The Rudolf Steiner Archive

2. The Inner Experience of Stimulants

[ 1 ] Naturally, the anthroposophist is much more concerned with the effects of esotericism or anthroposophy on the etheric and astral bodies and the Self than with their effects on the physical body. Nevertheless, for the coming days, when we will be considering the more spiritual aspects of human nature from this perspective, we will gain a foundation if we also take into account what can be said about the transformation of the physical bodies. It should be expressly noted, however, that the changes I describe here do not refer to the highest stages of, say, initiation, but rather to the initial stages of the esoteric life, and that they are therefore already of a certain general importance.

[ 2 ] You will have seen from yesterday’s discussion that, under the influences described, the human physical body becomes, in a sense, more alive and more mobile within itself; that it can therefore also become, in a certain way, more uncomfortable. One experiences it more intensely, so to speak, than one does in the outer, exoteric, so-called normal life of the human being. We will also have to speak of the difference between plant-based and animal-based nutrition in relation to the other sheaths; but for the formation and organization of the physical body, the difference between plant-based and animal-based nutrition is indeed an extraordinarily great one. Of course, it must always be emphasized that it cannot be our task to advocate for one diet or another, but only to state what is correct and true in this area; and the facts that come into consideration become experiential facts through the development of the soul.

[ 3 ] One fact of experience is, above all, that our physical body has more to bear—more to carry along, as it were—on an animal diet than on a plant-based diet. We emphasized yesterday that the physical body, as it were, shrinks and detaches itself from the higher spiritual members through evolution.

[ 4 ] When animal food is now introduced to him, this animal food, as characterized yesterday, also manifests itself in that it is experienced as something that integrates itself into the human organism as a strong foreign substance—something one learns to feel, if a radical expression may be used, like a stake driven into one’s flesh.

[ 5 ] In this regard, during esoteric development one experiences, so to speak, the earthly heaviness of animal food more intensely than one otherwise would, and above all one experiences the fact that animal food fuels the instinctive life of the will. The life of the will, which proceeds more unconsciously, which is expressed more in emotions and passions, is stimulated by animal food. It is therefore a perfectly accurate external observation to say that warlike peoples are more inclined toward animal food than peaceful peoples. But this need not lead one to believe that plant-based food must drive all courage and all energy out of a person. We shall indeed see how what a person loses in a certain sense through the withdrawal of animal food—in terms of instincts, aggressive passions, and emotions——all of this will, of course, be discussed in detail in the description of the astral body—is replaced from within by the soul. But all these things are connected with the entire position of humanity and our other kingdoms of nature in relation to the cosmos, and one gradually gains—even if one has not yet attained this through higher clairvoyance—a kind of proof, a kind of confirmation of what the occultist states regarding the connections between human life and the cosmos. One gains a kind of proof of this when, through this shared experience of the more dynamic, more vivid processes of the physical body, one comes to know, as it were firsthand, the nature and characteristics of the substances of the earth used as food.

[ 6 ] You see, it is interesting, for example, to compare three types of food in terms of their cosmic significance: milk and everything associated with it; the plant world and everything associated with it—that is, everything prepared from it; and animal food. Milk, plants, and animals as food—one can learn to compare them in a certain way once one has been made more receptive, through esoteric development, to what one experiences in these foods; and then one will also find it easier to grasp the confirmations that arise from a rational observation of the external world. If you were to explore the world occultly, you would find that which is milk substance on Earth, but on no other planet in our solar system. What is produced within living beings in a similar way on other planets in our solar system would present itself to you as something entirely different from what Earthly milk is. Milk is something specifically Earthly. And if one were to generalize what milk is, one would have to say: The living beings of every planetary system have their own milk.

