The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Sixth Lecture

[ 1 ] It is easy to understand that karmic laws can come into play when the cause of illness manifests itself from within the human being, in the sense suggested yesterday and the day before. But if the cause of the illness acts from the outside in a certain “sense”—and for how many conditions does science today seek the cause of illness externally in infection—if, therefore, the main focus must be directed toward an external cause of the illness: that karmic law—that which a person has brought with them through birth as the effects of the experiences and actions of their past life—can also operate in such a way as to bring about these external causes of illness; this certainly still seems, and rightly so, less comprehensible to many. Nevertheless, if we continue to explore the very essence of karma, we will not only come to understand how external causes can be connected to what we have experienced and done in past lives, but we will even come to realize that external misfortunes that befall us—that is, events that people today are so quick to call “accidental”—can be in a lawful connection with the course of previous lives. However, we will have to delve somewhat deeper into the entire nature of the human being if we wish to shed light on precisely such circumstances, which are actually veiled from our entire human perception.

[ 2 ] We concluded yesterday by showing how chance always presents external events to us in a veiled form, because in those instances where we speak of chance, the possibility of external deception brought about by the Ahrimanic forces is greatest. Now let us examine the origin of such coincidences—that is, such events that are commonly referred to as “coincidences” in everyday life—in specific cases.

[ 3 ] It is therefore necessary that we first keep in mind a law, a truth, a realization: that in life, many things we describe with the expression “coming from within,” “originating from within the human being,” is in fact already cloaked in illusion, because many things that we initially believe to be caused within the human being must, when we truly move beyond the illusion, be described as something flowing from the outside in. And such a phenomenon always confronts us wherever we are dealing with all those human experiences, all those influences on the human being, which we understand under the name of “inherited characteristics.” The inherited characteristics that confront us as if we possessed them solely because our ancestors did as well can appear to us, to the highest degree, as though they had befallen us through no fault of our own, without any part played by us. And we can easily arrive at a false distinction between what we bring with us from our previous incarnations and what we have inherited from parents or ancestors. But the re-entry into an incarnation by no means takes place as if we were driven, without any cause connected to our inner being, to this or that pair of parents, to this or that people, to this or that region. Even in the case of inherited traits that do not at all fall within the realm of disease, we must by no means assume such a thing, but rather we must say to ourselves: If, for example, in a family such as that of the musician Bach, musicians of varying degrees of talent were born again and again over many generations—one is usually more outstanding, but in the Bach family over twenty more or less gifted musicians were born— one might easily believe that we are dealing with a pure hereditary line, that characteristics are thus inherited from ancestors, and that the individual, precisely because such characteristics are present, develops certain qualities brought over from earlier incarnations into musical talents. But this is not the case; rather, the matter is quite different.

[ 4 ] Let us suppose that someone, in a life between birth and death, had the opportunity to receive many musical impressions. However, these musical impressions passed him by in that life, simply because he had no ear for music. Other impressions of their life will not pass them by in the same way, because their organs are structured in such a way that they can transform these experiences and impressions into their own abilities. Therefore, we can say that a person has certain impressions in their life which they are able to transform into abilities and talents through the predispositions they brought with them from their last birth; they also have other impressions which, due to their overall karma—because they did not receive the corresponding predispositions through it—they cannot transform into the corresponding abilities. These, however, remain present, remain stored, and transform during the time between death and a new birth into a particular tendency to be lived out in the next incarnation. And this tendency leads the person to seek, in the next life, a physical existence precisely within a family that can provide them with the corresponding predispositions. So if someone has received many musical impressions but, due to a lack of musical ear, has been unable to transform them into musical abilities or enjoyment, it is precisely this impossibility that will evoke the tendency in their soul to enter a family that can bequeath a musical ear to them, Thus we understand that when the structure of the ear is inherited in a family just as, for example, the external shape of the nose is, all those individualities will flock to this family who—as a result of their previous incarnation—are yearning precisely for the possession of a musical ear. And so we see that a person has not, in fact, “accidentally” inherited a musical ear or the like in some incarnation, but that they have sought out these inherited traits, truly sought them out.

