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structure. The pulse-breath quotient is an expression of the speed of both currents. The kidney is a starting point of the living water and is penetrated with Imaginations that may lead to subjective phenomena with patients suffering from the kidneys. The interplay of the rhythms of the system of nerves and senses and the system of limbs and metabolism in the eye. So that seeing consists in it, actually, that these two rhythms crash into each other in the eye. Imagine, these two rhythms were identical: we would not see. Also an ego-experience would not be possible. Every organism has its individual ratio (1:4) between the tempo of the nervous system and that of the metabolic system. Cramps (especially with children): something astral works in the etheric body / physical body too fast. Explanation of polio by the incorrect interplay of these currents, which however does not find its cure immediately because the non-coherence is caused by older relationships. 4(10/22/1922, Dornach) (68ff.) 5058 218-02 digestion Absorbed food is deadened in the human being, it is revived (taken in by the etheric body) on the way from the bowel to the heart. These broken down and revitalised nutrients are connected with oxygen by breathing. The human being can exist as an earthly person that way. Via the nephritic system the substances are absorbed by the astral body. Organforming ("material-supplying") forces come from the nephritic system ("nephritic radiation"). They meet the organ-forming forces of the head system. This is connected with an intensive transformation of nitrogen. The ego-organism takes part by means of the liver-gall system. Hydrogen is the physical representative of the liver. Pilot kidney (German Stauniere): the etheric body works too strongly, so that the astral body does not absorb all that flows out of the heart to the kidney. Cirrhotic kidneys (renal shrinkage, German Schrumpfniere) originate if the astral body works too strongly without the kidneys co-operating in the right regulation. It stops functioning, at the same time the heart activity diminishes through feedback (see the following lecture). Inflammation occurs with overly strong effectiveness of the nephritic system. One can counteract it with internally cooling means (from flowers). Too strong an effectiveness of the system of nerves and senses can lead to tumour formation. It may be dissolved by wrapping with warmth from without (also by injection of substances). Kurt Magerstdt in lit. 18, p. 145: Steiner (June 1924, Lauenstein) says that a miraculous remedy for nephritic illnesses can be prepared by decoction from the red peel of the rose hip (Rosa canina). The spleen is connected with all those activities of the human being which transcend the ego, which already approach the spirit-self, and the spleen is even almost the organ of the spirit-self.

218-03 6(11/5/1922, The Hague) (p. 119) 5073 reincarnation / sex / lunar phases / constellation And the time of new moon is the time which beings choose who wish to become men. Thus the human being enters his earthly existence through the portal of the moon. But the force which the male requires in order to enter the earth-life is then flowing out into the cosmos... The force which the female requires is radiated from the moon when it is the full moon... and this force, which the moon can send out into the cosmos from its not illuminated side, the human being requires if he wishes to become a woman. Because the descent does not take place so fast, the human being is frequently exposed to the full moon or the new moon. This influences the organisation of the head as for example the colour of eyes and hair (new moon with woman: blue eyes, blond hair, and full moon with man: brown eyes, black hair). 218