Becoming Anthroposophia : Mother Courage : Raja Yoga : The alchemy of yoga : conceiving the Christ in us through the loving intercourse of the Heavenly Father and the Earth Mother

 

I entered in this world of sense
Bearing with me thinking's heritage.
A godly power has led me here.
Death stands at the end of the way.
I will to feel the Christ Being.
In the death of matter He awakens spirit-birth.
Thus in the spirit shall I find the world
And in the world's becoming know myself.

                               — Rudolf Steiner

O Gottesgeist, erfülle mich,

Erfülle mich in meiner Seele,

Meiner Seele schenke Stärkekraft,

Stärkekraft auch meinem Herzen,

Meinem Herzen das dich sucht,

Sucht durch tiefe Sehnsucht,

Tiefe Sehnsucht nach Gesundheit,

Nach Gesundheit und Starkmut,

Starkmut der durch meine Glieder strömt,

Strömt wie edles Gottgeschenk,

Gottheschenk von dir, O Gottesgeist,

O Gottesgeist, erfülle mich.

                          —Rudolf Steiner

O Spirit of God: fill me,

Fill me within my soul,

On my soul bestow a strengthening force,

Strengthening force too for my heart,

For my heart that seeks union with you,

Seeks union with deepest longing,

Deepest longing for good health,

For good health and strong courage,

Strong courage that streams through my body,

Streams as precious divine gift,

Divine gift from you, O Spirit of God,

O Spirit of God: fill me.

    

Rudolf Steiner:  "If we grasp the concept of the willing that lives in the mental pursuit of truth, then that concept is that of the soul as a substantial being."

Rudolf Steiner:  "Self-knowledge really always consists in this: one perceives on the one hand that which is high up above Earth man, and on the other hand that which is deep down below Earth man; and these two have to meet in man's own inner being. Then can man find within his own being the power of God the Creator."

"I and my Father are One."  —John 10:30

I John 5:4-8

For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.

Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?

This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.

For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved."  — John 3:16-17

Hegel: “Sein und Nicht-Sein vereinigen sich zur höheren Einheit im Werden.” “Being and Not-Being coalesce to Becoming as the higher unity.” 

The Four Seasons and the Archangels

Lecture 4 of 5

Rudolf Steiner, October 12, 1923

If now we go forward from Easter, the spring festival, we shall need to penetrate much more spiritually into the subject than we had to do in considering the previous seasons of the year. This may sound like a contradiction, but it is not so. In thinking of the Christmas season, we had to start from the way in which earthly mineral limestone is gradually transformed, and we carried this thought over to the time of Easter. In general, we have been turning our eyes on the active working of the spiritual in the material realm. Now in summer, high summer, man is really bound up with the being of Nature. From spring onwards into summer, Nature becomes constantly more active, more satisfied inwardly, and man with his whole being is woven into this mood of Nature. We can indeed say that in high summer man experiences a kind of Nature-consciousness. During spring, if he has the perception and feeling for it, he becomes one with all that is growing and sprouting. He blossoms with the flower, germinates with the plant, fruits with the plant, enters into everything that lives and has its being in the world outside. In this way he spreads out his own being over the being of Nature, and a kind of Nature-consciousness arises in him. Then, since in autumn Nature dies away and thus bears death within itself, man too, if he participates in what autumn — the time of Michaelmas — means for Nature, must experience in himself this dying away; but with his own self he must not take part in it. He must raise himself above it. In place precisely of a Nature-consciousness, a strengthening of his self-consciousness must occur. But in the glow of summer, just because a Nature-consciousness is then at its height in man, it is all the more necessary for the cosmos that — if only man is willing — the cosmos should bring the spiritual to meet him.

Hence we can say: In summer man is bound up with Nature, but, if he has the right feeling and perception for it, objective spirituality comes toward him from out of Nature's interweaving life. And so, to find the essential human being during the St. John's time, at midsummer, we must turn to the objective spirituality in the outer world, and this is present everywhere in Nature. Only in outward appearance is Nature the sprouting, budding — one might say the sleeping — being which calls forth from the powers of sleep the forces of vegetative growth, in which a kind of sleeping Nature-life is given form. But in this sleeping Nature, if only man has the perception for it, the spiritual which animates and weaves through everything in Nature is revealed.

So it is that if we follow Nature in high summer with deepened spiritual insight and with perceptive eyes, we find our gaze directed to the depths of the Earth itself. We find that the minerals down there send their inner crystal-forming process toward us more vividly than at any other time of the year. If we look with Imaginative perception into the depths of the Earth at St. John's-tide, we really have the impression that down there are the crystalline forms in which the hard earth consolidates itself — the very crystalline forms which gain their full beauty at the height of summer. At midsummer everything down below the earth shapes itself into lines, angles, and surfaces. If we are to have an impression of it as a whole, we must picture this crystallizing process as an interweaving activity, colored throughout with deep blue.

Plate V

I will try to show it on the blackboard, though of course I can do so only in a quite sketchy way (see Plate V). So we can say: On looking downwards, we have an impression of line-like forms, suffused with blue, and everywhere the blue is shot through with lines which sparkle like silver, so that everywhere within the silver-sparkling blue the crystallizing process (white) can be discerned. It is as though Nature wishes to present her formative power in a wonderful plastic design, but a design that cannot be seen in the way we see with ordinary eyes. It is seen in such a way that one really feels oneself dissolved into the plastic design, and feels every silver-gleaming line down there to be within oneself, part of oneself. One feels that as a human form one has grown out of the blue depths of the Earth's crust, and one feels oneself inwardly permeated with force by the silver-gleaming crystal lines. All this one feels as part of one's own being. And if one comes to oneself and asks — How is it that these silver-sparkling crystal lines and waves are working within myself? What is it that lives and works there, silver-gleaming in the blue of the Earth? — then one knows: That is cosmic Will. And one has the feeling of standing upon cosmic Will.

