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Spiritual Relation in the Configuration of the Human Organism
GA 218

22 October 1922, Dornach

Lecture II

Today I would like to indicate how everything which can be comprehended about man can serve as a basis which can enable us to take greater connections of history into consideration. So that tomorrow we can go onto understand something in this direction about our present time. The day before yesterday, as you know, I spoke about man himself in his constitution. I would like to do this today from a different point of view.

Let us look at man simply, as he stands in life from day to day and From the very ordinary side this time. Man needs nourishment to sustain himself. He has to take up into his own organism what we call substances from nature, from the animal, plant, and also partly from the mineral kingdom. But what man takes into himself from the outer environment undergoes a very powerful change inside his organism. The first one is that when we take up food we receive it ordinarily—at best prepared by cooking—as it is outside in nature, maybe just made ready in some way. Besides that we receive the air through breathing again 'in that state as it exists in our environment. Let us look at first other things, which basically are still more important, as for example light, which we also receive from our surroundings, as it is as light. But also the foodstuff and the air must undergo powerful changes inside our organism, so that they can satisfy and become human, so to say, inside our organism.

Described externally the process is very well known today. We take up the food—staying with this now next—perhaps somewhat prepared already, as said before. Next we inwardly digest particularly through the excretion of the glands, through the other digestive apparatus. We take it into us, wash it, saturated with a substance called ptyalin, which is excreted by the salivary glands of the mouth. We then bring the food farther into our digestive apparatus. I don't have to characterise here the way the whole process is taking place. By taking articles of food into ourselves and assimilating them, they will already be somewhat changed in regard to what they are in our surrounding outside. The foodstuffs never could become through outer proceedings what they become inside our organism. We can work at the substances, that present our food in the most different ways inside chemical laboratories—but never can occur there, what happens to the food when we bring it into our stomach and from there into our digestive apparatus. There the foodstuffs change over into something entirely different from what they were outside.

First every trace of life is extinguished, so to say. People eat meat. This is taken from the outer surrounding, from the animal kingdom. But by eating it man drives out right away just through the first stage of digestion (varverdauung) I would like to say—and through further digestion all that what these substances present in the body of the animal. Also, all what the vegetable foods—since they were part of a living being in the plant—have as life in themselves, has to be driven out. Only the real mineral particles we take up as outer material substances. Where we add to our meals salt, which is already of an outer mineral substance, if we add sugar, which through outer preparations—though originally it might come out of the organic has been driven so Far, that it has become dead, we have taken up something already dead. These underlie the least transformations in us; they really undergo only a transformation, which one could accomplish already also in an exterior way inside a laboratory. But everything that gets into our organism from the animal or plant kingdom, has to be thoroughly killed, if I want to express myself that way.

In our cooking we accomplish also a sort of advance killing by subjecting the food to heat and so on. This is done more thoroughly through our digestion, so that—where our foods have undergone a certain inner development until they get into the bowels, where they have approached these lower digestive organs—essentially all has been driven out what they are externally by being, for example subjected to the etheric body of the plants, by being subjected to the astral body of the animal etc. Consequently it must first be achieved on the way from the mouth to the bowels, that all foodstuffs are dead.

Because, when now the foodstuff gets to the glandular organs, which transmit the articles of food from the bowel into the lymphatic glands and then into the vessels of the blood, on this way back a reviving of the food must take place. The food at first must become dead in us and then must be revived again. We cannot tolerate in our human organism a continuation of that kind of life, which exists in the animal or the plant from which we take the food. We can at most take up the inorganic nature so that it presents us our own laws. We cannot, let us say, eat cabbage, cannot let it arrive during the digestive process at our villous intestines so that the same etheric forces would be present there, which the cabbage has, because it is a plant. The etheric, the astral, what the foods have, these must be first removed. Then, what we receive this way must be taken hold of by our own etheric body, so that it can be revived again. Life of the nourishment inside us, must come from us. And this happens on the way from the intestinal organisation through the vessels toward the heart. So that you can have the picture: where the foodstuffs coming from the mouth reach the intestines, the last traces of the outside world gradually have been lost (see drawing 1, red) but here they will be revived anew on the way to the heart. Being enlivened anew means, that they are taken up by our own etheric body. But now they would have too little of a character of the earthly, if only would happen what I have described to you up to now. Namely we would have to be beings who have a mouth—and a digestive apparatus only up to the heart, and then we would have to begin to be angels, because our ether body would take up the foodstuffs and completely dissolve them. We would not be able to be earthly beings. We would be a kind of mouth flying about with an esophagus attached to it. We would still have a stomach, intestines and heart and then you see, all that would be taken up by our ether body. But then we would be just an ether body and in the ether body the food would then dissipate. We would be able to be earthly beings. That we can be earthly beings is brought about by oxygen which is taken up now from the air. Thus, into what has been permeated by the ether body as foodstuffs oxygen of the air is taken up. Therefore, the possibility stays with us to be earthlike (flesh-like) beings here on earth between birth and death (diagram 1, white). It is oxygen that makes us again into an earthly substance that otherwise would dissipate in our ether body. Oxygen is that kind of substance which brings into the earthly state, what other wise by itself would form only as something etheric. The heart would not yet make us into an earthly human being but would bring us only far enough that we would unite our heart with the ether body and fly around on earth as such angels. But since the heart is connected with the lung and takes up oxygen the food that is taken up is not only etherised but also made earthly.

Now the necessity arises that what is taken up by our ether body and is saturated by oxygen, so that we can be earthly human beings, has to be inserted into the astral body. So far, it was not taken up by the astral body, only by the ether body. Now an activity has to be developed that everything that had been formed up to the heart-lung activity, will be taken up by the whole organism; but in such a way that also the astral organism has something to do with it. This is mediated by the human kidney system, which excretes now, what cannot he used of the matter that had been taken up, but leads the remaining into the whole organism on paths which today's physiology does not really describe at all, but which do exist.

And now the whole pulp—if I may express myself that way which now already stays alive—it was only completely killed inside the intestinal canal and has now been revived, and saturated by oxygen—is forwarded into the astral body through the activity of the kidney system which extends over the whole organism and radiates everywhere, so that this' astral body can cooperate in the further configuration of all that, what is effected in us through the food. (see diagram 1, yellow)

This astral organism in so far as it receives its impulses from the kidney system is in turn connected with the head-sense-system, which, so to say, is like a ceiling above. Kidney-system and head-system together work continuously, so that all which is liquid and dissolving through the activity of the heart, will be formed now into the special organs. We would not have firm organs if only mouth, stomach, intestines, heart and lung were there. But the stomach itself would have to be a dissolving organ movable in itself, the same with the heart, the lung. All that could not be firm. These organs get their configuration through the kidneys, and the kidneys are helped by what comes forth from the head.

These organs have not only to be formed during childhood, but continuously because our organs are continuously destroyed. Such an organ as the stomach is completely destroyed in the course of 7–8 years. Its substance is completely demolished, altogether removed, and is always renewed again. There have to be always form—giving forces existent, which renew these organs. Still much more has to be worked on this in childhood. But later on these form—giving forces are also there.

This happens as follows: (diagram 2). The kidney system, which radiates forth these forces on one side would bring these organs about only in a one-sided way. Or, for example, it would form one lobe of the lung in a way that it would be quite well defined backward, but in the front it would dissipate. Here the force of the head must come and meet, so that the frontal surface will be formed by the head; so that the single different forms of the human being are always formed in a way that the kidney radiates forth the forces and that from the head then the forces come and restrain, in order that the organs get contours, that they are rounded. By the head the surfaces are formed at the exterior. But the kidney delivers a kind of radiation into the organism. It is approximately somewhat as if I wanted to build something plastically. I take mortar, or any soft substance, into the hand and then I teach myself to throw the mortar upward (yellow—red) and to smooth it out with the other hand. The one, the throwing upward, corresponds to the activity of the kidneys—above I smooth out and get this way these organs, which really radiate and are formed. It is in such a way that the organs are formed by the kidney-system in connection with the head system and in there the forces of,the astral body are working. This is then something that proceeds under the extraordinarily strong alteration of nitrogen. Here nitrogen is already not any more what it is outward, because the nitrogen that still retains a similarity with the outer nitrogen goes off through the uric acid and the urea. But what radiates forth from the kidneys and is worked through this really is a nitrogen changed in its inner nature right into the effective forces of the astral body, and that is something entirely different than the outer nitrogen.

Here you have what man receives, as nourishment driven to the point where it is taken up into the astral body of the human organism. These processes, as I have described them to you, take place also in the animal, though somewhat differently. The animal also has these processes going even still farther in the higher animal. But only indications take place in the lower animal of what is coming now. The higher animals have it, because they were branched off from the human race, they still have it, but it is deformed and degenerated with them.

Now something else is radiating into all that which is being formed there. First we have the foodstuff driven to the point where they are killed. Then we get approximately so far that we have the pancreatic gland as one of the last glands which bring the foodstuffs far enough that, while being pushed towards the lymph and being revived, they can be taken up by the ether body; so that then through the communication from the heart towards the kidneys the whole can he driven into the astral body. But now the ego also must be engaged. Everything we have in our organism must be occupied by the ego.

I have shown you now how that which unites itself with us is claimed by the etheric and astral organism, how it is taken up by the kidney system, radiating into the astral, and how with the help of nitrogen it is made into an earthly thing. Otherwise we would have to become angels again, if nitrogen were not working in us, which maintains us through the astral body within the earthly realm through the kidney system. But all this would not give us a configuration in which the ego takes part in the whole, if the liver-system would not be there. (see diagram 1)

The absorption through the lymphatic vessels is still something that belongs to the heart. As a rule, the heart is that organ, which together with the lung is driving the outer substances into our own etheric organization. From thereon it is the kidney system, which drives them into our astral organization. And then only the liver system with its gall excretion drives the whole into our very ego. The gall and liver-system is also found only in the higher animal kingdom, not with the lower animals, not even the gallic acid will be found with them in the bodily substances. Thus the liver-system then with its peculiar construction of the portal vein and so on—one can also verify this anatomically in every part—conducts the whole now so, that it is taken hold of by the ego. If only that what is radiated out by the kidney were there inside the body, it would be taken up only by the astral body. Because of the liver being there and the gall being excreted by the liver and mixed already with the chyme inside the intestines and the whole is permeated already by the liver products (diagram 1, blue), all this is driven into the ego organism. This way also our ego organism takes part through the liver, which has as its representative essentially hydrogen, in the whole building of the human organization. Man, in fact, has to take up nothing living, nothing astral from outside. All this he has to transform first inside his own organic system in such a way that it can be taken up into his astral and his own etheric being and into his ego-system.

Here, we have then the whole normal organization of man. Imagine, how all this has to be in time together. For example the activity of the kidneys must not be interrupted. If this should happen through a shrunken kidney, the astral body will not be engaged. In reality, the reverse is the case: if the astral body does not function in the right way, a shrunken kidney will develop. Therefore, if a shrunken kidney exists, we will have an exact picture with a degenerate heart of that which is going on in the ether body. I have told you last time, that there is even a going in accord of the rhythm. There are always 4 thrusts present in the radiation coming from the kidney (diagram 1, yellow) while what happens in the rounding forces, coming from the head only one thrust is there. That is the same relationship as it is expressed in the relation between respiration and pulse. Therefore, I should say if I may use this comparison again, the rounding forces are 4 times slower here than with the hand. That is the way namely, the organism is doing it.

All this must be tuned together in the finest way. Otherwise it will not work. Being ill means, that it is not in tune. Take for example the following: the ether body is completely in order, but the astral body is not strong enough to take up all that is flowing from the heart towards the kidneys and to work it through sufficiently. This can happen through' the etheric body, if it is working too strongly. I had said, the ether body might be all right;, but let us assume now, that it is working too strongly. If this is the case and the astral body is normal, the shrunken kidney can develop with its peculiar consequences. The etheric body being in the right condition and the astral body working too strong the kidney is not engaged enough. What is radiating across, because the astral body is working too strongly, will be claimed by it without the kidney working along in an orderly way in the right regulation. The kidney is put out of use thereby and the shrunken kidney develops. At the same time, because it causes a reaction, this will lead to a generation of the function of the heart and of the heart itself.

You see how one can look this way in a summary on what is going on in the human organism and that one can see by the degeneration of the organs how the members of the human being, physical body, etheric body, astral body and ego are not working together in the right way.

One has to make it clear for oneself how all these things must be in accord with one another and how they have to work in the right way. Let us assume, for example, that any area of the system of the organs is not permeated in the right way, but wrongly, by any member of the human organism, perhaps by the astral body. This can happen in a twofold way. Either what is coming forth from the kidney-system (as mentioned before, the rounding forces go out from the head, while from the kidney-system come the radiations) is stimulated too strongly, so that really everything that is working from the heart towards the kidney-system will be too much of a stimulation for the kidney system. In such a stimulation, which is too strong, you finally discover the original causes for all inflammation and ulcerations in the human organism. One has to find the way in which anywhere in the organism such an inflammation develops. One has to try there to balance the matter by medication in such a manner that one reduces the too strong effect on the kidney activity.

