We can clearly distinguish two entities in human beings.
As you may remember, I have recently explained in
several lectures that our physical organism is spiritually
prepared in the life before birth. It is then sent down, so to
speak, as spiritual organization before we actually enter
earthly life with our I. Basically, this spiritual organization
continues to work throughout our physical life on earth, but
it does not manifest in outer, visible form. Its visible parts—
the sheaths enclosing the fetus during the gestation period:
chorion, amnion, allantois—are discarded at birth. Nevertheless,
this pre-earthly organization continues to be active
within us throughout our whole life. Yet, it is of a different
nature than our physical-soul-spiritual being during our life
on earth, and that is what I would like to talk about today.
In a sense, we have an invisible human being in us living
in our growth forces, in the hidden forces working in nutrition,
and, in fact, in all the realms that are outside the control
of our conscious activity. The influence of this invisible
human being extends to this unconscious activity, into our
growth and even the daily restoration of our forces through
nutrition. These influences are the aftereffects of our pre-
earthly existence, which becomes a body of forces during
life on earth that works in us without our being aware of it.
Today I want to describe in more detail the nature and organization
of this invisible human being we all carry in us
in our forces of growth, nutrition, and reproduction.
We can approach this by means of a diagram that shows
that this invisible being also has an I, an astral organization,
an etheric organization or body of formative forces, and a
physical organization. Of course, after our birth, its physical
organization rests inside our other physical organism. In the
course of today's lecture, you will understand how this invisible
human being affects our physical organization. Thus,
to represent all this diagrammatically, I have to draw it like
this (see drawing, left side):
First of all, this invisible human being has its I-organization
(yellow), then its astral organization (red), its etheric
organization (blue), and finally its physical organism
(white). This physical organism of the invisible human being
affects only our processes of growth and nutrition, in
short, everything in the lower human being, the metabolic-limb
system as we have described it. All the streams of
forces in this invisible being proceed from the I-organization
and flow through the astral and etheric organizations into
the physical one, where they then spread out (see arrow in
left drawing, above).
In the embryonal phase, this physical organization is in
the sheaths or membranes enclosing the embryo. After we
are born, this physical organization of the invisible being is
contained in our processes of nutrition and restoration. Outwardly,
the physical organization we are speaking of here is
thus not separate from our physical organism; rather the
two are united (see right drawing, above).
In addition to this invisible human being in us, there is
our visible being after we are born. I will draw this visible
human being beside the invisible one. Here you see what
the interpenetration of the physical and supra-physical during
life on earth looks like. During our earthly life, there is
a constant stream flowing from our I through the astral and
etheric bodies into our physical body (see arrow in drawing
on the right). After we are born, this stream takes its course
in the metabolic-limb system, in the forces of outer movement
and those of inner movement that transport the food
we have taken in through our whole organism and even up
into the brain.
There is also a direct intervention, a working of forces
that proceeds from the I directly into the whole human being
(see Blackboard Illustration 1). In other words, there is the
influence of an activity, a stream as it were, that enters from
the I directly into the nerve-sense system, bypassing the astral
and etheric bodies, and acting directly on our physical body.
Of course, this force is strongest in the head where most of
the sense organs are concentrated, but it does extend over
the whole human being, for example, through the sense of
touch in the skin. By the same token, I would also have to
draw a stream for the taking in of food through the mouth.
Thus, in our head there is an organization that streams up
from below; it starts from the I and passes through the astral
and etheric bodies, through the physical body, and then streams
up into the I. In addition, there is another stream flowing
directly into the physical body and streaming downward.
The nerve tract is the visible sign of this direct stream
that flows from the I into our physical organism (see Blackboard
Illustration 1, yellow). The I-organization, then, runs alongside
the nerve tracts. Basically, this I-organization has a destructive
influence on the organism for here spirit directly
enters into physical matter, and where this happens we find
a process of destruction. In other words, alongside the nerve
tracts and coming from the senses, there is a subtle process
of death spreading throughout our organism.