So it is when one looks down into the depths of the Earth. And if one looks up to the heights, how is it then? The impression one has is of outspreading cosmic Intelligence. Human intelligence — as I have often said — is not of much value at its present stage. But the heavens at midsummer give one the feeling that cosmic Intelligence is alive everywhere — the intelligence not of single beings but of many beings who live together and within one another. Thus we have up there the outspreading Intelligence woven through with light; the living Intelligence shining forth (yellow) as the polaric opposite of the Will. And while down below we feel — in that blue darkness everything is experienced only as forces, up above we feel — everything is such that in perceiving it we are illumined, permeated, with a feeling of intelligence.

And now within this radiant activity there appears — I cannot put it otherwise — a  form. When we were speaking of autumn, I had to name Michael as the most significant figure who rises before our souls out of the weaving of Nature. As to how Gabriel — to use the old name — enters into the time of Christmas, we shall have more to say. In the last lecture I showed you how at Easter, the season of spring, the figure of Raphael comes before us. He comes in dramatic guise, as the mediator who arouses in us the rightful approach, through reverence and worship, to what the Easter Imagination, the cosmic Easter Imagination, is. And now, for the St. John's time, there comes before us — to describe it in human terms, which are of course bound to be only approximate — an extraordinarily earnest countenance, which arises glowing warmly out of the pervading radiant Intelligence (red head in the yellow,Plate V). We have the impression that this figure forms its body of light out of the radiant Intelligence. And for this to happen at the height of summer, something I have already described must come in: the elemental spirits of the Earth must soar upwards. As they do so, they weave themselves into the shining Intelligence up above, and the shining Intelligence receives them into itself. And out of that gleaming radiance the figure I have just mentioned takes form.

This form was divined by the old instinctive clairvoyance, and we can give it the same name by which it was known then. We can say: In summer, Uriel appears in the midst of the shining Intelligence.

Autumn	Michael
Winter	Gabriel
Spring	Raphael
Summer	Uriel

It is with great earnestness that this representative of the weaving cosmic forces, seeking to embody himself in a vesture of light, appears in the time of summer. There are further things we can observe as the deeds accomplished by Uriel in the radiant light — Uriel, whose own intelligence arises fundamentally from the working together of the planetary forces of our planetary system, supported by the working of the fixed stars of the Zodiac; Uriel, who in his thoughts preserves the thoughts of the cosmos. And so, quite directly, the feeling comes: You clouds of summer, radiant with Intelligence, in which are reflected up above the blue crystal-formations of the earth below, just as these blue crystal-formations mirror in turn the shining Intelligence of the summer clouds — out of your shining there appears in high summer, with earnest countenance, a concentrated Imagination of cosmic Understanding.

Now, the deeds of this embodied cosmic Understanding, this cosmic Intelligence, are woven in light. Through the power of attraction residing in the concentrated cosmic Intelligence of Uriel, the silver forces (white) are drawn upwards, and in the light of this inwardly shining Intelligence, as seen from the Earth, they appear as radiant sunlight, densifying into a glory of gold. One has the immediate feeling that the gleaming silver, streaming up from below, is received by the sunlit radiance above. And the earth-silver — the phrase is quite correct — is changed by cosmic alchemy into the cosmic gold which lives and weaves in the heights.

If we follow these happenings further, on through August, we gain an impression of something that completes the form of Michael, already described. I told you what the sword of Michael is made of, and whence the dragon draws his coiling life. But now, in the radiant beauty which appears spiritually out of the cosmic weaving at the height of summer, we ask ourselves: Whence does Michael, who leads us over to the autumn time of Michaelmas, derive his characteristic raiment — the raiment which first lights up in golden sunshine and then shines forth inwardly as a silver-sparkling radiance within the golden folds? Where does Michael acquire this gold-woven, silver-sparkling raiment? It comes from that which is formed in the heights through the upward-raying silver and the gold that flows to meet it; from the transmutation by the Sun's power of the silver sparkling up from the Earth. As autumn approaches we see how the silver given by the Earth to the cosmos returns as gold, and the power of this transmuted silver is the source of that which goes on in the Earth during winter, as I have described. The Sun-gold, formed in the heights, in the dominion of Uriel, during high summer, passes down to weave and flow through the depths of the Earth, where it animates the elements that in the midst of winter are seeking to become the living growth of the following year.

So you see that when we come to the time of sprouting, springing life, we can no longer speak of matter permeated by spirit, as we speak of the Earth in winter. We have to speak of spirit woven through with matter — that is, with silver and gold.

Of course you must not take all this in a crude sense; you must think of the silver and gold as diluted beyond human measure. Then you will come to feel that all this is a kind of background for the cosmic, light-filled deeds of Uriel, and a clear impression of the countenance and gaze of Uriel will come before you.

We feel a deep longing to understand this remarkable gaze, directed downwards, and we have the impression that we must look around to find out what it signifies. Its meaning first dawns upon the mind when as human beings we learn to look with spiritual eyes still more deeply into the blue, silver-gleaming depths of the Earth in summer. And we see that weaving around these silver-gleaming crystalline rays are shapes — disturbing shapes, I might almost call them — which continually gather and dissolve, gather and dissolve again.