[ 5 ] If we now observe such a person from the moment of his birth, it will seem to us as though the musical ear were within him, an innate quality. But if we were to extend our observations back to before their birth, we would find that the musical ear, which they have only recently acquired, is something that came to them from the outside. Before birth or conception, the musical ear was not something that was within him; rather, there was only the tendency to be drawn toward such an ear. There, the human being drew something external to himself. Before reincarnation, the quality that we later call an inherited trait was something external; it came to the human being, and he rushed toward it. With incarnation, it then becomes something internal and manifests within the inner being of this person. — So when we speak of “inherited predispositions,” we are once again succumbing to a delusion, which consists in the fact that we do not consider something that has only just become internal at the point in time when it was still external.

[ 6 ] Let us now ask ourselves whether, as in the case we have just cited, it might not also be the case with external events that occur during our lives between birth and death—that there, too, something external might be transformed into something internal? — We would not be able to answer this question unless we examine the nature of illness and health even more deeply than we have so far. We have cited various points to characterize illness and health, and you know that I do not define, but rather attempt to describe things step by step, adding more and more characteristics to them so that they gradually become comprehensible. So let us now add more characteristics to those we have already identified.

[ 7 ] We must compare illness and health to something that occurs in everyday life; then we will find something even deeper, namely the comparison with sleeping and waking. What happens within the human being when the daily states of waking and sleeping alternate? We know that when we fall asleep, the physical body and the etheric body are left behind in bed, and that the astral body and the I emerge from the physical body and the etheric body. Falling asleep is thus for us a withdrawal of the ego and the astral body from the physical body and the etheric body; waking up, on the other hand, is a re-entry of the astral body and the ego into the physical body and the etheric body. Every morning upon waking, the human being thus immerses into their physical body and etheric body with that which they are as the inner human being, as the astral body, and as the I. What now happens with regard to what takes place within the human being as an experience during falling asleep and waking up?

[ 8 ] When we consider the moment of falling asleep, it appears to us as though all the experiences that ebb and flow through our lives from morning to night—especially the experiences of the soul: pleasure and suffering, joy and pain, passions, thoughts, and so on—sink down into the unconscious. In normal life, when we sleep, we ourselves are surrendered to the unconscious. Why do we become unconscious when we fall asleep? — We know, after all, that during sleep we are surrounded by a spiritual world, just as we are surrounded in the waking state by the things and facts of the physical-sensory world. Why do we not see this spiritual world? In ordinary, normal life, we do not see the spiritual realities and spiritual things that surround us for the simple reason that, given the current state of human development, such perception would be extremely dangerous for us from the moment we fall asleep until we wake up. The moment a person today were to consciously pass into the world that surrounds them between falling asleep and waking up, their astral body—which, after all, reached full development during the old Lunar period—would indeed flow into the spiritual world; but the I, which is only to develop during the Earth period and will be fully developed at the end of the Earth period, could not do so. The ego is not yet sufficiently developed to be able to unfold its full activity from the moment of falling asleep until waking up.

[ 9 ] The situation with the “I” is such that we could compare the state it would enter if a person were to fall asleep consciously to the following: Suppose we have a small drop of a colored liquid; we place it in a basin of water and let it disperse within it. Then we would no longer see the color of this droplet, because it has had to dissolve into the entire vast mass. — Something similar happens when a person leaves the physical body and the etheric body upon falling asleep. The physical body and the etheric body are what hold the entire human being together. The moment the astral body and the ego leave these two lower members, they strive apart in all directions, having only the urge to expand continuously. The ego would thus be dissolved, and the human being would indeed have before them the images of the spiritual world, but they would not be able to follow them with the powers that only the ego can unfold—for the ego would, after all, be dissolved— that is, with powers of judgment and conceptual understanding and so on—and thus not with the same consciousness with which he follows the events of everyday life. He would be beside himself, torn this way and that, floating aimlessly and without direction on the sea of astral impressions. For this reason—because the ego is not yet strong enough in the normal human state—the ego will continue to exert a retroactive influence on the astral body and prevent it from consciously entering its true home, the spiritual world, until the ego itself can accompany the astral body wherever it goes. Thus, it makes good sense that we lose consciousness when falling asleep. We could not preserve our ego. We will only be able to retain it sufficiently when the Earth’s evolution has reached its end. That is why we should not be able to develop our astral body in terms of its capacity for consciousness.