We can trace the stream that flows in the invisible human
being into the astral, etheric, and physical bodies when we
track our blood vessels all the way into the sense organs (see
Blackboard Illustration 1, red). Thus, we find that the I flows in
the blood in such a way that its forces have first been ensouled
by the astral, the etheric, and the physical organizations.
Taking the astral and etheric organizations with it,
the I streams upward through the physical organization in
our blood.
In other words, the whole invisible human being flows
in the blood process as an anabolic or growth process that
continually regenerates us through the assimilation of nutrients.
In terms of our diagram, this stream flows upward,
pours itself into the sense organs, including the skin, and
then meets the other stream that enters from the I directly
into the physical organism. Of course, in reality all this is
even more complicated because we would also have to consider
our breathing process.
In the breathing process the I indeed flows into the astral
body and from there directly into the lungs by means of air.
Thus, the supersensible human being is also the foundation
of our breathing processes. However, here, unlike in the
nerve-sense system, the I does not intervene directly in the
physical organism; instead, the I saturates itself with astral
forces, takes up oxygen, and only then does it enter the
organism with the help of the breathing process (see Blackboard
Illustration 1, third arrow). Of course, now we are no longer
dealing with a pine I-organization but with an I-astral organization.
We could say, then, that the breathing process
is a diminished death process.
The nerve-sense process is the actual process of death; the
breathing process, on the other hand, is a weakened death
process. It is countered by the process where the I is
strengthened by streaming first into the etheric body and it
is only taken up by the physical body (see Blackboard Illustration 1,
fourth arrow). This process, however, runs its course mostly
in the supersensible realm and therefore cannot be traced
by ordinary physiology. Its outward effect is the pulse beat.
This process is also a regenerative one, although not as
much as the actual metabolic regeneration processes; it is
only a weakened regenerative process. It meets up with the
breathing process. To a certain extent, the breathing process
is a destructive process. If we took in more oxygen, our life
would be much shorter. Our life is lengthened to the extent
the intake of oxygen is compensated for by carbon dioxide
formation in the blood.
Thus, everything in the organism works closely together,
and only if we resort to the supersensible human being can
we fully understand what is happening in our body. Although
after birth this supersensible being has only an invisible
form, we are aware of these forces precisely on the basis
of the anthroposophical understanding of the human being.
For instance, when we examine our eyes on this basis,
we find that the blood process with its delicate ramifications
(see Blackboard Illustration 2, red) is taken up by the nerve
process (yellow) that runs in the opposite direction. The
blood process always runs its course toward the periphery;
it is centrifugal. The nerve process, which is really a process
of breakdown, always runs centripetally, that is, from the
periphery toward the center. All other processes in our body
are metamorphoses of these two.
If the process going on between our pulse and breathing
takes its course as it should, then the lower human being is
connected with the upper one in the right way. Then we are
healthy, at least inwardly and if we have not received external
injuries. Destructive processes spread in the organism
only when breakdown or catabolism predominates. We become
ill when foreign elements accumulate in our organism,
elements that are not assimilated in the right way and
contain too many catabolic forces, that is, too much that is
akin to the physical nature of our environment.
The pathological processes that result in foreign formations
are caused by the direct intervention of the spiritual
by way of the I. These foreign formations may not be readily
visible as physical accumulations of matter; for example,
they may be in the fluid or even in the aeriform human
being. Nevertheless, they are foreign elements in the human
body. As they develop, they will not meet up with a healthy
process streaming up from below alongside the blood vessels.
As a result, the foreign elements, which have the tendency
to proliferate into tumors and then to crumble, cannot
be dissolved. Of course, if the blood-building process
meets up with them in the right way, these foreign elements
are dissolved and assimilated into our organism's life processes.
However, if there is an obstruction because an excessively
strong catabolic process works downward, that catabolic
process takes hold of one or the other organ. Then
foreign bodies form within us; at first they are like an exudate
or a tumor, but they have the tendency to take the
same course as those outer processes of earthly nature that
crumble. Here, it is important to realize that we have not
sufficiently integrated the invisible human being I have
drawn here next to the physical one into ourselves.