The simplest means to achieve this is to try to dam the too strong development of radiating inner body warmth, to induce an inner cooling off. Perhaps this might be done with the help of application of substances which are generated in the blossoms (organs) of plants. It is the peculiarity of these substances, which are generated in the blossom organs of plants, that one can counteract inflammations through them and bring about an inner cooling off. Or, it can also be that the plastic activity of the kidney, is working too strongly. Then some tumorous formations will arise. Here the plastic, the rounding off, the crystalising activity—I would like to say—is too great. Then one has to envelop the tumor through warmth from outside (see diagram 3, yellow, red). All tumors are in fact healed from outside. One only has to bring about in the organism, through injections of substances that diffuse in a certain way, the possibility to get the tumor enwrapped by radiation of such substances (diagram, red). If you succeed in getting a radiation into and around the tumor, then it will dissolve, crumble, and stop. If you have an inflammation, you have to bring the remedy into the organ through the digestive apparatus, where the inflammation is located. You have to bring something cooling, by way of the digestive apparatus. An inflammation has to be treated from inside (diagram 3a).

One only has to find the way here. Every substance has a specific way of spreading in the human organism. For example there are substances which, given by mouth to a human being, don't pay heed to the esophagus; it doesn't matter at all to them—all the pepsin, ptyalin and so on—they care, for example, only for the heart. To others the heart does not matter: They are conducted first through the stomach, through the heart, to the kidneys, and become active only there. So every substance has its affinity; one only has to apply the right substance. But there are also those substances which, if you vaccinate them, would not pay heed to a stomach-carcinoma at all, but would take care very much, let us say, of a breast carcinoma.

Therefore one has to find the way to attack an ulcer or an inflammation internally, to take something on from the outside, to besiege it, as it were. The tumors have to be besieged from outside. Things have to be studied this way, and they must be tuned together in a thorough way. Of course, to do this one has to know the higher members of human nature. It is impossible to talk at all about the kidney if one puts man on the dissecting table, simply, and opens him up after he has died. Then the kidney is lying next to the liver, as far as I am concerned; but what does one know more about the kidney and the liver than that both consist of cells, that both are built up, in different ways, of cells! But the kidney has an intimate. relationship to the astral body and the liver to the ego. That alone gives them their character. Without considering this, it is altogether senseless to define or to consider the whole matter.

Now, take an organ like the spleen. Ordinary physiology and medicine don't have much to say about it. You will find in all corresponding textbooks the notation: about the spleen one does not yet have anything to say today. You will find that everywhere, if you look it up. That is not very surprising. You see, the speech genius is really wiser in this respect than science. In this case,—in other cases it is the German speech genius which is extraordinarily wise,—it is the English speech genius who designates the (Milz) as “spleen”. And that is an extraordinarily favorable designation, because the spleen is connected with all those activities of man which go beyond the ego, which approach the spirit-self. The spleen is even directly the organ of the spirit-self. It enters fully into the spiritual realm. Only one must be able to stand. it. Most people cannot take the real spiritual element. Therefore they are not in any way animated through the activity of the spleen to an activity that is spiritual, but become “spleeny”. In reverse, they are tuned down. The “spleen” is nothing other than a spirit which, instead of going into the head, twists itself into the bowels. Therefore “spleen” is an extraordinarily good designation, which points directly towards the spirit, for which the spleen is the corresponding organ.

The spleen is effective in bringing about a balance, as presented in the pamphlet,—which has been worked out in our institute of physiology particularly by Fr. Dr. K.,—where the activity of the spleen is presented in relation to the formation of the development of membranes and the whole digestive process.

(Dr. Steiner then expressed his disappointment that this, which was being worked out inside the society, did not reach the outside world. Also that the members did not pay attention ...) This is what I want to say today only in parenthesis.

Indeed we can understand the human organism only if we understand its higher organization. You see how these things have to fit together. There is something out of order in the organism, if something which does not proceed in the right way works into the astral organism, because in that moment the kidney does not work in the right way, then all the phenomena that follow up a kidney which does not work rightly will appear.

But this is not so for man in general, instead, this changes from one era to another. The organization of man is an extremely fine one, but it is not always the same. If we go back a few centuries only—a couple of centuries are not much for the whole of evolution, it seems—then we come to a time where our present age, the real epoch of development of the consciousness soul, has begun. We go back from the 15th, 14th, and 13th centuries into the post-Christian time. It has been so,—as grotesque as this might appear to man today, especially in the civilized world,—that approximately during the whole time from the 4th until the 14th century the activity of the kidney was most important. Since then, the activity of the liver has become that which is most important for the entire nature of man. The anatomy and physiology of man really changes in the course of centuries, and especially of millenniums. One cannot study history if one does not enter into the fine structure of man, so that one knows how such transformations regarding outer phenomena in civilization, such as that from the middle ages into recent time, are also connected with a transformation of the whole human organization.

One has to come back again to such matters; otherwise on one side science will always come to a standstill, becoming more and more irreligious and antireligious, since finally it will only grope about with the probe and the dissecting knife, and so on,—and on the other side, there is religious life, which does not have anything to say anymore about the world, but addresses itself only to the egotistic instincts of man for life after death. These things are standing side by side. Our religious attitude of today has simply forgotten that God has created the world, and that one can find everywhere in the things of the world traces of divine creation. But one must not talk of abstract cloudlike changes of civilization in history; one must know how, especially through the delicate human organization, through this tuning in of the infinite fine clockwork of man's organization, the divine, creative forces transform man. As at one time they tighten the strings of the kidney activity somewhat more, then they relax and tighten the strings of the liver-activity, and a completely different music of civilization comes about.

Only if we don't restrict ourselves to looking at a God who is separate, but instead follow God into detailed activity, will we arrive at that which mankind needs in the future. Otherwise mankind will finally care only for the abstract, and arrive at a purely materialistic science. Only and solely if we can penetrate into concrete details, the effectiveness of matter in divine creation, will we get where we can permeate religion with science and lead science back to religion.

You see, around the turn of the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries an attitude comes about in Europe, which I have already characterized from very different sides. It is expressed in the legend of the Grail, in the Parsifal legend, in all that has been written by poets like Wolfram von Eschenbach, Hartman von der Aue, Gottfried von Strassburg, and so on. There the motifs emerge. In the Parsifal epic, in the true Parsifal epic one motif especially arises. It consists in the sudden desire, to now present how man has to develop himself towards something one called at that time “Sälde”. It is the feeling of a certain inner sensation of happiness—Sälde—related to what we would call “bliss” but it is not the same. Sälde means being penetrated by a certain feeling of happiness. This emerges and dominates the whole civilization of the 13th and 14th century. All poetic motifs, but in particular the Parsifal motif, are permeated by it and everything strives towards it. One strives towards this Sälde, towards this inner feeling of bliss, which should not be irreligious, or perhaps a state of blissful comfort, but a state of being ensouled with the divine forces of the Creator.

Why does this arise? It arises because the transition from the kidney activity to the liver activity takes place. You will be able to understand this if you are aided by physiology. The earlier physiologists, of course, were better physiologists in many respects than the materialistic physiologists of today. Those, I mean, were the writers of the Old Testament, where one, for example, said, if one had had bad dreams—I have already drawn attention to this—“the Lord has punished me this night through my kidneys.” The knowledge of certain connections of an abnormal kidney-activity with bad dreams continued, and in the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries, for example, one was still deeply permeated by the conviction, that one becomes heavy through the activity of the kidney. The activity of the kidney had developed into something like heaviness for man. Of course, one spoke outwardly only about something that became heavy for man. One couldn't quite get out of it. One was stuck to the earthly. And then one sensed that one became penetrated by the gall from the physical side—but in a way that was connected with being “inwardly permeated by Sälde”—as a deliverance, an inner redemption—but it was an inner God-filled feeling of bliss,—a striving away from the dullness of the kidney. It is so, that the kidney also develops an activity of thinking. The kidney develops the dull thought-activity in man via the detour of the ganglious system. This is then connected through induction with the system of the spinal cord and the system of the brain. It develops in particular that kind of thinking which has also played a direct role in the middle ages. One called it at that time “dullness”, (Tumpheit). And this development from Tumpheit to illumination, Sälde; this was what became the motif of Parsifal. Parsifal develops from dullness to Sälde.

One must not only look at this in an abstract manner, but one must also look at it with feeling and a sensitivity. In the beginning Parsifal is as one arising out of a culture that has become heavy. One cannot quite get him in movement. Only later, after he has passed through his doubting, does Saelde permeate him. This doubt in him arises through being jolted by the heart-lung system. After he has gone through that, he finds the entry into Sälde.

It is possible to follow up into the members of the human organism what has gone on in the larger history of the world. One can say: leading individualities, like those who have fashioned the Parsifal-motif, they were pioneers, the first precursors of the modern human corporeal organization, which has proceeded from the old kidney-activity to the newer liver activity.

One must not feel contempt for something like that. One must not say: that is only the lower sensual nature. Even God did not despise the creation of lower matter—in fact, He was its Creator! By the same token we are obliged through cognition, to pursue the divine activity of the creator into the outermost ramifications of what is material. One should not be a dignified historian who describes Parsifal and says: If one describes Parsifal, one must not look at the same time at something so low as the physiological activity of man.

The world is a unity, and to understand the great historical connections, one has to be able at the same time to illuminate the different human connections. Men of ancient times, and even up until the Middle Ages, still had traces of such knowledge. You can follow that up in descriptions as that of “Armen Heinrich”, where we see that healings of a moral nature are still occurring, and so on.

These matters discussed today should be a preliminary indication of the fact that all human cognition presents a great unity. One can descend from what has to be conceived as the highest religious ideas to something that people often regard as being so low, that they don't want to look at it. Present-day science is guilty of such an attitude, because it does not at all realize that one must follow the spirit into the outmost ramifications of matter. But only then does one learn to understand the world. Only then does one also learn to strive upwards towards a true religious comprehension of the world. Otherwise one generally has just an egotistic point of view, which speculates on the egotistic motives of man, but does not enter into cognition and will lead us into decadence, instead of a renewal of civilization.

A new arising of civilization is connected with people receiving Light into themselves and contemplating the world in this Light, and not in darkness. Today's physiology and anatomy, just places people on the dissecting table and looks but at those symptoms which can still be observed in sick people by materialistic science. But this never attains to a real understanding of man.

One can say: foodstuff taken up, killed, revived, astralized, transformed into the ego—only then one understands ptyalin, pepsin, in the food that has been taken up and killed, and then transported into the lymphatic glands conveyed to the heart, fired by the heart. The kidneys then radiate through it, and all is astralized, taken up by the liver functioning and conveyed to the Ego. Then the whole can be caught up by the activity of the spleen and then, under certain circumstances the person will be made into an enthusiast, one who receives strength from the spiritual world through the activity of the spleen,—or otherwise he will be made into a “spleeny”, depressive person—one without the will to hold his head upright—through the activity of the spleen—one who only wants to sit on his chair and preFers not to he permeated by the spirit, who does not want to do any thinking. There are many people like—that today. They sit on their chairs, really only a big lump, as if they did not have a head at all. The activity of the spleen, which could be something lofty in man, really has a crushing effect on these people. Instead of enthusiasm, they have “spleen” and the “spleen” appears today already in a variety of forms.

But what one needs today is the kind of work that transforms spleen into enthusiasm, into fire so that men do not have a sleepy, but rather a wakeful civilization. This is what should come forth from Anthroposophy: to be awake, to have enthusiasm, to transform cognition into true activity, into deeds, so man does not only know more but will become something through Anthroposophy. Only then has Anthroposophy a goal and can such a goal be truly attained. But to become sleepy through Anthroposophy means that one gives much too much respect to the physical quality of the spleen and that one does not fructify the high spiritual nature of the spleen. But this points towards something that present-day mankind sorely needs. Men need fire, they need enthusiasm, they need to be inspired about something. As long as we cannot do that, as long as we think only about ourselves, we are placing too much value also on that which is excreted by us as urea, uric acid, which is not meant to be contained in the sphere of a cell, of protein—but should be brought into the state of fluctuating protein, which we are in our whole being. Basically we are something like a living, but large cell-like being, that stays in continuous, vivacious movement. Because we have carbon in us, we receive oxygen through the etherisation of the food, we get nitrogen, because the food substances are radiated through by the activity of the kidneys. We receive hydrogen, because the activity of the liver plays into it, and in connection with the activity of the senses, we do also receive sulphur—either the unsuitable one, which is the one mostly discussed today—or the proper sulphur. We really get what is necessary, so we are a living being who consists of protein—carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and also sulphur—but it must he the proper sulphur. (This is related to a joke about a philosopher in Wurzburg, on whose door students had written “sulphur—shack”.) That I don't mean. But man must be alive through and through, through and through ensouled, through and through permeated by spirit. This is something one also can learn, especially if one observes this in the outermost ramifications of matter. Only then will we get a physiology, then also will we get something which can really approach therapeutically the nature of man.