Then we come to perceive — the vision will be different for everyone — that these shapes are human errors which stand out against the natural order of regular crystals here below. And it is on this contrast that Uriel directs his earnest gaze. Here during the height of summer the imperfections of mankind, in contrast to the regularity of the growing crystal forms, are searchingly surveyed. Here it is that from the earnest gaze of Uriel we gain the impression of how the moral is interwoven with the natural.

Here the moral world-order does not exist only in ourselves as abstract impulses. For whereas we habitually look at the realms of Nature and do not ask — is there morality in the growth of plants, or in the process of crystallisation? — now we see how at midsummer human errors are woven into the regular crystals which are formed in the normal course of Nature.

On the other hand, all that is in human virtue and human excellence rises up with the silver-gleaming lines and is seen as the clouds that envelop Uriel (red). It enters into the radiant Intelligence, transmuted into cloud-shaped works of art.

It is impossible to look toward the increasingly earnest gaze of Uriel, directed toward the depths of the Earth, without also seeing there something like wing-like arms, or arm-like wings, raised in earnest admonition, and this gesture by Uriel has the effect of imparting to mankind what I might call the historic conscience. Here at high summer appears the historic conscience, which at the present time has become uncommonly feeble. It appears, as it were, in Uriel's warning gesture.

Of course, you must picture all this as an Imagination. These things are quite real, but I cannot speak of them in the way a physicist speaks of positive and negative, of potential energy and so on. I have to speak in pictures that will come to life in your souls. But everything expressed in these living pictures is reality; it is there.

And now if we have gained the impression of the connection of human morality with the crystalline element below and of human virtues with the shining beauty above, and if we take these connections into our inward experience, the real St. John Imagination will come to meet us. For the St. John Imagination is there, just as we have the Michael Imagination, the Christmas Imagination, the Easter Imagination.

So to spiritual observation there appears, as a kind of culmination, this picture: Above, illuminated as it were by the power of Uriel's eyes, the Dove (white). The silver-sparkling blue below, arising from the depths of the Earth and bound up with human weaknesses and error, is gathered into a picture of the Earth-Mother (blue). Whether she is called Demeter or Mary, the picture is of the Earth-Mother. So it is that in directing our gaze downwards we cannot do otherwise than bring together in Imagination all those secrets of the depths which go to make up the material Mother of all existence; while in all that is concentrated in the flowing form above we feel and experience the Spirit-Father of everything around us. And now we behold the outcome of the working together of Spirit-Father with Earth-Mother, bearing so beautifully within itself the harmony of the earthly silver and the gold of the heights. Between the Father and the Mother we behold the Son (see Plate V). Thus arises this Imagination of the Trinity, which is really the St. John Imagination. The background of it is Uriel, the creative, admonishing Uriel.

That which the Trinity truly represents should not be placed dogmatically before the soul, for then an impression is given that such an idea, or picture, of the Trinity can be separated from the weaving of cosmic life. This is not so. At midsummer the Trinity reveals itself out of the midst of cosmic life, cosmic activity. It stands forth with inwardly convincing power, if — I might say — one has first penetrated into the mysteries of Uriel.

If we were to present St. John's-tide in this way, there would have to be an arched or vaulted background, with the figure of Uriel and his gesture in the manner I have described. And against this background a living picture of the Imagination of the Trinity would have to emerge. Special arrangements would be necessary; the effect would have to be that of painting done instantly, perhaps by making artistic use of vaporous substances or the like. And if the true Imagination of these things is to be called up for people to witness, it must be at St. John's time. At Easter we have the complete picture only when we bring it into dramatic form, with Raphael present as a teacher in the Mystery Play that would have then to be presented; Raphael who leads man into the secrets of healing nature, of the healing cosmos. In a similar way, at St. John's time, all that can then be seen in weaving pictures would have to be transposed into powerful music, so that the cosmic Mystery, as it can be experienced by man at this season of St. John, would speak to our hearts.

We must imagine how all that I have described should find artistic expression, on the one hand, in pictorial and plastic art. But what is experienced in this way must be given life by the musical tones that embody the poetic motif which plays through our souls when we feel our way into great Uriel, active in the light, who calls up in us a powerful impression of the triune, the Trinity. The silver-shining that rays up from below, and is revealed in the form-giving beauty of the light above, must be expressed at St. John's-tide through appropriate musical instruments. Thus we should find, through these musical harmonies, our own inner harmony with the cosmos, for in them the secret of man's living together with the cosmos at St. John's-tide would have to sound forth. All this would have to be given voice in the music, so that in looking up to the heights we would be looking at the weaving gold of the cosmos, and would see the glowing form of Uriel emerging from the light-filled gold and directing his gaze and his gesture down to the Earth, as I have described it. All this would have to be not in any fixed form, but in living movement. That would be one motif, a heavenly motif through which a man can feel himself united, on one side, with the shining cosmic Intelligence.

On the other side, down below, he feels himself united with the tendency to fixed form; with that which is immersed in the bluish darkness from out of which the silvery radiance streams forth. Down there he feels the material foundation of active spiritual being. The Heights become Mysteries, the Depths become Mysteries, and man himself becomes a Mystery within the Mysteries of the Cosmos. Right into his bony system he feels the crystal-forming power. But he feels also how this same power is in cosmic union with the living power of light in the heavens above. He feels how all that comes about through mankind as morality in these Mysteries of the Heights lives and weaves in these Mysteries of the Depths, and in the conjunction between the two. He feels himself no longer sundered from the world around him, but placed within it, united above with the shining Intelligence, in which he experiences, as in the womb of worlds, his own best thoughts. He feels himself united below, right into his bony system, with the cosmic crystallizing force — and again the two united with one another. He feels his death united with the spirit-life of the universe; and he feels how this spirit-life craves to awaken the crystal forces and the silver-gleaming life in the midst of earthly death.