Actually we cannot really speak here of healing by human
means. In reality, this is how it is: As soon as too much
centripetal activity occurs in connection with the nervesense
system—that is, too much of the processes in our
outer environment are crammed into us and thus cause tumors
somewhere in us that later break to pieces—the other
system that runs its course alongside the blood vessels rebels
and wants to bring about healing. It wants to permeate
what is in the organism with the right astral and etheric
force that can stream up from below, and it wants to keep
the I or the astral body and the I from working by themselves.
The healer then has to assist this revolutionary principle
in our organism. Healing is actually nothing else than
supporting the organism's own healing forces from the outside.
Thus, the appearance of a tumor is a symptom indicating
that the I-activity is not working properly out of the etheric
body. It makes itself felt, but sometimes it cannot get at the
tumor. In a sense, we have to assist the etheric body in this
direction so that it can become active. We can support the
healing process in our organism by helping the etheric body
to be active in the right way. In other words, it must first
be permeated by the I and the astral body and then get at
what is coming from above and has not yet taken in the
etheric influence, but is imbued only with influences from
the I and the astral body.
In this way, we can counter the poisonous effects of the I
and the astral body on our organism with the etheric influences.
All we really need to know is through what remedies
the etheric organization, properly permeated by the astral
and I-organization, will have to intervene in the organism
in such a case. The remedies are needed only to assist the
etheric organization, as it were. Thus, we have to know
what remedies will strengthen the etheric organization so
it can pit its anabolic forces against the excessive catabolic
forces. You see, the pathology on which any therapy is based
cannot be understood at all without resorting to the invisible
human being.
However, it is also possible that our I-organization and
astral body—in other words, our soul-spiritual organization—
do not enter properly into the physical organization.
In a sense, then, our soul-spiritual organization may not
have pushed through far enough into our physical one. If
that is the case, we will always suffer from a predominance
of what works upward as growth forces and did not get sufficient
weight or gravity through its integration into the
physical organization. In other words, people may be born
with a condition where their invisible human being does
not sufficiently take hold of their physical body.
For example, the invisible human being I have sketched
here may refuse, so to speak, to work appropriately in the
blood process. In that case, the spirit does not have access
to the blood process, and as a result the individuals in question
are often pale already in their childhood and remain
skinny, or sometimes they shoot up quickly because of the
predominating growth forces. That is what happens when
the soul-spiritual element cannot enter the organism in the
right way. And because the body here refuses to allow the
soul-spiritual in, we must effect a weakening of the overly
strong activity in the etheric body. In the case of pale,
skinny, and gaunt children, we must work to reduce the
etheric body's hypertrophic, overly active forces to their
proper level. We must see to it that these children get more
gravity or weight into their body; for instance, the blood
will have the proper weight when it receives the necessary
amount of iron. As a consequence the etheric body will
work less strongly upward; its upward effect will be weakened.
Another symptom of this condition is that in such people
the night processes, as I would like to call them, predominate
over the day processes. During the night, when we
sleep, the physical-etheric organization refuses to take in
the spiritual-soul organization. Our night organization
when we lie asleep in our beds—not that of the invisible
human being who is outside us at night—is overly strong
in people who have the kind of congenital consumption I
have just described. We therefore have to support and
strengthen the day organization, that is, we have to give it
a certain weight by boosting the catabolic processes. For it
is by fostering the catabolic processes that lead to an inner
hardening and ultimately to a crumbling or breaking
down—of course, this should happen only to a very minimal
extent during the cure—that we can push back the overflowing
forces of the etheric body and hold the consumption
in check.
Thus, our knowledge of the whole human being makes
this interaction between health and illness—which is essentially
balanced through the relationship between pulse and
breathing—transparent to us. When we learn how we can
foster this or that through outer remedies, then we are able
to support the natural healing processes that are always
there but do not always manifest themselves.
After all, we cannot introduce a completely foreign process
into our organism. What always happens is that when
we bring any foreign process into our body, the former is at
once inwardly transformed into its opposite. For example,
the food you eat contains certain chemical forces. As the
organism takes these in, it transforms them right away into
their opposites. This has to be possible, for if our food keeps
its outer character for too long after we have eaten it, it gets
to our catabolism and causes destructive, deadly catabolic
processes. What enters our body with our food must be
taken up right away by inner processes and be changed into
its opposite.