Geistige Zusammenhänge In Der Gestaltung Des Menschlichen Organismus II

[ 1 ] Ich möchte heute einmal zeigen, wie dasjenige, was am Menschen zu begreifen ist, als Grundlage dienen kann, um auch größere geschichtliche Zusammenhänge ins Auge zu fassen, damit wir dann vielleicht morgen dazu übergehen können, etwas nach dieser Richtung hin gerade aus der Gegenwart zu begreifen. Ich habe ja schon vorgestern über den Menschen selber in seiner Konstitution gesprochen. Ich möchte das heute von einem anderen Gesichtspunkte aus tun.

[ 2 ] Betrachten wir den Menschen einfach so, wie er im Leben Tag für Tag drinnensteht, und zwar zunächst heute einmal von der alleralltäglichsten Seite. Der Mensch muß sich, um sich zu erhalten, ernähren. Er muß dasjenige, was wir gewöhnlich Stoffe der Natur nennen, aus dem tierischen, pflanzlichen und zum Teil auch aus dem mineralischen Reich in seinen eigenen Organismus herein aufnehmen. Aber dasjenige, was der Mensch aus der äußeren Umgebung aufnimmt, das unterliegt im menschlichen Organismus einer ganz gewaltigen Umänderung. Zunächst, wenn wir Nahrungsmittel aufnehmen auf dem gewöhnlichen Wege, so bekommen wir sie, höchstens vorbereitet durch die Kochzubereitung, in unseren Organismus herein so, wie sie zunächst draußen in der umgebenden Natur, vielleicht eben etwas zugerichtet, sind. Wir bekommen außerdem durch unsere Atmung die Luft auch wiederum in demjenigen Zustand in uns herein, wie sie eben in unserer Umgebung vorhanden ist. Sehen wir jetzt zunächst ab von anderem, was im Grunde genommen noch wichtiger ist, zum Beispiel das Licht, das wir auch aus der Umgebung so hereinbekommen, wie es zunächst als Licht ist; aber auch die Nahrungsmittel und die Luft müssen in unserem Organismus einer gewaltigen Umänderung unterzogen werden, damit sie diesen unseren Organismus erfüllen können, damit sie gewissermaßen in unserem Organismus menschlich werden.

[ 3 ] Außerlich beschrieben, ist der Vorgang heute ein ganz bekannter. Wir nehmen die Nahrungsmittel auf, wenn wir zunächst bei diesen stehenbleiben, wie gesagt, vielleicht schon etwas zubereitet. Wir verarbeiten sie zunächst, namentlich durch die Absonderung der Drüsen, des übrigen Verdauungsapparates, wir nehmen sie herein, bespülen sie, durchtränken sie mit einem Stoff, den man Ptyalin nennt, der abgesondert wird von den Mundspeicheldrüsen. Wir bringen dann die Speisen weiter in unseren Verdauungsapparat hinein. Den Weg, der da gemacht wird, habe ich hier nicht zu charakterisieren. Aber den ganzen Vorgang muß ich Ihnen charakterisieren. Dadurch, daß wir die Nahrungsmittel in uns aufnehmen, in uns verarbeiten, werden sie schon etwas verändert gegenüber dem, was sie draußen in der Umgebung sind. Dasjenige, was die Nahrungsmittel in uns werden, das könnten sie niemals durch äußere Vorgänge werden. Wir können in dem chemischen Laboratorium die Stoffe, die unsere Nahrungsmittel darstellen, in der verschiedensten Weise bearbeiten. Das geht dort nicht vor, was mit den Nahrungsmitteln vorgeht, wenn wir sie bis in unseren Magen und von da in unseren Verdauungsapparat bringen. Da werden die Nahrungsmittel in der Tat zu etwas ganz anderem, als sie zunächst äußerlich sind.

[ 4 ] Erstens tritt dasjenige ein für sie, daß sozusagen jede Spur des äußeren Lebens aus ihnen herausgetilgt wird. Die Menschen genießen Fleisch. Das ist entnommen der äußeren Umgebung, dem Tierreiche. Aber indem die Menschen es genießen, treiben sie erst gerade durch die Vorverdauung, möchte ich sagen, und die weitere Verdauung dann alles dasjenige heraus, was diese Nahrungsmittel in den 'Tierkörpern darstellen. Auch noch alles das, was die pflanzlichen Nahrungsmittel dadurch, daß sie einem lebendigen Wesen in der Pflanze angehörten, in sich an Leben haben, muß erst ausgetrieben werden. Nur die eigentlich mineralischen Bestandteile nehmen wir als äußere stoffliche Substanzen auf. Wenn wir unseren Speisen Salz zusetzen, das also schon äußerlich mineralischer Natur ist, wenn wir Zucker zusetzen, der auch schon durch die äußere Zubereitung, wenn er auch vielleicht dem organischen Reiche entstammt, dennoch so weit getrieben ist, daß er bereits tot gemacht worden ist, so haben wir da etwas schon Totes aufgenommen. Das erfährt die wenigste Umgestaltung in uns; das erfährt wirklich bloß eine Umgestaltung, die man schon auch äußerlich laboratoriumsmäßig vollziehen könnte. Aber alles, was aus dem Tier- und Pflanzenreiche in unseren Organismus hineinkommt, das muß zunächst gründlich, wenn ich mich so ausdrücken will, getötet werden.

[ 5 ] Wir machen auch in unserem Kochen sozusagen eine Art Vortötung, indem wir die Speisen der Wärme unterwerfen und so weiter. Das wird gründlich von unserer Verdauung besorgt, so daß, wenn unsere Nahrungsmittel eine gewisse innere Entwickelung durchgemacht haben bis zum Darm, wenn sie herangekommen sind in diese unteren Verdauungsorgane, in ihnen wesentlich alles dasjenige ausgetrieben ist, was sie äußerlich dadurch sind, daß zum Beispiel die tierischen Nahrungsmittel unterworfen sind dem astralischen Leib und dem Ätherleib des Tieres, daß die pflanzlichen Nahrungsmittel unterworfen sind dem ätherischen Leib bei den Pflanzen und so weiter. Also es muß zunächst auf dem Wege vom Mund bis in den Darm das besorgt werden, daß alle Nahrungsmittel tot sind.

[ 6 ] Denn indem jetzt die Nahrungsmittel herankommen an diejenigen drüsigen Organe, welche dann überleiten die Nahrungsmittel von dem Darm in die Lymphgefäße und in die Blutgefäße, da muß auf diesem Wege zurück eine Belebung der Nahrungsmittel stattfinden. Die Nahrungsmittel müssen zunächst tot werden in uns und müssen dann wiederum belebt werden. Wir könnten nicht in unserem menschlichen Organismus eine Fortsetzung desjenigen Lebens vertragen, das im Tiere, dem wir die Nahrungsmittel entnehmen, vorhanden ist, oder das in der Pflanze vorhanden ist. Wir können höchstens die unorganische Natur so aufnehmen, daß sie uns unsere eigenen Gesetze darbietet. Wir könnten nicht, sagen wir, Kohl essen, könnten ihn nicht bei der Verdauung an unsere Darmzotten so herankommen lassen, daß da drinnen noch dieselben ätherischen Kräfte vorhanden wären, die der Kohl hat, indem er einer Pflanze angehört. Das Ätherische, das Astralische, das die Nahrungsmittel haben, das muß erst weggemacht sein. Und dann muß von unserem eigenen Ätherleib aufgenommen und wieder belebt werden können dasjenige, was wir also aufnehmen. Das Leben der Nahrungsmittel in uns muß von uns kommen. Und das geschieht auf dem Wege von der Darmorganisation durch die Gefäße zum Herzen hin. So daß wir also sagen können: indem die Nahrungsmittel in das Blut gelangen, das Blut das Herz durchsetzt, wird von unserem Atherleib dasjenige aufgenommen, was an erst ertöteten Nahrungsmitteln in uns hineinversetzt wird. So daß Sie sich also vorstellen können: Wenn die Nahrungsmittel vom Mund in den Darm dann gelangen, gehen allmählich die letzten Spuren der Außenwelt verloren, aber hier (siehe Zeichnung, rot) werden sie neu belebt bis zum Herzen hin. Das Neubeleben bedeutet eben, daß sie von unserem eigenen Ätherleib aufgenommen werden. Sie würden nun aber zu wenig den Charakter des Irdischen haben, wenn bloß das geschehen wäre, was ich Ihnen bis jetzt beschrieben habe. Wir würden nämlich Wesen sein müssen, die bis zum Herzen hin bloß Mund- und Verdauungsapparat haben und dann müßten wir anfangen, Engel zu sein, denn es würde unser Ätherleib die Nahrungsmittel aufnehmen und ganz auflösen. Wir würden nicht irdisch sein können. Wir müßten dann so herumfliegende Münder mit anhängenden Schlünden sein, und Magen und Darm und Herz noch haben, und dann, nicht wahr, würde das alles von unserem Ätherleib aufgenommen werden. Aber sonst müßten wir dann Atherleib sein, und in dem Ätherleib würden dann die Nahrungsmittel sich verflüchtigen. Wir würden nicht Erdenmensch sein können. Daß wir es sein können, das wird dadurch bewirkt, daß nun der Sauerstoff der Luft aufgenommen wird. Es wird also in das, was durchdrungen ist an Nahrungsmitteln vom Ätherleib, der Sauerstoff der Luft hereingenommen, und dadurch bleibt weiter für uns die Möglichkeit, daß wir irdische, fleischliche Menschen sind hier auf Erden zwischen Geburt und Tod (siehe Zeichnung, hell). Also der Sauerstoff macht wiederum dasjenige, was sich sonst in unserem ätherischen Leib verflüchtigen würde, zu dem Irdisch-Lebendigen. Der Sauerstoff ist derjenige Stoff, der etwas, das sich sonst nur als ein Atherisches bilden würde, ins Irdische hereinversetzt. Jetzt sind wir bis zu der Verbindung von Herz und Lunge gekommen. Das Herz würde uns noch nicht zum irdischen Menschen machen, sondern es würde uns nur so weit bringen, daß wir nun an das Herz unseren Atherleib anschließen würden und als solche Engel auf der Erde herumfliegen würden, die also vielleicht manchem wenig schön vorkommende Ingredienzien hätten, wie Mund, Schlund, Gedärme und Gefäße bis zum Herzen hin. Aber dadurch, daß das Herz mit der Lunge in Verbindung ist, den Sauerstoff aufnimmt, wird die Nahrungsaufnahme nicht nur ätherisiert, sondern auch verirdischt.

[ 7 ] Jetzt kommt die Notwendigkeit, daß dasjenige, was nun von unserem Ätherleib aufgenommen ist, vom Sauerstoff durchtränkt ist, so daß wir irdische Menschen sein können, dem astralischen Leib eingefügt werden muß. Das ist jetzt noch nicht vom astralischen Leib aufgenommen, das ist erst vom Ätherleib aufgenommen. Es muß jetzt die Tätigkeit entwickelt werden, daß alles das, was sich da bis zur HerzLungentätigkeit herausgebildet hat, von dem ganzen Organismus aufgenommen wird, aber so, daß auch der astralische Organismus dabei etwas zu tun hat. Diese Tätigkeit vermittelt das Nierensystem des Menschen, das nun dasjenige absondert, was unbrauchbar ist von den Stoffen, die aufgenommen werden, aber das übrige in den ganzen Organismus auf Wegen leitet, die die heutige Physiologie gar nicht eigentlich beschreibt, die aber vorhanden sind.

[ 8 ] Und da wird nun, wenn ich mich so ausdrücken darf, der ganze Brei, der aber jetzt schon lebendig bleibt - er ist nur im Darmkanal ganz ertötet worden, ist dann belebt und von Sauerstoff durchtränkt worden -, durch die Tätigkeit des Nierensystems, das sich über den ganzen Organismus erstreckt und überall hinstrahlt, in den astralischen Leib hineinbefördert, so daß dieser jetzt mitarbeiten kann an der weiteren Gestaltung dessen, was durch die Nahrungsmittel in uns bewirkt wird (siehe Zeichnung Seite 71, gelb).