[ 10 ] The exact opposite happens when a person wakes up. When they wake up and sink into their physical and etheric bodies, they should actually experience the inner workings of those bodies. But they do not. At the moment of waking, they are prevented from looking into the innermost depths of their physical being, for their attention is immediately directed toward external experiences. Their power of vision, their power of insight, is not directed toward penetrating their inner being, but is diverted toward the external world. If a person were to grasp their inner self, the exact opposite of what occurs when a person could consciously enter the spiritual world upon falling asleep would take place. Everything that a person has already attained spiritually through their ego in the course of their earthly life would gather together, and it would now act upon them with all its power in the physical and etheric bodies after the descent. This would result in everything that is in any way an egoistic quality unfolding with all its might. And the human being would descend with his ego, and with every step he takes downward, he would pour out his passions, drives, and desires into an ever more powerful egoism. All egoism would pour into his life of drives. To prevent this from happening, we are distracted by the external world and are not allowed to turn our consciousness inward.

[ 11 ] This is also evident from the accounts of those mystics who sought to truly penetrate the innermost depths of the human soul. Take a look at Meister Eckhart, Johannes Tauler, or other medieval mystics who truly undertook the journey into the human inner world. There you will find mystics who devoted themselves to a state in which they completely diverted their attention from whatever might interest them in the external world in order to descend into their own inner being. Read the biographies of the saints or the mystics who attempted to descend into their own inner being. What did they experience? Temptations, trials, and the like, which they describe in vivid detail. That was what asserted itself as a counterforce arising from the compressed astral body and the ego. That is why those who, so to speak, wished to descend into their own inner being as mystics unscathed, insisted with all their might that, to the same extent that they descended, the ego be extinguished. Meister Eckhart even found a beautiful word to describe this descent into one’s own physicality. He speaks of “Entwerdung,” that is, the extinguishing of the ego. And read in *German Theology* how the author describes the mystical journey into the human interior, how he insists that the one who wishes to descend into physicality no longer acts from his ego, but that Christ acts within him, with whom he has become completely imbued. Such mystics wished to extinguish their ego. It is not they who are to think, feel, and will, but Christ within them who is to think, feel, and will, so that what emerges from them is not that which lives within them as passions, instincts, and desires, but rather that which pours into them as Christ. Hence Paul says: “Not I, but Christ in me”! Such things arise from such depths.

[ 12 ] Thus we can describe waking and falling asleep as inner experiences of the human being: Waking up as a sinking of the compressed sense of self into the physicality of the human being, falling asleep as a liberation from consciousness, because one is not yet ready to look into that world into which one must actually enter when falling asleep. In this way, we understand waking and sleeping in the same sense in which we must understand many things in the world: as the interpenetration of the various members of the human being. If we consider a waking human being from this point of view, we say: Within the waking human being there are four members of the human being: physical body, etheric body, astral body, and ego, and they are interwoven in a specific way. What follows from this? Precisely waking! For a human being could not wake if they did not enter into their physicality in such a way that their attention is diverted by the external world. It depends precisely on a very specific, regulated interaction of the four members of the human being that the human being wakes. And again, it depends on the proper separation of these four members that the human being sleeps. It is not enough for us to say: Human beings consist of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and an I; rather, we understand human beings only when we know to what degree the various members are linked with one another in a particular state, how they fit together. This is essential for the understanding of human nature. Now let us regard the manner in which the four members of the human being are joined together, as it presents itself to us in the waking human being, as the normal state. Let us start from this concept: to regard the state of the waking human being as the normal state.