[ 7 ] If one examines the plant system of our Earth and compares it occultly with the plant systems of other planets—with whatever can be compared to it—one must say: Although the forms of plant life on Earth and plant life on other planets in our solar system are different, the inner nature of the plant on Earth is not merely an earthly one, but one belonging to the solar system; that is to say, the plant life of our Earth is related to the plant life of the other planets in our solar system, so that in the plants we have, as it were, a glimpse of something that could also be found on other planets in our system. As for the animal world, it follows from what has been said about milk—and is otherwise very easy to ascertain from an occult perspective—that the animal world on Earth is radically different from anything similar that might be found on other planets. If we now take the experience of milk nourishment, so to speak, milk nourishment appears to the occultist’s gaze and experience in such a way that for the human body—let us remain with the human being — means that which, so to speak, binds him to the Earth, to our planet, and brings him together with the human race on Earth as belonging to a common species with this human race. The fact that human beings form a whole, even with regard to the physical system of sheaths, is further promoted by the fact that the living prepares nourishment for the living in the animal sense. And one can say: Everything that is supplied to the human organism through milk nourishes it to be a human creature of the Earth, brings it into harmony with the conditions of the Earth, but it does not actually bind it to the Earth. It makes it a citizen of the Earth and does not prevent it from being a citizen of the entire solar system.

[ 8 ] The situation is different with meat. Meat, which is derived from the realm that is specifically earthly, and which is not taken, as milk is, from the immediate life process of a human or animal being, but rather from that part of the animal substance that is already prepared for the animal—this meat-based food binds the human being specifically to the earth, turning him into an earthly creature to such an extent that one must say: To the extent that a person permeates their own organism with the effects of meat-based food, to that extent they deprive themselves of the strength needed to break free from the Earth at all. Through meat-based food, they bind themselves to the Earth in the most profound sense. While milk-based food enables him, so to speak, to regard the Earth as a place of passage in his development, meat-based food condemns the human being—unless he is elevated by other means—to shape his stay on Earth as a permanent one, one to which he adapts completely. And the decision to consume milk-based food signifies, as it were: I wish to remain on Earth, to be able to fulfill my mission on Earth, but not to be here exclusively for the Earth. The will to consume meat-based food signifies: Earthly existence appeals to me so much that I would renounce all heavens and would most gladly merge completely into the conditions of earthly existence.

[ 9 ] Plant-based food is such that it activates within the organism those forces that bring human beings into a kind of cosmic connection with the entire planetary system. What the human being must accomplish when processing plant food within their own organism stimulates forces contained within the entire solar system, so that the human being, within their physical body, becomes a participant in the forces of the entire solar system—that is, they do not alienate themselves from these forces or tear themselves away from them. This is something that, in a certain sense, the soul developing anthroposophically or esoterically can gradually experience for itself: that through plant food, it takes into itself not something of earthly heaviness, but something belonging to the Sun—that is, to the central body of the entire planetary system. The lightness of the organism, which it gains through plant food, lifts it above earthly heaviness; this makes possible a certain inner—one might say—capacity for experience within the human organism that gradually develops, much like a sense of taste: so that it is as if this organism were, in a certain sense, truly sharing in the sunlight that performs so much work within the plants.

[ 10 ] From what has been said, you can see that, particularly in occult and esoteric development, it is of immense importance not to bind oneself, so to speak, to the earth, nor to burden oneself with all the heaviness of the earth through the consumption of meat, if this can be dispensed with according to one’s individual and hereditary circumstances; the actual decision can, of course, only ever be made according to the personal circumstances of the individual. It will therefore mean a real relief for the entire development of human life if a person can abstain from the enjoyment of meat. On the other hand, certain concerns arise when a person wishes to be a fanatical vegetarian in the sense of avoiding all milk and dairy products. Precisely in the soul’s development toward the spiritual, this can entail certain dangers, namely because by avoiding all consumption of milk and everything associated with it, a person can very easily come to a mere love of that which strives away from the earth and easily lose the threads that connect them to what is human on earth.