[ 9 ] Dieser astralische Organismus, insofern er vom Nierensystem aus seine Anstöße erfährt, steht jetzt wiederum in Verbindung mit dem Kopf-Sinnessystem, das gewissermaßen wie eine Decke darüber ist. Und Nieren- und Kopfsystem zusammen, die wirken nun fortwährend so, daß dasjenige, was eigentlich durch die Herztätigkeit flüssig, verschwimmend ist, nun zu den besonderen Organen geformt wird. Wir würden, wenn bloß Mund, Magen, Därme, Herz und Lunge da wären, gar nicht feste Organe haben, sondern der Magen selber müßte ein verschwimmendes, ein in sich bewegliches Organ sein, ebenso die Lunge, ebenso das Herz. Das könnte alles nicht fest sein. Gestaltet werden diese Organe von den Nieren aus, und den Nieren kommt zu Hilfe dasjenige, was vom Kopfe ausgeht.

[ 10 ] Die Organe müssen nämlich nicht nur während der Kindheit gestaltet werden, sondern fortwährend; denn unsere Organe werden fortwährend zerstört. Im Laufe von sieben bis acht Jahren wird solch ein Organ, wie der Magen zum Beispiel, vollständig vernichtet. Seine Substanz kommt ganz weg und wird immer wieder erneuert. Da müssen immer formgebende Kräfte vorhanden sein, die diese Organe erneuern. In der Kindheit muß noch viel mehr daran gearbeitet werden. Später sind aber diese formgebenden Kräfte auch noch da.

[ 11 ] Das geht so vor sich (siehe Zeichnung Seite 74): Das Nierensystem, das auf der einen Seite diese Kräfte ausstrahlt, würde nur einseitig die Organe zustande bringen. Es würde zum Beispiel einen Lungenflügel so gestalten - von der Seite angesehen -, daß er rückwärts ganz nett begrenzt wäre, aber nach vorne würde er verschwimmen, er würde da herausschwimmen. Nun muß ihm die Kraft vom Kopfe entgegenkommen, so daß die vordere Fläche vom Kopfe aus gebildet wird, so daß immer die einzelnen Formen des Menschen so geformt werden, daß gewissermaßen die Niere die Kräfte ausstrahlt, und vom Kopf dann die Kräfte kommen, welche so eindämmen, daß die Organe Konturen bekommen, gerundet werden. Vom Kopfe aus werden die Flächen äußerlich gebildet. Die Niere aber liefert so eine Art Strahlung in den Organismus hinein. Es ist ungefähr so, sagen wir, wie wenn ich irgend etwas plastisch bilden wollte. Ich nehme in die eine Hand Mörtel oder irgendeine weiche Substanz, und nun lerne ich mir an, mit der einen Hand den Mörtel hinaufzuwerfen (siehe Zeichnung, gelb, rot) und mit der anderen Hand abzuglätten. Das eine, das Hinaufwerfen, seien die Nieren, das könnte ich so machen, daß ich irgendeinen Bottich habe, wo ich die Substanz nehme (siehe Zeichnung); das schleudere ich herauf, oben glätte ich ab und bekomme auf diese Weise diese Organe, die eigentlich ausstrahlen und abgeformt sind. So werden die Organe im Zusammenhang von Nierensystem und Kopfsystem gebildet, und da drinnen wirken die Kräfte des astralischen Leibes. Das ist also etwas, was unter einer außerordentlich starken Veränderung des Stickstoffes vor sich geht. Der Stickstoff ist da schon nicht mehr das, was er äußerlich ist, denn der Stickstoff, der also noch die Ähnlichkeit behält mit dem äußeren Stickstoff, geht dann durch die Harnsäure und den Harnstoff weg. Aber dasjenige, was da ausstrahlt von der Niere und verarbeitet wird, das ist eigentlich ein innerlich bis in die wirksamen Kräfte des astralischen Leibes hinein veränderter Stickstoff. Das ist etwas ganz anderes als der äußere Stickstoff.

[ 12 ] Da haben Sie dasjenige, was der Mensch als Nahrungsmittel empfängt, getrieben bis zu dem Punkt, wo es in die Astralität, in den Astralleib des menschlichen Organismus aufgenommen wird. Diese Vorgänge, wie ich sie Ihnen jetzt geschildert habe, etwas verändert, finden auch im Tiere statt. Das Tier hat auch diese, ja sogar bei den höheren Tieren noch weitergehende Vorgänge. Bei den niederen Tieren aber finden höchstens noch Andeutungen desjenigen statt, was jetzt kommt. Die höheren Tiere haben es aber, weil sie von dem Menschengeschlecht abgezweigt sind; sie haben es noch, aber es ist bei ihnen deformiert und degeneriert.

[ 13 ] Nun, in all das, was da gebildet wird, strahlt nun noch etwas anderes hinein. Wir haben also zunächst dieses Treiben der Nahrungsmittel bis zur Ertötung. Da kommen wir ungefähr so weit, daß wir die Bauchspeicheldrüse als eine der letzten Drüsen haben, welche die Dinge soweit bringt, daß sie dann, indem sie der Lymphe entgegentreiben, belebt und in den Ätherleib aufgenommen werden können; dann durch die Kommunikation vom Herzen zu den Nieren hin wird das ganze in den astralischen Leib hineingetrieben. Nun muß aber auch noch das Ich engagiert werden. Alles, was in unserem Organismus ist, muß vom Ich in Anspruch genommen werden.

[ 14 ] Nun habe ich Ihnen gezeigt, wie das, was sich mit uns vereinigt, von dem ätherischen und astralischen Organismus in Anspruch genommen wird, wie es vom Nierensystem aufgenommen und ins Astralische hineingestrahlt, wie es da mit Hilfe des Stickstoffes zum Irdischen gemacht wird. Wir würden sonst wiederum Engel werden müssen, wenn nicht der Stickstoff in uns wirken würde, der uns wiederum vom Nierensystem aus den astralischen Leib innerhalb des Irdischen erhält. Aber das ganze würde uns nicht so gestalten, daß auch das Ich an dem Ganzen teilnimmt, wenn nun nicht das Lebersystem da wäre (siehe Zeichnung Seite 71, blau). Das Lebersystem treibt das ganze in das Ich hinein. Sie sehen, es ist die Fortsetzung der Herzwirkung, denn selbst bis in die Därme hinein geht die Herzwirkung.

[ 15 ] Das Aufsaugen durch die Lymphgefäße, das ist noch etwas, was zum Herzen gehört. Das Herz ist in der Regel dasjenige Organ, das mit der Lunge zusammen die äußeren Substanzen in unser eigenes Atherisches hineintreibt. Von da aus ist es dann das Nierensystem, das es in unser Astralisches hineintreibt. Und das Lebersystem mit seiner Gallenabsonderung treibt das ganze erst in unser eigentliches Ich hinein. Das Gallen- und Lebersystem findet sich auch nur im höheren Tierreiche; bei niederen Tieren nicht, nicht einmal Gallensäure wird da in den körperlichen Substanzen gefunden. Das Lebersystem also mit seiner eigentümlichen Konstruktion der Pfortader und so weiter — man kann das auch anatomisch in jedem Stück belegen -, führt nun das ganze so, daß es ergriffen wird von dem Ich. Wenn alles das, was durch die Niere im Körper ausgestrahlt wird, allein vorhanden wäre, so würde es bloß vom Astralleib aufgenommen sein. Dadurch, daß die Leber vorhanden ist, von der Leber die Galle abgesondert wird und dem Speisebrei schon in dem Darm beigemischt ist, und so das ganze schon durchsetzt ist von Lebererzeugnissen (siehe Zeichnung Seite 71, blau), dadurch wird es dann in den Ich-Organismus hineingetrieben. So also auch beteiligt sich unser Ich-Organismus durch die Leber, die im wesentlichen den Wasserstoff zu ihrem physischen Repräsentanten hat, an dem ganzen Aufbau der menschlichen Organisation. Der Mensch hat eigentlich von außen nichts Lebendiges, nichts Astralisches aufzunehmen; was er von außen aufnimmt, das hat er erst in seinem eigenen Organsystem alles so umzubilden, daß es in sein eigenes Astralisches und in sein eigenes Ätherisches und in sein Ich-System aufgenommen werden kann.

[ 16 ] Da haben wir die ganze, ich möchte sagen, normale Organisation des Menschen. Denken Sie, wie das alles zusammenstimmen muß. Es darf zum Beispiel die Nierentätigkeit nicht unterbrochen sein; wenn die Nierentätigkeit unterbrochen ist durch eine Stau- oder eine Schrumpfniere, dann wird der astralische Leib nicht in Anspruch genommen. In Wirklichkeit ist es sogar umgekehrt: wenn der astralische Leib nicht in Ordnung ist, dann entsteht die Stau- oder die Schrumpfniere. So daß wir in der Beschaffenheit der Niere, wenn also eine Stau- oder Schrumpfniere vorhanden ist, ein deutliches Abbild von dem haben, was eigentlich im astralischen Leib des Menschen vor sich geht, ebenso wie wir bei einem degenerierten Herzen ganz genau ein Abbild haben von dem, was im ätherischen Leib des Menschen vor sich geht. Ich habe Ihnen das letzte Mal gesagt, daß da sogar ein Zusammenstimmen des Rhythmus ist. In demjenigen, was von der Niere heraufstrahlt (siehe Zeichnung Seite 71, gelb) sind immer vier Stöße vorhanden, während in dem, was von oben, vom Kopf, abrundend geschieht, nur ein Stoß vorhanden ist. Da ist dasselbe Verhältnis, wie es in dem Verhältnis von Atemzug zu Puls sich ausdrückt. Ich müßte also, wenn ich diesen Vergleich noch einmal gebrauchen darf, hier mit der Hand viermal langsamer runden. So macht es nämlich der Organismus (siehe Zeichnung Seite 74, unten).

[ 17 ] Das muß nun alles in der feinsten Weise stimmen, sonst geht das nicht. Krank sein heißt, daß das eben nicht stimmt. Nehmen Sie also zum Beispiel an: der ätherische Leib ist ganz in der Ordnung; der astralische Leib aber, der ist nicht mächtig genug, um alles das, was vom Herzen zu den Nieren herüberströmt, aufzunehmen und in der richtigen Weise zu bearbeiten. Das kann nun auf die Weise geschehen, daß der ätherische Leib zu stark arbeitet. Ich sagte, er sei in Ordnung, aber nehmen wir jetzt an: er arbeitet zu stark. Wenn der ätherische Leib zu stark arbeitet und der astralische Leib normal ist, so kann die Stauniere entstehen mit ihren eigentümlichen Folgen. Ist der ätherische Leib richtig und der astralische arbeitet zu stark, so wird die Niere zu wenig in Anspruch genommen. Dasjenige, was herüberstrahlt, wird, weil der astralische Leib zu stark arbeitet, von ihm in Anspruch genommen, ohne daß die Niere in der richtigen Regulierung in ordentlicher Weise mitarbeitet. Dadurch wird die Niere ausgeschaltet, und es entsteht die Schrumpfniere, die zu gleicher Zeit, weil sie zurückwirkt, zu einer Entartung der Herzfunktion und des Herzens selber führt.

[ 18 ] Sie sehen, daß man auf diese Weise zusammenschauen kann dasjenige, was im menschlichen Organismus vor sich geht, und daß man an der Entartung der Organe sehen kann, wie die Glieder der menschlichen Wesenheit, physischer Leib, ätherischer Leib, astralischer Leib und Ich eben nicht in der richtigen Weise zusammenwirken.

[ 19 ] Man muß sich nur klar sein darüber, daß alle diese Dinge aufeinander abgestimmt sein und in der richtigen Weise zusammenwirken müssen. Nehmen Sie zum Beispiel an, es wird irgendein Organsystem in falscher Weise von irgendeinem Gliede des menschlichen Organismus, vom astralischen Leibe etwa, nicht richtig durchsetzt, dann kann das in zweifacher Weise geschehen. Entweder es wird dasjenige, was vom Nierensystem ausgeht — also vom Kopf aus geschieht die Abrundung, vom Nierensystem die Ausstrahlung —, zu stark angeregt, so daß also eigentlich alles das, was vom Herzen gegen das Nierensystem hin arbeitet, eine zu starke Anregung für das Nierensystem ist. In dieser zu starken Anregung haben Sie eigentlich zu suchen die letzten Urgründe für alle Entzündungen, für alles das, was Entzündungen und Geschwürhaftes im menschlichen Organismus ist. Man muß nur dann den Weg suchen, wie irgendwo im Organismus so eine Entzündung entsteht, und man muß dann versuchen, durch das Heilmittel die Sache so auszugleichen, daß man diese zu starke Wirkung auf die Nierentätigkeit einschränkt.