[ 13 ] Now, most of you will recall that the consciousness we currently possess as human beings on Earth, between birth and death, is only one of the many possible forms of consciousness. If, for example, you study *Outlines of Esoteric Science* or the earlier essays “From the Akashic Records,” you will see that today’s consciousness is one of seven distinct levels of consciousness, that this consciousness we possess today has developed from three preceding states of consciousness and will later evolve into three subsequent forms of consciousness. While the human being was a lunar human, he did not yet have an “I.” The “I” only became connected with the human being during the Earth period. Therefore, the human being could only possess the present form of consciousness during the Earth period. A consciousness such as the one we have today between birth and death presupposes that the ego interacts with the other three members exactly as it does today, and is the highest of the four members of the human being. Before the human being was endowed with the ego, he consisted only of the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body. There the astral body was its highest member, and its state of consciousness was such that today, at most, if we take something from ordinary life, we could compare it to what human beings have preserved like an old heirloom in their dream consciousness. But you must not imagine today’s dream consciousness, but rather one that reflects realities in the images of the dream. If you study today’s dream, you will find quite a lot of chaos in the most varied images, because today’s dream consciousness is an old heirloom. But if you were to study the consciousness that preceded today’s, you would find that you would not have seen external objects, such as plants, back then. Thus, an external impression on the person would have been impossible. If something had come near the person, they would have received an impression that takes a detour through the dream image into the human interior—an image that is a symbol, but one that would have corresponded to a specific external object and impression.

[ 14 ] So, prior to ego-consciousness, we are dealing with a type of consciousness that is bound to the astral body—which was then the highest member of the being—namely, astral consciousness, which is dull and dim and has not yet been illuminated by the light of the ego. This astral consciousness was, when the human being became an earthly human, overshadowed and drowned out by the ego-consciousness. But the astral body is still within us, and we may ask: How did it come to pass that our astral consciousness could be drowned out and suppressed at all, so that the ego-consciousness could take its place entirely? — This became possible because, through the fertilization of the human being with the ego, the former connection between the astral body and the etheric body was made much looser. The former, more intimate connection has been dissolved, so to speak. Thus, before ego-consciousness, there was a much more intimate connection between the human being’s astral body and the lower members of their being. The astral body intruded much more into the other members than it does today. In a certain sense, the astral body has been torn away from the etheric body and the physical body.

[ 15 ] Now we must make this process—this sort of partial detachment, this loosening of the astral body from the etheric and physical bodies—completely clear to ourselves. Then we will ask ourselves: Is it perhaps still possible today, within our ordinary sense of self, to create something that would resemble this ancient connection? Could it also happen today in human life that the astral body seeks to penetrate deeper into the other members than it should, becoming more imbued with and permeating all sorts of things than is proper for it?

[ 16 ] A certain degree of normality is therefore necessary for the astral body to be permeated by the etheric body and the physical body. Let us now assume that this normal measure is exceeded in some direction. Then a disturbance must occur in the entire human organism; for what the human being is today depends on the existence of this specific relationship between the various members of the being, which we see in the waking human being. The moment the astral body behaves incorrectly, the moment it penetrates deeper into the physical body and the etheric body, a disturbance must occur. Now, however, we have seen in our recent considerations that what we are now concluding actually happens. We have merely described the entire process from the other side. When, then, does it happen?

[ 17 ] This happens when, in a previous life, a person has imprinted something on their astral body—allowing something to flow into it—that we regard as a moral or intellectual transgression from that past life. This has become ingrained in the astral body. This is now something that, when a person enters life anew, can indeed cause the astral body to seek a different relationship with the physical body and etheric body than it would have sought had it not imprinted this transgression within itself in the previous life. So it is precisely our transgressions—those that took place under the influence of Ahriman and Lucifer—that have been transformed into organizing forces which, in the new life, cause the astral body to relate to the physical and etheric bodies differently than it would have done had such forces not penetrated it.