All this, too, would have to sound forth in musical tones — tones which carry these motifs on their wings and make them part of human experience. For these motifs are there. They do not have to be sought out; they can be read from the cosmic activity of Uriel. Here it is that Imagination passes over into Inspiration.

Man, however, lives in a certain sense as an embodied Inspiration, as a being brought into existence by Inspiration, in the Mysteries of the heights and depths and in the Mysteries of their conjunction. He lives in the Mysteries to which the Spirit-Father points upward; the Mysteries to which the Spirit-Mother points downward, the Mysteries which are united by the fact that the Christ, though the working together of the Spirit-Father and the Spirit-Mother, stands directly before the human soul as the sustaining Cosmic Spirit.

That which is woven out of all these cosmic secrets I may put before you somewhat in the following way. It is as though the human being, placed in the midst of all that goes on in high summer, were to feel something like this. The first words endeavor to represent how the gaze of Uriel concentrates itself into Inspiration, united with the Spirit-tones of the whole choir:

Schaue unser Weben Das leuchtende Erregen Das wärmende Leben	}	The Heights
Lebe irdisch Erhaltendes Und atmend Gestaltetes — Als wesenhaft Waltendes	}	The Depths
Fühle dein Menschengebeine Mit himmlischen Scheine Im waltenden Weltenvereine	}	The Midst The inner being of Man.

Behold our weaving, the kindling radiance, the warming life.

Live in the earth's sustaining, and in the form-giving breathing,

with the power of true being.

Feel your human bones suffused with heavenly glory

in the raja yoga of the worlds.

Here in these nine lines are the Mysteries of the Heights, the Mysteries of the Depths, and the Mysteries of the Midst, which are also those of the inner being of man. And then we have the whole gathered up as a cosmic statement of these Mysteries of the Heights, the Depths, and the Midst, sounding out as though with organ and trumpet tones:

Es werden Stoffe verdichtet Es werden Fehler gerichtet Es werden Herzen gesichtet.

Substances are densified, errors are rectified, hearts are sifted.

Here you have that which can permeate the human being at midsummer, supporting him, exalting him, confirming him — the St. John Imagination filled with Inspiration, the St. John Inspiration filled with Imagination — in these words:

Schaue unser Weben Das leuchtende Erregen Das wärmende Leben	}	The Heights
Lebe irdisch Erhaltendes Und atmend Gestaltetes — Als wesenhaft Waltendes	}	The Depths
Fühle dein Menschengebeine Mit himmlischen Scheine Im waltenden Weltenvereine	}	The Midst The inner being of Man.
Es werden Stoffe verdichtet Es werden Fehler gerichtet Es werden Herzen gesichtet. Behold our weaving, the kindling radiance, the warming life. Live in the earth's sustaining, and in the form-giving breathing, with the power of true being. Feel your human bones suffused with heavenly glory in the raja yoga of the worlds. Substances are densified, errors are rectified, hearts are sifted. Related posts: Our etheric body becomes the Holy Grail  Swiving Sophia The Biodynamics of the Holy Spirit Bright Wings "yes I said yes I will Yes" https://martyrion.blogspot.com/2022/06/the-antithetical-nature-of-earth-and.html https://martyrion.blogspot.com/2021/06/the-goal-of-yoga-to-establish-harmony.html  https://martyrion.blogspot.com/2020/06/i-am-come-to-send-fire-on-earth.html http://martyrion.blogspot.com/2018/01/sonlode_5.html https://martyrion.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-descent-of-dove-and-ascension-of.html Source: The Rudolf Steiner Archive http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19231012p01.html

Source: April 10, 1917

On Nutrition: Protein, Fats, Carbohydrates, Salts. What the world needs now is Anthroposophy

  

Blackboard 2

Blackboard 1

Rudolf Steiner Q & A with the Dornach workmen

September 22, 1923

(Dr. Steiner asks if anyone has a question.
A question is asked about nutrition and about the potato as a foodstuff in Europe and elsewhere.)

DR. STEINER: We will think about the general question of nutrition and its relation to the spiritual world. As you know, it was not until the modern age that the potato was introduced as a foodstuff: I have told you that in earlier times people in Europe did not eat potatoes but food of quite a different kind. The subject cannot, of course, really be understood without studying the relation of the spiritual world to the whole process of nutrition.

You will remember that I once spoke to you of four substances upon which man's life essentially depends. Firstly, there is protein. Protein is a constituent of all food; it is found in its most characteristic form in the hen's egg, but it is present in all foodstuffs. Protein, then, is the first of these four essential substances.

Then there are the fats. Fats are consumed not only when the flesh of animals is eaten; all foodstuffs contain fat. Other substances, too, as you know, are transformed into fat-containing foodstuffs, for example, milk into cheese.

Carbohydrates are the third essential constituent of food. Carbohydrates come from the plant kingdom; they are of course present in other foodstuffs, too, but essentially in substances like wheat, rye, lentils, beans, potatoes—especially in potatoes.

Finally there are the salts. Salts are usually considered to be mere accessories but they play a particularly important part in man's life. The most common form, of course, is cooking salt, but all foodstuffs contain salts. It may therefore be said: In order that man may be able to live at all, his food must contain protein, fats, carbohydrates and salts.

I will now speak of how these different substances nourish the human being as constituents of the various kinds of foodstuffs. First of all we will think about the salts.

