The Human Being as Body, Soul and Spirit
GA 347
One can also call these lectures dialogues, because their content was always determined by the workers themselves, at Rudolf Steiner's request. They were allowed to choose their topics themselves; he encouraged them to ask questions and share their thoughts, and he encouraged them to express themselves and to voice their objections. Both the far-reaching and the obvious were touched upon. Particular interest was shown in the therapeutic and hygienic aspects of life; this showed how much these things are part of the daily concerns of the worker. But all phenomena of nature, of the mineral, plant and animal world were touched upon, and this led out into the cosmos again, to the origin of things and beings. Finally, the workers requested an introduction to spiritual science and the basic knowledge for understanding the mysteries of Christianity.
This spiritual work together had developed out of a few courses that Dr. Roman Boos had initially given for those interested in such questions after finishing work on the construction site; they were later continued by other members of the Anthroposophical Society. But now the workers asked Rudolf Steiner if he would take charge of them and quench their thirst for knowledge. They also asked if it would be possible to use one hour of the usual working hours for this purpose, when they were still fresh and receptive. This was done in the morning hour after the vesper break. Some employees of the construction office were also allowed to attend, along with two or three of Dr. Steiner's closest colleagues. Practical matters were also discussed, such as beekeeping, which interested beekeepers. The transcript of those lectures on bees was later published by the Agricultural Experimental Ring at the Goetheanum as a brochure for its members, when Dr. Steiner was no longer with us.
Now, more and more people wanted to get to know these lectures. However, they were intended for a special audience and were spoken off the cuff in a special situation, as suggested by the circumstances and the mood of the listening workers — and certainly not with a view to publication and printing. But it is precisely the way they were spoken that has a fresh and immediate quality that one would not want to be missed. One would rob them of the special atmosphere that is based on the interaction of what lived in the souls of the questioners and the answerer. One would not want to wipe away the color and atmosphere by pedantically rearranging the sentence structure. Therefore, the attempt is made to touch them as little as possible. Even if not everything in them corresponds to the conventions of literary style, they have the immediacy of life.
Marie Steiner
| I. On the Origin of Language and Languages | August 2, 1922 | |
| Broca's discovery. Stroke and loss of speech. Speaking and the formation of the left temporal lobe. The development of speech in childhood. Vowels and consonants. Imitation in speaking. Left-handedness and right-handedness. Pedagogical treatment of left-handedness. The diversity of languages according to the regions of the earth and the constellations in the sky. | ||
| II. The Life Body of a Human Being – Brain and Thought | August 5, 1922 | |
| What makes a human being a thinking creature? Milk nutrition. Donkey milk. Mother's milk. Nourishment's death and resurrection. The white blood corpuscles and the brain cells. Fainting conditions and pallor. Consciousness and its dependence on the exact relationship between white and red blood corpuscles. Brain activity during sleep. Unconsciousness during sleep. Thought activity during sleep. Respiratory process and brain activity. Perception of dreams. Thought activity of the brain during the day. | ||
| III. The Human Being in Relation to the World – Creation and Dissolution | August 9, 1922 | |
| Killing of life. Origin of thoughts. Crystal formation. Pebble. Mountain formation. The Alps. Sugar and sugar dissolution. Diabetes. Rheumatism and gout. Formation and dissolution of the brain sand. Stroke. Being sick means nothing more than that we develop something too strongly. Coffee and tea. Nitrogen-rich food. Dissolution process and self-awareness. | ||
| IV. Knowledge of the Human Being According to Body, Soul or Spirit, Brain and Thinking — The Liver as a Sensory Organ | September 9, 1922 | |
| Life in the brain cells and in the white blood cells. Imbecility and brain softening. The dying off of life in the brain as a prerequisite for thinking. Causes of liver hardening. The liver as an organ of perception. Metabolic disorders in the human body. The development of human beings in the womb. Infant sleep. The body becoming useless with age. Bowel cancer, stomach cancer or cancer of the pyloric valve. Memory overload and organ hardening. Real, actual recognition. Making science practical. | ||
| V. Sensation and Thoughts in Internal Organs | September 13, 1922 | |
| Breast milk and cow's milk. The killing and reviving of food. The liver as an inner sense organ. The kidney's activity as perception. Brain hardening. Diabetes. Special features of the liver. The liver: an inner eye. Bile secretion. The animal's eyes as a thinking organ. The Janus faces of the Romans. | ||
| VI. The Process of Nutrition, Considered Physically, Materially, Mentally and Spiritually | September 16, 1922 | |
| Ptyalin, pepsin, trypsin. Feeling the liver. Bile secretion. Starch: sugar; protein: liquid protein, formation of alcohol; fats: glycerin, fatty acids; salts remain salts. About the death of Paracelsus. Taking in large amounts of alcohol. Migraine. The brain in the cerebral fluid. The main difference between humans and animals. Salts and phosphorus as the most important substances in the human head, salt and thinking, phosphorus and will. | ||
| VII. About Early Conditions of Earth (Lemuria) | September 20, 1922 | |
| Earth mud and fire air. Dragon birds, ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs. The dragon birds as food for the ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs. Birds, herbivorous animals and megatheriums. The Earth: a dead giant. | ||
| VIII. Early Earth Conditions (continued) | September 23, 1922 | |
| Turtles, crocodiles. Animal healing instincts. Oxygen and carbon. Plants and forests. The earth's perpetual change. The giant oysters and their life in the “earth soup”. Earthworms. The earth in a state of egg. The moon as a stimulus for the imagination and for growth forces. Mechnikov's reference to Goethe's “Faust”. The moon inside the earth. Moon egress and condition afterwards. Preservation of the old moon substance in the reproductive power of animal and human beings. | ||
| IX. The Dawn of Time | September 27, 1922 | |
| The state of the earth before the moon emerges. Reproduction of giant oysters. Origin of male and female forces in the time before the moon emerges. Elephant, aphid and Vorticelle. The sun as a fertilizing force. Storing potatoes in pits in the ground. The earth gives its beings the power of reproduction by storing the forces of the sun within itself during the winter. Reproduction through cuttings, encouraging plants to grow properly. Earthworms, intestinal worms. Life force in plant seeds. Effect of the sun in plant and animal reproduction. Effect of the moon on the weather. The Geometer's dispute about the moon. The time of the earth's development when the earth, sun and moon were still one body. The Plateaux experiment. The earth as a living being. | ||
| X. Adam Kadmon in Lemuria | September 30, 1922 | |
| The Earth was once a living human head. The Earth's early nourishment from outer space. Julius Robert Mayer. The sun 'eats' comets. Meteorites: disintegrated comets. The Earth's nourishment from the sun. The embryonic human head, a clear image of the Earth. The Earth was once the germ of a giant human. Man was once the whole Earth. 'The Face of the Earth' by Eduard Sueß. Origin of animals. Why man is so small. We all descend from one man. The giant Ymir. Misinterpretation of the Old Testament. Eradication of ancient knowledge. | ||