[ 18 ] Thus we see how the very effects of past thoughts, sensations, and feelings cause the astral body to do what is bound to create disorder in the human organism. But when such disorder is caused, what then happens? When the astral body intrudes more deeply into the physical and etheric bodies than it should in a normal human being, it does something very similar to what we do in the morning upon waking, when, at the moment of awakening, we plunge with our I into our two bodies. Waking up consists of the ego-person diving down into the physical and etheric bodies. What, then, does the astral body do when it enters the physical and etheric bodies more than it should, prompted by the effects of past experiences? — What else happens when we dive down with the ego and astral body into the physical and etheric bodies, when we wake up in the morning and perceive something, is precisely what is revealed in the fact that we are waking up. Just as the entire waking state is the result of the ego-person’s immersion into the physical and etheric bodies, so must something now occur that the astral body does—that is, something we would otherwise do as ego-persons. It immerses itself into the etheric and physical bodies. So when we have a person before us in whom the astral body has taken on the tendency to unite more with the etheric and physical bodies than is normally the case, we have before us the same phenomenon for the astral body that we otherwise have before us for the ego-person upon waking. What is this excessive intrusion of the astral body into the etheric and physical bodies? This is something we might otherwise describe as the essence of illness. When our astral body does what we otherwise do upon waking—namely, forcing its way into the physical and etheric bodies—when the astral body, which should otherwise not develop consciousness within us, strives for consciousness within the physical and etheric bodies, when it seeks to awaken within us, then we become ill. Illness is an abnormal waking state of our astral body. What do we actually do when we are in a state of normal well-being, when we live in the ordinary waking state? Then we are awake for ordinary life. But in order to have this ordinary waking consciousness, we had to bring the astral body into a different state earlier. We had to put it to sleep. The astral body must sleep when we have our ego-consciousness during the day; we can only be healthy when our astral body is asleep within us. Therefore, we can now understand the nature of health and illness in the following way: Illness is an abnormal awakening of the astral body in the human being, and health is the normal state of the astral body’s sleep.

[ 19 ] And what, then, is the consciousness of this astral body? If illness were truly the awakening of the astral body, something akin to consciousness would have to arise within it. It awakens abnormally; thus, we might expect an abnormal consciousness; but there would have to be some form of consciousness. When we fall ill, something similar to what normally occurs upon waking in the morning would have to arise. Our experience would have to be diverted toward something else. In the morning, our ordinary consciousness usually emerges. When we become ill, does a form of consciousness emerge?

[ 20 ] Yes, a consciousness arises that humans know all too well. And what is this consciousness? A consciousness expresses itself through experiences! The consciousness that emerges here expresses itself in what we call the pain of illness, which we do not experience in the normal well-being of the waking state, because there our astral body is asleep. The sleep of the astral body means that it is in regular connection with the physical body and the etheric body; it signifies the absence of pain. Pain is the expression of the astral body forcing its way into the physical and etheric bodies in a way it is not supposed to—and coming into consciousness. That is pain.

[ 21 ] The point is that we must not take what has just been said and apply it without limit. When speaking in terms of spiritual science, we must always remain within the boundaries of what is being said. — It has been said that when our astral body awakens, a consciousness arises that is steeped in pain. From this, however, we must not conclude that pain and illness always coincide. Any forcing of the astral body into the etheric body and physical body is indeed a form of illness. Conversely, however, not every instance of illness consists of this, and we can understand that illness can also have a different character by noting that by no means is all illness accompanied by pain. Most people simply do not take this into account because, for the most part, they do not strive to be healthy in life, but rather they strive to be pain-free, and when they are pain-free, they consider that to be health. This is not always the case; but in very many instances, people will believe that if they are free from pain, they are healthy. We would be succumbing to a tremendous delusion if we were to believe that the sensation of pain and illness are one and the same. A person’s liver may be thoroughly damaged; if the damage is not such that, for example, the peritoneum is affected by it, then no pain occurs at all. A person may have a disease process within them that does not manifest itself in pain at all. This can be the case in many instances. From a more objective perspective, these diseases are actually the more serious ones. For when a person feels pain, they seek to get rid of it; when they have no pain, they do not make much of an effort to get rid of the disease.

[ 22 ] What, then, of those cases where the symptoms do not coincide with the onset of illness? What have we done in such cases? — We need only remember that we, as human beings as we are today, have developed gradually; that during our time on Earth we have added the ego to the astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body. But we were once human beings who had only a physical body and an etheric body. A being that has only a physical body and an etheric body is like a plant today. With such beings, we arrive at a third degree of consciousness, a much, much duller consciousness that does not even reach the brightness of today’s dream consciousness. It is, after all, a complete mistake to believe that a person has no consciousness while asleep. They do have consciousness; it is just so dull that they cannot summon it up to the level of memory in their ego. But such a consciousness also resides in the plant. It is a kind of sleep consciousness, that is, one even deeper than astral consciousness. There we descend to an even deeper level of human consciousness.