[ 11 ] It is therefore important to note that, in a certain sense, it is good if the anthroposophical aspirant does not turn into a fanatical spiritual enthusiast by creating within the physical body a difficulty that seeks to sever this physical body from all connection with the earthly-human realm. So that we do not become eccentrics overly focused on spiritual development, so that we do not become estranged from human feeling and human activity on Earth, it is good for us, as travelers on Earth, to allow ourselves to be weighed down in a certain way by the consumption of milk and dairy products. And it can even be a very systematic training for a person—not merely to live, so to speak, in the spiritual worlds and thereby become alienated from the earth, but to fulfill tasks on earth alongside this; it can be a systematic training not merely to be a vegetarian, but to enjoy milk and dairy products alongside this. In this way, they will make their organism, their physical body, attuned to the Earth and to humanity, but without binding themselves to the Earth or weighing themselves down with earthly existence, as is the case with the consumption of meat.

[ 12 ] It is therefore fascinating in every way to see how these things are connected to cosmic mysteries and how, through knowledge of these cosmic mysteries, one can trace the actual effects of nutrients in the human organism. As people who are interested in occult truths, my dear friends, must increasingly come to realize that what occurs on our Earth—and our physical body is, after all, the first aspect of our earthly existence—does not depend merely on earthly forces and conditions, but also on the forces and conditions of extra-terrestrial, cosmic reality.

[ 13 ] But this is the case in a variety of ways. For example, when we examine animal protein, such as that found in a chicken egg, we must be clear that such animal protein is not merely what the chemist finds in his analysis, but that its structure is the result of cosmic forces; indeed, the cosmic forces act upon this protein essentially only after they have first acted upon the Earth itself and, at most, upon the Moon accompanying the Earth. The cosmic influence on animal protein is thus an indirect one. The forces of the cosmos do not act directly upon the protein, but indirectly; they first act upon the Earth, and the Earth, in turn, acts back upon the composition of the animal protein with the forces it receives from the cosmos. At most, the Moon is involved, but only in that it first receives the forces from the cosmos and only then, through the forces it radiates from itself, acts back upon the animal protein. In the smallest cell of the animal kingdom—and thus also in the egg white—one who is able to penetrate things with an occult gaze can see not only that the physical and chemical forces present on Earth are at work, but also how the smallest cell, say of a chicken egg, is built up from the forces that the Earth first receives from the cosmos.

[ 14 ] Indirectly, then, what we call protein is connected to the cosmos, but this animal protein substance, as it exists on Earth, would never come into being if the Earth were not there. It could not arise directly from the cosmos; it is entirely a product of what the Earth must first receive from the cosmos.

[ 15 ] The situation is different, for example, with what we know as fatty matter—the earthly fatty matter found in living beings, which also forms part of the diet, particularly for those people who consume animal-based foods. Let us therefore speak of these animal fats. That which we call fatty substance—whether it is consumed by humans from the outside or produced within their own organism—is structured according to entirely different cosmic laws than protein substance. While the former involves those cosmic forces that emanate from beings of the hierarchies of form, the structure of fatty substance is primarily shaped by those beings we call the spirits of movement. You see, it is important to mention such things because only then does one grasp how complicated something like this actually is—something that external science has in its mental image as infinitely simple. No living being could be permeated on the one hand by protein substance and on the other by fatty substance if the Spirit of Form and the Spirit of Movement were not working together from the cosmos—albeit indirectly. Thus, we can trace the spiritual influences that we know to emanate from the beings of the various hierarchies right down into the substance that makes up our physical body. Consequently, in the experience that arises when the soul has undergone an anthroposophical development, this experience itself becomes more differentiated and more dynamic—the experience one has of what one carries within as protein and what one carries within as fat in the physical body. It is a twofold sensation. What in the person living an ordinary external existence flows together into a single sensation is perceived as a mixture: that which the fats do in the organism and that which the protein substances do. As the entire physical organism becomes more flexible, the developing soul learns to distinguish between two kinds of sensations in its own body. A sensation that, as it were, permeates us so deeply that we feel: this holds us together, gives us our stature—in this we perceive the protein substances within us. When we feel: this makes us indifferent to our inner seclusion, this lifts us, as it were, above our form, this makes us more phlegmatic toward our inner human feeling—when, that is, a certain phlegmatism is added to our own sensation in relation to this very sensation—these sensations become very distinct in an anthroposophical development— then this final sensation arises from the experience of the fatty substance in the physical body. Thus, the inner experience also becomes more complex in relation to the physical body.