Even when salts are consumed in tiny quantities they not only add flavour but are an extremely important means of nourishment. We take salt with our food not only to make it tasty but really in order that we may be able to think. The salts that are contained in food must reach the brain if we are to be capable of thinking. If a person is so ill that all the salt in his food is deposited in the stomach or intestines and not carried by the blood into the brain, he becomes stupid, dull-witted. That is the point to which attention must be called.

We must of course be quite clear that the spirit is a reality, but if spirit is to be an active power on the earth, it must work in the earth's substances. In Spiritual Science, therefore, we must be able to perceive how the spirit works in the various substances. Otherwise it would be like saying: Oh, but we are spiritual people and machines are entirely material; we do not want anything material, therefore we shall not buy iron or steel but make machines entirely out of spirit. That, of course, is sheer nonsense! Substance is absolutely essential. The spirit working as the creative power in nature needs substance. And if spirit is prevented from making use of substance—for example, if salts are deposited in the stomach and intestines instead of reaching the brain by way of the blood—then a man becomes stupid and dull.

Needless to say, things are not as simple as all that. Man cannot derive nourishment from salt in the form in which it is present in external nature. If you were to make a tiny perforation in the brain and let salt trickle in, it would be quite useless. The salt must pass into the stomach and intestines and be brought into a finer and finer state of solution—even on the tongue it begins to dissolve. The result of what the human organism does with the salt is that it is already in a spiritualised condition when it reaches the brain. The process is by no means one of simply introducing salt into the brain—it is by no means as simple as that. But if a man's condition is such that the effects of salt cannot work in his brain, he becomes dull and stupid.

Now let us think of the carbohydrates. When we eat peas, beans, wheat, rye or potatoes—above all potatoes—we consume carbohydrates. The carbohydrates have a great deal to do with shaping the human form. If our food contained no carbohydrates, all kinds of distortions would appear: malformations of the nose or the ears, for example. It is due to the carbohydrates that we bear the outward stamp of man. If a person's constitution is such that the carbohydrates are not carried into the brain but deposited in the intestines and stomach, we shall see him becoming shrivelled and feeble, as though incapable of holding himself erect. The carbohydrates, therefore, help to give the human form its proper shape.

You see, therefore, that it is important for us to get hold of the right kind of foodstuffs. The salts work mainly upon the front part of the brain, the carbohydrates farther back. A man who cannot thoroughly digest the carbohydrates, whose organism is incapable of carrying them into the proper area of the brain, will very soon become permanently hoarse and be unable to speak with a really clear voice. Therefore if you have in front of you someone who used to speak quite normally but has suddenly developed hoarseness, you may surmise that he has digestive trouble of some kind. He cannot thoroughly digest the carbohydrates; they do not reach the right area of the brain and the consequence is that something goes wrong with his breathing and his speech. And so we may say: the salts work mainly upon thinking. The carbohydrates work, for example, upon speaking and the organic processes allied with it, and are an essential constituent of food. The carbohydrates help to give our human form its proper shape, but if left to themselves their tendency would be to make us into a mere form and leave it at that. They do not fill out the form—that is done by the fats. The carbohydrates have, so to speak, merely outlined the form and the fats provide the filling material. That is their function—to provide us with material substance. In fat itself, of course, this material has a definite character.

I have told you that the human being consists of an “I,” an astral body, an etheric body and a physical body. Fat, needless to say, accumulates and is deposited in the physical body. But the all-important function of enabling the fat to be deposited and at the same time to remain living fat, is performed by the etheric body. Feeling and perception, however, depend upon the astral body.

When a man is awake, the astral body is within him; when he is asleep the astral body is outside. When he is awake and the astral body is working in the etheric body, fat is assimilated and absorbed all the time. Fat acts as a lubricant for the whole body. When a man is asleep and the astral body is outside him, fat is not assimilated but deposited. During waking life, fat acts as a constant lubricant; during sleep, fat is deposited. And both are necessary: deposited fat and lubricating fat.

If someone passes his days in a kind of continuous sleep ... such cases are less frequent now than they used to be, but think of some leisured gentleman who does no work at all. Fat is actually deposited during what is called his waking life—although it really amounts to sleep! Such a man grows very corpulent and fat accumulates all over his body. Healthy depositing of fat, therefore, depends upon proper assimilation and absorption, for fat is being produced inwardly all the time. A man who consumes just the quantity he can assimilate, keeps healthy; but if anyone goes on eating, eating, eating, and assimilates nothing, he will become corpulent, pot-bellied.

Country folk know these things by instinct. They know that when pigs are being fattened the life of these animals must be so arranged that their bodies are no longer lubricated and that everything they eat is deposited.

It may, of course, be impossible for fats to be properly deposited in the organism; if this is the case, a man is ill. In this respect a man of leisure is healthy. But another trouble may be that the carbohydrates are not deposited and then the voice gets hoarse. It may also be that the fats are not deposited in the right way but simply pass away in the faeces; when this happens there is too little fat in the organism and therefore inadequate lubrication. This is what happens, too, when our food is insufficient and we suffer from actual hunger. Fat is the material we supply to the body. What happens to a man who has to go hungry or whose digestion is such that instead of the fats being deposited, they pass out of the body in the faeces? A person who has not enough physical material in his body becomes more and more spiritual. But this is not the right way to become spiritual, for under these conditions spirit consumes him, burns him up. Not only does he wither and become more and more emaciated, but gasses form in his organism and this condition leads, eventually, to actual delusions. There is always some disturbance in the spiritual life when a man is ill. Inadequate absorption of fat leads to wasting—or consumption as it may also be called.