[ 23 ] Let us now assume that through experiences in earlier incarnations, a person has not only introduced such disorder into their constitution that causes the astral body to sink into the physical and etheric bodies in a disorderly manner, but has also done something that can cause the etheric body to force its way into the physical body in an improper manner. A state may well arise in which even the connection between the etheric body and the physical body is not what is normal for modern humans, such that the etheric body pushes itself too deeply into the physical body. The astral body, let us say, would not be involved at all in this; rather, what was predisposed in a previous life causes a denser fusion of the etheric body and the physical body within the human organism than is otherwise intended. Here we have the same phenomenon with the etheric body as we have with the astral body in the consciousness of pain.

[ 24 ] When the etheric body, for its part, sinks too deeply into the physical body, a state of consciousness arises similar to human sleep consciousness or plant consciousness. It is therefore no wonder that this is a state which is not perceived by the human being at all. Just as he does not perceive anything in sleep, so too does he not perceive this state now. And yet it is an awakening! Just as our astral body awakens abnormally when it sinks too deeply into the etheric body and physical body, so the etheric body awakens in an abnormal way when it sinks too deeply into the physical body. Only, the human being cannot perceive it, because it is an awakening to a consciousness even more dull than the consciousness of pain. But let us suppose that the human being had truly accomplished something in a previous life that works its way between death and new birth in such a way that the etheric body awakens on its own, that is, takes intense possession of the physical body. When this has happened, a deep consciousness awakens within the human being, but it cannot be perceived in the same way as the other experiences of the human soul are perceived. Does it therefore not need to have an effect because it is not perceived? Let us try to understand what peculiar tendency a consciousness takes on when it begins to lie one degree deeper.

[ 25 ] When you experience an external sensation, such as burning yourself, it causes pain. For pain to arise, consciousness must possess at least the level of consciousness of the astral body. Pain must reside in the astral body. So wherever pain arises in the human soul, a fact of the astral body is present. But let us suppose that something happens that is not associated with pain, yet which nevertheless evokes an external stimulus, an external sensation. If something flies toward your eye, this causes an external stimulus; the eye closes. Pain is not associated with this. What does the stimulus evoke? A movement. This is similar to when the sole of your foot is touched: it is not pain—yet the foot twitches. There are thus also such impressions on the human being that are not accompanied by pain, yet which nevertheless elicit some kind of event, a movement. Here, the person does not know—because they cannot penetrate down to this deep level of consciousness—how such a thing comes about, that a movement follows the stimulus. When you feel pain, and you thereby reject something, it is the pain that has made you aware of what you then reject. But something may occur that compels you to an inner movement, to a reflex movement. Here, consciousness does not penetrate down to the level where the stimulus is transformed into movement. Here you have a level of consciousness that does not enter into your astral experiences, that is not consciously experienced, that takes place in a kind of sphere of sleep-consciousness, but which is nonetheless not such that it cannot lead to events. When such a deeper penetration of the etheric body into the physical body takes place, this gives rise to a consciousness that is not a consciousness of pain—because the astral body is not involved in it—but one that is so dull that the person does not perceive it. This does not mean, however, that the person cannot perform actions in this state of consciousness, or could not do something that corresponds to the entire situation. After all, people also perform actions in other contexts where their consciousness is not present. You need only think of situations where ordinary daytime consciousness is extinguished and the person, as a sleepwalker, performs all manner of actions. It is not that there is no consciousness at all, but rather that a form of consciousness is involved that a person cannot experience, because they can only experience the two highest forms of consciousness: astral consciousness as pleasure and pain and the like, and ego-consciousness as judgment and as ordinary waking consciousness. Therefore, however, it is not the case that a person cannot act from this sleep consciousness.

[ 26 ] So we now also have this kind of deep consciousness, which a human being can no longer attain once the etheric body descends into the physical body. Suppose, however, that he wants to do something of which he can know nothing in normal life, something that is somehow connected with the situation; then he will do it without being aware of it. Something within him—the thing itself—will do it without his own knowledge. — Let us now consider a person who, through certain events in a previous life, has laid down causes within themselves that work their way down during the time between death and rebirth to the point where they lead to a deeper penetration of the etheric body into the physical body. Then actions will arise from this that lead to the manifestation of deeper disease processes. The person may then be driven to actively seek out external triggers for illness.

