Fundamentals of Therapy
GA 27
VIII. Activities Within The Human Organism. Diabetes Mellitus
[ 1 ] Throughout all its members, the human organism unfolds activities which can only have their origin in the organism itself. Whatsoever is received from outside, must either merely provide the occasion for the organism to unfold its own activities, or else its activity in the body must be such that the foreign activity cannot be distinguished from an inner activity of the body once it has penetrated it.
[ 2 ] Man's essential food contains carbohydrates for example. To a degree these are similar to starch. As such they are substances which unfold their activity in the plant. They enter into the human body in the state which they can achieve in the plant. In this state starch is a foreign body. The human organism does not develop any activity which lies in the direction of what starch can unfold as activity in the state in which it enters the body. For example, what develops in the human liver as a substance similar to starch (glycogen), is something different from plant starch. On the other hand grape-sugar is a substance which stimulates activities that are of a nature similar to the activities of the human body. To develop an effect that plays any real part in the body, it must first be transformed. It is transformed into sugar by the activity of ptyalin in the mouth.
Protein and fats are not altered by ptyalin. To begin with they enter into the stomach as foreign substances. Here the proteins are so transformed by the secreted gastric pepsin that breakdown products as far as peptides arise. The peptides are substances whose impulses of action coincide with those of the body. Fat, on the other hand, also remains unchanged in the stomach. It is only changed when it comes in contact with the pancreatic secretion, where it gives rise to substances that appear on examination of the dead organism as glycerine and fatty acids.
[ 3 ] Now the transformation of starch into sugar continues through the whole process of digestion. Transformation of starch also takes place through the gastric juice if it has not already been accomplished by the ptyalin.
[ 4 ] Where the transformation of starch is achieved by ptyalin, the process stands at the boundary of that which takes place, in man, in the domain referred to in the second chapter as the organization of the ego. It is in this domain that the first transformation of the materials received into the human body from the outer world takes place. Glucose is a substance that can work in the sphere of the ego-organization. Corresponding to it is the taste of sweetness, which has its being in the ego-organization.
[ 5 ] If sugar is produced from starch through the gastric juice, this shows that the ego-organization penetrates into the region of the digestive system. For conscious experience, the sensation of sweet taste is absent in this case; nevertheless, the same thing that goes on in consciousness- in the domain of the ego-organization—while the sensation “sweet” is experienced, now penetrates into the unconscious regions of the human body, where the ego-organization becomes active.
[ 6 ] Now, in the regions of which we are unconscious, the astral body, in the sense explained in Chapter II, comes into play. The astral body is active when starch is transformed into sugar in the stomach.
Man can only be conscious through that which works in his ego-organization in such a way that this is not overwhelmed or disturbed by anything, but able to unfold itself to the full. This is the case in the domain where the ptyalin influences lie. In the realm of the pepsin influences, the astral body overwhelms the ego-organization. The ego-activity becomes submerged in the astral. Thus, in the sphere of material substance, we can trace the ego-organization by the presence of sugar. Where there is sugar, there is the ego organization; the ego-organization emerges where sugar arises in order to direct the sub-human (vegetative and animal) material towards the human.
[ 7 ] Now sugar occurs as a product of excretion in diabetes mellitus. Here the ego-organization appears in the human body in such a form that it works destructively. If we observe it in any other region of its activity, we find that the ego organization dives down into the astral. Sugar, directly consumed, is in the ego-organization. There it induces the sweet taste. Starch, consumed and transformed into sugar by ptyalin or in the gastric juice, reveals the action in the mouth or in the stomach, of the astral body working with the ego-organization and submerging the latter.
[ 8 ] However, sugar is present in the blood as well. The blood, as it circulates with its sugar content, carries the ego-organization through the whole body. But there through the working of the human organism the ego-organization is everywhere held in equilibrium. We saw in Chapter II how the human being contains, besides the ego-organization and astral body, the etheric body and the physical. These also take up the ego-organization and retain it in themselves. As long as this is the case, sugar is not secreted in the urine. How the ego-organization carrying sugar is able to live, is shown by processes in the organism bound up with sugar.
