in the first six months, a completely normal development took place. Of course, it was not entirely normal; the later disproportion between the head and limbs was not noticed. He was fed with breast milk. The head was strikingly small at birth, which testifies that things should not be sought so much in a weakness of the nerve-sense organization. From September onwards, the head circumference began to increase slowly. Of course, it had started earlier, but the mother did not consider it abnormal; at that time, when it must have been considerable, the mother still did not consider it abnormal, until the child gained 380 grams of body weight in one week. In mid-December, the head circumference was 49 centimeters. The child was quiet and did not cry much; it was apathetic. The fontanelles were very tense. The child had a good appetite. Pus-filled blisters formed on the scalp. Appetite and bowel movements were good. Now the child was brought to us.
Now it was a matter of gaining insight into such a case from the present, where of course the most important thing is immediate observation, including observation of the spiritual, precisely an observation of the spiritual. Now, in this child, it turns out that it carries an astral body within itself — the mother was also there at the time — which very clearly bears the features of the mother's astral body with tremendous clarity. As striking as it is, this is something very rare. One cannot say that the ego organization also bears these features; that is not the case. The ego is simply still underdeveloped; it points to an ego organization that children otherwise have in the sixth or seventh month of pregnancy; it has remained at that stage. The ego organization does not seem to have participated in the last months of pregnancy because of the extraordinarily strongly developed astral body. After birth, the child retained all the powers it had during the embryonic period through this astral body. Now you only have to think that, especially in the first months of post-embryonic development, the orientation of the embryonic period essentially continues, that in fact, in the first months, even outside the womb, the child's development still bears a strong resemblance to its development in the embryonic state. This is because the radical change that the child's physical being undergoes initially takes place in the respiratory system. The child comes into contact with the outside air, but this connection with the outside air must first slowly become established and only after some time does it take hold of the whole organism. We know that it influences the child from the very beginning, but only gradually takes hold of the whole organism. Because of the continuing influence of embryonic forces, it is not yet noticeable in the early stages what devastation will later occur in the human organism when infantilism goes as far as we have here in a radical case of infantilism, where it goes so far that the embryonic organization is retained.
Now, as you know, it is characterized by the fact that we are dealing with a powerful head organization and a small body. This powerful head organization is entirely the result of the interaction of cosmic forces. What initially takes place in the embryonic state with the head organization is, in its entirety, almost the work of cosmic forces. The maternal womb provides the place where what happens is protected from earthly forces. You must imagine the maternal womb as an organ that encloses a space that does not allow the effects of earthly influences to enter, so that the space is reserved for cosmic effects. We have a space that is directly connected to the cosmos, in which cosmic effects take place. Now, the development of the head organization takes place there. When the human forces of the womb, insofar as the human forces of the womb receive the child, act upon it, then the metabolic-limb organization begins to orient itself toward these forces, so that you see: in the child, the cosmic forces have simply remained for the post-embryonic state. They retain the upper hand over what should have been given in terms of strength, in terms of the forces that the child otherwise receives for earthly development, for the development of the limb-metabolic system. Well, the consequence of this is quite clear. If the child were to remain in the womb longer — which is an absurd hypothesis — if it were to remain there longer than ten months, the head would continue to grow and the limbs would not be able to develop. There is only opportunity to allow extraterrestrial, cosmic forces to grow.
Now one had to ask oneself: Where did all this come from? — And I must say, it is quite strange, actually shocking, that at the very moment when we are about to talk about this whole phenomenon, a telegram arrives saying that the father has died of a heart attack. The following conclusion was reached, which was then confirmed by anamnesis: it was decided that the mother, for example, had to be asked: Yes, did you have any particular emotional experiences during your pregnancy? And I expressed this by saying: Were you not sorry that the child did not remain inside you, but was born? The mother answered in the affirmative. The mother had based her entire connection on that community; it was in her emotional life, so to speak, that she was sorry that she had not been able to keep it with her in her womb, that the child had been snatched from her through birth. This feeling indicates, on the one hand, an extraordinarily strong connection in the karmic sense, and on the other hand, that the conditions were in place for the forces that are effective during the embryonic period to remain in the child. You see, this is where the abnormal soul life begins in the mother, and — naturally with a deep karmic connection — it is transferred to the child.
Now, life circumstances are very complicated, my dear friends, so that it is difficult to always see everything, but in such a case, the facts sometimes bring things together. You see, not even a year has passed since the child was born and the father dies of a heart attack. Such conditions are always connected; they do not happen overnight. The father had had heart disease for a long time. You only need to think about how strongly heart disease is related to the influence on the human limbs, and to think about how the organization of the legs immediately becomes weak under the influence of certain heart diseases, how the most important parts of the limbs, the joint tissues and joint fluids, suffer under the influence of heart disease. Now, we must not forget that this is based on hereditary factors, namely that the limb organization is most strongly influenced by the father, while the head organization is most strongly influenced by the mother. Now imagine that, under certain circumstances, an inability to transfer the forces of the paternal organization into the limbs is already passed on to the child, so that the head organization is driven to extremes by the mother. Now you have the explanation why the mother loves the child in her womb, because the child has received few paternal hereditary forces, because the mother was able to provide the main thing for this.
Now you see, we have presented a case. You only need to know that such a case provides the original phenomenon for a whole series of children with abnormalities. What you have seen in this child is only the most radical case of infantilism, which goes back to the embryonic state. You have the same thing in all possible forms during childhood development. Just as the embryonic state here overgrows everything that comes later, so the first epoch of life can overgrow the child after the change of teeth. Just as it happens that the child does not grow into the post-embryonic state, so it can also happen that the child does not grow into the third epoch of life; the children become sexually mature externally, but do not grow into this stage of life between sexual maturity and the early twenties with their entire human constitution, retaining the orientation of the forces that are at work between the ages of seven and fourteen. We are dealing with a whole series of infantilisms. This is the most radical case, and from a medical-educational point of view, it is beneficial that you were able to see in this radical case what you may encounter in milder forms in numerous inferior children.