[ 20 ] Das einfachste Mittel, wodurch man das erreicht, ist, daß man versucht, die zu starke Entwickelung von strahlender innerer Körperwärme, die ja immer im Gefolge ist, in irgendeiner Weise dadurch einzudämmen, daß man etwa durch Zufuhr gerade derjenigen Stoffe, die sich in den Blütenorganen der Pflanzen entwickeln, eine innerliche Abkühlung herbeiführt. Das ist das Eigentümliche derjenigen Stoffe, die sich gerade in den Blütenorganen der Pflanzen entwickeln, daß man mit ihnen Entzündungen entgegenarbeiten kann dadurch, daß man eine innere Abkühlung herbeiführt. Oder aber es kann auch so sein, daß die plastische Kopftätigkeit, die der Nierentätigkeit entgegenwirkt, zu stark wirkt. Dann entstehen geschwulstartige Bildungen. Bei denen ist eben die plastische, die abrundende Tätigkeit, ich möchte sagen, die kristallisierende Tätigkeit zu groß. Da muß man dann dadurch, daß man von außen Wärme herankriegt — aber man muß sie in der richtigen Weise heranbringen -, gewissermaßen äußerlich die Geschwulst durch Wärme umhüllen, so daß sie von außen allmählich geheilt wird (siehe Zeichnung, gelb, rot). Alle Geschwülste werden eigentlich von außen geheilt, man muß nur im Organismus, sagen wir, durch Injektion von Stoffen, die sich in einer gewissen Weise ausbreiten, die Möglichkeit herbeirufen, durch einen bestimmten Stoff es auf irgendeinem Weg bis zu einem Umstrahlen der Geschwulst zu bringen (rot). So daß allmählich, wenn Sie es dahin bringen, daß von außen eingestrahlt wird und umstrahlt wird die Geschwulst, sie zur Auflösung gebracht wird; dann zerbröckelt sie, hört auf. Wenn Sie eine Entzündung haben, müssen Sie dagegen durch den Verdauungsapparat das Mittel in das Organ hereinbringen, wo die Entzündung sitzt, von dem Verdauungsapparat aus ein Abkühlendes bringen. Eine Entzündung muß von innen aus behandelt werden (siehe Zeichnung rechts).

[ 21 ] Man muß da nur die Wege finden. Jede Substanz hat eine spezifische Ausbreitung im menschlichen Organismus. Es gibt zum Beispiel Substanzen, die, indem sie durch den Mund dem Menschen zugeführt werden, sich nicht kümmern um die Speiseröhre; es ist ihnen ganz gleich, das ganze Pepsin, Ptyalin und so weiter, sie kümmern sich zum Beispiel bloß um das Herz. Anderen ist auch wieder das Herz gleich; die werden erst durch Magen, durch Herz zu den Nieren geführt, werden erst da regsam. So hat jede Substanz ihre innere Affinität. Man muß nur die richtigen Substanzen anwenden. So gibt es aber auch solche Substanzen, die, wenn Sie sie einimpfen, sich um ein Magenkarzinom gar nicht kümmern würden. Sie haben gar keine Affinität dazu, kümmern sich aber sehr wohl, sagen wir, um ein Brustkarzinom.

[ 22 ] Man muß also den Weg finden, wie man ein Geschwür oder eine Entzündung innerlich angreift, oder wie man etwas von außen nimmt, belagert gewissermaßen. Die Geschwülste muß man belagern von außen. So müssen die Dinge im Organismus studiert werden und müssen eben durchaus zusammenstimmen. Dazu muß man natürlich diese höheren Glieder der Menschennatur kennen. Es ist unmöglich, überhaupt über die Niere zu reden, wenn man den Menschen einfach auf den Seziertisch legt und aufschneidet, nachdem er gestorben ist. Dann liegt die Niere neben der Leber meinetwillen; aber was weiß man über die Niere und Leber anders, als daß beide aus Zellen bestehen, in verschiedener Weise aus Zellen aufgebaut sind. Denn die Niere hat eine innige Beziehung zum astralischen Leib, und die Leber zum Ich. Das gibt ihnen erst den Charakter. Ohne das ist die ganze Sache überhaupt sinnlos, zu definieren oder zu betrachten.

[ 23 ] Wenn Sie nun ein solches Organ wie die Milz nehmen, da weiß die gewöhnliche Physiologie und Medizin nicht viel darüber zu sagen. Sie finden in allen entsprechenden Lehrbüchern überall die Anmerkung: Über die Milz weiß man heute noch nichts zu sagen. — Sie werden das überall finden, lesen Sie es nur nach. Das ist auch gar nicht zu verwundern. Sehen Sie, der Sprachgenius ist da eigentlich weiser als dasjenige, was Wissenschaft auf diesem Gebiete ist. In diesem Falle in anderen Fällen ist ja gerade der deutsche Sprachgenius ein außerordentlich weiser — ist es sogar der englische Sprachgenius, der die Milz als «Spleen» bezeichnet. Und das ist eine außerordentlich günstige Bezeichnung, denn die Milz hängt zusammen mit all denjenigen Betätigungen des Menschen, die über das Ich hinausgehen, die schon an das Geistselbst herankommen, und die Milz ist sogar geradezu das Organ des Geistselbstes. Das geht schon ganz ins Geistige hinein. Nur ist das so, daß man das vertragen muß. Die meisten Menschen können das wirklich Geistige nicht vertragen, und sie werden daher durch die Milztätigkeit nicht etwa angeregt zur Betätigung im Geistigen, zum Spirituellen, sondern sie werden «spleenig». Sie werden gerade heruntergestimmt. Der «Spleen» ist ja nichts anderes als ein Geist, der, statt daß er in den Kopf geht, in die Gedärme sich verschlingt. Es ist also «Spleen» eine außerordentlich gute Bezeichnung, die gerade auf das Geistige hinweist, für das die Milz das entsprechende Organ ist.

[ 24 ] Daher wirkt die Milz auch in der Weise ausgleichend, wie das dargestellt ist in der Broschüre, die von unserem Stuttgarter Physiologischen Institut ausgearbeitet worden ist, namentlich von Frau Dr. Kolisko, wo die Milztätigkeit im Zusammenhange mit der Plättchenentstehung und der ganzen Verdauungstätigkeit dargestellt wird. Da ist nun wirklich einmal eine wissenschaftlich-systematische Darstellung der Milztätigkeit im ersten Anhub unternommen. Würde irgendwo in einem anderen Forschungsinstitute eine solche Arbeit gemacht werden, so würde man das sehr bald als etwas außerordentlich Epochemachendes ansehen. Aber nun ist es eben so, daß, wenn in unserem Kreise, in dem Schoße unserer Gesellschaft etwas entsteht, es nicht in die Welt hinausdringt. Man redet nicht davon. Es ist ja nicht notwendig, daß man, um es zu rühmen, redet, sondern weil es wohltätig wirken könnte im Zusammenhange der ganzen Zeitführung. Aber der Anfang dazu, daß man über die Sache nicht redet, wird ja schon in unserer Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft gemacht, Ich möchte abstimmen darüber, wie viele unserer Mitglieder Gelegenheit gehabt haben, daß die ganze Bedeutung der Sache wirklich zu ihnen gedrungen ist! Es ist dann nicht weiter zu verwundern, daß, wenn die Anthroposophische Gesellschaft schon anfängt, sich um dasjenige, was bei uns geschieht, nicht zu kümmern, das natürlich auch nach außen hin wirkt. Wir arbeiten ja in der Tat nicht bioß mit Ausschluß der Öffentlichkeit, sondern in den wichtigsten Dingen auch mit Ausschluß des Interesses der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft! Aber das ist dasjenige, was ich — heute wenigstens — nur in Parenthese sagen will. Wichtig aber ist, daß wir tatsächlich nur den menschlichen Organismus verstehen können, wenn wir seine höhere Gliederung verstehen.

[ 25 ] Sie sehen, wie fein diese Dinge zusammenstimmen müssen. Es ist sogleich irgend etwas im Organismus nicht in Ordnung, wenn im geringsten in den astralischen Organismus etwas hineinwirkt, was nicht richtig vor sich geht, denn in dem Augenblicke arbeiten die Nieren nicht in Ordnung, und dann treten alle die Folgeerscheinungen einer nicht ordentlichen Nierentätigkeit auf.

[ 26 ] Aber das ist nicht so für den Menschen im allgemeinen, sondern das ändert sich von Zeitalter zu Zeitalter. Der Mensch ist eine ungemein feine Organisation; aber diese ist nicht immer gleich. Wenn wir nur ein paar Jahrhunderte zurückgehen — nicht wahr, für die Gesamtentwickelung sind ein paar Jahrhunderte nicht viel -, da kommen wir zum Beispiel in die Zeit, in welcher das jetzige Zeitalter, die eigentliche Epoche der Bewußtseinsentwickelung begonnen hat. Wir kommen hinter das 15., 14., 13, Jahrhundert zurück in der nachchristlichen Zeit. Da ist es in der Tat so gewesen, daß gerade in der zivilisierten Welt — so grotesk das heute auch für die Menschen erscheint —, ungefähr durch die ganze Zeit vom 4. Jahrhundert bis ins 14. Jahrhundert, die Nierentätigkeit das Wichtigste war; und seither ist es die Lebertätigkeit geworden für die Gesamtmenschennatur.

[ 27 ] Ich möchte sagen: die Anatomie und Physiologie des Menschen ändert sich eben im Laufe der Jahrhunderte, und namentlich der Jahrtausende, und man kann Geschichte nicht studieren, wenn man nicht auf die feine Struktur des Menschen eingeht und weiß, wie solche Umwandlungen der äußeren Zivilisationserscheinungen, wie die vom Mittelalter in die neue Zeit, auch verknüpft sind mit einer Umwandlung der ganzen Menschheitsorganisation.

[ 28 ] Zu solchen Dingen muß man wieder kommen, sonst bleibt immer auf der einen Seite die Wissenschaft stehen, die immer irreligiöser und antireligiöser wird, weil sie schließlich nur herumtappst mit dem Seziermesser und mit der Sonde und so weiter, und auf der anderen Seite das religiöse Leben, das gar nichts mehr über die Welt zu sagen hat, sondern sich nur noch an die egoistischen Instinkte des Menschen für das Leben nach dem Tode richtet. Die Dinge stehen nebeneinander da. Unsere heutige Religiosität hat ja ganz vergessen, daß Gott die Welt geschaffen hat. Sie spricht noch vom Göttlichen, aber sie hat vergessen, daß Gott die Welt geschaffen hat, und daß man in den Dingen der Welt die Spuren des göttlichen Schaffens überall finden kann. Man muß nicht nur reden von abstrakten wolkenkuckucksheimartigen Verwandlungen der Zivilisation in der Geschichte, sondern man muß wissen, wie gerade durch die zarte Menschenorganisation hindurch, durch dieses Abstimmen des unendlich feinen Uhrwerkes der menschlichen Organisation, die göttlichen Schöpferkräfte den Menschen umwandeln, wie dadurch, daß sie einmal, ich möchte sagen, die Saite der Nierentätigkeit etwas stärker anziehen, dann nachlassen, und dann die Saite der Lebertätigkeit anziehen, eine ganz andere Zivilisationsmusik herauskommt.

[ 29 ] Nur wenn wir uns nicht darauf beschränken, einen abgesonderten Gott zu betrachten, sondern den Gott verfolgen bis in seine einzelne Tätigkeit hinein, haben wir dasjenige, was die Menschheit der Zukunft braucht; sonst wird sie endlich das Abstrakte ganz pflegen und zu der rein materialistischen Wissenschaft kommen. Einzig und allein wenn wir durchdringen können bis in die konkreten Einzelheiten der Stoffwirksamkeiten im göttlichen Schaffen, kommen wir dazu, Religion mit Wissenschaft zu durchdringen und Wissenschaft wiederum zur Religion zurückzuführen.

[ 30 ] Und sehen Sie, es tritt so um die Wende des 12., 13., 14. Jahrhunderts in Europa eine Anschauung auf, die ich von den verschiedensten Seiten her schon charakterisiert habe, und die sich ausspricht in der Gralssage, in der Parzival-Sage, in alldem, was solche Dichter gedichtet haben wie Wolfram von Eschenbach, Hartmann von Aue, Gottfried von Straßburg und so weiter. Da tauchen die Motive auf. In der Parzival-Dichtung, in der echten Parzival-Dichtung, da taucht besonders ein Motiv auf, das besteht darin, daß man plötzlich einmal darstellen will, wie der Mensch sich hinentwickeln soll zu demjenigen, was man dazumal «saelde» nannte. Das ist das Gefühl eines gewissen inneren Glücksempfindens, saelde, verwandt mit unserem Seligkeit, aber nicht dasselbe, saelde ist Durchzogensein mit einem gewissen inneren Glücksgefühl. Das taucht auf und beherrscht eigentlich die ganze Zivilisation des 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts. Alle poetischen Motive, auch alle prosaischen Motive, aber insbesondere das Parzival-Motiv, die werden durchdrungen von dem, und es strebt alles dahin. Man strebt nach dieser saelde, nach diesem innerlichen Glücksgefühl, das aber nicht irreligiös, nicht etwa ein innerliches Glücksbehagen sein soll, sondern ein Durchseeltsein mit den göttlichen Schöpferkräften.