[ 16 ] This is particularly noticeable when it comes to the experience of starch or sugar. Sugar is especially distinctive. Sugar, after all, differs very strongly from other substances in terms of taste. This distinction is very noticeable in everyday life, not only in children but sometimes also in older people, in their preference for sugar; but usually the distinction does not go beyond taste. When the soul undergoes a process of development, it experiences everything it takes in or possesses in the form of sugar as something that gives it inner strength, that supports it internally, that permeates it, so to speak, with a kind of natural ego. And in this regard, one might even, in a certain sense, offer a eulogy to sugar. It is precisely the person undergoing a development of the soul who can often notice that they even frequently need to consume some sugar, because the development of the soul must, after all, lead to becoming ever more selfless. The soul becomes more selfless of its own accord through a proper anthroposophical development. So that the human being—who, by virtue of his physical body, already has an earthly mission—does not, so to speak, lose the connection of his ego-organism with the earth, it is actually beneficial to create a counterbalance in the physical realm, where egoism does not have as great a significance as it does in the moral realm. Through the enjoyment of sugar, one might say, a kind of innocent egotism is created that can serve as a counterbalance to the necessary selflessness in the moral-spiritual realm. Otherwise, the temptation would be all too great for a person not only to become selfless, but also to become dreamy, fanciful, and to lose touch with a healthy ability to judge earthly conditions. A certain amount of sugar added to the diet contributes to this by giving one the ability, despite all ascension into the spiritual worlds, to remain with both feet on the ground and to cultivate a certain healthy view of the earthly world.

[ 17 ] As you can see, things are complicated; but everything becomes complicated when one seeks to penetrate the true mysteries of life. Thus, those who are making progress in their souls through anthroposophy sometimes feel that, in order not to be exposed to a false selflessness—namely, a loss of their personality—they occasionally need the pleasure of sugar. And they then experience the enjoyment of sugar in such a way that they say: Well, I am adding something to myself that, without my lowering myself morally, as if involuntarily, as if through a higher instinct, gives me a certain firmness, a certain sense of self. On the whole, one can say that the enjoyment of sugar physically enhances the personality of the human being. One can assert this so strongly that one might say—provided, of course, that everything is kept within healthy limits—that people who, in a certain way, indulge in sugar have an easier time developing their personality character even in their physical bodies than those who do not. These things can even lead to an understanding of what can also be observed externally. In countries where, according to statistics, little sugar is consumed, people are less endowed with personality than in countries where more sugar is consumed. Go to the countries where people appear more individual, where everyone, so to speak, feels at one with themselves, and then from there to countries where people, one might say, more closely resemble the general national type, are more impersonal even in their outward physical nature, and you will find that in the former countries much sugar is consumed, and in the latter little.