[ 9 ] In a healthy man sugar can only appear in the urine if consumed too copiously as sugar, or if too much alcohol is consumed. Alcohol enters directly into the processes of the body without intermediate products of transformation. In both these cases the sugar-process appears independently as such, alongside the other activities in the human being.
[ 10 ] In diabetes mellitus the case is as follows: the ego-organization, as it submerges in the astral and etheric realm, is so weakened that it can no longer effectively accomplish its action upon the sugar-substance. The sugar then undergoes the processes in the astral and etheric realms which should take place in the ego-organization
[ 11 ] Diabetes is aggravated by everything that draws the ego organization away and impairs its effective penetration into the bodily activities: over-excitement occurring not once but repeatedly; intellectual over-exertion; hereditary predispositions hindering the normal co-ordination of the ego-organization with the body as a whole. At the same time and in connection with these things, processes take place in the head system which ought properly to be parallel to the processes accompanying activity of the soul and spirit; they fall out of their true parallelism because the latter activity takes place either too slowly or too quickly. It is as though the nervous system were thinking independently alongside of the thinking human being. Now this is an activity which the nervous system should only carry out during sleep. In the diabetic, a form of sleep in the depths of the organism runs parallel to the waking state. Hence in the further course of the disease a morbid degeneration of nervous substance takes place. It is a consequence of the deficient penetration of the ego-organization.
[ 12 ] The formation of boils is another collateral symptom in diabetes. Boils arise through an excessive activity in the domain of the etheric. The ego-organization fails where it should be working. The astral activity cannot unfold itself because at such a place it only has power when in harmony with the ego-organization. The result is an excess of etheric activity revealing itself in the formation of boils.
[ 13 ] From all this we see that a real healing process for diabetes mellitus can only be initiated if we are in a position to strengthen the ego-organization of the patient.
VIII. Tätigkeiten im menschlichen Organismus. Diabetes mellitus
[ 1 ] Der menschliche Organismus entfaltet durch alle seine Glieder hindurch Tätigkeiten, die ihre Impulse allein in ihm selber haben können. Was er von außen aufnimmt, muß entweder bloß die Veranlassung dazu sein, daß er eine eigene Tätigkeit entwickeln kann; oder es muß so im Körper wirken, daß die Fremdtätigkeit sich nicht von einer inneren Tätigkeit des Körpers unterscheidet, sobald sie in diesen eingedrungen ist.
[ 2 ] Die notwendige Nahrung des Menschen enthält z. B. Kohlehydrate. Diese sind zum Teil stärkeähnlich. Als solche sind sie Substanzen, die ihre Tätigkeit in der Pflanze entfalten. In den menschlichen Körper gelangen sie in dem Zustande, den sie in der Pflanze erreichen können. In diesem Zustande ist die Stärke ein Fremdkörper. Der menschliche Organismus entwickelt keine Tätigkeit, die in der Richtung dessen liegt, was Stärke, in dem Zustande, in dem sie in den Körper kommt, als Tätigkeit entfalten kann. Was z. B. in der menschlichen Leber als stärkeähnlicher Stoff entwickelt wird (Glykogen), ist etwas anderes als pflanzliche Stärke. Dagegen ist der Traubenzucker eine Substanz, die Tätigkeiten erregt, welche von gleicher Art sind wie Tätigkeiten des menschlichen Organismus selbst. Stärke kann daher in diesem nicht Stärke bleiben. Soll sie eine Wirkung entfalten, die in dem Körper eine Rolle spielt, so muß sie verwandelt werden. Und sie geht, indem sie vom Ptyalin der Mundhöhle durchsetzt wird, in Zucker über. Eiweiß und Fett werden vom Ptyalin nicht verändert. Sie treten zunächst als Fremdsubstanzen in den Magen ein. In diesem werden die Eiweißstoffe durch das von ihm abgesonderte Pepsin so verwandelt, daß die Abbauprodukte bis zu den Peptonen entstehen. Sie sind Substanzen, deren Tätigkeitsimpulse mit solchen des Körpers zusammenfallen. Dagegen bleibt Fett auch im Magen unverändert. Es wird erst von dem Absonderungsprodukt der Bauchspeicheldrüse so verwandelt, daß Substanzen entstehen, die sich aus dem toten Organismus als Glycerin und Fettsäuren ergeben.