You can trace the processes I have just described on the
basis of the human being as a whole in many details. For
example, let us assume that somehow a splinter of something
or other entered your body (see p. 88, Illustration 3,
yellow). Now, your body can react to this foreign object in
one of two ways. First, let's assume you cannot pull it out
and it stays within you. The anabolic forces in the bloodstream
are active all around the foreign object within you
(see Blackboard Illustration 3, red). They gather around the "intruder"
and have thus moved from their proper place. As a
result, the nerve activity right away predominates. A kind
of exudate is secreted around the foreign body (blue), and the
intruder is encapsulated. Because of this cyst formation the
following happens. If we had no foreign element at this
place, the etheric body would act in a certain way on the
physical body there. Now, however, the etheric body cannot
intervene in the foreign element; rather, a cyst develops
that is completely filled with the etheric (red lines). Thus,
a part of our body contains a foreign element; in this part
our etheric body is not structured by the physical.
In such cases it is then a matter of strengthening the
astral body to such an extent that it can work on this piece
of etheric body without the help of the physical body.
Through the encapsulation, our body has called upon the
catabolic forces to isolate them in a particular part of the
body and to integrate the healing etheric body in that place.
The etheric body then has to be supported through proper
treatment by the astral and the I.
In a sense, in such a case what is above the physical in
us has to become so strong that it can work without the
physical in one small part of our organism. This is what
always happens when a splinter or some other foreign element
is encysted as part of the healing process. In that part
of our body, we are moved up one level, as it were, with our
whole organization. Of course, it is also possible that a foreign
body is formed within our own organism, and the same
applies there.
However, it is also possible that a completely different
process runs its course when we have a splinter in our body.
It can happen that the nerve activity around the splinter
increases and predominates over the blood activity (see Blackboard Illustration 4, yellow). This nerve activity, in which the
I reinforced by the astral body is at work, then stimulates
the blood activity and prevents the coagulation of the exudate.
Instead, it agitates the secretions and ultimately leads
to the formation of pus (white). Since the nerves push
through to the outside (see arrows), the pus is also pushed
to the outside through the thrust that runs along the nerve
tracts in the catabolic activities toward the periphery. Thus,
the pus runs outside the body and the splinter is discharged
with it. A scar then forms, and the wound heals.
As you can see from the processes of encystation, which
occur especially when the splinter is too deep inside our
organism for the nerve-sense system to push it out, the anabolic
forces of the blood will predominate and lead to encapsulation.
If the splinter is closer to the body surface, then
the thrust from the nerves, the catabolic forces, will be
stronger and stimulate the substance that then becomes the
exudate. They will use the already existing paths of catabolism
for this purpose of breakdown, and the whole thing
will suppurate.
Thus, in the beginning of this process, in the moment of
originating, so to speak, we always carry within us the latent
tendency to let our organism harden toward the center,
centripetally, and to dissolve it again toward the periphery,
centrifugally. Of course, in the normal course of events in
our organism, the inward process of tumor formation and
the outward one of inflammation and pus formation are in
equilibrium. Our inflammations are usually so strong that
we can overcome the catabolic force of tumor formation. It
is only when one or the other of these forces predominates
that we develop either a real tumor or a severe inflammation.
Now, don't think that all this works out as easily and
simply in reality as we necessarily have to present it in a
schematic description. In reality, these processes are
meshed. For example, you know that when the inflammatory
forces are strong, we also often have a fever. Basically,
this is caused by overly strong, excessive anabolic processes
in the blood. Indeed, the forces we often develop during a
fever would almost be sufficient to supply energy for another
person if they could be conducted there.
On the other hand, when the catabolic forces predominate,
we have cold symptoms, which are not as easy to
diagnose as a fever. Of course, sometimes the two conditions
alternate, and so, in practice, we often have to deal
with an intermingling of what we really need to keep separate
to fully understand the matter.