Now let us speak about protein. The presence of protein is essential from the very outset. It is present in the egg before a human being or an animal comes into existence. We can therefore say that protein is the substance which really builds up the human body and is the basis upon which it develops; it is the primary and fundamental substance out of which everything else in the body must unfold. Protein is present in the mother's womb as a tiny egg; the fertilisation of the egg enables the protein to become the basis of the human body. But man needs protein all the time; it must be a constituent of his regular food. If his organism contains too little protein, or he cannot thoroughly digest it, he will gradually waste away; but if at any moment of his life he were without protein he would immediately die. Protein is essential both for the beginning of existence and for man's very life. Absence of protein means death.

Now let us think again about the different kinds of foodstuffs. The salts have a special connection with the front part of the head; that is where they are chiefly deposited. The carbohydrates are deposited a little farther back. Upon the carbohydrates depends the proper shaping of the human form. The fats are deposited still farther back and from there they begin to fill out the body. The fats do not enter directly into the body but pass from the blood into the head and are distributed to the body from there. All the substances, including protein, pass through the head.

Now there is a great difference among the carbohydrates. In foodstuffs such as lentils, beans, peas, rye, wheat, it is the fruit that is the source of the carbohydrates. The wheat we get from the earth is the fruit of the plant; the lentil is fruit. A property peculiar to fruits is that they are already digested in the stomach and intestines and it is only their forces that reach the head. Typical conditions which follow the eating of lentils and beans are evidence to us all that the whole process of digestion is taking place in the intestines. The characteristic of fruits is that they are already fully digested in the intestines.

But we cannot eat the fruit of the potato plant, because it is poisonous. There is a difference between the potato as a foodstuff and lentils, beans, peas, rye, wheat, etc. What part of the potato plant do we eat? We eat the tuber, the bulb. Now the bulb is just that part of a plant or root which is not digested in the intestines. Fruits are digested in the intestines. But the fruit of the potato plant cannot be eaten, and the bulb is not a root in the real sense. Very well, then, when a potato is eaten it passes into the stomach and intestines where it cannot be digested; the blood carries it upwards in an undigested state. Instead of reaching its own area of the brain in a fine, etherealised condition and being at once sent down into the body—as happens with foodstuffs like rye or wheat—the digestion, properly speaking, has to take place in the brain. When we eat bread made of pure rye or wheat, it is fully digested in the stomach and intestines; the onus of digestion does not devolve upon the head but the head is left free for its task of providing for the distribution over the body. On the other hand, when we eat potatoes or potato-bread, the head has to cope with the actual digestion. But when the head has to be employed primarily for the digestion of the potatoes, it becomes incapable of thinking in the real sense, because in order to think its forces must be kept free; the abdomen should relieve it of the task of digestion. So if potatoes are eaten in excessive quantities ... this is a habit which has been steadily on the increase since the potato was introduced as an important foodstuff in Europe ... the head is gradually thrown out of gear for the purpose of really active thinking and little by little man loses the capacity to think with the middle part of his brain; he thinks, then, only with the front part of the brain—which is dependent on the salts. This tends more and more to make him a purely intellectual, materialistic thinker. The front part of the brain is incapable of genuinely spiritual thinking. It is through the front part of the brain that man becomes intellectualistic.

What has happened is that really deep and inward thinking began to wane in Europe from the moment the potato became an important constituent of food. We must realise, of course, that the human being is not a product of the forces of the earth alone. I have told you many times that man is created by the forces of the whole surrounding universe, by the forces of sun, moon and stars. When a man feeds on potatoes, the middle part of his head is used solely for the purpose of digesting them. The result is that having shut himself off from the universe around, he no longer acknowledges its existence and declares: All this talk about spirituality streaming down from the universe is so much twaddle! ... And so it may be said that too much potato food has helped to drive the modern age into materialism.

Needless to say, it is chiefly the poor who are obliged to fall back on potatoes simply because they are cheap; the well-to-do can afford to buy food containing substances like spices and salts which work upon the front part of the head. Spices have the same effect as salts in the front part of the head. And so these people become thorough-going intellectualists; and the others, being incapable of really active thinking, can easily be imposed upon. The potato as a foodstuff is related in a very special way to man's spiritual activity; it has actually furthered materialism.

Thinking now of the different members of man's being, we shall say: the physical body originates in the first place from protein. Protein is connected with the birth and death of the physical human being. The etheric body is at work in the fats, the astral body in the carbohydrates; the “I,” or Ego, in the salts.

It is the astral body that enables man to have feeling and perception. When I feel a blow on my hand, it is not the physical body in which the feeling arises; if it were, then everything physical would have the faculty of feeling. The flesh is pressed back, and then the muscle; the flesh in the muscle is forced away from the astral body and then I feel something—in the astral body. All feeling arises in the astral body. But the astral body must be able to carry out its functions in the right way. I have told you that if the astral body, even by day, is in a sleepy condition and not actively at work, corpulence sets in and deposits of fat accumulate. Or again—if a man is active only in his head, in his intellect, fats are deposited. But the astral body which is also at work, for example in speech, needs the carbohydrates to be present all over the body, not only in the head. The astral body has to move the legs, the hands, and so on. It needs the presence of carbohydrates all over the body. If a man's food contains carbohydrates in the form of rye or wheat, the forces of these substances stream into the whole body; but if the food consists only of potatoes, the forces accumulate up there in the head and the man becomes weak and debilitated; his astral body cannot be as active as it ought to be. So that what is spiritual in the human being becomes exhausted, less and less active, when he cannot provide his organism with carbohydrates. This is impossible if he feeds entirely on potatoes because the head has so much to do that the body has to suffer.