[ 31 ] Warum kommt das herauf? Das kommt herauf, weil dieser Übergang stattfindet von Nierentätigkeit zur Lebertätigkeit. Sie können das begreifen, wenn Sie zur Physiologie Ihre Zuflucht nehmen. Die früheren Physiologen waren, in einer gewissen Beziehung natürlich, bessere Physiologen als die materialistischen Physiologen der Gegenwart; das waren nämlich die Schreiber des Alten Testamentes, wo man zum Beispiel sagte, wenn man schlechte Träume gehabt hat - ich habe darauf schon aufmerksam gemacht -: Der Herr hat mich durch meine Nieren in dieser Nacht gestraft. — Dieses Wissen von gewissen Zusammenhängen einer unnormalen Nierentätigkeit mit den schlechten Träumen, das setzte sich dann fort, und davon war man zum Beispiel im 8., 9., 10. Jahrhundert noch tief durchdrungen, daß man schwer wird durch die Nierentätigkeit. Die Nierentätigkeit war allmählich den Menschen zu etwas Schwerem geworden. Natürlich redet man im Äußeren nur von etwas, was einem schwer geworden war. Man kam nicht so recht hinaus. Man klebte an dem Irdischen. Und da empfand man dieses Durchsetzen mit Galle von der physischen Seite her, das aber verbunden war mit einer Durch-saeld-ung, als eine Erlösung, eine innerliche Erlösung — ein innerliches, aber gotterfülltes Glücksgefühl, ein Hinwegstreben von dem Dumpfen der Niere. Die Niere entwickelt ja auch eine Denktätigkeit; die Niere entwickelt die dumpfe Denktätigkeit im Menschen auf dem Umwege durch das Gangliensystem, was dann durch Induktion verbunden ist mit dem Rückenmarkssystem und mit dem Gehirnsystem, sie entwickelt namentlich dasjenige Denken, das gerade auch im Mittelalter eine große Rolle gespielt hat. Man nannte es dazumal «tumpheit». Und diese Entwickelung von der tumpheit bis zur Erhellung, saelde, das war ja etwas, was zum Parzival-Motiv wurde. Der Parzival entwickelt sich von der tumpheit bis zur saelde.

[ 32 ] Man darf das nicht bloß in der abstrakten Weise betrachten, sondern man muß das auch anschauen mit etwas Gefühl und Empfindung. Anfangs ist der Parzival so, wie er hervorgeht aus seiner schwer gewordenen Kultur. Man kriegt ihn nicht recht in Bewegung. Erst später kommt die saelde in ihn, nachdem er durch den Zweifel hindurchgegangen ist. Der Zweifel ist in ihm, das Durchrütteltwerden mit dem Herz-Lungensystem. Nachdem er da hindurchgegangen ist, findet er den Einzug in die saelde.

[ 33 ] Und es gibt eine solche Möglichkeit, bis in die Glieder des menschlichen Organismus hinein zu verfolgen, was an Stimmungen in der großen Weltgeschichte vorgeht. Man kann sagen: Bei den tonangebenden Menschen, bei denjenigen, die solch ein Parzival-Motiv ausgestaltet haben, bei denen ist es so, daß sie die Pioniere, die ersten Vorläufer waren dieser neuzeitlichen Menschheitsorganisation, die übergegangen ist von der alten Nierentätigkeit zu der neueren Lebertätigkeit.

[ 34 ] Man muß so etwas nicht verachten. Man muß nicht sagen: Das ist das niedere Sinnliche. —- Gott hat es auch nicht verachtet, die niedere Materie zu schaffen, sondern er hat sie eben geschaffen. Ebenso obliegt es der Erkenntnis, bis in die äußersten Ausläufer des Materiellen hinein die göttliche Schöpfertätigkeit zu verfolgen, und nicht nur ein vornehmer Historiker zu sein, der den Parzival schildert und der sagt: Wenn man den Parzival schildert, darf man nicht zugleich etwas so Niedriges wie die physiologische Tätigkeit des Menschen ins Auge fassen.

[ 35 ] Die Welt ist eines, und man muß, um die großen geschichtlichen Zusammenhänge zu verstehen, zu gleicher Zeit wirklich hineinleuchten können von da aus in die einzelnen menschlichen Zusammenhänge. Davon haben ältere Zeiten noch durchaus, auch im Mittelalter, Spuren von Erkenntnissen gehabt. Sie können das in Beschreibungen hinein verfolgen, wie in die des «Armen Heinrich», wo wir sehen, wie noch moralische Heilungen stattfinden und so weiter.

[ 36 ] Diese Dinge, die sollten Sie zunächst einmal heute vorläufig hinweisen darauf, daß alles menschliche Erkennen eine große Einheit darstellt, daß man von dem, was mit den höchsten religiösen Ideen erfaßt werden muß, heruntersteigen kann bis zu dem, was die Menschen oftmals für so Niedriges halten, daß sie es nicht betrachten wollen. Schuld daran ist eben die Gestalt, welche die Wissenschaft der Gegenwart angenommen hat, die gar nicht weiß, daß man eben den Geist bis in die äußersten Verzweigungen der Materie hinein verfolgen muß; aber dann erst lernt man allmählich die Welt verstehen. Dann erst lernt man auch sich emporringen zu einer wirklich religiösen Auffassung der Welt; während sie sonst eben vielfach nur eine egoistische ist, eine Auffassung, die auf die egoistischen Motive des Menschen spekuliert, die aber nicht in die Erkenntnis hineingeht, wodurch wir durchaus in einen Verfall, nicht in einen Aufschwung der Zivilisation kommen.

[ 37 ] Der Aufschwung der Zivilisation ist denn doch damit verknüpft, daß die Leute das Licht in sich hineinbekommen und die Welt im Lichte betrachten und nicht in der Dunkelheit. Die heutige Physiologie und Anatomie, die die Menschen bloß auf den Seziertisch legt, bloß die Symptome betrachtet, die sich auch noch mit materialistischer Wissenschaft am kranken Menschen beobachten lassen, die kommt eben nicht dahin, wirklich innerlich den Menschen zu verstehen.

[ 38 ] Man kann sagen: aufgenommen die Nahrungsstoffe, getötet, belebt, astralisiert, in das Ich umgewandelt, dann erst versteht man Ptyalin, Pepsin in der aufgenommenen, ertöteten Nahrung. Übergeführt in die Lymphdrüsen, zum Herzen übergeführt, vom Herzen befeuert, von den Nieren durchstrahlt, alles astralisch gemacht, von der Leberfunktion aufgenommen und in das Ich übergeführt. Dann kann das ganze von der Milztätigkeit aufgefangen werden, und dann wird der Mensch durch die Milztätigkeit unter Umständen zu einem Enthusiasten gemacht, zu einem, der Kraft empfängt aus der geistigen Welt, oder aber auch er wird durch die Milztätigkeit zum spleenigen, kopfhängerischen Menschen gemacht, der nur auf seinem Stuhl sitzen will, der sich am liebsten nicht vom Geiste durchdringen lassen will, nicht denken will. Solche Menschen gibt es heute zahlreiche. Sie bringen einen zur Verzweiflung, weil sie auf ihren Stühlen sitzen, nur eine schwere Masse eigentlich, wie wenn sie gar keinen Kopf hätten. Die Milztätigkeit, die etwas Hohes sein könnte im Menschen, wirkt eigentlich zerdrückend auf diese Menschen. Statt Enthusiasmus haben sie Spleen, und der tritt schon in den verschiedensten Formen heute auf.

[ 39 ] Aber man braucht heute jene Arbeit, welche möglichst viel Spleen in Enthusiasmus, in Feuer umwandelt, so daß die Menschen eben nicht nur eine schläfrige, sondern eine wache Zivilisation haben. Das ist dasjenige, was eigentlich von Anthroposophie ausgehen soll, wach sein, Enthusiasmus haben, die Erkenntnis in wirkliche Tätigkeit, in Tat überführen, so daß der Mensch nicht nur etwas weiß, sondern etwas wird durch Anthroposophie. Dann erst hat die Anthroposopbie ein Ziel und kann ein solches Ziel auch wirklich erreichen. Aber durch Anthroposophie schläfrig werden, heißt eben, der physischen Qualität der Milz viel zu viel Respekt zuerkennen und die hohen geistigen Eigenschaften der Milz nicht fruktifizieren. Das aber weist hin auf etwas, was die gegenwärtige Menschheit gar sehr braucht. Feuer braucht sie, Enthusiasmus braucht sie, begeistert sein können für irgend etwas. Solange wir das nicht können, so lange werden wir immer nur an uns selbst denken, und das bedeutet, zu großen Wert legen auch auf dasjenige, was in uns abgesondert wird als Harnsäure, Harnstoffe, die eigentlich dazu bestimmt sind, nicht in einen Kreis — Zelle, Eiweiß -, sondern in jenes fluktuierende Eiweiß übergeführt zu werden, das wir eigentlich ganz sind. Wir sind im Grunde genommen ein in lebhafter Bewegung fortwährend begriffenes lebendiges, aber großes Zellenhaftes; denn wir haben den Kohlenstoff in uns, wir bekommen den Sauerstoff, indem die Nahrungsmittel ätherisiert werden, wir bekommen den Stickstoff, indem die Nahrungsmittel durchstrahlt werden von der Nierentätigkeit, wir bekommen den Wasserstoff, indem die Leberfunktion hineinspielt im Zusammenhange mit der Sinnestätigkeit, wir bekommen auf diesem Wege schon auch den Schwefel, entweder den unangemessenen, der heute zumeist geredet wird, oder den ordentlichen Schwefel. Aber wir bekommen schon dasjenige, was notwendig ist, damit wir ein lebendiges Wesen sind, das aus Eiweiß, Kohlenstoff, Sauerstoff, Stickstoff besteht, und auch aus Schwefel, aber wie gesagt, es muß eben ordentlicher Schwefel sein. Heute ist noch zuviel von der anderen Sorte vorhanden, von der Sorte, wie es die Studenten meinten von jenem Philosophieprofessor in Würzburg. Der war so langweilig geworden, daß er zuletzt noch zwei Studenten hatte; da konnte er sein Kollegium nur noch zu dreien lesen, aber man ist dann selbst der dritte. Und endlich war keiner mehr da. Und dann hat er an seiner Türe geschrieben gefunden «Schwefelbude». Die Sorte meine ich nicht; die ist heute zu sehr verbreitet. Aber was der Mensch sein muß, das ist ein durch und durch Lebendiges, durch und durch Durchseeltes, Durchgeistigtes. Und das kann man schon auch lernen, gerade wenn man es bis in die äußersten Verzweigungen des Stofflichen betrachtet. Dann werden wir erst eine Physiologie bekommen, dann werden wir auch erst etwas bekommen, was auch therapeutisch an die Menschennatur wirklich heran kann.

Spiritual Connections in the Formation of the Human Organism II

[ 1 ] Today I would like to show how that which is to be understood in man can serve as a basis for considering larger historical connections, so that perhaps tomorrow we can move on to understanding something in this direction precisely from the present. I already spoke the day before yesterday about man himself in his constitution. Today I would like to do this from a different point of view.

[ 2 ] Let us simply look at man as he stands in life day by day, and first of all today from the most mundane side. Man must nourish himself in order to maintain himself. He must absorb into his own organism what we usually call the substances of nature from the animal, vegetable and partly also from the mineral kingdom. But what the human being absorbs from the external environment undergoes a tremendous transformation in the human organism. First of all, when we take in food in the usual way, we get it into our organism in the same way as it is outside in the surrounding nature, perhaps prepared a little. Through our breathing we also get the air into us in the same state as it is present in our environment. Let us now disregard other things that are basically even more important, for example light, which we also receive from the environment in the same form as light; but food and air must also undergo a tremendous transformation in our organism so that they can fill our organism, so that they become human in our organism, so to speak.

[ 3 ] Except as described, the process is a well-known one today. We take in the food when we first stop at it, as I said, perhaps already somewhat prepared. We first process it, namely through the secretion of the glands, the rest of the digestive apparatus, we take it in, rinse it, soak it with a substance called ptyalin, which is secreted by the oral salivary glands. We then bring the food further into our digestive system. I do not have to characterize the path that is taken here. But I must characterize the whole process for you. The fact that we take the food into ourselves, process it within us, changes it somewhat from what it is outside in the environment. What the food becomes inside us, it could never become through external processes. In the chemical laboratory we can process the substances that make up our food in the most diverse ways. This is not what happens to the food when we bring it into our stomach and from there into our digestive system. The food actually becomes something quite different from what it is on the outside at first.