[ 3 ] Nun aber geht die Verwandlung der Stärke in Zucker durch den ganzen Verdauungsvorgang hindurch. Es findet auch eine Umwandlung der Stärke durch den Magensaft statt, wenn diese Umwandlung nicht schon durch das Ptyalin stattgefunden hat.
[ 4 ] Wenn die Umwandlung der Stärke durch das Ptyalin stattfindet, so steht der Vorgang an der Grenze dessen, was sich im Menschen im Bereich dessen abspielt, das in dem Kapitel II die Ich-Organisation genannt worden ist. In deren Bereich geht die erste Umwandlung des von außen Aufgenommenen vor sich. Traubenzucker ist eine Substanz, die im Bereich der Ich-Organisation wirken kann. Er ist dem Geschmack des Süßen entsprechend, der in der Ich-Organisation sein Dasein hat.
[ 5 ] Entsteht aus dem Stärkemehl durch den Magensaft Zucker, so bedeutet dies, daß die Ich-Organisation in den Bereich des Verdauungssystems eindringt. Für das Bewußtsein ist dann der Geschmack des Süßen nicht da; aber, was im Bewußtsein - im Bereich der Ich-Organisation - vorgeht, während «süß» empfunden wird, das dringt in die unbewußten Regionen des menschlichen Körpers, und die Ich-Organisation wird dort tätig. In den uns unbewußten Regionen hat man es nun im Sinne von Kapitel II zunächst mit dem astralischen Leib zu tun. Es ist der astralische Leib da in Wirksamkeit, wo im Magen die Stärke in Zucker verwandelt wird.
[ 6 ] Bewußt kann der Mensch nur sein durch dasjenige, was in seiner Ich-Organisation so wirkt, daß diese durch nichts übertönt oder gestört wird, so daß sie sich voll entfalten kann. Das ist innerhalb des Bereiches der Fall, in dem die Ptyalinwirkungen liegen. Im Bereich der Pepsinwirkungen übertönt der Astralleib die Ich-Organisation. Die Ich-Tätigkeit taucht unter in die astralische. Man kann also im Bereich des Materiellen die Ich-Organisation an der Anwesenheit des Zuckers verfolgen. Wo Zucker ist, da ist Ich-Organisation; wo Zucker entsteht, da tritt die Ich-Organisation auf, um die untermenschliche (vegetative, animalische) Körperlichkeit zum Menschlichen hin zu orientieren.
[ 7 ] Nun tritt der Zucker als Ausscheidungsprodukt auf bei Diabetes mellitus. Man hat es dabei mit dem Auftreten der Ich-Organisation an dem menschlichen Organismus in einer solchen Form zu tun, daß diese Organisation zerstörend wirkt. Sieht man auf jede andre Region des Wirkens der Ich-Organisation, so stellt sich heraus, daß diese untertaucht in die astralische Organisation. Zucker unmittelbar genossen ist in der Ich-Organisation. Er wird da zum Veranlasser des Süß-Geschmackes. Stärke genossen und durch das Ptyalin oder den Magensaft in Zucker verwandelt, zeigt an, daß in der Mundhöhle oder im Magen der astralische Leib mit der Ich-Organisation zusammenwirkt und die letztere übertönt.
[ 8 ] Zucker ist aber auch im Blute vorhanden. Indem das Blut Zucker enthaltend durch den ganzen Körper zirkuliert, trägt es die Ich-Organisation durch diesen. Überall da aber wird diese Ich-Organisation durch das Wirken des menschlichen Organismus in ihrem Gleichgewicht gehalten. In dem Kapitel II hat sich gezeigt, wie außer der Ich-Organisation und dem astralischen Leib in der menschlichen Wesenheit noch der ätherische und der physische Leib vorhanden sind. Auch diese nehmen die Ich-Organisation auf und halten sie in sich. So lange dies der Fall ist, sondert der Harn keinen Zucker ab. Wie die Ich-Organisation, den Zucker tragend, leben kann, das zeigt sich an den an den Zucker gebundenen Vorgängen im Organismus.