[ 18 ] If we want even more striking examples of this experience of, so to speak, foodstuffs, we can look to the so-called luxury foods. These luxury foods are, of course, experienced particularly vividly even in everyday life—coffee and tea to a greater extent; but what the average person experiences with coffee and tea, the person undergoing an anthroposophical development experiences to a much greater degree. As I said, none of this is meant to be an agitation for or against coffee, but rather a presentation of things as they are, and I ask that you accept it only in this sense. Coffee, after all, has a stimulating effect on human nature even in ordinary human life, as does tea; it is just that these stimulations exerted by coffee and tea on the organism are felt more vividly by the soul undergoing an anthroposophical development. It can be said of coffee, for example, that it acts on the human organism in such a way that this human organism thereby lifts its etheric body out of the physical body in a certain sense, but in such a way that the physical body is felt as a solid foundation for the etheric body. That is the specific effect of coffee. So, there is a certain differentiation between the physical body and the etheric body when coffee is consumed, but in such a way that the physical body—particularly in its formative qualities—is felt, under the influence of coffee, as if radiating into the etheric body, like a kind of solid foundation for what is then experienced through the etheric body. This is certainly not meant to be an endorsement of coffee consumption; for all of this operates on a physical basis, and a person would make themselves a completely dependent being if they sought to condition themselves through the consumption of these foods or stimulants; the aim is merely to characterize the influence of these foods and stimulants. But because logical, consistent thinking in particular depends greatly on the structure, on the form of the physical body, the peculiar effect of coffee—which, as it were, brings out the physical structure of the physical body more sharply—physically promotes logical consistency; — through the consumption of coffee, a person is, so to speak, physically encouraged in their logical consistency, in a mode of thinking that logically follows the facts. And one can say that, even if there may be health concerns about drinking a lot of coffee, it is not at all unreasonable—especially for people who wish to ascend to higher realms of spiritual life—that it may well be beneficial to occasionally draw logical coherence from the stimulation provided by coffee. One might say it seems quite natural that someone who, for example, writes professionally and cannot quite find the logical sequence from one sentence to the next—and thus wants to chew everything out of his pen—should stimulate himself through the enjoyment of coffee. This seems quite understandable to those who know how to observe these things down to their occult, mysterious foundations. If such a pleasure, since we are, after all, earthlings, is sometimes necessary depending on personal circumstances, then it must be emphasized that coffee, despite all its drawbacks, can contribute greatly to enhancing stability. Not that it should be recommended as a means to solidity, but it must be said that it is capable of enhancing solidity, and that, for example, in the case of someone developing anthroposophically who has a tendency to let their thoughts wander into the wrong direction, it need not be viewed entirely negatively if they become somewhat more grounded through coffee.

[ 19 ] The situation is different with tea. Tea produces a similar effect, a kind of differentiation between the physical and the ethereal. But in a certain way, the structure of the physical body is set aside. The etheric body comes more fully into its own. Consequently, thoughts are scattered by the enjoyment of tea and, in a certain sense, become less suited to connecting with facts. While the imagination is stimulated by the enjoyment of tea—sometimes not in a very pleasant way—it does not foster an alignment with truth or an adaptation to the solidity of circumstances. Therefore, it is understandable that in social settings where it is important to unleash flashes of insight and develop a sparkling intellect, tea is often used as a stimulant; and it is also understandable, on the other hand, that when the enjoyment of tea gets out of hand, it generates, in a certain way, an indifference toward the demands that may arise in people through the healthy structure of their physical earthly bodies. So that dreamy fantasy and a certain carefree, nonchalant disposition—a disposition that readily overlooks the demands of solid, external life—are easily fostered by the enjoyment of tea. And in a soul developing in the anthroposophical sense, one does not like to see it enjoying tea, because the enjoyment of tea leads more easily to charlatanism than the enjoyment of coffee. The latter makes one more grounded, the former more charlatan-like, even if the word is used far too sharply for these things. All these are things that—as I said—can be experienced through the mobility that the physical body acquires when a person undergoes an anthroposophical development.

[ 20 ] I would just like to add that—you can, of course, continue to reflect on this or try to truly experience such things—that while drinking coffee promotes something like solidity in the physical shell, drinking tea tends to foster charlatanism, whereas chocolate, for example, promotes philistinism the most. Chocolate can be experienced as the quintessential philistine beverage in the immediate experience, when the physical body becomes more mobile within itself. Chocolate can therefore be highly recommended precisely for philistine festivities, and one can then—forgive this digression—one can quite well understand that at family celebrations, at birthday parties, name-day celebrations, particularly in certain circles, chocolate is indeed drunk at certain festivities. Then, when we consider these things, which are thus luxury foods, they present themselves to us in an even more meaningful way, because what is otherwise experienced in relation to food already casts its light into ordinary so-called external normal life, but not merely in the sense that one notices, so to speak, the substantial elements from which the body is composed and through which it is constantly renewed, but also that one perceives, as was already mentioned yesterday, the inner disintegration, the separation of the organs. This is important; this is significant.