And now let us consider how science sets to work. Investigations are made in order to discover what quantities of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, sulphur and other substances—the four named being the main ones—are contained in protein. It is then found that carbon or hydrogen are present in protein in such and such percentages; in fat the percentages are different and in the carbohydrates different again. But science has no idea of the significance of substances in themselves; science only knows the percentages in which the various constituents are present. But that does not really lead anywhere. The constituents of the potato and the constituents of rye or wheat work in quite different ways. The important thing to know is that when the flower or fruit of a plant is eaten it is digested in the intestines; when a root is eaten it is really digested in the head. Upon no other basis can these things be applied in medicine.

Anyone who can think in a truly therapeutic way will know that a medicament prepared from flowers, or seeds, or fruits, has its main effect in the intestines; a preparation of roots, on the other hand, will have a remedial effect upon the head. When we eat roots, an effect is made upon the head—a material effect. It is very important to know this.

But we can go further. If a human being has been so debilitated by feeding on potatoes that he is not only incapable of moving his hands and feet properly but is so exhausted that the organs connected with propagation are no longer active, then the matter becomes still more serious. Let us suppose that the effect of feeding on potatoes is so overpowering that the organs of procreation in the female are weakened and impaired. ... Man, as you know, is not only a product of his ancestors but as a being of soul-and-spirit he comes from the spiritual world; this being of soul-and-spirit unites with what is provided by the ancestors. I will make a rough sketch—everything of course is very much enlarged. (Dr. Steiner makes a sketch on the blackboard.)

The human being originates from the fertilised female ovum. Star-like formations then appear, cells separate off and from these separated cells the body gradually takes shape. But no human body can form unless the being of soul-and-spirit coming from the spiritual world unites with what is developing here.

Now if circumstances are such that the mother or the father has been eating too much potato food, the seed from which the embryo develops will from the outset be of such a nature that a great deal of work devolves upon the head. If the father and mother have been properly nourished with bread made of rye or similar substances, the embryo will have more or less this appearance. (Sketch.) But if potatoes have been eaten in excessive quantities the following happens. The preponderating part of an embryo is the head—it is a round dome. The soul-and-spirit must penetrate into the head and, once there must begin to be active. The soul-and-spirit works chiefly on the head while the human being is still an embryo in the mother's body.

If the soul-and-spirit finds in the embryonic head elements which derive from the rye- or wheat-components of the mother's food, then it can work in the proper way. For you see, the flowers containing the grains of rye or wheat have grown upwards from the earth and the Spiritual has already streamed towards the plant, is already allied with the plant. The being of soul-and-spirit is able to work when conditions arising from food composed of the fruits of plants are encountered in the mother's body. It is a different matter altogether if the being of soul-and-spirit finds an embryonic head that is the result of the mother having eaten excessive quantities of potatoes. ... For just think of it: the potato lies right down in the earth, it is covered by the soil, has to be dug up from the ground; it grows in the darkness, it has no bond with the Spiritual; the being of soul-and-spirit descending from the spiritual world encounters a head that is a product of darkness; the spirit cannot penetrate it, and the result is hydrocephalus—water on the brain. The embryo develops a gigantic head (sketch.) For if the spirit is unable to make any real approach, the Physical grows apace and hydrocephalus develops. If the spirit is able to approach, the water is held in check; the spirit is able to work in the physical substances and the head develops in its proper and normal proportions. The gigantic heads often to be seen in embryos are the outcome of faulty nutrition for which potato food taken in excess is often responsible. And so this kind of food not only causes exhaustion and weakness in the adult human being but even at birth the soul-and-spirit was not, in the real sense, within the physical body.

You know that man consists of physical body, ether body, astral body and “I” but these members of his being do not interact in the same way at every age of life. Until the age of seven, ether body, astral body and the “I” are still only making their way down into the physical body of the child. When the ether body has penetrated fully into the physical body, the second teeth appear; when the astral body has penetrated fully into the physical body, puberty is reached. Therefore if potato food taken in excess has made it difficult for the soul-and-spirit to enter into the embryo in the real sense, this will also have an injurious effect upon what happens at the age of 14 or 15. All through his life such a human being will go about as if his body did not really belong to him, as if it were hanging about him like a bag. The effect of too much potato food may therefore be that human beings are born without sufficient strength to cope with life and its demands.

These are matters of tremendous importance! Social conditions depend upon many factors other than those mooted at the present time. Social conditions depend, too, upon really wise cultivation of the fields: for example, not using the soil for the production of more potatoes than people can consume if their strength is to be maintained. Social science must go hand in hand with a true knowledge of nature. That is absolutely essential. To speak only about surplus values, capital, and so forth, is of no fundamental value. If Communism ever succeeded in wiping out capital and assuming control of everything ... well, it would all come to nothing if the science at its disposal did not know how to utilise the fields wisely, did not know that potatoes are not so good for the stomach as rye or wheat. These are the kind of things to bear in mind. Continual talking in circles leads nowhere. What we need is a real science, a science which understands how the spirit can work in matter.

Anthroposophy is obliged, quite against its will, to battle on two fronts. And why Scientists to-day are occupied only with matter, with the percentages of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen contained in protein and so forth. But this tells us nothing essential about matter itself. Physical science does not really understand matter, because to understand matter one must know how the spirit is working within it. Suppose a man wants to know all about a watch. He says to himself: This watch is made of silver. The silver came from such and such a mine; then it was taken by train to such and such a town and delivered to merchants. The watch has a china face inscribed with figures. The china was manufactured in such and such a town, then sent somewhere else ... and so on and so on. But at the end of it all he knows nothing essential about the watch! Nor will he until he knows exactly what the watchmaker did. To understand why a watch goes it is not at all essential to know how and where the silver was mined; what is important is to know how the watchmaker made the watch go, how he adjusted the wheels and so forth.