Concerning the poisons in nature, such as that in the
deadly nightshade or belladonna, we have to ask how these
poisons relate to the other substances in our environment
that are edible and not poisonous. With our food we take
into our organism what is formed outside in nature in a
similar way as our invisible human being—it starts from a
spiritual process (see Blackboard Illustration 5, yellow), enters an
astral process (red), then an etheric one (blue), and finally a
physical one (white). The activity that proceeds downward
in nature, from the periphery down onto the earth, is akin
to the inner activity of our I, which is purely spiritual. This
activity, which I have here drawn yellow, flows down but
is transformed on the way from the astral and then is
changed again on the way from the etheric, and then enters
into the physical, and is finally absorbed by plants. Plants
grow toward and absorb this etheric activity, which from
further up already brings with it the astral and the I processes,
that is, the soul and the spiritual processes.
However, it is different with the poisonous substances.
Unlike the ordinary green plant substances, the poisonous
substances typically do not turn toward the etheric. Instead,
they go directly to the astral. In other words, the astral,
which I have drawn red, enters this substance (see Blackboard Illustration 5, red in white). In the case of the deadly nightshade,
the fruit becomes extremely greedy and is not satisfied
with taking in the etheric, but it also directly assimilates
the astral before the latter has absorbed the life forces
through the etheric on its way down. We could say astral
substance is constantly trickling down onto the earth without
having entered the etheric realm first. Drops of this
astral substance that have not gone through the earth's etheric
atmosphere can be found in the poison of the deadly
nightshade. The poisons in the thorn apple and
hyoscyamine, which is found in henbane, are also drops of
the cosmic astral that has trickled down.
Consequently, what lives in such plant substances, for
example, in the belladonna or deadly nightshade, is akin to
the process that enters our nerves and oxygen circulation
directly from the I or the astral body. Thus, when we ingest
the poison of the deadly nightshade, our catabolic processes,
which usually enter our physical body directly from the I,
will be greatly enhanced. Our I is not strong enough to bear
such an increase. If the counteracting force that works from
below upward in the blood circulation is too strong, then
we can oppose it with such catabolic processes; then the
poison of the deadly nightshade, atropin, can be an antidote
to excessive growth processes if it is given in small doses.
Of course, if we take too much of this poison, we can no
longer speak about establishing a balance. In case of an overdose,
first the growth processes are suppressed, and the patient
becomes befuddled by a spiritual activity that his or
her I cannot yet tolerate. Indeed, our I may be able to stand
this activity only in future stages of being, such as the Venus
or Vulcan stage. And then the typical symptoms of poisoning
appear. First, the point of origin of the activity at
work in the blood is undermined. This is followed by the
gastric symptoms that are the first stages of deadly nightshade
poisoning. The forces working upward are prevented
from functioning normally and complete unconsciousness
and the destruction of the person by catabolic processes set
in.
You see, if we know the spiritual content of a substance
we take in—and we can study all this best in plants—we can
trace exactly how the substance will work in our organism.
Of course, we must combine this with accurate knowledge
of outer nature. We have to know what lives in each plant,
and then we will also know how each plant works and how
it affects us when we eat it. This knowledge will lead to
great achievements if we can also bring about social conditions
that allow us to put these insights into practice.
Nowadays, however, even when we have the knowledge,
we are usually not able to practice it because our social
conditions are not adapted to an understanding of nature.
Nature is studied as a separate entity and in abstraction
only. Therefore, people cannot understand how we are incorporated
into the universe. For the same reason, it is not
possible to arrange things on a large scale so that we can
say, for example, this or that person needs to be given this
or that plant substance in such and such a rhythm. To make
this possible to any great extent, our scientific medicine
will have to take on a different character. In other words,
our social institutions must be connected to what we know
about our relationship to nature.
Of course, a great deal can be done in individual cases.
For example, we can boil roots and make a decoction for a
person whose catabolic processes, which start in the head,
we know to be excessive. We use certain roots because we
know they contain substances that have drawn—by virtue
of being in a root—the spiritual, soul, and etheric elements
down into the physical root formation in the right way.