[ 27 ] It may seem strange that this is not obvious to ordinary ego-consciousness. But a person would never do this from within their ordinary ego-consciousness. They would never, from within their ordinary ego-consciousness, command themselves to enter a swarm of germs. But let us suppose that this dull consciousness finds it necessary for an external injury to occur and for what we called yesterday the whole meaning of being ill to unfold. Then this consciousness, which penetrates into the physical body, seeks out the cause of the illness. It is the human being’s own essence that seeks out the cause of the illness in order to achieve what we called yesterday the process of illness. Thus, from the deeper nature of illness, you will understand that even when no pain has yet arisen, counteractions can still occur. And even when pain manifests, if the etheric body penetrates the physical body too strongly, what might be called the search for external causes of illness by deeper layers of human consciousness itself can still occur. As grotesque as it sounds, it is nevertheless true: just as we do with our inherited traits, we seek out our external causes of illness with a different level of consciousness when we need them. However, what has just been said applies only within the limits of how it is presented today.

[ 28 ] Today, the main focus has been on clarifying that a person may be capable of seeking out illness—without being able to do so at the level of consciousness they are familiar with—by inducing an abnormal, deeper state of consciousness. That was the point: to show that in illness we are dealing with an awakening of stages of consciousness that we, as human beings, have already overcome in the past. By having incurred faults in a previous life, we cause ourselves to bring forth deeper levels of consciousness than would otherwise be appropriate for our present life. And what we do as a result of the impulses of these levels of consciousness influences both the course of the disease process and the process that leads to the disease in the first place.

[ 29 ] Here we see that, in abnormal states, old levels of consciousness resurface—levels that human beings have long since overcome. If you just consider the facts of everyday life for a moment, you can already begin to grasp what has been said today. The fact is that through their pain, people descend, so to speak, deeper into their own being. You are familiar with the saying that a person only knows they have an organ once it has begun to hurt. That is a popular saying; but it is not entirely without merit. Why is a person unaware of this in normal consciousness? Because, in the normal case, their consciousness is so deeply asleep that it does not penetrate deeply enough into the astral body. But when it does penetrate, pain arises, and through the pain, a person realizes that they possess the organ in question. There is something quite true in many sayings of everyday life, because they are legacies from earlier stages of consciousness in which, when people looked into the spiritual world, they still knew much of what we must laboriously bring back today.

[ 30 ] If you understand that human beings can experience deeper layers of consciousness, then you will also be able to grasp that it is not only external causes of illness but also external strokes of fate that people may seek out—events that cannot be interpreted as rational, yet whose rationality operates in such a way that they affect deeper layers of consciousness. — Thus, it may well seem conceivable that, under normal circumstances, a person would not deliberately place themselves where lightning could strike them. With their conscious mind, they would avoid this. But there could be a consciousness at work within them that lies much deeper than the conscious mind and that leads them precisely to the spot where lightning can strike them, guided by a foresight that the conscious mind lacks—a consciousness that thus wants the lightning to strike them, so that the person actively seeks out the accident.

[ 31 ] Today we have only just begun to grasp the possibility that misfortunes—or even external causes of illness—are brought about by karmic forces. How this happens in detail, how the forces within the human being—which reside in deeper layers of consciousness—work, and whether our higher consciousness is able to prevent such misfortunes, is another question that will continue to occupy us. Just as we can understand that when a person goes to a place where an infection can affect them, a level of consciousness is at work that has driven them there, so too must we be able to understand how it is that people take measures to ensure such infections have less and less effect—that is, that through hygienic measures guided by the higher consciousness, we can avert such outcomes. We can also grasp the possibility of deflecting this effect through the higher consciousness, and must say that it would be highly irrational for the subconscious to seek out pathogens if, on the other hand, causes of disease cannot be avoided through the higher consciousness.

[ 32 ] We will see that it is “reasonable” to seek out pathogens, and that it is also “reasonable” to take hygienic measures from the perspective of the higher consciousness to prevent the entry of infectious agents, thereby preventing the causes of disease.