[ 21 ] And it must be emphasized in particular that, from an occult perspective, the experience related to the physical body and the physical heart becomes comprehensible. For the occultist, the human physical heart is, after all, an extraordinarily interesting and significant organ; for this physical human heart can only be understood if one takes into account the entire mutual relationship—including the spiritual relationship—between the Sun and the Earth. Even when the ancient Sun, following the Saturnic epoch, was a kind of planetary precursor to the Earth, even then the relationship that exists today between these two celestial bodies—between the Sun and the Earth—began, so to speak, to take shape. And the relationship between the Sun and the Earth must be viewed in such a way that one perceives the Earth, as it is today, entirely as it, so to speak, first nourishes itself from the effects of the Sun, as it absorbs and processes these solar effects within itself. What the Earth absorbs in its solid substance from the forces of the Sun, what it absorbs in its atmosphere and hydrosphere, in the changing thermal conditions, what it absorbs in the light that floods the Earth, what it absorbs in that which is no longer physically perceptible in any way as the Earth’s share in the harmony of the spheres, what the Earth absorbs in life forces that it receives directly from the Sun—all of this is connected to the inner forces that act upon the human heart from the blood circulation. In essence, all these forces act upon the blood circulation and, through it, upon the heart. Everything that constitutes external theory in this regard is fundamentally false. This external theory today reduces the heart to a pump that pumps blood through the body, so that one would have to regard the heart as the organ that regulates the blood circulation. The opposite is true. The blood circulation is what is primary, and the heart, in its movements, echoes what is taking place in the blood circulation. The blood drives the heart, not the heart the blood. But this entire organism described here, which is concentrated in the activity of the heart, is nothing other than the human microcosmic reflection of those macrocosmic effects that the Earth first receives from the Sun. What the Earth receives from the Sun is reflected in what the blood has to do with the heart.

[ 22 ] The situation is different, for example, with the brain. Some of the brain’s functions were already mentioned yesterday. The human brain has very little to do, directly speaking, with the effects of the sun on Earth. Directly, I say. Indirectly, as an organ of perception, it certainly does, for example, by perceiving external light and colors; but that is simply perception. However, directly in its structure, in its inner mobility, in its entire inner life, the brain has little, if anything at all, to do with the effects of the sun on Earth; it has much more to do with everything that radiates onto our Earth from what lies outside our solar system; this brain has to do with the cosmic conditions of the entire starry sky, but not with the more immediate conditions of our solar system. What we must call brain substance does, however, stand in a closer relationship to the moon, but only insofar as the moon is not dependent on the sun, insofar as it has preserved its independence from the sun. Thus, what takes place in our brain corresponds to effects that lie beyond the forces which find their human microcosmic image in our heart. The Sun lives in the human heart; what exists in the cosmos beyond the Sun lives in the human brain.

[ 23 ] Thus, in relation to both organs, the human being is a microcosm: with his heart, he is attuned to the sun’s influence on the Earth and, as it were, reflects it; with his brain, however, he possesses an inner life that is directly connected to the cosmos beyond the sun. This is an extraordinarily interesting and significant connection. The brain is connected to what the sun brings about on Earth only through external perception. But this is precisely what is overcome in anthroposophical development. Anthroposophical development overcomes the external sensory world. Thus the brain is liberated into an inner life so cosmic that even the sun is far too specific for anything of its effect to be taking place within it. When a person is absorbed in meditation and engaged in various imaginings, processes take place in their brain that have nothing to do with the solar system, but rather correspond to processes outside our solar system. Thus there is indeed a certain relationship between the heart and the brain, just as between the sun and the starry sky; and in a certain sense this is revealed in the experience of the anthroposophically developing soul in that, as this soul is inwardly serious and detached, devoted to purely anthroposophical thoughts, the heart truly forms something like a kind of counterpole, entering into a kind of opposition to the—one might say — the starry brain. This opposition is expressed in that the human being learns to feel how the heart and the brain begin to take different paths, and how, whereas previously he did not need to pay attention to both separately—since everything was mixed together—he must now, as he develops anthroposophically, begin to pay attention to both separately.