[ 9 ] Beim Gesunden kann der Zucker im Harn nur auftreten, wenn er zu reichlich, als Zucker, genossen wird, oder wenn Alkohol, der unmittelbar, mit Übergehung von Verwandlungsprodukten, in die Körpervorgänge sich hineinzieht, zu reichlich aufgenommen wird. In beiden Fällen tritt der Zuckerprozeß als selbständig, neben den sonstigen Vorgängen im Menschen auf.
[ 10 ] Bei Diabetes mellitus liegt die Tatsache vor, daß die Ich-Organisation beim Untertauchen in den astralischen und ätherischen Bereich so abgeschwächt wird, daß sie für ihre Tätigkeit an der Zuckersubstanz nicht mehr wirksam sein kann. Es geschieht dann durch die astralischen und ätherischen Regionen mit dem Zucker dasjenige, was mit ihm durch die Ich-Organisation geschehen sollte.
[ 11 ] Es befördert alles die Zuckerkrankheit, was die Ich-Organisation aus der in die Körpertätigkeit eingreifenden Wirksamkeit herausreißt: Aufregungen, die nicht vereinzelt, sondern in Wiederholungen auftreten; intellektuelle Überanstrengungen; erbliche Belastung, die eine normale Eingliederung der Ich-Organisation in den Gesamtorganismus verhindert. Das alles ist zugleich damit verbunden, daß in der Kopforganisation solche Vorgänge stattfinden, die eigentlich Parallelvorgänge der geistig-seelischen Tätigkeit sein sollten; die aber, weil diese Tätigkeit zu schnell oder zu langsam verläuft, aus dem Parallelismus herausfallen. Es denkt gewissermaßen das Nervensystem selbständig neben dem denkenden Menschen. Das aber ist eine Tätigkeit, die das Nervensystem nur im Schlafe ausführen sollte. Beim Diabetiker geht eine Art von Schlaf in den Tiefen des Organismus dem Wachzustande parallel. Es findet daher im Verlaufe der Zuckerkrankheit eine Entartung der Nervensubstanz statt. Diese ist die Folge des mangelhaften Eingreifens der Ich-Organisation.
[ 12 ] Eine andere Begleiterscheinung sind die Furunkelbildungen bei Diabetikern. Furunkelbildungen entstehen durch ein Übermaß in der Region der ätherischen Tätigkeit. Die Ich-Organisation versagt da, wo sie wirken sollte. Die astralische Tätigkeit kann sich nicht entfalten, weil sie gerade an einem solchen Orte nur im Einklange mit der Ich-Organisation Kraft hat. Die Folge ist das Übermaß der ätherischen Wirksamkeit, die sich in der Furunkelbildung zeigt.
[ 13 ] In alle diesem sieht man, wie ein Heilungsvorgang für Diabetes mellitus nur eingeleitet werden kann, wenn man die Ich-Organisation bei dem Diabetiker zu kräftigen imstande ist.
VIII Activities in the human organism. Diabetes mellitus
[ 1 ] The human organism develops activities through all its members which can have their impulses solely within itself. What it takes in from without must either be merely the cause of its being able to develop an activity of its own; or it must act in the body in such a way that the foreign activity is indistinguishable from an internal activity of the body as soon as it has penetrated it.
[ 2 ] The necessary human food contains, for example, carbohydrates. Some of these are similar to starch. As such, they are substances that develop their activity in the plant. They enter the human body in the state that they can reach in the plant. In this state, the starch is a foreign body. The human organism does not develop any activity in the direction of what starch can develop as activity in the state in which it enters the body. For example, what is developed in the human liver as a starch-like substance (glycogen) is something different from vegetable starch. In contrast, glucose is a substance that stimulates activities that are of the same nature as activities of the human organism itself. Starch can therefore not remain starch in the human body. If it is to have an effect that plays a role in the body, it must be transformed. And it is transformed into sugar by the ptyalin of the oral cavity. Protein and fat are not changed by ptyalin. They first enter the stomach as foreign substances. In the stomach, the proteins are transformed by the pepsin secreted by it in such a way that the degradation products up to the peptones are formed. These are substances whose activity impulses coincide with those of the body. Fat, on the other hand, remains unchanged in the stomach. It is only transformed by the secretion product of the pancreas in such a way that substances are formed which result from the dead organism as glycerol and fatty acids.