[ 4 ] The first thing that happens to them is that every trace of external life is, so to speak, eradicated from them. People enjoy flesh. This is taken from the external environment, from the animal kingdom. But by eating it, people drive out everything that these foods represent in the animal bodies, precisely through pre-digestion, I would say, and further digestion. All the life that the plant foods have in them because they belong to a living being in the plant must first be driven out. We only absorb the actual mineral components as external material substances. If we add salt to our food, which is therefore already externally of a mineral nature, if we add sugar, which, even though it may come from the organic kingdom, has already been driven so far by the external preparation that it has already been made dead, then we have taken in something already dead. This undergoes the least transformation in us; it really only undergoes a transformation that could also be carried out externally in a laboratory. But everything that enters our organism from the animal and plant kingdoms must first be thoroughly killed, if I want to put it that way.

[ 5 ] We also do a kind of pre-killing in our cooking, so to speak, by subjecting the food to heat and so on. This is thoroughly taken care of by our digestion, so that when our food has undergone a certain inner development up to the intestines, when it has reached these lower digestive organs, essentially everything is driven out of it that it is externally, for example, that animal food is subject to the astral body and the etheric body of the animal, that vegetable food is subject to the etheric body of the plants, and so on. So first of all it must be ensured that all food is dead on the way from the mouth to the intestine.

[ 6 ] Because the food now reaches those glandular organs which then transfer the food from the intestine into the lymphatic vessels and into the blood vessels, a revitalization of the food must take place on this way back. The food must first become dead in us and must then be revitalized. We could not tolerate in our human organism a continuation of that life which is present in the animal from which we take the food, or which is present in the plant. At most we can absorb inorganic nature in such a way that it offers us our own laws. We could not, let us say, eat cabbage, could not allow it to reach our intestinal villi during digestion in such a way that the same etheric forces would still be present in it that cabbage has by virtue of belonging to a plant. The etheric, the astral, which the food has, must first be removed. And then our own etheric body must be able to absorb and revitalize that which we absorb. The life of the food in us must come from us. And this happens on the way from the intestinal organization through the vessels to the heart. So that we can say: as the food enters the blood, as the blood passes through the heart, our etheric body absorbs that which is transferred into us in the form of food that has first been killed. So that you can imagine: When the food then passes from the mouth into the intestine, the last traces of the outside world are gradually lost, but here (see drawing, red) they are revitalized as far as the heart. This revitalization means that they are absorbed by our own etheric body. But they would now have too little of the character of the earthly if only what I have described to you so far had happened. For we would have to be beings who have only a mouth and digestive apparatus up to the heart, and then we would have to begin to be angels, for our etheric body would absorb the food and dissolve it completely. We would not be able to be earthly. We would then have to be such flying mouths with attached gullets, and still have stomach and intestines and heart, and then, wouldn't it, all that would be absorbed by our etheric body. But otherwise we would have to be etheric bodies, and the food would then evaporate in the etheric body. We would not be able to be an earthling. The fact that we can be is brought about by the fact that the oxygen of the air is now absorbed. Thus the oxygen of the air is taken into that which is permeated by food from the etheric body, and thereby the possibility remains for us that we are earthly, carnal human beings here on earth between birth and death (see drawing, light). So the oxygen in turn makes that which would otherwise evaporate in our etheric body into the earthly living. Oxygen is the substance that transforms something that would otherwise only form as an ethereal substance into the earthly. We have now come as far as the connection between heart and lungs. The heart would not yet make us an earthly human being, but it would only bring us so far that we would now connect our etheric body to the heart and fly around on earth as such angels, who would therefore perhaps have ingredients that seem less beautiful to some, such as mouth, throat, intestines and vessels up to the heart. But because the heart is connected to the lungs and absorbs oxygen, the intake of food is not only etherealized but also terrestrialized.

[ 7 ] Now comes the necessity that that which is now absorbed by our etheric body is saturated with oxygen, so that we can be earthly human beings, must be inserted into the astral body. This has not yet been absorbed by the astral body, it has only been absorbed by the etheric body. The activity must now be developed so that everything that has developed up to the heart-lung activity is absorbed by the whole organism, but in such a way that the astral organism also has something to do. This activity is mediated by the human kidney system, which now separates what is useless from the substances that are absorbed, but conducts the rest into the whole organism in ways that today's physiology does not actually describe, but which are present.

[ 8 ] And there, if I may express myself in this way, the whole pulp, which already remains alive - it has only been completely killed in the intestinal canal, is then revitalized and saturated with oxygen - is now, through the activity of the renal system, which extends over the whole organism and radiates everywhere, into the astral body, so that it can now cooperate in the further shaping of what is brought about in us by the food (see drawing page 71, yellow).

[ 9 ] This astral organism, insofar as it receives its impulses from the kidney system, is now in turn connected with the head-sense system, which is, so to speak, like a blanket over it. And the kidney and head systems together now work continuously in such a way that that which is actually fluid and blurred through the heart's activity is now formed into the special organs. If there were only mouth, stomach, intestines, heart and lungs, we would not have solid organs at all, but the stomach itself would have to be a blurring, a moving organ, as would the lungs, as would the heart. None of these could be solid. These organs are formed from the kidneys, and the kidneys are helped by that which emanates from the head.

[ 10 ] The organs must not only be formed during childhood, but continuously, because our organs are constantly being destroyed. In the course of seven to eight years such an organ as the stomach, for example, is completely destroyed. Its substance disappears completely and is renewed again and again. There must always be formative forces that renew these organs. Much more work has to be done on them in childhood. Later on, however, these formative forces are still there.

[ 11 ] This is what happens (see drawing on page 74): The kidney system, which radiates these forces on one side, would only produce the organs on one side. It would, for example, form a lung - seen from the side - in such a way that it would be quite nicely limited backwards, but it would blur towards the front, it would float out of there. Now the force must come towards it from the head, so that the front surface is formed from the head, so that the individual forms of the human being are always shaped in such a way that the kidney, as it were, radiates the forces, and from the head then come the forces which contain it in such a way that the organs receive contours, become rounded. The surfaces are formed externally from the head. The kidney, however, delivers a kind of radiation into the organism. It is roughly the same, let us say, as if I wanted to sculpt something. I take mortar or some soft substance in one hand, and now I learn to throw the mortar up with one hand (see drawing, yellow, red) and smooth it down with the other. The one, the throwing up, is the kidneys, I could do this in such a way that I have some vat where I take the substance (see drawing); I throw this up, smooth it off at the top and in this way I get these organs, which actually radiate out and are molded. In this way the organs are formed in connection with the kidney system and the head system, and the forces of the astral body are at work in them. So this is something that takes place under an extraordinarily strong change of nitrogen. The nitrogen is no longer what it is on the outside, because the nitrogen, which still retains the similarity to the external nitrogen, then passes away through the uric acid and the urea. But that which emanates from the kidneys and is processed is actually nitrogen that has been changed internally right into the active forces of the astral body. This is something quite different from the external nitrogen.

[ 12 ] There you have that which the human being receives as food, driven to the point where it is absorbed into the astrality, into the astral body of the human organism. These processes, as I have now described them to you, somewhat modified, also take place in animals. The animal also has these processes, indeed even more advanced processes in the higher animals. In the lower animals, however, there are at most only hints of what is to come. The higher animals, however, have it because they have branched off from the human race; they still have it, but it is deformed and degenerated in them.

[ 13 ] Now, something else radiates into all that is formed there. So first we have this driving of the foodstuffs to the point of death. Then we get about so far that we have the pancreas as one of the last glands which brings the things so far that they can then, by drifting towards the lymph, be animated and absorbed into the etheric body; then through the communication from the heart to the kidneys the whole is driven into the astral body. But now the ego must also be engaged. Everything that is in our organism must be taken up by the ego.

[ 14 ] Now I have shown you how that which unites with us is taken up by the etheric and astral organism, how it is absorbed by the renal system and radiated into the astral, how it is made into the earthly with the help of nitrogen. Otherwise we would have to become angels again if it were not for the nitrogen working in us, which in turn maintains the astral body within the earthly body from the renal system. But the whole thing would not form us in such a way that the ego also participates in the whole, if the liver system were not there (see drawing page 71, blue). The liver system drives the whole into the ego. You see, it is the continuation of the heart effect, because the heart effect even extends into the intestines.

[ 15 ] The absorption through the lymph vessels is something else that belongs to the heart. As a rule, the heart is the organ that, together with the lungs, drives the external substances into our own etheric system. From there it is the kidney system that drives it into our astral. And the liver system with its bile secretion drives the whole thing into our actual ego. The bile and liver system is also only found in the higher animal kingdom; not in lower animals, not even bile acid is found there in the bodily substances. The liver system, therefore, with its peculiar construction of the portal vein and so on - this can also be proved anatomically in every part - now leads the whole in such a way that it is seized by the ego. If everything that is radiated through the kidneys in the body were present alone, it would only be absorbed by the astral body. Because the liver is present, the bile is secreted from the liver and is already mixed with the chyme in the intestine, and so the whole is already permeated with liver products (see drawing page 71, blue), it is then driven into the ego organism. Thus our ego-organism also participates in the whole structure of the human organization through the liver, which essentially has hydrogen as its physical representative. Man actually has nothing living, nothing astral to take in from outside; what he takes in from outside he must first transform in his own organ system in such a way that it can be absorbed into his own astral and into his own etheric and into his ego system.

[ 16 ] There we have the whole, I would say, normal organization of the human being. Think how it must all fit together. For example, the activity of the kidneys must not be interrupted; if the activity of the kidneys is interrupted by a congested or shrunken kidney, then the astral body is not utilized. In reality it is even the other way round: if the astral body is not in order, then the congested or shrunken kidney arises. So that in the constitution of the kidney, when a congested or shrunken kidney is present, we have a clear image of what is actually going on in the astral body of the human being, just as in a degenerated heart we have an exact image of what is going on in the etheric body of the human being. I told you last time that there is even a harmony of rhythm. In that which radiates up from the kidneys (see drawing page 71, yellow) there are always four impulses, while in that which comes from above, from the head, rounding off, there is only one impulse. This is the same relationship as is expressed in the relationship between breath and pulse. So, if I may use this comparison again, I would have to round four times slower with my hand. This is how the organism does it (see drawing on page 74, below).

[ 17 ] This must all be correct in the finest way, otherwise it won't work. Being ill means that it is not right. Suppose, for example, that the etheric body is completely in order, but the astral body is not powerful enough to absorb everything that flows from the heart to the kidneys and to process it in the right way. This can happen in such a way that the etheric body works too hard. I said it was all right, but let us now assume that it is working too hard. If the etheric body works too hard and the astral body is normal, congestion can arise with its peculiar consequences. If the etheric body works properly and the astral body works too strongly, the kidneys are not used enough. Because the astral body works too strongly, that which radiates over is taken up by it, without the kidney cooperating in the correct regulation in an orderly manner. Thus the kidney is switched off, and the shrunken kidney arises, which at the same time, because it acts back, leads to a degeneration of the heart function and of the heart itself.

[ 18 ] You see that in this way one can see together what is going on in the human organism, and that one can see from the degeneration of the organs how the members of the human being, physical body, etheric body, astral body and ego do not work together in the right way.

[ 19 ] You just have to realize that all these things have to be coordinated and work together in the right way. Suppose, for example, that some organ system is not properly permeated by some part of the human organism, for instance by the astral body, then this can happen in two ways. Either that which emanates from the renal system - that is, the rounding off takes place from the head, the radiation from the renal system - is too strongly stimulated, so that actually everything that works from the heart towards the renal system is too strong a stimulation for the renal system. In this too strong stimulation you actually have to look for the ultimate causes for all inflammations, for everything that is inflammatory and ulcerous in the human organism. You only have to look for the way in which such an inflammation arises somewhere in the organism, and then you have to try to balance it out with the remedy in such a way that you limit this too strong effect on kidney activity.

[ 20 ] The simplest means of achieving this is to try to curb in some way the excessive development of radiant inner body heat, which is always in the wake, by bringing about an inner cooling by supplying precisely those substances that develop in the flower organs of the plants. That is the peculiarity of those substances that develop in the flowering organs of plants, that they can be used to counteract inflammation by bringing about an inner cooling. Or it can also be the case that the plastic head activity, which counteracts the kidney activity, has too strong an effect. Then tumor-like formations develop. In these cases the plastic, rounding activity, I would like to say the crystallizing activity, is too great. Then, by bringing in heat from the outside - but you have to bring it in the right way - you have to envelop the tumor externally with heat, so to speak, so that it is gradually healed from the outside (see drawing, yellow, red). All tumors are actually healed from the outside, one only has to bring about the possibility in the organism, let's say, by injecting substances that spread in a certain way, to bring it through a certain substance in some way to a radiation around the tumor (red). So that gradually, when you bring it to the point where the tumor is irradiated from the outside and is radiated around, it is brought to dissolution; then it crumbles and ceases. If you have an inflammation, on the other hand, you must bring the remedy through the digestive apparatus into the organ where the inflammation is located, and bring a cooling agent from the digestive apparatus. Inflammation must be treated from the inside (see drawing on the right).