[ 24 ] There is a unique concept of humanity’s entire cosmic position when we consider the physical body in this way and contemplate how human beings stand here on Earth. For everything that the Sun has to do with the Earth lives within them through their circulatory system and heart. And if he is devoted inwardly only to that for which he needs his physical brain as an instrument on Earth, then world processes are at work within him that take place outside our solar system. We will have to make it clear that human beings have a completely new experience in relation to the heart and the brain. His sensations truly differentiate, so that he learns to feel all that constitutes brain processes—one might say—in that tranquil rhythm displayed by the night sky with its stars, and that he feels the movement of the solar system in his heart. This simultaneously opens a path that becomes an important one at a higher stage of initiation, for you see, as it were, the gates opening from the human being into the cosmos. The human being who steps out of himself through higher development—as has been described even in the exoteric lectures—who looks back upon his own body, who learns to fully recognize the processes of his physical body, who indeed comes to know in the blood circulation and the activity of the heart a reflection of the mysterious forces of the solar system, and in the processes of the brain, which he then observes spiritually from the outside, he comes to know the cosmos in its mysteries.

[ 25 ] The points I am making here in this final sentence are connected to a remark I once made in Copenhagen, which was later included in my book *The Spiritual Guidance of the Individual and of Humanity*. You can infer from this that, in a certain sense, even the structure of the brain is a kind of mirror image of the position of the celestial bodies at the moment of human birth, as they appear at the specific point on Earth where the person is born. It is useful, at times, to approach such matters from a different perspective; for this can give you a sense of the breadth of occult science and of the narrow-mindedness of some of the criticism that is leveled when such a remark is made from one perspective or another. Certainly, one can explain such important facts as the reflection of the starry world in the human brain from a particular perspective, and this may seem arbitrary. When other perspectives are added, they all support one another. And you will become aware of many—I would say—streams of occult science that converge, and from this convergence will emerge for you, more and more, what you will perceive as full proof, including an external rational proof for things that might sometimes seem daring to express from just one perspective. From this, however, you will also perceive the subtlety of the entire human structure. And when you now consider that, by taking in food, the human being, in the act of eating, binds himself entirely to the earth, yet frees himself from the earth again through certain substances, namely plant-based food—if you consider, then, that human beings must become citizens of the earth precisely through the act of eating—you will now understand the threefold structure of the human being in relation to their physical body. Through his brain, he is, as it were, a member of the entire starry sky; through his heart and all that belongs to it, a member of the sun; and through his digestive system and all that belongs to it, in another sense, an earthly being.

[ 26 ] This, too, can be experienced—and is experienced—when the human being’s outer physical shell becomes more flexible. For the human being can indeed sin, through what enters him solely from the earth, against what is reflected within him by the pure forces of the cosmos. For example, by causing disturbances through external nutrition, a human being can sin against the purely earthly laws—which operate within digestion, just as the laws of the sun operate in the activity of the heart and the cosmic laws outside the solar system operate in the activity of the brain — human beings can, so to speak, sin very gravely through their diet against the cosmic activities in their brain, and this can be experienced by the soul developing through anthroposophy, particularly at the moment of waking. During sleep, after all, the digestive activity extends into the brain, spraying into the brain. When awake, the powers of thought work on the brain; then the brain’s digestive activity recedes. When thinking ceases during sleep, the digestive activity works into consciousness, and when a person wakes up and feels an aftereffect of this, the experience can very easily serve as a true barometer—especially for the developing soul—of whether one’s diet is healthy or unhealthy. Oh, the person feels this drawing, as it were, from their organism into the brain as dulling, stinging sensations—sensations that can sometimes feel, when they have consumed something unwholesome, like—let us say—small numbing centers in the brain. All of this is experienced in the most subtle way, especially by the soul developing through anthroposophy. And the moment of awakening is of immense importance—I mean in relation to the perception of the health conditions of the physical body arising from digestion. Through increasingly subtle sensations localized within the head, a person perceives whether their digestive processes are acting in opposition to the cosmic laws beyond our solar system or whether they are in harmony with them. Here you see, in fact, this physical body in a wonderful relationship with the entire cosmos, and the moment of waking up as a barometer for the person who, through their digestion, opposes the cosmic conditions or for the person who brings themselves into harmony with these cosmic conditions.

[ 27 ] These considerations will gradually lead us to the changes taking place in the human etheric or astral body through esoteric or anthroposophical development.