[ 3 ] Now, however, the transformation of starch into sugar goes through the entire digestive process. Starch is also converted by gastric juice if this conversion has not already taken place by ptyalin.
[ 4 ] If the transformation of starch takes place through ptyalin, the process is at the limit of what takes place in the human being in the area of what was called the ego organization in Chapter II. It is in this area that the first transformation of what is taken in from outside takes place. Dextrose is a substance that can act in the area of the ego organization. It corresponds to the taste of sweetness, which has its existence in the ego organization.
[ 5 ] If sugar is produced from the starch flour through the gastric juice, this means that the ego organization penetrates into the area of the digestive system. The taste of sweetness is then not there for the conscious mind; but what goes on in the conscious mind - in the area of the ego-organization - while "sweet" is perceived, that penetrates into the unconscious regions of the human body, and the ego-organization becomes active there. In the regions that are unconscious to us, we are dealing first of all with the astral body, as described in Chapter II. The astral body is active where starch is transformed into sugar in the stomach.
[ 6 ] The human being can only be conscious through that which works in his ego organization in such a way that it is not drowned out or disturbed by anything, so that it can fully unfold. This is the case within the area in which the pepsin effects lie. In the area of pepsin effects the astral body drowns out the ego organization. The ego activity is submerged in the astral. In the material realm, therefore, the ego organization can be traced by the presence of sugar. Where there is sugar, there is ego-organization; where sugar arises, there the ego-organization appears in order to orient the subhuman (vegetative, animalistic) physicality towards the human.
[ 7 ] Sugar now appears as an excretory product in diabetes mellitus. Here we are dealing with the appearance of the ego organization in the human organism in such a form that this organization has a destructive effect. If one looks at every other region of the activity of the ego-organization, it turns out that it is submerged in the astral organization. Sugar is directly enjoyed in the ego-organization. There it becomes the inducer of the sweet taste. Starch consumed and transformed into sugar by the ptyalin or gastric juice indicates that in the oral cavity or in the stomach the astral body cooperates with the ego organization and drowns out the latter.
[ 8 ] Sugar is also present in the blood. By circulating through the whole body containing sugar, the blood carries the ego organization through it. Everywhere, however, this ego organization is kept in balance by the action of the human organism. Chapter II has shown how, in addition to the ego-organization and the astral body, the etheric and physical bodies are also present in the human being. These also absorb the ego-organization and hold it within themselves. As long as this is the case, the urine does not secrete sugar. How the ego organization, carrying the sugar, can live is shown by the processes in the organism that are bound to the sugar.
[ 9 ] In healthy people, sugar can only appear in the urine if it is consumed too abundantly, as sugar, or if alcohol, which is directly drawn into the bodily processes by bypassing transformation products, is ingested too abundantly. In both cases, the sugar process occurs independently, alongside the other processes in the human body.
[ 10 ] In diabetes mellitus, the ego organization is so weakened when immersed in the astral and etheric realm that it can no longer be effective for its activity on the sugar substance. What happens to the sugar through the astral and etheric regions is what should happen to it through the ego organization.
[ 11 ] Everything that pulls the ego-organization out of the activity that intervenes in the body promotes sugar sickness: excitements that do not occur sporadically but in repetitions; intellectual overexertion; hereditary strain that prevents a normal integration of the ego-organization into the organism as a whole. All this is at the same time connected with the fact that in the head organization such processes take place which should actually be parallel processes of the mental-spiritual activity; but which, because this activity proceeds too quickly or too slowly, fall out of parallelism. To a certain extent, the nervous system thinks independently alongside the thinking human being. But this is an activity that the nervous system should only carry out during sleep. In diabetics, a kind of sleep in the depths of the organism runs parallel to the waking state. Therefore, a degeneration of the nervous substance takes place in the course of diabetes. This is the result of the inadequate intervention of the ego organization.
[ 12 ] Another side effect is the formation of boils in diabetics. Boils are caused by an excess in the region of etheric activity. The ego organization fails where it should work. The astral activity cannot unfold because in such a place it only has power in harmony with the ego organization. The result is an excess of etheric activity, which manifests itself in the formation of boils.
[ 13 ] In all of this, one can see how a healing process for diabetes mellitus can only be initiated if the ego organization in the diabetic is able to be strengthened.