In order for us to get through today and lead with the therapeutic and pathological tomorrow, I would like to go through the individual cases today and finish discussing them pedagogically tomorrow.
Dr. Steiner now discusses the child briefly shown at the beginning of the lesson:
You saw the boy earlier, who actually evokes the question in people: Why are we showing him? — Because that is how it is; and if you get to know him superficially, you will hardly get to know him as anything other than a friendly, good-natured boy who is learning to paint just as other children learn to paint, who gives the most good-natured, beautiful answers, with whom you can talk for hours. Isn't that so? Those who treat him will know. You cannot notice anything abnormal about the child and would perhaps say: these anthroposophists are strange people, who send their children, who could be held up as examples for other children, to a clinical-therapeutic institute for treatment.
The boy is now incredibly kleptomaniac. The one-sided nature of kleptomania is almost as if it were switched off from the rest of his soul life. Yet this boy has the peculiarity that the consciousness, which I would say should shine on all manifestations of life that appear in human beings, is virtually switched off for his kleptomaniac actions. One clearly has the feeling that he does not know much about what he is doing, even though he carries it out in the most sophisticated manner, and I ask you to take this into account. He had to be caught when he attended school in Bern, and when he attended school in another place, a great deal had to be done to catch him. He does things in an extremely clever way, and he is not selfish in doing so. He is capable of simply giving away the things he steals in the most sophisticated way to friends or squandering them with them, just to make them happy; he is capable of that. In doing so, he naturally develops a special form of not entirely conscious lying; because he does not know exactly what is going on—his consciousness does not outshine the individual phenomena—he tells the most incredible fairy tales about how he came by something that he simply stole. He also shows in a very clever way how he found the things, how they were there in those places, and tells a very long story about how he came by something. Things really happen in a goblin-like way. If I understood correctly what Dr. Wegman told me, for a while you could think that he had become a very decent boy, until one day you noticed — you didn't know that he had taken anything — that something had disappeared from this pocket, something had disappeared from another pocket, so that in a strange way people had the experience: one day their things were no longer there. These two facts stood side by side. On the one hand, there was the strange story of the dematerialization of things in the Clinical-Therapeutic Institute, and then there was what was known from before: the boy had been expelled from all schools; that was known from before. The things had simply disappeared. These were two facts that stood side by side. It is an unpleasant story when one is suddenly forced to think that it could also happen to adults; such an institute currently has fifty-two people in it and, of course, these and other people could be there, one knows nothing. One only knows that here a spiritualist has the opportunity to explain in great detail that things dematerialize. One can build a whole theory about the dematerialization of objects.
We now have the boy here, and please note how strongly compressed the head organization is here (at the temples) and how it diverges here (towards the back). And the spiritual finding is that the organ parts of the astral body are extremely strongly developed, especially here on the left side, otherwise you will not notice much about him externally.
Now you will be so kind as to show us the other child. We will discuss the treatment tomorrow.
The next child, a girl, is brought in.
See how nice Lore is, how gorgeous she is. See how beautiful Lore's blonde hair is. She is the one who was so interesting that the children were left alone together for a short time. Sandroe and Lore had become close friends, and Sandroe (who was introduced here the day before yesterday) felt the need to fetch a pair of scissors. She prompted him to fetch the scissors—Sandroe is a good, obedient gentleman—he brought the scissors, and she cut her hair straight off with them. She is no philistine. Note, I would particularly recommend, her beautiful blue eyes, note her blonde hair, which has a very beautiful shine, and you will immediately get the impression that the child is very sulfuric, also extremely sulfuric in her behavior. She is a dear child, but she has something sulfuric in her, she is agile and also strict.
The girl bites her arm.
She only bites her clothes.
The child weighed less than four pounds at birth, but was full-term and went through a normal embryonic period. She was breastfed for seven months. She learned to walk at one year of age. This is relatively early, but not abnormal. She also learned to speak at the right time. Her development has been normal, and at eighteen months she stopped wetting the bed, but she still wets herself during the day, though never at night. You see, the abnormality is that the child already has a weak constitution in this regard, but this weak constitution manifests itself when the astral body is engaged and not disengaged. A year and a half ago, when she was three and a half years old—please note that this point in time is exactly halfway through the seven-year period and is of great significance, just like the corresponding point in time in the second period between the ages of seven and fourteen—the child had a headache with a high fever and immediately afterwards measles; she was prone to illness. Since then, the child has been particularly agitated, and the mother was also ill with the flu at the same time and has been agitated ever since. You can see the parallelism between mother and child. The child's appetite is always poor, even though it is so robust and actually has strong limb organization. As you know, limb organization is not built up in its substance from food, but from the cosmos via the detour of breathing and sensory activity. This poor appetite, which impairs nutrition, must be lived out in the activity of the head. She is lively, imaginative, she is not only fidgety, she is also fidgety with her thoughts; ad oculos she testifies that imagination does not come from the head, but from the limbs. The head organization is very weak. The limb organization is particularly strong. The imaginative comes from the limbs.
She sometimes has restless dreams. What is not stated here, but must still be taken into account, is that one must now clearly keep in mind how the child dreams, whether she dreams before waking up or after falling asleep. As it is here, the dreams after falling asleep have been taken into account. But the child will also present something very interesting if one gets her to 'to recount its dreams little by little. It is the dreams upon waking that will be extremely interesting in this child when recalled, and these must be recounted.
These are the cases I wanted to present to you. We will have a lecture tomorrow at half past eight, and we will then discuss the treatment method.