These substances of root formation can then work in our
organism all the way into the peripheral blood vessels and
into our head; they can then be called upon to counteract
the excessive catabolic process of the nervous system. Of
course, we must have a clear idea of the transformations a
root substance undergoes when it is taken in through our
mouth and is then digested so that it can reach the outermost
periphery of our head organization and skin organization.
In other cases, we will have to know how substances
taken from blossoms work, that is, substances whose connection
with the etheric is already somewhat loose and
shaky. Such blossom substances strongly absorb the astral
element and are a little bit like poisons. They can be added
to the bath water and thus enter the organism in an entirely
different way. They stimulate the weak anabolism in the
blood vessels and counteract the catabolism working toward
the periphery.
Similarly, we can also trace the effect of injections. Basically,
this is also a matter of strengthening and enhancing
anabolic processes to counterbalance the catabolic processes.
Therefore, we will see the reactions of the catabolic
processes especially when we give injections. In fact, injections
have their proper effect only when the catabolic processes
resist at first before gradually merging with the anabolic
processes. Thus, slightly impaired vision or a buzzing
in the ears often occurs with injections because the breakdown
processes at first refuse to properly counterbalance
the enhanced anabolic processes. By the same token, such
reactions are a definite indication that we are intervening
in these processes.
All this shows you that anthroposophy is not about providing
models for a club of sectarian old cronies so they can
expound on the human being consisting of physical body,
etheric body, astral body, and I. Rather, anthroposophy is
concerned with a serious, thorough understanding of human
beings and their relationship to the world; it is a matter of
carrying the spiritual into the material realm. If anthroposophy
is to take its rightful place in the world, people must
realize that it can observe and study the spiritual in the
material realm. As long as we are only working for sectarian
circles, who merely pass on their classification of human
beings, we are only dealing with things that will conflict
with all kinds of other sectarian ideas. However, as soon as
we can actually show that our anthroposophical insights are
closely connected with all other knowledge—as I said yesterday,
they shed light on all other earthly knowledge just
as astrology did in the past—then people will realize that
anthroposophy has to intervene in the process of civilization
so that a true upbuilding process can occur to counterbalance
the breakdown processes coming from past ages.
This is how serious we have to be about professing ourselves
anthroposophists. Of course, not every individual
will do research to discover how belladonna on the one hand
and chlorine on the other affect our organism. That is not
the point; what matters is that people generally understand
in their hearts and minds that we can receive healing precisely
from anthroposophical insights into the world and
the human being.
Similarly, in Waldorf education we do not expect everyone
to be able to teach nor even to teach children from first
grade on. But we do expect people to have a general understanding
for how our pedagogy has grown out of our knowledge
of human beings and the world. Anthroposophy needs
to be met with kind understanding. It would be wrong to
assume that everybody should know everything. Rather, the
effectiveness of the Anthroposophical Society must lie in
creating a general understanding, based on sound common
sense, for the strivings of anthroposophy, for what it tries
to realize for the welfare and future of humanity.
In connection with this lecture of February 11, 1923, Steiner
made the following entries in his notebook:
The ether becomes similar to that of the nerve-sense system: A
The ether becomes similar to that of the metabolic system: B
Pus = organic matter (etheric) permeated by centrifugal astrality
from the outside—on its way to the outside.
Congealed exudation = organic (etheric) matter permeated by
centripetal astrality from the inside—in the process of disappearing
from the physical world.
In the healing process, the organism merely continues a process
that takes place everyday when poisonous outer processes invading
us are fought off.
It is the lower system (that carries out this process); it excretes
the elements [processes] from the outside after having permeated
them with centrifugal forces, such as are active in the
growth of plants—and in sleep.
The poisonous processes, however, work centripetally—in the
nervous system—and bring the outer world inside after it has
cooled it down (made it into a mere form) so that through it the
spiritual can penetrate directly to the inside.
Impeded inhalation, eating, the overly forceful day processes;
overly forceful exhalation, digestion, the overly forceful night
processes.
The body has not taken in the spirit, the night processes are too
strong = the person runs a temperature: areas of the organism
soften and fester.
The body takes in the spirit too strongly, the day processes are
too strong = the person gets cold: areas of the organism harden.
Internal exudations—crumbling.