[ 21 ] You just have to find the ways. Each substance has a specific spread in the human organism. There are, for example, substances which, when they are supplied to man through the mouth, do not concern themselves with the esophagus; it is all the same to them, all pepsin, ptyalin and so on, they only concern themselves with the heart, for example. For others, again, the heart is the same; they are first led through the stomach, through the heart to the kidneys, only there do they become active. Thus every substance has its inner affinity. You only have to use the right substances. But there are also substances which, if you inoculated them, would not even bother with a stomach carcinoma. They have no affinity for it at all, but they do take care of, let's say, breast cancer.

[ 22 ] So you have to find a way to attack an ulcer or an inflammation internally, or to take something from the outside, to lay siege to it, so to speak. The tumors must be besieged from the outside. This is how things have to be studied in the organism and they have to be in harmony. To do this, of course, one must know these higher members of human nature. It is impossible to talk about the kidney at all if you simply lay the human being on the dissecting table and cut him open after he has died. Then the kidney lies next to the liver for my sake; but what else do we know about the kidney and liver than that both consist of cells, are made up of cells in different ways. For the kidney has an intimate relationship to the astral body, and the liver to the ego. This is what gives them their character. Without this, the whole thing is pointless to define or consider.

[ 23 ] If you now take such an organ as the spleen, ordinary physiology and medicine do not have much to say about it. In all the relevant textbooks you will find everywhere the remark: Nothing is known about the spleen today. - You will find this everywhere, just look it up. That's not surprising at all. You see, the genius of language is actually wiser than science in this field. In this case, in other cases, the German linguistic genius is an extraordinarily wise one - it is even the English linguistic genius that calls the spleen a “spleen”. And that is an extraordinarily favorable designation, for the spleen is connected with all those activities of the human being that go beyond the ego, that already approach the spirit self, and the spleen is actually the organ of the spirit self. It already goes completely into the spiritual. It's just that you have to be able to tolerate it. Most people cannot tolerate the truly spiritual, and they are therefore not stimulated by the spleen activity to activity in the spiritual, to the spiritual, but they become “spleeny”. They become down-tuned. The “spleen” is nothing other than a spirit which, instead of going into the head, devours itself into the intestines. So “spleen” is an extraordinarily good term, which points precisely to the spiritual, for which the spleen is the corresponding organ.

[ 24 ] This is why the spleen also has a balancing effect, as described in the brochure prepared by our Stuttgart Physiological Institute, in particular by Dr. Kolisko, where spleen activity is described in connection with the formation of platelets and the entire digestive activity. For once, a scientific and systematic presentation of spleen activity has been undertaken in the first appendix. If such work were to be done in another research institute, it would very soon be regarded as something extraordinarily epoch-making. But the fact is that when something is created in our circle, in the bosom of our society, it does not get out into the world. People don't talk about it. It is not necessary to talk about it in order to praise it, but because it could have a beneficial effect in the context of the whole of contemporary society. But the beginning of not talking about the matter is already being made in our Anthroposophical Society. I would like to take a vote on how many of our members have had the opportunity for the full significance of the matter to really get through to them! It is not surprising then that if the Anthroposophical Society is already beginning to ignore what is happening within us, this will naturally also have an effect on the outside world. In fact, we do not work bioß with the exclusion of the public, but in the most important things also with the exclusion of the interest of the Anthroposophical Society! But that is what I want to say - today at least - only in parenthesis. What is important, however, is that we can really only understand the human organism if we understand its higher structure.

[ 25 ] You can see how finely these things must fit together. Something is immediately out of order in the organism if something is working into the astral organism that is not going on properly, because at that moment the kidneys are not working properly, and then all the consequences of improper kidney activity occur.

[ 26 ] But this is not the case for humans in general; it changes from age to age. Man is an incredibly fine organization, but it is not always the same. If we go back only a few centuries - not true, a few centuries are not much for the overall development - we come, for example, to the time in which the present age, the actual epoch of the development of consciousness, began. We come back to the 15th, 14th, 13th century in the post-Christian era. It was indeed the case that in the civilized world - as grotesque as it may seem to people today - kidney activity was the most important thing throughout the entire period from the 4th century to the 14th century; and since then it has become liver activity for the entire human nature.

[ 27 ] I would like to say: the anatomy and physiology of man changes over the centuries, and especially over the millennia, and one cannot study history if one does not go into the fine structure of man and know how such transformations of the external phenomena of civilization, such as those from the Middle Ages to the new era, are also linked to a transformation of the entire organization of mankind.

[ 28 ] We must come to such things again, otherwise science will always remain on the one side, becoming more and more irreligious and anti-religious, because in the end it only gropes around with the dissecting knife and the probe and so on, and on the other side religious life, which no longer has anything to say about the world, but only addresses man's egoistic instincts for life after death. These things stand side by side. Our present-day religiosity has completely forgotten that God created the world. It still speaks of the divine, but it has forgotten that God created the world and that the traces of divine creation can be found everywhere in the things of the world. One must not only speak of abstract cloud-cuckoo-land-like transformations of civilization in history, but one must know how precisely through the delicate human organization, through this tuning of the infinitely fine clockwork of human organization, the divine creative forces transform man, how by once, I would like to say, tightening the string of kidney activity a little more strongly, then slackening it, and then tightening the string of liver activity, a completely different music of civilization emerges.

[ 29 ] Only if we do not confine ourselves to contemplating a separate God, but pursue the God into his individual activity, will we have what humanity needs in the future; otherwise it will finally cultivate the abstract completely and come to a purely materialistic science. Only if we can penetrate into the concrete details of the material effects in divine creation will we be able to penetrate religion with science and lead science back to religion.

[ 30 ] And you see, around the turn of the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries, a view emerges in Europe that I have already characterized from various angles, and which expresses itself in the Grail Saga, in the Parzival Saga, in everything that poets such as Wolfram von Eschenbach, Hartmann von Aue, Gottfried von Strassburg and so on wrote. That's where the motifs appear. In the Parzival poetry, in the real Parzival poetry, one motif in particular emerges, which consists in the fact that one suddenly wants to depict how man should develop towards what was then called “saelde”. This is the feeling of a certain inner happiness, saelde, related to our bliss, but not the same, saelde is being permeated with a certain inner feeling of happiness. This emerges and actually dominates the entire civilization of the 13th and 14th centuries. All poetic motifs, even all prosaic motifs, but especially the Parzival motif, are permeated by it, and everything strives towards it. One strives for this saelde, for this inner feeling of happiness, which, however, is not supposed to be irreligious, not an inner feeling of happiness, but rather a feeling of being imbued with the divine creative powers.

[ 31 ] Why does this come up? It comes up because this transition takes place from kidney activity to liver activity. You can understand this if you have recourse to physiology. The earlier physiologists were, in a certain respect of course, better physiologists than the materialistic physiologists of the present day; these were the writers of the Old Testament, where, for example, it was said when one had bad dreams - I have already drawn attention to this - that the Lord punished me through my kidneys that night. - This knowledge of certain connections between abnormal kidney activity and bad dreams then continued, and in the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries, for example, people were still deeply imbued with the idea that one becomes heavy through kidney activity. The activity of the kidneys had gradually become something heavy for people. Of course, on the outside you only talk about something that had become heavy. You couldn't really get out of it. One clung to the earthly. And then one felt this pushing through with bile from the physical side, which, however, was connected with a “through-soul-ing”, as a redemption, an inner redemption - an inner, but God-filled feeling of happiness, a striving away from the dullness of the kidney. The kidney also develops a thinking activity; the kidney develops the dull thinking activity in the human being in a roundabout way through the ganglionic system, which is then connected by induction with the spinal cord system and with the brain system; it develops in particular the thinking that played a great role in the Middle Ages. At that time it was called “dullness”. And this development from dullness to enlightenment, saelde, was something that became the Parzival motif. Parzival evolves from dullness to enlightenment.

[ 32 ] You can't just look at it in an abstract way, you also have to look at it with some feeling and emotion. In the beginning, Parzival is as he emerges from his difficult culture. You can't really get him moving. Only later does the saelde come into him, after he has gone through the doubt. The doubt is in him, the shaking through with the heart-lung system. After he has passed through it, he finds his way into the saelde.

[ 33 ] And there is such a possibility to follow into the limbs of the human organism what moods are going on in the great world history. One can say: In the case of the people who set the tone, in the case of those who have developed such a Parzival motif, it is so that they were the pioneers, the first forerunners of this modern human organization, which has gone over from the old kidney activity to the newer liver activity.

[ 34 ] You don't have to despise something like that. One need not say: This is the lower sensual. -- God did not despise the creation of lower matter, but created it. In the same way, it is incumbent upon knowledge to follow the divine creative activity right down to the outermost fringes of the material, and not just to be a distinguished historian who describes Parzival and says: "When describing Parzival, one must not at the same time consider something as lowly as the physiological activity of man.

[ 35 ] The world is one, and in order to understand the great historical contexts, one must at the same time be able to really shine a light from there into the individual human contexts. Older times, even in the Middle Ages, still had traces of this knowledge. You can follow this in descriptions such as that of “Poor Henry”, where we see how moral healings still take place and so on.

[ 36 ] These things should first of all point out to you today that all human cognition represents a great unity, that one can descend from that which must be grasped with the highest religious ideas to that which people often consider so low that they do not want to contemplate it. The reason for this is precisely the form which contemporary science has taken, which does not realize that one must follow the spirit into the outermost ramifications of matter; but only then does one gradually learn to understand the world. Only then does one also learn to rise to a truly religious conception of the world; whereas otherwise it is often only an egoistic one, a conception which speculates on the egoistic motives of man, but which does not enter into knowledge, as a result of which we certainly come to a decline, not to an upswing of civilization.

[ 37 ] The upswing of civilization is linked to the fact that people get the light into themselves and look at the world in the light and not in the darkness. Today's physiology and anatomy, which merely places people on the dissecting table and only looks at the symptoms that can still be observed in sick people using materialistic science, does not really come to understand the human being inwardly.

[ 38 ] You can say: ingested the food substances, killed, animated, astralized, transformed into the ego, only then do you understand ptyalin, pepsin in the ingested, killed food. Transferred into the lymph glands, transferred to the heart, fired by the heart, radiated through by the kidneys, everything made astral, absorbed by the liver function and transferred into the ego. Then the whole thing can be absorbed by the spleen activity, and then under certain circumstances the spleen activity can turn the person into an enthusiast, into someone who receives strength from the spiritual world, or else the spleen activity can turn him into a spleen-headed, head-hanging person who only wants to sit in his chair, who prefers not to be penetrated by the spirit, who does not want to think. There are many such people today. They drive you to despair because they sit on their chairs, just a heavy mass really, as if they had no head at all. Spleen activity, which could be something high in people, actually has a crushing effect on these people. Instead of enthusiasm, they have spleen, and this already appears in the most diverse forms today.

[ 39 ] But today we need work that transforms as much spleen as possible into enthusiasm, into fire, so that people do not just have a sleepy civilization, but an alert one. That is what anthroposophy is actually supposed to do, to be awake, to have enthusiasm, to transform knowledge into real activity, into action, so that man not only knows something, but becomes something through anthroposophy. Only then does anthroposophy have a goal and can really achieve such a goal. But to become drowsy through anthroposophy is precisely to accord far too much respect to the physical quality of the spleen and not to fruit the high spiritual qualities of the spleen. But this points to something that humanity needs very much today. It needs fire, it needs enthusiasm, it needs to be able to be enthusiastic about something. As long as we are unable to do this, we will only ever think of ourselves, and that means placing too much value on what is secreted in us as uric acid, urea, which is actually destined to be transformed not into a circle - cell, protein - but into the fluctuating protein that we actually are as a whole. Basically, we are a living, but large cellular being that is constantly in lively motion; for we have carbon in us, we get oxygen by etherizing the food, we get nitrogen by radiating the food through the activity of the kidneys, we get hydrogen by the function of the liver in connection with sensory activity, we also get sulphur in this way, either the inadequate sulphur that is mostly talked about today, or the proper sulphur. But we already get what is necessary for us to be a living being, which consists of protein, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and also of sulphur, but as I said, it has to be proper sulphur. Today there is still too much of the other kind, the kind that the students of that philosophy professor in Würzburg thought. He had become so boring that he had only two students left; he could only read three of them, but then you are the third. And finally there was no one left. And then he found “Schwefelbude” written on his door. I'm not talking about that kind; it's too common today. But what a person must be is thoroughly alive, thoroughly soulful, thoroughly spiritual. And this can also be learned, especially if we consider it down to the outermost ramifications of the material. Only then will we get a physiology, only then will we get something that can really approach human nature therapeutically.