To know in the abstract that foodstuffs are composed of so much carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, fat, carbohydrate, makes no difference at all to health and disease; but what is very important for health and illness is to know, for example, that potatoes nourish the mental life of human beings as little as they nourish their physical bodies. For other purposes it is, of course, quite useful to know about the silver coming from mines and the rest of the process, but for any understanding of health or sickness among men this kind of knowledge is of no importance. Because it does not realise its own shortcomings, science puts up a fight when Anthroposophy tries to provide what is lacking. The one battlefront is therefore against materialism which declares that the explanations given by Anthroposophy are sheer fantasy and reproaches it for speaking of the spirit. That is the one front.

The other front is constituted by the attitude of theology and of the representatives of religion. A great deal is said about the soul reaching heaven through prayer and the sacraments. Well and good ... but if a man is not able to make proper use of his body and therefore lives in the physical world without being rightly adjusted to the conditions of earthly life, then it will be very difficult for him to find his bearings after death. Of this, however, the theologians do not speak. Man must be able to cope with practical life; he must know how to take hold of matter. Religion and theology talk a great deal but do not succeed in making the human being so strong in earthly life that after it is over he can find a firm basis. Prayer that has no foundation in knowledge actually sidetracks men from recognising the essentials of a really healthy life. It is hardly likely that you will ever have listened to sermons on subjects like the respective merits of potatoes or wheat as food! At any rate it will not be your experience that most clergymen think it important to preach about the effect of rye or wheat upon health. They attach no importance to these matters because in their opinion they are not sacred. To pray or to expound the Gospels, that and that alone is sacred according to their way of thinking. ... But the Divine is at work in the whole of nature, not only when men pray or converse on the subject of Holy Writ. The Spiritual is an active power in nature. If man prevents the Spiritual from having access to his head because by eating potato food to excess he gives the head too much to do ... well, he may pray, but it will be to no purpose because he has been sidetracked from the Spiritual. That too is something that escapes notice. God did not find the earth as a clod out of which all things were then made; the Divine Power is active everywhere, in every single particle, and it is there that we must seek for its manifestations. But when this is done, the theologians accuse us of materialism! By the scientists we are called deluded spiritualists, by the theologians, materialists. This shows how much weight can be attached to such statements! It was just the same in 1908 when Anthroposophy was said to be under Jesuitical influences; it was stated that anthroposophists were being delivered by their leaders into the hands of the Jesuits. In the meantime things have changed and now the Jesuits are saying that anthroposophists have been delivered into the hands of the Freemasons!

But these are not the things that really matter. What does matter is that men shall acquire a kind of science able to explain, for example, why hydrocephalus develops in the embryo instead of a perfectly proportioned head.

You will be saying to yourselves that after all there are plenty of people who show no signs of hydrocephalus. That, of course, is true, because other forces counteract the tendency and then, at the time of birth, the head is not as disproportionately large as it was in the embryo; it may actually be quite small but still hydrocephalic. The fact is that since the introduction of potato food, embryonic heads are always much too large. In the later stages they contract but this very contraction has an injurious effect because they are not able to take in what is needful—they can only take in water. When the human being has been born, hydrocephalus is not only indicated by the size of the head. Typical hydrocephalus, it is true, is to be recognised from the size of the head, but the point of real importance is whether water is serving its proper purpose or whether other elements are playing a part. This is just as important as anything else that may be brought to the knowledge of mankind by science on the one hand or theology and religion on the other. But it is something that must be approached from the right point of view.

What sort of treatment is meted out to Anthroposophy to-day? A little while ago, people who called themselves “non-anthroposophical students of Anthroposophy” held a kind of congress in Berlin. They state that they are not Anthroposophists but desire to know about Anthroposophy. Well ... a certain Dr. G. who was here at one time but subsequently left us, had a great deal to say. He addressed an audience of clergyman, licentiates, professors. And now, on the basis of what he said, people are lecturing against Anthroposophy here, there and everywhere. You will suppose that what Dr. G. told these people convinced them that Anthroposophy is very harmful. But I ask you—just think of the average mind of a typical clergyman or professor to-day, and then listen to what Dr. G. said to them. He said: Anthroposophy is particularly harmful because the anthroposophists are being duped ... what Dr. Steiner and Frau Dr. Steiner would really like would be to cut off a portion of the earth, make a planet of their own and together with all the anthroposophists establish a planetary colony in the universe! That is what Dr. G. said to these enlightened people. As you can imagine, none of them really believe it, yet they act as if this kind of talk had convinced them of the harmfulness of Anthroposophy.

What lunacy it is! But these same enlightened people participate in many different kinds of meetings as well, where destinies are determined. At these meetings they are no shrewder than they were at the other ... and so one cannot help wondering what kind of people are ruling the world to-day! The hostility to Anthroposophy is really hostility to truth. People are determined not to allow these things to come into the open. So they say that Anthroposophy is very secret. But how, I ask you, how can it be anything else? There is, in reality, no greater secrecy about it than there is when a man has stolen something and bidden it; until it is found it is secret. Anthroposophy is secret in the same sense—because it has been cast into obscurity by science and the other branches of cultural life. That is why Anthroposophy seems to suggest a kind of secrecy. But it ceases to be secret the moment it is found! Anthroposophy has no desire at all to be mysterious but to bring into the light of day things that have been obscured and hidden by other influences. ... Now I have to travel to Vienna and I will let you know when we can continue these lectures.

Blackboard 1

Blackboard 2

Source: The Rudolf Steiner Archive September 22, 1923